America's Talking - ‘Radical Left Revolution:’ Trump Weighs in on Pro-Hamas Campus Chaos

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

Former President Donald Trump weighed in online on the ongoing chaos on college campuses as pro-Hamas protesters occupy and vandalize colleges around the country. “THIS IS A RADICAL LEFT REVOLUTION TAKING PLACE IN OUR COUNTRY,” Trump wrote Thursday on TruthSocial, his social media site. Trump’s comments capture a repeated conservative argument, that conservative protesters like those on Jan. 6 were met with severe consequences while liberal protesters, like the Black Lives Matter rioters and the college campus pro-Hamas protesters, have been given a pass. Biden has remained silent as local leaders navigate the protests, which have featured arrests, vandalism, some viral moments of fights, and calls for violence against Jews. Many of the protests have also expressed outright support for Hamas, the group that killed hundreds of Israelis, many of them civilians and children, in the Oct. 7 attack last fall. The State Department has officially named Hamas a terrorist organization. Full Story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_b3eeff10-0886-11ef-a8b5-3bc6a77b3376.html Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Friday, May 3rd. Pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protests continue to rage on college campuses this week, but in some instances, law enforcement stepped in and dismantled encampments, arresting hundreds of protesters. At Columbia University in New York City, Violent, protesters seized a campus building before university administrators finally gave the green light

to the New York Police Department to storm the building and restore order. Similar scenes played out on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles, but at Brown University in Rhode Island, administrators caved to the demands of anti-Israel protesters agreeing to vote to divest its financial holdings in Israel, a staunch U.S. ally. And President Biden and former President Trump had vastly different responses to the mayhem. Joining to me to discuss these developments is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, what a week it was on college campuses across the nation. There's so much to talk about in the limited times. So let's start with the police responses at Columbia and UCLA. It was remarkable viewing for those sitting at home watching as events

unfolded. What's your take? Yeah, we saw weeks of chaos on campuses, vandalism, fights, even outbursts of violence at times come to a sort of crescendo as police took down barricades. At this point, when you add up the campuses around the country, they've made hundreds of arrests. And, you know, I think I'm actually, you know, maybe not always a great purveyor of wisdom, but I thought Joe Scarborough on MSNBC had an interesting take on this when he compared it to the Vietnam War protests. and pointed out how those protests and the kind of radical nature of them helped propel Ronald Reagan into office just a couple of years later, right? And so I think that that is what Democrats are worried about right now, that these protests are, I mean, the only thing worse than in Tuck,

than Biden for inflation probably is these protests, which have split his own party, which are targeting him. Hecklers are following him everywhere he goes. He's actually supposed to give a commencement speech, Dan. I don't know if you know this in May, this month. He's going to give a graduation speech on a college campus. And so the idea that that could devolve into chaos, into heckling, into pro-Palestinian flags, it's a problem for Biden. I think it's kind of sad to see how the college campuses have devolved into just a level of violence and chaos. There was a line of peaceful protest that was largely crossed. And I think Trump is trying to capitalize, on it. Republicans are trying to capitalize on it. Biden, he came out this week and made some

of Marx and tried to just thread the needle and say, I support peaceful protesting, but I don't support, you know, non-peaceful protesting. I think his, I don't think he really moves a needle with his, sorry to mix metaphors, but I don't think he really made a change with those remarks, but it shows the difficulty he's in, Dan, where he's trying to not upset the base too much, but he's still pro-Israel. He's not going to side, with these protesters who really are only about polling shows, you know, only about 20% of America is really with them. So it's a very, very difficult place for the president to be in. And, you know, maybe these college campuses are going to see some relief soon because, you know, school will be over just in a few

weeks. And many of these in cameras have been broken up. But politically, I'm not sure this problem is going to go away. And school starts back up in the fall, which is before, in August, which will be before the November elections. Well, yeah, let's talk a little bit about President Biden's response compared to former President Trump's, which you covered. President Biden, in his remarks, as you mentioned, walked very softly with it, even lumping Islamophobia, which were really not seeing on these college campus protests with anti-Semitism, talking about the two side by side. Former President Trump pulled no punches. He supports the police. He's against these violent campus protests. That's a big difference and something I'm sure voters are paying attention to. Yeah. In the Republican base,

there's no sympathy for these guys. I mean, they already hate these liberal college campuses. They're known, they are the starting point for so many of the most controversial policies that Republicans have really made their brand on opposing, like diversity, equity, inclusion, like the LGBT agenda, like cancel culture. And that all really got its strength from these very liberal college campuses where we're seeing these same protests play out for. So for Republicans to respond to this, it's a very easy playbook. This is just more college campus craziness like CRT and DEI and everything else they oppose.

So it's been pretty easy for them to respond. And the protesters in some sense have made it easy for them. And one campus, you know, they took down the American flag and they put up a Palestinian flag. on another campus, you know, they draped George Washington in Palestinian flag and like a head covering of some kind. And so they've created some really viral images that I think won't sit well with a lot of Americans. And I do think this plays into also the sort of the immigration issue that Biden has also taken a lot of fire for because we're letting so many people into this country and not just, you know, maybe 10 years ago, people would have assumed it's Hispanic population. But, Now we know it's not that anymore. It's people from all over the world, many people from Arab countries. And they're bringing ideas with them. They're just very different from what many average Americans hold.

And we're seeing that clash now. And so I think it's it is highlighting a fear that people do have about mass migration at the level that we're seeing it. Speaking of immigration, the Biden administration is considering bringing Palestinian refugees into the U.S., which got significant pushback from Republicans and others. Just briefly, Casey, tell us what's going on there. Yeah, I mean, I think this is just a big foe paw for the White House. They were considering it behind closed doors. And someone leaked it for some reason.

I'm not sure why they would do that. But CBS News reported it. Biden immediately took a ton of fire as expected. You know, House and Senate Republicans sent a letter, you know, blasting the idea. I think a lot of Democrats are very quiet on it. Because we just know from polling that many Palestinians supported Hamas's attack. They didn't necessarily participate. but they supported Hamas' attack on Israeli civilians, that terrorist attack.

Many of them know there are terrorist sympathizers or related to Hamas or support them privately. I mean, Hamas is interwoven with the Palestinian community very strongly. It's not just some small government that doesn't have the ties. Hamas was voted in initially by the Palestinian people. So it's hard to separate them. I know for sure there are many Palestinian victims and caught in the crossfire here. And there's no doubt about that. but at the same time, they're also just such strong terrorist sympathies in that population

that the idea of bringing them over does not so well with, of course, the lawmakers and definitely many of the American people. I just want to briefly acknowledge some of our journalists who have been covering this story because it is a nationwide event, particularly Sarah Roderick Fitch in New York and Canada Shrup in California. Casey, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with this developing story and more at the center square.com. Do you care about classroom curriculum transparency policies and how your taxpayer dollars are invested in education,

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