Socialist leader squirms during TV interview when forced to address push to abolish prisons, police
A socialist leader squirmed during a tense Sunday interview after a local California television anchor pressed her on the real-life ramifications of the radical party's calls to abolish police and prisons.
In an interview with NBC 4 Los Angeles, anchor Conan Nolan posed pointed questions to Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) National Political Committee Member Frances Gill on the topics of law enforcement, immigration and the movement's other far-left proposals.
After a brief back-and-forth over what defunding the police means and how that would be applied in practice, Gill resorted to deflecting by refusing to engage in 'hypotheticals.'
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"What we really want to see is a horizon where folks are not reliant on armed enforcement to meet our public safety needs," Gill conceded.
"Right, but it says 'defund police' on your website — that's your goal — and also to get rid of prisons and jails, correct?" he pressed, to which Gill answered affirmatively.
"So if my daughter is assaulted and raped, is there any agency that would seek to find her assailant and bring him to justice?" asked Nolan.
"Of course, yeah of course—" said Gill before the host jumped back in with a follow-up question.
"What would it be if not police and where would he be if not a jail?" asked Nolan.
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"So I guess I really want to avoid getting caught into these hypotheticals and talk about the reality that we're actually facing right now," Gill dodged.
That reality, she said, is the city spending "outrageous amounts on police and policing," instead of addressing real issues plaguing Los Angeles. She suggested that the lack of street lights, substance abuse treatment and mental healthcare are all contributing to a lack of public safety and rise in crime.
The pair then clashed over voter demographics in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary, won by DSA-adjacent candidate Abdul El-Sayed — closely associated with extremist streamer Hasan Piker, who once said America deserved 9/11. The two palled around on the campaign trail.
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Nolan noted that El-Sayed's support came overwhelmingly from college-educated voters like Gill, and that El-Sayed lost the state's 15 counties where the majority of voters did not have a college degree, characterizing the latter as the "working class" that DSA claims to support. Noting that she has $500,000 in student debt, Gill said college-educated voters like herself believed their degrees would lead to prosperity, but ultimately they found themselves downwardly mobile because society's "scales are tipped in one direction to benefit the rich."
On the issue of border security, Gill became defensive and questioned whether Nolan was acting in "good faith" when he quizzed her about whether there would be any border security if, like the DSA promotes, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was abolished.
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"I guess I don't understand why we kind of constantly get pinned on these particular questions when the immediate reality of the situation is that immigration enforcement is absolutely out of control, needs to be addressed immediately and we know that in Los Angeles, like, more than almost any other city in the country," she said.
She also denied that former President Joe Biden opened the borders. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data show that the agency encountered at least 11 million people during Biden's presidency.
Under President Donald Trump, that number has waned to fewer than 10,000 per month, and the administration touts that zero illegal aliens have been released into the country since retaking office.
Fox News Digital reached out to DSA for comment on Gill's interview.