Kinzinger Blows Up Trump Falsehood Using President’s Own Actions: ‘Debunking One of His Biggest Conspiracies’
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger demolished a longtime talking point of President Donald Trump’s, and he used the president’s recent actions to do so.
In addition to surging the number of federal law enforcement officials on duty in Washington, D.C., Trump has deployed the National Guard to the nation’s capital. He claims the measures are necessary to combat violent crime in the city, which is at a three-decade low. In June, the president sent the National Guard to Los Angeles, and is currently mulling doing so in Chicago as well.
In each of the above cases, officials in charge said they do not want the guard in their cities. Historically, when the National Guard has been deployed domestically, it has been with the approval of state and local officials.
Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman and former Air National Guardsman, appeared on Monday’s edition of The Lead on CNN, where he warned against such deployments.
“You could put a soldier in every square mile and reduce this country to have zero crime,” he said. “I read the book 1984. That’s what they did there. Is that what we wanna live in? Where you just occupy every city because of so-called crime? That is how dictators come to power. It’s how authoritarians come to power, on the backs of that, of safety and security.”
Host Jake Tapper then asked, “If President Trump had been in charge and commanding the National Guard and the D.C. police as he’s doing today, back on January 6th, 2021, what might have happened, do you think?
Kinzinger responded by pointing to Trump’s longstanding false claim that the Capitol riot got out of hand on Jan. 6, 2021 because then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser prevented the National Guard from deploying:
Well, if he was commanding the D.C. police, I’m sure he would’ve pulled them. They were very heroic in showing up to the Capitol to defend it at the perfect moment.
But this is the point. He’s been saying, remember, one of his biggest mistruths about January 6th was that somehow Nancy Pelosi or the mayor of D.C. didn’t deploy the National Guard. They don’t have authority over the National Guard. Only the president does. He’s proving that today and debunking one of his biggest conspiracies that happened that day.
Watch above via CNN.
