Joe Biden Quotes Mao Zedong; Senior Adviser Called Mao ‘Favorite Political Philosopher’

Former Vice President Joe Biden used a quote made famous by the late Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong in an online fundraiser with Valerie Jarrett, former President Barack Obama’s chief White House adviser, on Monday evening.

As the Washington Examiner notes:

Joe Biden cited a quote made famous by Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong during a digital fundraising speech with former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.

“We’ve got to get real economic relief into women’s hands now,” Biden said on Monday evening to the 14 wealthy donors who attended the digital fundraising session.

According to the pool reporter who watched the event, Biden then cited the Chinese proverb, “Women hold up half the sky.”

The phrase comes from a proclamation by Mao in the mid-20th century that helped grant certain rights to women in China. The phrase became commonplace in China at the time, often appearing on pieces of propaganda in factories or other industrial areas.

The quote may be no accident. Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, infamously praised Mao in 2009, when she was Obama’s White House communications director, calling him one of her two “favorite political philosophers”:

Mao, she said, was one of “two people I turn to most,” along with Mother Theresa.

Dunn later claimed that she was joking, but few believed her, given her earnest praise for Mao’s relentless pursuit of the communist revolution in China, against long odds.

Mao would later go on to become one of the biggest mass murderers in human history.

Dunn left the White House a short time later, but Mao did not: Obama’s first White House Christmas tree featured an ornament of Mao.

Biden promoted Dunn after he struggled in the Iowa caucuses earlier this year.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.