Nov 9, 2023
Republican Candidates' Bad-Faith Efforts To VILIFY College Protesters
Republican candidates vilified student protesters advocating for an Israeli ceasefire and mischaracterized their message.
- 9 minutes
I think you and I have been
consistent on this issue.
We have defended right wing speakers on
college campuses, even though we disagree
with those right wing speakers.
And the reason why we did that, guys,
is because freedom of expression
and freedom of speech is important.
Okay.
It can't just be important to you
when it comes to the issues you care about
[00:00:18]
and your ability to speak freely
on those issues.
It's important to protect
freedom of speech and expression,
regardless of who the messenger is
and what they're messaging.
Now, of course, there are certain
limitations to freedom of speech.
You can't incite violence, for instance.
But hate speech is also protected
under the First Amendment.
[00:00:35]
And so with that said,
I want to just get into what's happening
on college campuses right now because
there are two different groups of people.
Right.
And I think that the two groups of people
are in some cases unintentionally and in
other cases intentionally being conflated.
[00:00:52]
There are the people who are speaking out
in favor of Hamas, and they are getting
conflated with people who are not in favor
of Hamas, but do not agree with the US
providing unwavering support for Israel.
[00:01:07]
Knowing what Israel is carrying
out in the Gaza Strip, knowing what
the civilian death toll of Palestinians
happens to be in the Gaza Strip.
And so there's this effort
to really silence all protesters
right now on college campuses.
And I think it's wrong.
So when asked on the debate stage,
this question was asked, okay.
[00:01:26]
So when asked how they would respond
to anti-Semitism on college campuses,
the candidates vowed to crack down
on student protesters,
suggesting that pro-Palestinian activists
were expressing support for Hamas.
Only one, Vivek Ramaswami,
and I give him credit for this,
[00:01:41]
said students should not face retribution
defending their right to free speech.
Nikki Haley even suggested that college
administrators were more tolerant
of anti-Semitism as opposed to racism.
If the KKK were doing this, every
college president would be up in arms.
[00:01:56]
This is no different.
You should treat it exactly the same.
anti-Semitism is just as awful as racism.
Again, conflating pro-Palestinian protests
pro-Palestinian student groups
to individuals who support Hamas.
Again, there have been a few examples
of students saying things
[00:02:13]
that I vehemently disagree with.
I do not think you should be supportive
of Hamas, but to put this, you know,
description and use it against all
pro-Palestinian protesters on college
campuses, I think is wrong and not
only misleading, I think it's a lie.
[00:02:30]
Governor Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott
had some more extreme punishments in mind
when it came to these schools
and these students.
Let's take a look.
So let me just say to every single
university president in America, federal
funding is a privilege, not a right.
[00:02:48]
To every student who've come to our
country on a visa to a college campus.
Your visa is a privilege, not a right.
To all the students on visas
who are encouraging Jewish genocide,
[00:03:04]
I would deport you from those campuses.
We have to stand strong
with our Jewish Americans.
I was the first presidential candidate
to say, if you are here on a student visa,
as a foreign national,
you're making common cause with Hamas.
I'm canceling your visa and I'm
sending you home, no questions asked.
[00:03:23]
I already acted in Florida.
We had a group,
students for Justice of Palestine.
They said they are
common cause with Hamas.
They said we're not just in solidarity.
This is what we are.
We deactivated them.
We're not going to use state
tax dollars to fund jihad.
No way.
So I'm just addressing
what Tim Scott said.
[00:03:41]
I mean, I disagree with a lot of what was
said right there on that debate stage,
but Tim Scott just advocated
for the government to punish universities,
public universities.
Right, because public universities
are the ones that get federal dollars.
He wants the government to punish those
universities by taking away that federal
[00:04:01]
funding if they allow pro-Palestinian
protests on their campuses.
I don't know, I'm not a constitutional
expert, but isn't that unconstitutional?
Doesn't that go against
the First Amendment?
- That's the government punishing speech.
- So first of all, of course that's true.
[00:04:18]
And second of all,
look at the irony of the Republicans.
We're for freedom, man. Okay?
We want freedom of speech
for people supporting the Confederacy,
people being racist, people being sexist,
people being Nazis, freedom of speech,
or you're pro-Palestinian
and you don't want him killed.
[00:04:34]
Good. Ban him.
Throw him out of the country.
Take away all their funding.
Come on guys, no, seriously,
if you're a right winger and you really
have said these things about how much you
believe in freedom of speech,
I'm curious what your position is.
I look, I'll even go give you
the benefit of the doubt.
[00:04:50]
I think that a lot of the actual voters
that are right wingers are going to go,
nah, it's a fair point, man.
That's not freedom of speech.
So why are we doing this right?
