Former President Donald Trump slammed his successor Tuesday, blaming President Biden for the antisemitic havoc unfolding at campuses across the country, including at Columbia University and New York University.
“What’s going on at the college level and the colleges, Columbia, NYU, and others, is a disgrace. And it’s really on Biden, he has sent the wrong signal,” Trump, 77, told reporters before entering a Manhattan courtroom for proceedings in his hush money trial.
“He’s got the wrong tone. He’s got the wrong words. He doesn’t know who he’s backing and it’s a mess,” the 45th president went on. “What’s going on is a disgrace and it’s all Biden’s fault.”
Anti-Israel demonstrations have taken over the Ivy League school since April 17, forcing the university to cancel in-person classes Monday and announce Tuesday that it was moving to a hybrid model for the remainder of the spring semester.
On Sunday, Columbia campus rabbi Elie Buechler warned Jewish students via WhatsApp to leave due to “extreme antisemitism” and elevated safety concerns.
At NYU, police cleared out protest encampments Monday evening and arrested 133 people, all of whom were released with summonses for disorderly conduct.
In his first on-camera remarks since the chaos began, Biden attempted a both-sides approach to the issue.
“I condemn the antisemitic protests,” the president said. “That’s why I have set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
Biden’s comments, which resembled Trump’s much-criticized rhetoric after deadly violence surrounding an August 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., were slammed by conservatives.
“President Biden says there are good people on both sides of October 7,” tweeted Federalist editor-in-chief Molly Hemingway.
“I’ve heard many outrageous moral equivalences while working on the Israeli-Palestinian file. This one takes the cake. Shame on him for this comment,” former White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said.
“Biden’s’ ‘very fine people’ hoax is the whole reason he said he ran for President. Now he’s the one actually doing it,” Abigail Jackson, the communications director for Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.
Biden has faced an internal party revolt over the Israel-Hamas war, with hundreds of thousands of Democratic primary voters marking themselves as some variation of “uncommitted” to protest his handling of the crisis.
“He’s no friend of Israel that’s for sure. And he’s no friend of the Arab world either,” Trump mused Tuesday. ” He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to take like a middle ground and oftentimes that doesn’t work.”
Trump has publicly bemoaned the Israel-Hamas war, urging the Jewish state last month to “finish up” its operations in Gaza.
The former president also complained that “we have more police presence here than anyone’s ever seen” for the ongoing proceedings against him.
“For blocks, you can’t get near this courthouse,” he said. “And yet you have nobody up at a college where you have very radical people wanting to rip the colleges down.”
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.