Former President Donald Trump has made it clear whose side he is on when it comes to violent student protests on college campuses around the country, and it’s not the side of the petty, petulant students, many of whom are being ‘guided’ by out-of-town professional agitators, according to reports.
Trump praised police officers for their commendable actions in arresting numerous “radical left” anti-Israel “lunatics” on the campuses of Columbia University and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), he stated on Thursday.
Police have arrested multiple protestors recently. On Tuesday morning, Columbia University students occupied a university building, displaying an “Intifada” banner. Later in the day, police regained control of the buildings. Authorities on Thursday morning finally allowed police to remove an encampment of protesters on UCLA’s campus on the West Coast, Breitbart News reported.
Trump, positioning himself as the law and order candidate against President Joe Biden, asserted before entering a Manhattan courthouse that radical “morons” should not be permitted to “take over this country.” Protests have escalated in Utah, Virginia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida colleges in recent weeks.
“I’m so proud of New York’s finest. They’re great, great people, too. I know so many of them. They’re incredible. They did a job at Columbia. And likewise, in Los Angeles, they did a really good job at UCLA,” Trump said.
“This is a movement from the left, not from the right. The right is not the problem despite what law enforcement likes to say,” Trump added about the anti-Israel protests. “The FBI director said that he worries about the right. Don’t worry about the right; the right is fine. Worry about the left because this is a movement from the left.”
“These are radical left lunatics, and they gotta be stopped now because it’s gonna go on and on, and it’s gonna get worse and worse,” Trump said in making a prediction. “And, you know, they take over countries, okay, and we’re not letting them take over the USA. We’re not letting the radical left morons take over this country.”
Some Democrats are concerned that anti-Israel protests on university campuses may result in political backlash in November. The protests are “bringing out [the public’s] most conservative side,” a House Democrat lawmaker told Axios. “Many people are super frustrated and concerned.”