No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump turns LA into a warzone-- on purpose

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Donald Trump federalizes the National Guard and deploys hundreds of US Marines to descend upon LA in an escalation that was intended to inflame tensions in the city. Brian interviews Gavin Newsom, Rob Bonta, and Elliott Morris.Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, everybody. So in light of the situation unfolding in Los Angeles, I thought it would be worth doing a midweek episode. So today we're going to talk about Donald Trump federalizing the National Guard and also deploying hundreds of U.S. Marines to descend upon L.A. in an escalation that was not only unnecessary, but explicitly intended to inflame tensions across the city. And importantly, what it means not just for the people of L.A., but Americans across the U.S.

I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. All right. So first and foremost, why did Trump do this? Because he needed a distraction. It's a distraction from his feud with Elon, who exposed his budget bill as a farce and then basically called him a pedophile. It's a distraction from his reconciliation bill, which will strip health care away from 13.7 million Americans and cut food assistance to the tune of $300 billion and explode the deficit to the tune of trillions. It's a distraction from his spate of court losses. Stanford released an analysis showing that the Trump administration has lost a staggering 96% of court cases. And it's his distraction from Trump's fast-syncing poll

numbers, even on issues that he and Republicans are historically strong on, like immigration and the economy. So he needed to gin up some controversy. And so he found an easy target, a big blue city in a big blue state led by the boogeyman of all boogeyman Gavin Newsom. And he sent ICE in to terrorize not the hardened criminals like he promised, but the hardworking immigrants that make this city and this country what it is. Look, I live. I live. here, I've lived here for 15 years, our immigrant population in L.A. is not just a benefit to this city, it is integral to this city. But that's apparently of little importance to an administration that derives its value by how many lives of brown people it can destroy. But importantly, I want to

stress here the fact that even if you don't live in Los Angeles, this impacts you. L.A. is the test case. He is pushing the limits here to see what he can get away with everywhere. He views L.A. as an easy target because it's the quintessential liberal bastion of America. It's an easy scapegoat. And so for that reason, other cities might not feel like they can relate. Other states might not feel like they can relate. But I cannot stress enough that as it relates to Donald Trump, you are L.A. And L.A. is you. Because if he's successful here, he will export his tactics to other blue cities in blue states like New York and Chicago. And then blue cities in purple states like Philly and Milwaukee and Detroit. And then blue cities in red states like Austin and Miami. And by then, it won't be much of a surprise

when he moves on to red states. Donald Trump does not want to be an authoritarian only in the eyes of Angelinos. Autocrats are not in the business of imposing limits on their own power. He wants to be an autocrat everywhere. And everywhere has to start somewhere. L.A. is where he's starting. So I understand that if you're listening from one state away or 49 states away, you might feel insulated, but I promise you that this impacts you too, because he won't stop unless he stopped, which is why it's so important that we have people who are willing to fight back. To that point, I interviewed Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General of California Rob Bonta about how they're doing exactly that.

And I interviewed data-driven journalist Elliot Morris about the polling of Trump's latest moves. So here are those interviews. Join now by Governor Newsom. We're in the Emergency Operations Center at As these protests continue to rage as Donald Trump has federalized the National Guard, first and foremost, did the National Guard need to come into California? Of course not. He'd flame the fires. This is exactly what he wanted. This is what he intended by illegally acting to federalize the National Guard. We're going to be initiating a lawsuit first thing tomorrow morning. And it did exactly what we told his team it would do. It would inflame the anxiety. would inflame the conditions. And the most important thing he can do if he wants this thing behind us is to rescind his order and to get back into some semblance of orderly life here that he

created. Well, you had mentioned if he wants to reduce tensions that he will rescind this order, but isn't that the issue at hand here that he doesn't want? No, he wants to, I mean, he's literally created these conditions. He wants to exacerbate the problems. He completely colored him and he overstated everything. He knowingly went in in a reckless way, did something almost without precedent in our lifetime, unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, because he knew full well what would persist on the ground. His team knows that as well. And that's exactly what this is all about. This is Trump's mess. He created it. He knew full well what would happen if he did this. He offered no support, no counsel, no advice, no other consideration.

He just acted in an immature manner in order to create the kind of problems that people are now witnessing on the streets. To what extent do you think it was a coincidence that in the aftermath of a week that was just rife with bad news for Trump as it relates to his relationship with Elon, his falling out with Elon, the budget bill, obviously being on thin ice, that suddenly he finds, you know, a blue state that is just an easy punching bag for him. It's the state of California. And now we have federal troops here. 100%. It's all about news cycles 24-7. It's about weekly news.

