“This is doing nothing to bring average Americans to their side,” Phillips told “America’s Newsroom.” “Americans go to sporting events to get away from all the politics. They don’t want to see this. They’re not going to have their minds change in a positive way by these protests.”
Phillips said that “so many” young people are performing similar stunts because they have been convinced by “Congress, the media, and people on TV” that the world will end in 12 years.
The start of the second half of Saturday's game was delayed by 48 minutes after protesters staged a sit-in on the field and refused to leave. Some of the demonstrators held signs demanding that the Ivy League schools divest from the fossil fuel industry. Others signs raised issues of Puerto Rican debt and the treatment of the Uighurs in China.
The incident ended after about an hour when police escorted some of the protesters off the field. A handful of others were arrested.
Police in yellow vests initially lined up alongside the sit-in but did not intervene. When the 15-minute halftime period expired and the protest continued, hundreds more fans streamed onto the field to join in.
Chants of “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Fossil fuels have got to go!” were interrupted by the public address announcer imploring the protesters to leave. The game eventually resumed with Yale defeating Harvard 50-43 in double overtime.
“I think that’s kind of the false dichotomy that they’ve created where either you’re taking part in these extremist protests or you don’t really care what’s going on,” Phillips said.
“There was a lot of social pressure by many students in the crowd where they felt like, 'Well, if I don’t run on the field now I don’t want to look like I don’t care about climate change,” Phillips said.
Fox News’ Sam Dorman contributed to this report.