(NEW YORK) — Speaker Mike Johnson, claiming that Hamas supports the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests at Columbia University and other of the U.S. colleges, on Thursday threatened congressional intervention, including pulling federal funding from the institutions.
“The things that have happened at the hands of Hamas are horrific, and yet these protestors are out there waving flags for the very people who committed those crimes. This is not who we are in America,” Johnson, the top House Republican, said in a post on X on Thursday morning. ABC News has not documented any cases of protesters waving Hamas flags, as Johnson suggested.
Student protests at Columbia and other schools have primarily denounced Israeli military action in Gaza and expressed support for Palestinian civilians, rather than expressing support for Hamas. School administrators and officials have said the protests on their campuses have been largely peaceful.
Citing a statement Hamas issued Wednesday, Johnson said Hamas “backed” the protests at Columbia specifically, which began April 17. Johnson added in a separate post on X that “taxpayer dollars should not be going to institutions that allow this chaos.”
In the Hamas statement, its spokesperson Izzat Al-Risheq blamed President Joe Biden for “violating the individual rights and the right to expression through arresting university students and faculty members for their rejection of the genocide to which our Palestinian people are being subjected in the Gaza Strip at the hands of the neo-Nazi Zionists.”
“Today’s students are the leaders of the future, and their suppression today means an expensive electoral bill that the Biden administration will pay sooner or later,” Al-Risheq wrote in the statement.
In response to Hamas’ statement, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told ABC News that “Hamas perpetrated the deadliest massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, which makes them the least credible voice that exists on this subject.”
“Hamas’ disapproval, after their acts of ‘unadulterated evil’ — which they’ve pledged to repeat ‘again and again’ — is a testament to President Biden’s moral clarity. President Biden has stood against Antisemitism his entire life. And he will never stop,” Bates said.
Johnson’s comments on Thursday came a day after he visited Columbia University, where he met with Jewish students and joined his New York House Republican colleagues in calling for the school’s president, Minouche Shafik, to resign if she can’t bring order to the protests. In a speech, during which boos and shouts from protesters often overpowered the speaker’s words, Johnson considered the need to send the National Guard to intervene.
In an interview with ABC News’ Linsey Davis on Wednesday, Johnson cited the statement and said Hamas sees Columbia’s protesters as the future leaders of America.
“We should hope not,” Johnson said. “Hamas is a terrorist organization.”
Johnson said federal funding should be revoked if universities cannot maintain control of the protests and prevent violence.
“If [school administrators] can’t get control of this, we will take the funding away from these universities. The Congress has a responsibility to do that, the power of the purse, and we will use it, and we will hold these administrators accountable,” Johnson told Davis.
While Johnson mentioned violence on campus, the New York Police Department said earlier this week that there are no credible threats to any particular group or individual as a result of the protests at Columbia University. The department said it had not received any reports of physical harm toward any students.
Last week, more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested at Columbia as they called for the divestment of college and university funds from Israeli military operations. Other participants in Columbia’s ongoing, encampment-style protests were suspended and removed from campus.
The demonstrations followed Shafik’s testimony to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about antisemitism on college campuses, during which she said she has taken actions to combat antisemitism on campus since a terror attack on Oct. 7 sparked Israel’s war with Hamas.
New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik called for Shafik’s resignation days later, writing in a post on X that Columbia “failed to enforce their own campus rules and protect Jewish students on campus.”
While there have been some instances of violence and offensive or antisemitic rhetoric during the protests, school administrators, New York police and protesters themselves have largely blamed that activity on individuals not affiliated with the schools.
“… Tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas,” Shafik said earlier this week.
Columbia spokesman Ben Chang said the student encampment on campus has raised serious safety concerns. He added that Columbia will not tolerate harassment and discriminatory behavior, and the university will investigate to see if any student protestors violated community rules.
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In response to some student concerns about safety amid on-campus tension, some universities have responded by opting for remote or hybrid learning options.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart and Kiara Alfonseca contributed to this report.
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