Police officers behaved admirably by arresting many “radical left,” anti-Israel “lunatics” on the campuses of Columbia University and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), former President Donald Trump said Thursday.
Police arrested hundreds of protestors in recent days. Early Tuesday morning, Columbia University students seized a university building, smashing windows and lowering an “Intifada” banner. Police forcibly reclaimed the buildings later in the day.
WATCH: NYPD Clears Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall of Anti-Isreal Occupiers
NYPD / BODY CAMS+ /TMXOn the West Coast, authorities on Thursday morning finally permitted police to remove an encampment of protestors on UCLA’s campus.
Trump, who is running as the law and order candidate against President Joe Biden, told reporters before entering a Manhattan courthouse that radical “morons” should not be allowed to “take over this country.”
Protests seem to be growing in volume and violence. Unrest beset 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 said 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 predicted. “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.”
WATCH: “Palestine Solidarity Encampment” Assaults Breitbart News at UCLA
Some Democrats fear political backlash in November from the increasing anti-Israel protests on university campuses.
The protests are “bringing out [the public’s] most conservative side,” a House Democrat lawmaker told Axios. “Many people are super frustrated and concerned.”
“The longer they continue and the worse that they get, the worse it’s going to be for the election,” the lawmaker added.
With election day on November 5, just 187 days away, the protests dominated news cycles for weeks, but it is unknown how long they will continue. It is also uncertain if the protests will remain relevant in voters’ minds at the time of the election.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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