By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - A crowd member interrupted a recent panel discussion hosted by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, trying to get her to denounce US President Joe Biden's call for additional funding for Ukraine and Israel.
"President Joe Biden is calling for $100 billion of funding for Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine, and we're just supposed to bundle these together and rush to World War Three," a man identified on social media as Robert Castle said during an event at New York’s Columbia University.
The event appears to have been one held on Monday at Columbia University's Institute of Global Politics (IGP) to discuss the upcoming 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Rejecting the disruption, Clinton, who is chair of the IGP's Faculty Advisory Board, said: "I'm not sorry. You sit down."
"It's not free speech when you are disrupting everybody else's opportunity to speak," she said.
"This is people constructing narratives that are openly hypocritical," the protester retorted. "Will you denounce Joe Biden's speech?"
The man was apparently referring to Biden's nationally televised address last Thursday in which he sought to make the case to the American people for an additional $105 billion in emergency funding, the bulk of which would go towards further arming Ukraine and Israel, amid gridlock in Congress.
"What I want to hear is Hillary Rodham Clinton to denounce President Joe Biden's warmongering speech. He's trying to push us to World War Three. Do you understand?" the protester said.
"I will not do that," said Clinton.
Video of the protest was first posted on X by user Jose Vega, who also identified the protester in the video.
Diane Sare, an independent 2024 US Senate candidate from New York, hailed the incident, retweeting another video that circulated online with the caption: "Excellent job by another person on my team!"
Clinton, who served as US senator from New York in 2001-2009, retired from public life after losing her 2016 bid to become president.