Former United States President Donald Trump has promised his campaign donors that he would deport “pro-Palestinian” student protesters to get them to “behave” if he returned to the White House for a second term.
Trump made the declaration while addressing a roundtable event in New York earlier this month as anti-Israel demonstrations swept the United States, The Washington Post reported.
“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump allegedly said on May 14.
Trump reportedly said that the group of donors encompassed “98 per cent of my Jewish friends”.
The presumptive Republican nominee said that protests against the Gaza war were part of a “radical revolution” and said to the predominantly Jewish donors that he would push the movement back 25 or 30 years if he defeats Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.
“If you get me re-elected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” said Trump.
The college campuses in the United States have been swept by protests since October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel in which nearly 1,200 people were killed.