During a recent press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had difficulty answering a question about the source of the funding for the pro-Palestine protests plaguing college campuses across the nation. The press secretary claimed she “cannot speak” to the alleged organizers of the protests.
Amid the nationwide protests, speculation has arisen that professional organizers and nongovernmental organizations could be funding the movements. Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Pierre if the Biden administration would comment on what individuals or organizations are providing this alleged funding.
“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?” Doocy asked.
At first, KJP seemed to struggle with how she wanted to approach answering Doocy’s inquiry. She ultimately stated that she could not comment on the matter, leaving that up to local officials. The press secretary also explained that federal agencies such as the Department of Justice and the FBI are offering their services to college campuses.
She said, “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, 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 followed up, asking Jean-Pierre if Biden has been silent toward the fervent anti-semitism coming from the anti-Israel protests because of the political ramifications that would ensue for addressing it. Doocy suggested that the president could be concerned about losing the “youth vote” from these protestors. Notably, former President Donald Trump has been incessantly criticized by Biden, who has accused him of being silent during the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia attack.
“The president has not been silent on this issue when it comes to hate speech, antisemitism…” Doocy interrupted, adding “This week he has.” KJP hit back, “Wait, wait. He started, launched the first ever antisemitism strategy to counter antisemitism. Something no other president did. No other president…” However, Doocy asserted, “A school building at an Ivy League campus got taken over.”
“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 rebutted.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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