Morning Joe - Morning Joe 5/2/24

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Police move in to clear UCLA encampment after protesters defy calls to leave

Are you looking for a university with no political protests? Look no further than Trump University. Trump University has stopped all student protests on campus by having no students and no campus. Unlike Trump University, most American universities make the mistake of existing. But Trump University had the wisdom to be shut down for fraud 13 years ago. Sign up for Trump University. Warning, you cannot sign up for something that was shut down for racketeering.

Guess what today is, my friend? Guess what today is? I know what today is. Give me, give me, TJ. Guess what today is? You got to come to me right here. Oh, my God. Do we have this camera, TJ?

Do we have this camera? No, we don't. Oh, you got me here. I'm looking here. Yeah. Oh, here we have this camera? No, we don't. Oh, you got me here. I'm looking here. Yeah. Oh, here we go. Guess what? Do you know, here's the crazy thing.

My first day in television. And I'm so excited. I've never done this before. Donnie, do you know what today is? Is it anybody's birthday? Rev, do you know what today is? No, I have no idea. I know what today is.

Game six. Game six, exactly. Joe, please come sit down. Of the Knicks. Breaking everybody's heart again. Game six. Game six, exactly. Joe, please come sit down. Of the Knicks, breaking everybody's heart again. It's Mika's birthday! Yay! Yay! Mika's birthday!

A huge day, is it not? How are you? Good to see you. Should we sing? Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. God. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, dear Mika. Happy birthday to you. I'm not supposed to drink this anymore. Yay! Let's all go around and talk about something. Tell us what you like about Mika the most. What I like about Mika is she is so able

to put you in your place in such a graceful, elegant way. And it just shows the power of her and the power of women. You know, I think actually, Donnie, that's just specifically you. I think when he said you, he meant specifically you.

I don't think he meant just she puts one in her place. Guys, this is a boring age. We should kind of skip this one, I think when he said you, he meant specifically you. Yeah, I don't think he meant just she puts one in their place. Guys, this is a boring age. We should kind of skip this one, I think. 57? I don't know. It's a fine age. I'm good with it. It's the catcher pitch.

It's the catcher pitch. What I like most. Catcher pitch. Talk about what he likes. What I like most about Mika is she has this unusual way of making you feel you're in charge when we all know better. Exactly. We're all kind of saying the same thing. Am I in charge, honey? Yeah.

It's so funny. People come up and they'll say, you know, Joe should have let Mika do more on the air. And Mika's like, Joe does. She's like, I'm the puppet master. Oh, cute. People are texting. All right, I'm the puppet master. Cute.

People are texting. All right, let's stop this now. No, I haven't even gone to jail. Okay, so Mika, my favorite thing, she walks the walk when it comes to helping women and gives you the best advice. I mean, I can text her at any moment to be like, do I wear this? Do I not wear this? Do I ask for this? Do I not ask for this?

And she will tell you hard truths, but she does it with a lot of kindness. And, you know, that is really something like a man. She has someone you can rely on her. Yeah. When you text her or you ask her, she's going to tell you the truth. She's going to tell you the truth. So be ready for it. Yeah. And it helps. Richard. Oh my God. I really appreciate Mika's enthusiasm for when we talk about sports. It's one of the reasons I really like coming on the show. It's her commitment to long conversations about the latest in sports.

Are the Knicks going to lose? Joe, we so don't want to go there. I needed grief counseling the other day, Joe. You know, I thought you were in a bad mood this morning. I'm never in a bad mood. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. The newspaper of record cared for our coffee. They have to buy up their shoes to keep Knicks fans out of the arena. It is burned no matter where you buy it. New York, Maine, Florida is burned. Something's wrong with it. And it's too expensive. And happy birthday to you.

And Susie Orman told me never to buy Starbucks again. So thank you, NBC, for getting me this. Did you go to the stock yesterday? But we're not doing it. What happened? Lost, what, over 15% or so? It tastes different. Is it because they burned Mika's coffee?

It's a market signal. DM me if you think that Starbucks tastes burned and, like, day old. Okay. Wow. The host of Way Too Early. This is good. I've always loved that. I've always loved that. There goes Wow. The host of way too early. This is good. This is good. I've always thought that.

There goes Star Wars. It doesn't have a great opening. Happy birthday. Expensive opening. I'm just telling you. My friends. It's the truth. I actually was driving to Starbucks

all over a certain part of Florida. And now I didn't hear. Hold on. And I was in D.C. And it's all burned. Or day old. Sweetie. Or they've changed something.

Who do you wake up at 5.30 on Saturday and Sunday morning to drive all over Florida to get Starbucks? Well, you get it for me. Exactly. That's true. So it doesn't taste good. So I bring it back. How's this, dear? It's burned.

Go to another one. Awful. Yes, ma'am. So forget it. By 10 o'clock. And I have a nice pocket machine by Breville, and I make it myself. Wow. And that's what I should have been doing for years.

And if I had listened to Suzy Orman, I would have saved a lot of money. Suzy's always right. Okay. The host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief of Politico, Jonathan Lemire, is here. Hi, Jonathan. Jonathan. Happy birthday, Mika. We need to talk.

