Speaking at Georgetown University on Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro’s controversial appearance at the University of California, Berkeley on September 14 as a prime example of how the Left attempts to shut down free speech in America.
Sessions began the segment of his speech by referring to the leftist, violent group Antifa as “Orwellian-named”:
The Orwellian-named antifascist protestors have successfully shut down numerous campus speaker events in recent months with violent riots. Berkeley was reportedly forced to spend $600,000 and have an overwhelming police presence to simply prove that the mob was not in control of their campus, the “home of free speech.” In advance, the school offered counseling, in advance of this speech they offered counseling to any students or faculty whose sense of safety or belonging was threatened by a speech from Ben Shapiro, a 33-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer, who has frequently been targeted by anti-Semites for his Jewish faith and who vigorously condemns hate speech from the Left or the Right.
Well, in the end, Mr. Shapiro spoke to a packed house, and to my knowledge, no one fainted; no one was unsafe; no one needed counseling.
“I hope,” Sessions joked.
He continued, “Yet after this small victory for free speech, a student speaking to a reporter said, in reaction, ‘I don’t think Berkeley should host any controversial speakers on either side.’ That, perhaps, would be the worst lesson to draw from that episode, I firmly believe.”
Shapiro’s Berkeley speech has been viewed well over two million times on YouTube.
Video of Sessions below: