Latest news with #PosseComitatus
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump meant for National Guard deployment to act as a deterrent, White House says
President Trump's tense, late-night phone call with Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday night came with a warning: 'Get the police in gear.' The president was being shown evidence by his staff of theft at a 7-Eleven and of federal law enforcement with lacerations. His patience would last less than 24 hours before federalizing the National Guard in a historic action. 'He told the governor to get it under control and watched again for another full day, 24 hours, where it got worse,' Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told The Times in an interview. 'The assaults against federal law enforcement upticked, the violence grew, and the president took bold action on Saturday evening to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal personnel.' The president did so, Leavitt said, 'with the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard would hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.' Read more: President Trump suggests Gov. Newsom should be arrested; Newsom decries 'step toward authoritarianism' The opposite occurred. The worst violence yet took place on Sunday, with some rioters torching and hurling concrete at police cars, hours after National Guard troops had arrived in Los Angeles County. The protests had been largely peaceful throughout Friday and Saturday, with isolated instances of violent activity. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, have 'handicapped' the Los Angeles Police Department, "who are trying to do their jobs." Local leaders 'have refused to allow the local police department to work alongside the feds to enforce our nation's immigration laws, and to detain and arrest violent criminals who are on the streets of Los Angeles,' she said. The president and his so-called immigration czar, Tom Homan, have suggested that political leadership — including Newsom himself — could face arrest over 'obstructive' behavior. "It is a basic principle in this country that if you break the law, you will face a consequence for that," Leavitt said. "So if the governor obstructs federal enforcement, or breaks federal laws, then he is subjecting himself to arrest." Leavitt said she would not get ahead of Trump on whether he will invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that allows the president to suspend Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the military from engaging in local law enforcement. Read more: Downtown L.A. hit by widespread vandalism, damage as city struggles to calm unrest But she took note that, on Monday, the president referred to some of the rioters as insurrectionists, potentially laying the groundwork for an invocation of the law. 'The president is wisely keeping all options on the table, and will do what is necessary to restore law and order in California,' she said, 'and protect law-abiding American citizens. And federal immigration enforcement operations will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been completely overrun by illegal alien criminals that pose a public safety risk and need to be removed from the city.' The president's order, directing 2,000 National Guard troops to protect federal buildings in the city, allows for a 60-day deployment. Leavitt would not say how long the operation might last, but suggested it would continue until violence at the protests ends. 'I don't want to get ahead of the president on any decisions or timelines,' she said. 'I can tell you the White House is 100% focused on this. The president wants to solve the problem. And that means creating an environment where citizens, if they wish, are given the space and the right to peacefully protest.' 'And these violent disruptors and insurrectionists, as the president has called them, are not only doing a disservice to law-abiding citizens, but to those who wish to peacefully protest. That's a fundamental right this administration will always support and protect.' Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Trump meant for National Guard deployment to act as a deterrent, White House says
WASHINGTON — President Trump's tense, late-night phone call with Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday night came with a warning: 'Get the police in gear.' The president was being shown evidence by his staff of looting at a 7-Eleven and of federal law enforcement with lacerations. His patience would last less than 24 hours before federalizing the National Guard in a historic action. 'He told the governor to get it under control and watched again for another full day, 24 hours, where it got worse,' Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told The Times in an interview. 'The assaults against federal law enforcement upticked, the violence grew, and the president took bold action on Saturday evening to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal personnel.' The president did so, Leavitt said, 'with the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard would hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.' The opposite occurred. The worst violence yet took place on Sunday, with some rioters torching and hurling concrete at police cars, hours after National Guardsmen had arrived in Los Angeles County. The protests had been largely peaceful throughout Friday and Saturday, with isolated instances of violent activity. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, have 'handicapped' the Los Angeles Police Department 'who are trying to do their jobs.' Local leaders 'have refused to allow the local police department to work alongside the feds to enforce our nation's immigration laws, and to detain and arrest violent criminals who are on the streets of Los Angeles,' she said. The president and his immigration czar, Tom Homan, have suggested that political leadership — including Newsom himself — could face arrest over 'obstructive' behavior. 'It is a basic principle in this country that if you break the law, you will face a consequence for that,' Leavitt said. 'So if the governor obstructs federal enforcement, or breaks federal laws, then he is subjecting himself to arrest.' Leavitt said she would not get ahead of Trump on whether he will invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that allows the president to suspend Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the military from engaging in local law enforcement. But she took note that, on Monday, the president referred to some of the rioters as insurrectionists, potentially laying the groundwork for an invocation of the law. 'The president is wisely keeping all options on the table, and will do what is necessary to restore law and order in California,' she said, 'and protect law-abiding American citizens. And federal immigration enforcement operations will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been completely overrun by illegal alien criminals that pose a public safety risk and need to be removed from the city.' The president's order, directing 2,000 National Guardsmen to protect federal buildings in the city, allows for a 60-day deployment. Leavitt would not say how long the operation might last, but suggested it would continue until violence at the protests ends. 'I don't want to get ahead of the president on any decisions or timelines,' she said. 'I can tell you the White House is 100% focused on this. The president wants to solve the problem. And that means creating an environment where citizens, if they wish, are given the space and the right to peacefully protest.' 'And these violent disruptors and insurrectionists, as the president has called them, are not only doing a disservice to law-abiding citizens, but to those who wish to peacefully protest. That's a fundamental right this administration will always support and protect.'
