Vice President Vance condemned the media’s coverage of the president’s mass deportation campaign and crackdown on crime, saying they justify police and federal agents being “assaulted,” “beaten,” and “shot at.” “The problem here is not the Insurrection Act or whether we actually invoke it or not. The problem is the fact that the entire media in this country, cheered on by a few far left lunatics, have made it okay to tee off on American law enforcement. We cannot accept that,” Vance told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

KRISTEN WELKER: Of course there’s a major legal battle underway about the administration’s deployment of the National Guard. It does come as NBC News is reporting that the administration has been seriously discussing invoking the Insurrection Act. That would give the president the power to direct federal troops to conduct law enforcement functions in the case of a national emergency. Is that the case? Are you seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act? VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: Well, the president’s looking at all of his options. Right now, he hasn’t felt he needed to. But we have to remember why are we talking about this, Kristen. Because crime has gotten out of control in our cities. Because our ICE agents, the people who are enforcing our immigration laws have faced a 1,000% increase in violent attacks against them. We have people right who are going out there who are doing the job the president asked them to do, who are enforcing our immigration laws. They’re being assaulted. They’re being beaten. They’re being shot at. The problem here is not the Insurrection Act or whether we actually invoke it or not. The problem is the fact that the entire media in this country, cheered on by a few far left lunatics, have made it okay to tee off on American law enforcement. We cannot accept that in the United States of America. We want everybody, Black or white, rich or poor, to be safe in the United States of America. But to do that, we have to empower our law enforcement agents to keep us safe. That’s what we’re talking about doing. Go ahead, Kristen– KRISTEN WELKER: Couple of points here. First of all, an Illinois judge said that state and local authorities have been able to handle protest activities, that ICE and other federal agencies have been able to continue to do their work. Crime is down in both Chicago and Portland. But is there a rebellion here? That’s what would trigger an Insurrection Act. Is it imminent? VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: Kristen, crime is down in Chicago and Portland often because they’re so overwhelmed at the local level, they’re not even keeping the statistics properly. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had an ICE officer get shot at by a far left assassin who was trying to kill our law enforcement officers. He fortunately didn’t kill law enforcement officers. He did kill some other innocent people in the process. We cannot allow the far left in this country to tee off on our law enforcement officers. We’ve got to do something about it. And that’s all the president’s talking about. I mean there are places in Chicago, Kristen, where people are afraid to take their children. They’re afraid to go out of their houses for fear of gun violence, for fear of gang drive-by shootings. That’s not okay in the United States of America. The president just wants people to be kept safe. And we’re exploring everything that we can do to make sure that the American people are safe in their own country.

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