BREAKING NEWS: GOP Senators Put Colleges On Notice As 'Little Gazas' Spring Up On Campuses
Republican Senators hold a press briefing to decry the antisemitism running rampant on college campuses across the U.S. as pro-Palestinian activists set up encampments and hold ongoing protests.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 We're here to discuss the little Gazas that have risen up on campuses across America and
00:19 the liberal college administrators and politicians who refuse to restore law and order and to
00:24 protect other students.
00:27 These little Gazas are disgusting cesspools of anti-Semitic hate full of pro-Hamas sympathizers,
00:33 fanatics, and freaks.
00:35 Here's just a sampling of what these lunatics were saying just days after Hamas's atrocity
00:40 against Israel.
00:41 A Cornell professor called the October 7th attack exhilarating.
00:46 A Columbia professor called it awesome.
00:47 A Yale professor called it an extraordinary day.
00:51 More than 30 Harvard students signed a letter claiming that Israel was "entirely responsible"
00:59 for the attack.
01:00 A pro-Hamas student group at the University of Virginia called Hamas terrorists "Palestinian
01:06 resistance fighters."
01:07 And remember, this was all before Israel had seriously retaliated.
01:13 The terrorist sympathizers in these little Gazas aren't peacefully protesting Israel's
01:19 conduct of the war.
01:21 They're violently and illegally demanding death for Israel, just like their ideological
01:27 twins, the Ayatollahs in Iran.
01:31 Just look at what's going on in these little Gazas.
01:34 These criminals are chanting eliminationist slogans like "From the river to the sea, Palestine
01:41 will be free" and "Globalize the Intifada."
01:45 At Stanford, they wore Hamas headbands.
01:48 At Princeton, they flew the Hezbollah flag.
01:50 At Harvard, they ripped down the Stars and Stripes and replaced it with the Palestinian
01:54 flag.
01:57 At George Washington University, they called for the "final solution" and posted signs
02:02 saying they wouldn't leave until Jews go back to their real homes.
02:09 And look at some of the consequences.
02:11 At Columbia, a rabbi had to tell students that the university was no longer safe for
02:15 Jews.
02:16 At UCLA, Hamas sympathizers blocked Jewish students from attending classes and assaulted
02:23 Jewish students.
02:24 USC canceled its graduation out of fear of pro-Hamas riots.
02:30 It's time to stop these anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas mobs today.
02:37 And if liberal college administrators won't take action, the mayors and the governors
02:42 of these campuses should.
02:44 And so should Joe Biden.
02:47 When will the President himself, not his mouthpieces, condemn these hate-filled little Gazas?
02:55 President Biden needs to denounce Hamas' campus sympathizers without equivocating about
03:01 Israelis fighting a righteous war of survival.
03:06 The State Department needs to yank the visas of foreign students in these little Gazas.
03:11 And DHS needs to deport them.
03:12 The Justice Department should investigate the funding sources behind these little Gazas.
03:18 And the Department of Education needs to withhold funding for colleges that won't protect the
03:23 civil rights of their Jewish students.
03:25 Instead, Joe Biden is putting more pressure on Israel these days than he is on Hamas itself
03:31 or on the pro-Hamas chapters on America's campuses.
03:35 But I guess that's what we should expect from the leader of a Democratic Party that has
03:40 let its anti-Semitic elements fester and grow for years.
03:45 Another four years for Joe Biden means another four years of little Gazas all across America.
03:52 And that's something I suspect the American people will keep in mind this November.
03:58 Senator Cornyn.
04:03 Protests are nothing new in our country.
04:05 They are constitutionally protected by the First Amendment.
04:08 But it's also very clear that these institutions can regulate the exercise of those First Amendment
04:16 rights based on time, manner, and place restrictions, neutral criteria.
04:21 But as you've seen since October the 7th, the line between protesting and rioting has
04:29 been crossed time and time again on college campuses across the country.
04:34 Institutions like Columbia and Yale, some of the most elite, privileged institutions
04:39 in America, pro-Hamas rioters have taken over buildings, threatened Jewish students, and
04:46 prevented students from pursuing the very reason they're there, which is their education.
