You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
It's Later with mo Kelly Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. And we are
keeping it right here. We're going to make sure that you're not going to
miss anything with respect to UCLA USC or any of the other Southern California campuses.
As by now, you probably know that there has been a dispersal order
which has been given for those who are in the encampment on UCLA's campus.
Whereas USC has been relatively quiet and it's been a much more controlled situation,
UCLA is far more uncertain. And because of that, we're going to keep
it right here on this story and see what may transpire on that campus.
LAPD has a huge presence, my word, on the campus, as well
as CHP Beverly Hills Police Department, Santa Monica Police Department, and the La
County Sheriff's Department. With that order of dispersal, and from what I've seen
from television reports, I think it is fair to assume that that show of
force is going to be for the purpose of clearing out that encampment. I
think they're going to follow through on that dispersal order. They have not as
of yet moved forward. But here are some things that I think we can
assume and also glean from what may happen on UCLA's campus tonight. And I'm
looking at UCLA through the lens of what has already happened in regard to police
response on Columbia's campus. In NYPD, there has been a decision made within
these relative and respective police departments that these pro tests encampments must come to an
end. They have progressed to a point of violence and vandalism which cannot be
tolerated anymore. It has hit a point of lawlessness that cannot be allowed to
continue. So we saw what happened in Colombia at Columbia, and we're waiting
to see what will happen at UCLA. And remember, I thought there was
a trajectory, a path, a pattern that the schools on the West Coast
were following relative to the East Coast. I expect LAPD to move in at
some point tonight, and moving in and clearing out this encampment at UCLA serves
two purposes. And I don't have any inside information. I'm just saying I
think it's reasonable to assume from what we know LAPD moving in and when I
say LAPD, that's inclusive of CHP and the other law enforcement agencies on side
of UCLA. But law enforcement moving in and clearing out the end that encampment
at UCLA not only sends a message to the UCLA campus, but it sends
a message to the other Southern California campuses which are on a smaller level dealing
with this as well. And just in case you didn't know, I know
it had been mentioned in the CAFI twenty four newsroom, but I want to
reiterate that pro Palestinian protesters, who are also demanding divestment from Israel and an
end to the country's military actions and Gaza, that's the common thread, that's
the common through line. They have set up several new tent encampments at colleges
and universities all around southern and northern California. I'm talking about you see Irvine,
you see Riverside, Occidental College, cal Poly, Humboldt, San Francisco
State, Sacramento State, and you can best believe that those campuses, the
campuses in the sense of the officials, the university and college officials are watching
what is happening at UCLA, and the students and student protesters are watching what
happens tonight at UCLA, and that will be very clear, at least from
the law enforcement response what it plans to do moving forward. And also it
will send a message and signal to the other campuses as far as if you
continue with these encampments, what likely will happen. Because in the way that
the campuses, the students, the organized protesters, the outsiders and agitators are
all communicating, you can best believe they're all communicating as far as their tactics
and their plans. Law enforcement is communicating as well. Don't think that what's
happening at San Francisco State or Sacramento State or UC Irvine, UC Riverside is
happening in a vacuum and they're not also watching from a law enforcement standpoint,
what is being employed here in southern California. We know that at least twenty
five people were arrested early Tuesday at cal Poly Humble. We know that the
protesters that you see Irvine, they've been saying to fellow students and also other
protesters outside of UC Irvine to hold the line. So if the UCLA protesters
are going to be in transigent and they're going to remain in place. Then
law enforcement is going to do exactly what they did in New York with Columbia,
and these other universities are going to take their cues from UCLA and Colombia
in USC how to best handle this moment, to bring order to the campus,
to conduct commencement ceremonies, and also to ensure the safety of not only
the students, but professors and any bystanders who may be in the area,
because we are if we take USC as an example, that the surrounding area
around the university is also being involved in these protests. We had Tiffany Hobbs
on earlier she'll be joining us later on. She was detailing how there was
an organized protest on some level which was marching down the street outside of USC.
Because many of these campuses USC included, they've locked down entrance and exit
to a large degree, They've made it much more difficult for people who have
no business being on campus, at least in the case of USC, from
getting on campus. That's point number one. That's the first thing that I
think these universities are going to have to do to at least manage the situation.
