Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shut down a Democratic senator on her hypocrisy related to the riots happening in Los Angeles, California.
While testifying before the Senate, Hegseth engaged in a fiery exchange with Sen. Betty McCollum (D-MN) over President Donald Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles to help quell the anti-ICE riots that erupted over the weekend.
McCollum recalled being in Minneapolis during the George Floyd riots.
“Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets for days. Governor Walz made the decision to call up the Minnesota National Guard. At no point did … the citizens of Minnesota request that the Marines be deployed,” she began. “Our state and local law enforcement, along with our National Guard, who have worked on crowd control, they were more than enough. They were more than capable of handling this situation.”
The lawmaker pointed out that these riots are not as severe as the George Floyd riots and the Rodney King riots that took place in 1992. “Mr. Secretary, this is a deeply unfair position to put our Marines in. Their service should be honored. It should not be exploited,” she argued.
McCollum further argued that “there’s no need for the Marines to be deployed” and asked a series of questions about the cost of deploying the Marines and National Guard in Los Angeles.
Hegseth responded, explaining that he recalled the George Floyd riots “when Gov. Walz abandoned a police precinct and allowed it to be burned to the ground, and also allowed five days of chaos to occur inside the streets of Minneapolis.”
He continued: “The police precinct, ma'am, was abandoned and burned to the ground. And because of that, the National Guard was eventually, far too late, mobilized. And President Trump recognizes a situation like that, improperly handled by a governor like it was by Governor Walz, if it gets out of control, is a bad situation for the citizens of any location.”
So in Los Angeles, we believe that ICE, which is a federal law enforcement agency, has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country, especially after 21 million illegals have crossed our border under the previous administration. Ice ought to be able to do its job, whether it's Minneapolis or Los Angeles.
The defense secretary countered McCollum’s count of the number of law enforcement officers in Los Angeles, saying that “there would be 18,0000 if not for the defund movement that folks like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass have implemented.”
FULL VIDEO: She was so flustered that she literally ended her questioning! pic.twitter.com/bi1FcMXCNf
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 10, 2025
Video footage circulating on social media shows rioters looting stores, clashing with law enforcement, and burning government vehicles.
More protests are being planned for June 14, where leftist activists will continue demonstrating against the administration’s immigration policies. Meanwhile, the FBI looking into who might be funding the riots in Los Angeles.