President Donald Trump went on a late-night social media rant demanding that troops be deployed to Los Angeles and that the people protesting immigration and enforcement raids be arrested “NOW!”
The TV- and social media-addicted president was apparently watching remarks by Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell, who said during a press conference Sunday night that while he didn’t originally think it was necessary to bring in the National Guard, “looking at the violence tonight, I think we’ve got to make a reassessment.”
Shortly after midnight Washington time, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that McDonnell should bring in the troops “RIGHT NOW!!!” Within five minutes, he had blasted off two more missives.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” he wrote. And then, “ARREST THE PEOPLE IN FACE MASKS, NOW!”
The president had taken the extraordinary step on Saturday of ordering 2,000 National Guard troops to the area, against the wishes of state leaders, to quash protests that broke out Friday over federal immigration raids at workplaces.
As of Sunday, about 300 troops had arrived in the city, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had also ordered 500 Marines from Twentynine Palms, California, to prepare to deploy if needed, according to a statement from the U.S. Northern Command.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom formally asked the Trump administration to rescind the orders on Sunday evening, accusing the administration of deploying troops unlawfully and unnecessarily.
During his press conference, McDonnell said that violence against police officers had escalated over the weekend, with rioters shooting commercial-grade fireworks at police and breaking up cinderblocks with hammers in order to throw the pieces at police.
But he cautioned that the people committing violence at night were not the same people who peacefully protested the ICE raids during the day.
The ICE protests have followed a usual pattern of civil unrest where subsequent days are more violent because the legitimate protests attract rioters who “go from one civil unrest situation to another using the same or similar tactics,” he explained.
“They’re people that we run across routinely, city to city, and this is what they do,” McDonnell said. “It’s even more disgusting that many of the people who were doing this come in from other places just to hurt people and cause havoc.”
That would suggest the rioters were not part of a “migrant invasion” as Trump had claimed earlier Sunday.
That afternoon, some of the demonstrations resulted in tense clashes, with police deploying flash bangs and tear gas to disperse crowds, and firing rubber bullets at protesters.
Asked if he thought the National Guard needed to be deployed, McDonnell said that normally the LAPD would have waited until deployments handling radio calls fell to 50 percent. At that point, the department typically makes a mutual aid request through the sheriff’s office to receive assistance from sheriff’s deputies, as well as the 44 other police departments in Los Angeles County.
In this case, the mutual aid request was never made. Instead, the president federalized the California State National Guard, meaning they are now working for the U.S. Army, the police chief said.
It wasn’t clear what the National Guard troops’ capabilities were or what their role was supposed to be, he added. As of Sunday night, the only interaction the police had had with the federal troops was a conference call, McDonnell added.
Over the weekend, LAPD arrested 29 people for failure to disperse and 10 people on suspicion of more serious infractions, including one person accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at police.
The California Highway Patrol also arrested 17 people over the weekend, an LAPD spokesperson said.