04:52 I suggest that these administrations take notes from my friend, UT Austin President
04:59 Jay Hartzell, who has taken swift action to break up demonstrations before things turn
05:05 violent.
05:06 Yesterday, the University of Texas in Austin announced that nearly half of those arrested
05:13 on Monday had no affiliation with the University of Texas.
05:19 In other words, the mainstream media would have this have you understand or would suggest
05:24 that these are somehow students who are outraged at what's happening in the Middle East.
05:29 But in fact, in Texas, and I bet the same number holds in other parts of the country,
05:36 that nearly half of those are not students at these institutions.
05:41 What they did find when they arrested some of these outside agitators was guns, mallets,
05:48 and other weapons that were confiscated by law enforcement.
05:52 These obviously are people not interested in peaceful protests.
05:58 These are funded by many of the same outside groups like George Soros, other dark money
06:03 groups that support Antifa, and other riots that we've seen in our American cities in
06:08 the past few years.
06:11 The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental right, as I started out by saying, but it
06:16 does not grant any of us the ability to damage property, threaten the safety of others, or
06:22 violate the rules of our university campuses.
06:27 Senator Lankford.
06:28 Tom, thanks for pulling this together and for making it so clear what we're trying to
06:34 accomplish.
06:35 Every university and every student has the right to be able to speak their mind, to be
06:38 able to test out new ideas.
06:40 It's the nature of being on a college campus to be able to both speak out and to be able
06:43 to think through different things.
06:45 But when you're talking about screaming at Jewish students and rabbis saying, "No longer
06:50 is this university a safe place for you to be," it violates the very principles that
06:54 all these universities supposedly stand for.
06:57 Literally in these locations where Jewish students are being told, "It's not safe for
07:01 you to be there anymore," I can't imagine any other group on campus that university
07:05 officials would say, "It's no longer safe for you to be here."
07:09 These are the individuals that should have the right to be able to go to their education
07:13 and to be able to speak their own mind, yet they're being intimidated and harassed, screamed
07:18 at with words of genocide, have a protest sign held in front of them that says, "Resistance
07:22 by all means necessary."
07:24 Everyone understands what that means, what that group actually holds that up.
07:28 That is including violence, including October the 7th.
07:32 Listen, we're a nation that prides ourselves on the right to be able to speak out, but
07:38 we're also a nation that says you cannot go and intimidate someone else in the process.
07:43 When law is broken on that, then law needs to be enforced.
07:46 If you do not enforce criminal activity, then you'll get more criminal activity.
07:50 We're seeing in some of these privileged universities where they're allowing individuals to be able
07:54 to come and to be able to clearly violate the law and then assume it's not going to
07:59 get worse and worse and worse.
08:00 It is and it has, and it will continue to until we actually have clear parameters of,
08:05 yes, you can speak your mind, yes, you can say a dumb thing, but no, you can't intimidate
08:11 other people.
08:12 And again, for universities that pride themselves on creating safe places on their campus to
08:17 literally create environments where they know they're going to thrive in crime and they're
08:21 going to have people take over buildings and try to relive the glory days of the 1960s
08:26 in protest, what they're really doing is continuing to intimidate other students, and they know
08:31 it, and they're winning.
08:33 When graduations get canceled, when classes have to move, the violent protesters, they're
08:38 actually winning the day.
08:40 So this is up to universities, where frankly we've all been very clear.
08:43 The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition that the State Department has used
08:47 for years to be able to define anti-Semitism, the Department of Education has refused to
08:52 use and many of these university presidents have refused to use and left an ambiguous
08:56 definition saying, of course, you can speak out against Israel.
08:59 Of course you can.
09:01 But even in the IRA definition, you can disagree with the Israeli government, but you can't
09:04 call for genocide.
09:06 That moves into anti-Semitism, and that should be something that we actually speak out on
09:09 and make very clear on every single campus.
09:13 Well, good morning.
09:18 Thank you, Senator Cotton, for organizing this important discussion on a very disturbing
09:24 issue.
09:26 What we're seeing on college campuses is total chaos, and we all know that universities have
09:33 an obligation to provide every single one of their students a safe learning environment.
09:41 That's not happening.
09:43 We saw it again on the news last night.
09:46 These are violent protests.
09:50 This is occupying university buildings.
