Joe Biden broke his silence Thursday on the student protests against Israel's war with Hamas but the U.S. president faces a difficult balancing act to avoid hurting his re-election chances against Donald Trump.
"There's the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos," the 81-year-old Democrat said in a televised address from the White House.
Biden took a tough, law-and-order tone after police broke up some of the protests that have rocked U.S. college campuses, even as he insisted the United States would not "squash dissent."