02 May 2024
NATHAN LAYNE AND TIM REID AND TREVOR HUNNICUTT AND SUSAN HEAVEY
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Freeland, Michigan, US May 1, 2024.
Image: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Wednesday it “was a beautiful thing to watch” New York police officers raiding a Columbia University building occupied by pro-Palestinian students, calling the protesters “raging lunatics and Hamas sympathisers.”
“New York was under siege last night,” Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in Wisconsin. He praised the police officers for arresting about 300 protesters.
Trump was addressing the spread of pro-Palestinian protests across the US in recent days. Republicans have accused some university administrators of turning a blind eye to antisemitic rhetoric and harassment.
The October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave have unleashed the biggest outpouring of US student activism since antiracism protests in 2020.
“Your towns and villages will now be accepting people from Gaza and various other places,” Trump said, referring to media reports of plans by the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, to accept some Gaza refugees. The crowd booed in response.
CBS News said it had obtained internal government documents showing that US officials have been discussing different options to resettle Palestinians who have been displaced by the fighting in Gaza after they pass a battery of screening tests.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday the administration was looking into a plan to relocate some Palestinian refugees who are related to Americans.
Last week, Trump described the pro-Palestinian protests as driven by “tremendous hate” while asserting that the violence at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when he was president was small by comparison.
Biden’s aides have said the president supports peaceful protests but stands against violent rhetoric, hate speech and physical intimidation, placing special emphasis on condemning anti-Semitism on college campuses.
Trump was staging rallies on Wednesday in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan as polls show him locked in a close race with Biden ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Trump's visit to the two swing states marked his first major campaign events since the April 15 start of his New York criminal trial, in which he is accused of falsifying business records concerning a hush money payment to a porn star.
Reuters
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Freeland, Michigan, US May 1, 2024.
Image: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Wednesday it “was a beautiful thing to watch” New York police officers raiding a Columbia University building occupied by pro-Palestinian students, calling the protesters “raging lunatics and Hamas sympathisers.”
“New York was under siege last night,” Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in Wisconsin. He praised the police officers for arresting about 300 protesters.
Trump was addressing the spread of pro-Palestinian protests across the US in recent days. Republicans have accused some university administrators of turning a blind eye to antisemitic rhetoric and harassment.
The October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave have unleashed the biggest outpouring of US student activism since antiracism protests in 2020.
“Your towns and villages will now be accepting people from Gaza and various other places,” Trump said, referring to media reports of plans by the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, to accept some Gaza refugees. The crowd booed in response.
CBS News said it had obtained internal government documents showing that US officials have been discussing different options to resettle Palestinians who have been displaced by the fighting in Gaza after they pass a battery of screening tests.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday the administration was looking into a plan to relocate some Palestinian refugees who are related to Americans.
Last week, Trump described the pro-Palestinian protests as driven by “tremendous hate” while asserting that the violence at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when he was president was small by comparison.
Biden’s aides have said the president supports peaceful protests but stands against violent rhetoric, hate speech and physical intimidation, placing special emphasis on condemning anti-Semitism on college campuses.
Trump was staging rallies on Wednesday in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan as polls show him locked in a close race with Biden ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Trump's visit to the two swing states marked his first major campaign events since the April 15 start of his New York criminal trial, in which he is accused of falsifying business records concerning a hush money payment to a porn star.
Reuters
Tensions erupt between House Republicans, students during visit to George Washington University encampment
5 representatives visit encampment site on campus, focal point of protests in nation's capital
5 representatives visit encampment site on campus, focal point of protests in nation's capital
2/05/2024 Thursday
AA
File photo
Tensions erupted at George Washington University's campus in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday between pro-Palestine students and Republican members of the House of Representatives who visited the site of an encampment there.
Amid ongoing demonstrations at universities across the US in solidarity with Palestine, Republican representatives James Comer, Byron Donalds, Lauren Boebert, Anna Paulina Luna and Eric Burlison visited the encampment site on the campus, a focal point of protests in the nation's capital.
The Republican lawmakers met with the school administration, demanding the removal of a tent camp which had been set up by students for a week now.
Later, students reacted strongly to the lawmakers' presence as they toured the tent camp and its surroundings under heavy security, expressing their opposition to US “complicity" in the Gaza conflict.
Security guards accompanying the representatives occasionally dispersed demonstrators, while other students loudly sang and used megaphones during the representatives' press conference, calling for support for Gaza.
During their media appearance, the lawmakers criticized Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, and police chiefs, demanding the immediate removal of the tent camp.
Comer said that Jewish students at the university felt unsafe and condemned any form of anti-Semitism, deeming it unacceptable in the US.
After the press conference, students continued their protests as the representatives left the tent camp area.
Pro-Palestine college campus protests have remained under way across the US since students established an encampment at New York's Columbia University campus in mid-April.
AA
File photo
Tensions erupted at George Washington University's campus in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday between pro-Palestine students and Republican members of the House of Representatives who visited the site of an encampment there.
Amid ongoing demonstrations at universities across the US in solidarity with Palestine, Republican representatives James Comer, Byron Donalds, Lauren Boebert, Anna Paulina Luna and Eric Burlison visited the encampment site on the campus, a focal point of protests in the nation's capital.
The Republican lawmakers met with the school administration, demanding the removal of a tent camp which had been set up by students for a week now.
Later, students reacted strongly to the lawmakers' presence as they toured the tent camp and its surroundings under heavy security, expressing their opposition to US “complicity" in the Gaza conflict.
Security guards accompanying the representatives occasionally dispersed demonstrators, while other students loudly sang and used megaphones during the representatives' press conference, calling for support for Gaza.
During their media appearance, the lawmakers criticized Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, and police chiefs, demanding the immediate removal of the tent camp.
Comer said that Jewish students at the university felt unsafe and condemned any form of anti-Semitism, deeming it unacceptable in the US.
After the press conference, students continued their protests as the representatives left the tent camp area.
Pro-Palestine college campus protests have remained under way across the US since students established an encampment at New York's Columbia University campus in mid-April.
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