Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) defended the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles, arguing it is necessary to “restore civil order” when local police cannot do so on their own.
Cotton was asked by CBS News’s Margaret Brennan on Sunday about an op-ed he wrote, in which he endorsed “an overwhelming show of force” to bring an end to the riots in Los Angeles, where communities are being “terrorized.” Brennan asked if Cotton’s language was appropriate given the political divisiveness within the nation, to which the senator stood by his words and argued that calling the National Guard is “the next step” when “left-wing street militias” are not addressed by governors or mayors.
“We all hope that the local police are allowed to do their job and have sufficient numbers to do their job to maintain order and protect innocent life and property, but if they can’t or they’re not allowed to, the National Guard has to be on scene to restore civil order,” Cotton said on Face the Nation.
Brennan then stated that the Los Angeles Police Department had things “under control” on Saturday, only firing rubber bullets when things “turned violent.” Cotton responded that the LAPD chief had said his forces were “overwhelmed” last weekend, and that they could not “manage the situation.”
Cotton posited in his op-ed, published by the Wall Street Journal, that the Insurrection Act would be an appropriate response to the Los Angeles riots, as the 1807 law allows the United States president to mobilize the active-duty military within the U.S. in the case of an insurrection. The senator previously endorsed using the law in response to the Black Lives Matter riots that swept the nation in 2020.
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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has insisted that the deployment of the National Guard was not necessary, citing the low numbers of arrests in recent days. She added that law enforcement has “complete control of the situation.”
The House Oversight Committee has announced that it is conducting an investigation into Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) response to the riots. Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Clay Higgins (R-LA) are leading the investigation.