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.”
Jeffries’ apparent choice to downplay the violent scenes of protestors clashing with law enforcement dressed in riot gear and individual looting storefronts comes as the riots are projected to cost Los Angeles more than $32 million.
The House Democratic leader declined to specify how he plans to vote on the resolution sponsored by California Republican Rep. Young Kim and other California House Republicans to condemn the Los Angeles riots, telling reporters, “I haven’t seen that.”
House Republicans are amping up pressure on their Democratic colleagues to back Kim’s resolution.
“Will Democrats stand with us against these violent riots, or continue to condone this destructive behavior because it aligns with their agenda?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise wrote Sunday in his “floor lookout” for the upcoming week.
Jeffries told the DCNF that any demonstrators who committed crimes, including assaulting law enforcement or looting, should be held accountable for their actions.
The resolution refers to “riots” or “rioters” five times in the three-page document. “[T]hese protests quickly escalated into violent riots across Los Angeles … rioters have shot commercial grade fireworks and thrown Molotov cocktails at Los Angeles Police Department officers and assaulted Federal agents,” the resolution says in part.
The House is expected to vote on the resolution as early as Wednesday. Kim previously told the DCNF she expects House Democrats to back the resolution, arguing denouncing riots and defending public safety should not be a partisan issue.
The resolution notably criticizes Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for their shortcomings to “contain the rapidly escalating disorder” and ” failing to support overwhelmed law enforcement personnel.”
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