California Democrat Rep. John Garamendi commented on President Trump’s federal crackdown on crime in Washington D.C. during an appearance Monday morning on CNN:

CNN ANCHOR: President Trump is threatening to expand his deployment of National Guard members to other Democratic-run cities after putting troops in the nation’s capital. And we’re getting a better idea of which cities could be next. New York, Chicago, and Baltimore are on the list, and so is Oakland, California. Joining me now is Democratic Congressman John Garamendi of California, whose district is just north of Oakland. Thank you for taking the time, Congressman. You know, when we look at Washington, D.C., statistics show crime is down. But how people actually feel-whether they feel safe-is another thing that sometimes statistics can’t really measure. Americans are concerned about crime. But politically, how should Democrats address that dynamic? REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): Well, I think we need to take a look at this in its whole situation. Over the last six months, Trump is creating a police state. When you consider where the National Guard is deployed in Washington, it’s not in those areas where there’s crime. He’s deployed those troops around the national monument. He may very well decide to do the same thing. But this is about limiting protest by stopping people from peacefully protesting anything that the Trump administration wants to do. It’s one more step towards creating a full-on police state, in which the ICE agents-the largest single police force in America-are joined now with the military in our city, Washington, as well as Los Angeles. For the purpose, I believe, of stopping peaceful protests, of cowering the citizens of the United States, preventing the citizens from speaking out. And when you couple that with the ongoing efforts of the Justice Department to target individuals and to send the FBI to do investigations, we are well into creating a police state. And we need to be very aware of what’s happening all across America-and right now, in our nation’s capital.
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