Consider This from NPR - Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass reacts to federalized National Guard troops in her city

Episode Date: June 8, 2025

Citing a rarely used law, President Trump bypassed California's governor Gavin Newsom, and ordered two thousand national guard troops to Los Angeles for sixty days.It's the first time in 60 years a president has used federal power to deploy national guard troops without the agreement of the state's governor. NPR's Scott Detrow speaks with Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and hears how people in the city are reacting. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised over and over that his administration would undertake a massive deportation of migrants without legal status. On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. And once in office, President Trump began to carry out his agenda. Immigration authorities ramped up raids across the country and made thousands of arrests. But as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, ramped things up, people began to protest.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for our sins, now and at the hour of our death. In Worcester, Massachusetts, a crowd formed to pray and chant as ICE detained a mother and her daughter. In Chicago, protesters sat in front of an ICE van and chanted in Spanish, the people united will never be defeated. The confrontations reached a boiling point this weekend in California, where protesters and immigration officials clashed across Los Angeles. In the city of Paramount, south of LA, officials deployed flashbangs, pepper spray, and tear

gas on a crowd protesting near a Home Depot. After two days of confrontations that turned violent at times, President Trump's vortizor, Tom Homan, said the administration was mobilizing the National Guard. We're already ahead of the game. We're already mobilizing. We're going to bring the National Guard in tonight. Citing a rarely used law, President Trump bypassed California's governor, Gavin Newsom, and ordered 2,000 National Guard troops to L.A. for 60 days, maybe more.

Newsom criticized the move, calling it inflammatory and saying there was no need for additional law enforcement in the city. Consider this. It's the first time in 60 years a president has used federal power to deploy National Guard troops without the agreement of the state's governor. How are California officials and residents responding to this action? From NPR, I'm Scott Detro. Public media is facing the most serious threat in its history. Congress is considering a White House proposal that would eliminate federal funding for the

Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund local NPR stations. This move would immediately threaten many stations' ability to serve their communities and could force some to close. Take a stand for public media today at GoACPR.org. I'm Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. At a time of sound bites and short attention spans, our show is all about the deep dive. We do long form interviews with people behind the best in film, books, TV, music, and journalism.

Here our guests open up about their process and their lives in ways you've never heard before. Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY. It's Consider This from NPR. National Guard troops are in Los Angeles after days of confrontations between protesters and immigration officials. What is the Trump administration saying about the federalization of troops and how is this playing out in LA? In a moment, we will hear from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

First, we will start our coverage with NPR's Luke Garrett. Luke, thanks for being here. Hey there, Scott. Starting out, what exactly is Trump's order and is he allowed to do this, to take this step without the state agreeing? In short, yes. He can take control and federalize portions of the California National Guard under a rarely used federal law.

But this law does not allow these troops to engage in ordinary law enforcement action, according to Georgetown law professor Stephen Vladeck. This means that the deployed 79th Infantry Brigade of the California National Guard is not authorized to actively face off or use force against protesters. Instead, Trump's action specifically directs these troops to protect and support immigration law enforcement. Could that change though? It could.

Yes, it could. A more aggressive option is available to the president, and that's declaring the Insurrection Act, which does allow Trump to unleash military force against U.S. civilians. He reportedly wanted to use this extreme power in 2020 during the protests against the murder of George Floyd. And this afternoon, while speaking to reporters, Trump left open the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act and sending more troops to other cities. Now, this act has not been invoked since 1992 during the race riots in LA, but to be clear,

Trump has not made this move yet in this case. In a moment, we're going to hear more about real pushback on the local and state level here. What is the Trump administration saying today to justify this? So the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem thanked the president for the deployment of the National Guard troops. Here she is on CBS News. They're there at the direction of the president in order to keep peace and allow people to

be able to protest, but also to keep law in order. And Noem justified the deployment by saying local law enforcement failed to quickly protect ICE and DHS officers during immigration raids and the ensuing protests. When we ask for backup in a situation, LAPD has waited hours to respond and they've waited until we have an officer in a dangerous situation until they come in. Now, local law enforcement officials say they have responded and supported federal agents when they called for help. I just got off the phone with LAPD and they told me that they responded to these calls for helps within 55 minutes, not hours. And PR's Luke Garrett, thanks so much.

Thank you, Scott. Joining now by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who earlier today called the deployment of the National Guard a chaotic escalation. Mayor, thanks for coming on the program. Thanks for having me on. I want to start with your response to Secretary Noem's characterization of the LAPD here? Secretary Noem Well, the LAPD was ready and able to provide the support when it was asked for. You can't expect for them to have hundreds of officers ready when they did not know when the raid was going to take place. And so I believe

that these raids and now the federalization of troops to come into Los Angeles is an intentional effort to solve chaos. The fear in our city is real, rippling through every community and every family. You have people now who are going to be afraid to go to work on Monday, kids who are going to be afraid to go to school. I've been in touch with immigrant rights leaders. What are you telling them? Well, I'm actually trying to assist them, because they're trying to reach out to the people who have been detained, and I'm asking the government, federal government, to allow these

visits to take place. That is what has happened for years and years and years when people were arrested for immigration reasons. And so families now, they might know their relatives have been taken away. They don't know if their relatives are still in the United States. They don't know where in the city, which is now we know that a lot of people have been moved out of the city to another area. So that's what my conversations have been with the immigrant rights leaders trying to collaborate, trying to find out what they need

