White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre short-circuited Wednesday when Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked who is funding the anti-Israel campus protests.
Hundreds of protesters have been arrested across the U.S. as they have attempted to occupy college campuses and violently clashed with law enforcement forcing them to disperse. A mob of over 200 protesters at Columbia University barricaded Hamilton Hall in the early hours of Tuesday morning and held three janitors hostage, leading to about 100 arrests and potentially several expulsions.
Jean-Pierre did not directly answer whether President Joe Biden’s administration will investigate how these protests are being funded.
“Some of these encampments, they had matching tents we’re being told, that there are professional outside agitators involved. We don’t know if they’re being paid to sow chaos by domestic folks or foreign entities. Does President Biden want his administration to find out who is funding some of these protests?”
“What I can say is—you know, um … I cannot uh … I cannot speak to the organizations that are being reported that are on the ground. That is not something for me to speak to. That is obviously something for local governments—local officials—I keep saying local governments, local officials going to speak to. They’ll have better information on that. What we have said, and I don’t think I’ve iterated that yet from here is that DOJ and FBI is gonna continue to offer support to universities and colleges within respect to federal laws. That is what the DOJ and FBI is doing. As far as local organizations and what is all being reported on the ground, that is something that local law enforcement is certainly looking into.”
Doocy pressed Jean-Pierre on the president accusing former President Donald Trump of being complicit with the 2017 riot in Charlottesville, Virginia through his alleged silence, while he has been silent on the growing antisemitism on college campuses. (RELATED: KJP Immediately Pivots To Charlottesville After Doocy Confronts Her About Pro-Hamas Leftists)
“The president has not been silent on this issue when it comes to hate speech, antisemitism—”
“This week he has,” Doocy interjected.
“Wait, wait. He started—launched—the first ever antisemitism strategy to counter antisemitism. Something no other president did. No other president—” the press secretary said.
“A school building at an Ivy League campus got taken over,” Doocy argued.
“And we called that out and we said that is not peacefully protesting. Taking over a building at a university or college is not peacefully protesting and we’ve been very clear, we’ve been very clear, taking more than 100 new actions to deal with antisemitism in this administration, no one has ever done that before. Not any other administration has ever done that before,” she said.
Campus protesters have blocked Jewish students and professors from entering buildings or going to class. Rabbi Elie Buechler, who is associated with Columbia’s Orthodox Union Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, advised nearly 300 mostly Orthodox Jewish students through a WhatsApp message to leave campus to ensure their safety, according to CNN.
A Pro-Palestine leader at Columbia University held a sign reading, “We have Zionists who have entered the camp” and encircled three Jewish students who had entered the encampment, according to a video which circulated online.
“It was really scary because we had like 75 people quickly gathered around, encircling us, doing exactly what he said to do,” Jewish student Avi Weinberg said, according to The New York Times. “Suddenly we are being called ‘the Zionists’ in their encampment. He put a target on our back.”
Khymani James, the same protest leader, said in a video that Zionists “don’t deserve to live” and said they should be grateful he is “not just going out and murdering” them.