BOSTON – Michael Dukakis, the three-term governor of Massachusetts and candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 1988, in a telephone interview with The National Herald spoke about the unprecedented invasion of Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 that shook Washington and the World and which many have characterized as an attempted coup.

Dukakis began the interview by saying, “I think that Trump is a terrible guy but this was a massive law enforcement failure. How on a day like that with what we’ve known about Trump and his pals and with two weeks to go, how was at the nation’s capital under-policed? I am baffled. He and his pals were going to be doing something, how did they leave the capital so unguarded?”

He went on to say, “it wasn’t a huge crowed, but needless to say it was a substantial crowed. The former police chief in Washington and Philadelphia Andy Ramsey who is a very good police commander was on CNN and he said he couldn’t understand why Washington wasn’t ready for this and that is the question I have here.”

Dukakis also said, “it was quite predictable, we knew we were dealing with a mentally ill man. I think Trump is seriously mentally ill, so we knew what he was trying to do and so on, and again the question I ask why wasn’t Washington ready for this? You could tell me that the person who was doing this is the President of the United States – yes but he is one of the criminals, one of the people who encouraged this. Somebody in Washington – you would think both at the capitol and on the district level, and certainly with the extensive regional police forces both in the District and in the surrounding areas which finally ended up coming,” should have been preparing for such a contingency.

“Why all this wasn’t ready is beyond me. I don’t understand.”

Asked what he thinks will happen from this point on, Dukakis said, “I hope it means we will have no more of this foolishness from Trump for the next two weeks. We get ourselves a new President who is a solid, sensible guy, and we get back on track and start acting like the United States of America. These have been a terrible four years with this guy.”

He also said, “in the meantime, when this was happening, people in the state of Georgia were electing an African-American and a Jewish guy as U.S. senators and we should be celebrating this – but here we are.”