Whatever he can to distract and continue. I mean, disastrous economic policies, calamitous economic policies potentially. I mean, even his biggest sycophant in the country, Elon Musk said likelyhood of a recession in the second half of the year. Massive debt and deficits. The absurdity of his claim that the economy is doing well, he's wrecking the economy, he's destroyed allies around the world, these great 90 deals in 90 days, nothing, nothing about

this president and this presidency is working. Ukraine war, it's getting worse, not better. I mean, it's just, it's the theater of the absurd. And so, of course, he comes in, but this is different because this puts American lives at risk, puts the lives of American citizens at risk and puts the lives of law enforcement at risk. And he's knowingly flaming these fires. He's lit the match and he knows exactly what he's doing. He's created this spectacle and he's got to clean it up. And if he can't clean it up, we'll clean it up. And that's why we're down here at the EOC. We have 175 CHP officers

out there that know exactly what they're doing that are organized and mission tasked to support in a mutual aid local law enforcement. You've got these young kids that don't know necessarily what they're doing because they haven't been appropriately mission tasked as it relates to the federalization of their deployment. There's only a few hundred of them because they can't even figure out what to do with the other 1700 because this is so disorganized. So it's a serious, serious moment. It is a constitutional moment in this country. We have an immoral president acting illegally and unconstitutionally.

And I hope people wake up to what the hell is going on right now. And so logistically speaking, when you've got the California National Guard and when you've got the Federal National Guard, both coming in to Los Angeles, who takes priority? What happens to these folks who are actually on the ground? Well, we've had a remarkable relationship with our National Guard over three, thousand or so went through a rotation to protect folks here post for fire. And they were well received and embraced. They were mission tasked. They went through an appropriate process working with local law enforcement, the cities and the counties and the community leaders,

and they were engaged and effective. As it relates to the deployment right now, there's no state national guard that have been requested by local law enforcement because they had adequate resources. And Donald Trump knew that. His chief of staff knew that. They didn't care about that. And so they wanted to create conditions that would get worse because of their ignorance and recklessness in order to incite the kind of reaction that we're seeing on the streets so that they can further incite by now, apparently, talking about bringing in the Marines into a united, state city in 2025. And by the way, he attempted, we found out from his previous Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, that he had attempted to get the military deployed in an American city

previously. And Mark Esper wouldn't go along with this plan. And so now do you have any confidence that Pete Hegsath will be as principled as Mark Hesper was? He thinks it's a joke. He's a joke. Everybody knows it's so in over his head. What an embarrassment. And that's just guys, weakness, masquerading his strength. I don't even know he masquerades. It's a joke. strength. I mean, it's a serious moment. I mean, this human guy, these guys. It's just it, it's the band of misfits. Yeah. It's, I mean, it really is. This is serious. The people's lives are at stake. Reputation this country's at stake. Great American cities and states. It's not just, this is not, this is a preview for things to come. This isn't about L.A. per se. It's

about us today. It's about you, everyone watching tomorrow. I promise you. I mean, this, this guy's unhinged. Donald Trump is unhinged right now. And it's just another proof point of that. In your last conversation with Donald Trump, which I believe was in the last 24 hours, how did that conversation go? What did you say to him? What did he say to you? He never brought up the National Guard.

Stone-cold liar said he did. Stone-called liar. Never did. Didn't even really want to talk about L.A. Out of respect to the presidency, that 20-minute conversation, I won't even get into things he actually wanted to talk about. but it wasn't about any of these things. Now he's making it all up.

This is part past practice, is what he does. So it's a, it's a remarkable, remarkable thing to experience in real time. And in real time, people's lives are at risk because of his recklessness. The last time a president federalized the National Guard in opposition to a state's governor was in 1963 when JFK did it in opposition to George Wallace. in an attempt to integrate the University of Alabama. So that was a moment where the president stepped up to protect civil rights and expand civil rights. Now Donald Trump is doing the exact opposite.

And so you're in a situation where you are in direct conflict to history here, because Donald Trump is now doing it to try and contract rights among citizens in the state. And so what's your reaction to the fact that this is the polar opposite of something that JFK did that went down in the history books as a moment where he used his power for good to expand civil rights, and now Donald Trump is doing it in opposition to you to contract them.

