Rick Caruso Claims ‘There Is No Emergency’ in L.A.
Billionaire developer Rick Caruso appeared to side with fellow Democrats — and against President Donald Trump — on Sunday when he posted on social media that “[t]here is no emergency” to justify the intervention of the federal government.
Caruso posted:
There is no emergency, widespread threat, or out of control violence in Los Angeles. And absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the streets of this or any other Southern California City. Local law enforcement is capable of handling the situation and should arrest anyone causing violence in the streets.
We must call for calm in the streets, and deployment of the National Guard may prompt just the opposite.
Caruso’s message puzzled many observers. He ran against L.A. Mayor Karen Bass in 2022, who also pushed back against Trump’s decision to use Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to arrest criminal illegal aliens, and to federalize 2,000 California National Guard soldiers to restore law and order.
Caruso has been credited with bucking the city during the Palisades Fire, when he saved his own mall using private firefighters. But on Sunday, he appeared to fall into line with other Democrats.
Fox News reporter Bill Melugin noted that Caruso’s post was “not aging well.”
Caruso was once a Republican before becoming an independent and then a Democrat, presumably in the hope of winning elected office in L.A.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
