5-1-24 *INTERVIEW* Fox News Contributor Paul Mauro View on Protests on College Campuses

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Die of dehydration and starvation or getseverely ill. Even if they disagree with
you, if the answer is no, then you should allow basic. I
mean, it's crazy to say becausewe're on an IVY League campus, but
this is like basic humanitarian aid'reasking for, like could people please have
a glass of water? Oh mygosh, the brain damage, the brain

(00:21):
damage at IVY League schools is beyondbelief. Joining me to talk about it.
Another IVY League snob Paul Morrow,former NYPD inspector. He's an attorney.
He's a proprietor of the fabulous opsdesk substack so ops d e sk
dot substack dot com. And Paul, I'm I'm kind of sorry now to

(00:44):
associate you with the IVY League,but just so we're clear, tell us
what the association is because I feelbad too. I went to the Kennedy
School at Harvard for graduate school.What did you learn there? Yeah,
there's your answer. It was niceto put it on the resume. Yeah,

(01:08):
we used to call it the hbomb, you know, dropping the
Harvard bomb. But you know,in all honesty, there were plenty of
good people there, sure, plentyof good professors. And I feel like
my experience was for mid career people. It was a little more mature.
You didn't have to rub noses withmillennials and Generation Z or whatever we're up

(01:29):
to. So I probably had afairly charmed experience there because I went later,
mid career, later in life,right, and you know, I
was around mostly adults, with theexceptional one or two of the faculty members
who will never be adults. Butanyway, all right, I got a
lot of aspects of this that Iwant to talk with you about. First,
since you were former NYPD guy,let's talk a little bit about what
happened at Columbia yesterday. So itbecame clear, at least through reporting,

(01:56):
that NYPD couldn't go on to campuswithout Columbia inviting them on. Is that
broadly true? And if a Columbiaperson had called the cops directly and said
I was just assaulted, could thecops have gone on at that point?
If Columbia hadn't wanted them to affirmativeon both counts. So for the trust

(02:17):
pass charge, which is all theyhad to go on, you need to
complain it. You need somebody whosays, you know, this is my
house, this is my yard,this is my building. These people here
and they're not authorized to get themout. That's kind of where they were.
However, if somebody calls nine toone one and says I was just
assaulted as a guy here with asamurai saw it and he's running around with

(02:38):
it, that's a very different story. They didn't get those sorts of calls.
It was purely down to the factthat the quote unquote occupiers were on
that lawn and in fact they've takenthat building, and so they were gaming
it out. They did all theplanning ahead of time very clearly. The
NYPD was ready and then ultimately,you know, they got the call and

(02:59):
said, okay, get these kidsout of here. They had not gotten
the kind of none on one quoliyou're talking about, which is in stark
contrast what went on in LA whereresidents were calling nine to one one and
getting hung up on Wow. Okay. So, from the perspective of the
criminal justice system, for the peoplewho invaded Hamilton Hall and barricaded themselves in

(03:23):
Hamilton Hall and did some property damagein all, first question, legally,
is there any difference between whether aparticular person is a student or not a
student? Here's the only distinction.If the student normally has access to that
building and then that they go intothat building, then it would be hard

(03:45):
to claim that they are trespassing orguilty of burglary, which is a sort
of higher level of things, asit means you go in with the intent
to commit a crime. However,even though they are students, and some
of them are not students right theway, but ones who are students and
most are students, don't listen tothis meme that's developing that is outside agutive.
I thought it was mostly non students, so I appreciate the correction.

(04:09):
No nonsense. They are trying thatas they just as they did during the
twenty twenty Summer of Love. It'sa way for the city to sort of
absolve themselves of responsibility. Ah,these people fly in from elsewhere to destroy
our town and then they leave.No, not accurate. Most of them
are going to turn out to bestudents. I've been up close on both.

(04:30):
I've been up close downtown at NYU, I've been up close up to
Colombia the students. But anyway,the building was locked, right, they
had to break the windows and toget in there, and they furthermore forcibly
detained at least three of the custodians, which so far I have not heard
has been charged. Trying to getan answer to that myself, because that

(04:53):
is a tell. The fact thatthey're now calling the students children who are
essentially less stray the fact that thissaying it's Southside agitators, that they don't
seem to have charged anything related tothe unlawful imprisonment of the three custodians.
I fear that the city is goingto smetch defeat from the jaws of victory
here and go soft on all ofthis. Well, I think surgical removal,

(05:16):
but I think that there's a dealcut that they're going to drop the
charges. I fear that, right, and I think the reason for that
is you and I have a definitionof victory that's very different from the city's
definition of victory. It's probably theopposite of what you and I might think
of his victory. So, puttingaside a potential charge of false imprisonment or

(05:40):
kidnapping or whatever that would look likein New York, is there any charge
that is facing the people in Columbiawho took over Hamilton Hall that would cause
them to have to serve jail time. The burglary could that is classified as
a violent felony. And the problemis that you're in Alvin Bragg's jurisdiction.