Yeah. I mean, it's, look, as I say, it's unconstitutional, it's illegal, it's immoral. We've deployed the National Guard on multiple occasions in the past. We have National Guard down at the border. Mission tasked appropriately to address the issue of fentanyl interdiction, drug interdiction, working in partnership with border withdrawal, have been for years and years and years. Thousands were deployed here after the fires, and during the midst of the fires, to help support public safety. We used thousands of our National Guard to address the issue of public safety during the George Floyd riots. The issue of the National Guard being deployed appropriately is under the jurisdiction of governors, not the President of the United States. And to your point,

that he's using this to create division, he's using this to divide this nation, he's using this in a way knowingly that puts people's lives at risk so he can escalate the rhetoric, escalate his effort to continue, to degregate this constitutional protections, those fundamental protections that we have frankly taken advantage of for decades and decades is extraordinary and a deep point of contrast, certainly to a real president, John F. Kennedy. This all obviously comes under the backdrop of these ice raids happening, you know, in a few major cities across the country, but now they're focused on Los Angeles. And so there are a lot of undocumented immigrants who've been in our community for years and years, decades. And so obviously seeing everything play out as it is right now, what's your message to that community who sees what's happening and, you know, who have set up their entire lives here, who have built their families here, who are members in good standing of their communities. here? Paying their taxes. $27% of this state is foreign-born.

You've got mixed status families with good people have been working decade-plus hard workers that are not criminals. You want to go after the criminals, that's fine. I coordinate and collaborate with the federal government as it relates to criminals. We've worked together at CDCR, which is our state prison system,

and we've collaborated for the last seven years, six-plus years, I've collaborated as it relates to deportation of violent criminals. That's not what this is about. And so it sends a chill. I mean, these poor kids, elementary schools, you know, fourth grade, just the other day. Young child. The hell does that young child?

How is a person's dangerous? Only person dangerous right now is an unhinged president of the United States that's inciting violence, who's inciting the conditions that he claims he's going to come in and fix. and so I hope he fixes this immediately by rescinding that illegal order immediately and will clean up his mess. Obviously, as these protests continue to grow larger and larger, what's your message to protesters who've taken the streets out? Well, just do it peacefully.

Period. Full stop. I can't stand those idiots that are breaking cars or smashing windows. The hell is that? Any more than I can't stand the direction, of the president. Yeah. Just it's time to be peaceful.

It's time to show up. I think that's extraordinary. It's incredibly important to show up. Just do it peacefully and call out those that are not being peaceful. You know, and with respect, I know these National Guard men and women, I've been working with them. These are good kids. They're good kids.

They're members of your community. Yeah. I mean, have their back as well. They're being mission tasked by the president, but that doesn't make it right to attack them either. Donald Trump sent down this illegal, unconstitutional directive to federalize the National Guard. When does this come to a head? Are you hoping for an injunction in the courts?

We're going to immediately seek that first thing tomorrow morning. Absolutely. Look, that's all we got left. There's one, maybe two branches of government left. Sure as hell ain't the legislature. Right. I mean, Speaker Johnson, what a joke he is. Completely missing in action.

You know, he's got to clean up his own mess. He's got one of the most dangerous districts in America. Six times, I think, the murder rate of Nancy Pelosi's district. Why the hell I ain't talking about that on Fox News? Where's Donald Trump talking about the carnage in Speaker Johnson's district? But the real carnage is complete neglect. I mean, this is a guy who's complicit in increasing the national debt. Talk about our kids and grandkids, another two and a half trillion dollars.

So we're holding hope. had hope. Founding fathers, three co-equal bances of government, popular sovereignty, rule of law, and the courts need to intervene. And we've won more than we've lost. And California sued more than any other state in the country. And here we go. One more. Do you have a concern that he will ramp up his threats from just federalizing the National Guard to invoking the Insurrection Act if this isn't dealt with? Of course. I mean, this is, this is, I mean, what more evidence do we need the authoritarian tendencies. It's not even tendencies now, actions of this president. It's complete lawlessness. Threatening impeachment of judges that disagree with them. Going after

knowledge broadly, the cultural purge, institutions of higher learning. It's the conveyor belt for talents. The reason this country is so, is as successful as it is. He's coming after books and knowledge. He's rewriting history. Censoring historical facts. I mean, heck, it's so weak. He can't even allow the kids at West Point to read books from, you know, I don't, Tony Morrison. Yeah. He's bad. I mean, it's a serious, serious moment in America. And we've got to assert ourselves.

