JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon (left) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping (right).
Win McNamee via Getty Images; Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon is once again advocating for the US and China to make nice.
"It's the thread from Ukraine, oil and gas, food, migration, all our relationships," Dimon said.
He added that he thinks the US needs "great American leadership" to stabilize its relationship with China.
How the US handles its shaky relationship with China will affect the future of the world, says JPMorgan chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon.
"It's the thread from Ukraine, oil and gas, food, migration, all our relationships, the most important one being China," Dimon told Bloomberg's Emily Chang in an interview that aired Wednesday. "That is the most important for the future of the world."
"And obviously Ukraine is affecting it. In fact, it's very hard to see really positive outcomes with China until the Ukraine war is resolved," Dimon said, referencing the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Dimon offered his assessment of China in a wide-ranging interview with Chang, where he talked about his career and the impact of AI on jobs.
In May, Dimon also advocated for more engagement between the US and China. Speaking at the JPMorgan Global China Summit in Shanghai, he said he found it heartening that US leaders were talking about derisking.
"You're not going to fix these things if you are just sitting across the Pacific yelling at each other. So I'm hoping we have real engagement," Dimon said, per Reuters.
"While Russia may pose the most immediate challenge, China is the bigger long-term threat," Burns wrote in a Foreign Affairs op-ed on January 30.
China is also set to become a focal point for US foreign policy, no matter who wins the presidential elections this year. Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have talked about how they would confront and handle China if elected in 2024.
"They've got a population that is more people in retirement than working. They're not importing anything," Biden said. "They're xenophobic. Nobody else coming in. They've got real problems."
But while Dimon did single out China as a significant risk to the world, he told Chang that he is optimistic that the US could manage them.
"It'll be okay, but we need really good American leadership to do that," Dimon said.
"And don't worry, they're not a 10 foot giant, they have a lot of issues. America's got a lot of strains. I like the fact the American government's talking to them constantly now," he added.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of feed Acipenser produces each month. It is about 60 metric tons per month, not kilograms. Business Insider also misstated that Acipenser released male Sturgeon into Lake Mantasoa. This has been removed.
Donald Trump was not laughing during jury selection in his Manhattan hush money trial.
Pool/Getty Images
Five potential jurors were challenged on Tuesday for what the defense called 'anti-Trump' posts.
Trump listened as the posts were described, including an AI video titled "I Am Dumb As Fuck Trump."
None of the 5 made the jury, especially one who had posted "Lock him up" on Facebook in 2017.
One was a beheading meme. One was an AI clip titled "Dumb As Fuck Trump." Another was a 2016 get-out-the-vote video featuring Mark Ruffalo promising "to do a nude scene" in his next movie.
So far, five potential hush-money jurors have been shown the door at Donald Trump's hush-money trial after his lawyers complained about these and other "anti-Trump" social media posts.
Many of the posts were quite comical when described in open court. There was even humor in what was not described.
"I don't think that is necessary," New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan deadpanned when defense lawyer Todd Blanche offered to hit play on the "Dumb As Fuck Trump" video.
In fact, he was scolded by the judge for being audibly angry after he was forced to watch a prospective juror's video of New Yorkers dancing in the street when he lost the 2020 presidential election.
Seven jurors — four men and three women — have been chosen. Jury selection continues Thursday.
Here, in chronological order, is what happened in court Tuesday as the defense challenged the social media histories of 5 prospective jurors.
1. "To spread the honking cheer"
"So I hear what sounds like a cowbell," noted Merchan, the judge, as he listened to a video four years ago by a high school teacher and mother of two.
She was the first of the prospective jurors who were challenged by Trump's defense team on Tuesday over their "anti-Trump" social media.
Her Facebook video showed Manhattanites laughing, cheering, and dancing in the streets after Joe Biden's 2020 presidential victory.
Trump had to sit at the defense table and watch as the video was played in court, cowbells and all.
The prospective juror, identified only as "B-133," had clearly "attended an "anti-Trump rally," defense lawyer Susan Necheles protested.
"This is not a rally," countered prosecutor Joshua Steinglass.
"It seemed like a celebratory moment in New York City," the high school teacher stammered when she was called into court to explain the video.
"I mean, I think that was it, I think," she added.
Watching New Yorkers cheer in the streets over his defeat appears to have angered Trump.
