Although nearly a month has passed since rioters stormed the Capitol building and almost two weeks since President Joe Biden took office, thousands of National Guard troops remain stationed in the District of Columbia.
This fact has left some lawmakers questioning whether all the additional security is still necessary, including freshman Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who recently complained that Washington looks like “a war zone,” Breitbart reported.
Tuberville made the remarks during an interview with Mobile, Alabama radio station FM Talk 106.5 on Friday.
“It’s a shame”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the senator told the host. “We’ve had 25,000 National Guard people there, I guess for now for three weeks. I guess now we’re down to maybe 10,000 now.”
“But we have 20 miles of razor wire all the way around all of the buildings — the Capitol, the Senate buildings,” he added.
Tuberville continued, “These guys and girls have been sleeping outside my office on the floor. We take candy out to them, popcorn. They’ve been MREs. It’s a shame.”
The senator said the troops have been “treated badly,” claiming that there was no planning dedicated to “how are you going to sleep that many people.”
On Jan. 22, a scandal erupted after it came out that some 5,000 National Guard troops had been ordered to sleep overnight in an unheated parking garage after serving to protect the inauguration.
Pelosi “dropped the ball”
Tuberville also noted the high cost of having so many troops in the city, remarking, “You know, we had troops from all 50 states. We’ve spent millions of the taxpayers’ dollars on this.”
The senator laid the blame for the situation on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), arguing that she “dropped the ball” regarding security prior to the Jan. 6 riot that claimed the life of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
“She’s the head of security for the Capitol,” Tuberville said. “Of course, she isn’t going to take the blame for anything. They’re all there, and I think they’re going to stay there through the State of the Union address. But they don’t need to be there.”
Tuberville also expressed frustration over how all Republicans are being smeared because of how the Capitol Hill rioters behaved, saying, “It really disappointed me how people handled that.”
The post ‘Looks like a war zone’: Thousands of National Guard troops still in DC first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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