There you go. Jonathan. It's time, Jonathan. It's time. Hi, Jonathan. Jonathan. Happy birthday, Mika. We need to talk. There you go. Jonathan. It's time, Jonathan. It's time. What's time for? He's just, it's, he's way too early. It's way too early for him. Yeah.

Yeah. You're saying we're ready to let him graduate to doing sports at 545 and getting somebody else to start at six? No, we need him here and we'll figure something else out. By the way, we'll be very quick because it's Mika's birthday. The Red Sox pitching Jonathan Lemire. The best presence she could get. The Red Sox pitching has been historic.

It's the best. Wow. Considering a team of rotation of more or less no-name starters coming into the season, they've been terrific. Credit to the new pitching coach, Andrew Bailey. This Red Sox team, Joe, you and I have been talking about it on a daily basis. Surprising and fun, and at least so far, successful. Well, Amika, that is my word to you.

Give to me. Thank you. Can we stop? Yeah. Okay. All right. So, Donald, we're going to the news now. There's no one else to introduce.

It's just us. Okay. Family at the table. Donald Trump will not commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election. In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the former president repeated his lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him. So we talked about this yesterday and we were so, I think the word is shook, that we have decided to go back in way deeper. Oh, this is new one, according to Alex. OK, so this is The New York Times.

When asked about this November, he said, quote, If everything everything is honest, I'll gladly accept the results. I don't change on that. If it's not, you have to fight for the right of the country. This Milwaukee Journal and Richard Haass, people across the world look to the United States and have always looked up to the United States. Donald Trump certainly changed that in many ways. But January 6th, as you've always said to me, it just shook our neighbors just like it shook us. And now you have him once again, a guy who is a favorite in a lot of polls saying, I will not accept the results of the election unless I win. So yesterday was the time piece and today it's the Milwaukee Jets. One of the defining hallmarks of American democracy

everywhere in the world was the peaceful transfer of power. When the former president and the guy who maybe beat him drive down Pennsylvania Avenue and you have the peaceful transfer. What a great demonstration that is of commitment to democracy, the rule of law, to accepting that norm. And what Donald Trump right here has done, two things. One is he's essentially saying, I only support it if I win, because there's no history of rigged elections, essentially. And second of all, the threat of political violence that is out there. I mean, we have 75 days between Election Day and inauguration.

And that's when January 6th happened last time in that two and a half month period. That is the precarious moment for our democracy. It not only distracts us, divides, but imagine what our foes are going to think. Right. If we are having a contested situation and we are literally have a return of political violence or imagine, Joe, you have several governors or state legislatures, legislatures saying we don't actually agree with that. We're going to send this set of electors to Washington. Right. We could have that. Well, and Donnie, that's the thing that the system did hold last time the courts held last time the state legislatures held last time. But, you know, just like the time piece yesterday suggested, Donald Trump and people around him are are figuring out how to subvert democracy

if he doesn't win. And let me say that slowly. So his apologists who will write this in an op ed laughing, oh, they're saying Donald Trump, Donald Trump's own words say they don't suggest. They say he will subvert democracy if he doesn't win. And if he does win, it'll be worse. He will subvert democracy more. He will fire prosecutors who will not arrest his political opponents. He said it. He says what he's going to do. What he's going to do, to your point, Joe, is have the FCC report to him so he will be able to control shows like this. He wants the FCC to report to him. He wants to bring the Insurrection Act back so he can turn military troops on his own people. He wants to weaponize, as you said, the Justice Department to go after his enemies.

He wants to put women on a registry in red states for abortion. Monitor. That's if he wins. Hold on one second. So so what you just said. Somebody out in the Trump sort of stratosphere will put on a Web site and say, look at Donnie Deutsch freaking out. Right. And that's their ploy. That's the lie.

And I will say, you know, I love the Wall Street Journal editorial page. I disagree with them a lot, but they will, they will have people like writing op-eds that would take what you just said and lie to their readers. They let them, they, they lie to their readers and say, look at the media. And I've been, I've read more of this, the media going, you know, are being hyperbolic. No, all you're doing is repeating his words. When we repeat his words, when I repeat his words as a conservative, I think you found out this past week, I'm a conservative. Like live by the law, whether it's on college campuses, whether it's at the border or whether you're a president of the United States that lost an election. Live by the law. Right. I'm a conservative. Right.

You're a liberal. Traditional liberal. You're a traditional liberal. Now, now, now call the moderate. Now call the moderate. Now call the moderate. I didn't say progressive, but you're traditional liberal. And we just read the words on the page. We report it. But the Trump right and the Trump media will say, Don, he's losing his mind. They have Trump derangement syndrome. I deal with it every day. But what did you just do?

I just used his words. You just repeated his words. The final words he said, and once again, I just talked about if he wins. If he loses, he loses he will tell he will tell people to take to the streets with violence he's telling you well that's telling us so if he wins we're in trouble yeah if he loses we're in trouble that's where we're going next to those comments come following what he told time magazine about whether he is concerned about violence stemming from the outcome of this year's vote, especially if he doesn't win.

