As Protests Spread, Both Parties Gird for Confrontation
This is Washington Edition, the newsletter about money, power and politics in the nation's capital. Today, senior editor Joe Sobczyk looks at the politics of the immigration protests. Sign up here and follow us at @bpolitics. Email our editors here.
This is the fight President Donald Trump wanted. And, perhaps, his opponents as well
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CNN
18 minutes ago
- CNN
DHS defends social media post calling for public to help ICE locate ‘all foreign invaders'
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a striking graphic on its official X account. Uncle Sam, a symbol of American patriotism, is depicted nailing a poster to a wall that reads, 'Help your country… and yourself.' Written underneath the poster is the sentence, 'REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,' and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement hot line. The post — which DHS and the White House also posted to Instagram — prompted a flood of criticism, with some social media users comparing the post to authoritarian propaganda. On Thursday, at least two far-right X accounts claimed to have a hand in creating or disseminating the image before it was shared by DHS. A source within DHS told CNN the agency did not create the graphic. The DHS's Uncle Sam post has more than 81,000 likes and comes as immigration protests roil Los Angeles and other cities around the country, amid a deportation crackdown by President Donald Trump and DHS. And it marks an escalation in the agency's communication strategy, after weeks of using social media to attack or mock perceived enemies, promote ICE arrests and ridicule media reports it disagrees with. In another recent post, DHS responded to a comment appearing to question a popular X user's immigration status with a meme of a character with magnifying glasses. In May, DHS also said it was reviewing a reality TV show pitch where immigrants would compete for US citizenship, which an agency spokesperson said at the time was in the early stages of vetting and had not yet been approved or denied. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem later told a Senate committee that she had 'no knowledge' of a reality show plan. The Uncle Sam graphic is reminiscent of media used previously by other governments to provoke fear, especially of immigrants, said Elisabeth Fondren, a journalism professor at St. John's University who has studied government propaganda and communications during war times. 'This poster fits within a long history of anti-immigrant rhetoric and, yes, state propaganda,' Fondren said. 'It evokes these remnants of Cold War, fake propaganda by the Russians, or, you know, authoritarian fear mongering messages … but what I think is so interesting is that this is a call to action in an environment where we're not in a war.' In defending the Uncle Sam post, the agency told CNN that it aligns with terminology used by other officials in the executive branch. DHS pointed CNN to a number of posts from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller using terms like 'invade' or 'invaders' when referring to undocumented immigrants. Asked for comment on this story, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told CNN that criticisms of the post 'are fundamentally unserious and reflect the completely juvenile state of mainstream journalism. These reporters should get off social media and start focusing on the very real victims of illegal alien crime.' 'Every American citizen should support federal law enforcement in their just effort to deport criminal illegal alien invaders from our country,' McLaughlin said in a statement. 'During the Biden Administration our borders were opened to an invasion by the very worst from around the world. Now President Trump and Secretary Noem are reversing the destruction of our nation.' Trump's overall handling of immigration tends to earn higher approval ratings than his performance on other issues, but there is also evidence that Americans are less supportive of the way he's carrying out deportations. A CNN poll in April showed 52% of Americans said Trump has gone too far in deporting undocumented immigrants. DHS's provocative social media strategy has led to a rapidly growing audience. Engagement with the DHS account has grown significantly since Trump took office; it's second only to the White House in online engagement among US government accounts, the agency said. DHS communication officials have in recent days frequently posted videos from the LA protests that it says indicate the demonstrations are not peaceful and highlight law enforcement efforts to quell disorder. The demonstrations have impacted a relatively small area of the city, mostly in a section of downtown LA, where largely peaceful daytime protests have been giving way to volatile, occasionally violent scenes each night that have resulted in hundreds of arrests. The curfew zone is about one square mile, in a city that covers more than 450 square miles. The agency's posts come as random and anonymous users on platforms like X and TikTok have also shared old and sometimes completely fake content about the unrest, projecting an image of chaos, often in an apparent attempt to juice their own engagement. The agency has also posted names, photos and alleged charges of people it has arrested as justification for ICE's operations in Los Angeles. And on Wednesday, DHS shared a post on X that said: 'Liberals don't know things.' Many of the posts to the DHS account are memes or content created by outside sources. The image of the Uncle Sam poster was posted on X last Friday, around the time tensions in Los Angeles escalated, by podcaster C. Jay Engel, who describes himself as 'Christian nationalist adjacent' and has claimed that 'nations cannot survive replacement migration.' After DHS shared the Uncle Sam image, Engel posted: 'This image came from my account. NEVER STOP POSTING.' 'The question is, 'Is there room for like-minded Christians and patriots in Tennessee?'' the podcaster, Engel, said in an October podcast, in response to a listener's question. 'Yes, there's an imperative for like-minded Christians to gather and fight with us.' Although Engel circulated the image of the Uncle Sam poster, another X user claimed to have created the image. That pseudonymous X account, which has the words 'Wake Up White Man' in its biography, is full of nativist rhetoric and reposted another X user who declared: 'Whites deserve our own nations, like everyone else is allowed to have.' The pseudonymous account appears to have been the first to post the image. CNN has requested comment from Engel and attempted to reach the X user who claimed to have created the image. CNN's Samantha Delouya contributed reporting.
