‘What Kind of Bullsh*t Is This?!’: Retired General Who Led Katrina Response GOES OFF on Trump’s Militarized Portland Crackdown
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré erupted at the scenes of unmarked, camoflauged, and heavily armed federal agents patrolling the streets of Portland and violently clashing with protestors, unmistakably registering his disapproval by proclaiming “What kind of bullshit is this?!”
Appearing on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour on Tuesday night, Honoré offered up a long, damning indictment of the Trump administration’s militarized backlash to the Portland protests and singled out Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf for particular scorn. Earlier on Tuesday night, Wolf told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum that DHS agents had been forced to “proactively arrest individuals” because local and state law enforcement agencies weren’t sufficiently protecting federal facilities.
“General, what made you the angriest looking at these pictures out of Portland, Oregon?” Williams asked, lighting the fuse on Honoré’s fiery barrage.
“Number one, they were wearing military uniforms,” the general angrily noted. “That uniform represents the cloth of our nation, for people who don’t draw overtime, who serve around the world at the direction of the national command authority, and it’s not to be used as an instrument of protest suppression.”
“That uniform is designed to blend into terrain, not to make you look like a warrior,” Honoré then noted, highlighting the tactical uselessness of wearing camouflage in an urban environment.
“They’re wearing these uniforms as a function of intimidation, to look like warriors,” he added. “Real soldiers just don’t walk up to people and start beating on ’em. Real police don’t do that. The police have the authority to detain you, and then somebody else will decide whether you get charged or whether you go to jail for whatever offense you might have violated.”
“They are acting like an uncontrolled mob on the street with uniforms and badges that they don’t show,” he pointed out, a tactic that the Portland mayor decried as “very un-American.”
“You shouldn’t — police don’t do this. Watch this, what kind of bullshit is this?!” Honore exclaimed as video showed federal agents using batons and tear gas to violently assault Navy veteran Chris David, who was merely trying to talk to police. “Wolf needs to be run out of Washington. He has no business in charge of Homeland Security. We’re talking about people like [former DHS Secretaries Michael] Chertoff and Tom Ridge, those type of people of stature led Homeland Security. [The Trump administration has] denigrated this to a lawless group who go around and think they can suppress demonstrators doing peaceful and disobedience-type demonstrations. This is a shame.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
