Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) tore into President Donald Trump's move to federalize law enforcement in Washington, D.C. as a stunt — and accused him of tearing down everything that actually helps law enforcement stop crime.
"Okay, so one, this idea that if it works in Washington, D.C., then let's see where else we can do it," said anchor Alicia Menendez. "This normalization of using military force in American cities. And to clear this argument ... we've been spending all of our military resources abroad, what we really need to be doing is spending them at home. It's absurd. And it's not what Americans voted for."
"Yeah, and America is not going to like the idea that this administration is turning its military against Americans," agreed McCaskill, herself a former prosecutor and a frequent critic of the president. "Now, nobody wants to help or protect anybody who commits crime in this country. But he's going to run into a lot more problems going to other cities. He's going to run into prosecutors who he needs that are state prosecutors."
"I mean, people don't realize this: the federal government has to work at getting jurisdiction for things like rape and murder that doesn't naturally come to them," McCaskill continued. "911 calls don't go to the feds. They go to state police. They go to the city police. They go to local prosecutors. They're the ones that are handling all this crime now. And he's not going to be able to blow into these communities where he doesn't have federal jurisdiction and do his will."
To make matters worse, she continued, "the people he's pulling to do this in D.C. right now — I gotta say it again, these are people that have real jobs fighting crime, not photo-ops. They are supposed to be going after international drug cartels that are feeding the streets with drugs. That causes a lot of the violence. Trust me when I tell you, people that are shot in this country, it's usually because they're around violent people who are either stealing to get drugs or dealing drugs. So let's let the feds work on drug crime, and let's let the local prosecutors do their job."
"While they're at it, why don't they do something about the 90-some prosecutors and investigators that are not in the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C. because they were chased out by Ed Martin. And now Jeanine Pirro has a skeleton of an office. They can file all these small charges that Mary's talking about. They've got nobody to prosecute them. They don't have judges to hear them. So this is such a joke. Can you tell? It infuriates me."
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