Donald Trump Calls Mizzou Protesters 'Disgusting' and 'Disgraceful'
The presidential candidate called them "disgusting" and "disgraceful."
— -- Real estate mogul and presidential candidate Donald Trump weighed in today on the protests at the University of Missouri over racial incidents.
“I think it’s disgusting,” Trump said in an interview with the Fox Business Network.
Some Mizzou students have complained for months of racial slurs. And over the weekend at least 30 African-American football players announced they would not participate in team activities until the university system president stepped down or was removed.
Earlier this week, University System President Tim Wolfe resigned and R. Bowen Loftin, chancellor of the main campus in Columbia, said he would step down at the end of the year.
"I think the two people that resigned are weak, ineffective people," Trump said. "I think that when they resigned, they set something in motion that's gonna be a disaster for the next long period of time."
Trump went on to say things would be much different if he were in their position.
“How we hire people like this ... Trump should have been the chancellor of that university," he said. "Believe me. There would have been no resignation.”
The 2016 presidential hopeful didn’t stop there -- he also commented on the list of demands from the student protesters.
“Did you look at their demands? Their demands are like, crazy. Their demands -- the things that they’re asking for, many of those things are like crazy,” Trump said this morning.
"It is just disgraceful," he added.
Trump isn't the only GOP contender responding to the protests.
"I am concerned about a broader issue and that is freedom of speech on campuses seems to be under assault in some of the supposedly finest institutions in this country. In the case of Missouri. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it is that got the president fired," Sen. Marco Rubio said during his speech at a campaign stop in Hilton Head, South Carolina. "I just don’t know enough about that situation to give you a comment other than to say that I still haven’t been able to find out what exactly he did that was so outrageous that he had to step down.“
“As I understand it he didn’t respond to the legitimate concerns of these acts of racism on the campus and may have missed an opportunity to try to heal the wounds and get people the sense that the university had no tolerance for that," former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said while on the campaign trail in Grand Rapids, Michigan. "I don’t know. I didn’t follow it that carefully so I can’t really say whether his resignation was appropriate or not."
Democrats running for the White House also chimed in on the issue.
Frontrunner Hillary Clinton retweeted White House staffer Marlon Marshall.
Bernie Sanders also took his reaction to Twitter.