Thursday on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, Sen. Bernie Sanders said President Trump ordering the use of federal police officers in Portland and threatening to do the same in other cities to quash the ongoing rioting is turning America into a “police state.”
“I don’t want to get people too nervous here, but we have a president who really does not believe in democracy,” claimed the lifelong communist Sanders. “This is a president who is trying to suppress the vote. This is a president who has contempt for Congress, ignores what Congress does. This is a president who does not respect a free press in America, the 1st Amendment. He thinks the media is an enemy of the people. And now what this president is saying is, I don’t care what mayors say, I don’t care what governors say, I am the president, I will send federal troops or federal agents any place in this country.
“That is what a police state is about,” he added hyperbolically. “That is what a movement toward authoritarianism is about. And the American people have got to stand up and say, ‘You know what? We may have disagreements, but we are a democracy, we respect local control, we respect the role of governors. A president can’t send troops wherever he wants to quash dissent. People have a 1st Amendment right to protest.’”
People don’t have a 1st Amendment right to riot and loot, destroy federal and private property, and violently assault police officers and innocents. That’s what Trump is trying to suppress, because local Democrat leaders refuse to get their own cities under control.