Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said President Donald Trump “abused” the National Guard for a “political show” when he deployed them to Los Angeles.
Host Lawrence O’Donnell said, “I want to get your reaction to the news from Los Angeles tonight. The L.A. Times reporting that 4000 National Guard soldiers who’d been deployed in Los Angeles by Donald Trump are being released from that duty finally. Something you’ve been saying was something that duty they never should have had, but certainly they could have been released from an awful long time ago.”
Schiff said, “They should have been released, frankly, they should never have been called up. This was a political show, a political parade from the very beginning by Donald Trump over the wishes of the governor and of the mayor to militarize an already tense situation in Los Angeles, just made matters worse.
He added, “Trump feeds on that chaos. So this was by his design. To see the Guard so misused in that way, the trust that Californians have for the Guard abused in that way was just awful. Plus those Guard members that he took off their ordinary duties it meant at present, when we’re already dealing with fires breaking out in California, they were understaffed because we rely on our Guard in case of fire and other emergency. So I think they had to cut them loose sooner or later. This was way too late, but I’m glad that this is finally happening. I hope it means the release of all of those who were deployed, not just the Guard, but also the Marines, an even worse abuse.”
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