Biden has a serious problem with young voters

After weeks of silence, President Joe Biden finally weighed in on the pro-Palestinian protests that have spread across college campuses nationwide. In his remarks on Thursday, Biden tried to walk a tightrope, mollifying two key campus constituencies: student protesters who are demanding that their universities divest from companies profiting from the Israel-Hamas war, and students who have been sounding the alarm of antisemitism on campus and the occupation of university property.

In doing so, Biden acknowledged the right to protest while calling for order. “Peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues,” Biden said. At the same time, “violent protest is not protected — peaceful protest is,” he added.

Biden went on to say, “People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across the campus safely without fear of being attacked … There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans.”