You can't have anyone and everyone coming on the campus with all sorts of
agendas, with all sorts of possibly weapons or other type of contraband, which
could complicate issues we had on UCLA's campus last night, slash early this morning,
fireworks and weapons on some level, those are the things that the various
campuses can do their part to help control that situation. But the takeaway is
what is happening right now at UCLA. All these campuses in southern California and
northern California are watching, and depending on how it's handled later on tonight will
give us a lot of insight as to what probably will happen on these other
campuses UC Irvine, UC Riverside, Occidental, Sacramento, State, San Francisco,
State, CalPoly, Humboldt. And that's just right now. I'm quite
sure there will be other colleges and universities who will also join in on some
level. May not be as large a protest demonstration as we've seen at USC
or UCLA, but the same methods, the same methodology probably will be employed.
So what happens tonight at UCLA will have a large effect on what happens
everywhere in California. It's Later with mo Kelly. We're continuing to follow what
is going to happen at UCLA and USC and other campuses. So keep it
right here at KFI AM six forty. We're not leaving the story, so
there's no reason for you to leave KFI. You're listening to Later with Mo
Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty. Earlier in the program, Mark
Ronner highlighted some things that from a news perspective, that we should remember,
and it kind of encouraged me to go further down this road talking about knowing
the history some of the similarities and differences to nineteen sixty eight as we talk
about these protests on UCLA's campus, USC's campuses, and also around southern California
and the nation more broadly, there are some similarities and differences to nineteen sixty
eight. But we should all be students of our own American history. Since
there's this great debate about how history should be taught. That means it requires
that we have to have a curiosity about how this country came to be exactly
where it is right now, and if you look at the protests today.
There are a lot of similarities to nineteen sixty eight. In nineteen sixty eight,
you did have these widespread college protests around the nation. They were with
respect to the Vietnam War. Obviously, there's not a war in a sense
of US boots on the ground in this case, but it had to do
with an international issue. That's one similarity. Another similarity it had to do
with This was a ground up protests. In other words, it grew out
of the college movement. It wasn't necessarily from the political class. It was
most definitely the collegiate environments on campuses all around the country. There are other
similarities in the respect that the students of nineteen sixty eight were asking for the
federal government to divest, specifically divest from the war in Vietnam, divest as
far as our Department of Defense financial support of the war, and bring obviously
the soldiers home. That's similar to today in the sense that students today are
asking for well, let me just say, some of the students and some
of the outside agitators are asking for divestment with respect to Israel and the war
in Gaza, something which is not similar but is worthy of noting is the
media coverage. If you're not old enough to remember, and I am fairly
old enough to remember anything about Vietnam, but as a student of history,
it's worth noting back in nineteen sixty eight there were only three networks. There
was ABC, NBC, and CBS, and network coverage or programming only went
until ten thirty at night. There was not eleven o'clock news. If you
happen to be a gen xer, we know about the eleven o'clock news.
There was just the evening news, which is maybe five o'clock, six o'clock,
depending on the network, seven o'clock. That was it, and was
only during the week, so America's exposure to the protest was very, very
limited, but also very concentrated. That's how people got their news, and
obviously printed news the newspaper. There was not a twenty four hour news cycle.
Obviously there was no cable news. There weren't any people reporting on the
ground who could use their own technology to get their via their audio their message
out to the masters, excuse me, to the mass is. There was
only the three major networks and very tiny bits of coverage. And here's another
major distinction. Why nineteen sixty eight is not like twenty twenty four. In
nineteen sixty eight, these college students were also dealing with, i would say,
the specter the shadow of the draft. And the draft ended in nineteen
seventy five, but before that, college students, by and large, unless
they had some sort of exemption, were drafted to fight for America in Vietnam.
