Donald Trump has joined the chorus of presidential candidates reacting to anti-racism protests at the University of Missouri (Mizzou), which culminated this week with the resignation of both the university’s president and chancellor.
Asked by Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo about the protests — spurred by a number of racist incidents on campus including a swastika drawn on a bathroom wall in feces — Trump said they were “disgusting.”
“I think it’s disgusting. I think it’s disgusting,” he said. “I think the two people that resigned are weak, ineffective people. … Trump should have been the chancellor of that University. Believe me. There would have been no resignation.”
The Mizzou protests are being led by a campus group called Concerned Student 1950, named after the first year that black students were admitted to the college. The group asserts that the university hasn’t done enough to handle racist incidents and discrimination on campus. To protest, graduate student Jonathan Butler began a hunger strike, and the black members of the school’s football team refused to play or practice until Butler ate.
The resignation of the president and chancellor was one of the group’s demands. But there are more — the demands also include increasing black representation among university staff, increasing funding for social justice and mental health centers, and improving retention for minority students, who are more likely to drop out.
On Thursday, Trump called those demands “crazy.”
“Their demands are like, crazy,” he said. “The things that they’re asking for, many of the things that they’re asking for, many of those things are like, crazy.”
Trump is not the first presidential candidate to react negatively to the anti-racism protests. On Wednesday, neurosurgeon Ben Carson called the protests “infantile.” On Thursday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie reacted by blaming President Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement for “strip[ping] people of hope.”