He answered, quote, If we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election. Are you worried about violence? And every political person that loves this country would have said they answer that and look throughout history would say, no, I'm not worried about violence because I'm going to speak out against violence and my people will not be violent. We will accept the results of the election. Everybody says that Donald Trump is now saying what depends saying maybe we'll be violent, maybe saying it depends, saying his reactions is based on what whether it's a fair election. But who determines what's fair? He does. He is spelling out, I believe, in an autocracy. I will decide if it's fair. I will decide how I will respond to violence as someone that is running to be the head of state again to say it depends at this kind of instability. We can't afford to have no matter who the candidates are. Can you imagine in anywhere else in the world this would happen? We would be denouncing that person that is trying to be head of state. And here we have it right here. We're acting like this is a normal race where you have one person in the race that could win. Right.

Saying if I determine it's fair, it's fair. If I don't, it's not. And violence, it depends on what I say. This is not what this country is supposed to be about and we shouldn't tolerate it. You know, Jen, there's a stereotype of the Trump voter that the media does. People are stumbling drunk out of their, you know, trailer park and, you know, shooting raccoons or something like. No, it's bankers. It's lawyers.

It's people with advanced degrees. This is something Anne Applebaum brought out so masterfully in her book, The Twilight of Democracy, which is it's the elites make this possible. Think about all the billionaires that, oh, I'll never vote for Trump. And they're like, yeah, I'll vote for Donald Trump. They know this. They read this. They read that Donald Trump says that there's going to be mass deportation. He's going to force prosecutors to arrest political enemies. He's going to execute generals that don't follow his commands.

He's able to use SEAL Team 6 to execute political opponents. And he says, you can't arrest me for that. You can go down the list. He's going to be a dictator from day one. He's going to terminate the Constitution on and on. They've heard all of this. They heard what he said to Time magazine a couple of days ago. It is it is a dark, autocratic vision of America. And these people, these educated people with advanced degrees are the ones saying, yeah, I'll support Donald Trump again, thinking, oh, well, you know what? Maybe my investments will go or maybe he won't tax me three percent. Not understanding that this is not just a threat to democracy, but this is a threat to capitalism. Right. Well, then that's I mean, that's the thing

that makes me think maybe they will reconsider if they continue to hear him say they don't they don't they will not get what Joe just said. They don't get how it could affect them negatively. They don't think that that's going to affect that. Just don't think that's going to happen. But there are there are the 20 percent of people in Republican primaries who still are not voting for him. You know, and there's the people that say that they were worried about Jan 6. There's the people that, you know, that the Republicans against Trump, that those videos about people who voted for him twice because of Jan 6 are not going to do it a third time. And, you know, keep doing these interviews. Keep saying this. Right. You know, it's like Proud Boys stand back and stand by.

Look at the polls. I know. I know. I mean, a lot of swing state polls, if you're talking about Nevada, if you're talking about Georgia, if you're talking about North Carolina, they're not even close. Here's Trump in September of 2020. September of 2020. Take a look. Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election?

Well, we're going to have to see what happens. You know that I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster. You know, Chris Christie said that Donald Trump started in the spring of 2020, started lying, going, you know, this election may be rigged. And he said he could see in his mind that he knew he was going to probably lose. And he started in spring of 2020 trying to find an excuse for losing to Joe Biden. Right. He's always saying if it's fair, it's OK. But by definition, if he loses, it can't be fair. If he wins, it's fair. If he loses, it's not fair.

And just the business thing. Why do people invest in this country? Why does our economy do so well? It's because there's the rule of law. You understand that it's a safe place for us. People can go to work. Consumers can consume. What business leaders are missing here is how much is at stake that the comparative advantage of the United States and the American economy depends on the rule of law being paramount. If we no longer have that, they are kidding themselves if they think they can flourish. So speaking of rule of law, before I get to this list put together by the reporter Eric Cordelessa on the report that came out yesterday from Time magazine, we'll go live to UCLA on the campus there. Police are moving these protesters out. There's an encampment. There are student protesters, we believe. There also may be

outside agitators, and I'll put that in quotes. But we'll monitor this and see how it unfolds. But they are apparently trying to break up the encampment, which I believe was negotiations for several days. Now this is happening at campuses across the country. This one's a little bit larger, a little bit more like Columbia was before they dispersed it. So we will monitor this situation and come back to it. As I'm watching this, there's two thoughts that come to my head. First of all, I'd like to know where their parents are. You know, we haven't talked about who these parents are.

I'd like to know. Can we back up first and ask who these people are? Because there are a lot of these people who are not students. They are not students. And by the way, I when people email me, I try to read as many emails as I can. And I swear to God, the theme of so many are, Joe, these are students. I believe that children are the future. Teach them well.

And I write back and say, thank you so much for watching the show. You mean the world to me. These are not all students. This is organized. It's across the nation and by the way we all have students we all know students we have all talked to our students that are these these are not all students they're not all students they're outside I also want to put this against the backdrop of the vote yesterday on anti-Semitism in Congress that it was 320 days and 91 people voted against a simple bill to protect against anti-Semitism. And what's interesting, that's about one in four. The same numbers that Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL have come out and said that one in four Americans have anti-Semitic beliefs. So Congress is very representative of Americans.

Right. Yeah. Ref. But I think that what is very, very alarming to me who's been involved in civil rights and civil. And by the way, you walk the walk. You talk the talk. I remember in 2001, Vieques and Puerto Rico, something that you believed in. It was civil disobedience and the greatest tradition of Martin Luther King. And yes, you broke the law to make a bigger point. You got sent to jail. And guess what? You weren't saying, I want my meal plan.