"So, Mr. Blanche," the judge told Trump's lawyer, after the prospective juror left the courtroom.
"While the juror was at the podium, maybe 12 feet from your client, your client was audibly uttering something — I don't know exactly what he was uttering," the judge warned.
"I won't tolerate that. I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that crystal clear."
2. "Get him out and lock him up"
Then there were the social media posts of the juror they called "B-38," a middle-aged man from Midtown who works as a creative director for Lands' End.
"Good news," he'd posted on Facebook in 2017, soon after Trump took office. "Trump lost his court battle and his unlawful travel ban."
In another post from around that time, he'd posted, "Get him out and lock him up" and "Watch out for stupid tweets by DJT."
"We cannot have a juror like that on the jury, your honor," Blanche told the judge, reasonably enough.
Called before the judge, the prospective juror admitted, "I had strong feelings at the time."
"This is a person who has expressed, at least at one time, it was several years ago, the desire that Donald Trump be locked up," the judge later explained of his decision to boot B-38 from the jury pool.
"Everyone knows that if Mr. Trump is found guilty in this case, he faces a potential jail sentence, which would be 'lock up.'"
3. "And to get Mark Ruffalo naked"
Eight years ago, celebrities, including Robert Downey Jr., Neil Patrick Harris, and Ruffalo, banded together for a video titled "The Avengers unite against Donald Trump… and to get Mark Ruffalo naked."
Ruffalo very reluctantly promises in the clip to "do a nude scene" in his next movie if people get out and vote.
"They should just vote 'cuz it matters, you know? Don't you think?" the star protests in the clip.
When it was released in 2016, the clip was shared on the Facebook account of the husband of prospective juror B-330.
Not the prospective juror's Facebook, mind you. It was shared on the Facebook account of the prospective juror's husband.
The husband also posted a meme in 2016 showing Trump and then-President Barack Obama side by side. It was captioned, "I don't think this is what they meant by 'orange is the new black.'"
And finally, the husband had posted, again in 2016, "just a meme of a character holding President Trump's head in their hands," Blanche complained. The head, he said, was severed.
"I guess it is a character from the Simpsons," the judge offered, querulously.
"Yes, your honor," Blanche answered.
"What is the name of this character?" the judge asked.
"I do not know," Blanche answered.
"I do not know either," the judge said.
Steinglass, the prosecutor, complained that the posts were from 2016, had not been posted by the prospective juror herself, a young woman who works for the city's Economic Development Corporation.
They were clearly "political humor," he added.
The judge was not impressed.
"Honestly," he told the defense, "if this is the worst thing that you were able to find about this juror — that her husband posted this humor, albeit not very good humor, from eight years ago — then it gives me confidence that this juror can be fair and impartial."
4. "I Am Dumb As Fuck Trump"
Just last month — but well before he could have imagined being a juror in the hush money case — a middle-aged employee at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore added some pro-Biden posts to his Facebook account.
They included some Biden-Harris campaign promotions, a news story, headlined, "Trump indicted in documents case," and what Blanche complainingly described as "a one minute and 30-second video, titled "I Am Dumb Fuck Trump."
"This is a parody video," Blanche huffed of the AI-generated clip, "that mocks President Trump the whole time."
When the lawyer offered, "We can play it for your honor," the judge declined.
"I honestly don't remember" the bookseller said, when Blanche asked if he'd watched the video. "I thought it would be funny. I don't recall watching it."
"Do you have a highly unfavorable overall impression of Donald Trump," Steinglass, the prosecutor, asked.
"I would have to say that politically, yes, I do," the prospective juror answered.
The judge let the defense boot the bookseller for cause.
5. "Boys request to return to cave"
The final prospective juror questioned on their social media posts was a retired grandmother from Manhattan's Lower East Side.
Back in 2018, the bespectacled grandmother of four and former transit employee had posted a meme about the soccer team that was rescued from a cave in Thailand.
"Trump invites Thai boys to White House," the meme read. "Boys request to return to cave."
"Republicans projected to pick up 70 seats in prison," read another meme, from the Borowitz Report, that the same woman also posted at around that time.
"This was from six years ago," the judge complained.
Called before the judge, the grandmother said that after 2018, she stopped posting "anything to do with politics."
"It got too vitriolic for people, people that I've known for years," she explained.
"So yeah, I may have posted this, but I learned a good lesson from it," she added, to laughter and smiles in the courtroom — but not from Trump.
