During an interview Monday on American Family Radio, John Cardillo argued that the recent riots in the City of Angels, and the threats and attacks against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, are the result of a culture created by the policies put in place by Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other Democratic officials.
President Donald Trump over the weekend ordered the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in spite of objections from Newsom and Bass who said the presence of troops would only escalate tensions. Confrontations between protesters and law enforcement have involved vandalism, arson, projectiles and ultimately the use of tear gas.
The streets of the sprawling city of 4 million people were mostly quiet Monday morning, the day after crowds blocked off a major freeway and set self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades, The Associated Press reported.
They haven’t worked to stem the tide, but problems preceded Newsom and Bass, Cardillo told show host Jenna Ellis.
“There's been a decades-long culture of lawlessness in the state of California. Every major city is a sanctuary city. The closer you get to the coast it gets even more deep blue. We’ve seen it with the homelessness, we've seen it with the lack of sanitary conditions on the streets in these cities,” he described.
When little things add up
It’s a culture that could be avoided, according to Cardillo, if the state and local government paid attention to detail. But they don’t – and little things become big things.
California, he said, has been the opposite of the successful “broken windows” strategy employed by Rudy Guliani during his two terms as mayor of New York City.
Guliani instituted an aggressive approach to law enforcement that targeted minor offenses such as graffiti, turnstile jumping and aggressive panhandling by “squeegee men” on New York streets. His theory was that addressing small signs of disorder could help prevent a broader decline in law and order.
“When you take care of the little quality-of-life conditions, the bigger stuff follows, right? People have a little more pride in where they live, they call 911 more often. When they see crime, they'll cooperate with the police," said Cardillo.
"Well, what California did is the reverse – and we know the reverse: it leads to further deterioration. When the government doesn't care and allows quality-of-life to decline and degenerate like it did in California, the bigger stuff gets worse.”
In California, not sweating the small stuff has manifested in many more ways than providing sanctuary for now angry illegal immigrants. It has allowed gang violence to prosper, Cardillo argued.
“You saw a culture in that state [that was] not just permissive of illegal aliens and criminal illegals and gangs, but inviting MS-13 gangbangers … [telling them] 'You're safe in Los Angeles.' What this is, is a bunch of American-hating radicals – like Karen Bass, like Gavin Newsom – upset that there's finally an administration that's going to step in and put an end to their nonsense.”
California: It’s Trump’s fault
Newsom and Bass have doubled down against Trump. Newsom says what’s happening in Los Angeles now is Trump’s fault. “Donald Trump has manufactured a crisis and is inflaming conditions. If he can’t solve it, we will,” the governor wrote on X late Sunday.
Bass has offered similar comments, saying Trump’s National Guard order is an “inflammatory escalation” of events.
Newsom has threatened to sue Trump, calling the deployment of Guard troops “illegal and immoral” in an interview with MSNBC Sunday.
David Sapp, an attorney with the governor’s office, has written to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asking that the Guard deployment order be rescinded. Sapp calls the order a “serious breach of state sovereignty” and says city and county law enforcement are effectively “safeguarding public safety.”
The letter asks that control of the National Guard be returned to California “to be deployed as appropriate when necessary.”
Attacks on ICE officers in Los Angeles come after Bass and previous city mayors have barred LA officers from initiating a police action based on immigration status.
“I want to make it clear: the LAPD is not involved in civil immigration enforcement,” LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell to the city’s NBC affiliate. “We will not assist or participate in any sort of mass deportations, nor will the LAPD try to determine an individual’s immigration status.”
According to Cardillo, the Trump administration’s response should be to consider funding cuts – a strategy similar to its approach to numerous institutions of higher education that have failed to provide adequate safety for Jewish students or failed to promote the administration’s recognition of only two genders.
Law enforcement officials in major cities regularly train with elite federal military units, he added.
“That costs a lot of money. Those are federal dollars subsidizing that. Right now, the LAPD wants to say [to taxpayers], 'Well, we're going to take your federal dollars … to train and equip our people, but we're not going to cooperate with the Feds because of certain political policies.'”
Keep the troops and get them some help
Not only should the Guard troops remain federalized, they also can use additional help, Cardillo said. “I hope we see Marines to send a message,” he added.
The administration’s actions are warranted because state and local government aren’t doing their jobs, Cardillo said. “They’ve abandoned their state; they've abandoned their jobs. Now somebody else has to clean up their messes.”
