During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about President Trump bypassing Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles.
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00:00Mr. President, Donald Trump's order mobilizing U.S. troops to an American city
00:09sets a dangerous precedent for our civil liberties.
00:13As I've said, violence is not the way to achieve justice.
00:18Freedom of speech is fundamental, but it must be exercised peacefully and lawfully.
00:23And the vast majority of protests, the overwhelming majority of protests, have been peaceful.
00:27And they're exercising their American right, their privilege, to peacefully protest.
00:33That's been with our country since its founding.
00:37But sending troops to an American city against the wishes of local officials
00:42is outrageous, unnecessary, and reeks of authoritarianism.
00:49That's what authoritarian countries do.
00:51U.S. troops, using troops on U.S. soil, should only ever be used as an absolute last resort.
01:00The last time it happened without state consent was 60 years ago, to protect civil rights heroes.
01:07What Donald Trump is doing, rather, is spoiling for a fight.
01:13He wants chaos.
01:14He'd love to excuse, to make any, he'd love any excuse to divert attention.
01:22And doing this, doing it this way is, he does it all the time.
01:25This is one of the most shameful, awful ways you can do it.
01:29Our troops don't deserve to be exploited in this way, to be used in pawns in a nakedly political fight.
01:37It's a deep disservice to them and to all service members and law enforcement,
01:42who serve our country and protect our community.
01:44And why is Donald Trump doing this?
01:46To divert attention.
01:47He knows that his big, ugly bill is highly unpopular with the American people.
01:52The more they learn about it, the more they hate it.
01:54He knows he's got big trouble in his fight with his erstwhile friend, Musk.
02:00He knows that the tariffs are hurting the American people.
02:03So he seeks to divert attention.
02:05That's his M.O.
02:07But what it does is create chaos.
02:11And the American people don't like chaos.
02:15And so I urge the president to immediately reverse course at once,
02:19remove all of the troops and the Marines,
02:21and let local law enforcement do their jobs to keep the peace
02:25as the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles said
02:30they're perfectly capable of doing.