President Joe Biden will address student protests over the Gaza war on Thursday, breaking days of silence amid police crackdowns on campus encampments, according to White House officials.
The official declined to be named ahead of Biden’s speech.
Republicans sought to turn scenes of rioting into a campaign cudgel against Democrats.
Tensions have been rising at colleges and universities for days, with some demonstrators refusing to dismantle encampments and administrators turning to law enforcement to clear them with force, leading to clashes that drew attention from politicians and the media.
But Biden’s last public comments were more than a week ago, when he condemned “anti-Semitic protests” and “those who don’t understand what is happening to the Palestinians.”
The White House, peppered with questions from reporters, went only slightly further than the president. On Wednesday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was “monitoring the situation closely,” saying some demonstrations had crossed the line between free speech and illegal conduct.
“Forcibly occupying a building,” such as what happened at New York’s Columbia University, “is not peaceful,” she said. “But in fact, it’s not.”
Biden never had many protests. His elected career began as a county official at the age of 28, and he always advocated compromise over zealous political importance.
In 1968, Biden was attending Syracuse University Law School as college campuses were abuzz with the Vietnam War.
“I didn’t really like flak jackets and tie-dye shirts,” he said years later. “You know, that’s not me.”
Despite criticism from the White House and Biden’s refusal to heed protesters’ calls to cut off U.S. support for Israel, Republicans blamed the unrest on Democrats and used it as the backdrop for news conferences.
“We need the president of the United States to speak out on this issue and say this is wrong,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said on Tuesday. “What’s happening on college campuses right now is wrong.”
Johnson visited Colombia last week with other members of his caucus. House Republicans argued with protesters on Wednesday as they addressed the media at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
The party’s presumptive nominee, former President Donald Trump, also criticized Biden in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News.
“Biden has to do something,” he said. “Biden should be the voice of our country, but it’s certainly not a big voice. It’s a voice that no one is hearing.
He reiterated his criticism Wednesday at a campaign event in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
“As you may have noticed, radical extremists and far-left agitators are terrorizing college campuses,” Trump said. “And Biden is nowhere to be seen. He said nothing.
Kate Berner, who served as deputy communications director for the 2020 Biden campaign, said Republicans had already tried the same tactic four years ago during protests over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police.
“People rejected this,” she said. “They thought it was just alarmism. They found out it wasn’t based in reality.
The White House has been reluctant to engage directly in the issue beyond condemning anti-Semitism.
Jean-Pierre repeatedly dodged questions during Monday’s press conference.
Asked whether the protesters should be disciplined by the school, she said “universities and colleges make their own decisions” and “we’re not going to get involved here.”
Asked whether the police should be involved, she said “it depends on the college and the university.”
When asked about administrators rescheduling graduation ceremonies, she said “that’s a decision they have to make” and “it’s up to them.”
Biden will visit college campuses in person on May 19, when he will deliver the commencement address at Morehouse University in Atlanta.
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Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami and White House correspondent Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
