Trump flexes strongman instincts over LA protests
Donald Trump likes to show off his strongman credentials at cage fights and military parades - and over the weekend, the US President did it by sending troops into Los Angeles.
The move once again showed Mr Trump pushing presidential power to its limits, at the start of a second term that has begun with what critics say is a distinctly authoritarian edge.
Mr Trump deployed the National Guard after clashes sparked by immigration raids, marking the first time since 1965 that a president has done so without a request by a state governor.
His administration has also ordered 700 active-duty Marines into the second largest city in the US.
The Republican has warned that troops could be sent "everywhere" - sparking fears that he will send the military out into the streets across the US to crack down on protests and dissent.
"It's a slippery slope," William Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University said.
"If the president tries to do more, he's cutting against the grain in the United States of a long history of leaving law enforcement to civilians."
The protests in Los Angeles are in many ways the showdown that Mr Trump has been waiting for.
Mr Trump has been spoiling for a fight against California's Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, and he is now doing so on his signature issue of immigration.
Newsom has bitterly accused the "dictatorial" president of manufacturing the crisis for political gain - while Mr Trump suggested the governor, a potential 2028 presidential contender, could be arrested.
Democratic California senator Alex Padilla slammed what he called "the behavior of an authoritarian government."
Rights groups have also opposed it. Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a statement that Mr Trump's response was "unnecessary, inflammatory, and an abuse of power."
'Civil war'
Mr Trump said that he does not "want a civil war" - but the situation is a golden opportunity to appear tough to his base.
Indeed, Mr Trump has long cultivated a strongman image and has previously expressed admiration for authoritarian leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping.
This weekend, Mr Trump will spend his 79th birthday watching tanks rumble through Washington at a parade to mark the 250th anniversary of the US army.
And the order to send the National Guard into Los Angeles came shortly before Mr Trump attended a UFC fight in New Jersey - a sport he has used frequently to appeal to macho voters.
Critics however fear that Mr Trump's actions in Los Angeles are not just for show.
Since returning to office, Mr Trump has repeatedly pushed the boundaries of presidential power to target the US bureaucracy, universities, law firms, cultural institutions and anywhere else he believes liberal ideologies linger.
Mr Trump seemed to hint at what could come next when he pinned the blame for the Los Angeles unrest - without evidence - on "insurrectionists."
It appeared to be a clear reference to the Insurrection Act, which would allow the military to be used as a domestic police force.
'Look strong'
"Trump is pretty free and loose when it comes to the use of force," Todd Belt, a political science professor at George Washington University said.
"He knows it is popular with his base, and he always likes to look strong in their eyes."
Mr Trump has talked for years about using the military against protests.
Although he did not do so during his first term, his former defense secretary Mark Esper said Mr Trump asked why Black Lives Matter protesters could not be shot in the legs.
Conversely, Mr Trump made no move to bring in the military when his own supporters attacked the US Capitol in a bid to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
Mr Trump would not say if he would invoke the Insurrection Act when asked by reporters, but he and his advisors have been framing the issue in increasingly apocalyptic terms.
His top migration advisor Stephen Miller has explicitly framed the Los Angeles protests as a battle for the future of Western civilization against an "invasion" of migrants.
"The 'war' and 'invasion' framing have helped the administration make the case for the domestic use of these laws that are normally used to put down rebellions or invasions," said Mr Belt.
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RTÉ News
an hour ago
- RTÉ News
What powers is Donald Trump using to send troops to Los Angeles?
