Maddow: Even if L.A. Protests Were One Hundred Times the Size that They Are, It’s Still No Reason to Bring the National Guard

O’DONNELL: “One of the important things that Mayor Bass brought out when you were talking to her about what’s happening in Los Angeles tonight, and you know this, but just how isolated and tiny a spot of Los Angeles we’re talking about, Downtown Los Angeles, where in the areas where these office buildings are, very few people live anywhere near that. It’s not a residential area. Most people living in Los Angeles, most Los Angeles local taxpayers never set foot in that part of Los Angeles. You can easily lead a life there and never see it. And so it is this — this really isolated little spot that doesn’t in any way disrupt any protest that’s being held down there outside of federal building, doesn’t in any way disrupt anything about the way life is lived in Los Angeles.”
MADDOW: “I mean, even with — I mean, even if these protests were 100 times the size that they are, there still wouldn’t be an operational reason to bring in active-duty troops or federalized National Guard. I mean, it’s just — it’s not that sort of thing. This is obviously not operationally necessitated, right, in terms of the security of the city. He’s doing this because he’s panicking and thinks that he looks weak, and therefore he has to do something that seems strong. And so we will have tanks destroying the streets of Washington this Saturday, and we will have National Guardsmen and active-duty U.S. Marines standing around Los Angeles wondering what their — what this has to do with their military careers. And it’s all because he has no freaking idea how to deal with this politically, and he’s absolutely panicking about the, I think, trenchant and joyful and sustainable opposition against him.”
O’DONNELL: “Yeah, it is clearly something he has has been all too eager to do.”
MADDOW: “Yeah. Exactly. Once you’ve done this, though, there’s not much else to do. Sorry, big guy. Last card.”
O’DONNELL: “Right. We will see. Thank you, Rachel.”