Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California appeared to let the cat out of the bag on Thursday with regard to why the National Guard is still in the country’s capital in large numbers more than three weeks after President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
In remarks during Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, Lieu appeared to imply that troops are still treating Washington, D.C., as an occupied military zone because the former president will not bend the knee and disavow his stance that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
To put it more simply, Lieu appeared to state that if Trump were to simply concede the election, all of those troops would go back to where they came from. Back to warm beds and away from freezing parking garages.
“[Trump] needed to unequivocally condemn the [Capitol] attack, but he also needed to mean those words,” said Lieu in front of the Senate.
“You saw Donald Trump tweet endless attacks, sometimes 108 tweets in a day, and in public speeches and across rallies, repeating words of ‘fight’ and ‘stop the steal’ and ‘never surrender.’”
The Democrat then played up what he said was Trump’s ability to reach people.
Perhaps if Lieu possessed the ability to inspire others, he wouldn’t be relegated to being one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s errand boys. In any event, that’s essentially what Lieu is — and he is working double-time to please the madame.
“You know what it looks like when President Trump wants to convey a message. Forcefully, loudly and repeatedly, he does that,” he said, in reference to a clip of Trump’s Jan. 6 address to his supporters in Washington.
“This video sent after a week of the attack was not that. And we know this because, in this video, he again does not show remorse, does not take responsibility. He again does not acknowledge his role in the insurrection,” Lieu said of a later video, wherein Trump explicitly condemned the violence and said the incursion into the Capitol was not indicative his support movement.
Democrats such as Lieu keep using the word insurrection improperly. Perhaps they think if they portray the breach of the Capitol as a coup enough times, people will buy into what they’re selling. Coups, at least in the West, are not generally led by people dressed in horned hats.
But Lieu should keep his hyperbole if he believes it serves him. Apparently, it does.
“[Trump] does not say in that video, for example, ‘Everything I said in the months prior went too far.’ And he does not say the one sentence that matters. He does not say the one sentence that would stop future political violence,” the congressman continued dramatically.
“’The election was not stolen.’ He still hasn’t said that sentence,” Lieu said. “That is why National Guard troops in full body armor still patrol outside.”
“‘The election was not stolen.’ He still hasn’t said that sentence. That is why National Guard troops in full body armor still patrol outside,” Rep. Lieu says, pointing out that in former President Trump’s statements on and after Jan. 6. there is no acknowledgment of wrongdoing. pic.twitter.com/AONEcGFxYc
— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) February 11, 2021
What was that he just said? If Trump were to state, “The election was not stolen,” from his media and online exile, then Americans could again have access to the property of the people? That sounds an awful lot like extortion.
Lieu’s district, California’s 33rd, is what I like to call the “Baywatch” district. The area stretches from Long Beach to Malibu in greater Los Angeles along the coast. It essentially encompasses every community featured on the long-running program “Baywatch.”
Perhaps the Democrat has had too much sun. Or maybe he slipped up and told the truth about all of those troops languishing out in the February cold. Thousands of soldiers are currently patrolling Washington to protect against a threat that doesn’t exist: Conservatives bent on taking over the government.
Lieu seemed to insist that they could all go away, just also long as Trump plays ball.
Sun-baked Lieu might not know this, but political violence predated the era of Trump and it will exist long after we’re all dust in the wind. Lieu is also mistaken if he thinks American soldiers signed up to, or are capable of, moderating free speech because that’s basically what he said on Thursday.
We know our troops swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, and they aren’t in D.C. to police what we do with our First Amendment rights. Was Lieu suggesting they are there to stifle dissent as political props for Pelosi?
It certainly appeared that way.
Story cited here.
