Wednesday, June 11, 2025 - US President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the
Insurrection Act in Los Angeles in response to protests over
his immigration raids.
The president defended his decision to send 700 U.S. Marines
as well as California National Guard to Los Angeles, and brushed off
California Gov. Gavin Newsom's claim that the deployment inflamed the
situation.
'If there's an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it.
We'll see. But I can tell you, last night was terrible. The night before that
was terrible,' Trump said.
'If we didn't send in the national guard quickly, right now,
Los Angeles would be burning to the ground,' Trump told reporters in an
impromptu Oval Office meeting with members of his team.
The president also offered a warning amid complaints from
critics that he is using the California standoff to flex authority in
Democratic-run states.
'I can inform the rest of the country, when they do it, if
they do it, they will be met with equal or greater force than we met here,'
Trump said.
'This is the first perhaps of many or perhaps if we didn't
attack this one very strongly, you would have them all over the country,' Trump
said.
He spoke as he is deploying another 2,000 National
Guard troops, along with 700 Marines, to LA.
He railed against people seen on video battling police
during street protests that kicked off in opposition to ICE raids to pick up
illegal immigrants.
He repeatedly referred to 'bad, sick people' and 'agitators'
he said were paid.
'There are certainly areas of Los Angeles you could have
called It an insurrection,' Trump said. It was terrible.'
'These are paid troublemakers. They get money,' he said.
His word choice is relevant, in part because there is
statutory authority under the Insurrection Act to use the military domestically
in case of rebellion or insurrection.
Trump has said there may have been one, while California
authorities have said local police have the authority to put down street
demonstrations and flare-ups of violence.
'These are paid insurrectionists or agitators or
troublemakers. You can call it whatever you want,' Trump said. He spoke
repeatedly about people seen breaking up sidewalk concrete to use as a
'weapon.'
Trump repeatedly attacked Gov. Newsom, calling him an
'incompetent man and an incompetent governor.'
Trump said Newsom was 'doing a bad job' and 'causing a lot
of death.'
'He's pounding the curb. This one guy's pounding the curb,
breaking the curb, and handing big pieces of granite, in some cases it's
granite, granite and concrete, to other people, and they're running out with
it. And then we watch the other people, and they try and throw it into the face
of the soldiers, throw it into the face of the police.
'They go up on bridges. They drop it down on the cars as the
cars are moving. They're not breaking the curb because they they're doing a
demolition service. They're breaking it to hand out to people as a weapon.
That's bad. That's bad stuff. I've never seen that before,' said Trump, 78.
Trump's June 7 order cites Title 10 of the U.S. Code,
Section 12406, which authorizes the president to deploy Guard units when the
nation is facing an invasion or a 'rebellion or danger of rebellion' or if the
president is 'unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United
States.'
But the 1878 the Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits the
use of U.S. military forces from carrying out civilian law enforcement
functions.
In his own public pronouncements, Trump has described the protests in LA. as an 'invasion' and called out 'violent, insurrectionist mobs.'
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