09:54 This is breaking the law.
09:58 And then you add in the vileness of looking at other students and making disgusting anti-Semitic
10:10 statements to those students, not allowing them to participate on their own campus in
10:18 their educational endeavors.
10:23 This is beyond the pale.
10:26 And I think many of us recognize that.
10:31 Not many of us are speaking up, and we certainly don't hear it from most of the elected officials.
10:37 We certainly don't hear people speaking up on university campuses.
10:43 We certainly don't see any kind of strong, positive action by university officials.
10:52 Instead, we see chaos.
10:55 We see vileness.
10:56 We see hate.
10:57 We see growing division.
11:00 But there's one group – well, there's really a couple groups – that are supportive
11:06 of this.
11:08 Hamas is a terrorist organization.
11:13 They kill babies.
11:14 They kill old people.
11:16 They still have Americans held as hostages in Gaza.
11:22 Report that.
11:24 Report that.
11:26 And now we see these actions on campus, which Hamas supports.
11:33 They're endorsing these protests.
11:38 We see the supreme leader, Alatola Khomeini.
11:46 He's publicly applauded the growing number of protests, the growing number of encampments
11:54 that have sprung up on college campuses.
11:57 He celebrates the flying of Hezbollah's flag in the streets in the United States.
12:07 Let's be clear.
12:09 Do we see Iran or Hamas supporting protests in their – hello – in their jurisdiction?
12:19 No, we don't see them supporting it.
12:22 In fact, we see them cracking down on any kind of protest, any kind of protest.
12:30 And they have been criticized by the Human Rights Watch for those actions.
12:37 So let's understand what's happening here in the United States.
12:42 What's happening is a growing anti-Semitism.
12:46 What's happening is chaos on college campuses – not free speech, but criminal activity
12:55 and violence.
12:57 And it's time that we demand that students, all students, are protected in this country
13:07 and that they have their rights protected as well.
13:13 Senator Kennedy.
13:14 Thank you, Deb.
13:15 Now I get to hit him.
13:18 You get to hit me.
13:19 You can hit me upside the head, knock me in the next week.
13:24 What we're seeing at some of our college campuses is a rule by the mob.
13:35 That's what many of you – not all of you, but many of you – would call a threat to
13:43 democracy if it were being perpetuated by Republicans.
13:52 That seemed to be able to do it without consequence.
13:56 That's point one.
13:57 Point two, we shouldn't paint with too broad a brush.
14:06 Some of our universities have done a good job.
14:09 I'll mention three.
14:12 Vanderbilt, Tulane, and the University of Florida.
14:21 They have done a good job in dealing with this rule by the mob because of their leadership.
14:29 The presidents of those three universities are passionate advocates of free speech.
14:36 They understand that the Constitution protects free speech against government, but it does
14:46 not protect disruptive behavior, and they understand that the First Amendment to the
14:54 Constitution makes a distinction between speech and behavior.
15:02 And it's not complicated.
15:04 You don't have to be Oliver Wendell Scalia to figure that out.
15:09 All you have to do is read the document.
15:13 And so I want to thank them.
15:15 I think the president of Columbia could learn a lot from them, an awful lot.
15:21 Point three, I think much of the problem comes from members – some members, not all, but
15:30 some members of these universities' faculty.
15:35 There are members of the faculty at some of these universities who believe in diversity,
15:43 equity, inclusion, and the right to kill Jews.
15:50 They do.
15:51 Now, this is America.
15:53 You're entitled to believe what you want.
15:59 It may be an evil thought, but you're entitled to believe it.
16:03 You're not entitled to act on it.
16:06 And many of these professors – not all of them, not at all universities – but many
16:10 of these professors, instead of celebrating their universities as a place of diversity
16:18 and ideas, they are convinced they are right, and they want to punish people who disagree
16:24 with them.
16:26 And that's a big part of the problem.
16:28 Final point, President Biden could stop this stuff on a dime.
16:36 On a dime.
16:37 How can I put this?
16:45 It just goes to show you that even old people can suck, okay?
16:55 All he would have to do is pick up the phone and call the president of Columbia University
17:02 quietly and say, "Madam President, how you doing?
17:06 Listen, I don't have a lot of time and I know you're busy.