and trying to be responsible to those needs. Mayor, I want to ask about the presence of the National Guard in the city. You have raised concerns about it, a chaotic escalation as I said before. What are your specific concerns concerns tonight especially as we are beginning to see interactions between protesters and law enforcement already. Well there you go. That's my specific concern is that this city right now is a tender box and I do not want to see civil unrest take place in the city and I think bringing the National Guard in is provocative. The what was happening in terms of the protest

and all was well under control by the police department. And you know, Los Angeles County has multiple cities in it. And so what you saw take place yesterday was not inside Los Angeles City, but our law enforcement officers are well equipped here to handle the level of protest that you saw and that's why Governor Newsom did not make the request for federal support and neither did I in terms of we thought more support was needed that our local law enforcement couldn't handle. So if you have... I'll go ahead. Still, the federalized troops are in the city now. Is the city coordinating them? Is the city working with them? Well, the city is not coordinating them. No, but the coordinating with them rather. Are you in communication with with these units that

are now? Yes, yes, yes, yes. And how's that going? Is that collaborative? Is it tense? Well, no, it is collaborative at this point. It's not tense. There are some things that we're trying to work with them on specifically. For example, the federal building was vandalized with graffiti all around. We want to remove that graffiti, but we need federal permission in order to do that. So I spoke to the US Attorney Bill of Bailey, and I made that request that we wanted access so we could clear off the graffiti. The graffiti makes the area look terrible and we want that taken care of.

But this is the first time that the National Guard has been federalized since 1992. I was here then, very much involved in the community at that time, but at that time, there was real civil unrest all around the city. This is not the situation that we are facing now. You had protests, you had some violence and vandalism that happened, but it was, you know, the disruption last night was about 120 people. Why is that what? The National Guard. You say that, and you're right, this is a much different scale at this point, but you and

others have said that you're concerned this could escalate. There are many people arguing that that's exactly what the president wants. You have people coming out wanting to confront these troops who they don't want in their city. So I'm asking you, do you think there is a way, is there an off ramp at this point? Do you see a way to avoid a crisis at this point, given the various motivations? What is it? Yeah, no, absolutely. There's no reason for this to continue to escalate at all. And, you know, now having said that, we also want to make sure that the protests stay peaceful, that we don't give the National Guard or the Trump administration the excuse. But when mayhem breaks out, you know, it's going to be addressed. And so I'm just hoping that people peacefully demonstrate,

they exercise their first amendment right, but they do not cross the line into violence. Soterios Johnson That's Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Thank you so much for joining us. Karen Bass You're welcome. Soterios Johnson We're going to hear one more voice here. That is reporter Steve Futterman, who is out on the streets in and around Los Angeles watching what is happening. Hi Steve. Hi Scott.

You are right now at one of the locations where guard troops have been mobilizing. What are you seeing? Well, I'm in downtown LA where the national guard troops have been since early this morning. Now, for most of the day, as several hundred protesters eventually gathered, there were no major problems. The guard members stood with their powerful weapons, but in the early afternoon things suddenly and dramatically changed. Guard troops started moving towards the protesters, causing quite a bit of panic. And a block away it got even worse. My

colleague, NPR's Liz Baker, has been in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center now. That's where many of the detainees from the last 48 hours were at least initially held. She says things there had also been peaceful until law enforcement began using pepper spray and tear gas to disperse around a couple hundred protesters. Moments later a large caravan of ICE vehicles drove through and law enforcement in the area I'm at right now has since declared this an unlawful assembly and have warned people if they don't leave they could be arrested.

We just heard the mayor saying she doesn't want these troops there. The governor said the same. What are people around you saying about this? Well, they're not happy. They feel the confrontations and violence we have seen the last couple of days have been provoked. Estrella Correll is a social worker. She doesn't feel there is any need to have the guard here at all.

I think it's ridiculous. I think Trump is trying to make a show when there's armed guards, you know. We all have signs and I just think it's him trying to escalate and make a situation and a show, which is what he is, a showman and that's what he cares about. So I just think there's no need for it. LA City is not out of control. We are peacefully protesting people being dragged out of their homes and schools. Steve, people are clearly worried. Are they factoring that into their decision about whether or not to come out and protest?

Oh, absolutely. The people I spoke with are indeed worried, as the mayor said, about things escalating even more. Another person I spoke with on the street today, her name is Elizabeth Torres. She told me for her it's been the drip, drip, drip of escalation that actually brought her here. Well, Friday I started seeing on social media, on the news,

everything that was happening. Yesterday all day I saw it and I was anxious. And this morning I woke up, I'm like, I have to do something. What should we be looking for next? Well, I think tonight will be the first test test the last two nights there's been quite a bit of violence but I think it's gonna be most important to look at tomorrow and the next few days if there are new ice raids and there very well could be there's almost certain to be a response.

That is Steve Futterman covering this for us in Los Angeles thank you so much. Thank you, Scott. This episode was produced by Avery Keatley. It was edited by Anna Yukhaninoff, Catherine Laidlaw, and Sarah Robbins. Our executive producer is Sam Minyennigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detro. On the Indicator from Planet Money podcast, we're here to help you make sense of the

economic news from Trump's tariffs. It's called in game theory a trigger strategy, or sometimes called grim trigger, which sort of has a cowboy-esque ring to it. To what exactly a sovereign wealth fund is. For insight every weekday, listen to NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. Keeping up with the news can feel like a 24-hour job. Luckily, it is our job. Every hour on the NPR News Now podcast, we take the latest most important stories happening and we package them into five minute episodes. So you can easily squeeze them in

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