Biden warned NOT to come to college because he could face anti-Israel protests from students and staff... as Karine Jean Pierre says she has 'no idea' what's happening on campuses
- Biden invited to speak at historically-black Morehouse College in Georgia
- Some alumni don't want him there due to his Israel policy
- READ MORE: Protests fill college campuses around nation
Some alumni of Morehouse College are warning President Joe Biden not give the school's commencement address later this year as White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she has 'no idea' about the protests happening on campuses across the country.
Protests over the administration's handling Israel's war in Gaza are growing around the nation: from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles to the University of Texas at Austin to Columbia University in New York, where House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on Wednesday.
Biden, on May 19th, will be the commencement speaker at Morehouse College in Georgia, a preeminent historically black school in a state he needs to win in order to defeat Donald Trump in November's election.
But some of the alumni of the Morehouse, where civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. graduated from, have criticized the school's decision to invite the president and asking for it to be rescinded.
A person is detained by police as pro-Palestinian students protest the Israel-Hamas war on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, Texas
Some alumni are circulating an online letter that condemns the invitation and seeks signatures to pressure Morehouse President David Thomas to rescind it.
The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, claimed Biden's approach to Israel effectively supports genocide in Gaza and runs counter to the pacifism that King expressed with his opposition to the Vietnam War.
Jean-Pierre said Biden planned to give the speech and was looking forward to speaking to the students.
'I understand this is a different moment in time that we're in. But [President Biden] always takes this moment as a special time to deliver a message - an encouraging message, a message that's hopefully uplifting to the graduates and their families,' she said at her daily White House press briefing.
But, bizarrely, she claimed to have no idea about what was happening around the country even though the protests are dominating the news cycle.
At the University of Texas at Austin, the state's flagship public university, the police arrested several pro-Palestinian protesters who had gathered south of the university's iconic clock tower.
'I can't speak to what's going on on the ground. I knows what UT, what happened, just happening now, happening today. So I have no idea on how that's been being dealt with on the ground,' Jean-Pierre said.
'Look, we've been very clear we want to see peaceful protests.'
Palestine demonstrators are gathering in protest both inside and outside the locked gates of the Columbia University campus
USC Public Safety Officers take town protesters' tents during a Gaza solidarity occupation on campus
'I have no idea on how that's been being dealt with on the ground,' Karine Jean-Pierre said of the student protests at the University of Texas
The protests are a distraction while the White House presses forward with negotiations over a cease-fire and the release of hostages held by Hamas while pushing Israel to limit casualties with more than 34,000 Palestinians dead.
At worst, they build momentum toward the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, potentially triggering scenes of violence that could recall the unrest of protests against the Vietnam War during the party´s convention there in 1968.
The protest at Morehouse could have personal political consequences for Biden as he seeks a second term.
It puts Biden's reelection campaign in a difficult position as the president works to court black voters who helped put him in the Oval Office.
'In inviting President Biden to campus, the college affirms a cruel standard that complicity in genocide merits no sanction from the institution that produced one of the towering advocates for nonviolence of the twentieth century,' the alumni letter states, emphasizing King's stance that 'war is a hell that diminishes' humanity as a whole.
'If the college cannot affirm this noble tradition of justice by rescinding its invitation to President Biden, then the college should reconsider its attachment to Dr. King.'
Polling suggests Biden is losing support among black Americans. More than half of Black adults approve of how he is handling his job as president, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in March, but that´s down significantly from when he took office and 94% approved of his performance.
Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson, visiting Columbia University, has demanded the White House take action and has even floated the possibility of bringing in the National Guard to quell the protests, which Republicans have called antisemitic.
He said he planned on calling President Biden to talk about the issue.
'There is executive authority that would be appropriate,' he said. 'If these threats are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard. We have to bring order to these campuses.'
Columbia University students are demanding that the university divest from any financial interests connected to Israel and offer amnesty to all activists for their protest actions.
Johnson was booed and heckled during his visit.
'Go back to class, and stop the nonsense,' he told the students. 'Stop wasting your parents' money.'
Students at University of Maryland take part in a sit-in protest on school campus
Speaker Mike Johnson was booed and heckled at Columbia University
President Joe Biden visited Morehouse College in January 2022 to talk about voting rights
Biden is not just being heckled at school campuses. He's been followed to political events, speeches and even his family's Thanksgiving vacation in Nantucket.
The issue has proven vexing for the president. He has long joined the U.S. foreign policy establishment in embracing Israel as an indispensable Middle East ally. Yet he also has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for mounting civilian deaths in Gaza and told him that future U.S. aid depends on Israel taking steps to protect civilians.
The approach has left Biden with vocal critics to his left and right at a time when he has little margin for error in battleground states, including Georgia, that are expected to decide his rematch with Trump.
Biden's speech at Morehouse will mark the second consecutive spring that the president has spoken to the graduating class of a historically Black school.
In 2023, he delivered the commencement address at Howard University. The Washington, D.C., school is the alma mater of Vice President Kamala Harris , the first Black woman to hold that office.
Morehouse, a private all-male school that is part of the multi-campus Atlanta University Center, also is the alma mater of Sen. Raphael Warnock , Georgia's first Black U.S. senator.
