On the air with Jason Lauren clint here as well. Let's got to America.
Yes, it's been another dramatic weekend. Protesters flooding the streets of many US cities.
It was all around the country, wasn't it. I saw big protests in New York as.
Well, because what erupted in Los Angeles is now spilled onto the streets of many US cities.
Now this is the protest over people being deported.
Yeah, this is the No King's protests or rallies, and jeez, it's scary. We saw Lauren Tamasi, one of Channel nine's US correspondents, the other day, hit with a rubber bullet, which was scary for her obviously in her family, but also all of us as colleagues of hers at nine.
So the No King's rally is this saying we don't have a king in this country. But people in America are saying Donald Trump is behaving like he is a king.
At the same time, in Washington, DC, you saw this bizarre parade. It was actually the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the US Defense Force. This parade like a military milatary parade on Donald Trump's birthday, so it's just a strange old time living in the States.
Very odd.
Yeah, but it is getting willing on the streets. And a man, a friend of mine and a colleague at nine who found himself right in the middle of it, smack bang where I was on a yesterday on the Today Show. He did a great job in the midst of the chaos, is Reed Butler, us correspondent for nine. Get a read.
Good morning, Good day, guys. How are you going, because it's scary to watch you guys out there on the streets. Are you feeling safe while you're reporting on these events?
Oh?
Look, we have a good security with us, which.
Has been a really helpful situation to alleviate a bit of that pressure because you've got so much focus at the time on talking to the camera, working out what's happening around you, making sure that everything is working.
So that is helpful. They kind of watch your back. But safe.
You probably never feel safe in those situations because it changes so quickly, and particularly in the big protest yesterday Sunday, in time, it just went from big and boisterous too so dangerous in about a matter of a couple of minutes, and it was just suddenly you've got the horses charging you, and you've got rubba bullets being fired tear gas.
We had to get our masks.
Because you've got tears streaming down your face and you can taste it in the back of your throat and it lasts for a solid twenty minutes or thirty minutes, and you've got the red eyes for the entire day pretty much. So yeah, it is a it's sort of frightening, but you're just going to try and stay calm and just talk about what's happening around you and try and stay collected. But it is hard, particularly when you're live on air and you've got a situation where the police are just moving in.
I'm going to play Devil's advocate, and don't be wrong, I sat there watching it as well. But do we need the reporters so close in there? Do you know what I mean? Do you need to be on the front line and putting yourself in that situation well.
Where storytellers first and foremost.
Yes, thank you, Clint.
And also it is a situation where you a lot of the time we're not right in the middle of it. There was lots of times yesterday where we were several blocks down because it was too unsafe, and you still had those bullets firing from probably hundreds of meters away, smashing car windows next to you, and all of that
sort of stuff. So you want to try and find that balance where you can tell the story and work out what's happening, because there's also no it's not as if we're looking online to see how these protests are unfolding or where they're moving. You kind of have to be there and see what is happening as it is happening, because it is just that kind of thing that's unfolding when you're on air.
When you're on radio, whatever it is.
So for anyone who's not fully across it just in sort of an elevator pitch, what exactly is happening over there?
So what the interesting thing about these protests yesterday, they were planned a long time in advance, anti Trump, the no Kings protests. They people, these demonstrators, they think Donald Trump is acting like a dictator rather than elected official.
But what has happened in the past week which blew everything up with these immigration raids across Los Angeles, So that has just fired up these crowds and you had something that very well could have been a kind of peaceful protest yesterday that just turns so violent because the emotions are so high.
Because a lot of the people in these.
Crowds on the motorbikes and with the big Mexican flags. They've had loved ones detained in these immigration raids across Los Angeles at farms and washes.
Highly emotive, detained, deported and you know what, they are determined as well.
There was a video on the weekend I saw of a lady being detained by the NYPD and the ICE officials and then they've detained her leaving her ten year old daughter on the street, a tourist, tourist visiting. It was crazy.
So when you see those videos and it just fires everyone up. It's crying and the like motions are so high, and obviously that is a recipe for these kinds of flare ups.
It's crazy time to be living in the US. What is it like today in LA and we're expecting these protests to continue.
It's definitely a lot calmer today.
Things obviously fired up so much laid into the afternoon yesterday and overnight pass curfew in downtown La a bizarre situation where downtown is in.
So's everything restaurants to shut shops, to shut convenience stores, shop, everything.
Shut, not only shut but boarded up. Worried about looting.
So we were seeing people desperately trying to put up these big plywood boards.
The Apple store.
Got looted, the Bizara store there got looted, all these restaurants.
So, yeah, it is.
And that's given police the LAPD license to be a bit more aggressive because they can.
They have that order to clear out.
When you're there, you get that alert on your phone and you watch a blaring sound being like curfew, curfew, you got to get out of there, and obviously a lot of people don't listen to that, and that is when.
You've seen most of the police move in.
It is tarma today, but these raids are continuing. The National Guard, the Marines that Donald Trump is sent into Los Angeles, they're going to be here for the next month or two at least. And that's also been another aggravating fancy is the.
Ranch with the mechanical bull on the strict curfew as well.
Read I'll have to go and do some investigating one.
Compared to your days on a current affair with neighbors at war? Would you say tensions more high at home or over there? Oh?
Look, ACA had its moments. It's oh yes, absolutely.
I haven't been jammed in any doors, which is good, but there's still who knows how long these protests will go for. But no, this is tense, like it was just what my security guard there when curfew hit and the streets were mostly empty except for these real radical protests, he said, it was like it felt like a purge
that movie. People just running around and smashing things. I saw police at one point firing rubber bullets up at a rooftop of an apartment building because there are people on the rooftop throwing glass bottles at police.
The minute they're throwing stuff like we're going to leave it there. But read Butler Johnnie's.
On they say freejumping on guys.
Jason Lauren Lauren wake up feeling good following them on the socials