I want my meal plan. You said this is worth the fight. This is worth the sacrifice. And guess what? You and others who protested, you changed American policy. We were protesting a Navy bombing in Vieques and we

were able to stop it. I did 90 days in jail. You came out, by the way, you came out thinner too, my man. I went on a diet. That was the beginning. No, I went on a fast. But that is what bothers me. Anytime what you are protesting for becomes secondary to what you are doing, then you're really not protesting for it. And you, in many ways, dramatize what we did in Vieques, what I did later in other situations, was to bring attention to a cause, not become the cause.

Right. And what is troubling me about a lot of this is they become the cause. It's about them. It is not about pushing the cause. They need to ask themselves if they were sincere. Right. Are you really focusing on what's going on in Gaza about the children, about the women, about the innocent people. And in Israel, are you focusing on whether or not you are violent or whether or not you can say the most incendiary statement?

How are you guiding this? It's about them. And I think they've lost the message. And I think that is because they've been infiltrated by people that are not there. That is what I'm worried about. And that is that's that's what we're all worried about. And, Jen, you look at these protests and, again, from I'll just call it reporting, on a lot of these demonstrations, they're Palestinians whose families have been killed in Gaza or whose

families have been killed through the years. And we all certainly understand why they would want to be engaged. There are a lot of people that are just there. They are. I know this. You can email me if you want to. I know this that are just there because they want to be part of something cool. There are outside agitators. And yes, there are some people there because they hate Jews. I'd like to I'd like to I'd like to say that's not the case. There's some people there because they hate Jews that weren't there because of Syria. They certainly weren't there when Russia kept killing civilians in Ukraine. I haven't seen them out there for the two million Ouijers who are in concentration camps in China.

And people go, oh, well, we're funding Israel. Yeah, guess what? When you go and you buy gas, you're directly or indirectly helping Russia. You're indirectly or directly helping Iran. You're, you know, you're you're when we trade and buy cheap products from China. You're helping China repress not only people in Hong Kong. You're helping China repress the Ouijas, et cetera, et cetera. We could we could go down that that path if you want. And so they're just again, these people weren't here when half a million Arabs were killed in Syria.

They're here now, though. Why? The you know, because Jews are involved. But go ahead. Well, yeah. In terms of it not being students, you know, people really seem to question that. But the student leader from Columbia was in The New York Times saying, this is an autonomous group that took over the hall, right? So it's not as if we are projecting that these are not students. The student leader said it is an autonomous group that did that. And I think the reporting that sort of helped put this in perspective. Jeremy Peters wrote a good piece yesterday about,

because he went and interviewed a lot of protesters. And there are, you know, we all have in our own lives, you know, all of us are concerned you know, we all have in our own lives, you know, all of us are concerned about Gaza. We all have our own lives, all the people that we know that are really concerned about Gaza. That's very, uh, it's very sincere and it's very tragic. Um, but what he identified was not, these people had a lot, you know, it was, it was, uh, upset about how indigenous people are treated in general. It's upset about climate change. It was kind of this, you know, know, sort of new world clash of ideologies that are that are that they were expressing there. That won't be limited to this

issue. Right. So even if this is what I'm thinking about, like, how does this affect the election? Where does this go to? Even if the Gaza conflict is resolved, you are likely to see, you know, this, they may just move on to the next issue, which is sort of also, you know, which is sort of also your, your point and that they will, but the thing that I I'm processing, well, where does this go? How does this affect young people writ large? Yeah. I don't see young people writ large getting behind that kind of agenda. It's not going to it's not going to it's not going to resonate in their lives the way concerns about inflation, economy, student loans, student debt, things like that. I don't think that that will resonate the way. But, you know, like this is great for Donald Trump.

Oh, he loves this. So we're looking at what's happening right now on the campus of UCLA, and you can see the police are working to try and disperse this encampment and even break it down. But just looking at Washington Post coverage right now, live coverage of things that are happening across the country, we have a situation at the City University of New York where arrests happened. University of Buffalo. Stony Brook University. UCLA, of course. 90 arrests on the campus of Dartmouth. And a State Department, somebody who quit the State Department, supports the protests, has canceled his appearance there.

And it goes on. I mean, this is not just UCLA and Columbia. Portland State, the library looks destroyed from the pictures I'm looking here at the Washington Post. And it goes on and on. So right now, I think it's fair to say that we don't really know exactly how many students and outside agitators are involved and who the outside agitators even are. But it is questionable to believe that it would just be students in there doing this. If it is, then your question, then your point that you were about to make, Donnie, is 100% correct. And we've got a problem. I would like to go to Jonathanathan lemire if possible i just want to follow up though again based on the student leader at columbia we don't have to ask

if those were students in charge of taking over the building because the student leader at columbia said they were outside agitators. An autonomous group. All the tents were the same colors at a lot of these things. I just want to wait until we see the around. There's money coming in behind this, and the students are not paying for this. That's my instinct. I don't feel comfortable about this. I think we need to also bring up the violence, the vandalism. When you go into the Colombia hall where they had destroyed property, what is that about?

