In an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” yesterday, Republican Congressman Mike Lawler who represents the New York 17th Congressional District that includes part of Westchester said he’s in favor of adding the military to the mix of law enforcement forces already at work in New York. President Trump has said that his federalization of National Guard troops has been so they can be used to combat crime, which Trump claims has reached extraordinary proportions even though crime statistics indicate otherwise.
When questioned by Margaret Brennan of CBS News, Lawler said he wants to see National Guard troops as well as federal FBI agents, ATF agents and DEA agents at work in New York City to combat crime.
“Crime has been a major problem in New York for years, and (Gov.) Kathy Hochul and Albany and New York City Democrats have failed miserably to tackle this crime,” Lawler said.
When specifically asked by Brennan if he wanted National Guard troops to be used in New York Lawler responded, “Kathy Hochul has mobilized National Guard’s troops to go into the subway system because of the crime in the subway system. So that has been done, obviously, for the purpose of surging resources and trying to prevent crime.”
President Trump, in addition to having sent National Guard troops and Marines into Los Angeles, has put National Guard troops armed with pistols and rifles onto the streets of Washington, D.C. He also has said he may federalize more National Guard units and put troops on the streets of Chicago, Baltimore, New York City and other cities controlled by Democrats.
On another subject, Lawler was highly critical of the redistricting carried out by Republicans in the Texas legislature at the behest of President Trump. The Texas Republicans adopted a gerrymandered district map in an effort to pick up five U.S. House of Representatives seats for Republicans. California Democrats reacted with a plan to redistrict in the hopes of picking up five seats for Democrats.
“I think gerrymandering is fundamentally wrong, and it is at the heart of why Congress has been broken for so many years,” Lawler said. “We need to ban gerrymandering nationwide. We need to ban mid-decade redistricting. I want to include term limits as part of those reforms.”
