After deploying national guard in LA, Trump slammed for ‘provoking chaos’ and ‘stoking fear’
"This administration’s actions are not about public safety— they’re about stoking fear," said former Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump did something no U.S. president has done since the Civil Rights Movement: he used his executive powers to deploy the national guard, overruling the authority of a state governor.
Hundreds of California National Guard troops entered Los Angeles amid protests and tensions between the community and law enforcement over the Trump administration’s escalation of ICE raids and detainments. The decision quickly drew condemnations from California leadership, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who vowed to sue the Trump administration.
“To me, this is just completely unnecessary, and I think it’s the [Trump] administration just posturing…To me, this is just political,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told LA’s KTLA TV station.
The former U.S. congresswoman slammed the Trump White House for provoking “chaos” in Los Angeles, where she said demonstrators had a constitutional right to peacefully protest.
Criticizing the raids that sparked mass protests on LA’s streets, Bass said, “When you raid Home Depot and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets, you cause fear and you cause panic. And deploying federalized troops is a dangerous escalation.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris similarly condemned the move by the White House, calling it a “cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division.”
“This administration’s actions are not about public safety— they’re about stoking fear. Fear of a community demanding dignity and due process,” said Harris in a statement released Sunday.
Defending demonstrators in Los Angeles, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee said, “Protest is a powerful tool – essential in the fight for justice. And as the LAPD mayor and governor have noted, demonstrations in defense of our immigrant neighbors have been overwhelmingly peaceful.”
She added, “I continue to support the millions of Americans who are standing up to protect our most fundamental rights and freedoms.”
The last time a president bypassed a governor to deploy the National Guard was in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect mostly Black voting rights activists during the Selma to Montgomery marches. Johnson decided to do so after then-Governor George Wallace, one of the nation’s most prominent segregationists, refused to send in troops to avoid the perception that he was in support of protesters and their fight to end racial discrimination in the state’s voting laws.
The NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, slammed President Trump’s decision to send federal troops to California.
“Deploying troops to communities already under pressure is not leadership—it’s provocation. The Trump Administration is weaponizing fear to divide and destabilize,” said the group. “We will not be silent. We stand with those targeted and terrorized. We fight for justice. Always.”
The White House announced Saturday night that the president was sending troops to support ICE and other federal law enforcement agents.
“In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “That is why President Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester.”
Mayor Bass suggested that the Trump administration did not give local law enforcement enough time or opportunity to respond to mass protests, including not giving authorities a heads-up about the controversial raids.
“I think people should understand that if the Chief does not know when ICE is going to come to town, where they are going to be and why, then you can’t come into town and expect the LAPD to amass hundreds of officers in a few minutes,” said Bass.
The mayor, who said she was in communication with Gov. Newsom and the Trump administration, emphasized, “Things were not out of control in the City of Los Angeles.”
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