Trump attacks Berkeley and California with no facts (again)

In response to Greg Rodriguez’ (Feb. 4) and David Walker’sFeb. 5) letters, I counter with the following:

The peaceful protesters at the University of California at Berkeley were demonstrating against a scheduled speech on campus by Milo Yiannopoulos, a Breitbart editor and right-wing instigator, who had been invited by the Berkeley College Republicans.

Because of the far-right hate speech exhibited in his past stops, many Berkeley students and faculty members petitioned the university to block the event, but the chancellor declined to do so, citing free speech. Let’s repeat that – free speech.

Campus police had to cancel his talk just beforehand because about 150 violent masked outside agitators infiltrated the peaceful protest. These outsiders are now believed to be part of the black bloc movement.

This event prompted President Trump to pen yet another misleading tweet, accusing the university of not allowing free speech (false) and promoting violence against people with different views (false), and threatening to withhold federal funds (which a president is not empowered to do). This comes directly from the Trump playbook – create an “alternate reality” and threaten.

Anyone who cares about America should be deeply concerned about Trump and what he is doing every day to undermine our democracy.

This story was originally published February 16, 2017 at 12:37 PM with the headline "Trump attacks Berkeley and California with no facts (again)."