17:08 You've got 14 days to get control of your campus or you're not getting any more federal
17:14 money."
17:15 Now, she will pounce on that like a ninja.
17:21 But Joe Biden hasn't done that.
17:23 And President Biden is not going to do that.
17:28 And it's not just because even older people can suck.
17:33 He's not going to do that because of the raw gut politics, and you know it and I know
17:38 it.
17:39 President Biden is scared to death to alienate the Hamas wing of the Democratic Party.
17:49 And he has read that new CNN poll, just came out, that said that 52% of likely voters,
17:59 a CNN poll said 52% of likely voters will never under any circumstances on God's good
18:08 green earth vote for Joe Biden.
18:11 52%.
18:13 52% will vote for the guy who salts the French fries at McDonald's before they will vote
18:20 for Joe Biden.
18:22 And he knows that.
18:25 And that's why he is doing or in this case, not doing what he's not doing at these universities.
18:34 And you should call it for what it is.
18:37 Rule by mob.
18:39 Rule by mob.
18:42 A belief in diversity, equity, inclusion, and the right to kill Jews.
18:49 And it's wrong.
18:58 So going home to my state, there's quite a few Jewish families have their kids in some
19:04 of these schools up north.
19:07 And I think most of them are having to rethink the safety of their kids.
19:13 I've talked to some individuals in my state, and they're at these schools, and they've
19:17 been for months now scared to death for their safety.
19:22 So what you see that's going on in places like Columbia University is just, it's un-American,
19:27 it's disturbing, and it's completely unfair.
19:30 You know, we send our kids off to school, we expect them to be safe.
19:34 Expect them to learn something, build relationships, and when they finish, be able to get a job.
19:39 We don't expect them to be worried about whether they're going to get beat up, their Star of
19:45 David necklace is going to be ripped off, any of these things.
19:49 But we've got university presidents and university faculty that are just wimps.
19:54 Just wimps.
19:57 They just cower to this anti-Israel, anti-Semitic crowd.
20:04 And it is, it's crazy.
20:07 These individuals that believe in what Hamas is doing, why don't they go live in Gaza for
20:11 a while?
20:12 Get out of this country.
20:14 If you don't like this country, you don't like the way we run the country, get out of
20:16 it.
20:17 Go to Gaza, see what it's like.
20:18 See what it's like to live under the rule of Hamas.
20:22 Now, let's remember what they did.
20:25 They beheaded babies, they raped girls, they burned people alive, they shot people point
20:32 blank just for one simple reason, they're Jews.
20:36 That's what they did.
20:37 It's as simple.
20:38 They did that.
20:39 So if you go protest in favor of them, you support those actions.
20:43 The president won't say anything because he's worried about losing any votes.
20:49 He's fine with getting the pro-Hamas crowd to vote for him.
20:53 He believes he can't take a chance of losing any votes because he is so unpopular.
20:58 Now, here's what needs to happen.
21:01 Number one is we need to stop funding these universities.
21:04 I have a bill that says stop anti-Semitism on college campus act and anti-Semitism awareness
21:09 act.
21:10 And what we do is stop funding it.
21:13 Stop right now.
21:14 I mean, why should a university that spews hatred and anti-Semitism get any of our federal
21:20 dollars?
21:22 Number two is if you're faculty or if you're in leadership at a university and you're not
21:28 willing to stand up, quit.
21:29 Just get somebody that cares about Jews, cares about all the students, make sure they're
21:33 safe.
21:34 If you're a student and you're at one of these universities and you spew hatred and anti-Semitic,
21:39 you need to be expelled.
21:41 You should be never able to go to that university, in my opinion, any university in the country.
21:47 And then if you're a donor, if you're a volunteer at any of these universities like Columbia,
21:52 then stop.
21:55 Do you want to spend your money giving to people that just have hatred just because
21:59 somebody has a different religion than them?
22:01 This is disgusting.
22:02 And I hope all these universities get held accountable for their anti-Semitic acts and
22:10 the leaderships being such wimps to protect their students.
22:14 Nice.
22:15 Thank you, Rick.
22:18 And thank you, Senator Cotton, for organizing today.
22:20 This is an incredibly important topic.