And we are asserting ourselves. And we're just not going to stand for this. You mentioned before that you'd spoken with Donald Trump on the phone. What he said you guys spoke about is obviously different from what you actually spoke about. And so he has every intention of a stone cold liar. He has every intention of not. acting in good faith as it relates to speaking with you in private versus speaking with you in public. And so if he's going to litigate this thing in the press, what is your message to him

in light of what he's doing right now? Tell the truth. Own up to the truth. But what the hell is that? Advice to Donald Trump to talk honestly and truthfully. He's a stone called liar. I respect the presidency. I've tried to have an open hand with him, tried to work with him. can't work with Donald Trump. You can only work for him. And I will not. I refuse to work for Donald Trump. We'll leave it there. Governor Newsom, appreciate your time. Thanks, man. I'm joined now by the Attorney General California, Rob Bonta. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me. Great to be with you. So we have some breaking news here as it relates to Donald Trump's deployment of not just 2,000 National Guard, but an additional 2,000 National Guard and then 700

Marines. And so can you explain what that new news is? Yes. Today we are filing a temporary restraining order request with the federal judge in the Northern District of California as part of our case that we brought yesterday. We argue in our case that the president does not have any legal basis for deploying the National Guard or the Marines into L.A. And today we are asking that the court issue an order immediately ordering that the deployment be invalid. and unlawful and blocking their deployment into Los Angeles. Okay, so if this temporary restraining order is granted, how quickly could it go into effect?

By design, temporary restraining order requests are ruled on swiftly because of the potential for irreversible and irreparable harm and injury to the requesting entity here, the state of California. So we could get a ruling within hours, as we have in some of our other cases when we've sued the Trump administration, or it could be a matter of days, but it will be swift. We should get an order by the end of this week. Is there any way that Trump could justify his actions, given the fact that the law clearly states that the governor has to be consulted before the National Guard is sent in? And of course, in this instance, he wasn't. I don't see it. That part in particular is absolutely clear as day in our favor on the merits. The statute, as you say, that the president

relies on for his executive order bringing in the National Guard's people, says that the governor needs to be consulted. There needs to be the governor's consent. Not only did Governor Newsom not consent, he strenuously objected to the deployment of the National Guard into Los Angeles and has said that repeatedly. The statute that the President relies on also requires a rebellion to be present, which there's not, a invasion to be present, which there is not or the inability of the United States of America to enforce and execute the laws with their regular forces. And that doesn't exist either. So the clear, unambiguous language of the statute, the elements that are required to be there for the president to be able to lawfully

rely on that statute are not present. And so we believe this is not a close case and that the court will find in our favor and should, and we believe will issue a case. temporary restraining order. Well, some of the verbiage that's used in that statute is rebellion or invasion. And obviously, in an effort to reverse engineer the ability for the administration to do this, to justify their actions, they've already been coming out for weeks and claiming that there is an invasion, there is a rebellion. And so given that the language is so subjective, does that pose any issue that Trump can

just say, yes, there is an invasion? Yes, there is a rebellion. That's why we had to do this. It's clear what they're trying to do. They are trying to manipulate and twist the language, giving it their own definitions, and calling things that aren't invasions, invasions, calling things that are not rebellions, rebellions, calling things that are not emergencies, emergencies, because they know that those are the words that are in the statute, so they're trying to appropriate that language and hopefully get what is what their true goal is, which is the power that comes when there actually is a rebellion or an emergency or an invasion. But it doesn't matter what they call it, it matters what it is. They can't change the facts just by giving it a different name. And, you know, we are seeing mostly peaceful protests with some accompanying acts of violence,

which unfortunately often comes when opportunists and agitators take advantage of the situation for their own goals, and those people must be held accountable. But this is garden variety, you know, common vandalism and property that we've seen many times that the largest sheriff's department in the nation, the L.A. Sheriff's Department and the third largest police department in the nation, the LAPD, are well equipped to handle and have handled. And they have the opportunity to get mutual aid if needed as well. And by the time the National Guard came to L.A. on Sunday morning, they were met with quiet streets. No emergency, no rebellion, no invasion, no uncontrolled violence. And so I think that puts the lie to the terms

that the president is using when they try to use invasion and rebellion inappropriately. What would it look like if the temporary restraining order, the TRO, is actually granted? What are the next steps? What are the mechanics of this thing? If a judge does rule that the deployment of these 2,000 National Guard troops plus an additional 2,000 plus these hundreds of Marines is actually illegal? It'll depend on what the scope of the court order is. But generally, if we are successful in getting our request for a temporary restraining order granted,

the court would render the deployment of the 4,000 National Guards people and the 700 Marines unlawful and invalid. And they would need to be either redeployed to other locations where they're doing lawful, where they have a lawful mission, or they would be restricted from doing law enforcement activity in civilian locations in Los Angeles and California. So it could take a number of different forms. They could be deployed. They could be heavily restricted in their role. But either way, they would be prevented from doing what Donald Trump wants them to do.