US President Donald Trump has invoked emergency powers to deploy US National Guard troops and active-duty marines to Los Angeles to quell protests against federal immigration raids. Here, we take a look at what powers Mr Trump is using to send these troops to LA. Is it legal? Mr Trump relied on a seldom-used law known as Title 10 to send an initial 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles. He has since ordered another 2,000 Guard members and 700 marines to the Californian city. National Guard troops are normally mobilised by a state governor and used domestically to respond to natural disasters such as floods or wildfires. Mr Trump, exceptionally, sent the troops to Los Angeles against the wishes of California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom. The last time a president defied a state governor to deploy the Guard was in 1965, when president Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights protestors. Title 10 permits National Guard federalisation in times of "a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States" but does not give the troops the powers to perform domestic law enforcement duties. The troops deployed to Los Angeles have been used so far only to provide security around federal buildings in the second-largest US city. Mr Newsom has accused Mr Trump of exceeding his authority by deploying the troops without his green light and has filed suit in federal court seeking to have the deployment declared unlawful. Insurrection Act Mr Trump would need to invoke the rarely-used Insurrection Act of 1807 to allow troops to expand their current role in Los Angeles, according to legal analysts. The Insurrection Act gives a president the authority to deploy the military domestically to perform law enforcement duties such as conducting searches and making arrests. The Insurrection Act was most recently invoked by president George H.W. Bush at the request of the then California governor to help put down riots in Los Angeles in 1992, that followed the acquittal of police officers involved in the beating of a Black motorist, Rodney King. It was used by president Johnson in 1968 to quell riots that broke out in the nation's capital and other cities following the assassination of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. Posse Comitatus Using the military domestically to conduct law enforcement activities is normally barred by another law, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. The Insurrection Act lets a president sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act to suppress "armed rebellion" or "domestic violence" and use the armed forces "as he considers necessary" to enforce the law. William Banks, a professor emeritus of law at Syracuse University, said the Insurrection Act and waiving of Posse Comitatus has been infrequent because of a long US history of "leaving law enforcement to civilians". "To sum up the conditions where (the Insurrection Act) may be used, it's for when all hell breaks loose," said Mr Banks, co-author of the book: Soldiers on the Home Front: The Domestic Role of the American Military. "When state and local officials are unable to control civil affairs without federal involvement, the federal government may intervene," he said. "It's normally been requested by the state officials, and the president simply agrees and decides to send a federal force," he said. Mr Newsom has said repeatedly that there was no need for the deployment of the National Guard and marines and that the Los Angeles Police Department was fully capable of handling the unrest.
Irish Examiner
2 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Irish Examiner view: What kind of future are we building?
It has long been a cliché to seize upon a particular headline or story as illustrating the seriousness of a society's challenges, the personification of its problems. However, this week offered us a true indictment of our country. The Child Poverty Monitor report for 2025 was launched yesterday by the Children's Rights Alliance, and shows that the consistent poverty rate among children is higher than in any other age group. It also found that the rate also rose significantly last year. The term 'significantly' is appropriate. CEO Tanya Ward said: 'What is deeply concerning is the number of children in consistent poverty, who are living in these conditions perpetually, which rose by a staggering 45,107 in 2024 to 102,977. 'These are children for whom a decent standard of living and aspirations of a better future diminish day by day.' Notwithstanding the untruths promoted by the far right and other bad actors, Ireland is a wealthy country with huge resources. 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Facilitating property investment by overseas operators is not a move likely to win favour with many people struggling to find homes, but all options must be considered in a crisis of this scale. That is no exaggeration when over 100,000 children are in poverty, and when the prospect of intergenerational poverty is very real for many of them. Trump's vain display of power Senator Tom Clonan made a telling comparison online yesterday when considering the situation in Los Angeles, where US president Donald Trump has mobilised thousands of National Guard troops. They have been sent to the city in response to the reaction of locals to a series of crackdowns on and arrests in immigrant communities, which included the arrest of a union leader acting as an observer. The National Guard presence has now been augmented by the mobilisation of hundreds of US Marines, a rare instance of US army personnel being deployed on home soil. Nothing says loss of civil control and order quite like sending in the army, no matter the location. As Mr Clonan noted on social media, in a nod to our own recent history, it is 'never a good idea to deploy marines/paratroopers into civilian environment — we learned at considerable cost in Ireland that 'police primacy' is only solution to public disorder'. Whether Trump is genuinely interested in quelling public disorder or has another agenda altogether is another matter entirely. The governor of California is Gavin Newsom, one of the (increasingly numerous) potential Democratic Party candidates who may run for president in 2028. Is Trump trying to blacken Newsom's reputation ahead of that campaign or does he have even baser reasons? We have seen over the decades that military adventures are a tried-and-trusted ploy of US presidents seeking to distract voters from other issues — though such adventures tend to occur abroad rather than at home. Trump has had a well-publicised spat in recent days with X owner Elon