22:23 And what we saw on Monday, as a number of my colleagues have already discussed, this
22:30 mob that is taking over the campus in Columbia, we saw on Monday pro-Hamas protesters hold
22:42 facility workers hostage.
22:47 This is the United States of America.
22:50 That is wrong.
22:53 That is wrong.
22:55 We see these pro-Hamas protesters falling in line with Iran.
23:01 With Iran, one of our top adversaries, whose proxies are still holding Americans hostage
23:09 in Gaza.
23:12 Anti-Semitic violence shouldn't be on American soil, and yet we're seeing it at all of these
23:17 liberal colleges and universities.
23:20 We've seen over 50 encampments pop up.
23:24 As Senator Cotton mentioned, little Gazas, they're popping up.
23:29 Students are wreaking havoc, and because of that, they must be held accountable to the
23:34 fullest extent of the law.
23:36 We also know that there are college professors that are engaging in this activity.
23:41 We have outside paid people that are coming into campuses and promoting this type of nonsense
23:50 and violence, and these college administrators are just simply poo-pooing it away.
23:57 They continue to foster and encourage these activities.
24:01 And you know what?
24:02 The Biden administration has failed to stop it.
24:06 Where are the liberals calling out the violence, calling out the no longer peaceful protests?
24:16 So I have a good friend who is a liberal Jew.
24:22 Liberal Jew.
24:23 Gives to progressives, gives to liberals, had never given to a conservative.
24:30 About a month ago, he came to me and he said, "You know what?
24:34 Who is standing up for the Jewish people?
24:37 Who is standing up for Israel?"
24:39 I said, "You know who it is?
24:43 It's conservative Christians.
24:45 That's who's standing up for the Israelis.
24:48 That's who's standing up for the Jewish people across the United States."
24:55 This administration refuses to call it out.
24:58 And we – when we have college students at these liberal universities like Columbia,
25:06 like UCLA, that are promoting Hamas – let's go back to October 7th, folks, and talk about
25:12 Hamas.
25:13 They are supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization that raped innocent women, that killed babies,
25:26 that drug elderly men and women into Gaza and abused them.
25:35 Where is this OK?
25:37 And why are we celebrating that on American soil?
25:41 I remember when I was working with Senator Dianne Feinstein on the Violence Against Women
25:46 Act.
25:48 Most of my Democratic friends supported that.
25:52 Violence against women is not OK.
25:56 Where are those same individuals today?
26:00 Where are the members of Congress decrying the violence that has occurred against women
26:07 by Hamas?
26:08 Instead, we see them celebrating it.
26:13 Tables are turning, folks.
26:15 The tables are turning.
26:19 What these students are celebrating today and trying to incite violence against Jews
26:25 on American soil today, that's not OK, and we need to speak out against it.
26:31 The universities need to put an end to this now.
26:35 If they don't, they should kiss their federal funding goodbye.
26:42 Just as Senator Kennedy said, we shouldn't support that as a federal government.
26:46 It goes against everything that we stand for.
26:49 We shouldn't support them with our dollars.
26:52 The donors should withdraw their funding.
26:54 And you know what?
26:55 I'm going to go a step further.
26:57 Businesses across the United States, when they see that little Harvard diploma, UCLA,
27:04 Columbia, those businesses, maybe they should hang a sign out that says, "Graduates need
27:11 not apply."
27:14 They need not apply.
27:16 So, presidents, you better get a handle on what's going on on your colleges and universities,
27:24 because it is absolutely unacceptable behavior.
27:29 And I think we, as elected representatives of our constituencies, need to ensure that
27:35 federal dollars are not going to these institutions.
27:38 All right.
27:41 Thanks, Joni.
27:43 Certainly, this is a time for moral clarity and leadership.
27:48 Moral clarity and leadership.
27:49 And those are in such short supply in the White House and at our university campuses.
27:54 You know, our universities were the leaders, the cheerleaders, the promoters of DEI.
28:01 DEI has taken over Comp 1 classes and Econ 101 classes and Psych 1 classes.
28:09 And all the way through your master's thesis, our universities are just dominated by this
28:14 DEI theme.
28:18 And what I sit there and wonder today is how does a university that promotes DEI also promote
28:24 anti-Semitism?
