By Gregory Svirnovskiy – 06/08/2025 / 06:07 PM EST
Democrats are expressing alarm at President Donald Trump’s move to send 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell protests over immigration, while Republicans seek to pin the discord on California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Trump announced plans to federalize the California National Guard on Saturday with Los Angeles mired in violent demonstrations over high-profile immigration raids in the region. But both Newsom and Karen Bass, the city’s mayor, are forcefully opposed. Several Democrats, including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, are comparing the president’s decisive action in California with his approach to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in 2021.
“For the president to do this when it wasn’t requested, breaking with generations of tradition, is only going to incite the situation and make things worse,” Booker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker on Sunday. “We are now at a point where we have a president who sat back and did nothing as people stormed our Capitol, viciously beat police.”
Protests over the Trump administration’s brash deportation agenda accelerated over the weekend, after at least 44 people were arrested in ICE raids on Friday. They culminated in a confrontation between demonstrators and federal agents in the city of Paramount, California, less than 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Authorities used tear gas and flash-bang grenades to break up the protesters.
National Guard troops began arriving in Los Angeles on Sunday; by the middle of the afternoon, there was conflict between the Guard and the protesters.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to mobilize active-duty Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton “if violence continues.” 500 Marines have been put on “prepare to deploy” orders for a potential move to Los Angeles, a Defense official told POLITICO. No orders have been given for the Marines to move in, as the White House and Pentagon wait to see how the Guard deployment unfolds
Newsom has said federal intervention isn’t necessary. In a statement to his Super PAC list Sunday, the governor wrote, “They want a spectacle, they want the violence.”
“These are not people who have some deep conviction about protecting law enforcement,” Newsom said. “This is a President who failed to call up the National Guard when it was actually needed — on January 6th — and then pardoned the participants as one of his first acts as president.”
While it is not that unusual for National Guard troops to be called in to a difficult situation, it is not typical for them to be called in against the wishes of a state’s governor. The last time that occurred was in March 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson bypassed Gov. George Wallace to protect civil rights marchers embarking from Selma, Alabama.
A demonstrator waves an American and Mexican flag during a protest.
A demonstrator waves an American and Mexican flag during a protest in Compton, California, Saturday, June 7, 2025, after federal immigration authorities conducted operations. | Ethan Swope/AP
Early on Sunday morning, a social media post from Trump congratulating the National Guard for calming the unrest was contradicted by Bass, who clarified that the troops had not yet been deployed to Los Angeles.
California Rep. Nanette Barragán, who represents Paramount in Congress, agreed with Newsom that Trump’s call to the National Guard wouldn’t make the city safer.
“There is no need for the National Guard,” Barragán told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” “They have the manpower that they need. So this is really just an escalation of the president coming into California. We haven’t asked for the help. We don’t need the help. This is him escalating it, causing tensions to rise. It’s only gonna make things worse in a situation where people are already angry over immigration enforcement.”
“We’ve been told to get ready for 30 days of enforcement, 30 days of ICE enforcement,” Barragán said. “So, 2,000 troops to be there for that enforcement. It’s a concern.”
On Sunday, California Democratic Reps. Judy Chu, Gil Cisneros and Derek Tran attempted to visit the state’s Adelanto ICE Processing Center to ask questions about the immigrants. But the gates were locked, Chu told POLITICO.
“We’re standing right outside the gate of Adelanto with the gates locked with a chain, so they have deliberately stopped us from exercising our legal right to enter and to inspect as members of Congress,” she said.
Later Sunday, the nation’s Democratic governor issued a statement condemning Trump’s deployment of California’s National Guard. “President Trump’s move to deploy California’s National Guard is an alarming abuse of power,” their statement said. “Governors are the Commanders in Chief of their National Guard and the federal government activating them in their own borders without consulting or working with a state’s governor is ineffective and dangerous.”
Trump administration officials including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, border czar Tom Homan, and FBI Director Kash Patel defended Trump’s National Guard push over the weekend. Many in the GOP are focusing their commentary on what they see as Newsom’s mismanagement of the protests.
“Governor Newsom has proven that he makes bad decisions, the president knows that he makes bad decisions and that’s why the president chose the safety of this community over waiting for Governor Newsom to get some sanity,” Noem told Margaret Brennan on Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Prominent Republicans including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) were among those who also rallied behind the president on Sunday.
“Gavin Newsom has shown an inability or an unwillingness to do what is necessary there,” Johnson told host Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week.” So, the president stepped in. That’s real leadership. And he has the authority and the responsibility to do it.”
And Johnson backed Hegseth’s threat to mobilize the active-duty Marines absent renewed calm.
“We have to be prepared to do what is necessary, and I think the notice that that might happen might have the deterring effect,” he told Karl.
Paul McLeary contributed to this report.