The college students of nineteen sixty eight had a far more personal, invested
interest in what happened with Vietnam and trying to bring about the end of the
war in Vietnam. These college students today are not directly connected unless they should
have family members in Gaza or in Israel or somehow connected directly to the Israel
and Hamas war. But outside of that, it's not the same in that
regard. But there are a lot of similarities. And if you and again
a credit toe Mark Rounner for highlighting this fact, if you look at the
history of protests from the civil rights movement, obviously there's overlap with the anti
Vietnam War movement. Those movements were led by and large by people in their
late teens and early twenties. That has always been the case going back to
even the suffrage movement, the abolitionist movement always young people, idealistic, sometimes
many times misguided in their methods, even throughout history. But they were at
the forefront of the movement. But if you want to make those comparisons,
and I am leaning into those comparisons right now, what is happening on college
campuses is not like previous movements, if only because there is really no cohesiveness
or central coordination or methodology which is going to help bring about their stated desired
result. Part of the reason why the civil rights movement of the late nineteen
fifties and early nineteen sixties was successful was that there was a coordinated message and
also strategy, not that everyone agreed with it. There were many black people
African Americans who did not agree with doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. And
did not agree with the whole strategy of nonviolence, And people forget that when
he was assassinated, he was probably at the lowest point of his popularity.
He was highly unpopular because he had started to speak out against the Vietnam War.
But what made the civil rights movement successful was that doctor King and others
in his inner circle, they understood the moral authority and the visuals of violence
being perpetrated on black people, how that would change hearts and minds with respect
to the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act
of nineteen sixty four, and the Voting Rights Tact of nineteen sixty five.
And that's why nonviolence was so instrumental in changing the overall perception of why civil
rights legislation had to be passed. Talk about the moral imperative. That's why
I am so critical and dismissive at times of what later movements have tried to
employ because they did not take from the Civil rights movement. They didn't take
any of the lessons learned from the success of the Civil rights movement. They
just took the idea of protests, and I include Black lives matter in this.
They just have these willy nilly protests with no real strategy, no real
direction, and no surprise, no real success. There are parallels to nineteen
sixty eight, but unfortunately the protesters of today haven't learned the valuable lessons of
nineteen sixty eight. It's later with mo Kelly Cafi AM six forty We're live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app and we're continuing to monitor UCLA as LAPD and other
law enforcement agencies have a very pronounced presence. LAPD, as you've heard,
is already on a tactical alert. They've given an order to disperse for those
in the encampment on UCLA's campus. From what we know when we last spoke
to Chris Adler, we'll speak to Michael Monks coming up shortly. We have
not heard any movement from the protesters in the sense of leaving the encampments,
trying to disperse from that encampment, So it looks like at some point LAPD
will be left with no choice but to move in, and we will monitor
that and bring it to you as it happens. You're listening to Later with
Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty, and we continue to follow
what is happening at UCLA right now, as LAPD is on a tactical alert.
We know that LAPD has been joined by other law enforcement agencies CHP Beverly
Hills Police Department, Santa Monica PD, and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.
To my knowledge, and right now Aaron Benmosch from the newsroom has an update
on UCLA. Hi, can you guys hear me? Yes, we can
amazing Well, I just heard from Chris Adler. She says the school is
on lockdown so nobody can get in and out, which means Michael Monks and
Chris Aler are going to be giving us updates for a while. More police,
She's saying hundreds of police officers from various law enforge enforcement agencies are around
campus. The Daily Bruin is saying counter protesters are kind of meeting the police
wherever they seem to be. They said that one anonymous source. They also
posted a picture you can see it on their Twitter that a student inside the
camp says in an interview that a police officer in tactical tactical gear is on
the roof of Rice Hall. So it doesn't seem like the protesters are going
anywhere, and it certainly doesn't seem like police are going anywhere. Okay,
from what you can tell in the social media, have they any idea how
police they are presenting themselves? Is it aggressive, more passive? Are they
moving forward to the encampment or they just staying in place? To the best
of your knowledge, they seem to just be standing there I think now staffers
as well as other students, and now more masked and unidentifiable individuals are pouring
through as well. So now it just seems like there's a big mix of
a lot of people in a lot of places throughout various points of the university.
But so far, nobody is doing anything. Protesters are still chanting and
cheering and staying within their space, and the number of police officers are just
surrounding the area. That's great too. I don't want to read too much
into what you're telling me, but from what I understand, you are telling
me that UCLA's campus was not locked down until recently. Is that correct?
