Scenes in LA is ‘chaos provoked by the administration’, says LA mayor as she reissues call for peaceful protest
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass has once again urged people to exercise their right to protest peacefully, adding:
We do not want to play into the [Trump] administration’s hands.
She said that the administration’s actions in LA had “caused fear and panic”.
What we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos provoked by the administration.
Deploying federalized troops is a dangerous escalation.
Key events
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan defended the president’s decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles on MSNBC this morning.
Echoing Trump’s criticism of California governor Gavin Newsom’s handling of the protests, Homan told MSNBC’s Morning Joe:
I was on the ground. Governor Newsom wasn’t. I think President Trump made the right decision deploying the National Guard to protect life and property. That’s exactly what they’re doing.
Later, on Fox News’ Fox & Friends, Homan said Newsom had “failed” the state of California.
He waited two days of that city burning, officers being assaulted, before he made a declaration of unlawful assembly.
He said Newsom had been “late to the game”.
Chris Stein
Earlier, the protesters heard from Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a major union for educators.
She called for an end to ICE raids, but said:
This is not a battle that’s gonna be won or lost by this rally today.
Comparing their struggle to the civil rights movement, Weingarten continued:
Not only be in solidarity today, but each and every day together, because silence equals death. Yes, that is what Mr. Trump wants. He wants to silence us. He wants to create fear. He wants to create apathy.
Fran Lawther
Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District, spoke at a press conference of LA school leaders condemning Ice operations at schools.
He said that while Ice agents had not detained anyone “federal vans parked” outside the school were “actions of intimidation, instilling fear that may lead to self deportation, that is not the community we want to be, that is not the state or the nation that we ought to be”.
He added:
If those who believe that that is the nation we should become, let’s rearrange Lady Liberty. Let’s bring that arm down and extinguish that flame, for we’re no longer the light for the world.
Carvalho told reporters that the school board, community leaders and state officials were united in opposing Ice actions around schools. He said:
Not on our watch, shall people trampleover children’s rights. Not on our watch shall people be intimidated. Not on our watch, shall we succumb to unreasonable pressures, first to do that which is not human or humane or humanitarian.
Trump calls protestors ‘professional agitators … insurrectionists’ who ‘should be in jail’
Trump has said of the people taking part in the LA protests over his Ice raids:
The people who are causing the problem are professional agitators. They’re insurrectionists. They’re bad people. They should be in jail!
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) issued a statement following the Trump administration’s arrests of activists and mobilization of the National Guard in Los Angeles.
“This illegal, heavy-handed, and unnecessary crackdown on peaceful protesters is a trumped-up excuse to manufacture a spectacle and stoke further tensions,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said. “Instead of de-escalating, the administration seems intent on provoking and scapegoating hardworking immigrants to distract from its political woes.
The statement goes on to say: “This is Trump wanting to be king, putting the National Guard on the ground to target and intimidate. Our founders resisted kings after the US revolution because we fought for due process, for constitutionally protected speech and for not disappearing people off the streets or arresting people for nonviolent protests. Today, that means not brutalizing immigrant workers advocating for themselves and their families.”
Michael Sainato
Labor unions around the US are demanding the release of a labor leader arrested and injured during Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids on 6 June in Los Angeles.
David Huerta, president of SEIU California and SEIU-USWW, was serving as a community observer during an Ice raid in Los Angeles, and was arrested by federal agents over allegations of interfering.
He was initially hospitalized and released later on Friday for injuries sustained during the arrest. Videos circulating online show officers shoving Huerta to the ground during the arrest before handcuffing him. He is expected to make an initial court appearance on Monday afternoon.
“What happened to me is not about me; this is about something much bigger. This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice that’s happening,” Huerta said in a statement after his release from the hospital.
He has remained in custody, as labor leaders around the US are calling for his release and an end to the immigration enforcement raids and use of the national guard to suppress protests in Los Angeles. California has sued the Trump administration over its decision to federalize the national guard.
42 Mexicans detained in LA raids, Mexican officials say
At least 42 Mexicans are being held in four detention centers after recent immigration raids in Los Angeles, and four were deported, Mexico foreign minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente said, speaking alongside president Claudia Sheinbaum.
“We will continue our visits to monitor the Mexicans in detention centers in Los Angeles,” De la Fuente said.
He added the vast majority of Mexicans detained were working when they were arrested.
‘I would do it’: Trump hints he would support arrest of California governor Gavin Newsom
Donald Trump has suggested that he would support an arrest of California governor Gavin Newsom amid pro-immigration protests in the state, which prompted the president to deploy the National Guard.
On Saturday, Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar, threatened to arrest anyone who obstructs immigration enforcement efforts in the state, including Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass.
Newsom responded during an NBC News interview by challenging Homan to “just get it over with” and move ahead with the arrest.
Asked today about Newsom daring Homan to arrest him, Trump said:
I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great.
Gavin likes the publicity but I think it would be a great thing. He’s done a terrible job. I like Gavin Newsom, he’s a nice guy but he’s grossly incompetent, everybody knows.
