Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), and Committee Chairs to discuss House Republicans’ plans to take action in response to the alarming rise of violent antisemitic mobs on college campuses around the country. Leader Scalise called out the university presidents who have allowed violence and intimidation of Jewish students on their campuses without serious consequences, and announced that Committee Chairs will be examining the billions of dollars of federal funding these schools receive.
     

On growing antisemitism across the nation:

“Since October 7th, when a terrorist organization backed by Iran, known as Hamas, invaded Israel, you have seen a growing wave of antisemitism. Obviously, in Israel, we saw a war declared on them. And Israel said we're going to defend our state. And you saw, by the way, these colleagues here and so many of my House colleagues stand and say, we support Israel's right to defend themselves as a Jewish state. But something else alarming that you started to see happen after that is when we started taking action here and that is when you started seeing antisemitism grow here in the United States, here on college campuses, and, in fact, here on the House floor by some of our colleagues on the other side. And we've been speaking out against it vocally. 

“This is an area where you have to learn from the mistakes of history because if you don't learn from the mistakes of history, we're all doomed to repeat it. Let's not forget what happened in the lead-up to World War II. And so when you see some of the things that these – whether you call them terrorist sympathizers, anarchists. They're organized when they show up and they all have the same kind of tents; when they all are from out of state in many of these places where they're showing up.”

On universities needing to take action against terrorist-supporting mobs:

“It's an organized mob trying to ensue chaos and breed antisemitism. And if we don't stand up against it every place we see it, and more importantly, if we don't call on those people whose main job is to protect the people that they're tasked with looking over, look at these college presidents. You know, and we're tasking all of our Committee Chairs to look into the billions of federal taxpayer dollars that go to these universities. And part of the reason that goes to these universities is so they can provide a good education for their students, so they can provide a safe environment for their students. And if these presidents won't provide that safe environment, then those university presidents need to go, they need to resign. And we've been very vocal about calling on them to step down as well, because they're not only failing their students, but they're disgracing the universities. Many of these universities that have long and storied reputations that are being tarnished – many of them permanently. Parents that won't even send their kids to the schools anymore because their kids are no longer safe.”

On House Republicans' push for accountability:

“We're seeing it play out today on many campuses across the nation. But here in this House, with our majority, we're going to continue to hold these people accountable for the money that they get and for the failures that they're ensuing. If you look at what happened – and [Rep.] Elise [Stefanik] touched on it a little earlier, over a billion people watched that video that she talked about. Over a billion people watched a Congressional hearing, I like to think there's interest that high in every Congressional hearing we have, but America's watching, and even more than that the world is watching. And so we need to continue to show the moral clarity between right and wrong and call out antisemitism and attacks on Jewish people and anybody else for their faith for what it is and stand up against the people that are doing it.”