A man walks past a mural depicting US President Joe Biden as a superhero defending Israel on a street in Tel Aviv after Iran's missile and drone attacks that began Saturday.
Leo Correa/AP Photo
The US-led operation was a decisive factor in helping Israel fend off Iran's unprecedented attack.
That's a boost for the regional air defense network the US wants.
It may compel Russia to provide more air defenses to Iran, which has supplied its Ukraine war.
The Biden administration's goal to establish a regional air defense network in the Middle East got a massive boost on Saturday night with the success of efforts by the US, Israel, Britain, France, and Jordan that intercepted nearly all of the Iranian drones and missiles targeting Israel.
"The most likely impact (of the operation) is that the Biden administration's Middle East Air Defense (MEAD) concept will convince skeptical Gulf partners — namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE — that an American concept for mutual defense in the region could benefit them as much as it did Israel," Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, told Business Insider.
The US-led operation was a decisive factor in helping Israel fend off Iran's unprecedented April 13 drone and missile attack.
The enormous strike package launched by Iran on Saturday consisted of an estimated 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and over 120 ballistic missiles, the overwhelming majority of which were successfully interdicted; there are also reports that many missiles failed mid-flight from technical problems.
The United States shot down more of the incoming Iranian drones than Israel and played a central role in the "multinational air defense operation" consisting of British, French, and Jordanian air forces. Additionally, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reportedly provided intelligence about Iran's attack plans.
The Biden administration has been pushing for the MEAD concept since its early days in office. In an early combat test of MEAD, Israeli fighter jets shot down two incoming Iranian drones outside its territory in the Middle East on Mar. 15, 2021, in cooperation with unnamed Arab partners.
An anti-missile system operates after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel on April 14, 2024.
REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The US oversaw a similar coordinated effort in the Iranian barrage that began April 13 on a vast scale, bringing together various states and their relevant surveillance and weapons systems.
"The individual weapons systems, while important, are less decisive for regional decision-making than the reassurance that the United States will be there to coordinate the use of the weapons systems," Heras said.
"Without the Americans managing the regional defense architecture, the weapons systems and reconnaissance equipment are far from a shield for Middle Eastern partners, including Israel."
While an estimated 99% of the Iranian munitions were shot down, and reports indicated others failed to launch or suffered technical failures, Tehran does not consider the operation a failure — far from it.
"Iran considers the operation a success beyond their expectations," Farzin Nadimi, a defense and security analyst and senior fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told BI.
"More than anything, the main objective of the strike was to create a new paradigm that Iran can and will strike directly on Israeli soil when necessary," Nadimi said. "They also wanted to establish technological parity with Israel and diminish its QME (qualitative military edge), and restore their credibility and deterrence vs Israel."
The analyst believes time will tell if Iran succeeded in restoring its deterrent threat, noting that another important objective for Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary was to test its systems against Israeli and allied defenses.
"If we consider the strike as a mere message to Israel and a test of IRGC's offensive capabilities, therefore the statistics (aka how many drones and missiles were intercepted and shot down, or the extent of damage caused by those that made impacts or lack thereof) become of lesser importance, if any," Nadimi said.
A Russian Su-35 fighter jet takes off at Hemeimeem air base in Syria in September 2019.
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
How the decisive and unified response to its attack influences Iran's strategy remains to be seen. Iran has deepened its military ties with Russia since 2022. Tehran expects to receive Russian fighter jets and other advanced systems that could improve its air defenses and make any strike on Iran by Israel more difficult and dangerous.
"Russia will seek to offset the US success in backing Israel by looking to buttress Iran's defense with advanced Russian systems such as the Su-35," Heras said.
According to intelligence officials, Moscow is reportedly "advancing" agreements for supplying Tehran with Su-35 Flanker jets, an air superiority fighter that's one of the most advanced in Russia's arsenal. Iran confirmed it had finalized a deal for Su-35s and Mi-28 attack helicopters in November. There were also reports last year indicating Iran also seeks the advanced Russian S-400 air defense missile system.
"Faster delivery of Russian weapons such as Su-35 or S-400 can definitely be a Russian answer to any significant US involvement in what comes next," Nadimi said.
"We have to, however, take into account that it will take months, if not years, to train and rate combat-ready Iranian crews for those complex systems."
