Former President Donald Trump is trying to blame President Joe Biden for a wave of campus protests that have devolved into antisemitic harassment and even vandalism.
But Trump’s decision to compare the anti-Israel demonstrations to the white supremacist violence that took place in Charlottesville almost seven years ago is giving Democrats ammunition to blunt that line of attack.
Several times in the last week, Trump has invoked the 2017 rally, in which he infamously suggested there were “very fine people on both sides,” to magnify the crisis taking place under Biden’s watch. Protesters have ignored university demands to clear their encampments and, at Columbia University, took over a building this week, forcing a police response.
“Charlottesville is peanuts compared to what you’re looking at now,” Trump said Tuesday outside of his criminal trial in New York. “This whole country is up in arms.”
The protests give Trump a chance to put Biden on defense on a matter that has fractured Democrats and threatens his standing with young voters. After a week of silence, the president delivered a brief address from the White House in which he denounced the chaos.
“Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation — none of this is a peaceful protest,” Biden said Thursday.
But the former president’s repeated mention of Charlottesville has also handed Democrats a chance to relitigate a deadly event that Biden says inspired him to run for president.
The White House issued a statement last week calling Trump’s remarks a “repugnant and divisive” attempt to downplay the violence of Charlottesville, a sentiment echoed by Biden’s allies on Capitol Hill.
“Trump has put his foot in his mouth so many times, but this is one of the classics,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, of the former president’s response to the Virginia rally, in which a white supremacist drove into a crowd of counterdemonstrators, killing Heather Heyer, 32.
“Charlottesville was not a small thing. Those protesters were white supremacists,” added Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who also called the disorder on college campuses “deeply concerning.”
The White House has repeatedly invoked Charlottesville to make the case that Biden opposes antisemitism in all of its forms. Campus protesters have expressed support for the extermination of Zionists, while chants of “Jews will not replace us!” could be heard at the 2017 rally.
At the time, Biden called the moment a “battle for the soul of this nation,” citing Trump’s “moral equivalency” between the neo-Nazi march and counterdemonstrators.
“No president has spoken more forcefully about combating antisemitism than this president,” White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre said Wednesday. “Let’s not forget, in 2017, he was very clear. What we saw, the antisemitic vile that we saw in Charlottesville, on the streets of Charlottesville, he called that out.”
Republicans want to discuss just about anything other than the Virginia rally. They have attempted to stay message-disciplined on the campus protests, calling for the defunding of universities that do not act forcefully when demonstrations turn antisemitic or violent.
“How he responded to that is probably a question for him,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) said of Trump’s comments on Wednesday. “All I know is what we’re seeing today, it really is vile and disgusting and needs to be dealt with.”
Even Democrats are surprised that Trump would bring up what is considered a black mark on his presidency.
“I’m just stunned that he would keep returning to that and try to minimize the seriousness of it and minimize his own role in praising those who were violent,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who says there’s still “scar tissue” from the rally in his home state.
Trump’s decision to revisit Charlottesville is not entirely surprising. His campaign is built, in part, on a series of grievances, among them the blame he was assigned for the Jan. 6 riot. On Tuesday, he questioned whether campus protesters would be prosecuted to the same extent as pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol.
“They took over a building — that is a big deal,” Trump said of the Columbia protesters. “And I wonder if what’s going to happen to them will be anything comparable to [Jan. 6, 2021].
“Let’s see how that all works out,” he added. “I think I can give you the answer right now.”
The Charlottesville comments are only a temporary diversion for the Biden campaign. Despite clinching the delegates needed to become the Democratic nominee for president in March, Biden has faced a coordinated campaign to vote “uncommitted” in each state primary.
Activists upset that Biden has not intervened in the Gaza war more forcefully even plan to stage demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in August.
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Biden has sought to balance those demonstrations, coming from his left flank, with calls to support Israel from the mainstream of his party. He imposed conditions on the Jewish state’s military operations after the deaths of seven humanitarian aid workers last month but has kept aid to Israel flowing as it battles the terrorist group Hamas.
Republicans have attempted to exploit that balancing act, accusing Biden of his own “both sides” moment when he condemned the antisemitic protests at Columbia but also “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
