Tuesday on CNN’s “News Central,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said that President Donald Trump was trying to “militarize our society” and “intimidate his political opponents” by sending in the National Guard to cities.
Raskin said, “Well, it cuts against the deepest principles of the country. I mean, we were founded in opposition to a standing army with a fear of a standing army. And the military is not supposed to be used for ordinary law enforcement purposes. In D.C., he was talking about cleaning up the graffiti and, you know, dealing with the plight of homelessness, which are obviously local, not federal issues. And he’s trying to militarize our society, intimidate his political opponents. The whole idea of picking cities based on their partisan leadership is absurd.”
He added, “I mean, there are lots of Republican cities and towns struggling with crime. Everybody is across the country, always. Crime has always been part of our history, and yet, crime is down in D.C., for example. It’s at a 30-year low. It’s down in Baltimore, it’s down in Chicago. But the point is that in our system of federalism, the different branches of government and the different departments of government are supposed to work together. If Donald Trump thinks he’s got some great ideas for Chicago or Miami or Houston, Texas, or whatever, he should call a summit for the White House and say hey, here’s some ideas where the feds can work together with states and localities, not to have a series of rolling National Guard invasions of people’s cities.”
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