Former White House strategist Steve Bannon invited to UC Berkeley during "Free Speech Week"
Steve Bannon
BERKELEY, Calif. (KTVU) - Former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon has been invited to speak at a University of California, Berkeley, though the university said that the organizers had not yet filled out the proper forms required for security reasons.
Yiannopolous brokes the news about Bannon on his YouTube page. The event is dubbed “Berkeley Free Speech Week” and the mayor of Berkeley has been public about wanting this event to be canceled because of past violence, which the university declined to do.
“He's the voice of a nationwide rebellion. The man who terrifies globalist and leftist culture warriors like no other. Steve Bannon joins MILO at Free Speech Week,” the video’s description reads.
Both Bannon and Yiannopoulous are expected to speak, along with Ann Coulter. Bannon returned to his job as executive chairman of Breitbart News, where Yiannopolous is an editor. Cal ended up canceling Yiannopoulos' speech in February when anti-fascists torched the campus, and Coulter pulled out of speaking on campus in April because she had lost the backing of the conservative group who had inviting her. The Berkeley College Republicans and the Young America's Foundation said the campus atmosphere had grown tool hostile.
A conservative student publication organizing the event, The Berkeley Patriot, confirmed that both Yiannopoulos and Bannon agreed to speak at some point during the four-day event, which runs from Sept.24 to 27, the East Bay Express reported.
However, Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the university, told the New York Times that the event’s organizers had not submitted any of the information or forms required for the university to provide security: a description of the events, for example, and a police services request form. The requirements are outlined in Berkeley’s events policy, he noted, and “they just have not completed any of that.”