We've also seen that the National Guard that have been sent into California, the conditions are subpar. There's a lot of photos floating around the Internet, including ones that were shared by Governor Newsom himself, that show that they're sleeping on the floor because, you know, there wasn't preparations taken to actually make sure that they have the proper accommodation. So can I have your reaction to the fact that this was all so, this all feels so thrown together that even these folks who were sent in aren't being taken care of on their end? My reaction is it's embarrassing, it's disrespectful, and it's insulting to the men and women

of the California National Guard who are patriots, who are servants, who have a critical role who don't deserve to be treated as political pawns for the delight and pleasure of the president, who deserve respect and deserve to be able to fulfill a mission that advances safety and security and promotes California. Many of the National Guard's people were doing just such tasks before they were pulled away to come to L.A. unnecessarily and counterproductively. Some were on the border in San Diego tackling the inflow of fentanyl. into our communities and making sure our communities are safe from this deadly poison. Others were tackling wildfires as wildfire continues to proceed here in California.

So they were pulled away from these important roles at the bidding and pleasure of Donald Trump to be weaponized and to become political ponds. And we did see them without adequate food and water. We saw them without adequate sleeping conditions, sleeping on one another, on the floor. and that is very sad to see the president of the United States treating our military personnel in that way. They deserve better, they deserve greater respect and greater dignity. Speaking of the politicization of all of this,

we've seen this talking point being floated by folks in right-wing media, by Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, this idea that arrest was on the table, even for folks like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. And so can I have your reaction to that? The fact that this is now in the zeitgeist, this, the prospect of Trump having his political opponents arrested that even lead this state and, uh, and the city. In one way, it's more silly, toxic, tough talk bluster and bluffing and threatening and

bullying. It's sort of, uh, their brand, what they're known for. Yeah. Big talk, over-promising, under-delivering. And so it's certainly without merit. But I also say it's very dangerous. The president was asked, what's the crime that Governor Newsom committed? And he said, running for governor, which is obviously completely lawful, not a crime. And what is happening here is that the president of the greatest nation on earth is threatening to arrest a political opponent who has done nothing wrong.

but disagree with him and to weaponize the politics to harm a political opponent. And that is wrong. That is not who we are. That is the antithesis of who we are. It's undemocratic. It's un-American. So it is reckless and it is dangerous. They're starting to walk back the statement somewhat today because I think they've been

embarrassed by it. But we all know you can only arrest people when they commit a crime. Governor Newsom has committed no crime. but these threats to go after political opponents for no reason is very dangerous, very reckless, and very disturbing. Do you see these kind of threats in a different light given the fact that we have seen members of Congress, democratic members of Congress, judges,

Democratic staffers, all who actually have been arrested by this administration? Yeah, I mean, the arrest of the judge in Wisconsin, the mayor of Newark, a congress member in New Jersey, a labor leader in California. Yeah, I think Jerry Nadler's staffer in New York. The list goes on. And so, you know, they're looking for that.

They're loving the opportunity to overreact and over arrest and overcharge. They want to go after their political opponents. And I think Trump's statement just made it very transparent and clear that they don't even need a lawful reason to act. And they're willing to arrest folks when there's no crime committed. And that is very dangerous and disturbing. this is a bit of a political question that I'm hoping you can opine on a little bit. But, you know, prior to ICE being sent in in the first place, everything was peaceful. And so to what extent do you think that this was manufactured, that this was engineered by Trump to, for example, take the attention away from what was a really politically damaging week for him with the fallout with Elon Musk, the tenuous path forward for his budget bill, a bill that, by the way, would strip health care away from 14 million Americans, cut food assistance to the tuna. of $300 billion that would blow up the deficits to the tune of trillions of dollars. And so there was a lot of negative political coverage on him only until the point where

he can figure out a way to get something else into the zeitgeist by sending ICE in. And then, of course, kind of engineering the uprising that we're seeing right now as some justification for him to then send troops in and send thousands more troops in, then send the Marines in. And so to what extent do you think that this was all a purposeful strategy to distract. It seems a classic distraction deflection from harmful coverage that a political leader was receiving. The, you know, the big ugly bill is very problematic. And I know he wants less analysis and scrutiny on that. His divorce with Elon Musk also messy and ugly. And he certainly wants people to think about other things.

