By: Gabriel E. Miller

During the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) President Donald Trump said, “Today I am proud to announce that I will be personally signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech…”

President Trump continued to say, “If they want our dollars, and we give it to them by the billions, they’ve got to allow people like Hayden and many other great young people and old people to speak.”

President Trump referred to the recent attack on a young conservative activist, Hayden Williams, at the highly regarded University of California, Berkeley.

The video showed two men come into close contact with Williams, one of them smacked his phone away when Williams started to record them because he felt endangered by them. After the other assailant, Zachary Greenburg began pushing Williams and threatened to “shoot his ass”, a different phone recorded another angle of the event and it caught him punch Williams in the face.

In response to the violence, UC Berkeley released an official statement.

“UC Berkely strongly condemns violence and harassment of any sort, for any reason. That sort of behavior is reprehensible and intolerable and has no place here. Our commitment to freedom of Expression and belief is unwavering. A message was sent by our police force to the campus community with a picture of the suspect, and a request that anyone with information about the incident come forward and report what they know in support of our investigation. We intent to identify anf bring the perpretrators to justice.”

Dan Mogulf, Assistant Vice Chancellor Office of Communications and Public Affairs UC Berkeley

The president also joked about the incident by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, he took a hard punch in the face for all of us.”

When Williams was invited to the stage, President Trump urged him to sue the university due to the altercation. Williams was very thankful for the recognition and appreciated the president for his support in him as well as other young conservatives.

This isn’t the first time that UC Berkeley opposed opposing viewpoints.

In 2017 former Breitbart editor, Milo Yiannopoulos was invited to speak at a conservative event at the university where, according to NPR, 1,500 liberal protestors turned violent. They threw barricades, smashed windows, and shot fireworks at police to name a few incidents.

Greenburg is now in police custody with a $30,000 bail. He has an appearance in court this upcoming Monday.