Yes, from what I understand and what Chris Adler told me, she was
on her way out to switch with Michael Monks or other reporter and she was
told that she cannot leave, that the campus is on lockdown, and I
think just to contain the area and nobody out. See that's strange because we
know that law enforcement has had a pronounced presence for the past four hours or
so and gave the dispersal order around five o'clock or so. I'm not exactly
sure, but in and around that time, it just seems strange that they
would not cut off entrance into the campus until the nine o'clock hour. That
just seems like you're inviting more of a confrontation at that point because you give
the dispersal order, people are defining the dispersal order, and yet we know
that people were still coming to the campus, be it student, be it
student, protester, be it outside agitate, agitator, chaos agent's I know
this is not a question for you to answer, Aaron, but I'm just
wondering out loud why that order for the lockdown wasn't also given simultaneously to lessen
the impact of people arriving on campus. For whatever reasons. Well, the
university was also, whether officially or different professors, they were being encouraged to
move remote. So tomorrow and Friday classes are online, I think in order
to de escalate the situation, and professors were telling students a week ago,
don't be on campus if you don't have to be. And now the university
and their safety update, they even canceled classes today and they moved things remote.
So I'm not sure if they haven't released an official lockdown statement, but
Chris Hadler cannot leave, so there's a lockdown of sort it maybe, but
again, if they haven't disseminated that information, there's no reason to believe that
is actually happening. Tifferty Hobbs, I know you have some updates at UCLA
as well. I do. And what I've noticed smoe online on Twitter,
specifically slash x, is that multiple organizations not affiliated with UCLA, including something
called the People's City Council, as well as RevCom, which I spoke about
last week, which is a very well known group of agitators. They both
of these groups and others have made an all call on their social media to
the community at large, saying things like quote la get out here and defend.
RevCom specifically asked for Los Angeles to get to UCLA, and they're hashtagging
lots of different things, many of which have nothing to do with Gaza or
Palestine or UCLA, but with their group, with May Day, with Labor
Day, with free speech, and they're saying, come now to defend the
brave students. That was a tweet from RevCom just five hours ago, asking
their legions of followers to get to UCLA. That's high. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, what type of following do they have, not necessarily online,
but if you can just estimate how many people do you think they might be
reaching A in an all call something like this, Oh, oh, hundreds
of thousands. They're a very well known global group, quite honestly, and
their chapter here in Los Angeles is comprised of thousands of members, many of
whom appear at protests as a career. Quite honestly, this is what they
do. And I've had direct experience with them that has been quite volatile and
that has disrupted peaceful protests. So they're asking their followers to get out to
protect the students at UCLA, and I imagine that they are there. They
are there. They are quite quiet on social media about this, but they
made that all call five hours ago as well as this other People's City Council
group which asked for a call to action saying all out to UCLA, saying
fulfill the demands of the encampment and defend against UCLA complicity. So see,
issues are being conflated. There are lots of things that play ultimately resulting in
people outside of the university coming. And when you do that sort of all
call, you don't know who will arrive. We don't know what the intentions
are and how far they're willing to go to obtain their goal. Well,
we do know somewhat. It does mean escalation. That is the whole point.
You're not coming You're not asking people to come down and you know,
silently engage with law enforcement. You're coming down to be a force, to
be a present presence, to be an agitator, to escalate, which is
something that we don't want to happen. But if you're just tuning in,
we are giving you the latest as it relates to UCLA. There has been
an order to disperse which has been in place for the past four hours or
so, maybe more than that, and LAPD has increased its presence since we've
been on the air at seven o'clock, and other law enforcement agencies have increased
their presence, according to back channel communications with Chris Adler, who is stuck
on campus. From what I understand, also, CAFI reporter Michael Monks is
now in place on the campus at UCLA. Hey, mom, and when
we come back, Yes, go ahead, Eric. I just got word
from Chris that it isn't informal lockdown put on by campus security, so it's
not an official lockdown. Well, I don't know if that's going to work,
if it's only campus security wondering out loud in a situation like this,
but thank you for that. It's an informal lockdown. I don't know what
to make of that, Aaron of being serious. It's like, you know,
I just once I got the confirmation and the clarity, I just wanted
to provide that. But no, But if anything, no, that's great
information, because of anything, it makes it explicit that it's not a formal
lockdown. People have been making their way to the campus and on the campus,
and if it's only being enforced informally by campus security. I've been to
UCLA's campus. It is massive. I don't know if you could actually plug
all the holes as far as how people could get onto campus and if as
many people could be coming. And it's not just pro Palestinian protesters anymore.
