Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday said he intended to call President Biden and demand that he take action, including potentially sending in the National Guard, to quell pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University that he said had grown violent and antisemitic.
“There is executive authority that would be appropriate,” Mr. Johnson said during a news conference on the steps of Low Library, where he was booed and heckled by some onlookers. “If these threats are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard. We have to bring order to these campuses.”
A number of hard-right Republican lawmakers, including Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, have recently called for the troops to be sent in to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
Organizers of many of the campus groups leading protests around the country have said they denounce violence and antisemitism. But as tensions have risen in recent days, some of the demonstrators have used anti-Jewish and anti-Israel slurs and other threatening language, and some have expressed sympathy for Hamas.
Mr. Johnson, who is battling a rebellion on his right, is the latest Republican trying to reap political advantage from the explosive cultural moment unfolding on university campuses in response to the Israel-Gaza war. Republicans have tried to use the conflict, which is dividing progressives and posing a political problem for Mr. Biden, to put the academic left on the spot and position themselves as the party more steadfast in its support for Israel and concerned with the safety of Jews.
