President Trump threatened to eliminate federal funds from UC Berkeley, prompting an outcry from city and university officials, the morning after police shut down an event featuring the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos when destructive demonstrations erupted at the campus.
If UC Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS? the president tweeted early Thursday morning.
California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom fired back at Trump over Twitter, posting, As a UC Regent Im appalled at your willingness to deprive over 38,000 students access to an education because of the actions of a few.
Newsom wasnt alone.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, also issued a statement criticizing Trumps threat to take away funding from the university.
President Donald Trump cannot bully our university into silence. Simply put, President Trumps empty threat to cut funding from UC Berkeley is an abuse of power, Lee said.
Trumps tweet confused some UC officials, who stressed that the university was committed to ensuring that the event would proceed, as long as the well-being of students were not in jeopardy.
Its hard to discern what (the tweet) means given that the university went through extraordinary lengths to prevent violence, went through extraordinary lengths to facilitate the planning and presentation of the event, Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for UC Berkeley, said Thursday morning. And that the university has condemned the violence of all this behavior and deeply regrets the fact that basic First Amendment rights were unable to be supported last night.
The event, organized by the Berkeley College Republicans, wasnt canceled until two hours before the event when 150 masked protestors came on campus and interrupted an otherwise nonviolent protest, according to a statement from the university.
Mogulof attributed the destruction that took place on campus to nearly two dozen black clad individuals using power military tactics.
Im not sure how one plans for the unprecedented, Mogulof said, referring to the individuals swathed in black from head to toe.
Protesters began throwing fireworks and pulling down metal barricades outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, where the event was set to take place. Police evacuated Yiannopoulos, an editor for the far-right website Breitbart News, for his own safety.
Mogulof emphasized that university officials and police did not engage in violence against anyone that participated in the event.