00:00The troops on the streets of D.C. have begun carrying weapons, even as President Trump is
00:04basically saying, mission accomplished, and signaling that his takeover of law enforcement
00:09in D.C. will soon spread to other cities. An executive order signed today directs the
00:14Pentagon to create specialized guard units in every state to deal with, quote, public order issues.
00:21We want to go from here to other places. I made the statement that next should be Chicago,
00:27because, as you all know, Chicago is a killing field right now, and they don't acknowledge it.
00:33This is one of the safest cities right now in the world, as crazy as that sounds,
00:37and it took seven days. It took really three days, but we're now in our 11th day.
00:43Right now, Illinois Governor Jamie Pritzker is expected to hold a news conference pushing back
00:47on Trump's claim that Chicago is in the midst of a crime emergency, and the city's mayor is
00:52already vowing to fight a potential deployment of troops.
00:54What he is proposing at this point would be the most flagrant
00:59violation of our Constitution in the 21st century. The city of Chicago does not need
01:07a military occupation. That's not what we need. In fact, we've been very clear about what we need.
01:14We need to invest in people to ensure that we can build safe and affordable communities.
01:18All right. My panel is here, along with CNN's Jeff Zeleny at the White House. So, Jeff,
01:24take us through the president's expanded federalization of America's cities.
01:29Well, Pamela, this is just one more example of the really use of executive authority the
01:35president has been exerting since he took office, but particularly over the last several weeks
01:39in terms of federal law enforcement. But it's the specialized units of the National Guard.
01:45The president signed an executive order today, one of many in the Oval Office,
01:49clearly wanting to keep the focus on law and order issues to order his defense secretary
01:55to create this specialized unit to be ready to go in cities across the country. But it's very vague
02:02in terms of what they would be used for. Of course, the National Guard is called up all the time to
02:06help out and assist, but it's done by the state's governors. It's not done by the president of the
02:10United States. So that is the big difference here. But there's also been a big blurring of the lines
02:15of the law enforcement activities and functions, as well as the National Guard functions. They have
02:21historically been very, very different. States' rights, of course, also a key point of the Republican
02:29orthodoxy, usually not mentioned at all today by this president or the White House. But the president
02:34is fixated on Chicago, as he said earlier in the Oval Office.
02:40As you all know, Chicago is a killing field right now. And they don't acknowledge it. And they say,
02:46we don't need him. Freedom, freedom. He's a dictator. He's a dictator. A lot of people are saying maybe
02:50we like a dictator. I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator.
02:55So, Pamela, this is all just one more of the latest example of the president's interest in
03:02expanding the military role to do law enforcement activities. Clearly, he wants law and order to be
03:08the centerpiece of his agenda. It's really one of the few things he's talked about in the month of
03:14August, at least on the domestic front, never mind foreign policy. But clearly, he was effectively
03:19saying how successful his federalized takeover of the streets in Washington has been. He's
03:25in crime is down. Of course, this has largely been an immigration enforcement exercise as well.
03:31But it's an entirely different matter if he would send troops into Chicago. And that's where you're
03:36going to see a potential confrontation with Democratic governors like Illinois' J.B. Pritzker.
03:41All right. Let's discuss with the panel. Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much. Joining us now in the arena
03:46is CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams, Senior Political Correspondent for The Wall Street
03:50Journal Molly Ball, CNN Political Commentator Sochi Anohosa, Senior Advisor to the Trump 2024
03:55Campaign Brian Lanza. And we are also joined by former Acting Vice Chair of the National Guard
04:01Bureau, retired Major General Randy Manor. Major General Randy Manor, stand by. We're going to
04:07get to you in just a second. I want to go to Elliot Williams first, though, because you heard
04:12Jeff ending there on the note of, look, Chicago is different from D.C., right, when you look at a
04:18federal takeover. What is the legality here? The president can recommend anything to a jurisdiction
04:24that he wants. He can recommend anything to a governor that he wants. He can ask, you know,
04:29a state legislature to act. And Congress can suspend funds or hold funds to a jurisdiction to get them to
04:36do something. But in terms of writing a law in Washington, D.C., getting Chicago to change its laws or getting
04:42the state of Illinois to change its laws, that simply defies the Constitution and the laws of
04:46federalism. So, again, it's a polite ask. It's a suggestion. It's an order of sorts. But they can't
04:52enforce it lawfully. Now, certainly, the president can work with the governor if he wishes to activate
04:57the National Guard there and thinks there's an emergency in the state and, frankly, ought to do that
05:01if there is an emergency. But, again, Washington can't dictate the laws of a jurisdiction.
05:06And we should be hearing from the governor, Pritzker, very soon. Major General Manor, I want to bring you in
05:10for context here. The president signed this executive order to establish these specialized
05:15National Guard units to address crime in cities and reestablish public order, as he said. Can you
05:22explain how that might work, how these units differ from what we see in the D.C. streets right now?