New York Post
29 minutes ago
- New York Post
Federal judge questions constitutionality of Trump sending National Guard to LA riots: ‘President is, of course, limited'
WASHINGTON — A federal judge expressed skepticism Thursday about the constitutionality of President Trump's order to deploy thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell anti-ICE riots. Senior San Francisco US District Judge Charles Breyer heard arguments from attorneys for Trump's Justice Department and California Gov. Gavin Newsom after the Democrat had sued the feds over dispatching roughly 4,000 Guard members to protect officers carrying out immigration enforcement operations. 'We're talking about the president exercising his authority, and the president is, of course, limited,' Breyer, the younger brother of liberal former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, said at one point in the hearing. Advertisement 3 AP 'That's the difference between a constitutional government and King George.' Brett Shumate, the head of the DOJ's Civil Division, disputed Breyer's characterization of the president's order throughout the hour-long hearing, arguing that the commander-in-chief had 'delegated' the federalizing of the Guard through California's adjutant general, as legally required. Advertisement Shumate also claimed that Newsom was merely a 'conduit' for that order as it passed through the chain of command from Trump to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the state Guard. 'There's no consultation requirement, pre-approval requirement,' he argued. 'There's one commander-in-chief of the armed forces.' The California attorney general's office countered that allowing Trump's action to stand implied there would be 'no guardrails' for further abuse by the executive branch. 3 Clashes have erupted in LA over the last several days sparked by ICE raids. Barbara Davidson/NYPost Advertisement 3 A demonstrator points his finger towards members of the California National Guard during a protest against federal immigration sweeps in downtown Los Angeles. REUTERS 'The president, by fiat, can federalize the National Guard and deploy it,' an attorney for Newsom said, 'whenever there is disobedience to an order.' While Breyer took issue with the deployment of the National Guard, he appeared more inclined to let stand Trump's order sending around 700 US Marines to the Golden State to assist with the federal immigration crackdown. 'I don't understand how I'm supposed to do anything with the Marines, to tell you the truth,' the judge responded, quibbling with Newsom's legal team over whether their involvement violated the Posse Comitatus Act. Advertisement Breyer did not immediately issue a ruling, but said he hoped to put one out 'very soon.' This is a developing story. Please check back for more information.
New York Times
29 minutes ago
- New York Times
Adrienne Adams Will Be the Only Woman Onstage at the Mayoral Debate
Of the seven candidates who will be onstage for the New York City mayoral debate on Thursday night, just one of them, Adrienne Adams, is a woman. Ms. Adams, the City Council speaker, is running to be the first female mayor of New York, the only major American city that has never elected a woman to its highest office. She was one of two women who took part in the first debate last week, along with Jessica Ramos, a state senator from Queens. But Ms. Ramos did not raise enough money to qualify for the second debate, and she endorsed Mr. Cuomo, effectively taking herself out of contention. Ms. Adams is running on a message of 'no drama, no scandal — just competence and integrity.' Her campaign videos emphasize her fights to restore funding for libraries and prekindergarten and show her spending time with her grandchildren. She has highlighted how she helped approve a major housing proposal, known as City of Yes, as Council speaker, and her campaign has proposed the nation's largest guaranteed income program. 'I'm running for mayor — not for power or praise, but for my children and yours,' she says in one campaign video. She was endorsed by Letitia James, the state attorney general, and District Council 37, a major municipal union. And she has presented herself as a calm and principled alternative to Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent, and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who leads in Democratic primary polls. Both men have been investigated for misconduct. (Ms. Adams is not related to the mayor.) Ms. Adams, who entered the race later than the other candidates, is often in third or fourth place in polls. Mr. Cuomo has received much of the attention in recent days, along with Zohran Mamdani, a state lawmaker from Queens who is polling in second place and rising. Several women have run for mayor of New York City, including Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley, who finished in second and third place in the 2021 Democratic primary. Christine Quinn, a former City Council speaker, finished third in the 2013 primary. Female candidates have frequently said that it is harder for them to secure donations and endorsements, and they often face skepticism from voters, in addition to outright sexism, when seeking an executive job like president or mayor.
