Faced with officials in Chicago creating a united front opposing Donald Trump and his threat to send the National Guard into the city for the ostensible reason of clamping down on crime, MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire suggested the president is likely to latch onto another justification for militarizing a major metropolis.
Over the Labor Day weekend, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson made it very clear that he would not allow local police and city workers to assist National Guard troops but also ICE agents if they descend on the city to snatch up immigrants off the streets or at their places of work.
While signing an executive order codifying his plans, he told reporters, “[We will] protect ourselves from the threats and actions of this out-of-control administration. We will protect our Constitution. We will protect our city, and we will protect our people. We do not want to see tanks in our streets. We do not want to see families ripped apart.”
With that in mind, and with court cases pending challenging Trump’s right to declare an emergency and send in the troops, contravening the Posse Comitatus Act, MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire told the “Morning Joe“ panel Trump may try an end-around.
“There is a sense with terms of Chicago, the National Guard, we've raised the idea that the president doesn't have the authority to do so, that no decision has been made,” he explained. “But I've been told by some in the administration that the guard would be deployed to safeguard ICE raids, to therefore provide security to ICE agents, much like that was the pretense in Los Angeles.”
“To protect federal buildings and to protect federal agents,” co-host Joe Scarborough interjected.
“That is what they did in LA,” Lemire agreed. “The thought is that might be how they try to – the bank shot to get some of these guard troops to Chicago. That pretense would, first of all, would accelerate these ICE raids, which I know many in the community do not want. But secondly, would allow the president to have a show of force, have his troops in the city with perhaps more legally justifiable means. That's being considered.”
That led co-host Mike Brzezinski to contribute, “The ICE raids, of course, being done by people wearing masks. They're terrifying and they are terrifying communities across the country, there's no question. I haven't seen one video of an ICE raid where people are clapping for it, you know. It's terrifying, and it's not what the president promised.”
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