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

Some Morehouse College alumni are warning President Joe Biden not to deliver the school’s commencement address later this year, as White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she has “no idea” about the protests taking place on campuses in the whole country.

Protests over the government’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza are growing across the country: 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 was published on Wednesday.

Biden will be the commencement speaker on May 19 at Morehouse College in Georgia, a historically black school par excellence in a state he must win to defeat Donald Trump in the November elections.

But some alumni of the Morehouse, where civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. graduated, have criticized the school’s decision to invite the president and ask for its withdrawal.

Some alumni are circulating a letter online condemning the invitation and asking for signatures to pressure Morehouse President David Thomas to withdraw the invitation.

The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, argued that Biden’s approach to Israel actually supports the genocide in Gaza and runs counter to the pacifism King expressed in opposing the war in Vietnam.

Jean-Pierre said Biden planned to give the speech and looked forward to speaking to the students.

“I understand this is a different moment we’re in. But (President Biden) always sees this moment as a special moment to deliver a message – an encouraging message, a message that will hopefully be uplifting to the graduates and their families. she said during her daily press conference at the White House.

But bizarrely, she claimed to have no idea what was happening across the country, even as the protests dominate the news cycle.

At the University of Texas at Austin, the state’s main public university, police arrested several pro-Palestinian protesters who had gathered south of the university’s iconic clock tower.

‘I can’t talk about what’s happening on the ground. I know what UT is, what happened, what is happening now, what is happening today. So I have no idea how this is being handled locally,” Jean-Pierre said.

“Look, we’ve made it very clear that we want to see peaceful protests.”

The protests are a distraction as the White House continues negotiations for a ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas, while Israel pushes to limit casualties, with more than 34,000 Palestinian dead.

At worst, they build momentum heading into the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, potentially setting off scenes of violence that could recall the unrest of the anti-Vietnam War protests at the party’s 1968 convention there.

The protest at Morehouse could have personal political ramifications for Biden as he seeks a second term.

It puts Biden’s reelection campaign in a difficult position as the president tries to court Black voters who helped put him in the Oval Office.

“By inviting President Biden to campus, the college is reaffirming the cruel standard that complicity in genocide does not merit sanction from the institution that produced one of the twentieth century’s great advocates for nonviolence,” the alumni letter states, expressing King’s position emphasizes that ‘war is a hell that diminishes humanity as a whole.

“If the college cannot affirm this noble tradition of justice by withdrawing its invitation to President Biden, then the college must rescind its commitment to Dr. Reconsider King.’

Polls show that Biden is losing support among black Americans. According to a March AP-NORC poll, more than half of black adults approve of the way he is handling his job as president, but that is down significantly from when he took office, with 94% approving of his performance.

Meanwhile, President Mike Johnson, who was visiting Columbia University, has demanded the White House take action and even raised the possibility of calling in the National Guard to quell the protests, which Republicans have called anti-Semitic.

He said he planned to call 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 opportune time for the National Guard. We need to bring order to these campuses.”

Students at Columbia University are demanding that the university renounce all financial interests linked to Israel and grant amnesty to all activists for their protest actions.

Johnson was booed and heckled during his visit.

“Go back to class and stop that nonsense,” he told the students. “Stop wasting your parents’ money.”

Biden isn’t just being harassed on school campuses. He is followed at political events, speeches and even his family’s Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket.

The issue has proven to be vexing for the president. He has long aligned himself with the American foreign policy establishment by embracing Israel as an indispensable Middle East ally. Yet he has also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over rising civilian deaths in Gaza, telling him that future US aid depends on Israel taking steps to protect civilians.

The approach has earned Biden vocal critics left and right at a time when he has little room for error in battleground states, including Georgia, that are expected to decide his rematch with Trump.

Biden’s speech at Morehouse marks 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, is also the alma mater of Senator Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first black U.S. senator.