Pompeo Claims All U.S. Universities Financially Dependent on CCP

G uests attending this year’s Jewish Leadership Conference in New York City had to wade through dozens of protesters who lined the street outside of Chelsea Pier Sixty as the event kicked off Sunday. But the hostile reception didn’t cow the speakers, including Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

The event is hosted by the Tikvah Fund, a conservative Jewish nonprofit. In an interview with Tikvah Fund chairman Elliott Abrams, Pompeo was unsparing as he slammed the tolerance of American institutions toward Chinese influence.

“The Chinese Communist Party has been at war with the United States of America for at least two decades, and we just simply failed to recognize it or address it,” he said, emphasizing China’s more-frequent missile launches, the growth of China’s navy and space capabilities, and its expanding economy. The former secretary of state pointedly accused American universities of being reliant on money from the CCP: “I cannot identify a single university that could survive without money from the Chinese Communist Party today.”

This was a reference to research-grant money as well as tuition from the over 300,000 Chinese students studying at U.S. universities (compared with roughly 11,000 U.S. students who were studying in China before the Covid-19 pandemic) — though how much of that tuition money is tied to CCP coffers as Pompeo suggests is unclear.

Pompeo touted his own efforts in closing the Chinese consulate in Houston, calling it “maybe the most important counterintelligence work I did during my time in office.”

Pompeo also weighed in on Ukraine, saying, “We should be careful to make sure that authoritarian thugs can’t take real estate by force and kill innocent civilians . . . I don’t think for a second Vladimir Putin needs a reason to escalate.”

It was DeSantis, however, who most drew the ire of the protesters outside. Signs reading “DeSantis is a bigot,” “Trans rights are human rights,” and “F*** DeSantis” were visible, presumably inspired by DeSantis’s signing of the Parental Rights in Education bill, or what leftists have inaccurately dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The conference was originally planned to be at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, but after the museum declined to host DeSantis, the Tikvah Fund relocated the event. Chelsea Piers also caved to the pressure from the left, but not to the point of canceling the event: On Friday, two days before the conference, the group issued a statement, saying, “We could not disagree more strongly with many of Ron DeSantis’ actions in office.” Chelsea Piers stated that Pier Sixty would “direct every dollar it receives from Tikvah to groups that protect LGBTQ+ communities, and foster and amplify productive debates about LGBTQ+ issues.” Despite these distractions, the conference proceeded without a hitch.

As National Review reported, DeSantis delivered a speech lauding Florida’s accomplishments, including its record on school choice, support for law enforcement, and booming tourism industry. The governor also focused his speech on how his state has gone on the attack against the “cancer” that is wokeness. DeSantis criticized the forcing of radical gender ideology on children in schools: “Parents have a right to have their kids go to school in the state of Florida without having the school do things like, quote, transition their kids’ gender to a different gender, giving them a different name, having them wear different clothes, without the parents’ knowledge and consent.” Continuing his emphasis on the rights of parents, DeSantis proclaimed, “We want to empower parents. Parents being involved in the education of their kids is good.”

The governor talked up his pro-Israel and pro-Jewish record, noting that “we provided millions of dollars for security at our state’s Jewish day schools.” He added: “Apparently that’s the type of record that gets you banned from speaking at a Holocaust museum.”

The conference featured other notable speakers, including journalist Bari Weiss, NR contributing editor and American Enterprise Institute fellow Matthew Continetti, and former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer.

Weiss, a former op-ed staff editor and writer at the New York Times, who now has her own Substack newsletter, spoke at the conference about wokeism — what it is and how to fight it. Weiss explained: “What wokeness is, is fundamentally illiberal and anti-American. It tries to uproot the very foundations that have made this country so exceptional.”

Weiss addressed what can be done to combat wokeness in American society:

“I truly believe that untethering yourself from prestigious institutions, or institutions that you once believed were prestigious, is the single most important thing we can do to fight wokeness. . . . What I am asking of Jews in America today is ‘think about your kid maybe not going to Harvard. Do you think you could give that up?’”

Note: The author will be a member of the Tikvah-Beren Collegiate Forum this coming fall.