28:26 How do you square that circle?
28:28 How can you do both?
28:29 How can you promote DEI, preach that to your kids, your students, and then you wake up
28:34 one day and allow anti-Semitism to go on in your particular university?
28:39 Could you imagine being on a university today and wherever you see a sign that says, "Jews"
28:46 or "Zionism" or "Israel."
28:49 And then of course there's some negative slogan with that.
28:52 If you would insert another ethnic group, another religion, then that would be considered
28:57 a terrorist crime.
28:59 The FBI would be there investigating that crime.
29:03 The FBI would be shutting down your university, perhaps.
29:07 You know, I'm just reminded of what happened in the Holocaust where if we allow them to
29:12 go after the Jews, they're going to come after you next.
29:14 That's why this is so important.
29:16 This is why it's so important that we just not talk the talk, but we walk the walk.
29:20 And in this country, we don't allow hatred and we don't allow violence against other
29:25 groups because of their ethnicity, because of their religion.
29:32 I also thought a lot this week about how did we get here?
29:35 How do we get to these riots?
29:37 And I still think that we are living in a culture of lawlessness created by Joe Biden.
29:44 It started with an open border, totally against the law.
29:47 There's no laws on our border right now.
29:50 He's basically proposed and allowed cashless bail to go on.
29:55 We see these smash and grabs go on.
29:58 It can defund the police.
30:01 And we turn our heads against violent riots that we saw in 2020 and now we're seeing today.
30:07 We turn our heads to violence and people that are breaking laws right now.
30:14 You know, there's a rot in our universities.
30:17 There's a rot in the White House and there's a rot in this country to allow this to go
30:22 on.
30:23 I think about this moral clarity.
30:25 I think about leadership and I often go back and say, well, is this the first time this
30:30 ever happened in this country?
30:31 Well, no, it's not.
30:32 And I go back to Governor Ronald Reagan, what he did in a similar situation and what President
30:38 Eisenhower did in a similar situation as well.
30:42 Where's the moral clarity and the leadership from our university presidents as well as
30:47 the president of the United States?
30:50 And I think the last question I asked myself today is why?
30:54 Why is the university presidents and why is this president turning his head away from
30:58 these violent crimes that are going on?
31:01 Why is this president wanting to bring in tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand
31:07 refugees from, from Gaza?
31:10 It's because he is catering to a handful of votes in Michigan.
31:14 He's totally politically driven rather than doing the right thing.
31:18 He has no moral clarity.
31:20 He's a political beast.
31:21 That's all he cares about is reelection rather than doing the right thing.
31:25 And here we are today with a lot of moral rot in the White House and our universities.
31:32 And I think what you're hearing from the folks here today is we're going to stand up and
31:35 fight against this.
31:37 So the bad news is when you're at the end of this ladder, you got to stay and, and watch
31:41 Tom answer the, answer the questions.
31:45 Stay and watch me defer to you, Roger.
31:47 We will take your questions now, if any.
31:48 Senator, thank you.
31:49 What would you like to see Leader Schumer do over in the Senate?
31:50 What do you make of the action the House is going to take today?
31:51 Well, Senator Schumer, like Joe Biden, should stop equivocating between Israel fighting
32:01 a righteous war for survival and all these pro-Hamas sympathizers on campuses in these
32:05 little Gazas.
32:06 For example, when he meddled two, three weeks ago calling for new elections in Israel.
32:12 Maybe Israelis think we should have new elections in New York.
32:15 Second, I suspect the House of Representatives is going to pass a law today adopting the
32:20 international definition of antisemitism.
32:22 That's a bill that we should promptly bring to the floor and pass over here as well.
32:26 Those are just a couple of examples.
32:27 I don't know, Senator Marshall, Senator Ernst, if you have anything else.
32:28 The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism includes anti-Zionism
32:29 and some people would argue that anti-Zionism is not inherently antisemitic.
32:30 Do you agree with that or disagree with that?
32:46 I would submit that some people would be very wrong about that.
32:48 It's just an example of how Israel is held to a unique standard in the world, not just
32:53 by say the United Nations or the International Criminal Court, but by Joe Biden and other
32:58 Democrats here in the United States.
