Republicans Offer Cowardly Lack Of Pushback To Hegseth Suggesting Marines Could Quell Protests
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"I don’t think that’s heavy-handed," House Speaker Mike Johnson said about the possibility of sending active-duty military to respond to immigration protests in a major American city.
Congressional Republicans have offered a disturbing lack of pushback to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggesting that active-duty Marines could be sent to quell immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles.
“I don’t think that’s heavy-handed,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said when asked about Hegseth’s proposal on ABC News’s “This Week.”
Hegseth raised the idea in a post on X Saturday evening, writing, “If violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized.” His remarks come after President Donald Trump ordered National Guard troops to Los Angeles on Saturday, a move that’s not typically made without the support of a state’s governor, which he does not currently have. The White House has claimed that it took this step because it’s addressing violence at these protests that targeted ICE offices and agents, while California leaders have said that they don’t need the troops.
The deployment of active-duty Marines would be another major escalation and a move that’s rarely employed by a president in response to protests.
“The deployment of active-duty troops under federal authority in response to civil unrest is a rare step, one that usually requires the president to find under the Insurrection Act that they are needed to enforce the law or restore order,” write The Wall Street Journal’s Eliza Collins and Nancy A. Youssef. “The George H.W. Bush administration deployed US Marines to help restore order after violent protests erupted in California in the wake of the 1992 acquittal of four police officers in the beating of Rodney King…[marking] the last invocation of the Insurrection Act.”
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