Breitbart journalist Tom Ciccotta appeared on the One America News Network to discuss the recent riots at UC Berkeley and the violence seen recently from the left.
Opening the segment with footage of the riots at UC Berkeley, OAN host Liz Wheeler questioned the climate on college campuses that lead to the violence which Wheeler branded as “political terrorism.”
“So the thing’s that we saw, the thing that’s important and not a lot of people noticed,” said Tom Ciccotta, “before the riots even happened, a hundred professors at Berkeley had signed a petition to have MILO de-platformed. So I think it’s that kind of attitude that we’re seeing that’s provoking student’s into these strong, emotional, sometimes violent reactions. The problem was since a lot of these protesters were masked, we don’t know how many of them were Berkeley students and we’re starting to figure that out.”
Wheeler then mentioned the recent claims that outside instigators forced the protest at UC Berkeley to become violent and asked whether or not students were participating from the start, “Right, so the way we do it is when MILO has an event, the Breitbart Tech staff comes together and we treat it like another typical night, we were sitting there watching it unfold and preparing some stories and it did start out peaceful, all of a sudden it got kind of out of hand. There’s one story floating around out there about a UC Berkeley faculty member who may have been bragging about punching one of the attendees, there was that other video went viral that we saw, one girl was standing there with her, I think it was a ‘Make Bitcoin Great Again’ hat that got pepper sprayed during a local television interview. So it would be hard to suggest that none of these masked protesters were part of the Berkeley community, I think it’s safe to say that at least some of them were, some of them were a part of it.”
“The weird thing I’m starting to see on college campuses,” said Ciccotta, “whether its violence or mistreatment of conservative students or just de-platforming MILO, this stuff starts to get a pass when it’s done in the name of social justice. When it’s done in the name of social justice, this stuff starts to get a pass and thats definitely a concern.”
Watch the full interview below,