The resistance to President Donald Trump's calls to defend Americans against "vigilante justice" left former CIA officer Bryan Dean Wright heated Thursday night.
"Let's just cut to the chase, Tucker: This country is on fire," Wright, a Democrat, told Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "We are facing an insurrection by people that we don't quite understand who they are, but by all indications, they are violent leftist thugs."
Wright joined host Tucker Carlson to rebuke Defense Secretary Mark Esper's questioning of Trump's call to invoke the Insurrection Act to defend U.S. cities from riots, violence, arson, vandalism and deadly attacks on police, all of which have emerged in conjunction with protests over the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis officers.
Some liberal activists, focusing on the police, are now urging the defunding of departments, Carlson said before Wright's appearance.
"Put it all together – and the piece that you mentioned: 'No more police, because we're going to defund those folks,'" Wright unloaded in an emotional tirade. "We can't put forward the National Guard – 'because that would be escalation.' So now we take off the military from the table?
"Where does that leave, Tucker? Let me tell you what it leaves: Vigilante justice. It's you and me and everybody watching this program arming ourselves. Is that how we run a republic?
"No, sir, it is not!
"And you do not want a country that goes there. And that is precisely where the nation is headed, and we need for all of our leadership to understand that. And if Secretary Esper doesn't get it, doesn't understand the oath it is to protect ourselves from threats both foreign and domestic, by God, get the hell out of the Pentagon!
"And let somebody lead who gets it, because that is the oath he took, and I took, and the people of this country demanded of our leadership in this moment, because we are on fire! Someone do something about it."
Wright, calling rioters "leftist thugs," said intelligence shows groups like Antifa are coordinating to turn peaceful protests violent in an "insurrection."
"They are back with firebombs and suburbs and the downtowns," Wright began. "That's something Mr. Esper clearly doesn't understand. Then, finally, we have a media that is feeding this flame, this seditiousness.
"The people are panicking; the country is on fire; now, who is attacking us? Mr. Esper should know this: It's Antifa. Department of Justice, NYPD, and others are saying this very clearly."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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