Trump administration leans into California protests
President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda has met a groundswell of opposition in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest metropolis.
A minimum of 56 folks have been arrested to this point in large protests in opposition to the administration’s immigration raids within the metropolis Friday. The demonstrations have spilled over onto one of many area’s largest freeways, and federal authorities are going through criticism after they arrested, and apparently injured, a outstanding labor chief.
In response, the White Home has threatened to arrest California’s governor and mobilized Marines to help Nationwide Guard troops in defending federal property — although state officers say they don’t need the help and are actually suing the administration.
For the White Home, this scene — Trump battling a blue state over his signature concern — is a political win, officers mentioned. It’s a nationally watched saga of the kind that has lengthy outlined his profession: a made-for-TV second.
“We’re completely satisfied to have this battle,” a White Home official mentioned, emphasizing that politically, the administration sees it as a successful concern.
Democrats and immigration activists have broadly blasted the Los Angeles operation as unlawful and inhumane and insisted that it’s all about politics — and never about sound public coverage.
“This Administration’s actions will not be about public security — they’re about stoking concern,” former Vice President Kamala Harris, a Los Angeles resident who ran in opposition to Trump final 12 months, wrote in a press release.
However Trump allies argue that it’s merely Trump finishing up the hard-line immigration agenda that was the centerpiece of his marketing campaign. NBC Information spoke with 4 White Home officers, along with different Trump supporters, who requested anonymity to talk candidly.
“That is what America voted for, interval,” a Trump adviser mentioned. “That is the America First focus that acquired the president elected and is pushed by nothing else than what he promised American voters.”
“Take a look at the violence, the assaults on regulation enforcement,” the adviser added. “If Democrats need to help that, allow them to. For this reason we win elections and they don’t.”
Trump advisers additionally pointed to the truth that the president’s immigration insurance policies proceed to get excessive marks in most public polling.
A CBS/YouGov ballot performed simply earlier than the Los Angeles immigration raids discovered that 54% of respondents authorised of the administration’s “program to deport immigrants illegally.”
These numbers assist make clear why the administration and extra broadly congressional Republicans are politically snug leaning into help of the raids over vocal opposition from critics — and a persistent risk of authorized problem.
“I do know there’s no query locations like California have thumbed their nostril on the American folks and determined they need to be a sanctuary for criminals,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., mentioned Monday, including, “I believe he’s exercising precisely what he mentioned he’d do and what folks elected him” to do.
Trump advisers say the president additionally factors to the truth that he acquired extra votes in California in 2024 than in his earlier campaigns, although he nonetheless badly misplaced the closely Democratic-leaning state.
The administration’s response to the protests does appear to have one eye on the response in conservative media, an area more and more dominated by pro-Trump influencers.
A few of these influencers have been posting from the protests — most notably Phil McGraw, a well known Trump supporter higher generally known as “Dr. Phil,” who embedded with Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers in the course of the Los Angeles raids, as he did throughout related immigration raids in Chicago this 12 months.
The Trump adviser, requested about McGraw’s involvement, mentioned: “This is a crucial second in American historical past. Folks have a proper to see it in a manner not unfairly skewed by a biased mainstream media.”
The adviser wouldn’t elaborate on how McGraw, whose presence was first reported by CNN, was in a position to have front-line entry to the federal immigration operations. A spokesman for McGraw didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Republicans extra broadly additionally see the battle as a political winner and say Democrats are functionally taking the bait on a problem during which polling has given Trump a bonus.
“I believe it’s a symptom of how far left this occasion has carried out when you’ve main Democrats standing on the facet of unlawful aliens which can be torching autos,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis instructed Fox Information on Monday.
“It is likely one of the causes the Democratic Social gathering is struggling a lot nationally,” he added.
Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump administration official, mentioned the raids shouldn’t be a shock as a result of immigration is a “professional concern” the voters have signaled they care about.
“There isn’t a political upside in defending or denying the photographs of burning vehicles, rioters and looting and the destruction,” he mentioned of Democrats. “A sense that issues have spun uncontrolled in California and that authorities can’t successfully govern. … It has modified the dialog from unlawful immigration to a breakdown in society.”
Nonetheless, there was some disagreement — at the least in public messaging — about how far to push in going after California Democrats, a break between what could also be politically well-liked with the bottom and what’s politically reasonable.
The clearest instance facilities on the Trump administration’s authorizing the deployment of Nationwide Guard troops over the opposition of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have argued that inserting Nationwide Guard troops will inflame tensions and potential violence — a response that has led Trump to sign he would take into account arresting Newsom if he have been to proceed what the administration considers to be his interference.
“I’d do it if I have been Tom,” Trump mentioned, referring to his “border czar,” Tom Homan. “I believe it’s nice. Gavin likes the publicity. However I do suppose it will be an awesome factor.”
Whereas detaining Newsom would little question please Trump’s MAGA base, White Home officers privately say it’s not at present within the playing cards.
“It’s not being actively deliberate or thought of,” a senior White Home official mentioned. “However anybody who breaks federal regulation places themselves liable to being arrested. That’s only a primary truth.”
A second White Home official mentioned that if both Newsom or Bass, a former Democratic congresswoman, do one thing at odds with federal immigration regulation, they could possibly be detained. However the official additionally acknowledged that the optics of arresting California officers amid an immigration battle they imagine most People help may backfire with some Republican voters as a result of, for the time being, it doesn’t seem they’ve truly damaged any immigration legal guidelines.
The official mentioned there isn’t some grand technique to deploy Nationwide Guard troops in blue cities throughout the nation; the administration is solely ready to see whether or not different protests get uncontrolled.
In the meantime, Newsom has leaned into the threats, virtually daring the administration to arrest him quite than specializing in the protesters.
“He’s a tricky man. Why doesn’t he try this? He is aware of the place to seek out me,” Newsom instructed MSNBC on Sunday. Referring to Homan, he added: “That type of bloviating is exhausting. So, Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”
On Monday, California sued the Trump administration, arguing that Trump’s federalizing the state’s Nationwide Guard is “illegal.”
“Let me be clear: There isn’t a invasion. There isn’t a rise up,” Democratic state Lawyer Basic Rob Bonta mentioned. “The president is attempting to fabricate chaos and disaster on the bottom for his personal political ends. Federalizing the California Nationwide Guard is an abuse of the president’s authority underneath the regulation — and never one we take flippantly. We’re asking a court docket to place a cease to the illegal, unprecedented order.”
Trump supporters have lined up behind him, with some even providing to move to Los Angeles to assist, regardless of having no regulation enforcement expertise.
“Getting ready to deploy … to Los Angeles,” vocal Trump supporter Benny Johnson mentioned on X. He adopted up with a submit to his 3.7 million followers exhibiting him carrying military-style gear along with his identify on it.
The more and more contentious political battle over Los Angeles, administration officers admit, is not about simply deporting these with felony data, which was Trump’s principal pitch to voters on the marketing campaign path.
On Monday, an MSNBC host requested Homan whether or not everybody ICE has arrested as a part of the Trump administration’s immigration efforts had felony data, and he had a blunt response.
“Completely not,” he mentioned.