33:01 If you demand something of Israel that you don't demand of every other nation, if you
33:05 threaten their leaders with arrest warrants, if you build these little Gazas on campuses
33:10 to protest what Israel is doing, you don't do it against say Bashar al-Assad for what
33:14 he's done to his own people, what Hamas has done to the Arabs living in Gaza, then that
33:19 is a double standard that is the definition of antisemitism.
33:23 So anti-Zionism does belong in that definition.
33:28 I learned so much in college and one of the things I learned on a bus trip from El Dorado,
33:34 Kansas, to San Angelo, Texas for the National Track Meet is I learned a lot about folks
33:39 that were a different skin color than I was.
33:41 And it was the first time in my life I was in the minority.
33:45 A long, long bus ride.
33:46 But what I learned is that the people that are being discriminated against get to define
33:52 what's insulting and what's not insulting.
33:56 That we don't get to define that.
33:57 So if my Jewish friends feel insulted when the term Zion is used, which it is, it's another
34:03 term for being pro-Israel in a lot of ways as well.
34:07 So I wouldn't be mincing differences there.
34:11 This is actually a very good follow-up to what Senator Markel said.
34:18 Congresswoman Jayapal yesterday was asked, "What would your message be to a Jewish student
34:23 who doesn't feel safe on their own campus right now?"
34:27 She replied saying, "It is really important to educate yourself about what is antisemitic
34:33 and is not antisemitic," and then said, "There are things that are being called antisemitic
34:39 that are not antisemitic if you could just react to that."
34:43 Joni, you want to -- I would just say any time a person feels -- oh,
34:48 excuse me.
34:49 Any time a person feels threatened, then they are being threatened.
34:55 It's just that simple.
34:56 I don't know that she can define it.
34:58 I think the person that feels threatened certainly could define it.
35:03 I mean, I think when you have Jewish students who have to live through these little Gaza
35:10 encampments where pro-Hamas sympathizers are saying, "Go back to your real home," or calling
35:18 for a final solution, or spray-painting swastikas on your campus, there's a little question
35:24 that those Jewish students justifiably feel intimidated and harassed and that college
35:30 administrators are not doing their job to protect the civil rights of those Jewish students.
35:33 I just got to add one more comment.
35:35 It kind of makes my blood boil.
35:37 You know, I'm very sensitive as an obstetrician to women getting every opportunity that guys
35:43 have.
35:44 And one of my frustrations, whether I'm here or back home, is mansplaining.
35:49 And a woman will feel insulted because they're getting mansplained to them.
35:54 And you would ask the man and say, "Well, I didn't mean any harm here."
35:58 Well, he doesn't get to decide what mansplaining is and what it's not.
36:03 And here's a lady, a good friend of mine you're talking about, that she gets to explain to
36:08 Jewish people when they should and shouldn't feel insulted.
36:11 And if you feel insulted, you should educate yourself.
36:14 I think that that's a total cop-out.
36:18 That really disturbs me.
36:20 Again, we've all been in those situations.
36:23 If you feel intimidated, if you feel like people are hating on you, it doesn't mean
36:27 I get to react in a violent way against them.
36:30 But how you feel is not determined by the person that's doing the persecution.
36:33 Right?
36:34 Yeah.
36:35 Very bad.
36:36 Respectfully, Senator, do you really think that every student there hates Israel and
36:42 supports Hamas?
36:43 Don't you think that many, many students and American people just don't want any more Palestinian
36:48 kids killed?
36:49 Who are you with?
36:50 I'm sorry?
36:51 Sorry?
36:52 Who are you with?
36:53 NTN24.
36:54 NTN24.
36:55 I think that building little Gazas is either violating the law or violating campus rules.
36:59 They have a right if they want to go out and make fools of themselves and protest on behalf
37:03 of Hamas if they're American citizens.
37:05 But they don't have a right to build little Gazas in violation of the laws, committing
37:09 trespass, committing disorderly conduct, in many cases committing felonies through burglary
37:13 or destruction of property.
37:15 That is what they do not have the right to do.
37:18 And yes, whenever you're saying, "Go back to your real home," or painting swastikas
37:22 on campuses or flying the Hezbollah flag or wearing a Hamas headband, then you are not
37:27 protesting Israel's conduct of their righteous war of survival.