Trump says he made ‘great decision’ deploying National Guard to California
Donald Trump has said he made “a great decision” sending the National Guard to handle unrest in California that erupted over the weekend over his immigration policies.
“If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated. The very incompetent “Governor,” Gavin Newscum, and “Mayor,” Karen Bass, should be saying, “THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR.” Instead, they choose to lie to the People of California and America by saying that we weren’t needed, and that these are “peaceful protests.” Just one look at the pictures and videos of the Violence and Destruction tells you all you have to know. We will always do what is needed to keep our Citizens SAFE, so we can, together, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
President Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that it was a “great decision” to deploy the National Guard in LA, saying the city would have been “completely obliterated” otherwise.
He also referred to California governor Gavin Newsom as “Newscum”, perhaps attempting to appropriate the trend of taunting nicknames that has been directed towards the president. Trump wrote:
“We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated. The very incompetent “Governor,” Gavin Newscum, and “Mayor,” Karen Bass, should be saying, “THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR.” Instead, they choose to lie to the People of California and America by saying that we weren’t needed, and that these are “peaceful protests.” Just one look at the pictures and videos of the Violence and Destruction tells you all you have to know. We will always do what is needed to keep our Citizens SAFE, so we can, together, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Clean up efforts are underway after a weekend of clashes in Los Angeles.
CNN reported that TV personality Dr Phil McGraw was embedded with federal agents as they carried out immigration raids on Friday.
The footage will be incorporated into a special report on “Dr. Phil Primetime,” a program on the former talk show host’s conservative TV channel Merit TV, a spokesperson confirmed to CNN.
Dr Phil was also embedded with ICE officials in Chicago back in January. Federal agents were reportedly told to be camera-ready for a show of force at the beginning of President Trump’s second term. Dr Phil’s presence in LA appears to reinforce the “made for TV” nature of these immigration crackdowns as well as the extreme response to the protests by the Trump administration.
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of a man allegedly involved in the protests in Los Angeles.
The man assaulted a federal officer and damaged government property near Alondra Boulevard in the city of Paramount, California, the FBI alleged.
At 3.30pm on Saturday the suspect threw rocks at law enforcement vehicles on Alondra Boulevard in Paramount, California, injuring a federal officer and damaging government vehicles, the agency further alleges.
Bass restates that everyone is welcome in Los Angeles, adding “it doesn’t matter where you came from or when you got here”.
“It’s just not appropriate for there to be violence,” she says.
Bass again calls on the Trump administration to rescind its order to federalize the National Guard.
She warned Angelenos that the right to protest did not include the right to be violent, create chaos or vandalize property. “That will not be tolerated,” she said, calling for protestors to do things peacefully.
Scenes in LA is ‘chaos provoked by the administration’, says LA mayor as she reissues call for peaceful protest
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass has once again urged people to exercise their right to protest peacefully, adding:
We do not want to play into the [Trump] administration’s hands.
She said that the administration’s actions in LA had “caused fear and panic”.
What we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos provoked by the administration.
Deploying federalized troops is a dangerous escalation.
The Steady State, a nonpartisan coalition of more than 280 former national security professionals, has condemned the “inappropriate and incendiary actions” of Donald Trump and the “inflammatory” statements of Pete Hegseth over the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles, which it calls “an alarming escalation in federal posture”.
In a statement the group said “the use of federal military force in the absence of local or state requests, paired with contradictory mandates targeting protestors, is a hallmark of authoritarian drift”. Urging all public officials to speak out against the administration’s actions, it warned that this moment “is a critical step towards autocracy”, adding: “Silence or acquiescence would be a grave error.”
Here’s the full statement:
Neither the Los Angeles Police Department, nor Mayor Karen Bass, nor California Governor Gavin Newsom … has requested federal military assistance. Nor has any local or state official declared or identified a state of emergency that would warrant such intervention. Nevertheless, President Trump’s decision to mobilize the National Guard and place Marine units at Camp Pendleton on heightened alert reflects an alarming escalation in federal posture.
Equally disturbing is the president’s subsequent decree forbidding protestors from wearing protective masks — an edict issued within hours of his announcement that Ice agents will be required to wear masks while conducting enforcement activities. This contradictory directive is both illogical and chilling, and appears designed to intimidate and suppress lawful dissent. It was followed by a presidential statement calling for the “liberation” of LA from what he called an invasion and occupation “by Illegal Aliens and Criminals,” asserting that there are “[n]ow violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operation… and directed the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland and the Attorney General “to take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots”. This language is not only extreme, it is incendiary.
The use of federal military force in the absence of local or state requests, paired with contradictory mandates targeting protestors, is a hallmark of authoritarian drift. Our members – many of whom have served in fragile democracies abroad – have seen this pattern before. What begins as provocative posturing can rapidly metastasize into something far more dangerous.
The Steady State urges all public officials, including members of Congress and state leaders, to speak out firmly and immediately. This moment is not yet catastrophic, but it is a critical step toward autocracy. Silence or acquiescence would be a grave error.
