The MeidasTouch Podcast - California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Lawsuit Against Trump Adminstration

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

MeidasTouch Host Ben Meiselas is joined by California Attorney General Rob Bonta to discuss California's new lawsuit against the Trump administration. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The grounds for this lawsuit is exactly what we predicted it was gonna be the lawsuit is brought by California's Attorney General Rob Bonta and the governor's office as well, California Governor Gavin Newsom in coordination with each other. What this lawsuit is alleging is that Donald Trump unlawfully invoked this statute, 10 USC, section 12406, which calls for federalizing the National Guard under very specific circumstances.

When you look at the statute, it's not all that long when you actually go and read it, but it actually says that what's required is that the Secretary of Defense coordinate with the governors of the states and the National Guard Bureau in identifying and ordering federal service, the appropriate members and units of the National Guard. That never happened at all.

Donald Trump just sent a letter to the adjudicant general the appropriate members and units of the National Guard. That never happened at all. Donald Trump just sent a letter to the adjudicant general of the National Guard in California saying, you are hereby federalized, which in my view, makes it on its face unlawful. When you go through these specific instances where you can even invoke section 12406, in addition to the provision that requires that it take place in

coordination with governors. It calls for you could only invoke it if there's repelling an invasion by a foreign nation, suppressing a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States or subsection three of 10 USC 12406 says execute that the president can no longer execute the laws of the United States. None of that happened at all. I mean, if you go back and think about what was taking place on Friday, the LAPD talked about that these were peaceful protests, that they thanked the organizers and the groups for remaining peaceful.

And when things were under control by the L.A. sheriffs, by the LAPD peaceful. And when things were under control by the LA sheriffs, by the LAPD, that's when Donald Trump really initiated the National Guard and escalated matters and made it worse. One of the things I'm wondering as well in this major lawsuit that's being brought by the state of California against Donald Trump to enjoin or essentially stop their behavior of federalizing

these National Guard troops. I think Trump created evidence against himself. In 2020, Donald Trump sat down with George Stephanopoulos and he said that he could not move in the National Guard. This is Trump in his own words in 2020. Let's play it. I promised four years ago at the Republican convention, I'm gonna restore law and order.

And I have, except in Democrat run cities. Look, we have laws. We have to go by the laws. We can't move in the National Guard. I can call insurrection, but there's no reason to ever do that. Even in a Portland case, we can't call in the National Guard

unless we're requested by a governor. You said it right there. Let's bring in California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who just filed this lawsuit. Attorney General Bonta, tell us about the lawsuit that's being filed and if you can describe to us the importance of it. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

We brought a lawsuit today on behalf of the governor and the state of California, challenging as unlawful the president's federalization of the National Guard and calling them in to Los Angeles through an executive order that he issued over the weekend. The authority that he relies on, 10 USC 12406, does not provide for his ability to call in the National Guard unilaterally

the conditions precedent that are required under the statute, either an invasion by a foreign nation or a rebellion to overthrow the US government or the regular forces not being sufficient to execute the laws of the United States. None of those elements are present. There is also a required element that the order to call in the National Guard be issued through the governor of the state at issue. Here of course Governor Gavin Newsom who objected to the National Guard coming in, did not issue an order.

And so we believe that the action by the Trump administration is completely unlawful. We sent a letter to Pete Hegseth over the weekend. It was ignored. So we are filing a lawsuit in the Northern District of California today seeking an order, declaring the president's executive order unlawful and also seeking injunctive relief through a restraining order. We're seeing the consequences of the chaos from Washington, D.C., being brought here into the state of California. But this is actually not limited to California, is it? And the lawsuit is, but the implications here are not

in the sense that Donald Trump's memo that invokes this statute does not actually mention California or Los Angeles in it at all. It does, you know, talk about, you know, these specific troops, but in terms of being open for 60 days, it seems that it's not limited to any specific geographic area. It could be interpreted, I think, as saying the entire country at Trump's discretion, and it's not limited to National Guard. It also says, or as other troops as may seem necessary. Basically, in a former Fox News host, Pete Hegsit's discretion, you know, he gets to pick whatever he wants to do.

So there's larger implications, not to say that what's going on in California isn't large enough, but there's other states that are going to be impacted by this. No doubt about it. And which is why it's important that we have acted, are acting swiftly, are seeking a rapid court order, striking down this unlawful executive order that applies, you know, as you mentioned outside of Los Angeles and throughout the state of California and potentially other states. It's why Democratic governors wrote a letter speaking out against this unlawful action by President Trump.