Now there's counterpro testers. Daily Bruin is now saying there's five counter protesters.
Now, I'm not sure what affiliation that would be, whether they're students,
whether they're pro Israel, I'm not really sure. But it's definitely not just
oh Kkel showing Israeli flags being waved as well, so there's there's a lot
of people out there now. Well, we're going to check in with kfi's
owned Michael Monks when we come back and get more of what's happening on the
ground on UCLA's campus when we come back next you're listening to Later with Moe
Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty. It's Later with Mo Kelly.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app as we continue our coverage of the events
unfolding at UCLA's campus. Stephen, do we have Michael Monks yet on the
line? Not yet? Okay, okay, we're gonna get him in place,
but we want to follow what is happening on the ground in just a
moment at uc Also want to let you know at eleven o'clock, I'm going
to be with you until eleven o'clock. But at eleven o'clock we're going to
have Tim Conway Junior. I guess he's a mad man. He's going to
be coming back into the studio to do another shift. I think he's going
for a world record for the most hours of radio in a given day.
So Tim Conway Junior will join me at eleven o'clock and we will chop it
up for a little bit. Then I will pass the mic and the baton
to him at eleven PM. As I said, we're going to continue to
follow this story for the rest of the night, as it's clear that things
seem to be trending towards escalation. I say that very cautiously, but from
the information which is available, we do know that protesters are amassing and they
seemingly are gearing up for a response from LAPD and other law enforcement. More
law enforcement from our report from Chris Adler, who has stuck my work on
campus, more law enforcement has arrived and is in place in front of Royce
Hall, and given the order of dispersal, it doesn't seem like they have
any intentions of not enforcing it. So I suspect that there may be some
movement before the night is over. And Tiffany Hobbs, if you're there,
I know you had a very important update that I want you to share.
Yeah. So again, I've been scouring social media because that's where a lot
of this information is coming from. But what I found is again a specific
organization that is associated with the new what they consider it to be the New
Revolutionary Communist Party, has been all around the country at these different protests over
the last week with their specific agenda, and what they are doing is they
are going to the protests. They are setting up their own their own again
insignia, their own paraphernalia. They are protesting, leading students and others in
chants. This is all according to their own social media website things that they
say that they have been doing. This is not just me speculating. They've
been leading people in chants, They've been getting into the faces of law enforcement
or campus police, and they have been causing a lot of turmoil during times
when campus protests are largely peaceful. So what may start as something that is
uneventful calm quickly escalates, and their motive is to escalate. They are using
today May first, May Day as a galvanizing date across the country, if
not globally. I saw them I also speaking about Columbia, not the university,
the country and saying that May First, everyone should come together and essentially
start to escalate these situations because they're in need of this extra energy. So
it is a dangerous situation when these groups get involved, and again they are
agitators on both sides. And I know saying outside agitators can make people bristle
because of the connotation and because of how misused that phrasing can be. But
there are agitators on both sides of the coin who are completely interested in this
sort of disruption, in escalation, and then in the dark of night they
disappear, and that is a huge and dangerous problem. Tawala. We have
talked about this time and time again, and I said, when all of
this start, I said, be very careful about who you allow to speak
on your behalf, who are the loudest voices, and who is part of
your protests? And from what everything that we've seen and learned so far,
these protests have largely been hijacked and I would say almost given permission to hijack
them. Every single time there seems to be one of these modern protests.
I call them modern because these protests that are hashtag moments in this history that
we're living through right now, they are always hijacked. We literally saw how
Black Lives Matter protests were hijacked by agitators, and in some cases it was
revealed even undercover police officers to start up something, and this is what happens.
