Elected Democratic officials dialed the delusion up to 11 in their shameless defense of the anti-ICE riots that have rocked Los Angeles for the better part of a week — either outright lying or remainig blissfully unaware that stores were looted, cars were incinerated in the streets and cops had to duck bricks, chunks of concrete and Molotov cocktails lobbed by protesters.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Tuesday made the blatantly false assertion that there was “no violence” happening in Los Angeles during the fiery unrest.
The left-wing 18-term congresswoman told the enormous whopper during a Capitol Hill press conference as she hit out at the Trump administration for deploying thousands of National Guard members and hundreds of active-duty Marines to try to quell the destructive chaos that has engulfed the city for four days and nights.
Rep. Maxine Waters speaking to the press in front of National Guard members at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles on June 8, 2025. Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images“Nobody was shot, nobody was killed, get it into your head,” the 86-year-old told reporters with a completely straight face.
“Don’t think that somehow because they called out the National Guard there was violence. There was no violence. I was on the street, I know,” she claimed.
“And I went from downtown detention back out into the community. What happened in Paramount, what happened in Compton, what happened in Inglewood: Get it straight, and don’t just rely on what you’re being told or the few incidents you saw,” Waters said in a flagrant act of gaslighting.
Back on planet Earth, the incidents of violence in the City of Angels were stacking up with each passing day.
Harrowing footage Sunday captured the moment California cops shot a Post photographer in the head with a rubber bullet as he covered one of the violent protests.
An Australian TV reporter was struck by a rubber bullet, and a New York Times reporter was also hit during the rioting.
Waters claimed that there has been “no violence” at the anti-ICE protests in LA. AP Photo/Eric ThayerA dead man was found early Tuesday near the scene of some downtown looting, as well, although investigators are not yet sure whether his death is tied to the chaos.
Compton and Paramount were ground zero for some of the worst of the weekend violence following a series of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to root out lawbreakers.
Rioters in Paramount hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails as riot cops fired back with less-lethal countermeasures including rubber bullets, smoke bombs and pepper spray.
People seen looting a convenience store in Compton amid the LA riots.
In Compton, dozens of masked, hooded thugs ransacked a convenience store, smashing windows and loading up with ill-gotten merchandise in a caught-on-video crime spree.
Video inside the store showed criminals raiding the cash register and even cutting the cord to credit card terminals and stuffing them in plastic bags.
On Sunday, at least 2,000 protesters took over LA’s 101 Freeway, bringing traffic to a standstill as California Highway Patrol riot cops corralled the mob onto an exit ramp.
The roadway was briefly reopened later that night but shut down again after rioters started throwing objects — including scooters — and other projectiles onto police cars traveling in the southbound lanes, the LAPD said.
People walking through broken glass doors at the Compton store.
Cops have arrested nearly 60 people since Friday, with the Department of Justice promising to find and punish anyone who committed crimes against federal officers.
Waters’ fibbing echoes other Democrats as well as left-leaning media outlets’ repeated assertions that the protests were “peaceful,” despite at least five law enforcement officers being injured in the mayhem.
Looters going through merchandise at the convenience store.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said on MSNBC that “the vast majority of protesters and demonstrators are peaceful,” calling the rioters who torched cars and vandalized public buildings “passionate.”
Other pols, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), blamed President Trump for the violence.
“A lot of these peaceful protests are being generated because the president of the United States is sowing chaos,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
But Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, however, who has repeatedly annoyed fellow Democrats by bucking the prevailing dogma from the left, warned his own party to keep things real.
“I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration—but this is not that,” Fetterman wrote on X on Monday evening.
Rioters waving Mexican flags in front of cars set on fire in LA on June 8, 2025. Photo by RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images
Cars getting destroyed during the protests against ICE raids in LA. Toby Canham for NY Post“This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement.”
Mainstream outlets like CNN – which infamously labeled the nationwide 2020 riots “fiery, but mostly peaceful” – gave an encore performance of their misleading characterizations for the LA riots, labeling them “lawful protests” featuring “some unrest.”
On the local airwaves, KABC’s Jory Rand offered a laughably bad assessment of live footage showing a car engulfed in flames in downtown LA, calling it “just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn” and warning “it could turn very volatile if you bring law enforcement in there.”
Liberal outlets like Axios and the New York Times were seemingly in lockstep in their efforts to diminish the violence, dismissing it as being confined to “a small part of the city” in a galling attempt to downplay the destruction.
