By Nathan Layne
(Reuters) – Donald Trump on Thursday criticized the largely peaceful protests on American college campuses over Israel’s war in Gaza, describing them as “tremendous hatred,” while saying the violence at a white nationalist rally in Virginia when he was president was “a small peanut by comparison.” ‘ used to be.
Trump, the Republican candidate for president in the November election, also tried to blame Democrats for the campus protests President Joe Biden.
In remarks to the media following that day’s testimony in his criminal trial in New York City, Trump referenced the violent 2017 clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white nationalists and counter-protesters, in which one woman was killed, and claimed that the current university protests over Israel were much worse.
“Charlottesville was a small peanut. And it was nothing compared to – and the hate was not the kind of hate that you have here,” Trump said, repeating a claim he made on his social media platform on Wednesday.
Trump was strongly criticized in the days after the Charlottesville rally for equating white supremacists with counter-protesters and saying “both sides” were to blame. A woman was hit by a car and killed during the clashes, and Trump’s response developed into a crisis for his administration.
Protests by students opposing Israel’s war in Gaza have escalated at universities across the United States in recent days, though they have been largely peaceful, with no known deaths and no violent clashes between demonstrators in Charlottesville.
University authorities have tried to clear many of the protest camps, saying they are often unauthorized and have called in police. About 500 protesters have been arrested in the past week.
Trump also targeted Biden on Thursday over the campus protests, barely more than six months before the November presidential election, when the two are expected to face a rematch.
“This is 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 with 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 that the protests are anti-Semitic. While they have acknowledged that hateful rhetoric is sometimes directed at Jewish students, they emphasize that people who tried to infiltrate and defame their movement are responsible for any intimidation.
Trump has denounced the violence in Charlottesville in the past. A year after the meeting, he wrote on Twitter that the meeting had “resulted in senseless death and division,” while condemning all forms of racism and violence.
Trump is currently on trial in New York for falsifying business records related to a payment to a porn star to keep her quiet about an affair before the 2016 election. Trump has denied wrongdoing.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Conn.; Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Leslie Adler)
