Transcript:
Katrina Szish: Spokesperson for the National Police Association and retired Chicago area police officer Betsy Brantner Smith
Along with former senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security, former Secret Service agent and Newsmax contributor Charles Marino. Welcome to both of you, Charles. You know, we heard a lot of those protesters on the ground kind of spewing piece segments of things that they obviously heard or read somewhere trying to piece it together to justify why they’re there. It seems like they don’t even know what’s going on.
Charles Marino: Yeah. They don’t. And, look, there’s a different group of people out there that have radical beliefs on, you know, abandoning law and order in this country. But there’s a bigger picture here. Portland for Antifa serves almost the same purpose as Afghanistan did for Al Qaeda pre nine eleven.
It’s a total safe haven, and they’re protecting domestic terrorists who I’m convinced are actually operating out of that state to coordinate nationwide anarchy in the country. And it’s time that the federal government goes in there. Yes. It’s under the pretense that it’s to allow ICE some protection to conduct their operations, but the bigger game here is to disrupt everything that Antifa stands for and their operations. Antifa has everything out there in Portland just short of having a corporate headquarters.
You know, I mean, it’s blatant out there what the government there at the state and local, levels, what they allow to occur in that state.
Bob Brooks: Yeah. Betsy, if you go online right now, Twitter x, Google Portland, you’re you’re gonna see that, you know, some of these situations there are looking pretty grave. And given what happened last week in Dallas with the sniper that killed, that one detainee and shot at ICE, I would say that anytime a group like this at this point moving forward, having National Guard or extra security for ICE is, I would say, of the utmost importance.
Betsy Smith: Yeah. This has been going on for years. I have a friend during the George Floyd riots who was trapped inside that building when they set fire to it. This has very little to do with just what Trump is doing now. This is just an opportunity for Antifa like Charles said to be able to ramp up these these quote unquote protests, these violent riots not only in Portland but beyond and frankly the Trump administration has no choice but to bring in the National Guard if the city really wanted to help they would follow the rule of law.
They would get rid of those tents. They would get rid of allowing these protesters to violate the law, over the streets and this and that. But if the city of Portland and the county are not going to help the federal government, then we really have no choice but to bring in reinforcements for the agents, and that includes the National Guard.
Katrina Szish: Charles, bringing in reinforcements makes sense. And, of course, that’s something that is important that the president has been doing. But at the same time, once people, say are arrested by local law enforcement, then they’re still just turned over presumably to a very liberal justice system in those particular states or cities. Again, they’re probably just released. There’s still no consequences.
So deterrent is one thing, but then there still is no follow through. So wouldn’t that just keep this cycle going?
Charles Marino: No. You’re right. It’s an excellent point. And look. Unless there’s a federal nexus there where federal law can be enforced, an arrest made based on that, they are going to be turned over to state and locals who are completely absent because of the politics there from assisting ICE or any other federal agency with respect to immigration enforcement so they’re going to be nowhere to be found.
I don’t even know if they’ll be close by to actually turn somebody over and receive that. So, know, I I think, look, ICE is, as they do in most sanctuary cities, they’re going it alone, and they’re gonna have to surge federal resources to make up for that significant gap in operations.
Bob Brooks: Betsy, let’s talk your hometown, Chicago. Wanna talk about the homeland security. They posted this on X. 11 violent rioters. They were arrested last night in Chicago outside the ICE detention facility.
These are two guns that were taken off rioters in Chicago right against the fence at the ICE detention facility there. Well, now an investigation is underway what appears to be an explosive device found last night near that very same ICE Chicago detention facility. So looks like they have a pretty big problem out there as well. We know their governor in Illinois, JB Pritzker, mayor Johnson, they do not want National Guard. Your thoughts?
Betsy Smith: Well, according to mayor Brandon Johnson, those guns must have come from Mississippi or Indiana. Look, this is getting totally out of hand. That ice facility is in a very small suburb east of Downtown Chicago, And it’s it’s to the point now where our politicians including Pritzker Johnson many of the Chicago aldermen are are literally calling for violence and in fact you’ve seen some politicians as well as candidates actually at those riots. And again, if Cook County, if Broadview PD cannot protect these ICE agents, then we’re going to have to send in the National Guard. Look, we keep being told, right, everybody’s supposed to dial down the rhetoric.
And yet, what do you have in Illinois, in Portland, Oregon, and around the country calling these agents secret police, fascists, Nazis, wrongly saying that brown and black people are being disappeared. My own congresswoman here in Arizona said the same thing. Not only do we need to tone it down, but we’re going to have to bring in a show of force to to protect these cops. We almost had ICE agents murdered, and we had an illegal murdered in Dallas, Texas. This has gotta stop, but it’s it’s gonna take a show of force.
Katrina Szish: Yeah. Great point there, Betsy. Charles, what what will it take do you think to actually not just tone down the rhetoric, but to actually make this stop?
Charles Marino: Yeah. Well, I don’t think the left is gonna tone down the rhetoric, which is why these detention facilities, these fixed sites, the threat level is through the roof right now. And so, you know secretary Nom over DHS she’s got a challenge ahead of her because you’ve got to protect these facilities you’ve got to protect the law enforcement that are working there and you also have to protect the detainees. As we saw, this only endangers the situation for everybody at these locations. So, unfortunately, I don’t think the maturity and the civility is there from the left to calm down anything at this point.
Bob Brooks: Betsy, wanna get your take on president Trump declaring Antifa a domestic terrorist group.
Betsy Smith: We have been begging for that for years. We’re we’re so grateful that president Trump has finally done done this, you know and Tifa I know the left loves to say that they’re not organized and on you know there’s no president of antifa and this and that. But we know just like Charles said that they are based there in Portland they’re based in the in the North. West but that they are everywhere in this nation and they are coordinated and they’re well funded. So we’re very grateful that this terrorism group designation finally came from the White House.