Donald Trump told a gathering of donors he is ready to defeat pro-Palestinian campus protests by deporting demonstrators if he is returned to the White House.
Earlier this month the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee called demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza part of a “radical revolution” that needs addressing.
He also promised to set the movement back 25 or 30 years if donors helped him beat President Joe Biden in November’s presidential election, expressing his anger at the protests and their organizers that have been roiling U.S. campuses for months.
“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump reportedly said.
He pledged action that will confront those behind the pro-Palestinian campus protests and their ideology.
“If you get me re-elected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” Trump said at the round-table event, according to a report in the Washington Post quoting people at the meeting who spoke to the outlet on the condition of anonymity.
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The former president backed New York police for clearing the campus at Columbia University in May, adding other cities needed to follow suit, saying “it has to be stopped now.”
“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 at the time.
“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.”
During the donors’ meeting in New York on May 14, Trump supported Israel’s right to continue its war on Hamas terrorists and pointed to his policies towards Israel if he is elected.