‘Obviously I Disagree’: Top House Dem Says With Straight Face There Were No Riots In LA

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Monday that anti-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) protestors’ days of violent clashes with law enforcement and destruction of property in Los Angeles did not constitute a riot in his view.

Jeffries suggested a more accurate description of the violent demonstrations was “unrest” — after dismissing a question from the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation asking how he planned to vote on a GOP-backed resolution condemning the Los Angeles riots. The top House Democrat’s refusal to call the pandemonium in the country’s second-largest city a “riot” comes as Democratic lawmakers have splintered over whether to condemn the demonstrations and acknowledge whether violence happened at all.

“Obviously I disagree with the classification of the notion that there were riots in Los Angeles, certainly there was unrest,” Jeffries told the DCNF Monday. “We will not be lectured by extreme MAGA Republicans about questions of law and order. Are you kidding me?”

Jeffries quickly pivoted to attacking Trump for pardoning hundreds of individuals charged or convicted of criminal offenses in connection with the January 6th riots at the U.S. Capitol.

“Republicans aren’t the party of law and order, they’re the party of lawlessness and disorder,” Jeffries argued. “They’re phonies — get lost.”