Trump dismisses anti-conservative bias on college campuses: ‘Highly overblown’

According to President Donald Trump, reports of widespread anti-conservative bias on college campuses are "highly overblown," and simply isolated to a few colleges in the U.S.

Huh?

Trump, during a Thursday White House youth forum called "Generation Next," said that he believes his administration — and conservatism at large — has strong support on most college campuses.

During the forum, Turning Point USA chief Charlie Kirk asked Trump questions about anti-Trump sentiment in colleges.

Kirk said, "It's harder than ever to espouse support of your presidency, and the ideas that you're fighting for. So thank you for what you're doing to give us the courage of our convictions to fight against political correctness."

"But what advice do you have for young patriots and conservatives on campus that support your agenda that are being ridiculed and silenced because of administrators that are clamping down on free speech?" Kirk asked.

Trump responded by telling Kirk that he believes the "numbers are actually much different" than what people think.

"I think we have a lot of support," he continued. "If they have one campus, or two campuses, and we know what they are, it gets all the publicity. We have campuses where you have a vast majority of people that are perhaps like many of the people in this room, you could call it conservative, you call it whatever you want, but there are people that want free speech."

Trump went on, noting that he believes conservatism and his administration has "majority support."

"If you look what's going on with free speech, with the super left, with Antifa, with all of these characters — I'll tell you what, they get a lot of publicity, but you go to the real campuses and you go all over the country, you go out to the Middle West, you go out even to the coast in many cases, we have tremendous support," he explained.

"I would say we have majority support. I think it's highly overblown," Trump concluded. "Highly overblown."

This was an interesting exchange. Being interviewed by a guy whose central claim is that there is an anti-conservative free speech crisis on college campuses, Trump casually rejects the premise, says the issue is "highly overblown," limited to a small number of campuses. pic.twitter.com/agDTBtPCjT

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 22, 2018