Hegseth accused of 'straining at the leash' with threat to send Marines to LA
A decision by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to inflame tensions in Los Angeles as protesters take to the streets to confront militarized ICE and DHS agents invading communities looking for immigrants, led one military expert to be very alarmed on MSNBC on Sunday morning.
Appearing on MSNBC's "The Weekend," military analyst Max Boot pointed out that the volatile Hegesth is the wrong person to be overseeing the military after Donald Trump nationalized the National Guard unnecessarily to put down protests that are nowhere near an insurrection as the president's aides are claiming.
According to Boot, Hegseth immediately jumping on social media to say he is more than willing to send in the Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton should alarm everyone.
On X, the scandal-plagued former Fox News personality wrote, "The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil; a dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK. Under President Trump, violence & destruction against federal agents & federal facilities will NOT be tolerated. It’s COMMON SENSE. The @DeptofDefense is mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY to support federal law enforcement in Los Angeles. And, if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized — they are on high alert."
According to Boot, "For the protesters, I think it's incredibly important that they stay peaceful and nonviolent because anything else, you know, torching police cars, throwing rocks, fireworks, whatever that plays into the hands of the, of the Trump administration who want this confrontation and as opposed to peaceful protests, which I think is a very powerful counter to what you're seeing."
"But I think it's also incredibly important that there has to be restraint and de-escalation on the part of the federal government and that's why I'm very, you know, I worry in a situation like this to have somebody like Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, because we remember during the George Floyd protests in 2020, you had Mark Esper as secretary of defense, you had General Mark Milley as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and they were not willing to send federal troops into Washington to try to suppress protests in the way that President Trump wanted. "
He added, "Unfortunately, right now, you see Pete Hegseth is very different, that he's he's kind of straining at the leash to, you know, menacingly talking about sending Marines up from Camp Pendleton. That's that's the last thing that anybody needs to see and this is, you know, again, I'm very concerned about what we're seeing. I really hope that today, on Sunday, we see a day of de-escalation rather than heightened tensions."
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