What is the point of that? That's not how it's going to help the people of Gaza. But you you're supposed to be protesting and in my opinion, rightfully so. Violence being reckless on either side. Correct. You're going to do violence yourself to a building. Correct. That's where I,

as one who engages, I'm leading marches now about the, and I'm looking at this saying, wait a minute, you're tearing up walls in the name of what? Breaking windows? No, there's some other element in here that is hijacking this from the segregation. I don't disagree. Jonathan Lemire, I'm assuming the Biden administration is watching this closely and trying to figure out a response as well. If there should be one at this point, what do you think? Yeah, the Biden administration is certainly watching closely. The president himself, though, hasn't had much to say on this issue since these protests really kicked up in the last week or two. He spoke briefly last week, saying, of course, there's no need for violence.

He understands those who are protesting peacefully about the situation in Gaza. He empathizes with that. A deputy press secretary put out a statement the other day when that building at Columbia University's campus was seized, saying that crossed the line, that the administration condemned that. White House Press Secretary Corinne Jean-Pierre asked yesterday about the matters at Columbia and other campuses, simply said the president was monitoring it. And to the point of your conversation a moment ago, yes, polls do suggest this is not a huge issue for most voters in the political arm of the Biden world, certainly watching that. But they also are deeply concerned about these images, first and foremost, just because there's violence, there could be people injured, but also because there is a fear that it could further alienate young people who associate Biden with Israel here and against the Palestinians. Fair or not, that is a perception among some of the young.

Also, just they feel like some independent swing voters simply turned off by these scenes of chaos. And certainly Donald Trump is trying to put the blame on Joe Biden for that. When we, of course, know the administration has nothing to do with scenes there on these campuses. But we should note the president is now, White House announced yesterday, going to deliver a major speech next week, Tuesday, at the Holocaust Memorial Museum commemoration. That'll be at the U.S. Capitol here in Washington, where he'll talk about the rise of anti-Semitism and denouncing that. And of course, we are seeing anti-Semitism as a major part of some of these protests being hijacked from the peaceful protesters

in so many places. As we watched, again, live footage here at UCLA, a lot of smoke in the air. We're hearing some bangs. Unclear exactly what's happening as police try to clear this. The campus, the college is putting out word, UCLA on Twitter.

Campus operations will be limited tomorrow and Friday. Please continue to avoid campus and the Royce Quad area. Per academic Senate guidance on instruction, all in-person classes are authorized and required to pivot to remote tomorrow and Friday. By the way, exam time. Exam time. End of the year, graduation time. And people will go, oh, way, exam time, exam time and graduation. And people will go, oh, well, aren't you worried about? Yeah. Yeah. But we've expressed our concerns about Gaza tearing up campuses, destroying property, breaking the law. That does not help one child in Gaza. That does not bring any supplies to Gaza.

They understand this. This this is all this does is it turns people away from the cause. And guess what? And they want us to talk about them. So we're talking about them instead of Benjamin Netanyahu and illegal settlements in the West Bank and the fact that Netanyahu doesn't want the war to end because when the war ends, he's out of office and he has indictments that could send him to jail. We're not talking about that, Donnie, because they want us to talk about them, about them destroying property. Young people. What's the line from Buffalo Springfield? Young people carrying signs, mostly saying hooray for our signs. I mean, this you want to help the people

of Gaza. You know what? There are a thousand better ways. I just want to say one thing going back to Joe Biden. I'm going to go to the scene. It's important. Joe Biden needs to speak out against this. I don't care about politics. I don't care about worrying about your left flank. I don't care about worrying about young people. Joe Biden needs to be a leader and come out and condemn in an explicit way what's going on here. You know, this is something that Democrats make a hole in a second. This is something that Democrats don't get in their gut and they never have. And it's the thing that frustrates me about Democrats.

I voted for the war before I voted against the war. You know, always worrying. Well, what about that 5% on the far, far left that are going to call me this or that or the other? No, call this out. This is wrong. Call this out. Say we need to help the people of Gaza. Right. You can do it. We need to end the threat of famine in Gaza. We need to pressure Netanyahu to move towards a ceasefire and bring those hostages home. This detracts from our bigger cause. And let me say this, the politics of that, what is being robbed by them not doing that, Joe, where you and I agree, how do the Democrats, how do all of us on that side say

January 6th was wrong? If you can have the same pitches going on on college campus, don't make a parallel with January 6th. That has happened, though. OK, that has happened. So we know what's going on here. Just the latest from the AP. And then we're going to go live to the scene. Just that police tried for hours to disperse this encampment using loudspeakers, warning these people. Are they students? Are they students mixed with outside agitators, maybe a group? They were warned on loudspeakers for hours. You will be arrested if you do not leave. Please leave peacefully. They are doing this now because the protesters did not leave the encampments. Let's go live to the scene.

Steve Patterson is standing by with more. Steve. That's exactly what's happening now. Police on multiple fronts pushing the crowd back. This crowd became agitated after police breached the encampment. The encampment is probably about 500 yards to my left. It is in the far corner where they are releasing, as you can hear, flashbangs every few seconds.

This line formed when protesters came and tried to push in this way. Police now pushing that line back. It's very dark, but we can see there is just continuous sort of scrapping the crowd as police are trying to do the best they can to push agitators back we've seen multiple arrests on scene we are now back behind the police line they pushed us back for our safety we're kind of being contained to this field. Thankfully, that hasn't surged this way. And they've been able to sort of maintain a lid on the crowd by pushing back in an L formation. Meanwhile, the encampment, it's too far for you to see, but it's over this way. If we could come down the field a little bit.

