Trump Pledges to Deport American College Students Protesting Israel in Private Meeting With Donors
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
During a closed-door meeting with wealthy donors earlier this month, former President Donald Trump pledged to expel pro-Palestinian protestors from the United States.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that the promise was made on May 14 at a roundtable event in New York when one of the donors present complained about the student protests that took place at universities across the country:
“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump said on May 14, according to donors at the event.
When one of the donors complained that many of the students and professors protesting on campuses could one day hold positions of power in the United States, Trump called the demonstrators part of a “radical revolution” that he vowed to defeat. He praised the New York Police Department for clearing the campus at Columbia University and said other cities needed to follow suit, saying “it has to be stopped now.”
“Well, if you get me elected, and you should really be doing this, if you get me reelected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” he said, according to the donors, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail a private event.
Trump also reportedly reiterated his support for Israel in its fight against Hamas, but did not mention Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; the Post noted that Trump “resents” Netanyahu for acknowledging President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
When the Post asked the Trump campaign about the promise to deport American students for protesting, they did not address the issue. The campaign’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an email: “When President Trump is back in the Oval Office, Israel will once again be protected, Iran will go back to being broke, terrorists will be hunted down, and the bloodshed will end.”
