Mayorkas: Jan. 6th Selfie Takers Are Biggest Homeland Threat

MAYORKAS: We in the Department of Homeland Security — of course with our partners across the federal government and state and local law enforcement — consider domestic violence, extremism, uh, to be, uh the most prominent terrorism-related threat to the homeland, uh, right now. Uh, I think our response in anticipation of what could have materialized on September 18th demonstrates the lessons learned from the January 6th insurrection.

BUCK: Oh, there you go. So the DHS chief says that the massive overreaction and freak-out and the putting up of fences… Welcome back to the Clay and Buck show, by the way. This is Buck. Mayorkas there is saying, “Whoa, September 18th…” There were more reporters than there were right-wing protesters, whatever.

They act like they’re all domestic terrorists now, right? But people that show up who actually have a very legitimate gripe when they’re talking at least about the holding of people in solitary confinement for months on end because some judges in D.C. — some lib judge in D.C. — decides that it is a threat of continued insurrection to let these people out.

Clay, this narrative is very troubling that we have to keep hearing about the great threat to the homeland is essentially the Trump supporters who at any moment will overthrow the government and we have to be on constant guard, because that mentally manifests itself in all kinds of surveillance expansion, in abuse by the DOJ and by the courts. These narratives have consequences, and it’s really a political weapon. And that’s what Mayorkas is getting at.

CLAY: Well, and it’s also trying to continue to shift the story from the disaster at the border, right? That these videos finally come out of the — as it was just described — “insurrection,” and you see what it actually was, for the most part, inside of the Capitol. It was people who are completely without threat. They look like people who are going to a march, who are going to a protest.

BUCK: They’re literally taking selfies inside Capitol and taking pictures.

CLAY: Walking in and taking pictures of themselves. If this were an insurrection, if this were a coup, it would be the first insurrection of all time that was attempted by a selfie, right? (laughing) I know technology advances, but most coups involve tanks, weapons, guns, military. We’re talking about moms and dads with selfies, live-stream selfies.

BUCK: They were gonna live stream and shame the Capitol Police into submission inside that building? When you see the video — and, Clay, why isn’t all that surveillance footage put online for anyone to see? If it’s so terrible, we should see everything that happened. That’s public record. That should not be held back.

CLAY: No, I agree completely — and it would also allow, in theory, everybody to see what actually did, which is why it needs to come out as a part of these criminal prosecutions because juries, I think, need to see what actually took place there.