New York Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
LA cops finally tackle in anti-ICE rioters — as first Trump-ordered National Guard troops arrive
Cops in Los Angeles have finally intervened in response to escalating anti-ICE riots in the city after being ordered to stand by as protesters pelted federal immigration agents with rocks and tried to block them from carrying out raids to arrest illegal migrants on Saturday. The LAPD and Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies fought running battles with protesters who mobbed downtown LA and the suburb of Paramount, California — ordering the protesters to disperse. Sanctuary laws prevent local cops in LA from assisting the feds with immigration enforcement. But last night, the LAPD declared a downtown protest illegal and pushed to break up the crowd. Meanwhile, the first of 2,000 California National Guard troops called up by President Trump arrived in the city to help restore and maintain order. 7 An anti-ICE protester waves a Mexican flag during violence in Los Angeles on Saturday. REUTERS Outside the city, two people were arrested for assault on a peace officers, one for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail that hit three deputies, LA Sheriff's Department officials confirmed to CBS News Los Angeles late Saturday. LA Mayor Karen Bass has been blamed for helping to foment the riots against ICE. Following raids on Friday, she responded by claiming that the federal agents used tactics that, 'sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city.' 7 Local police have finally been deployed in response to the LA riots. AFP via Getty Images 7 The riots were triggered by ICE raids on Friday. REUTERS Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell issued a statement Friday saying, 'I want to make it clear: the LAPD is not involved in civil immigration enforcement.' As a result, Trump mobilized the California National Guard and called for a ban on masks at protests. Secretary of Defense Hegseth also said active duty Marines could be called up. He argued that using US troops for law enforcement would not be a violation of the longstanding Posse Comitatus act because the immigrants being targeted by ICE are foreign invaders. 'The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil; a dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK,' Hegseth wrote in a post on X. 'Under President Trump, violence & destruction against federal agents and federal facilities will NOT be tolerated. It's COMMON SENSE. The Department of Defense is mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY to support federal law enforcement in Los Angeles. And, if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized — they are on high alert,' he added. More than 100 migrants have been arrested by ICE since the raids began on Friday. On Saturday, President Trump announced that the National Guard was being deployed to Los Angeles in response to the large-scale protests that broke out following dozens of arrests on Friday in citywide ICE operations. 7 Stores have been looted in the carnage. AFP via Getty Images 'If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can't do their jobs, which everyone knows they can't, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!' President Trump posted on his Truth Social platform yesterday evening. At least 2,000 National Guard troops are to be deployed under the president's Title 10 authority 'for 60 days or at the discretion of the Secretary of Defense,' President Trump's memo stated. 7 Border Patrol officers deployed tear gas on the crowds. AP 7 Fires raged in downtown LA and in Paramount. AP 7 The violence continued late on Saturday. Getty Images Trump signed the order shortly before he attended a UFC fight in New Jersey, where he sat ringside with boxer Mike Tyson. Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke out in the wake of the order, ahead of a reported 40-minute conversation with President Trump. Newsom wrote that the 'federal government is moving to take over the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 soldiers. That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions. LA authorities are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment's notice,' in a statement posted on X on Saturday. 'We are in close coordination with the city and county, and there is currently no unmet need. The Guard has been admirably serving LA throughout recovery. This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust,' he said.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Rachel Maddow Calls Trump's 170-Mile U.S. Border-Mexico Military Base a ‘Big Red Flag' of ‘Authoritarian Takeover'