Japan's converted Izumo-class helicopter carrier, JS Kaga, now upgraded to be an aircraft carrier.
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
Japan says first modification work on its newly converted light aircraft carrier has been completed.
JS Kaga was helicopter carrier identified as a destroyer refitted with to carry F-35 jets.
The Kaga will now undergo sea trials, and its results will help with the upgrades on another ship.
Japan is showing off the first changes made to one of its helicopter-carrying destroyers to turn it into a light aircraft carrier capable of operating F-35B Lightning II stealth fighters.
JS Kaga's successful modification will pave the way for another of its helicopter carriers, JS Izumo, to also be converted into an aircraft carrier.
The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force announced the completion of the first special modification work on the Kaga earlier this month. In a post on X, it showed off the carrier, which now features a flight deck designed to operate and launch F-35 jets.
The first special modification work on the destroyer ”KAGA” was completed as planned on March 29. The JMSDF will continue to systematically carry out the necessary modifications to the “IZUMO” class destroyer in order to acquire the operational capability of the F-35B. pic.twitter.com/JTaLkjRWu5
— Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (@jmsdf_pao_eng) April 6, 2024
The JMSDF noted in the post that it was still upgrading another vessel, the Izumo lead-in-class helicopter carrier, to be able to launch and recover F-35s. Once both ships are able to operate the jets, Japan will have a capability it hasn't seen since World War II.
And it'll need it, too. As of October 2023, Japan is still planning to acquire more than 147 F-35s — 105 F-35As and 42 F-35Bs.
Japan began to dramatically overhaul its Self-Defense Force in October 2021, creating its first amphibious military unit since WWII and launching a new class of modern frigates. It also announced the conversion of the two Izumo-class helicopter carriers into light aircraft carriers.
The upgraded Japanese warship resembles a US Navy big-deck amphibious assault ship, which the sea service and the Marines have previously explored using as light so-called "lightning carriers" in reference to F-35.
Although Japanhas a long history with flattops and its navy was one of the first to use aircraft carriers effectively, the ongoing upgrades mark a milestone for it in the modern maritime era.
The project is also an opportunity in US-Japanese relations amid concerns about aggression from China, as Japan builds carriers that could eventually host American jets as well as its own, as it demonstrated back in October 2021 when two US Marine Corps F-35Bs landed on and took off from the deck of the Izumo.
In 2018, Japan said China was engaging in "unilateral, coercive attempts to alter the status quo based on its own assertions that are incompatible with existing international order." It's issued other complaints since.
The aircraft, designated AX-6, is the second F-35A assembled at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ F-35 Final Assembly & Check-Out (FACO) facility in Nagoya, Japan and is the first to be assigned to the JASDF’s 3rd Air Wing, 302nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, Misawa Air Base, Japan.
Courtesy of the F-35 Joint Program Office
China's growing military power has prompted worries from US military leaders and lawmakers, while the continued buildup of its navy, the largest in the world, has raised alarms about the US' faltering shipbuilding and what's needed for the future.
Earlier this month, China expressed concerns about Japan's partnerships and growing capabilities, particularly the potential that it could work with Australia, the UK, and the US on nuclear-powered submarines in the AUKUS security agreement.
"Given Japan's not-too-distant history of militarist aggression, Japan's military and security moves are closely watched by its Asian neighbors and the international community," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.
"Japan needs to seriously reflect on its history of aggression, stop its involvement in small military and security groupings, and truly embark on a path to peaceful development," she said.
Russian hackers caused a Texas town's water tank to overflow in a suspected hack earlier this year.
Cybersecurity experts say the likely culprit is Sandworm, a Russian hacking group.
The US earlier accused Sandworm of attacks on hospitals in Pennsylvania in 2017.
In January, Russian hackers caused a small Texas town's water tank to overflow in what was a rare but worrying attack on US infrastructure.
The Russian hacking group Sandworm is likely responsible for the attack on the water system in Muleshoe, Texas, the cyber-security firm Mandiant said on Wednesday.
Mandiant called the group a "dynamic and operationally mature threat actor that is actively engaged in the full spectrum of espionage, attack, and influence operations."
Security experts said they believe the group is likely connected to the Russian spy agency, GRU. While most state-backed "threat groups" specialize in specific areas, like collecting intelligence or network sabotage, Sandworm stands alone in trying to unify each capability into one full package, Mandiant reported.
