Former President Barack Obama stated that President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to quell crime in Democrat-run cities is “inherently corrupting,” arguing that he would have received a different reaction from conservative media if he had sent the military into Texas during his tenure.
Obama spoke with left-wing comedian Mark Maron for the final episode of his long-running podcast, published Monday, in which he shared several of his grievances about how Trump has been leading the country.
“When you have military that can direct force against their own people, that is inherently corrupting. And so when you now start seeing the politicization of the military deliberately —” he said, before Haron chimed in with, “They just landed in Chicago.”
“Yeah,” the former president continued, before saying Trump’s deployment of the National Guard, which was sent to cities including Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Memphis, and Chicago, is in violation of a federal law known as the Posse Comitatus Act.
The law, signed in 1878 by President Rutherford B. Hayes, “says you don’t use our military on domestic soil unless there is an extraordinary emergency of some sort,” Obama said, before adding “When you see an administration suggest that ordinary street crime is an insurrection or a terrorist act, that is a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy.”
“And that was understood by Democrats and Republicans,” he added, before musing about how Fox News would have reacted if he had sent National Guard troops to Dallas against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) wishes.
“If I had sent in the National Guard into Texas and just said, ‘You know what, a lot of problems in Dallas, a lot of crime there. And I don’t care what Gov. Abbott says, I’m going to kind of take over law enforcement because I think things are out of control.’ It is mind-boggling to me … Fox News would have responded.”
In another segment of the podcast, Obama told Maron that Trump’s law enforcement tactics are un-American.
“That’s not who we are … that’s not our idea of America. We don’t want masked, you know, folks with rifles and machine guns patrolling our streets,” the ex-president said.
“You know, we want cops on the beat who know the neighborhood and the kids around, and that’s how we keep the peace around here. You know, we don’t want kangaroo courts and trumped-up charges. That’s what happens in other places that we used to scold for doing that.”