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 six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. We follow the news.
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