'Needs To Be Dealt With': John Thune Demands 'Shutting Down' Of Pro-Palestinian Protests At Colleges

7 months ago

During a weekly press briefing on Wednesday, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) called on the Biden Administration and university leaders to crack down on Pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

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Transcript

00:00Well, as the leader pointed out, Republican senators have, I think, had it up to here

00:06with these vile anti-Semitic protests that we're seeing on our college campuses around

00:12the country. In fact, one report said that there have been 1,400 such protests since

00:18the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel. And that is a 700 percent increase over the

00:25previous year. So what should be happening on our college campuses is they shouldn't

00:30be shutting down classes like Columbia University did. They should be shutting down this kind

00:37of violence. And this administration needs to step up and do its job and enforce the

00:44law. Last week, a number of us signed a letter to the Department of Justice and the Department

00:49of Education that was led by Senator Cotton, and I applaud him for leading this effort,

00:54basically calling on the administration to take the steps that are necessary to enforce

00:58the law and to protect Jewish students on our campuses. There is no place for this kind

01:05of anti-Semitic behavior in this country. It needs to be dealt with once and for all.

01:12And so I'm hopeful that the administration will take heed. I'm hopeful that these colleges,

01:17these leaders, and the administration on these college campuses will do the right thing and

01:23make sure that they are protecting Jewish students and all students that attend those

01:29universities. And just with respect to what's happening here in the Senate, there is a circuit

01:33court nominee, Adil Manji, who is up, and Senator Graham, who is the Republican leader

01:39on the Senate Judiciary Committee, identified parts of his record that is now coming to

01:43light and his involvement in a lot of anti-Israel organizations in his past. And so I hope that

01:50is a nominee that this administration will pull down, because clearly that's not the

01:56kind of person that we want on the federal court.

'Needs To Be Dealt With': John Thune Demands 'Shutting Down' Of Pro-Palestinian Protests At Colleges

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