The White House on Wednesday sought to answer questions about President Joe Biden’s relative silence about campus protests by pointing to his condemnation of antisemitism.
“No president has spoken more forcefully about combating antisemitism than this president,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday when asked why the country hasn’t heard directly from Biden about the protests.
“It is important that students and communities feel safe here and at the same time, we are going to be really forceful here and continue to underscore how antisemitism is hateful speech,” she said.
She said Biden had been “kept regularly updated on what’s happening” and he and his team are monitoring the situation. She also repeated White House condemnations of forcible takeovers of campus buildings, saying such tactics were “not peaceful.”
Asked to clarify whether the White House viewed antisemitism as synonymous with the pro-Palestinian protests as a whole, Jean-Pierre said, “No,” but did not offer a clear distinction.
“No – I was very clear. There is a small number of students who are causing the disruption. And I’ve been very clear about that. And we have to make sure that we create a safe environment – a safe environment is created for students to learn, for students to be able to go to graduation,” she said.
Jean-Pierre reiterated a “small percentage” of disruptive students are taking away from other students’ experience. She said the White House would “continue to underscore that antisemitism should be called out. It is hate speech. And that should not be allowed — not on college campuses, not in communities, not in the political discourse.”
Jean-Pierre was also pressed on critics in the Republican Party, including former President Donald Trump, who have compared the unrest in recent days to the 2017 White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“I would say to those critics, no, he’s not doing a both sides scenario here,” she said.
Biden has said that the events of August 2017 prompted him to run for president in 2020, pointing to rhetoric from Trump that there were bad people on “both sides.”
“Those things are not the same. They’re just not the same. Fundamentally not the same. And it is in bad faith — it is in bad faith to say that,” she said.
Next week, Biden will deliver the keynote address at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual days of remembrance ceremony on Tuesday, the White House announced earlier.
CNN’s Sam Fossum contributed reporting to this post.
Amanda Smith is a dedicated U.S. correspondent with a passion for uncovering the stories that shape the nation. With a background in political science, she provides in-depth analysis and insightful commentary on domestic affairs, ensuring readers are well-informed about the latest developments across the United States.