This is sort of the back end. We saw protesters armoring this area up all day long. It started with the fence line. Then they built boards. The boards became shields. The shields and helmets became onto the protesters. And they sort of geared it up for this moment. And we've seen this sort of fortification happen for the last,

I would say, six to eight hours yesterday into tonight. Now we're in a situation in which, as you mentioned, police gave the warning. They've been on the loudspeaker for the last three, four hours or so, telling the crowds to leave. Those that chose to stay are now obviously being pressed upon. Hey, Steve, can I ask you, Joe, here? Steve, can I ask you, did we have a similar scene

that we had at Columbia where students were, the people who were students there were offered the right to walk away? And did you see some students leaving voluntarily before this confrontation began? Yeah, absolutely. Look, I mean, police have been transparent about this. They have been telegraphing this and posturing. We've watched sort of the progression of the police being here as a security force, making sure there were no more counter protesters, keeping the area safe from the state, really, to say essentially this is now changing into an element in which you need to leave. We consider this encampment unlawful to the point in which safety is breached for students on campus. That point was very clear. There's a clear delineation. All of a sudden, police are wearing riot gear.

They have zip ties. They have helmets. And then the choice has to be from the students as to whether or not you're now putting on a helmet, getting a shield, burying up the encampment that you're in, bracing for a fight, essentially. Many students chose to leave. We saw sort of a mass leave not too long ago before all of this was happening. Others sort of choosing to protest peacefully outside of the encampment where they were holding these peaceful rallies to sort of generate support for the people that were going to stay. But then there are the hardcore element of people who chose to stay and chose to fight back. And now they are fighting back, guys.

So, Steve, just to your point, they did try to disperse this peacefully. What I'm getting from the Associated Press is that shortly before 2 a.m., they made their way into the perimeter of the encampment. This is the police and the authorities only to retreat after being outnumbered by scores of protesters who yelled shame on you, summoned the crowd through water bottles and other objects at the officers as the officers then backed away. Later, the crowd chanted, we're not leaving. You don't scare us. Armed with batons and full riot gear, California Highway Patrol officers returned about an hour later and stood within feet of scores of protesters who continued to throw objects at them and yell.

More than 100 protesters moved from the stairs leading down from the encampment to block a side entrance to the encampment where police were advancing. So clearly the protesters had no intention of leaving or listening to law enforcement in any way. We tried to do this peacefully. And as Steve said, tried to do this peacefully for some time. Steve, we'll get right back to you. I've got to say, you'd ask what parents were saying about this. I mean, for parents whose children are and their children, by the way, it's there's some adults. I know, but I say this because we've got kids, obviously, of college age. I mean, I just obviously there are many that are distressed. I'm sure many are concerned about their safety.

I certainly hope the students get out and they're doing it peacefully right now. But Richard, this is, I tried to explain this a couple of days ago. Maybe I wasn't eloquent enough, but I can tell you my family, I'm not saying the Vietnam war was a just war. It was not a just war. But I can tell you the riots on college campuses, the riots at the Chicago convention in 68, all of those things moved my family from being Democrats their entire life to being Republicans. I remember I was young and I remember my parents asking what in the world is going on in this country. And of course, you know, they were raised in the Great Depression in rural Georgia. kind of hard for them to hear rich kids on campus of Harvard or taking over

campuses of Columbia. If you're offended by this, please, I'm trying to help you. I don't want Donald Trump to get elected. All right. Trying to help you. If you're too stupid to figure that out, you change to another channel because we're sorting through this as a country. And this is not helping. This is not helping the people of Gaza. And this is not helping those of us who want to fight fascism in America. But Richard, you you remember 68. It was a tidal wave. There's a reason that Reagan won with a lot of young voters in 1980. There's a reason the Reagan revolution took place. The seeds were planted in 1968.

And again, when I say that, I'm not saying that the Vietnam War wasn't an unjust war. It was. I'm saying there are ways, as the Rev has proven, as he proved in Viegas, as Martin Luther King has proven, as others have proven, there are ways to do this that helps the cause without hurting, without aiding the worst elements in American politics. So a couple of thoughts. You know, when the democracies crumble, it's when they lose control of currencies. Inflation gets out of control. People lose all their savings. We've seen that historically in Weimar and other places.

When you see scenes like this, and if you give people a choice and they say, well, I may be uncomfortable with some of the politics of some sides, but we need physical safety. We need order. This is seen as a real threat to democracy. This is in many ways, I think, school authorities who have lost control of their campuses. They didn't set clear rules. They weren't prepared to back them up. So now you've got to take back the campuses. They never should have lost them. By the way, let's go to the split screen of the riots going on in Florida. Oh, wait.

There are no riots going on at the University of Florida because the president said we don't run a daycare center here. Right. If you want to protest this, we respect your right to protest. But we're not going to let you break the law and destroy buildings. Right. Right. Free speech is not an absolute. And it's not the only right on a campus. There's got to be balanced against other rights, against obligations.