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow called out President Donald Trump's administration for quietly turning 170 miles of the United States border into a military base, which is the latest move in Trump's efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, saying his effort is huge warning sign of authoritarian rule. The journalist jumped right into her take on Trump's second 100 days in office on Monday night's episode of 'The Rachel Maddow Show' by outlining the details of Trump's military zone, which she said has yet to become a 'major issue' but soon will be. 'I want to put a little focus on things that have not yet emerged as major issues, but heads up, they're coming,' Maddow prefaced, sharing that this month Trump signed off on what's being called a National Security Presidential Memorandum, a message declaring that three neighboring states — New Mexico, Arizona and California — are now part of a military base. 'In this memo, Trump ordered the Pentagon, the Defense Department, to start taking control of this land. So now the U.S. military has taken control of 170 miles of land, starting in New Mexico, along new New Mexico's southern border,' Maddow explained. 'And they have declared that that land is now part of Fort Huachuca, which is a U.S. army base that's not even in New Mexico. It's in Arizona. Why would you take 170 miles of land in three different states and say all that land is now part of an army base somewhere very far away? It's because he wants active duty service members to start arresting people on U.S. soil.' She went to explain that as of last week, the military now has the power to 'arrest anyone who steps foot on that 170-mile-long strip of land.' Per a note from the U.S. Northern Command, soldiers can 'temporarily detain trespassers,' 'conduct cursory searchers of trespassers' and 'conduct crowd control measures.' That's when she shared that she believes the orders are some of the early signs of Trump's attempts to turn the U.S. into an authoritarian-operated nation. 'We may not think of this as something that matters for broader U.S. politics, or indeed the health of our political system,' Maddow said. 'But if you're looking for big red flags in terms of authoritarian takeover in a democratic rule of law country, when you've got U.S. troops searching and arresting people and doing 'crowd control' on U.S. soil, you're kind of there.' Maddow goes on to explain that while the Posse Comitatus, a 19th century law that blocks the military from participating in everyday civil law enforcement, Trump has appeared to have found a loophole, as he has designated three states as a military zone. 'Under American law, the Posse Comitatus Act is supposed to prevent the U.S. government from using U.S. soldiers on U.S. soil,' Maddow said. 'Theoretically, if somebody wonders onto a military base they can be arrested as trespassers on military property. So the idea here, I think, the neat trick that Trump has pulled here is that he's just turned hundreds of miles of American soil into what is technically a military base. So hey, presto, that's one unique trick to give the U.S. the power to search and arrest people on U.S. soil. And right now, they are only doing it at the edges, the physical edges of our country. But that is how you start.' You can watch the full 'Rachel Maddow Show' clip in the video above. The post Rachel Maddow Calls Trump's 170-Mile U.S. Border-Mexico Military Base a 'Big Red Flag' of 'Authoritarian Takeover' | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
New York Times
24-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Leonard Zeskind, Who Foresaw the Rise of White Nationalism, Dies at 75
Leonard Zeskind, a dogged tracker of right-wing hate groups, who foresaw before almost anyone else that anti-immigrant ideologies would move to the mainstream of American politics, died on April 15 at his home in Kansas City, Mo. He was 75. The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, Carol Smith, his wife, said. Long before Donald J. Trump's nativist rhetoric in 2023 accusing immigrants of 'poisoning the blood' of the United States, Mr. Zeskind, a single-minded researcher, spent decades studying white nationalism, documenting how its leading voices had shifted their vitriol from Black Americans to nonwhite immigrants. His 2009 book, 'Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement From the Margins to the Mainstream,' resulted from years of following contemporary Klansmen, neo-Nazis, militia members and other right-wing groups. His investigations earned him a MacArthur 'genius grant' in 1998. 