Page 17 - Counterprotesters News Today

The u.s. supreme court in december. but abortion rights activists have already taken a position outside the building. suzanne malveaux reports from washington. >> reporter: were at ground zero of the abortion debate here in front of the supreme court. you can see the officers who are protecting the building. there are counterprotesters outside offering prayers as well as song for some of those justices. and of course you see the police that are lined up to keep these two groups separate from eac...

December case and weve been talking about regarding that law in mississippi. this is an intensely felt debate, and its being underscored and highlighted right here on the steps of the supreme court already. >> you know, lauren, weve been seeing all these supporters of the march and the activists. have you seen counterprotesters? any presence of that today? >> reporter: yeah, alex, a ton of that right behind me right now. we really didnt see it earlier when we were down by freedom plaza. it was r...

Theres a lot at stake, especially when we talk about the kind of 50-year precedent of roe and this long-term standing of previability has kind of always been off the table in terms of restrictions, and it seems right now that thats not going to be the case for very long and people are pretty upset. >> yeah. i know youve written, certainly, extensively about this. stay with me for a moment, jennifer, were going to go to lauren egan, right along that route with the marchers there in washington, d....

Hours down at the freedom plaza and really didnt hear from any counterprotesters at all while we were down there. >> can you give me a sense of how many as compared to the size of this crowd? i know its often hard to do. im terrible at doing this but if you were to look at the number of counterprotesters, is it like a hundred, 10% of the crowd were seeing? what do you think? >> reporter: if you can see right behind me, right over here over my right shoulder. theres about, i would say, like 200 c...

Communications so that we dont miscalculate. >> the milley conversations were revealed in the new book "peril." the two will be joining "morning joe" tomorrow for a deep dive into this controversy. the highly publicized d.c. rally in support of those charged in the january 6th insurrection drew a meager crowd of only about 200 people on saturday. with press and law enforcement in riot gear far outnumbering participants. the rally organized by former campaign aide to former president donald tru...

The massive police presence stood guard around the perimeter of the capitol building. some of the officers were in riot gear, others on bicycles, all part of the robust security presence on hand to counter any potential violence. law enforcements plan was to keep counterprotesters away from the main demonstration. you see this group of bike police officers? there are probably about 15 or 20 of them. and they are escorting a counterprotester, a man who was dressed all in black, with some sort of ...

Counterprotesters. and when you couple that news with governor gavin newsoms resounding victory in the california recall election, it would appear that it was a good week for the defeat -- for defeating the lingering effects of trumpism. but think again. extremists are still at large, hell bent on hijacking our democracy. yesterday, capitol police arrested four protesters, one reportedly with a knife and this comes just days after a california man was arrested outside the democratic national com...

Leave anything to chance >> i think the answer to that is all of the above. i think we would be foolish not to take seriously the intelligence that we have at our disposal. >> reporter: that intelligence leading police to be wary of possible violence, especially between protesters and counterprotesters elsewhere in washington around capitol hill, the possibility of violence just the latest strain on a community hit by an insurrection, the killing of a police officer in april, and a day-long bomb...

At howard university, also cynthia howard at american university and author of the book "hate in the homeland the new global far right." ladies, professors, its good to see you both. thank you for joining me. cynthia, ill go to you first here. the rally organizers were expecting hundreds of people. i believe they got a permit for 700. certainly a lot more of them showed up. is there any reason in your mind fewer people attended this rally? >> good question, alex. we saw the same thing with the u...

National guard to serve as somewhat of a quick reaction force. thats critical, john, because that was something that was desperately needed on january 6th. we know it didnt happen. we know the availability of a quick reaction force was something suggested in a sweeping review of the security failures that day. so certainly taking an early lesson learned and teurning it into a material action. in addition to the 100 members of the national guard, capitol police say that law enforcement partners i...