CBS’s Stephen Colbert showed a lack of historical awareness on Monday as he welcomed Sen. Tammy Duckworth to The Late Show to lament all things related to President Trump. Colbert wondered what happens when the military is deployed to the streets, while the duo later claimed that Sen. Alex Padilla being removed from a recent press conference with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is about “fear” because what happened to him could happen to anyone.
National Guard troops and even Marines have been deployed in law enforcement capacities in the past, but that didn’t stop Colbert from asking, “Well, let's talk about some of the other things the president’s done recently with service members. So, last week he deployed Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to protests against ICE raids in Los Angeles. What happens when a commander-in-chief orders troops to do something that isn't necessarily about national defense? When our own troops are sent into our own streets against our own citizens?”
Duckworth replied that, “It is perversion of the law. He basically broke posse comitatus rules, and frankly, those troops, I asked the Marine Corps commandant—was asked in committee last week, how many hours of civil disturbance training do the Marines get a year? He said two hours. And yet there are hundreds and hundreds of LAPD officers who could provide that support and, in fact, said they don’t need the Marines to come. We’re okay.”
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