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.