Sen. Thom Tillis criticized President Donald Trump’s threat of up to 10 years in prison for vandalizing federal monuments, pointing to Trump’s pardons for January 6 rioters who trashed the U.S. Capitol and attacked police. In a Tuesday exchange on Capitol Hill
On Capitol Hill Tuesday, Sen. Thom Tillis didn’t just respond to President Donald Trump’s latest threat of harsh criminal penalties—he tied it directly to what he called a glaring inconsistency in how Trump treats violence and property destruction.
Tillis was asked about Trump telling the public that anyone who vandalizes the Reflecting Pool or other federal monuments could face up to 10 years in prison under the “Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act.” The question came after Trump’s comments resurfaced Washington’s newest flashpoint: the Reflecting Pool. which has been at the center of a bitter dispute following a renovation that critics say went wrong.
Capitol Hill reporter Pablo Manríquez pressed Tillis on what he thought of the contrast. Trump had threatened those penalties while also pardoning people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack—rioters who trashed the U.S. Capitol and violently attacked police officers. Tillis responded by turning the spotlight back to the officers’ perspective and the way consequences appear to differ depending on who is doing the harm.
“I’ve asked the police officers here: did they feel like it was okay to give pardons to people who beat them and to prosecute people who — let’s assume. for the sake of argument the facts are true — cut a pool lining?. They get 10 years; you beat a cop, you get out free, and potentially eligible for restitution,” Tillis said.
Manríquez followed up by asking what the police said when Tillis asked them.
Tillis declined to provide that answer: “I’m not going to tell you.”
Trump’s threat, posted to social media this week, was blunt. He said he had “authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument. statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison,” citing the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act. Trump also said the action was effective immediately and “may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused.” He added. “There will be no exceptions!”.
The Reflecting Pool has become a flashpoint partly because of Trump’s repeated claims—made without evidence—that a knife was used to cut a 300-foot gash in the recently redone basin. He has blamed that alleged damage for the algae bloom in the pool.
Critics, however, have pointed to a different explanation for what went wrong. They have noted that the new sealant for the basin likely wasn’t given enough time to set before the pool was refilled.
In that tight space between alleged vandalism and contested renovation details. Tillis’s argument centered on what he sees as the political mismatch: lengthier prison exposure for damage to a public site. even as people who attacked officers on Jan. 6 received pardons. The question he kept returning to was not whether vandalism matters—it does. he suggested—but why the treatment appears so uneven when the targets are different.
For now, Trump’s warning remains the loudest federal signal in the dispute over the Reflecting Pool, even as Tillis presses the political and moral contrast with his own yardstick—whether the people most directly hurt by violence felt like pardons should have followed.
Thom Tillis Trump Reflecting Pool Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act pardons January 6 U.S. Capitol police officers monuments vandalism algae bloom federal property