Democratic attorneys general are very active as well because they see what is happening here. It's another attempt by President Trump to unlawfully secure power that he doesn't have, to try to deploy troops that he doesn't have the authority to deploy within the United States, in states, on American soil, in violation of the law. The statute that he invokes here, 10 U.S.C. 12406,

was only used once in the history of the United States. And it was used when in 1970, there was a US Postal Office strike that shut down the movement of the US mail because the US Post Office didn't have the workers to operate the system. And so the National Guard came in to make mail move. And that presumably was based on the third element of the statute that says that the regular forces are not adequate to execute the laws of the United States of America.

So it's never been used in a situation like this. So it's this sort of fringe theory, never adopted by a court that the Trump administration is trying to adopt because they like what it gives them, more power on the other end, this ability to deploy troops throughout the nation potentially. So we think we have a really strong case. We think the facts and the law are on our side. We've sued the Trump administration today.

We are hopeful for a order in short course. As our viewers know, I always want to, I always, when I bring up these things, I always want to stay away from hyperbole and I don't want them to ever think, hey, Ben, you and Midas Touch, you're just fear mongering, you're just scaring when you say that Donald Trump wants to have troops everywhere.

So my catchphrase here is kind of like when I used to be a litigator and I would call up an exhibit, you know, I would look at the jury and I would say, Hey, play the clip because we have Donald Trump in his own words, saying we're going to have troops everywhere Los Angeles? What? Even if you're not planning to invoke the Act, you still plan to send troops? Well, we're going to have troops everywhere. We're not going to let this happen to our country. We're not going to let our country be torn apart like it was under Biden and his auto

pen. What's the bar for sending Marines to the US? The bar is what I think it is. I mean, if we see danger to our country and to our citizens, we will be very, very strong in terms of law. He says, the bar is what I think it is. Now, Attorney General Bonta, I think something that's not getting enough attention also is just seems that Donald Trump was so thirsty to invoke this statute or declare that he was federalizing the National Guard because there's escalation before you ever get to that federalization.

I mean, you know, there is the governor can use the National Guard. There is the governor can work with other states. There's, you know, there's escalation within the LAPD and the sheriff. There's, you know, interstate things. So it's just for the way he did it, it just seems so intentional and malicious. And I don't think that's getting enough attention.

Oh, great. You know, the whole Project 2025 and the planning and strategy leading up to the election and being implemented since the election is review of these, you know, archaic, rarely used because they rarely should be used because the factual predicate required for their use is rarely present, statutes that provide additional authority to the executive branch, to the president. And you see he's calling everything or many things an emergency, and he's calling immigration an invasion.

He chooses those words because those are the words in the statutes that provide him with more authority. So this is by design, he wanted this. You're absolutely right that there's a progression to be followed when there's law enforcement incidents that need response on the ground. I'll just emphasize that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is the largest sheriff's department

in the nation. The Los Angeles Police Department is the third largest police department in the nation. These are huge law enforcement departments and agencies, very well-resourced, highly trained, very capable of addressing nearly any issue. And the issues that LA was facing over the weekend, I was in close contact with the highest levels of leadership

in both departments, was completely under control within the existing resources of the departments. LAPD said it was crickets, it was quiet, they had 20 peaceful protesters over the weekend. LA Sheriff had an issue in Paramount later in Compton, but they were able to address it with their own resources. They never even had to go to the next step, which is mutual aid, calling the police departments

from the other cities in LA County to help, for example, or the neighboring sheriff's departments in Ventura County or Orange County or Santa Barbara to assist. Never even got close to having to ask for mutual aid, much less depleting mutual aid. And then if the National Guard is needed, Governor Newsom can call in the National Guard. He's done it before. He did it earlier this year in January for the wildfires. He did it in 2020 during the protests we were seeing in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. So there was a whole bunch of steps that the president blew through.

He went from zero to 60 unnecessarily and unlawfully when he unilaterally deployed the National Guard himself. You know, I saw some of these Republican Congress members going on the Sunday show saying, you need to escalate to deescalate. But that's actually not the way it works. Or then I saw Magna Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house say,

our motto is peace through strength. We could start with peace through peace and then peace through just dealing with the community like human beings. But nonetheless, we're here right now. You filed this lawsuit. We're gonna be following it. Please come back, share with us the progress of the lawsuit.

We'd love to hear more. Thanks for joining us as always. Honored to be with you again. Thanks for having me. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, everybody. Hit subscribe. Let's get to five million subscribers. the Midas Plus Substack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.