Hackers posted a video to Telegram of themselves manipulating Muleshoe's water system, showing how they overpowered it and reset the controls, according to The Washington Post.
In the videos, the hackers refer to themselves as the Cyber Army of Russia Reborn. This marks the first attack on a public American infrastructure system by this group, according to the Post. US officials blamed a separate attack on water systems in Pennsylvania last November on Iran, according to CNN.
Ramon Sanchez, Muleshoe's city manager, told CNN that the city's water tank overflowed for about 30 to 35 minutes.
Authorities have previously blamed Sandworm, which has gone by different names over the years, for various attacks around the world, including on Ukraine's power grid and on the 2018 Olympic Games in South Korea.
The Justice Department also accused the men of creating a virus called NotPetya, which caused $10 billion in damage to computers worldwide, shutting down the power grid in Ukraine, and taking down the computer systems belonging to a chain of Western Pennsylvania hospitals.
Trump said last week a near-total, Civil War-era abortion ban in Arizona had gone too far.
But Republicans Wednesday shut down an attempt to repeal it.
The law makes providing or helping with an abortion punishable by up to five years in prison.
Arizona Republicans shut down an attempt by Democrats to repeal a contentious abortion ban from 1864 that was reinstated by the state's Supreme Court earlier this month.
Democrats attempted to introduce a bill Wednesday that would repeal the ban during a state House legislative session, NBC reported. But two votes moving to discuss the bill failed.
"I would ask everyone in this chamber to respect the fact that some of us believe that abortion is, in fact, the murder of children," Republican House Speaker Ben Toma said, according to NBC.
Trump, for his part, said last week that the ban had gone too far. "That'll be straightened out," he said. "And I'm sure that the governor and everybody else are going to bring it back into reason."
The law effectively bans abortion — including in cases of rape and incest — except if a pregnant person's life is in danger. It makes providing or helping someone get an abortion a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Prior to the ban, abortions in Arizona were allowed through 15 weeks of pregnancy.
TikTok on App Store displayed on a phone screen is seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on April 8, 2024.
NurPhoto/Getty Images
A bill to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok is making its way through Congress.
Legislators are concerned about ByteDance's ties to China given how much user data Tiktok collects.
The Chinese Embassy reportedly lobbied against the bill.
China proved the point of the TikTok ban bill through Congress after officials from the Chinese Embassy reportedly lobbied against it recently.
News of the adversarial nation's pressure against the bill was reported Wednesday by Politico after more than a year of congressional deliberation on the matter. The House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill in mid-March that, if enacted, would require TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the app within 180 days or risk getting banned in the US.
The heart of the concerns against the massive social media app stems from ByteDance's reported ties to the Chinese government. Critics of ByteDance — including former TikTok employees — have accused the company of funneling sensitive US user information to China even after TikTok assured lawmakers its bevy of data from American users was safe.
On top of that, surveys have shown that TikTok's more than 100 million monthly American users turn to the platform for news. Given recent reports of China using social media to influence elections in Taiwan, congressional officials like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have voiced their concerns that China could use TikTok to meddle in the upcoming 2024 elections.
TikTok itself has waged an all-out war against the proposed legislation in recent months, prompting its US-based users to reach out to their local legislators to vote against it — even CEO Shou Zi Chew traveled to Washington, DC, to join the lobbying effort.
Members of Congress were already reportedly frustrated by TikTok's digital plea to users before the House voted on the ban. The Chinese Embassy's private pressure against the bill will likely only solidify the legislative body's disdain for TikTok.
Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and businessman recruited by the national GOP to run against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Montana.
Tim Sheehy For Montana
The story of GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy's gunshot wound has seemingly taken on a new turn.
Sheehy told WaPo that he lied about a shooting that he initially said occurred at a national park.
But in newly-released documents, a park visitor "called park dispatch" to report a gunshot.
Montana GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy apologized for the discharge of a firearm at the state's Glacier National Park in October 2015, a revelation uncovered by The Washington Post after Sheehy's recent admission that he lied about being shot in the park.
Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and the leading Republican to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in November, recently told The Washington Post that he received a gunshot wound in his right arm while serving in Afghanistan, not during a shooting at Glacier National Park.
The GOP candidate told The Washington Post that he lied about his Colt .45 revolver falling to the ground and discharging in order to shield his former platoon members from being questioned about what he said was a 2012 shooting that occurred overseas.
