Trump tells donors he will crush pro-Palestinian protests if re-elected

Donald Trump has told a group of wealthy donors that he will crush pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses if he is returned to the White House.

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee called the demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza part of a “radical revolution” and promised the predominantly Jewish donors that he would set the movement back 25 or 30 years if they helped him beat Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.

“If you get me re-elected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” Trump replied, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the event.

Trump also said his administration would expel any foreign students found to be taking part in the protests, which have recently taken the form of tented encampments in colleges across the US.

Addressing the meeting in New York on 14 May, Trump heard one donor complain that many of the students and faculty academics taking part in the protests could, in future, hold positions of power in the US.

He praised New York police for clearing the encampments at Columbia University and said the approach should be emulated by other cities, adding: “It has to be stopped now.”

Republicans have increasingly sought to make the campus protests an election issue, depicting them as a manifestation of “chaos” rampaging unchecked on Biden’s watch.

Congressional Republicans have staged a series of hearings on Capitol Hill to highlight the trend, focusing on reports of antisemitism among protesters and alleging multiple failures of university presidents to combat it.

In the latest hearing last week, GOP members of the education and the workforce committee assailed the presidents of Northwestern and Rutgers universities for negotiating