Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) on CNN today blamed President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and broader gun violence for the incident involving an Afghan refugee, in the U.S. under “humanitarian parole,” who allegedly killed one National Guardsman and critically injured another. Wasserman Schultz would acknowledge that there needs to be a “careful review” of Afghan refugees.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Joining me now is Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. Thank you for being here. This is so difficult for these families and for Americans just seeing what happened with this ambush style shooting in D.C. of the National Guard. I first just want to get your thoughts after learning that the 20-year-old National Guard person who was shot in D.C. has now died. REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL): Sara, thank you for having me and hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. That certainly isn’t the case for Sarah Beckstrom’s family or Andrew Wolfe’s, who is, you know, in critical condition and fighting for his life. And my heart breaks for them and goes out to their families. This is a deeply concerning situation. But, you know, it’s one that I think we have to beg the question. Would an individual have flown across the country to target law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.? And — I mean, the answer is likely no. So, why wasn’t the president’s first thought? Well, you know, maybe I should reconsider deploying military troops in the nation’s capital or in any city, particularly not when they haven’t coordinated closely with the leadership of these cities and when we have law enforcement that are quite capable of handling the criminal justice issues that are — that we need law enforcement to focus on and not our military. SIDNER: There was some concern in a memo that our reporters have seen before all of this about having National Guard in the streets and in a capacity that you don’t normally see them. But the president is also sort of turning and looking at this very differently. And I’m curious what you think of the president’s reaction to this, specifically what he put out in his social media post, saying that he’s going to permanently pause all immigration from so-called third world countries to allow the system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden, what he calls illegal admissions. I am curious what you think that means and if you think that is the right thing to do. SCHULTZ: Well, I mean, there certainly needs to be a careful review of vetting generally when it comes to the Afghan program. That would be a natural thing to do, given this horrific situation. However, making a sweeping generalization about a type of immigrant, particularly in the resettlement program like this one, which has multiple levels of vetting, in the vetting that occurred before he even arrived in the country, the vetting for him to remain in the country, the vetting the Trump administration did to grant him asylum in April of this year. I mean, the vetting to begin with for him to even participate in the program where he assisted our military in Afghanistan. So, making sweeping generalizations for countries across the globe for this one incident, I think, goes too far. But we do have to make sure that whatever gaps there might be are tightened. But how about we also address our gun loss? Once and for all, the ease of access for anyone to get a gun in this country is something that has to be a part. And Americans have been trying to demand to be a part of any solution or attempt to address the gun violence, which this was specifically in this country. SIDNER: I do want to ask you this because the timing of this has caught a lot of people’s attention that days before the shooting, the public learned through reporting that the Trump administration had planned to review and re-interview refugees that came in during the Biden administration. I mean, what do you think about the timing of all this, the shooting coming literally days after that? SCHULTZ: I just think that any administration needs to be careful about making sweeping generalizations. I mean, the fact that the president’s come out and he’s going to says he’s going to review every green card holder from 19 countries of concern, you know, that he has stopped certain immigrants from countries already, that again, makes sweeping generalizations about countries that — that shouldn’t have every individual assumed to be dangerous to admit to the United States. We need to make sure that we have tight and appropriate and vetting. If there were gaps that admitted this person, they would have failed over multiple levels of gas. And this individual was trusted enough to participate in assisting our military during the war in Afghanistan. So, I just think, you know, the president looks everywhere except inward to blame his own policies. We need to make sure that we don’t have our military deployed in our cities. We’re doing law — handling law enforcement responsibilities and we need to make sure that we address gun violence. We certainly need to make sure we always have the proper and appropriate and tight vetting processes and those should be reviewed. But it’s never the president’s fault for his policies when it comes to his reaction. And it’s pretty disgusting. SIDNER: Two administrations, both the Biden and the Trump administration, were responsible for having this person in the country, as you mentioned.

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