Dan Abrams ‘ashamed and embarrassed’ by Columbia campus protests

Cable news host Dan Abrams said he is “ashamed and embarrassed” by protests that have broken out on the campus of New York’s Columbia University over Israel’s war with Hamas in the Middle East.

“As a graduate of Columbia University Law School, I am ashamed and embarrassed by what I’m seeing on that campus and now other campuses,” Abrams said on his weeknight prime-time cable news show on NewsNation. “I wholeheartedly support the arrest of the students, professors and outside agitators preventing everyone else from attending classes, right, I’m not talking about protests. I’m talking about encampments. I’m talking about preventing people from going to class.”

Columbia had more than 100 students arrested over pro-Palestine demonstrations late last week. The students are calling for a cease-fire in Gaza as Israel continues to conduct military operations in the region following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack carried out by Hamas.

The White House denounced the protests over the weekend, calling them “blatantly antisemitic” and accusing them of encouraging “calls for violence.”

Abrams, a graduate of Columbia, admonished both the students and faculty taking part in the demonstrations.

“When you decide to protest on private property, you still have to abide by certain rules. You aren’t just entitled to take over the campus because you believe your cause is righteous,” he said. “This isn’t normal, all right? But putting aside the students, the professors who have joined the student protesters should know better. And by the way, this is exposing them as the extremists that they are.”

NewsNation is a cable news channel owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.