Musk —his billionaire backer and one-time sidekick — with the two exchanging various insults online. Sending armed troops to the second-largest city in the US is the kind of expression of raw power that might be expected of someone fond of expressions of raw power. That may be Trump's motivation, but for many others it looks like another marker of US decline — with the end of that decline not yet in sight. Fact or fiction The death of novelist Frederick Forsyth was announced this week. He was 86. A successful journalist in the 60s, he was broke when he hit upon an idea for a thriller, writing The Day of the Jackal in 35 days. The book became a runaway success and Forsyth went on to write a series of thrillers including The Odessa File and The Dogs of War — they sold in their millions and many were also made into successful films. He spent several years living in Wicklow during the 70s, availing of the Irish tax exemption for artists and writers which had been introduced by Charles Haughey. He would later claim that when he told Haughey of his desire to leave Ireland and return to Britain, he was offered a seat in the Seanad — though it might be as well to file that yarn with his claim to have spied for M16 while working as a journalist. In later years, he advocated for Brexit and doubted climate change, but was always honest about his motives. 'I am slightly mercenary,' he said once. 'I write for money.' Read More Irish Examiner view: We need to eradicate TB for good
Irish Examiner
9 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
US marines deployed to LA have not yet responded to immigration protests
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Mr Trump doubled the number of Guard troops being deployed soon after the first wave of 2,000 began arriving on Sunday following days of protests driven by anger over the President's enforcement of immigration laws that critics say are breaking apart migrant families. The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward… — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 9, 2025 The demonstrations continued on Monday but were far less raucous, with thousands of people peacefully attending a rally at City Hall and hundreds more protesting outside a federal complex that includes a detention centre where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids across the city. The protests in Los Angeles, a city of four million people, have largely been centred in several blocks of downtown and a few other spots. At daybreak on Tuesday, guard troops were stationed outside the detention centre, but there was no sign of US marines. Obscene slogans were directed at Mr Trump and federal law enforcement remained scrawled across several buildings. The US marines have been deployed (AP) At the Walt Disney Concert Hall, workers were busy washing away graffiti on Tuesday morning. In nearby Santa Ana, armoured vehicles blocked a road leading to federal immigration and government offices. Workers swept up plastic bottles and broken glass near buildings sprayed with graffiti. Mr Trump has described Los Angeles in dire terms that Mayor Karen Bass and Mr Newsom say are nowhere close to the truth. They say he is putting public safety at risk by adding military personnel even though police say they do not need the help. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said in a statement that he was confident in the police department's ability to handle large-scale demonstrations and that the Marines' arrival without coordinating with the police department would present a 'significant logistical and operational challenge'. Senior politicians reacted with dismay to Mr Trump's move (AP) Mr Newsom called the deployments reckless and 'disrespectful to our troops' in a post on the social platform X. 'This isn't about public safety,' the governor said. 'It's about stroking a dangerous President's ego.' The protests began on Friday after federal immigration authorities arrested more than 40 people across Los Angeles and continued over the weekend as crowds blocked a major road and set self-driving cars on fire. Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades. Demonstrations spread on Monday to other cities nationwide, including San Francisco and Santa Ana, California, as well as Dallas and Austin, Texas. Authorities in Austin appeared to use chemical irritants to disperse a crowd that gathered near the state Capitol. The Trump Administration's escalation and provocation in California inflames tensions and incites violence. Now, the President of the United States said he would arrest a sitting American governor just for disagreeing with these actions. This is a hallmark of authoritarianism… — Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) June 9, 2025 Texas governor Greg Abbott posted on social media that more than a dozen protesters were arrested. The Pentagon said deploying the National Guard and Marines costs 134 million dollars (£98.8 million). That figure emerged just after US defence secretary Pete Hegseth engaged in a into a testy back-and-forth about the costs during a congressional hearing. Mr Hegseth said the department has a budget increase and the money to cover the costs, and he defended Mr Trump's decision to send the troops, saying they are needed to protect federal agents doing their jobs. Meanwhile, Democratic members of California's congressional delegation on Tuesday accused the President of creating a 'manufactured crisis' with his orders to send in troops. Mr Trump came under sustained criticism (AP) Nancy Pelosi contrasted Trump's actions with his handling of the January 6 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol when law enforcement officers were beaten. 'We begged the president of the United States to send in the National Guard. He would not do it,' Ms Pelosi said. California's attorney general Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit over the use of National Guard troops following the first deployment, telling reporters that Mr Trump had 'trampled' the state's sovereignty. He sought a court order declaring Mr Trump's use of the Guard unlawful and asking for a restraining order to halt the deployment. The President said the city would have been 'completely obliterated' if he had not deployed the Guard. US officials said the marines were needed to protect federal buildings and personnel, including immigration agents. A convoy of buses with blacked-out windows and escorted by sheriff's vehicles arrived overnight at a Navy facility just south of LA. Despite their presence, there has been limited engagement so far between the Guard and protesters while local law enforcement implements crowd control.
