Los Angeles ICE raids spark nationwide protests. Trump is determined not to let it ruin his parade
By Andy Rose, CNN
(CNN) — The power of the US military will be sharply on display this weekend – on two different coasts and in two very different ways.
The Washington, DC, military parade President Donald Trump first said he wanted in 2018 finally becomes reality Saturday, with long rows of tanks, howitzers and armored vehicles joining thousands of soldiers scheduled to march down Constitution Avenue along the National Mall.
But the spectacle on the Potomac will compete for attention with the use of active military power on the other side of the country, as Trump’s administration moves more federal troops beyond the periphery of the unrest in Los Angeles – where protesters have responded forcefully this week to large-scale immigration raids – and more directly into the fray.
“I think that’s a troubling split screen,” former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis, CNN’s senior military analyst and a retired US Navy admiral, told CNN. “It will be difficult – appropriately difficult – for the American people to digest what they’re looking at.”
With so much potential tinder in the standoff over immigration policy and executive power, the potential for a Flag Day firestorm this weekend is growing.
“We’re paying attention, obviously, to what is happening (in Los Angeles), and we’ll be ready for that if it were to occur here” in Washington, said Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Matt McCool, who is supervising security of the DC parade.
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Trump’s substantial election victory last November – including a significant increase in his share of the Latino vote, has left many progressives and immigration activists in the political wilderness. A potential military response related to immigration actions is giving them a specific cause to latch onto.
“What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty. Your silence. To be complicit in this moment,” California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said in remarks released Tuesday evening. “Do not give into him.”
The protests that put Los Angeles at the center of a standoff with the president began late last week, just after federal immigration agents reportedly rounded up dozens of people in the city’s Fashion District. Protesters then moved to the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center where some detainees were being held.
Other US cities have also seen significant immigration roundups – including dozens of people taken into custody Tuesday at a food packaging company in Omaha, Nebraska – with emotional protests in their wake.
Meanwhile, a group of loosely organized anti-Trump protests around the country called “No Kings” has been scheduled for over a month, with the number of events jumping in response to the ICE crackdowns.
“Suddenly, all the numbers started skyrocketing,” Ezra Levin, cofounder of the organizing group Indivisible, told Rolling Stone of protest participation.
Federalized Guard personnel are prepared to stay in downtown L.A. for two months, with 700 active-duty Marines just completing training to protect immigration agents’ operations, the Trump administration has said.
Newsom, however, has said the LAPD could contain the protests without the help of federally mandated law enforcement and argued the White House’s escalation has “fanned the flames” of tension in the city.
He urged protesters not to take the bait.
The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying soldiers in Los Angeles “not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle,” the governor posted on X. “Don’t give them one.”
Right now, federal troops are prohibited by federal law from making arrests and other law enforcement activity. But that would change if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, an idea he has publicly toyed with for days.
“The people who are causing the problems are bad people, they are insurrectionists,” Trump said Monday before hedging hours later, saying the protests “could have led to an insurrection.”
The White House press secretary invoked her own military language in her initial statement about the Guard deployment: “The Commander-in-Chief will ensure the laws of the United States are executed fully and completely,” Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
President’s political ally calls up Guard in Texas
One red state governor already is following the president’s lead.
“Texas National Guard will be deployed to locations across the state to ensure peace & order,” the governor wrote.
“As always, I’m in communication with our state and federal law enforcement partners to coordinate and prioritize public safety for the San Antonio community,” Police Chief William McManus said in a statement Wednesday night.
Another city preparing to receive Guard personnel is the state capital of Austin, where Mayor Kirk Watson said city officials were notified troops were on the way.
“The City of Austin will continue to protect the right of people to peacefully assemble,” Watson, a Democrat, told CNN affiliate KEYE. “We will continue to recognize the humanity and value of our immigrant community.”
Trump had said he didn’t have power to call up troops
The Trump administration’s quick and aggressive effort to activate federal troops in Los Angeles – and its notion they can intervene in any city it believes has too much violence – stands in stark contrast with the last time Trump saw volatile protests on his watch.
The summer of unrest following the murder of Black father George Floyd by a White policeman stretched across dozens of US cities in the final year of Trump’s first term. Back then, Trump said he didn’t have the power to send in troops on his own.
“We can’t call in the National Guard unless we’re requested by a governor,” he said at an ABC News town hall in September 2020.
But times have changed, he told the New York Post this week.
“I can be stronger on an attack on Los Angeles,” the president said.
“I think bringing in the National Guard four years ago, or eight years ago, would have been more difficult.”
The racial protests that began that year – along with the Black Lives Matter movement – have been a touchstone of Trump’s rhetoric on urban violence.
“Look what happens in other parts of the country. In Portland, (Oregon,) where they kill people, they destroy the city, nothing happens to them,” Trump said in improvised remarks on his second Inauguration Day. “In Seattle, where they took over a big chunk of the city, nothing happened. Minneapolis, where they burned down the city, nothing happened, essentially. Nothing happened.”
Trying to put a lid this week on the more unruly faction of demonstrators in Los Angeles, Democratic Mayor Karen Bass put a nighttime curfew in place in downtown starting Tuesday night, saying vandalism and property destruction aren’t helping the cause.
“You can’t possibly be supporting immigrants and vandalize our city,” she said.
Thousands of miles from L.A., Trump will celebrate
At the same time the military assets Trump sent to Los Angeles maintain their uneasy coexistence with local law enforcement, the president will spend Saturday getting the military displays he’s been waiting years for: a weaponry-filled parade just a block from the White House. More than 6,000 soldiers will be joined by 150 vehicles and 50 aircraft in the march down Constitution Avenue, monitored by thousands of law enforcement officers.
The parade officially aims to celebrate the Army’s 250th anniversary and also falls on Trump’s 79th birthday – a coincidence, the president has said. It could cost as much as $45 million, which Trump said is justified.
“Peanuts compared to the value of doing it,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month. “We have the greatest weapons in the world. And we’re going to celebrate it.”
Still, Trump has acknowledged the high-profile celebration could become a magnet for protesters – and issued them a warning: “For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force,” he said Tuesday in the Oval Office.
Asked to clarify the president’s comment, Leavitt said, “Of course, the president supports peaceful protests. What a stupid question.”
“Violence is not acceptable. Stopping immigration raids is illegal,” said former Assistant Homeland Security and CNN Senior National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem. “All of that we can all agree on and still believe that the White House’s role is to deescalate for the local and political leadership.”
Even so, she added: “We’ve seen the exact opposite.”
The-CNN-Wire
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