GOP Senator Backs Trump’s Response To L.A. Riots As ‘Common Sense’

Montana Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy, a genuine conservative, offered a common-sense perspective on how to deal with Southern California in the wake of the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles County, while also defending President Donald Trump’s budget bill from Democrats trying to savage it.

Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, appeared on Fox Business with host Stuart Varney, who played a clip of Los Angeles Democratic Mayor Karen Bass saying “nothing was happening” in the city before ICE arrived last week.

“But these men are convicted murderers, rapists, and they would be on the streets of Los Angeles if they’d not been arrested. I don’t understand the mayor’s position,” Varney prompted.

“Common sense, Stu,” Sheehy replied. “That’s why we won the last election. Americans want a secure border, cheap gas, safe streets, boys are boys, girls are girls, cops are good, criminals are bad. And as we see today, the Democrats still are pushing non-common-sense policies. She’s sitting there telling us everything‘s fine in L.A.; there’s no criminals to be seen. Meanwhile, they’re burning cars, attacking cops, wreaking chaos in the streets. So people want safe streets; they want order in the streets, and that’s what the president’s bringing.”

“Listen, none of us want active-duty troops deployed in the U.S.; of course not, that’s a pillar of our Constitution, but we also need public safety,” he continued. “We need order in the streets, and Americans have every right to feel safe in their own homes.”

“Governor Newsom is going to be begging President Trump for money to fix some of the problems of his own creation in California. Should he get it?” Varney asked.

“It all depends on common sense, Stu,” Sheehy answered. “When it comes to wildfire spending, they want money to recover from wildfires; [we] absolutely want to rebuild those communities, but not if they’re going to follow the same wrong-headed policies. … And we shouldn’t be funding subsidies for the state of California if they’re not going to enforce laws in their own streets, and the federal government has to come in and do the job in the state, city, and county. Then we shouldn’t be paying for that either. So if they’re going to take care of their own house, we will certainly help them, but we shouldn’t be paying for policies that are bad for America.”

Varney asked if Medicaid waste and fraud was the “sticking issue” as the GOP senators consider President Trump’s budget bill, and if that was what the Democrats were “going to hang their hat on.”

“No, I think the issues are far more wide-ranging than that, Stu; that’s of course, the one that they’re wanting to message on,” Sheehy explained. “The reality is we’ve seen an explosion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud across the board, from improper payments to billions of dollars of payments that they didn’t even know where they went. A 9 to 1 dollar reimbursement ratio for able-bodied males when we’re not even paying the reimbursement ratio needed to cover the cost for pregnant women and people who are severely sick. So we have a system that has been perverted these last four years, and it’s rife with fraud and abuse, and we’re going to fix that. The most important thing is to protect Medicaid, to protect Medicare, for the people that really need it, and that’s exactly what we’re doing by shoring up these programs for the people who actually need it and reducing the fraud , waste, and abuse for those who do not need it.”