Two Republicans who represent northeast and north-central Pennsylvania in Congress back President Donald Trump’s decision to order troops into Los Angeles.
U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Luzerne, blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles officials for failing to control “rioters” when interviewed Monday at a Berwick event.
“It should have been put out by the locals. It wasn't. The president said, ‘If you can't control it, we're going to send in the National Guard.' That's what happened,” Meuser said.
Newsom, who never asked Trump for National Guard troops, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said they didn't need federal help and could have kept things under control, but Meuser dismissed the claims.
“When were they going to control it? After 50 cars got burned and federal buildings were taken over and ICE agents were beaten up, because that's what was happening before, they got there,” he said.
In a X post from his Senate office, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, a Republican, decried Democrats for running “sanctuary cities” and refusing “to enforce the law for years.”
“Just days ago, one mayor compared ICE agents to neo-Nazis. Now, we’re seeing violence and vandalism in response to border patrol agents trying to do their jobs,” McCormick said. “This type of rhetoric and behavior is totally unacceptable in America.”
On his Senate campaign X account, McCormick directly supported the president’s decision.
“Make no mistake: these ‘protests’ that have completely descended into violent property destruction aren’t just wrong, they’re dangerous. We need to restore law and order and I’m confident @POTUS (Trump) and his team will do just that,” he wrote.
Efforts to obtain comment from Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Luzerne, Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh, and Rep. Glenn Thompons, R-Centre, were unsuccessful. Bresnahan, Thompson and Mackenzie haven't publicly posted support, but haven't criticized the president either.
On X, Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat, didn’t say he backs the president’s action, but criticized his party for failing to adequately condemn violent behavior.
“I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration, but this is not that,” he wrote. “This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, declined to address the issue during the same Berwick event Meuser attended. The event centered on Amazon Web Services’ development of data centers in Pennsylvania.
A Shapiro spokeswoman later provided a Democratic Governors Association statement that Shapiro joined.
The statement condemned the violence, but backs Newsom and calls Trump’s move “an alarming abuse of power” that, done without consulting a governor “is ineffective and dangerous.”
Trump’s decision undermines the military, erodes public trust and shows he “does not trust local law enforcement.”
“We stand with Gov. Newsom who has made it clear that violence is unacceptable and that local authorities should be able to do their jobs without the chaos of this federal interference and intimidation,” the statement says.