Biden heads to Minnesota hog and soybean farm home state of his new primary challenger Dean Phillips: White House insists stop is nothing to do with new rival who is facing exile from the Democrats

President Joe Biden heads to a Minnesota farm on Wednesday for a trip where he will tout rural investments that his White House team insists has nothing to do with his new primary challenger, who happens to be from the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Biden’s journey puts him back on the road amid a looming international crisis abroad and an unexpected bump in his path to the Democratic presidential nomination. Last week, Rep. Dean Phillips, who represents the state’s 3rd Congressional District, filed to run against Biden in the New Hampshire primary.

Biden, with more than $71 million in his campaign coffers, might not normally have to face a challenge from a third-term Democrat who has supported much of his policy agenda.

But Biden helped reshuffle the Democratic primary this year, and as a result of New Hampshire’s challenge to Democratic Party calendar rules, his name will not appear on the ballot. That forces his party to organize a letter-writing campaign to avoid the possible humiliation of a loss for Phillips. The state’s primaries are expected to square off against a party-approved calendar that gives South Carolina the opportunity to break tradition and go first.

When asked Tuesday whether the visit had anything to do with Phillips, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre again invoked the Hatch Act as a shield.

“I said this last week, and I’ll say it again: We are very proud – or very happy and grateful – that the Congressman has voted with the President almost 100 percent of the time over the last two years, and I leave it at that, she said.

The Hatch Act restricts political action on government property or on government time.

Instead, Jean-Pierre said the trip was about advancing Biden’s rural agenda — without mentioning that Biden also has a fundraiser planned with a Democratic hedge funder for Minneapolis before his return trip.

“The president says this all the time. He is everyone’s president. Again, I just said this at the top when I was answering this question to one of your colleagues. It doesn’t matter if it’s a red state or a blue state – it doesn’t matter. He is a president for everyone,” she said.

‘So it’s important. It is not the first time he has gone to a rural area to talk to Americans. And so he’s going to do that tomorrow and talk about what he’s done on behalf of this community, but on behalf of Americans across the country,” Jean-Pierre said.

She called Biden a “president for everyone.”

“You know, just as he goes to urban parts of the country and suburban parts of the country, he also visits rural areas of the country,” she said.

Phillips experiences his own problems. Democrats from his state are lining up behind Biden. And Rep. James C. Clyburn (D-South Carolina) accused him of disrespecting the party’s leader by going against the new calendar.

Biden allies aren’t waiting to attack Phillips. Former Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) told it Politics: ‘The reality is that (Phillips’) bizarre attempts to become president in the only state with no delegates and virtually zero support appear to be failing less than a week after launching – and throwing insults at one of its most respected and accomplished members of the state. our party is certainly not going to revive it.’

Biden is expected to announce $5 billion in funding to help rural areas fight climate change.

He is expected to speak at Dutch Creek Farms in the town of Northfield. Its operators growing corn and soybeans, while raising pigs, one of many livestock animals known to contribute to methane emissions. Farms are also doing their best to sequester carbon, the kind of environmental initiative the government is promoting with billions in inflation-reduction legislation.