Joe Biden says campus protests won’t make him reconsider Middle East policies – US politics live | Donald Trump

Joe Biden is already facing heat from some Democratic voters for his support of Israel as it invades Gaza following the 7 October attack. As the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reported earlier this week, the unrest on college campuses targeted at America’s closest Middle East ally could present the latest complication to his campaign for another four years in the White House:

The policies of Joe Biden and Democrats towards Israel, which have prompted thousands of students across the country to protest, could affect the youth vote for Biden and hurt his re-election chances, experts have warned, in what is already expected to be a tight election.

Thousands of students at universities across the US have joined with pro-Palestine rallies and, most recently, encampments, as Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 people.

Some of the protests began as a call to encourage universities to ditch investments in companies that provide weapons and equipment to the Israeli military. But as the Biden administration has continued to largely support Israel, the president has increasingly become a focus of criticism from young people. Polling shows that young Americans’ support for Biden has been chipped away since 2020.

With Biden narrowly trailing Trump in several key swing states, it’s a voting bloc the president can ill afford to lose.

“The real threat to Biden is that younger voters, especially college-educated voters, won’t turn out for him in the election,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I wouldn’t expect that the protesters on campuses today are going to vote for Trump, almost none of them will. That’s not the danger here. The danger is much simpler: that they simply won’t vote.”

Joe Biden spoke about the nationwide protests against Israel at college campuses after police arrested more than 100 people at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Follow our live blog for more on the ongoing demonstration wave:

In his brief speech on the pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, Joe Biden cast himself as a defender of free speech rights, but said the demonstrations should not disrupt students’ learning.

“Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others, so students can finish the semester and their college education. Look, it’s basically a matter of fairness. It’s a matter of what’s right. There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. People have the right to get an education, right to get a degree, right to walk across campus safely without fear of being attacked,” the president said.

He later added:

There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for antisemitism, or threats of violence against Jewish students. There is no place for hate speech, or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place for racism in America. It’s all wrong. It’s not American.

Biden concluded with:

As president, I will always defend free speech. And I will always be just as strong in standing up for the rule of law. That’s my responsibility to you, the American people, my obligation to the constitution.

Joe Biden spoke for just three minutes before wrapping up.

Just after he finished, a reporter asked if the protests would make him reconsider any of his Middle East policies.

“No,” the president replied.

Another asked if he planned to send the national guard to universities hit by the demonstrations, as some Republican lawmakers have called for.

“No” was Biden’s answer.

Joe Biden attempted to draw a fine line between peaceful protests, which he says are protected by the law, and violent demonstrations, in his White House remarks amid widespread pro-Palestine protests at college campuses.

“In America, violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is,” the president said.

“It’s against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest. Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law.”

Joe Biden has begun his speech, which he says will address the recent anti-Israel protests on college campuses.

We’ll let you know what he says.

Joe Biden is often late to begin his speeches.

This one, scheduled to start at 10.30am, appears to be no different.

NBC News reports that the topic of Joe Biden’s surprise address from the White House will be the protests against Israel that have occurred on college campuses nationwide:

The White House announced at 10.29am that Joe Biden would make an unscheduled speech at 10.30am – a one-minute warning.

But the president is now 10 minutes late.

The speech is already unusual for its short notice, and the White House’s lack of detail about what the president is addressing.

The White House just announced that Joe Biden will imminently deliver remarks, but the topic was not specified.

The speech was not previously scheduled. We will let you know what the president has to say.

Donald Trump’s rally in Wisconsin yesterday was part of a brief campaign trip through two swing states that will be crucial to deciding the November elections. The Guardian’s David Smith documented the former president’s appearance in Michigan farm country:

At a remote rural airport in Michigan, an outsized plane touched down as music from Tom Cruise’s film Top Gun boomed from loudspeakers. Late afternoon sunshine gleamed off five giant golden letters on the plane’s side – “TRUMP” – and its Rolls-Royce engines. A crowd bedecked in red roared as the plane rolled to a standstill behind a blue “TRUMP” lectern.

A door opened and men in dark glasses and dark suits from what Donald Trump would call “central casting” made their way down the stairs. “Trump! Trump!” the audience chanted, raising hundreds of camera phones in eager anticipation. Great Balls of Fire, Macho Man and YMCA blared. Finally, the former and would-be future president emerged, clapping and fist-pumping to the sound of whoops and cheers and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.

How different the warm embrace from Trump’s recent experience as a defendant on criminal trial in a chilly, dingy courtroom in New York. On those days, threatened with prison, he looks old, vulnerable and small. Back on the election campaign trail, it is all about hypermasculine energy and bigness – big plane, big crowds, big promises and big lies.

Trump had spent Tuesday in the now grimly familiar routine of the courtroom, where he is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels. But the the court does not sit on Wednesday, freeing him to get a fresh shot of adulation from his fan base.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked Donald Trump for his thoughts on Wisconsin’s abortion ban, which is being challenged before the state supreme court, where liberal justices recently gained a majority.

The former president declined to comment, and generally avoided the issue in his rally in Waukesha, instead repeating that he thought it should be up to states to regulate the procedure, the Journal Sentinel reports.

Trump had a major role in the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, which paved the way for states to outlaw the procedure entirely, but has since fueled a string of Democratic victories in state and federal elections. He appointed three of the conservative judges who signed on to that ruling, but has since tried to avoid campaigning forcefully on the issue of abortion.

Yesterday, Kamala Harris traveled to Florida to decry a strict abortion ban that went into effect there, and warned voters not to believe Trump’s insistence that he was not interested in passing a federal law cutting off access to the procedure. Here’s a recap of her speech:

Yesterday, Donald Trump had the day off from his trial in New York City on charges related to falsifying business records, and held a rally in Wisconsin, a swing state crucial to his presidential election chances. After a speech spent attacking Joe Biden over his handling of border security and inflation, Trump gave an interview to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in which he falsely insisted that he won Wisconsin in 2020 (he did not) and “other locations”, and refused to commit to accepting the results of this year’s vote.

“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country,” the former president said.

The comments were yet another indication that Americans should be prepared for a rocky election aftermath, should Trump lose in November to Biden. After the Democrat defeated him in 2020, Trump spent weeks attempting various plots to prevent Biden from taking power, culminating in the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Of course, there’s the chance that Trump could indeed win election again, as he did in 2016 – polls currently show a tight race with Biden, including in Wisconsin.

Here’s what else is happening today:

• Trump is back in Manhattan as his trial resumes with testimony from Keith Davidson, a lawyer for adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who is at the heart of the allegations against the former president. We have a live blog covering everything that goes on in the courtroom.

• Police moved in against protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles as colleges nationwide grapple with anti-Israel demonstrations. Follow our live blog for more on this developing story.

• Biden is heading to North Carolina to pay his respects to the four law enforcement officers killed while serving a warrant earlier this week, then will speak about his economic policies in the city of Wilmington at 4.30pm ET.