Albuquerque Mayor Warns of ‘Bait and Switch’ in Trump Deploying Federal Agents to His City: We Don’t Want ‘Secret Police Trying to Round Up Protestors’
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller called out President Donald Trump’s Wednesday announcement about deploying federal agents into his city as a publicly stunt, noting that he had not invited them nor even been notified before the president’s statement.
Albuquerque joined Chicago as two of the latest targets of Operation Legend, a federal government attempt at quelling violence that was unilaterally rolled out in Portland, Oregon despite the objections of state and local officials. Since the arrival of heavily-armed, camouflaged agents, the city has witnessed an at-times violent, paramilitary-like response that has ignited outrage by everyone from former Army generals to Fox News legal analysts.
“You called them ‘Trump secret police’ and called it a ‘stunt’ CNN guest anchor Kate Bolduan said, kicking off the interview with Keller. “Now that you’ve heard the announcement, do you feel any differently?”
“I don’t, and, you know, it’s just because we’re very concerned about this concept where it’s a real bait and switch,” Keller said. “You know, we hear one thing and then two weeks later like in Portland, all of a sudden it is secret police trying to round up protesters. And I think every mayor in the country wants to never see what’s happening in Portland in their city. And for us right now because of the president’s own words, when he says he’s going after Democrat cities as part of his re-election strategy, we’re very concerned it’s about inciting violence.”
Bolduan then asked if Keller had been informed of what, exactly, the federal agents being ordered into his city would be doing.
“This is what’s interesting about this,” Keller explained. “You almost know that something is up because one the president is talking about Albuquerque which doesn’t usually happen. But two, we’ve been told nothing. And usually we get formal [Memoranda of Understanding], we get details, there’s task forces put in place. We have received no formal documentation about this at all.”
After Bolduan played a clip of Attorney General Bill Barr claiming the deployed tactical teams would be doing “classic crime fighting” in cities. “If this program is just what Bill Barr says, could you use the help?”
“We always want to try and find partnerships when we’re fighting crime,” Keller said, before reiterating the loaded, politicized language Trump has used to describe the operation. “The challenge is the disconnect between the president and the attorney general and, you know, I think you got to look at the voice at the top and, you know, yesterday that voice was explicitly articulating sort of a gaslighting strategy against immigrants and people of color and protesters in Progressive ‘Democrat cities.'”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
