All right, well, good afternoon everybody. Thank you all for being here. And, uh, thanks especially to the Marines from 29 Palms, uh, for being here, for serving their country and providing some much-needed security. As a matter of fact, I just heard from a couple of law enforcement officers, basically, thank you.
Uh, thank you to the president for sending in the DOD officials, for sending in the soldiers and Marines because unfortunately, a lot of these federal buildings were under very serious threat. I heard about a lot of that during my tour here today. And the reason I'm here is I just wanted to hear from the law enforcement officials themselves, the state officials, the local officials, but also the federal officials, what's actually going on here on the ground?
I think there's some good news, and the good news is the rioting has gotten a lot better. Uh, but the bad news is, as I heard from everybody, unfortunately, the soldiers and Marines are still a very much a necessary part of what's going on here, because they're worried that it's gonna flare back up. And what do -- what do I mean when I say flare back up? I think it's useful to take stock of what actually happened in the city of Los Angeles over the past couple of months.
So, first of all, to set the table, we have a public official in Gavin Newsom and, uh, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who over the past few years have actively encouraged illegal migration into this community, have strained public services, have strained law enforcement, and really have offered generous benefits not to American citizens, but to illegal immigrants to break the law, to come into our country and to receive generous public assistance for having done so. What has that done?
That has created an illegal immigration crisis, of course, facilitated by the policies of the Biden administration. And there is perhaps nowhere where that crisis has fallen harder than in the great city of Los Angeles. And, you know, I landed when I saw this city when I was driving through, uh, to come to this FBI building.
All I could think about is what a great American city Los Angeles is, and what a great tragedy it is that we have allowed illegal immigration and rioting to destroy, I think, one of the great gems of American, uh, o -- of the American family. Now, these guys surrounding me represent the U.S Attorney's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
They represent, uh, immigration enforcement. And of course, we just met some Marines who represent the Department of Defense. All of these law enforcement officials were necessary because what happened is, in response to the basic federal action of enforcing immigration law, you had local officials and radical left-wing agitators who actually encouraged violence, who facilitated violence and rioting in the great city of Los Angeles.
What happened here was a tragedy. You had people who were doing the simple job of enforcing the law, and they had rioters egged on by the governor and the mayor, making it harder for them to do their job. That is disgraceful, and it is why the president has responded so forcefully what happened in Los Angeles, number one, because we've got to enforce our borders and get so many of these criminals out of our country to begin with.
And number two, when you have violent agitators who make it impossible for the law enforcement to do their job, it is necessary to protect them and to defend them. We have to remember that the Friday that the riots started, before there was ever a single national guardsman, before the president of the United States had sent in additional federal resources, you had law enforcement officers who were being captured and beaten by violent mobs, egged on by Gavin Newsom and other officials, that it was necessary to send the National Guard to stop that process, to bring some order back to this great city, and to make it possible for the people's president to enforce the people's immigration law.
That's why we're here. That's why these guys are standing beside me. That's why we have close to 5,000, um, 5,000 soldiers and Marines from the Department of Defense. It's because we've got to enforce the law, the president takes that very seriously. I'm happy to take a few questions, but before I do, I just wanna send a message to all of the law enforcement, local, state, and federal, who frankly I think are of su -- are suffering from a bit of a morale problem, because they've had the local government in this community tell them that they're not allowed to do their job.
I just wanna let you know from the president, the vice president on down this administration stands with you. We're grateful for the job that you do every single day. We know that we wouldn't have a border, were it not for your hard work and for your efforts, and we're gonna keep on fighting for you and keep on standing with you every step of the way.
I heard today, Border Patrol officials tell me that they feel like the local government is sicking violent mobs on them when they go out to the community to enforce the nation's immigration laws. Can you imagine what it's like to be a federal official doing your job, doing the job the president of the United States ordered you to do, and have a mob come after you for following orders and for enforcing the American people's laws.
