Republicans Line Up to Back Trump’s L.A. National Guard Deployment

Republican lawmakers and Trump administration officials lined up on Sunday morning to support the president’s decision to activate 2,000 members of the California National Guard to Los Angeles as part of a crackdown on protests over immigration enforcement there.

President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the troops came in direct opposition to the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats, who have claimed that local authorities have the situation under control. The governor and Trump reportedly spoke for more than a half hour on Friday night after the protests first erupted, with Newsom stressing that there was no need to deploy the National Guard.

It’s the first time since 1965 that a president has activated troops over the wishes of local officials. That March, Lyndon B. Johnson put the state’s National Guard under federal control to protect a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

On the Sunday political talk shows, GOP leaders unanimously backed Trump’s decision, blasting Newsom and other local officials for their failure to keep order as federal authorities conducted widespread immigration sweeps across the city.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem compared the L.A. protests to those that erupted after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, saying that Trump learned then not to trust state leaders like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Newsom.

U.S. National Guard troops arrived in downtown Los Angeles Sunday morning. Eric Thayer/AP

“We are not going to let a repeat of 2020 happen,” Noem said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “If you remember it happened in Tim Walz’s state, in Minneapolis, and the governor Tim Walz made bad decisions and when [Trump] tried to send our National Guard in to bail him out, he let his city burn for days on end.”

“What I would say is that the law is going to be enforced, and that what the laws are in this country is what we are doing,” she added.

Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to L.A. came just a day after Newsom suggested that California could withhold tens of billions of dollars in federal tax revenue from the administration, part of an escalating feud that began when CNN reported that the president was preparing to cancel a large chunk of the state’s federal funding.

“If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs, which everyone knows they can’t, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday night while attending a UFC event in New Jersey.

He later thanked the National Guard for a “job well done” in Los Angeles. It was unclear what he was referring to—troops from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the California National Guard only began to arrive in Los Angeles Sunday morning, according to U.S. Northern Command.

Shortly after their arrival Sunday morning, National Guard members began to congregate around the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A., one of the nexus points for protests over the weekend. Several demonstrators were detained outside the federal prison Saturday, though local officials said the protests there were largely peaceful.

Other, more confrontational protests broke out across the city Saturday, including in areas south of downtown like Compton and Paramount. Demonstrators there threw rocks, bricks, and even fireworks at police near a freeway entrance, causing injuries to several officers, according to reports.

These incidents were seemingly what prompted Trump to override the concerns of local officials. In a statement announcing his activation of the California National Guard, Trump said that any act of violence that impeded immigration authorities or officers stationed at a protest would be considered a “form of rebellion” against the U.S.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday morning that he found nothing “heavy handed” about the approach—including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s threat to deploy U.S. Marine units onto U.S. streets as part of the administration’s response.

“One of our core principles is maintaining peace through strength,” Johnson said on ABC’s This Week. “We do that on foreign affairs and domestic affairs as well.”

“I don’t think that’s heavy handed,” he added. “The notice that [U.S. Marines were standing by to assist] might have a deterring effect.”

Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, a border-district Republican, echoed that sentiment to CBS’ Margaret Brennan during an interview on Face the Nation Sunday morning.

“Yes, I am comfortable with it,” he said. “What we’re seeing in L.A. are not advocates, we’re seeing anarchists, and the president of the United States should absolutely put down the mob as soon as possible.”

For his part, Newsom offered a blistering criticism of Hegseth’s threats, calling it “deranged behavior.”

Sens. Markwayne Mullin and James Lankford, both Republicans, also appeared on television Sunday morning to voice their support for Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to L.A.

The protests in question first erupted Friday after immigration authorities escalated their activity across the city. The tactics are part of a new phase of Trump’s deportation plan, which will more heavily target workplaces, according to The New York Times.

“You’re going to see more work site enforcement than you’ve ever seen in the history of this nation,” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said last month. “We’re going to flood the zone.”

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Brett Bachman is a senior editor at NOTUS.