WASHINGTON — Protests on college campuses related to the Israel-Hamas war and humanitarian crisis inside Gaza that turned violent this week handed President Joe Biden a political headache and former President Donald Trump a new attack line. The unrest showed the risks of being the incumbent and allowed Trump to — once again — push his hardline views as disrupter in chief.
Biden and his campaign aides have mostly dismissed criticism from Arab American groups for months over his “ironclad” backing of Israel. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed in Israel’s brutal response i to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that killed more than 1,000 Israeli citizens.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, jousted with a number of reporters Wednesday over the protests — but she never directly addressed them nor gave a clear reason why Biden had not publicly done so.
Biden’s seeming goal of avoiding ownership of the campus violence and his silence, which ended with previously unannounced remarks Thursday morning from the White House, created a vacuum at the start of the week — one that Trump seemed happy to fill.
“The protests shine a perfect light on the two candidates’ contrasting styles. There is really no federal jurisdiction over the incidents of campus unrest. As a result, you see Biden playing a sober, hands-off role, using the bully pulpit cautiously,” former Florida GOP Rep. David Jolly said in an email. “Conversely, Trump and his allies are reaching for hyperbole and spectacle, promising crackdowns and a boorish strength without any grounding in the realities of governing, nor the delicate balance between rights of speech and assembly, violations of the rights of others, and the complexities of a war we don’t control.
“Biden is exercising the presidency within its contours. Trump promises to shatter those contours.”
As Biden was out of public view for four days after headlining a…
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