(06:01):
And it's one of the things I'vebeen harping on. Bragg is going to
bend over cockwards to make sure nobodygoes to jail and stays in jail.
And that's why I keep now thatwe're starting to see the protests spread in
the New York State school system.Here, they've just started an encampment as
Sunny Stonybrook hit, there's one startingup state. All of those are firmly

(06:24):
under pathy hulkel are governor's control,and she also has the ability to either
fire or coerce Alvin Bragg. She'sbeen totally mia on this, just as
Newsom has been totally mia in Californiaregarding the debacle at UCLA last night.
And so Hulkeel needs to step upand make sure these charges go through as

(06:46):
strong as they can and that theycome with incarceration. Problem. As you
and I both know, and asI'm sure your audience knows, is that
right now you have Democrat governors andDemocrat officials hiding under their desks, because
all this realistically is a civil warinside the Democratic Party. It's like one
big domestic incident, and they havekids they can't control. They know what

(07:12):
the optic is, and they can'tlose Michigan, so they don't want to
come down too hard on them.And that's what they're concerned about. That's
what Joe Biden's concerned about. Andthey're also concerned that too penetrative an investigation
is going to turn over rocks likedark Soros and Rockefeller money going to these
groups but also going to Democratic candidates, and that's not supposition. New York

(07:32):
Posts carried stories here in New Yorkabout local politicians, progressive politicians who are
getting money from the same progressive sourcesthat these student groups are getting money from.
Wow, we're talking with Paul Morrow, former NYPD inspector. He's an
attorney and he is the proprietor ofthe OPS Desk substack, which is a

(07:55):
must read. I encourage everyone tosubscribe opsd sk at subjects. So legally,
what different restrictions are there on howa college administration can react to encampments
and such things between private colleges andpublic colleges I think the main distinction for

(08:22):
the public purposes is the fact thatif it's a public school, that the
cops can just go in because it'snot private property, and so the public
is being infringed upon. And that'sright within the remit of any police department.
And that's why what occurred at UCLAlast night was so befunneling. And
I want to be clear, Iam not criticizing the LAPD rank and file.

(08:48):
They're going to do what's required ifthey ever wanted to go in.
One thing, I know, youknow my twenty five years with the PD,
I spent twenty of it as asupervisor, and I can tell you
that in circumstances like that, andI was in plenty, if people you
line them up, you tell themthis what we're gonna do and how we're
gonna do it, they're gonna doit. You know, they're going to
obey a lawful order. That paramilitarymindset is a force multiplier in California.

(09:09):
I don't know what happened in LA, but I've never seen anything like it
yet. And I haven't talked aboutthis story. I haven't explained the story.
So could tell tell my listeners whathappened. Oh all right, I'm
sorry. So in UCLA yesterday,which is a public school, which is
this instinction you're talking about, becauseit's not a private school where you need

(09:31):
the school to call and say,Okay, they're on my property, get
them off. They a riot brokeout. They went on last night for
about three hours, and a lotof people got hurt, and the optic
was terrible. They were shooting fireworksat each other, and they were shooting
fireworks into the tent city and itwas essentially between supporters of Israel and the
occupiers, who obviously are pro Palestinian. And I thought at one point the

(09:54):
tent city was going to catch fire, which really would have been a debacle,
and nobody came. I was onthe air for about two hours of
it, and then ultimately I hadto go to bed and had early hit
this morning. So it was stillgoing on when I went to bed,
but there was no LAPD. Andlike I said, LAPD, LA Sheriffs,
these are good organizations. They knowwhat to do. There was a
failure of leadership. And there's somecanard being put out that well, there's

(10:18):
a deal cut where only the publicsafety at UCLA, the public safety officers
who are not cups they have tocall and invite LAPD in. Well,
first of all, that's crazy,all right, ignore that whatever piece of
paper that's written on, because thepublic safety is in place is in play.
Secondly, if that is the casewhere it was public safety, some

(10:41):
of them were there, why didn'tthey make the call? But thirdly,
thirdly, look, you're the governor, you're the mayor. The heck with
whatever deal has been cut in thepast between public safety and LAPD, who
as sways the concerns of the eggshellLA students who are so concerned about LAPD

(11:03):
coming on campus. Yeah, riotgoing on? Yoda. Mayor get to
the elector and say, I amannouncing right now, by executive order,
whatever those deals are off, LAPDwill take control of this situation before somebody
is seriously hurt or killed. Noneof that happened. Newsome still hasn't spoken
about it. Shameful and I justdon't understand how that could be allowed.

