Things got entertaining when Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) appeared, on Tuesday, May 20, for an interview on CNN’s “News Central” to discuss the charges that are being brought against her by the Trump Department of Justice over the assault she was caught on tape committing against numerous ICE and DHS agents at the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, NJ.
As background, the assault incident involving Rep. McIver occurred when she and a number of other Democrats, including the Newark Mayor and two other members of Congress, stormed the Delaney Hall facility. The mayor, Ras Baraka, was arrested, and in the ensuing scuffle, Rep. McIver was caught on tape attacking the federal agents.
Speaking on CNN, Rep. McIver melted down and insisted to host Kate Bolduan that really it was the ICE agents who started the fight, and so the charges being brought against her over her assault of them are absurd. She also conflated oversight and inspection with the storming of the facility that she and the others engaged in.
Beginning her ramble of a meltdown, Rep. McIver said that the charges are absurd and ridiculous because inspection is part of her job as a member of Congress, ignoring that the inspection part of the job doesn’t involve assaulting DHS agents. She said, “I think the charges are absurd. You know, it’s ridiculous. I was there to do my job along with my other colleagues.”
Continuing, Rep. McIver insisted that it was ICE who started the fight, saying, “We have done this before. This is our obligation to do. It’s in our job description to have oversight over facility. The entire situation was escalated by ICE. They caused the confrontation. Homeland came and caused this chaos that we see. It was a very tense situation.”
Not done, the woke member of Congress continued insisting, despite the video evidence to the contrary, that the whole thing was the fault of ICE. She said, She said, “It could have easily not happened. They had every opportunity to not allow this to happen. It was very unnecessary and it just once again, we were there to do our jobs.”
Adding to that, she insisted once again that the charges she faces are only coming because she did her job, saying, “And, you know, if I’m going to be charged with a crime for doing my job, it just speaks to where we’re headed in this country and what we’re dealing with as leaders and as Congress members here in this country.”
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McIver wasn’t done. She then tried to refocus blame and foist it on Alina Habba, the US Attorney for New Jersey, snapping, , “The Justice Department and Alina Habba wanted me to admit to doing something that I did not do, and I was not going to do that. Once again, I came there to do my job and conduct an oversight visit, and they wanted me to say something differently. And I’m not doing that. I’m not going to roll over and stop doing my job.”
Watch Rep. McIver here:
“It’s political intimidation.”@RepLaMonica McIver — the first member of Congress to be charged by the Trump administration — responds to the allegations she assaulted law enforcement.@KateBolduan pic.twitter.com/5EmiObPn6g
— CNN News Central (@NewsCentralCNN) May 20, 2025
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video