White House Commends ‘Admirable’ Students Protecting American Flag

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks to the media during a press briefing at the White House in Washington on April 15, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The White House praised the actions of UNC-Chapel Hill fraternity brothers on May 3 for protecting the American flag from protestors looking to tear it down and replace it with a Palestinian flag.

“All Americans have the right to peacefully protest,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who deemed it “admirable” to protect the flag. “It is not right to forcefully forcefully take down the American flag to replace it with another flag. It is not right.”

The White House also affirmed the position taken by President Joe Biden in his May 2 address on the ongoing pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, specifically that while the administration remains committed to the rule of law, it also opposes the idea of activating the National Guard.

“That is something that governors decide on,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said of deploying the National Guard. She also said that it is the universities and colleges that decide whether or not police presence is the right way to move forward.

“We have to follow the rule of law,” she said. “Violence is not protected here. But Americans have the right to peacefully, peacefully protest within the law, and we’re going to be very consistent here.”

‘Biden’s Vietnam’?

Ms. Jean-Pierre repeated several times during the day’s press briefing that the White House acknowledged that “it is an incredibly charged time” and a “charged environment.”

One reporter pointed out that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) recently likened the current “charged” time to that in 1968 when college students were up in arms protesting Vietnam and the then-Democratic President Lyndon Johnson.

“I am thinking back, and other people are making this reference that this may be Biden’s Vietnam,” Mr. Sanders told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on May 2, referring to President Biden’s reelection campaign.

“[Former President] Lyndon Johnson, in many respects, was a very, very good president. Domestically, he brought forth some major pieces of legislation. He chose not to run in ’68 because of opposition to his views on Vietnam, and I worry very much that President Biden is putting himself in a position where he has alienated not just young people but a lot of the Democratic base in terms of his views on Israel and this war,” Mr. Sanders said.

When asked for the White House’s response to the comments, Ms. Jean-Pierre started by saying, “I want to be super careful because that’s kind of leading into a campaign space.”

“Joe Biden ended the longest war in American history and succeeded in convincing both parties in Congress to make crucial investments in our national security and Ukraine to help ensure we won’t be drawn into conflict in Europe,” she said.

“And that is the president’s leadership that you’ve seen, right and that is one of the reasons he’s been able to bring NATO together in a way that we have not seen before.”

Ms. Jean-Pierre went on to list an array of President Biden’s actions over the last three years, from taking action against anti-Semitism and making sure the “rich” pay their “fair share” to trying to cancel student debt and tackling “Big Pharma” and, building “an economy that helps everyone.”

“Those agendas are incredibly popular, and so he’s going to continue to do that work,” she said.

When asked outright if the White House disagreed with that characterization, she said, “They have their opinions, and they’re allowed to their opinions and—and we respect—we respect with their opinions on this.”