00:01Mr. President, I've said this over and over in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I'll say it here.
00:05I condemn violence, vandalism, including violence against law enforcement.
00:12There is no place in legitimate protest for that to occur.
00:16What is happening in Los Angeles, as brought to my attention over the weekend, is something that we need to address.
00:22However, addressing it effectively means not grandstanding, but giving law enforcement the resources they need to control the situation.
00:30Neither the governor of California nor the mayor of Los Angeles asked for the National Guard troops that President Trump is sending.
00:38And Governor Newsom said the decision to deploy the National Guard without appropriate training or orders risks seriously escalating the situation.
00:47What is clear is that President Trump manipulated these protests as an excuse to politicize the military and divert resources from pressing national security and disaster relief responsibilities.
00:59Mr. President, at the end of last week, a policewoman in Chicago was gunned down in the middle of the night.
01:06It happened several years ago with an officer named Ella French.
01:10I came to know her family and her mother.
01:13I came to really respect what a wonderful young woman she was.
01:15She gave her life as a Chicago policeman.
01:19Another policewoman lost her life at the end of last week.
01:23What are we going to do to stop violence on the streets of this country?
01:26Certainly devoting more and more law enforcement resources and people to a mass migration of people out of this country is not the highest priority.
01:38If there is a dangerous person, we should never let them in.
01:41If they commit crimes that are serious while they're here, we should throw them out.
01:45Period.
01:46No ifs, ands, or buts.
01:48But just looking at what's going on in Los Angeles doesn't serve that purpose.
01:52To create fear and chaos, to further a divisive agenda with little positive consequences.
01:59The last time a president sent in National Guard for a domestic operation without a request from the state's governor was during the LBJ administration in the 1960s.
02:08President Johnson did it in 1965 to protect civil rights demonstrators in Alabama.
02:13This weekend the president wrote on social media that Los Angeles was, quote, invaded and occupied by, quote, violent insurrectionist mobs, close quote.
02:23And directed three of his top cabinet officials to take any actions necessary to, quote, liberate L.A. from migrant invasion, close quote.
02:32His FBI director, Kash Patel, also wrote on X, and I quote, hit a cop, you're going to jail.
02:40Doesn't matter where you came from, how you got here, or what movement speaks to you, end of quote.
02:46Interesting, Kash Patel, head of the FBI, he was also the choral director of the January 6th defendants who raided this Capitol,
02:57beating the hell out of the cops who were protecting my life and others, and putting many of them at risk of serious medical injury,
03:05and some of them ultimately died from the experience.
03:10It seems President Trump and Mr. Patel forgot what happened on January 6th in the U.S. Capitol.
03:15When a violent mob, summoned by a bitter, defeated former president, ransacked the Capitol complex.
03:22You may remember seeing these scenes, Mr. President.
03:26The insurrectionist mob, the rioters who came into the Capitol on January 6th, looked through my desk, I could see them on C-SPAN,
03:33sat in your chair, aping away as they considered themselves the real patriots in America.
03:41On the first day back in office, first day back in office in the second term, what did President Trump do to these cop haters?
03:51He issued a blanket pardon for over 1,500 of them to release them, despite their conviction.
03:58They had been convicted for that riot that took place in this building, including those who violently assaulted law enforcement officers.
04:04It appears the FBI Director Patel's comment if you, quote, hit a cop, you're going to jail, only applies to people who President Trump doesn't agree with.
04:16On Wednesday, we'll hear from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing.
04:22I hope he's prepared to address this inflammatory deployment of the National Guard.
04:26Violence is never acceptable, but we shouldn't be making grandstanding moves to dilute the real impact that's needed from good law enforcement.
04:37I yield the floor.
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