I think it's disgraceful that we've ever gotten to this place in this country, but thank God we've got a president and an administration that is pushing back against lawlessness. We're gonna keep on doing it every step of the way. So thank you to the Border Patrol. Thank you to the Soldiers and Marines. Thank you to the US attorneys.
Thank you to the FBI. Thank you to all of you for doing what is necessary to enforce the laws of the American people. We are grateful to you and we'll keep on fighting for you. Now, I'll take a few questions.
Vice President Vance, would you say that Gavin Newsom is endangering law enforcement here in California? And what should he be doing if he was protecting them?
Look, I would absolutely say that Gavin Newsom is endangering law enforcement. The law enforcement officials themselves tell me as much, that when they go out -- Let's say you have a board of patrol official who needs to go out and arrest somebody, maybe a violent criminal who's also an illegal alien. When that border patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 mi -- minutes of them trying to do their job, they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters who are in their face obstructing them, preventing them from doing their job and endangering their lives.
Why do they have that? Because those people have been egged on by local officials. Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, by treating the city as a sanctuary city, have basically said that thi -- it is open season on federal law enforcement. They have treated border patrol and border enforcement as somehow an illegitimate force instead of what they are, which is the American people's law enforcement trying to enforce the American people's laws.
So when Gavin Newsom encourages violence and rioting, when he encourages people to get in the face of our great border patrol officers, he is absolutely endangering the lives of federal enforcement. He's absolutely endangering the lives of, of mothers and daughters and fathers and sons who have been sent here to do a simple thing, enforce the law.
And thank God they're willing to do it despite the fact that the local leadership of this community has made it harder on them. It is in fact endangered their lives as they go about to do their important work.
Vice President, your reaction --
Yeah.
-- to the Ninth Circuit, uh, Court of Appeals, their decision yesterday, uh, I just wanna get your reaction to that.
Yeah, well, it's interesting that for the past couple of weeks, Gavin Newsom has said that there's an illegitimate effort to send federal resources to secure a city that he refuses to secure. And what the Ninth Circuit said yesterday is that that was an, a completely legitimate and proper use of federal law enforcement.
The president has a very simple proposal to everybody in every city, every community, every town, whether big or small. If you enforce your own laws and if you protect federal law enforcement, we're not gonna send in the National Guard because it's unnecessary. But if you let violent rioters burn great American cities to the ground, then of course we're gonna send federal law enforcement in to protect the people the president was elected to protect.
And I think what the Ninth Circuit said very clearly is when the president makes a determination that you've gotta send in certain federal officials to protect people, that determination was legitimate. And the president's gonna do it again if he has to, but hopefully it won't be necessary. We don't wanna send these great Marines to cities like Los Angeles.
We only do it if we have to to protect federal property and to protect the lives of our great law enforcement folks.
[Inaudible] some of them funded by democratic groups who were releasing the addresses of ICE agents --
Yes.
-- in hotels around here.
Well, you know, it, it just drives home. Um, I was actually shocked to hear this, and I, I didn't realize this until I was in the command center earlier talking to, uh, some of these great officials that oftentimes you have far-left agitators who are posting the names, the addresses, even the family members of some of our law enforcement in an effort to harass them, antagonize them and even threaten their lives.
And what do I take from that? What I take from that is that you have a very small group of people who are so against the idea of border enforcement, that they're willing to threaten and endanger the lives of their fellow Americans who are enforcing the law. And something else I take from it is that Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass have got to stop this craziness.
Every single law enforcement officer I talk to today, every single one of them said they feel like the local leadership, the mayor and the governor are encouraging these far left agitators. What is the justification for this? What is the reason for this? There is a broad bipartisan consensus that we ought to have border enforcement and we ought to enforce our nation's laws.
So why do you have far-left agitators, egged on by local officials who encouraging, um, these agitators to harass and to threaten our border patrol? You have it because of a lack of common sense. These people need to be stopped. These people need to be told that if you threaten a law enforcement officer, you're gonna go to prison for it. And that's exactly what the Trump administration, that's the message that we're sending.