One last thing. These are educational institutions. So they ought to be thinking, one, about their failure to maintain order and protect the rights of everybody. What about one other thing? How about educating? You said before, this isn't helping the young people in Gaza. Where is the teach-ins here?

At least in Vietnam, we had some teach-ins in 68. Why isn't Colombia, why aren't these places basically saying, here's an opportunity to educate, not just, by the way, about the policy flaws of this Israeli government. What about the history of the peace process? What about the times the Palestinians kicked away chances of peace? What about the nature of Hamas's ruling Gaza? All these people, the gays for Gaza, how good do they think it would be for them under Hamas? This is a chance to have teachings to get people smarter, more sophisticated, more balanced about what's going on, because there's blame to spread around. But I don't see universities stepping up.

Here's the teachings. These protesters are going to hand the election to Donald Trump. Yeah. We are going to have fascism as a result of these protests. Joe Biden, you need to step up right now. What exactly, though, is he supposed to do? I mean, these need to be. I certainly come out. Call it out.

Call it out. Call it out. And call it what it is. We need to know what it is. This. These are people that are breaking the law. That's correct. Protest peacefully. Learn about the situation. I'm telling you, find out from from from I will say I'll just

say from my reporting. An overwhelming majority of the students that have been involved get their news from TikTok. They have no idea what happened in 2000 at Oslo. They have no idea that the Palestinians were offered 97% of the West Bank and they were going to compensate to the other 3%. They have no idea that there was a right to passage from Gaza over to the West Bank. They had no idea the deal that Bill Clinton was able to pull together between Israel and Palestine. And then Yasser Arafat passed on it. Why? I said it in real time because he knew Hamas would kill him. He would end up just like Sadat. They have no idea about this. They have no idea. If they did,

they would understand just how dangerous Benjamin Netanyahu was to the peace process they did they would understand just how dangerous benjamin netanyahu was to the peace process and they would understand how he had an alliance with hamas he had an alliance with hamas because the one thing that hamas and benjamin netanyahu had in common is they saw peace. They saw a two state solution as a threat to their very existence. And on a very local level, what we're looking at right here as the police are trying to disperse this is a lot of questions as to how this started. We're going to take a break, by the way, and bring in NYPD Chief John Chell to talk about this. But when you see those big pieces of wood, bed frames, whatever they are, and the encampment set up, we have to ask how that even started, because that's not allowed. Like that, that creates a threat. And that is, I mean, obviously, you have to get permits and

all sorts of things to do something like that in a public place at a school. And that is, I mean, obviously you have to get permits and all sorts of things to do something like that in a public place at a school. So why the university allowed that to happen, what we're looking at right here is a big question because we wouldn't be in the situation we are now if they let it grow and swell to this point. Does anybody have an answer to that? Because I can tell you if I'm running a university, I'd say no, we're not even talking about the plywood. The plywood is not even, you don't even think about that. But you know, I want to know what these school administrators are thinking. How do they even let it begin down this path? They're building up for their academics. Their academics.

You know, I mean, but Ben Sasse is the president of University of Florida now, right? Even academics at University of Chicago don't allow this. Look, this shows also how once you lose control, to regain control is incomparably worse. They've got to have clear rules and back them up. And once you lose control, this is what you get. You mentioned University of Chicago. They've sent out a letter. If you do this, you will be expelled.

And guess what? There's nothing happening at University of Chicago. They've sent out a letter. If you do this, you will be expelled. And guess what? There's nothing happening at University of Chicago. And look at Brown and Yale, where they were able to sit down with the administration and resolve it. The problem is, as he keeps saying, you've got people there that don't want to solve this. They're there to advocate. They want these images. They want the 106 professors at Columbia that came out supporting Hamas. I understand what Donnie's saying about he's going to elect Trump. They don these images. They want 106 professors in Columbia that came out supporting Hamas. I understand what Donnie's saying about he's going to elect Trump Middle East policy would be. What would be the consequences for Palestinians?

Right. I mean, and we need journalists. We need reporters. We need people figuring out about the funding, not just of this, but the radicalization of our students on college campuses on this issue, let me tell you, and I'll go there, Qatar, maybe, I believe they're the largest contributor to American universities over the past decade. Qatar, they have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into American universities to have a radicalizing effect on Middle Eastern studies. And I must say it has worked. You have one hundred and six professors at university

at Columbia that came out supporting Hamas. Think about teaching our students. OK, we're going to continue this conversation after a 60 second break. We're back in one minute with more live coverage from the protests being broken down at UCLA and beyond. Morning, Joe, back in one minute. All right, it's just before 4 a.m. on the West Coast, and we're following the breaking news out of Los Angeles, where police are breaking down barricades at UCLA, pulling apart plywood and other materials that Gaza war protesters used to build an encampment on campus. Moments ago, police detained multiple demonstrators after breaching the encampment. This comes as protests surrounding the war in Gaza have ended upended campus life across the country.