We've said time and time again, not just with marches and protests,
even with social media protests, and you've had different individuals who have agendas different
from those who are the original spokesperson of said cause. Be careful who you
allow to hijack your message, because then it's not yours, but everyone will
remember you first. That's right. And we have kfi's own Michael Monks,
who's on the line right now. Michael, let me get out of the
way. What do you see? What are you hearing? Well? Our
colleague Chriszandler has been reporting brilliantly from all of this throughout the day. So
I've taken advantage of that opportunity to walk the entirety of the perimeter of the
protest that's going on here to get a sense of what it looks like.
And it's certainly the most intense that we've seen since these things have started here
in LA around these campuses over the past couple of weeks. I don't know
if you can hear the helicopters, but there are multiple health careacters hovering,
and it's not just police that are here. There are a lot of private
security officers here as well. You get the sense that people expect something to
take place on this campus today. So in addition to this centralized encampment as
it's been referred to, there are a lot of people gathering in the perimeters,
some chanting and doing some of the activities that you've seen inside the encampments.
But then there are others. I was thinking, you know, in
history class, when you learn about people who would picnic civil war battles,
there are folks who I think are here to observe, and so they're eating,
they're sharing food, They're sitting on the hills and waiting for whatever it
is they expect to happen on this campus tonight. It's tense. It's not
as loud, you know, from the people. It's loud from the helicopters,
my goodness. But people are talking quietly, I think, paying a
lot of attention to chatter on social media, seeing what the police might be
saying, and just trying to wait out whatever awaits us this evening here in
Westwood. If I gather what you're saying, there's not an escalation as far
as the protests are concerned. As of this moment, but it is an
overall tense moment. Is that correct? I think there's just a lot of
anticipation. Yeah, yes, absolutely. You know, there's been word that
this encampment is to be broken up. Possibly, that's what's been spreading around
here. And what that looks like is what I think people are waiting for.
What does that mean? How will it go? Particularly in light of
what happened on this campus last night? Is there any ongoing discussion? I
asked Chris Adler about an hour and a half and ago hour and a half
ago, so I want to ask you the same. Is there any communication
between the encampment and law enforcement? I think law enforcement has made it clear
that it's time to go, but that ship I think has sailed for any
type of voluntary exit. And again, I think what folks are waiting for
here is what does another type of exit look like? And once that starts,
what happens? Does that group of folks around the perimeter do they become
part of this? You know what's interesting is a lot of people you can't
really refer to it as armor, but it's protective gear, low level protective
gear. I've seen a lot of folks in bike helmets, a lot of
people who anticipate, possibly protests, caught up in something. I'm talking about
the folks who are outside of the main nucleus of this thing. The folks
who are and there are a lot, hundreds and hundreds of folks who are
on the outskirts of this thing with me. And I'm seeing folks in helmets,
and they all seem prepared for something happening here at some point tonight.
Tell me how law enforcement is, they're at tire, what type of are
they wearing? Helmets? Are their riot shields? Tell me what you see
from a law enforcement standpoint. There's a variety of different aesthetics on the various
law enforcement officers and the security personnel that are here. So on the perimeter
where I am, you're seeing a typical security guard people in bright colored vest
to let you know that they're here to either keep you out or to direct
you elsewhere. Streets are blocked off, and then I think being caught up
in the anticipation of or the preparation I should say, on the law enforcement
side, there certainly are officers who are probably closer to the nucleus of this
situation who are ready to protect themselves. Should this take a turn, Michael,
in the thirty seconds I have left with you, are you enjoying my
word a freedom of movement? Can you move about? Can you interview people
who are protesting? Or are you cordoned off altogether? I have found a
little quiet patio here on this campus with a lot of benches. And you
have a little bit of concern as a member of the media with some of
these things, and I've got the KFI Mike flag on this thing. I
didn't want to draw any attention to myself, so I've stepped away. I'm
observing the folks who are are walking past here, but I found a quiet
little cove here on campus in order to report to you this evening. Michael,
monks, stay safe. I know you're going to be there for a
while, so we may check in with you sometime later as the evening progresses.
I'll be here and ready for you, moum k IF. I am
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