Between 2020 and 2025, you had numerous of us allied with Trump, planning in the course of the interim between his two phrases to invoke the Rebellion Act extra rapidly and extra quickly within the occasion of violent protests. So towards this backdrop, you get a way — and also you’ve lengthy had a way — that the administration is spoiling for a struggle, and once I say a struggle, I don’t imply a political struggle, I imply a literal struggle within the streets.
And so when the protests kicked off in Los Angeles and so they devolved from peaceable protests into violent protests — look, violent protest is completely unacceptable. It has to cease. However California, it is a very small-scale protest for the time being, and California has immense sources. This isn’t out of California’s management. And California didn’t ask for or need any federal intervention, however virtually as quickly because it kicked off, you noticed this rhetoric, this explosion of language throughout the net area that jogged my memory — did both of you guys see the film “300: Rise of an Empire,” which was the sequel to the film “300”?
Cottle: David. Actually?
French: I imply, possibly we don’t have the identical film style. I’ll simply exit on a limb and say that, however there’s a second the place Xerxes, the king, comes out in entrance of a large crowd and he yells, “For glory’s sake, conflict!”
Audio clip from film: For glory’s sake, for vengeance’s sake: conflict!
And the group simply rises in a thunderous roar. And also you felt like that was the net model. You had Stephen Miller saying rebel, you had JD Vance calling it an invasion. You had Pete Hegseth in a really frantic publish saying the Marines stood prepared. And so that you’re considering: OK, wait a minute, are they about to only carry down the hammer? And then you definately discover out Trump nationalized about 2,000 members of the Nationwide Guard, which is a comparatively modest deployment, however he did it with out invoking the Rebellion Act. He did it beneath a way more modest authorized authority that primarily permits the president to defend the federal facility from an assault.
So on the one hand, there’s some consolation in that. This was not a broad invocation of the Rebellion Act that would theoretically impose management over all of Los Angeles. It was far more modest. However I feel it’s a small consolation. It’s a really small consolation since you really feel just like the predicate is being laid. There’s a very simple A to B if, after a day or two or three, you don’t see the violence cease, you may think about simply that Trump would use that as a pretext for a way more sweeping assertion of energy. So we’re at a really, very harmful time. The rhetoric is maximal rhetoric. The deployment is comparatively minimal, however I’m nervous it’s solely a matter of time earlier than the deployment matches the rhetoric.
