Laurence Tribe says right to protest isn’t just in the Constitution: ‘It’s written in blood in the history of our country’

One of the nation's leading constitutional law experts blasted President Donald Trump as a "monster" for the deployment of Department of Homeland Security agents to Portland, Oregon.

MSNBC's Ali Velshi interviewed Tribe during "The Last Word" on Friday evening.

Tribe has taught at Harvard Law School for fifty years and has argued three-dozen cases before the United States Supreme Court.

"The president and the Homeland Security acting director, Chad Wolf, and the attorney general are deploying paramilitaries on the streets of America, sweeping up lawful protesters, targeting the press -- essentially creating a nation that was the worst nightmare of the framers," Tribe explained. "The people who fought a revolution to preserve this new republic, the people who gave their last measure of devotion in the Civil War, the people who fought fascism in World War II would not recognize what the president is doing as consistent with America."

"The American tradition is being shattered before our very eyes," he warned. "People have a right to protest, they have a right to go to the streets and this is the time to do it."

"It's not an abstract right," Velshi interjected. "It's what's written in the Constitution."

"Tt's more than just written in the constitution, it's written in blood in the history of our country," Tribe replied. "People have given their lives to live in freedom and this president who claims that he stands for law and order is destroying freedom before our very eyes."

"We cannot stand still through this," Tribe counseled.

Watch: