One of President Joe Biden’s important campaign surrogates pushed him to visit the schools as the repercussions from pro-Palestinian rallies continues to spill into the 2024 presidential election.
On Sunday, when appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California said, “I think the president should and will get out there on campuses.”
One stop on Khanna’s cross-country campaign for Joe Biden was a tour of Wisconsin college campuses, where he spoke with young people who may have grown disillusioned with the president over his stances on the Gaza conflict.
While expressing his support for the right to protest, Biden said last week that the demonstrations did not have the right “to cause chaos.” Finally, he stated categorically that the protests will not cause him to reevaluate his stance on the conflict in the Middle East.
One more local movement putting pressure on officials to reverse their stance on Israel, and it’s not limited to campus encampments. Protesters have followed Biden around at campaign stops nationwide. On Sunday, Khanna stated that the protests have already had an impact on Biden’s thinking.
“Look, everyone from the president on down is aware that young people are upset at what’s going on in the Middle East,” he added later, adding, “I think the protests and the larger movement have had the president change.” The fact that too many people are losing their lives in this war has now dawned on Washington, in my opinion. The president’s rhetoric has changed significantly within the past six months.
Additionally, Khanna denounced the increasingly aggressive tone of those calling for a halt to Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
You can’t be yelling out ‘guillotine, guillotine,’ you know. You must not be yelling things like “Zionists don’t deserve to live” or “globalize the Intifada.” “The thousands of young people who want the war to end are being diminished by the handful of protesters who are inciting violence or engaging in antisemitism,” he stated.
