On Friday’s PBS NewsHour, Capehart suggested that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to California to protect federal buildings against anti-ICE demonstrators, as well as “rumors” of a pardon for the police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd, is part of a plan to “create the conditions that would allow the president to invoke the Insurrection Act.”

Tying the Army birthday parade Saturday with the deployment of troops to Los Angeles, Capehart said, “We are at a turning point, I think, this weekend with what we have seen in the run-up to tomorrow’s parade, with what’s happening in Los Angeles. More people’s hair should be on fire, not just because of the National Guard troops in Los Angeles without the — working with or permission from the governor, which is by law what should have been done, but the calling up of Marines, U.S. military, on American streets.”

“That is a line that, to me, anyway, is one that should never have been crossed. And the president putting out this order and putting out this order that isn’t specific to Los Angeles, isn’t specific to any city. It’s so broad. The language is so broad that it’s sort of like you could just tuck it into like a giant L.L. Bean tote bag, and you just pull out: Where do I need to send troops?”

Jonathan Capehart on Friday’s PBS NewsHour:

I think they’re creating the political conflict because, you know, I interviewed Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison in the run-up to the anniversary, the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.

And he brought up on his own the rumor that the president was going to pardon Derek Chauvin. And the attorney general said that the president might do that as a distraction to larger goals. And one of the larger goals that the attorney general mentioned that has always been in the back of my mind is to create the conditions that would allow the president to invoke the Insurrection Act.

And once the president invokes the Insurrection Act, all sorts of powers are handed to the president, you know, suspending elections, and other things once you open that box, and particularly you open that box with this president and the administration and the yes-people he has around him, there’s no going back. That is among the reasons why I am so concerned about what we’re about to see tomorrow.

SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS

Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Tinfoil hat time. And PBS supporters act befuddled as to why conservatives see PBS as the home of left-wing crazy talk, leading the House last week to approve President Trump’s rescission package to end taxpayer funding of PBS and NPR. Capehart’s wild speculation passes for informed analysis on PBS’s top ‘news’ program.”

Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.