(11:24):
The optics were awful and it didnot look like an American city. I'll
tell you that. I was embarrassedfor the police, but it's not their
fault. It was a leadership failure. I mean, when's the last time
you or I thought of Los Angelesas an American city. I mean that
only happened. I mean that onlyhapps sarcastically, right, Yeah, I
know, I know. Yeah,it's in San Francisco, La. These

(11:46):
things are all part of an alternateuniversity, right. So I know a
lot of the facts on the groundhave changed, but I think the principle
underlying a piece that you wrote recentlyhasn't changed. And I want to ask
you about it. Over at yoursub stack. You wrote a piece a
little over a week ago titled whyColumbia Matters, And this is more of
a macro look, it's almost aphilosophical and political piece. But can you

(12:07):
just kind of give us a coupleof what are the key highlights for you?
I mean, really the main portionsof it that will not I recall
at this point I feel a centuryago in this. But you know,
I really looked at the political anglesof why what was going on at the
time really is going to be,you know, so important in the year

(12:31):
that we're coming into here, andit really just comes down to the fact
that the Democrat cities we're seeing theendpoint, the endgame I feel of the
blue city approach to urban governance,it's all finally starting to blatantly, clearly

(12:52):
and openly disintegrate. And all ofthis evolves to Donald Trump's favor because everybody
is seeing the fact that Joe Bidenjust doesn't really have the wherewithal to step
up to it, and it's goingto get worse. And that's really one
of the points of the piece,because first of all, today, later
on today, I think is goingto pop off pretty heavily because it is

(13:13):
May Day, that is the Communistfourth of July, and there's a lot
of crossover between these occupiers and thecommunist groups in this country. But then
also the Israelis are certainly going intoRafa, and Anthony Blincoln is over in
the Middle East now trying to convincenet Nyahu not to do it. He's

(13:35):
going to fail. Net Yaho isboxed in by the coalition government that he's
managed to put together in the nestedWithout that, he's a little bit beholden
to his far right there who wantthis. Were he to lose them,
he loses his plurality. He's goingto be out of power, and he's
subject to imprisonment because he's under indictment, so he cannot let that go.

(13:58):
So the Israelis are going into Rafa. That is going to be and obviously
the Palestinians are They're coming. That'sgoing to be messy. There's a lot
of humanitarian aid has been set upin Rapa and a lot of NGOs.
They're going to be reporting upon everythingthat happens there, whether good bet or
indifferent. A lot of it I'msure will be shaded against the Israelis.
We all know what the international pressis like. So do you think these

(14:20):
people are angry? Now? Wait? Do you see what these as we
go into the summer protest season andthese kids don't even have to worry about
finals. Why do you see whatit's like as we go into the Democratic
National Convention in August, during whichall of this could still be going on.
Meanwhile, they're messing around with thesenonsensical trials against Trump, and the

(14:43):
FEDS won't go anywhere near any ofthis, mainly because, as we discussed
earlier, they are concerned. Theybide administration is very concerned about Michigan.
He's well within the margin of errorin losing that state, and the big
Muslim vote there could really flip him. I don't know that they'll vote for
Trump. I think a lot ofthem will just stay home, and he

(15:03):
needs them. But also if theyturn too many rocks over in the federal
investigation of the funding and control ofthese groups who are running all of these
protests, and there are these Mackabellionumbrella groups who do run them, and
as I said, it comes fromthat dark money, you're going to run

(15:24):
into funding streams for mainstream Democratic candidates, some of which could even lead back
to Joe Biden for president twenty twentyfour. Nobody in power in Washington wants
to turn those rocks over, soI expect a whole lot of nothing.
So we're coming into some real turbulence. Paul Morrow, former NYPD inspector.
He's also an attorney and his fantasticsubstack is called ops Desk opsdesk dot substack

(15:50):
dot com. Go subscribe. Paul, Thanks for your time as a tremendous
conversation and we'll talk soon. Yougot it anytime, all right? Thanks man,