Gleaming Rachel Maddow floats conspiracy theory about why Trump is sending military to LA protests
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow floated a bizarre theory about Donald Trump 's motives behind sending the military to Los Angeles over the weekend amid widespread protests against immigration enforcement.
Maddow, who anchors her show once a week on Monday, peddled the notion that someone convinced Trump that 'attacking immigrants would work for him politically.'
To date, Trump has sent 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to LA, a move Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democrats have fiercely condemned.
Maddow claims Trump did this because he is 'panicking' over the growing number of protests against his mass deportation policy, which was a cornerstone of his campaign.
'He has no idea what to do with the sustained and growing and intractable and indomitable protest and opposition of the American people against him. And so he has decided to try to fix it by using the Army,' Maddow said.
'Game over, big guy. You lose. The movement against Trump is unstoppable, now more than ever.'
She suggested his decision to mobilize the national guard and the marines is an example of his lack of political skill.
The liberal firebrand likened his approach to containing disturbances in LA to when Trump allegedly suggested to advisors in 2019 that hurricanes should be nuked before they can wreak havoc on the United States. Trump later denied the Axios report.
'What we are seeing right now in California is a president panicking. We have never before in the history of the US presidency, seen a president who is less popular than this one at this point in his term,' Maddow said.
'And we have never seen a president less politically skilled, less politically equipped than this one to turn that kind of problem around.'
She went on to talk about the so-called 'No Kings' protests that are set to take place this Saturday, Flag Day, in roughly 1,500 cities in all 50 states.
Maddow said this proves Trump's deportation plan is unpopular with the American people, despite public polling showing that there is broad support for what he's doing.
A recent CBS News poll found that 54 percent of people approved of the administration deporting illegal immigrants, though it was taken before the protests in in LA erupted on Friday.
'The American people do not want this kind of cruelty against the immigrants who live among us and are our neighbors and friends, and facing that kind of heart and that kind of resolve, and that kind of nonviolent good cheer…he has no idea what to do,' Maddow said.
The Daily Mail approached MSNBC for comment.
Online, viewers appeared less than impressed with her claims, slamming the TV star for her comments.
One person said: 'She makes millions saying this stuff.'
Another added: 'Maddow will realize true Americans support Trump when she and the Democrats cry for help and true Americans say they are on their own.'
Someone else questioned: 'Why does Rachel Maddow still have a reporting job?'
While a fourth suggested she 'needs the same treatment as Terry Moran', who ABC News fired after he penned a social media post calling Trump a 'world class hater' and blasting top advisor Stephen Miller as full of 'bile.'
The protests in LA began Friday evening after more than 40 people were arrested in a sweeping operation by agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Violence escalated over the weekend when protesters took over streets in downtown LA, torching cars, destroying businesses and looting stores in scenes that saw law enforcement responding with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Trump on Saturday invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy military members when there is 'a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.'
Notably, he did this without the permission of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who called the move 'un-American.'
'U.S. Marines have served honorably across multiple wars in defense of democracy. They are heroes. They shouldn't be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President,' Newsom wrote on X.
The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama.
And the last time marines were deployed on US soil was in 1992, again in LA. That time, it was to tamp down the protests over LAPD officers being acquitted in court after they were caught on video beating Rodney King, a black man.
During a speech Tuesday at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Trump spoke to thousands of service members about what is unfolding in LA.
He called it an 'invasion and Third World lawlessness,' also pledging that he wouldn't allow the city to be taken over by a 'foreign enemy.'
'We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again,' he added.
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