See below for video and highlights of Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA11) speaking on NewsNation earlyer today; bolding added by me, as always, for emphasis of key points that jumped out at me:
- “This administration has had plenty of time and more than enough money to outfit ICE and CBP officers with body cameras. I think it’s quite clear they don’t want body cameras because they don’t want the American people to see up close and personal the death and destruction, the kind of violence that’s taking place here. If there was body cam footage of these incidents, the level of outrage across the country would be exponentially higher than it is today. Markwayne Mmullin is smart enough to know that he doesn’t want body cameras on these officers.”
- [Q: “These traffic stops being halted or at least partially halted…What about that as a response and what else do you think needs to be done in the short term?”] “Well one, it’s too late what the agency has said is that they’re going to halt traffic stops so that they can train officers, better train officers to conduct traffic stops. Ironically, precisely that kind of better training is what Democrats like myself have been demanding for more than a year. They should agreed with us when we were demanding that they slow down this mass deportation agenda and train these officers, many of whom were rushed through their initial training as they were desperately trying to add thousands and thousands of ICE and CBP officers. They should have got the training right the first time. They didn’t. As a result, two individuals are dead.”
- “I think what has changed is that they’ve stepped back from the large-scale kinds of surges that we saw in Chicago and Minneapolis, where they would surge thousands of officers into one city or jurisdiction, creating a media circus and a whole series of protests and counter protests and conflict. But they’ve continued somewhat below the radar, now spread out across the country, this very aggressive. and as we’ve learned in the last week, very violent mass deportation agenda. So the approach and tactics have changed, but it’s still incredibly aggressive, still violent. Still failing to target the so-called ‘worst of the worst’. As far as we can tell, neither of these gentlemen who are dead are in the ‘worst-of-the-worst’ category…”
- “Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee are demanding full and independent investigations of these incidents. If we had an independent FBI, they could conduct it. Local law enforcement, should be able to get access to the evidence to conduct investigations of these incidents. We have legislation requiring better notification of Congress when there are deaths caused by ICE or CBP and DHS operations. So we’re going to continue working to get transparency and accountability for the American people…Democrats are going to continue to demand common sense reforms. My hope is that maybe after these incidents, the administration or some of our Republican colleagues will join us and say enough is enough – we can enforce the law and do it in a way that’s humane and doesn’t lead to carnage and death on American streets like we’ve seen in Maine and Texas recently.”
- [Q on a proposal for permament Daylight Savings Time] “So the vote this week would establish basically permanent Daylight Savings Time across the country as the default. And for states like Virginia that I represent, that maybe wouldn’t be a dramatic change. But there are places in the country, if we had permanent Daylight Savings Time, it means it would be pitch black, dark at 9 am. So even more kids would be waiting outside for the school bus in the dark, especially in the winter for the folks I represent. I think that would be a big problem…I think the reality is it impacts different parts of the country differently. So, you know, I think it makes sense to preserve some flexibility for states to make the decision that makes the most sense for them.”
