On the day of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem said she doesn't expect the thousands of National Guard troops currently stationed in Wahington, D.C., to stick around for much longer.
"I actually think by Monday, the [National] Mall will start to be opened again,” she predicted in a Wednesday interview on Boston Public Radio. "I think you’re actually going to see a de-fortified D.C. over the next couple of weeks and months, because Trump is no longer president.”
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"Remember," she added, "a lot of that fortification was taking place around the White House and the Ellipse, because he was rallying [his supporters] around D.C."
Kayyem also commended the recent string of arrests of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6 and said those efforts have played a critical role in dampening subsequent “Stop The Steal" rallies.
"All the rallies that were supposed to occur, both last weekend and today … there’s nothing,” she said. “There was, like, four people. So that’s good."
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The former Department of Homeland Security official said she hopes there will be a similar tempering in D.C. politics but added that it’ll require Republicans to openly denounce far-right ideologies within their own party.
“Don’t talk to me about their hate, and their feeling like they don’t have a seat at the table, and America’s [diverse] and they’re afraid of change,” she said. "Just reject them.”
Juliette Kayyem is an analyst for CNN, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and the faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