So, you know, to the fact that this is California and not just California, but Los Angeles, an iconic California city in a blue state that absolutely rejected Donald Trump in the last election. He was thrashed and destroyed. It's embarrassing to him. His ego can't handle it. And he has made clear that he will target and go after blue states as part of his political vindication and his political vengeance tour.

And so this has multiple, I think, benefits for his political agenda. It distracted and deflected from bad news coverage and gave him an opportunity to try to beat up on a blue state, which he sees as an enemy, instead of being a president for all of America, including all of the 40 million people in the great state of California. But he's done it unlawfully. He's picked a fight that he can't win. I think the courts will slap him down immediately as he deserves to be yet again. We've brought 25 lawsuits in 20 weeks because that's how blatantly and brazenly and consistently and frequently the president has violated the law. This is another blatant violation of the law.

We believe the court will hold him accountable and block his unlawful activity. And finally, let's finish off with this. I'd mentioned in my previous question about the fact that this all was kind of incited because of ICE coming in. You know, California is a majority, minority city. Immigrant communities, migrant communities are a major part. of the tapestry of Los Angeles. And so what is your message to folks out there

for whom fear has been stricken in their hearts at the prospect of them being taken away? And these aren't just, you know, I'm not talking about the hardened criminals because that kind of talking point has come and gone. These are folks who are productive members of society, many of whom are paying taxes, people who are making sure that we have food on our tables,

that we have homes that are built, who are now afraid to go to work, or afraid to go to work, attend their kids' graduations, attend to afraid to even go out into society for fear of being kind of plucked up by ice and being deported. So what's your message to that community who might be especially afraid right now? Yeah, to our beautifully diverse, hardworking California immigrants, I say this. I see you. I value you. I know that you're fearful, anxious, worried, concerned by President Trump's unlawful actions and rhetoric, and I want you to know

that in California you belong. You have rights. If your rights are violated, they must be vindicated. And in California, I and our leaders value you and know that you are such a critical part of who we are, who we've become, who we will be. We are a state of beautiful immigrants. My mom was an immigrant from the Philippines. I was born in the Philippines and brought here because my parents wanted democracy and freedom and due process and the rule of law for me. And we will do everything in our power to defend and protect our immigrants who are law-abiding and productive, who have made California great. So please know that California has your back and we will continue to lift up our immigrants. Attorney General Rob Bonta, thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me, Brian.

Honor to be with you. I'm joined by the author of The Strength and Numbers, Substack, Elliot Morris. Elliot, thanks so much for coming on. We have some news in terms of what the polling right now shows in terms of Donald Trump's deployment of his troops into Los Angeles here. So can you give a little bit of information in terms of what that polling actually reflects? Yeah, and thanks for having me on, Brian. Look, the polling shows that the average American does not like when federal troops come into their name. neighborhood to do any, basically any sort of police action that they, like, are removed from.

So there's this new U-Gov poll that's out today, for example, and they ask U.S. adults, do you support Donald Trump deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles, to, you know, do law enforcement efforts related to protests there? And by a seven-point margin, people say, no, they do not approve of sending the National Guard. You gov also asked, do you support sending the Marines there? And people were even more opposed to that. I imagine because it evokes some sort of, like, you know, real official, like, military action that Americans traditionally are averse to, you know, the military being deployed in their streets.

So that's a man, I imagine that's the association going on in their head. So the difficult thing for me to reconcile is that, is that Donald Trump wouldn't do something to distract from his already failing agenda as it relates to this budget. bill as it relates to his fallout with Elon Musk, as it relates to stripping health care away from 14 million Americans and blowing up to the deficit to the tune of trillions of dollars, wouldn't do something that's going to be, at least in his mind, as politically disadvantageous as those things. You would presume that if he can spark some type of rebellion here and kind of get into a scenario that would do better for him, that that would be preferable. And so

is this just backfiring on him in the sense that this is actually polling? worse than he probably anticipated? Yeah, look, Donald Trump is not an idiot when it comes to public opinion, maybe in other ways, but now when it comes to public opinion, he, like, reads the polls, he has people in the White House who are telling him where the public are on issues, and he has a pretty good read of where they are on immigration. That's why he's president. The thing that I think he's indexing on is the previous data.