But look, we could do so much better and we could have such an easier pathway for these federal law enforcement officers if the local leadership wasn't egging this on, and I think that's the great tragedy.
What I see here today is the great tragedy when a mayor and a governor encourages their cit -- citizens to harass and endanger the lives of our police officers and our law enforcement officers. It's heartbreaking to see, and thank God we've got great people who are willing to persevere despite it.
Much. Another question, Mr. Vice President. There's been back and forth about whether, uh, raids will be going on in agricultural businesses and restaurants. Uh, could you tell us if that's going to continue or not?
Well, the President's made two points on this that I think are very worth, um, emphasizing. Number one, if you are in this country illegally, you are at threat of deportation because that's what it means to enforce the country's laws. If you've come here illegally, the policy of the Trump administration is that you shouldn't be here.
You should go back and then come through proper channels, if you so desire. But the President has also said that he wants to focus our critical and -- and -- and short supply law enforcement resources on going after the really bad guys, on the violent criminals, on the rapists, on the drug cartel members.
We've still got a lot of those people in our country, and that's where the president wants to focus law enforcement resources, and that's what he'll continue to do.
Democrat lawmakers who keep getting handcuffed, the New York Times just did a story, they keep getting handcuffed, suggesting that they're -- the Trump administration is cracking down on Democrats. Can you comment on that?
Well, I was hoping José Padilla would be here to ask a question, uh, but unfortunately, I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn't the theater. And that's all it is. You know, I think everybody realizes that's what this is. It's pure political theater. These guys show up, they want to be captured on camera doing something.
They want to be able to go back to their far left groups and to say, "Look me, I stood up against border enforcement. I stood up against Donald Trump," but all they're really standing up for is for drug cartels who are run rampant over our country and sex traffickers to be able to continue to traffic little kids into our country.
That's what you're doing when you stand against border enforcement. So, I think these guys, we ought to laugh 'em outta the building. We ought to call them out for doing what they're doing, which is grandstanding, and if they want to work seriously on border enforcement and on keeping their community safe, the Trump administration's door is wide open, but they're not doing that.
They'd love the grandstanding. They hate law enforcement because they hate the idea of the United States of America having a border. It's a disgrace, but it is what it is. We'll do one more question.
Um, sure. Uh, just another thing. Do you think that the admi -- administration has been too aggressive with, uh, de -- the deportation efforts like our non-criminals getting caught up in the dragnet as well?
No. Look, I -- I don't think that we've been too aggressive at all. I mean, first of all, any time that a mistake has been made, we correct that mistake very quickly. But the unfortunate reality is that Joe Biden let in 15 to 20 million illegal aliens into this country. And there is no way for us to actually get those unlawful, illegal immigrants outta the United States of America without some serious law enforcement.
And that's what we've been trying to do. It's not too aggressive. It's not, you know, not aggressive enough. It's just the right approach to make sure that we're enforcing our country's border laws. We have to remember, 100,000 Americans die of fentanyl overdoses brought in by the Mexican drug cartels. We've got a terrible sex and human trafficking problem because of what these cartels are doing at the southern border.
The President deserves great credit because after 45 days, you saw illegal border crossings draw to a small fraction, illegal border crossings down over 99% under President Trump's leadership. But unfortunately, because Joe Biden was president for four years, we've got a lot of bad people in the United States of America that we've gotta do the job of getting out of our country.
That's what these guys are doing. We ought to support them, and we ought to have local leadership that empowers them to do their job of making Americans safer. Instead, Gavin Newsom and K -- and Karen Bass, they've decided to go to war against the people trying to keep our community safe. That's a disgrace, that's a terrible commentary on their qualities as leaders, but the Trump administration is gonna keep on standing for the American citizens and for American law enforcement.
Thank you all. Great to be here, and thank you to you guys.