On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s ‘The Lead,” Illinois Lt. Gov. and U.S. Senate candidate Juliana Stratton (D) stated that it is important that things in Illinois remain peaceful but the Trump administration wants to “kind of come with this aggressive attack, see if they can provoke some kind of reaction, and then come back and say, later, well, this is why we need to now federalize national troops.”
Host Phil Mattingly asked, “There is, I think, a view among some that this administration wants to spark a clash of some sort, literal or figurative, if they move forward on something like you’re describing. Behind the scenes, in your administration, when you talk to local officials in Chicago, how are you thinking through how to deal with that and maybe prevent giving them the public relations pictures that they want to elevate?”
Stratton responded, “Well, look, first of all, we know that this talk of an aggressive ICE strike or whatever type of efforts they’re going to take, we know what that looks like. And, here in Illinois, we’re committed to following the law. They are not. They are snatching people off the streets and stuffing them into unmarked cars, people wearing masks, and they’re doing so with no due process whatsoever. And they know that good people, decent people will see that kind of activity and will be upset and will want to react. And so, what we are saying is that, here in Illinois, we protect and will always uphold someone’s First Amendment right to protest. We want to make sure and we’re emphasizing that all protests should, of course, be peaceful, because any sort of violence is only going to harm those that are already most vulnerable to begin with. So, we want people to speak out. We need them to use their voices. We are seeing, not just the rise of authoritarianism, we are seeing it — we’re staring it, quite frankly, right in the face. And so, we do need people to use their voices, use the power of their voices to speak out. But we need things to remain calm because we need to make sure that our most vulnerable are protected.”
She continued, “And one other thing that I’m just going to say, this is the playbook. They do want to kind of come with this aggressive attack, see if they can provoke some kind of reaction, and then come back and say, later, well, this is why we need to now federalize national troops. That is not going to be normal here in the city of Chicago or the state of Illinois, we are not going to make it normal, and we are not going to roll out the red carpet for a wannabe dictator like Donald Trump.”
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