By Nathan Layne
(Reuters) – Donald Trump criticized the mostly peaceful protests on U.S. college campuses over Israel’s war in Gaza on Thursday, calling them “tremendous hatred,” while saying the violence at a white nationalist rally in Virginia when it was president was, in comparison, “a little peanut.”
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee in November, has also sought to place blame for campus protests on Democrats. President Joe Biden.
In his remarks to the media following his testimony at his criminal trial in New York, Trump referenced the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 between white nationalists and counterprotesters, during which a woman was killed, and claimed that the ongoing university protests over Israel were much worse.
“Charlottesville was small peanuts. And it was nothing compared to…and the hate was not the kind of hate you have here,” Trump said, repeating a claim he made Wednesday on his social networks.
Trump drew sharp criticism in the days after 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 turned into a crisis for his administration.
Protests by students opposed to Israel’s war in Gaza have intensified in recent days at universities across the United States, although they have been largely peaceful, with no known deaths and no violent clashes between protesters in Charlottesville.
University authorities have attempted to evacuate many protest encampments, saying they were often unauthorized and calling in the police. Around 500 protesters were arrested last week.
Trump also took aim at Biden over campus protests on Thursday, just over six months before the November presidential election, in which the two are expected to face a rematch.
“It’s a huge amount of hatred and we have a man who can’t talk about it because he doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand what’s going on in 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 strongly denied the anti-Semitic nature of the protests. While acknowledging that hate speech has sometimes been directed at Jewish students, they insist that people who have attempted to infiltrate and slander their movement are responsible for any harassment.
Trump has previously denounced the violence in Charlottesville. A year after the rally, he wrote on Twitter that the rally had “resulted in senseless death and division,” while 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 in order to silence her about an affair that occurred before the 2016 election. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
(reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton,…
