Trump Calls Riotous Los Angeles 'Occupied' City

Donald Trump and his allies recently resorted to a familiar script, plunging the great city of Los Angeles into a blaze of fire and brimstone, turning it into a hub of dangerous lawlessness that required urgent military intervention to contain. That’s roughly how anti-Trump media outlets on both sides of the Atlantic are portraying what’s happening in California.

“Things are looking really bad in Los Angeles,” Trump wrote on the social media site Truth early Monday morning. “SEND IN THE TROOPS!!!”

But contrary to the Trump administration's claim that the entire city was in turmoil, the demonstrations were in fact limited to very small areas, and life in much of the city went on as usual, The Guardian reports.

Protests began Friday at a federal building in downtown Los Angeles after reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents were conducting raids nearby. Protests later spread to the cities of Paramount and Compton in response to reports and rumors of raids there, and demonstrators clashed with local and state authorities armed with “less-lethal munitions” and tear gas.

By Sunday, despite objections from local officials, Trump took the unusual step of seizing control of the California National Guard and sending 300 troops to support Ice (about 2,000 troops have been mobilized in total).

As a pretext for the action, the Trump administration has cast the protests as a broader threat to the nation. On Monday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called Los Angeles “occupied territory”: “We’ve been saying for years that this is a fight to save civilization. Now anyone with eyes can see it.”

Trump wrote on the social network Truth: “The once great American City of Los Angeles has been invaded and occupied by illegals and criminals. Now mobs of violent rioters are attacking our Federal agents in an attempt to stop our deportation operations, but this lawless rioting only strengthens our resolve.”

FBI Director Cash Patel wrote on social media that Los Angeles was "under siege by looting criminals."

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University and an expert on fascist and authoritarian movements, insists that the rhetoric coming from the Trump administration is an “authoritarian stunt.”

“You create a sense of existential fear that social anarchy is spreading, that criminal gangs are taking over. This is the language of authoritarianism all over the world,” Ben-Ghiat comments. “What is the only means of defense against violent mobs and agitators? To use the full force of the state. So we imagine a national guard armed to the teeth. It’s like a war zone. This is done on purpose so that Americans get used to seeing these armed forces engaged in combat on the streets of American cities.”

Ben-Ghiat specifically pointed to a post on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's website X. "Violent mob attacks on ICE and federal law enforcement are intended to prevent the removal of criminal illegal aliens from our territory," Hegseth wrote. "A dangerous incursion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka foreign terrorist organizations) and a huge RISK to NATIONAL SECURITY."

Ben-Ghiat argues that Hegseth used “a classic authoritarian approach, coming up with the justification that the internal enemy, the illegal foreign criminals, are collaborating with the external enemy, the cartels and foreign terrorists, and using that to persecute a third party, the protesters, the ordinary people who came out to show solidarity.”

In his post, Hegseth added that active-duty Marines at Camp Pendleton are on “high alert” and will also be mobilized “if violence continues.” The Pentagon said Monday it had mobilized about 700 Marines. CNN reported that the government is still developing “rules of engagement” for dealing with protesters.

The protests turned violent when federal immigration officials fired flash bangs and tear gas at demonstrators, according to reports from the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times. There were chaotic scenes in downtown Los Angeles, Compton, and Paramount over the weekend. Dozens of people were arrested for a range of crimes, including allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at police officers. Protesters blocked a freeway, set fire to several self-driving cars and dumpsters, and there were reports of looting.

Still, as Mayor Karen Bass noted on CNN on Monday, "it looks terrible on a few streets downtown," but "there hasn't been any citywide civil unrest."

Local officials said the deployment of troops worsened an already tense situation. Mayor Bass described the decision to deploy the National Guard as a “chaotic escalation,” while Gov. Gavin Newsom called it “incitement.”

Newsom said Monday he would sue the Trump administration; Attorney General Rob Bonta later read the lawsuit, telling the public that the Trump administration had “trampled” on state sovereignty by bypassing the governor.

The deployment of the National Guard was a show of force against a powerful blue state that Trump and his allies see as an existential threat to the rest of America, in part because of its “sanctuary status,” meaning local officials do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

“Simply put, the government of the state of California aided, abetted, and conspired to facilitate the invasion of the United States,” Stephen Miller wrote on social media.

Trump has also repeatedly suggested that some of the protesters were “paid,” invoking a popular right-wing conspiracy that dark money funds liberal causes.

Los Angeles officials are bracing for more protests. The Los Angeles Police Department has received reinforcements from at least a dozen Southern California police departments, according to the Los Angeles Times. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Monday that he believes it is “highly likely” that all 2,000 National Guard troops that have been mobilized will be deployed to Los Angeles.

The weekend's unrest also casts a potential shadow over Trump's planned military parade in Washington, D.C., this Thursday. Opponents of the event are organizing protests across the U.S. under the slogan "No Kings."