Some news events are so tragic that they require a very humane response rather than partisan talking points.
Two of Louisian’s most prominent delegates to Congress had markedly different reactions last weekend to federal agents’ inexcusable killing of video protester Alex Pretti in Minnesota. Sen. Bill Cassidy’s humane response was much, much better than the ultra-partisan rhetoric of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Scalise is a wonderful congressman, deservedly popular with his constituents — but in this circumstance, requiring balanced and unifying leadership, he whiffed.
On CBS’ "Face the Nation," host Margaret Brennan began an by putting on screen Cassidy’s statement about the Minnesota situation: “The events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing. The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth.”
Every word of Cassidy’s statement (except for conflating Border Patrol with ICE) was on target. And with Department of Homeland Security Secretary , 100% dishonestly, that Pretti “arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement,” and with Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino mendaciously saying Pretti wanted to “massacre law enforcement,” the department’s credibility is indisputably in free fall.
Yet Scalise immediately began by defending ICE’s credibility and then, after an anodyne expression of “feel[ing] sorry about what happened in Minneapolis,” he immediately went into partisan attack mode against Democratic officials in the state, and then against local protesters. Then he made a claim, which he repeated four more times, that ICE has arrested 416,000 criminals in the last year, with him insisting the last three times that these were 416,000 “violent, criminal” immigrants.
(As an aside, Scalise seems to be making a common misstatement, conflating “violent” detainees with the number with any criminal record at all. The New York Times reports that of ICE’s detainees, or less than 40,000, have violent convictions on their record. It’s also worth noting that about half of all ICE “arrests” involve people already , but who ICE just moves into the deportation queue — so it’s not like ICE is emptying them from terrorized city streets.)
Most importantly, Scalise again and again blamed all the recent conflagrations on the “failed leaders” in Minnesota, yet could find only three short phrases to “lament what happened” with the killings. Still, it was all the local leaders’ faults for “ratcheting up the rhetoric.”
Scalise is right about the locals’ bad rhetoric, but he offered not a word of heartfelt sympathy for Pretti. Not a single suggestion that Noem, Bovino, President Donald Trump and top aide Stephen Miller tone down their rhetoric falsely accusing dead people of being “domestic terrorists” and “assassins.” Not a single suggestion that anything the federal agents have done is wrong, notwithstanding the dozens of videos showing agents acting abusively.
We’ve all seen them: The young woman with arms at her side offering zero physical threat to one ICE agent, by another. The man already pinned helpless on the ground by two agents, by another. The nonviolent preacher with a pepper ball. The disabled U.S. citizen , then mistreated for hours, despite explaining she was on the way to her doctor.
And so , and on, and on.
It is not just possible but quite to the mission of removing illegal immigrants, strongly sanctuary cities and urge for “protesters” who endanger innocents, yet still recognize that DHS tactics and the actual practices by many agents are , needlessly bordering on , or actually — and, often, outlandishly dangerous.
Meanwhile, not a single agent last Saturday had reason to believe Pretti posed any threat at all before at least six of them pepper sprayed him (for running to aid a woman the agents had assaulted), pushed him roughly to the ground, and literally began with a metal canister, all before they even had a clue he had a holstered gun on his back hip.
Surely a national leader should be able to spare a few words of sympathy and a call for ICE to deescalate and for Noem to stop lying. With the nation on edge, it’s time for restraint and human feeling, not for partisan talking points.
Scalise has shown in the past he can act with grace and dignity. This time, he didn’t. Congress and the nation need him to rediscover his better angels.