Padilla: ‘Campaign of Terror’ with Guard to ‘Try to Escalate Tensions’, Including in D.C.

On Thursday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “The Last Word,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) talked about National Guard deployments and said that “it’s Donald Trump’s M.O. to try to fan the flames, try to escalate tensions, and justify further escalation on his part.” And “we’ve seen what’s happened in and around Washington, D.C., in and around Chicago, in and around Portland, in and around Memphis, they’re in New Orleans now. They continue this campaign of terror under the guise of public safety and immigration enforcement.”

Padilla said, “[W]e tried to sound the alarm back in June, what was happening in Los Angeles was wrong. The federalization and the deployment of state National Guard troops into a state, against the governor’s wishes, into a city, over the objections of — not just the local mayor, local elected leadership — but the local sheriff, the local police department, is practically unprecedented. We knew it would be ineffective. In fact, it was counterproductive.”

He continued, “But it’s Donald Trump’s M.O. to try to fan the flames, try to escalate tensions, and justify further escalation on his part. I came back to Washington after that press conference and warned my colleagues, if they can do this in Los Angeles, they can do it anywhere in the country on any issue they choose to try to quelch dissent. And sadly, we’ve seen what’s happened in and around Washington, D.C., in and around Chicago, in and around Portland, in and around Memphis, they’re in New Orleans now. They continue this campaign of terror under the guise of public safety and immigration enforcement. We know it’s anything but. And, case by case, legal victory by legal victory, we’re going to rein this back in.”

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