But for the politicians.
Oh, forget about it. They don't care.
It's just a punch line to them.
They don't care
about freedom of speech at all.
[00:05:05]
The minute you disagree with them
or their donors, boom.
Your freedom of speech
is gone in a second.
What did DeSantis say there?
No questions asked.
How do you even know if they're guilty?
If you didn't ask him any questions,
how do you know if they were supporting
Hamas or if they were just supporting
Palestinian civilians?
[00:05:21]
You don't know
because you didn't ask him any questions.
In other words, if you disagree with my
political position, I will eliminate you.
That is the very opposite
of freedom of speech.
Inarguable.
I want to also note that just today,
1800 Jewish Americans put out a letter.
[00:05:37]
They signed a letter. Okay.
Basically arguing that support
showing support for Palestinians is not
the same as supporting Hamas, which is
which is obvious to anyone who's actually
[00:05:55]
thinking deeply about this, not even
thinking deeply, just actually stopping
to think about what they're saying and
what's actually going on in the country.
It's so obvious that literally everyone
outside of politicians and media figures
that are demagoguing on this issue.
No one thinks this, hey, hey, please don't
kill Palestinian babies is the equivalent
[00:06:13]
of supporting Hamas or being a terrorist.
Unless you've lost your mind
or your Republican, by the way,
or Democratic politician or media figure,
the demagogues are the only ones
saying absurd things like that.
Exactly.
So Naomi Klein was one
of the signatories for that letter.
[00:06:30]
And I think it's important to say that
because, again,
freedom of expression is important.
Obviously, I do not support speech
that incites violence or targets a
certain group to be persecuted in some way
or terrorized in some way.
[00:06:46]
But a lot of these protesters
are watching in horror as all of these
innocent civilians are dying.
And I think that we need to protect their
speech, even if you somehow disagree with
what they're saying, okay, that's fine.
But then engage in your own speech.
Explain why you disagree
with what they're saying.
[00:07:02]
And there have been pro-Israeli protests
happening in the country as well.
Good for you. I mean, that's awesome.
That is what the country
should be supportive of.
That's all I'll say about it. Yeah.
Two more things for me.
One, now, some Fox News anchors
like Harris Faulkner is saying that these
[00:07:17]
all of these protesters are terrorists.
Come on.
Okay. So now wait a minute.
How about the right wing? The right wing.
Fortunately, as domestic terrorists
in this country,
the FBI has said that they're the number
one domestic terrorist group.
First of all, does that make all
the right wingers terrorists?
[00:07:33]
Of course not. That's insanity.
Right?
That's a tiny microscopic percentage
of right wingers that have actually
done acts of terrorism in this country.
Same thing with Muslims, by the way,
a microscopic percentage of Muslims,
compared to the 1.6 billion Muslims that
exist in the world, let alone protesters.
[00:07:50]
So imagine if they said that
about right wing protesters.
Hey, they are supporting causes
that lead to the right
wing terrorism in this country.
That's it. They're all terrorists.
All of you right wingers
are terrorists, right?
That's insane.
You would never be in favor of that.
And you shouldn't be in favor of that
if you just substitute in Palestinians
[00:08:08]
versus right wingers, right?
Second and last thing.
So Nikki Haley says that she's
very concerned and that these protesters,
the great majority of which are
just saying, please stop killing
Palestinian civilians, they're the KKK.
[00:08:24]
If you want to stop killing civilians,
that's the KKK.
Okay.
By the way, these anti-Semitic protesters,
we condemn them.
Just what's so hard about that?
I don't have to arrest them.
I don't have to kill them.
I don't have to throw them
out of the country.
But, yeah, don't be an anti-Semitic prick.
Don't be.
And we'll fight you 100%. So that's easy.
[00:08:41]
Speech against speech. Right.
But she says, no, they're the KKK.
All the protesters,
if they dare to support Palestinians.
I don't remember these same politicians
going ballistic when Nick Fuentes and
Kanye West had dinner with Donald Trump.
Weird.
And they both said
that they were in favor of Hitler.
[00:09:00]
Do you remember talking to the KKK and
how Donald Trump should be disqualified
and should never be run for office again
because he's having dinner with Nazis?
He'd remember earlier, he said, that there
were good people on the Nazi side.
Remember the other day he used the Nazi
quote about how immigrants are poisoning
[00:09:17]
the blood of our nation?
Only Hitler and Trump
have used that quote.
Did I see everyone on that stage go KKK,
Nazis, we should ban
Donald Trump's speech.
No. When he's actually praising Nazis
and having dinner with them,
no problem at all.
So this isn't about anti-Semitism at all,
[00:09:35]
is you always these corrupt politicians
with their own agenda to start more wars?
That's what this is about.
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