I think people in the White House see that Trump has traditionally been approved of on immigration in general. And when it comes to quelling violence in the street, they have some experience dealing with that as well in ways that they think goes well for them. And I'll also just add, like, the previous data we had on L.A. was about the protesters themselves. You have also asked, do you approve of the protesters doing the things they're doing? And Americans said no. By a nine-point margin, they said no. So what we have here is two sort of paradoxical findings. have. First off, the protesters are unpopular, but also people don't support sending

the National Guard to deal with those protests. So I think the White House is probably at risk of overextending here in their treatment of these protesters. And that's more political than anything. I don't think that has anything to do with public opinion. I think that's all politics, all enforcement, all posturing. So is the goal here for Trump to try and incite such a response that the dissatisfaction with the protesters outshines the dissatisfaction with the fact that he's sending in the National Guard and the Marines. Yeah, I mean, the traditional finding on this is that violence doesn't do well with the public. And that's true from the police. And that's also true from protesting. And that's the difficult part here because there's violence

happening on two fronts. There is the violence being perpetuated by law enforcement that was sent in by Trump against the protesters. But then there's also obviously unrest. And we're seeing a few isolated scenarios where there are cars being set on fire, for example. And so you have these two kind of contradictory instances where there is violence, but it's owed to two different political factions. Yeah, that's right. So if the images that people are seeing on their screens at home are of, you know, protesters standing on burned down squad cars, that's a different image. That's the image that Trump wants, but that's a very different image than the ones of, you know, hundreds of guards standing in the same place facing down like small crowds of peaceful protesters. I think that's, you know,

that's the one that will end up eating at them if, you know, if there's no more or more of the violent unrest. But as we know, these situations can devolve pretty quickly on both sides. So that's hard to predict. Is there any historical precedent here, for example, as it relates to Kenosha, the last time there was something similar that Donald Trump is kind of hanging his hat on or that we can, or that we can compare these results to? Yeah, I mean, Donald Trump's frame of reference here is that he was president during the BLM protest and some of the riots in 2020, and his frame of mind is like, we sent in the National Guard to deal with that,

and they think it worked well for them. And the academic evidence suggests that in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after some of the violence there, there was a small localized shift toward Donald Trump. In other words, there was a backlash to the violence in that protest. But that's not true anywhere else in the country in 2022. The evidence from 2020, sorry, from 2020. In 2020, the evidence is that the protests, on average, helped Democrats.

They helped the cause, so to speak. And by increasing support for Democrats and decreasing support for Trump, the people presumably being protested are wrapped up in the protest sentiment. So I'm thinking that, you know, if I'm in the White House right now, my playbook is what I did in 2020. 20, and I think that's what we're saying, just sending the National Guard to deal with it. So, given the fact that the Trump administration lost support in the BLM protests when they sent in the National Guard, why would they repeat the same playbook that was ultimately detrimental to them?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's their political playbook. It's their side's playbook, right? Among the people that they socialized with, among what they're trying to accomplish, which is, you know, like a forceful crackdown on immigration. This is the playbook you try to use for that. But I don't think it's informed by public opinion. Is this just red meat for the base? then. Like, he's not interested right now in June of an off year in kind of appealing to independence or even conservative Democrats. He's just saying, like, look, I came in with an agenda that I want to perpetuate, and that is this major crackdown on big blue bastions within big blue states. Yeah, he thinks that doing this part of his agenda, the law, the very firm law and order part,

not the like any of the other laws he's broken, but this law and order part, is popular for him. and it's going to win him support for doing the adjacent part of his agenda, which is to deport everyone here illegally, which also requires a lot of force. So if you can sell the public on this use of force against the protesters, perhaps you can apply it to the use of force for immigration enforcement. I think that's the calculation they're trying to make in their head. Do you have any idea of how Donald Trump is looking more broadly in terms of his polling? And I ask on two issues in particular, and that is immigration and the economy. He won the presidency in 2024 based on those two issues, on how he, on how he,

he was able to exploit those issues. There was a ton of pain that Americans were contending with as it relates to high inflation. And, of course, the immigration, the way that Joe Biden handled immigration was a major vulnerability for him as well. And so he came in office with major advantages on those two issues. But we've seen those numbers kind of dwindle down. And so where are we, where are we at right now in terms of his two perceived strengths from when he first came in office?

