Republicans Are Using the Los Angeles Protests to Get Trump’s Budget Bill Passed

Expecting influential Republicans to step up and stop the ongoing madness? Have you been asleep for ten years? Joe Perticone of The Bulwark stopped by the Capitol today to gather some depressingly familiar quotes from our national legislators.

“I think he needs to restore order,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I’m mainly concerned about public safety and the president has clearly got authority in his federal capacity to deal with the National Guard. So, plenty of precedent.”

“I don’t think that the president had any choice,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “These weren’t just protests, these were riots. And it was clear that the governor and the mayor—the mayor’s idea of containment was to give them a hug and a cup of hot cocoa. And the president did what he had to do.”

As for whether he was okay with the Marines being deployed as well, Kennedy told me bluntly, “If they’re needed, yeah.” As for whether he was okay with the Marines being deployed as well, Kennedy told me bluntly, “If they're needed, yeah.”

Cornyn is a sack of hair, and Kennedy is the guy who once was a Rhodes Scholar and talks in the Senate like Lonesome Rhodes’ dumber brother. And it wouldn’t be violence against American citizens without a contribution from Senator Tom Cotton, the bobble-throated slap-dick from Arkansas, who wrote the following on X:

What kind of governor blames police officers and the National Guard for ‘inciting’ this violence?

The kind of governor who watched them do it? Just spitballing here.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are using the destruction of constitutional order as a means to get the Big Plug Ugly passed because there’s increased funding in it for more bulked-up dudes in masks and camo. From CBS News:

House Speaker Mike Johnson said on X on Monday that the legislation, which addresses Mr. Trump's tax, energy and immigration priorities, “provides the ESSENTIAL funding needed to secure our nation[’]s borders.” Republicans call the legislation the “one big, beautiful bill ... The lawlessness happening in LA is ANOTHER reason why we need to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill IMMEDIATELY,” Johnson said, pledging that Congress will support Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who he said are “fighting to keep Americans safe against illegal aliens AND the radical left.”

Wow. That is so far from the facts on the ground that Speaker Moses probably is somewhere over Delaware by now. And let’s see what the White House has to say.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a similar message earlier Monday, saying the scenes unfolding in some areas of Los Angeles "prove that we desperately need more immigration enforcement personnel and resources...America must reverse the invasion unleashed by Joe Biden of millions of unvetted illegal aliens into our country," Leavitt said in a post on X. "That's why President Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill funds at least one million annual removals and hires 10,000 new ICE personnel, 5,000 new customs officers, and 3,000 new Border Patrol agents."

Someday, the circuitry is going to go kerfluuey and Ms. Leavitt is going to have to go back to the plant in Stepford for re-tuning.