WASHINGTON – President Biden is taking heat over his silence on the wave of pro-terror, anti-Israel protests rocking college campuses across the US as the commander-in-chief has gone nine days without an in-person statement on the situation.
Biden, 81, kept a low profile even as the NYPD stormed Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall Tuesday night to clear out dozens of rioters who barricaded themselves in the building — and pro- and anti-Israel activists brawled at a tent encampment at UCLA.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden is “monitoring” the situation at colleges across the nation. Getty Images
New York City police officers use a ramp on an armored vehicle to enter Hamilton Hall at Columbia University. STEPHANI SPINDEL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock“He’s MIA, as usual,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Tuesday night as the chaotic scene at the Ivy League school’s Manhattan campus played out.
“He’s afraid to speak to the issue,” Johnson told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“He’s scared to death to alienate the Hamas-wing of the Democratic Party,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday, arguing that Biden “could stop this stuff on a dime” if he were to threaten the withholding of federal funds to universities that allow protesters to terrorize Jewish students.
“But Joe Biden hasn’t done that,” Kennedy added. “And President Biden is not going to do that.”
A few Democratic lawmakers have acknowledged that politics is indeed contributing to the reluctance to speak out, as Biden faces a tight re-election campaign against former President Donald Trump.
Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) told Axios that some Democrats “have been, kind of, holding back” because “in certain states like Michigan, there are big Arab American populations, big Jewish populations” and the protests are “roiling all kinds of groups.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) called it a “tough one,” when asked about the role the Biden administration should be playing in addressing the unrest on college campuses.
“I think it might be important for the president, or maybe the education secretary, Secretary [Miguel] Cardona [to] hold up some examples of colleges in the country, and I think there are a number of them, where discussions about difficult topics like Israel and Gaza are happening, but happening in a way that really can be a model,” the Virginia Democrat said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“So I think the president can use the bully pulpit to kind of hold up some good examples,” Kaine added. “And I would hope that he and other members of the administration might do that.”
The president’s most recent public remark on the crises was to say that he condemned both antisemitism at campus protests and people unsympathetic to Palestinians — a comment widely likened to then-President Donald Trump’s August 2017 decision to praise and denigrate “both sides” of deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Va., over the removal of a Confederate statue.
“I condemn the antisemitic protests, that’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians,” Biden said in response to a reporter’s shouted question on April 22, following an Earth Day event in Virginia.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre bristled Wednesday at a NBC reporter’s comparison of Biden’s comment to Trump’s memorable moment.
Biden kept a low profile even as the NYPD stormed Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall Tuesday night. Getty Images“No, he isn’t doing a ‘both sides’ here,’” Jean-Pierre chided the journalist. “That was just vile, nasty rhetoric… there was no ‘both sides’ here, none, absolutely none.”
The top White House spokeswoman added that NBC’s correspondent had acted in “bad faith to say that.”
Protest encampments have been set up at many colleges around the country ahead of final exams — with George Washington University, just blocks from the White House, hosting its own encampment featuring a large banner that says “Just Say No to Genocide Joe.”
Biden has repeatedly been heckled with that nickname, with participants in a DC march this past November daubing the front gates of the White House with the legend in red paint.
The unrest on college campuses is believed to portend clashes at the August Democratic National Convention in Chicago that may overshadow both Biden’s nomination for a second term and his attempt to argue that Trump would unleash chaos if he returns to office.
“He is monitoring the situation closely, so is his team,” Jean-Pierre said when asked why it has been so long since the president last addressed the campus chaos.