05:28It's really important that all your viewers understand that this is a law enforcement operation
05:32in the president's eyes. It is not a military operation. Our young men and women in uniform are not
05:37trained in law enforcement activities. They receive, at most, a couple of hours of training,
05:42not the four to six months that police officers receive. These specialized units, this is extremely
05:48disconcerting. Again, for the average American, they might know about infantry units, armor units,
05:53transportation units, signal units. And now they're going to create, what, occupation forces
05:59that are going to be trained to go in and to occupy a city? This is so un-American. It just makes me
06:05sick. This is not something that is what America is about. This is about creating literally military
06:11units to monitor our people. And this is actually very disparaging. I'm actually in shock the
06:17president is directing the Secretary of Defense to do this. That's a really strong words from you.
06:22What is your reaction to the arming of the National Guard troops in D.C.?
06:26Every time that we deployed the military, when I was the acting vice chief, down to and including
06:33when I was just a battalion commander in the Virginia Army National Guard, then later as member
06:38of the D.C. National Guard, we always looked at what was the mission and what were the risks that we
06:43were going to be involved with. Obviously in combat operations, but equally as important when we were
06:48doing disaster recovery, when we were doing, helping to save people for flooding or forest fires,
06:55we'd look at what was the mission and then what was the risk to our guardsmen and to the people that
07:00we were helping. The idea of arming our soldiers and airmen is absolutely absurd. There is no risk
07:07that justifies this. This just furthers the, it amplifies the voice that this is for, not because
07:12there's a risk against the guardsmen, but because they, the president wants to see uniformed, armed
07:17people on the streets. The same thing with the use of heavily armored vehicles on the streets of
07:21Washington. They're not designed to operate in environments like that. They're operated,
07:26they are built and should be used in combat operations or in the United States, perhaps
07:31moving through floodwaters to be able to save Americans. They should not be used as photo ops
07:36in front of the Capitol or in Union Station. All right. Stay right there because I want to bring
07:42Brian Lanza to get a reaction to what we just heard. I mean, you heard the major generals say
07:46the specialized units in the National Guard are un-American. There's no justification for having
07:51the National Guard troops. They're armed on the streets that they're really photo op opportunities,
07:57photo ops, I should say. What do you say to that? Listen, I think the president has made it abundantly
08:01clear that extra manpower is to arrest criminals. It's to arrest illegal aliens to get them in the
08:07process of being deported. I mean, he has stated what the mission is of what he wants this National Guard
08:11to be. He wants the National Guard to arrest criminals, which everybody supports. And he
08:16certainly wants them to focus on the illegal aliens that he's trying to round up and deport.
08:21You know, it's easy to see how he can do that in Washington, D.C. I suspect the courts are going
08:26to have stronger opinions when he goes to Chicago. So are they, but I guess the question is, are they
08:30there to conduct immigration enforcement or to conduct local criminal enforcement? Because those are two
08:35totally different. I think you're seeing them do both, right? I mean, they're there in the support
08:39role. So then that raises the question, why would they need to be armed? It's very important for
08:45them to understand that National Guard men in this capacity do not have the ability to arrest anyone
08:50whatsoever. I've got to emphasize that. So this idea that the National Guard is going to arrest anybody
08:55is absolutely a falsehood and is illegal. Remember, I, like most Americans, fully support community-based
09:01efforts to fight crime. And the president needs to reinstate the funds that he pulled back from
09:07the local communities for engagement and for hiring additional law enforcement officers. The idea of
09:12using our American military against our own people is absurd, and it is not the way that I joined the
09:18military or anyone else does to make this happen. The Secretary of Defense said the men love this
09:23mission. I'm going to tell you right now, they do not like it. They do not like doing things that
09:27they are not trained for, and they do not like the idea of just standing around so much.
09:31They like defending our country, and they like saving American lives. And none of those apply in this
09:36situation. Molly, how do you see it? Do you think this could backfire on President Trump?
09:41Absolutely. Look, the audience for this is not the people who live in these cities, right?
09:46Most Americans don't live in cities. Most Americans live in suburban or exurban areas.
09:51And so I think what Trump is doing here, he realizes that the politics of law and order
09:58are a winning hand for him in a general sense. People do feel that crime is out of control.
10:04People actually feel, most people believe crime is getting worse, even though that's not actually
10:08the case according to the statistics that we have. And so the idea that, you know, these mayors in
10:14cities in red and blue states alike have failed to contain the crime problem and that therefore
10:20the president has to take action and step in, I think that in isolation could be a winning message.
10:25I think the concerns that have been stated here about the way the administration is going about
10:30this without partnering with the jurisdictions in question, without necessarily following the law
10:35in a lot of cases. And as Jeff said, seeming to use this more as a pretext to do immigration
10:40operations than to actually pacify the streets of these places.
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