By Nathan Layne
(Reuters) – donald trump on Thursday criticized the mostly peaceful protests on US college campuses over Israel’s war in Gaza, describing them as “tremendous hate”, while also saying that violence at a white nationalist rally in Virginia, when he was president, he was, by comparison, “a small peanut.”
Trump, the Republican presidential candidate in November’s election, has also sought to pin blame for the university protests on Democrats. President Joe Biden.
In comments to the media following the day’s testimony at his criminal trial in New York City, Trump referenced the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 between white nationalists and counter-protesters, in which a woman was killed, and claimed the current university protests. on Israel were much worse.
“Charlottesville was a little peanut. And it was nothing compared to… and the hate wasn’t the kind of hate that you have here,” Trump said, repeating a claim he made on his social media platform on Wednesday.
Trump received heavy criticism in the days following the Charlottesville rally for equating white supremacists with counterprotesters and saying “both sides” were to blame. A woman was hit by a car and killed during the clashes, and Trump’s response became a crisis for his administration.
Protests by students opposing Israel’s war in Gaza have increased at US universities in recent days, although they have been largely peaceful, with no known deaths and no violent clashes between protesters seen in Charlottesville.
University authorities tried to clear many of the protest camps, saying they were often unauthorized and calling the police. Around 500 protesters were arrested last week.
On Thursday, Trump also took aim at Biden over the campus protests, just over six months before the November presidential election, when the two are expected to face a rematch.
“This is tremendous hatred and we have a man who can’t talk about it because he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand what’s happening to our country,” Trump said.
Some Republicans in Congress have accused university administrators of allowing Jewish students to be harassed during the protests, but activist groups have vehemently denied that the protests are anti-Semitic. While they acknowledged that hateful rhetoric was sometimes directed at Jewish students, they insist that people who tried to infiltrate and defame their movement are responsible for any harassment.
Trump has denounced the violence in Charlottesville in the past. A year after the rally, he wrote on Twitter that the rally “resulted in senseless death and division,” while also condemning all forms of racism and violence.
Trump is currently on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records related to a payment to a porn star to keep her silent about an affair before the 2016 election. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; additional reporting by Andy Sullivan in Washington; editing by Paul Thomasch and Leslie Adler)