Sheehy previously told the newspaper he was unsure if his bullet wound came from friendly fire or an enemy.
"As a highly trained and combat experienced wounded veteran, I can assure you this was an unfortunate accident and we are grateful no other persons or property were damaged," he said at the time. "Due to my ongoing security clearance and involvement with national defense related contracts, I request leniency with any charges related to this unfortunate accident."
The newly-released National Park Service report said that "a park visitor called park dispatch" and stated that a firearm had discharged at Glacier National Park, which seemingly contradicts Sheehy's current statement that he was shot in Afghanistan.
The National Park Service summary didn't reveal the name of the individual who reported that a firearm had discharged at the park, according to The Post.
Sheehy in his 2015 National Park Service statement said that he retained a weapon in his car in case a bear posed a threat, adding that his firearm fell to the ground as he reloaded the vehicle.
"My deepest apologies for any inconvenience this incident caused," he said in the statement at the time.
Daniel Watkins, an attorney for Sheehy, said in a letter to The Post that the ranger didn't reveal that he had spoken to an aforementioned park visitor as part of his probe. And Watkins suggested that hospital staff in Kalispell, Mont., told park dispatchers about the incident at Glacier National Park after Sheehy's initial lie about the shooting.
"The released reports corroborate the information we have provided, and they confirm Mr. Sheehy's recollection of what took place," Watkins said in the letter.
Tester, now in his third term, is running for reelection in a state with a decidedly conservative tilt. Still, the lawmaker has successfully fought back his GOP opponents over the years, beginning with his first Senate election in 2006.
Republicans have touted Sheehy, the founder of Bridger Aerospace, as one of their most promising Senate recruits.
Business Insider has reached out to the Sheehy campaign for any further comment.
Nemat "Minouche" Shafik, Columbia's president, appeared before the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Wednesday. Republican members of the Committee, including New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, have harshly criticized elite US colleges, accusing their leaders of failing to protect students against antisemitic hate speech.
Shafik was called to Congress to discuss her school's response to antisemitism on campus following Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent war in Gaza. The presidents of UPenn, Harvard, and MIT had testified before Congress back in December for the same reason.
But there was a big difference between what those presidents said at their hearing and what Shafik said at hers. During her four-hour testimony, which was largely devoid of headline-grabbing moments, Shafik took a much stronger stance against antisemitism than her peers did.
When asked if students calling for the genocide of Jewish people would violate Columbia's rules, Shafik and three other Columbia leaders testifying with her all said yes, it would. Shafik added that any student who called for a Jewish genocide would be punished.
The presidents of MIT, Harvard, and UPenn, in contrast, waffled when asked the same question during a five-hour-long session in December — and two of them suffered the consequences.
Harvard President Claudine Gay answered with, "It can be, depending on the context," while MIT President Sally Kornbluth said, "I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus." In a similarly soft response, UPenn's president Elizabeth Magill responded, "If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment."
All three presidents faced harsh criticism for their answers, which many argued did not adequately condemn hate speech. The backlash led to the resignations of both Gay and Magill, while Kornbluth has so far managed to hold onto her position.
Shafik was invited to the December hearing, but was unable to attend because she was speaking in Dubai at the time, The Wall Street Journal reported.
And that granted her more than just extra time to prepare — she also had the advantage of witnessing the fallout her peers faced, and making sure she avoided their mistakes.
She made herself especially clear. On Tuesday, the eve of her hearing, Shafik wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in which she explained the complexity of protecting free speech and political expression while also ensuring students' safety and condemning discrimination.
"Calling for the genocide of a people — whether they are Israelis or Palestinians, Jews, Muslims or anyone else — has no place in a university community," Shafik wrote in the Journal. "Such words are outside the bounds of legitimate debate and unimaginably harmful."
In Wednesday's hearing, Shafik also commented on a few controversial professors. She said that Mohamed Abdou, a visiting professor at Columbia's Middle East Institute, would "never work at Columbia again" after he voiced support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.
Shafik was also questioned about a tenured professor in Columbia's Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department, Joseph Massad, who had previously called Hamas' attack on Israel "awesome." Shafik said Massah had been "spoken to" about his comments. But when Stefanik pressed her on the issue, Shafik said she would get back to the committee on whether Massad would be removed from his position as chair of the academic review committee.