Politics
Opinion: Are the campus protesters angry enough with Biden to vote for Trump?
The first time Americans younger than 21 years old could vote in a presidential election was when George McGovern challenged President Nixon in 1972, and conventional wisdom gave McGovern the edge with this new segment of the electorate. After all, McGovern was a Democrat who opposed the Vietnam War when college campuses were seething with protest, the military draft was still in effect and youthful rebellion was having a moment.
And yet on election day, Nixon drew surprising support from nearly half of first-time voters on his way to a landslide victory. Antiwar sentiment might have been widespread, but it wasn’t electorally consequential.
Today, as campus activism continues against U.S. support for Israel in its fight with Hamas in Gaza, young voters — who usually support Democrats — are threatening to withhold their votes from President Biden in protest. History may repeat itself. Their activism may amount to little when votes are counted in November. But if the conflict drives key votes, it could not only put Biden’s reelection at risk but also herald a turning point. This generation and this issue may greatly widen the perception of what matters most for emerging voters.
“Unlike some other foreign policy issues, young people may be viewing this conflict through a different lens that is informed by their generational experiences and, especially, their concerns about racial justice,” Alberto Medina wrote in a report for CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.
Although foreign affairs rarely sway voters in this country, young people may not be considering domestic and foreign issues in distinct silos but rather viewing them as deeply interconnected.
Polls already indicate a significant generation gap in how Americans view the Israeli-Hamas conflict; a Pew Research Center survey published in March shows 18- to 29-year-olds were far more critical of Israel and its government, and far more sympathetic to Hamas, than were their elders. Here’s just one data point, of many: Only 38% of the younger cohort said that Israel’s reason to fight Hamas was valid. Among those 65 and older, it was 78%.
That same survey showed that more than a third of the voters under 30 believed that Biden is favoring the Israelis too much in this conflict, far more than any other age group and a number that polls show is rising over time.
Those who argue, or perhaps wish, that this antipathy will not meaningfully affect electoral behavior in November can point to plenty of evidence beyond the historical anomaly it would represent. Polls show that fewer young people are closely following the conflict and as a result are less knowledgeable about it than their elders. And while the campus protesters, especially at elite universities, have dominated media coverage, they still represent a fraction of potential voters under 30. That was true in the Vietnam era as well — one 1969 study found that only 22% of college freshmen participated in a protest against the U.S. government in the previous year.
“There’s a very slim percentage of young people who identify as activist in a deep and sustained fashion,” Jerusha Conner, a professor of education at Villanova University who studies student engagement, told me.
Nonetheless, fueled by the ubiquity of social media, the focus on identity politics and the consequences of globalization, many younger people clearly view the Israel-Hamas war not as a distant problem but rather an outrage felt personally.
This wider perspective may in part reflect the way they have come to understand other issues as clearly both local and global. There’s a solid argument that policies dealing with climate change, for example, cannot be seen simply as domestic issues for those who are inheriting a hotter, more dangerous, less hospitable world. In an April poll, Pew found that 59% of voters under 30 in the U.S. ranked climate change as their top international priority — placing it far above more conventional foreign issues such as relations with China, Russia, NATO or North Korea.
The framing of the Israel-Hamas conflict in moral terms related to identity also brings it close to home. Many American Jews have long viewed the welfare of Israel as central to their identity; in growing numbers, other Americans, especially young Americans of color, connect what they consider oppressive Palestinian suffering with the racial injustice they observe and experience in this country.
Noting these trends, Conner is still not sure how or even whether this wider framing will directly affect voting behavior in November, even among voters active in campus protests. In 2020, she points out, “many activists were not enthused about Biden, but they held their nose and voted for him as a strategic choice. We could see some of the same this time. They are sorely disappointed by him but are savvy enough to understand the stakes.”
Even so, she sees an underlying challenge to the conventional wisdom about the way foreign ramifications of issues and foreign affairs could affect a U.S. election. In their broadest iteration, climate, immigration, reproductive rights, human rights — and the war in Gaza — represent “existential threats to this generation,” she said. “They see the connections. It’s all of a piece.”
Jane Eisner is the former editor in chief of the Forward, a national Jewish news outlet, and the former director of academic affairs at Columbia Journalism School.
Politics
Federal judge blocks Trump from cutting childcare funds to Democratic states over fraud concerns
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A federal judge Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from stopping subsidies on childcare programs in five states, including Minnesota, amid allegations of fraud.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee, didn’t rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but said the states had met the legal threshold to maintain the “status quo” on funding for at least two weeks while arguments continue.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns.
The programs include the Child Care and Development Fund, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and the Social Services Block Grant, all of which help needy families.
USDA IMMEDIATELY SUSPENDS ALL FEDERAL FUNDING TO MINNESOTA AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would withhold funds for programs in five Democratic states over fraud concerns. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
“Families who rely on childcare and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a statement on Tuesday.
The states, which include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, argued in court filings that the federal government didn’t have the legal right to end the funds and that the new policy is creating “operational chaos” in the states.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian at his nomination hearing in 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
In total, the states said they receive more than $10 billion in federal funding for the programs.
HHS said it had “reason to believe” that the programs were offering funds to people in the country illegally.
‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’: SENATE REPUBLICANS PRESS GOV WALZ OVER MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
The table above shows the five states and their social safety net funding for various programs which are being withheld by the Trump administration over allegations of fraud. (AP Digital Embed)
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, called the ruling a “critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration’s cruelty.” (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to HHS for comment.
In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leveling a stunning accusation at Vice President JD Vance amid the national furor over this week’s fatal shooting in Minnesota involving an ICE agent.
“I understand that Vice President Vance believes that shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not,” the four-term federal lawmaker from New York and progressive champion argued as she answered questions on Friday on Capitol Hill from Fox News and other news organizations.
Ocasio-Cortez spoke in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good after she confronted ICE agents from inside her car in Minneapolis.
RENEE NICOLE GOOD PART OF ‘ICE WATCH’ GROUP, DHS SOURCES SAY
Members of law enforcement work the scene following a suspected shooting by an ICE agent during federal operations on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Video of the incident instantly went viral, and while Democrats have heavily criticized the shooting, the Trump administration is vocally defending the actions of the ICE agent.
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Vance, at a White House briefing on Thursday, charged that “this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order.”
“That woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation,” the vice president added. “The president stands with ICE, I stand with ICE, we stand with all of our law enforcement officers.”
And Vance claimed Good was “brainwashed” and suggested she was connected to a “broader, left-wing network.”
Federal sources told Fox News on Friday that Good, who was a mother of three, worked as a Minneapolis-based immigration activist serving as a member of “ICE Watch.”
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Ocasio-Cortez, in responding to Vance’s comments, said, “That is a fundamental difference between Vice President Vance and I. I do not believe that the American people should be assassinated in the street.”
But a spokesperson for the vice president, responding to Ocasio-Cortez’s accusation, told Fox News Digital, “On National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, AOC made it clear she thinks that radical leftists should be able to mow down ICE officials in broad daylight. She should be ashamed of herself. The Vice President stands with ICE and the brave men and women of law enforcement, and so do the American people.”
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