This, by the way, happened only after hours of police attempting to disperse this encampment peacefully. They told through loudspeakers the protesters would be arrested if they did not disperse. They are doing this now because the protesters gave them no other choice. They would not leave. And in fact, the protesters threw things at law enforcement and screamed at them that they were not leaving and they are not afraid. Joining us now, NYPD's chief of patrol, John Schell he's had uh his share of this uh across the country in new york city on the campus of columbia and beyond chief thanks so much for being with us right now um based on the experiences that you and the nypd had over the past couple days what's

the first thing uh administrators at ucla should do well the first thing you should not let it get to this point right they should have stood tall like like the NYU president did that one day and she took care of it. How? How? What? What? She ordered, she asked to come in right away and take care of it. And when we did that, they put up barriers and we really haven't spoken about NYU since. It was a one day thing. So nothing was built. Right. That was built. Here, what should happen is the president should have said, if you don't leave this campus at this point and you are a student, you will be expelled. If you are a faculty member or staff member, you will be fired. Yeah, I guarantee you those kids will leave because they don't want their dorm material on the corner.

Have mom come pick them up the next day. Right. That would be the first thing. There's so many so many students that want to get into these colleges. Right. I'm sure every college people miss by a percentage point. My kids miss schools by percentage points. I'm sure they would sign a waiver and say, I'll come in and partake as a good student and relish this great school and not partake in this behavior if it occurred. I think that would happen.

I will not destroy property. Talk about, we've been weeding about. And Jen talked about the student leader at Columbia saying those are those are outsiders. We don't know. They're autonomous. They those weren't students that took over the building. Can you tell when you go in who the student is and who the outside agitator is from doing this a long time? Just my side. sight yes you can when you're dressed in all black with a black scarf i'm not sure if that's a chemistry student do we know do we know like on the campus of columbia of the arrests that were made

i mean have we been able to we're still filtering through the 282 that came from columbia and city college because that was going on the same night too so we're doing two through the 282 that came from Columbia and City College because that was going on the same night, too. So we're doing two at the same time. The last time we knew about Columbia, up to 180, we took off and we had 30, 35 outside people. There you go. There's three things going on. There's kids protesting on campus because they think they protest the right thing. Those are house rules.

That's one thing. Yeah. Then you got students protesting who are crossing that line into hate speech. Yeah. You should be expelled. Then you have the outside agitators. Outside, inside, radicalization. Yeah.

Teach them. The one woman I'm not going to mention her name is teach them how to barricade themselves, how to take out the cameras in Hamilton Hall. All these tactics that we had to deal with. How do they get on campus, number one? Number two, what are they doing there? What is their overarching goal? Right. all these tactics that we had to deal with how they get on campus number one number two what are they doing there what is their overarching goal right is it that protest or is it something bigger universally and that's got to go beyond the nypd that's what i'm worried about and the

chief and i have been on the other sides of the barricades for a long time but yeah you know that we are about an issue what is being lost here is what is the cause the kids in gaza are suffering while we're looking at agitators that have taken the focus off of what it's supposed to be and i mean many of us i'm fighting right now affirmative action dei joining kimberly crincho tomorrow and right to learn about banning books. All of that's lost on guys that want to come in and violently disrupt. And I think one of the reasons that people like you and I have always had a mutual respect, even though we might have been on different sides of the barricade, is, you know, we were there for a bigger cause, not us. And these people have made it only about them.

Them graphics do nothing to help the people in Gaza. In fact, it hurts them. This hurts everybody. What is property? You're throwing things at the cops. What does this have to do with the point? Yeah. The ref said, he stands for things.

He protests properly. He does it right. And then we respect that. We were on the same page. But this is our kids on college campuses. As a father, every time I stepped onto Columbia, I'll tell you right now, every time I was up there, I'm a policeman. But my kids just left college. I'm like, this is broken.

Because the way we raised our kids to a certain point was not this way. So, Chief, it seems there's a common theme here, a universal theme in each of these campuses. And it has to do with the reluctance of the school's administrators to deal with this verbally, initially, right away. And they very rarely did it. So when I was up there at Columbia a couple of days ago, the police were outside, just lying there, waiting to be called upon. What was the negotiations like if there were negotiations between the police department and Columbia University's president and the office of the president? So we're on the phone with them two, three times a day, trying to work through their process. But they're not they're not they're not equipped for this. And then they're trying to

appease different arenas of their world. And chief, can we just say this? It's very easy to attack the president. If the president is Ben Sasse at Florida, who I think did the right thing, he's got professors and others that will support him in education. Let's just say, while I don't understand the images from Columbia or UCLA,

you know this far better. And tell my fellow conservative friends, that president at Columbia was walking a tightrope because there are faculty members and the faculty senate that wanted to censure her who were encouraging the illegal behavior. Exactly. To your point, behind the scenes scenes can you imagine what she was up against yeah different people come out there's money involved right yeah endowment money there's a lot of things at stake here so as they go through their process we'll just keep asking what do you need from us on the outside are you good do you need this and and they finally put writing what they wanted not once but twice and she was clear and concise and i'll give columbia credit on the day we went in we just asked him i asked him personally just do me a favor keep saying negotiating keep downplaying it as we prepare because we want

to have a little surprise a little element of surprise when we go in to avoid any type of confrontations and we did that flawlessly. Our cops, the plan worked. And the plan, when you think of the plan, we had a secure perimeter. We had five dorms with 2,000 kids in it that we did not want coming out into that campus and getting into a confrontation. And I got the president to agree that if any child came out, I call them children, right, with dads, any child came out and confronted us, they're going to be warned, you're going to get expelled. And that worked. The tents ran into the building. Then we had the building and that beautiful building inside destroyed.