(DCNF)—NewsNation political contributor Chris Cillizza on Monday criticized Democrats for opposing President Donald Trump’s administration’s handling of the Los Angeles, California, riots.
Riots broke out on Friday following Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the Los Angeles region, with rioters attacking federal immigration officers and vandalizing taxpayer-funded property, according to a Saturday Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statement. Cillizza, on his YouTube channel, said Democrats should denounce the violence rather than “blame Donald Trump.”
“Democrats appear entirely comfortable with playing along on this, which is colossally stupid from a political perspective,” Cillizza said, taking aim at Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom for daring border czar Tom Homan to “come after [him]” and “arrest” him.
“[Newsom] was on MSNBC on Sunday night where he basically said, like, to Tom Homan … he basically said, ‘Why doesn’t Tom Homan just come and arrest me? He’s not such a tough guy.’ I don’t know why that would — this is not about Gavin Newsom, right?” Cillizza added. “To personalize it like that makes no sense.”
He also called out Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters for her comments on the riots.
“She said, quote, ‘I don’t know why we have guns. What are those guns for? Are they to shoot protesters?’ Again, if you are looking at the images coming up on your TV screen — cars on fire, looting, people defacing buildings—and then you hear Maxine Waters say, ‘What are these cops doing?’ That feels tone-deaf to me, right?” Cillizza said. “It feels as though Maxine Waters doesn’t get it, that people are like, ‘What? Like, this doesn’t make sense.’ Given what we’re seeing on TV, this appears to be … ‘Yes, law enforcement should respond to those things,’ right? Again, you must pick fights on your preferred ground.”
“What Democrats should say is, ‘Look, we condemn all violence. There should be no violent protests. People, if they want to protest, need to do it peacefully. Any violence is not what we support. But we do want to have a serious conversation about Donald Trump’s deportation policies and what they mean for this country, in Los Angeles, in border towns, and across the country,’” he added. “That’s the conversation Democrats can win on. They will not win on a conversation about clashes in the streets over Donald Trump’s immigration policies.”
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten noted on Monday that Trump’s approval rating on the issue of immigration has surged by 20 points among the American electorate since June 2017, citing his own aggregate data.
Los Angeles rioters burned cars, threw Molotov cocktails, fireworks and rocks, and vandalized property with slogans such as “KILL ICE.” Trump announced he would deploy 2,000 National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles on Saturday, prompting angry reactions from both Newsom and Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
Former Democratic Strategist Dan Turrentine also said on “The Morning Meeting” Monday that the Democratic Party has “lost its mind” based on its reaction to the riots, suggesting members of his party were condoning the rioters’ actions.
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