Mayor Eric Adams Declines to Say How Many ‘Outside Agitators’ Were at Columbia When Pressed By NY1’s Pat Kiernan

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was pressed by New York 1 anchor Pat Kiernan about the number of “outside agitators” at the Columbia University protest.

This week, the NYPD broke up demonstrators occupying Columbia’s campus — who were protesting the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza region. According to multiple reports, the police crackdown led to the arrests of nearly 300 demonstrators.

Nationwide campus protests have broken out recently with pro-Palestine and pro-Israel demonstrators often engaging in violence against each other as was seen at UCLA earlier this week.

During a Thursday interview, Adams refused to say how many of the protesters arrested at Columbia were “outside agitators,” noting that one professor “poisoning a classroom” is just as concerning to him as “50 bad professors.”

KIERNAN: But is it half the protesters that were were from outside? Is it a quarter? Is it just a small number who who managed to have an outsize amount of influence?

ADAMS: Pat, I don’t think that matters. I gave you an analogy. One professor poisoning a classroom of students is just as dangerous if it’s 50 bad professors talking to 50 students. We don’t need outside agitators on our college campuses hijacking the democratic right that we should we have in this country. The right to protest protests is one thing. Breaking the law is another. And we’re not going to accept that in this city.

During an interview with NPR on Thursday, the mayor claimed “over 40%” of  the protesters arrested and overall demonstrators who were active in the protests at Columbia and CCNY were not students.

Watch the clip above via Spectrum News NY1.