Yeah. So when Donald Trump took office, there was about a 10 percentage point advantage for him on immigration. So 10 percentage points, more people said they approved of him than disapproved of him. And on the economy, it was the same, about 10 percentage point advantage. So he comes into office and he has some force of a mandate, he would call it, but he has the public on his side on these issues. Right. Today, there's a three point gap on immigration. So smaller, is still an advantage, but much smaller. And he's 14 percentage points underwater on the economy, and he's 20 percentage points underwater on inflation. And I think that represents,

It's a broader dissatisfaction among the public with all presidents or any president that we would have an office right now on the economy, cost of living, social mobility, et cetera. It's just sort of terrible for a lot of people. And it represents some backlash to the administration on deportations, which we know are going beyond the sanction of public opinion. People don't want their grandma deported. They don't want, you know, the person who lived next door for 20 years, who's not a criminal immigrant. or a convicted criminal, especially not a convicted, violent criminal deported. They don't want the person at the diner who serves the waffles deported. Right. And I mean, he actually came in, like you said, with some degree of a mandate.

But I think that was on the actual issues that he promised, which is that he's going to go after hardened criminals. And we're seeing now, as they've ramped up enforcement on these deportations, that like, if you're just waiting for for workers outside of a Home Depot, if you're just plucking kids out of schools, I mean, there was a few instances where kids who are stricken with cancer or even being deported. So if you're focusing on those people, does that not just squander any of the mandate, any of the goodwill that you engendered by coming in and saying that you're going to focus on one subset of people and then instead just broadening out to a whole swath of like of members in good standing of the community? Well, the thing is, you know, Donald Trump basically sold the American people on a fiction with immigration. He said there's tens of millions of violent criminals out there who are. who are here illegally, who we are going to round up and deport.

And it just wasn't true. They just weren't the numbers to back it up. Yeah, and those people do not exist, do not exist in the numbers that the Donald Trump administration promised them that they did. And so they're having to, you know, they have this goal from Stephen Miller, deporting 3,000 people a day, which is just impossible. And to do that, they're going to have to deport a lot of people that aren't the people they promised because they don't exist in the right amount of numbers.

And that's going to cause, that could cause backlash. It seems to have caused someone. amount to backlash so far. I think the idea is that for Democrats right now, if they can sell the protests, first off, if, you know, there's not as much violence going forward, if they can sell the administration's actions with federal military troops as enforcing that unpopular part of their agenda, deporting the people that American citizens do want to stay here, then they can score political points that way. Well, one of those people who was wrongly deported was Kilmer-A-Brega-Garcy. And so what did the polling show with regard to that specific instance that we can, you know, obviously extrapolate into into a broader understanding of the popularity of his agenda?

Yeah. I mean, we did two things around that time. So this was in mid to late April. What we did was we looked at media attention to Kilmar-Ber Garcia. And we looked at Donald Trump's overall and his immigration-specific approval rating. And what you can see is basically there's a completely like inverse relationship between these things. As media attention goes up, Trump's. approval rating falls and it falls to the lowest point of his cycle at exactly two days after media attention to kilmar but russia is at its highest so you know that that would like be a feather in the democratic cap right now they should say you know these you know we support law and order we want to you know build the border wall whatever give like the red meat to the base that needs to have red meat and then oppose the excessive deportations that that are unpopular and where we have some evidence that have moved to the needle against Donald Trump. And I think that's like a strong values position for the party.

And it's one that they've tested so far. So it seems like the through line in everything that we've spoken about is that when we have instances of government overreach, when we have instances where the Trump administration is illegally deporting somebody who shouldn't be deported because he wasn't given due process, when we have instances where Donald Trump sends in and federalizes the National Guard, sends in the U.S. Marines, like those are the instances where, Donald Trump actually faces a lot of backlash that's reflected in the polling. Is that correct? Yeah, people wanted orderly deportation of criminals that they had never met or that didn't,

you know, that really didn't seem to exist from their neighborhoods, from the people, from the places around them, and they wanted crime to fall as a result. That's what they wanted. Everything else that they've got from the Donald Trump administration is not supported by the public. And, yeah, It plays into lots of, like, classical examples of government overreach, of a fear of government deploying military in your streets, martial law even. I mean, these are not things that are traditionally considered popular in American politics. The only reason we think that they could be popular is because it's on an issue that Donald Trump has previously had an advantage on.

Elliot, where can folks who are watching right now hear more from you? Yeah, thanks, Brian. They can go to the Strength in Numbers substack website, and that's just my name, G. Elliot Morris.com, you can probably Google. It'll be the first result. I'm sure. Great. I'll put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. If you're listening on the podcast, that'll be in the show notes as well. Elliot, appreciate your time. Okay, thanks, Brian. Thanks again to Governor Newsom, Attorney General Bonta, and Elliot Morris.

I'll be back on Sunday for my regularly scheduled show. Thanks, everybody. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellsey, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nick Tara. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more.