37:31 You are sympathizing with Hamas.
37:33 And I would remind you, too, that at Columbia there were three maintenance workers that
37:37 were barricaded into a building and not allowed to leave.
37:41 That's not okay, right?
37:45 And regardless of how – what their feelings are, these students' feelings are, they're
37:49 breaking the law.
37:50 It has not – what they're – when they're keeping other students from going to school,
37:55 when they're preventing graduation from happening, they're breaking the law.
37:59 And we should not encourage them to keep breaking the law and teach them how not to be good
38:03 citizens.
38:04 I absolutely respect their voice, but there's a right way to protest and there's a wrong
38:08 way to protest.
38:10 And they're infringing on the other students' rights by preventing a normal day from happening.
38:14 I couldn't imagine my son or daughter at Kansas State University at KU and not being
38:20 able to go to school today for a lot of reasons, let alone miss their graduation.
38:24 I think that's just a horrible scenario right now, and it's the wrong thing to teach
38:30 our young adults.
38:31 I think we've –
38:32 We've got to – yeah, go vote on a doubtless unqualified judicial nominee.
38:37 So last question.
38:38 So going back to the Jewish students that feel threatened, what's your message to
38:42 them and what would you advise them to do on an individual level?
38:46 Well, first off, one of the reasons why we had this press conference, why all of us have
38:50 been speaking out on this issue is to try to encourage these college administrators
38:55 to take charge of their own campuses and to protect the rights of these Jewish students.
38:59 And for that matter, any student who just wants to study for final exams and finish
39:03 the semester in peace without having little Gaza disrupting them 24 hours a day.
39:09 Second, a lot of these universities are going to face massive lawsuits.
39:13 Like look at UCLA, where you have Jewish students who are being blocked from entering their
39:18 classrooms by a bunch of pro-Hamas radicals wearing masks and keffiyehs like it's some
39:24 scene out of the 1930s in Germany.
39:27 So a lot of these students should be consulting with a lawyer because by the time this is
39:31 all said and done, they may have buildings on these campuses named after them.
39:35 And they shouldn't hesitate – they shouldn't hesitate to go to the local authorities as
39:40 well.
39:41 If the administrators on campus won't protect them, then they have every right to go to
39:45 the local authorities and ask for their protection as well.
39:48 Just a few things that they should do.
39:49 Most importantly, they should know that all of these pro-Hamas fanatics in little Gaza
39:55 may be getting a lot of attention now, but the vast majority of normal, sane, patriotic
40:01 Americans support them, not Hamas.
40:03 Yes, and they also need to go to the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights because
40:10 obviously this is a Title VI violation.
40:17 These Jewish students are not allowed to participate in daily activities to be educated by institutions
40:25 that are receiving federal dollars.
40:27 So they can file a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights under a Title VI violation
40:34 at the Department of Education, and I would encourage them to do that because it is time
40:39 for this administration and all of these appointees to step up and follow federal code.
40:45 You know, for me, the administration also answered this in a spiritual answer as well.
40:53 These folks talked about the legal answers, but I certainly am concerned about their mental
40:57 health and their spiritual health.
41:00 I think it's real important that they gather together as a group and have some professionals
41:05 in the room to work through some of the challenges that they've been through here.
41:09 I think it's important that they're talking to their parents and to their rallies about
41:13 what is the spiritual lesson here.
41:15 I've been told it's a great honor to be persecuted because of your faith, and I just want to
41:20 encourage them to stick to their faith that God will be with them, and they're doing the
41:24 right thing, and we're going to do everything we can to stand beside them and make sure
41:27 that they have this opportunity.
41:29 Remember, people that came and founded this country came here because they were persecuted
41:33 by because of their faith, that's why they came here.
41:36 And here we're repeating history again, all in the wrong.
41:39 So we're going to stand beside them.
41:41 It's a moment of character building for them as well, but certainly don't put themselves
41:46 in harm's way.
41:47 Thanks.
41:48 And on that uplifting note.
41:49 Yeah.
41:50 Very good.
41:51 Here we go.
41:52 Thank you.
41:53 Thank you.
41:53 Thank you.
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