'For a nice Jewish boy, I've gone to more Klan rallies, neo-Nazi events and Posse Comitatus things than anybody should ever have to,' Mr. Zeskind said in 2018. Recently, 'Blood and Politics' was one of 381 books removed from the U.S. Naval Academy library in a purge of titles about racism and diversity ordered by the Trump administration. One of Mr. Zeskind's central themes was that before the 1960s, white supremacists fought to maintain the status quo of segregation, especially in the South. But after the era of civil rights victories, he maintained, white nationalists began to see themselves as an oppressed group, victims who needed to mount an insurgency against the establishment. Their principal adversaries were immigrants from the developing world who were tilting the demographics of the United States away from earlier waves of Northern Europeans. Despite the subtitle of Mr. Zeskind's book, asserting that white nationalists had moved 'from the margins to the mainstream,' many reviewers in 2009 were skeptical, treating his work as a backward look at a fringe movement led by racist crackpots whose day was over. The United States had just elected its first Black president, and extremist movements such as Christian Identity, which preached that white Christians were entitled to dominate government and society, seemed antiquated. The Los Angeles Times waved away those hate groups as questing after 'an impossible future.' NPR noted that 'while a handful of bigots' were still grumbling about the South's defeat in the Civil War and spreading conspiracies about Jews, 'some 70 million others have, in a testament to the overwhelming tolerance of contemporary American society, gone ahead and elected Barack Obama president.' Mr. Zeskind insisted that white nationalists should not be underestimated, and he was especially concerned about their influence on Republican politics. He identified those influences in the candidacies of David Duke, a former Klan leader who won a majority of white voters when he ran for statewide office in Louisiana in 1990, and in Pat Buchanan, who fared well in presidential primaries in the 1990s, running on a platform of reducing immigration, opposing multiculturalism and stoking the culture wars. Mr. Buchanan's issues offered a template for Mr. Trump, who leveraged similar ideas to wrest control of the Republican Party from centrists. Mr. Zeskind spoke about Mr. Trump in a 2018 town hall speech in Washington on the one-year anniversary of the march in Charlottesville, Va., by young white supremacists, whose zealotry the president had minimized. Mr. Zeskind said that Mr. Trump hadn't created an upsurge in hatred of nonwhite people — he was a product of it. 'White supremacy and white privilege have been dominant elements of our society from the beginning,' he said. 'It breeds a whole set of behaviors in people, and it should be deeply and widely discussed in every level of our society.' Leonard Harold Zeskind was born on Nov. 14, 1949, in Baltimore, one of three sons of Stanley and Shirley (Berman) Zeskind. His parents, who ran a pension management business, moved the family to Miami when Leonard was 10. He graduated from Miami Senior High School, and then studied philosophy at the University of Florida and the University of Kansas, though he did not graduate. Ms. Smith, his wife, said he was expelled from college in Kansas after taking part in a 1960s campus protest of the Reserve Officers Training Corps. Mr. Zeskind earned a welding certificate from the Manual Career and Technical Center in Kansas City, and for 13 years worked as a welder and ironworker and on assembly lines. He was also a community organizer on Kansas City's East Side, seeking to lower tensions between white working-class families and their Black neighbors. He met Ms. Smith in 1979. She had grown up on a dairy farm in Kansas, and through her he became aware that during the farm crisis of the 1980s, a conspiracy movement known as Posse Comitatus had spread among economically ravaged farmers, who were convinced that they had been targeted by Jewish bankers and others because they were white Christians. Mr. Zeskind was invited to speak about Posse Comitatus to a group of progressive farmers in Des Moines, and he mobilized Jewish groups nationally to counter the conspiracy movement. From 1985 to 1994, he was the research director at the Center for Democratic Renewal (previously the National Anti-Klan Network). In 1983, he founded the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a study and watchdog group focused on hate groups. Besides Ms. Smith, he is survived by a brother, Philip. His first marriage, to Elaine Cantrell, ended in divorce. At the 2018 town hall meeting in Washington, Mr. Zeskind called on Democrats in Congress to vehemently oppose a little-noticed bill sponsored by Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, to end birthright citizenship, the post-Civil War guarantee that anyone born in the United States is a citizen. The cause had become a focus of anti-immigrant groups warning of threats to the 'white race.' 'They want to smash up the 14th Amendment,' Mr. Zeskind said, addressing Democratic officials, 'and I think you guys should scream about it.' The following year, in an article in The New York Times about how Mr. King, a backbencher in his party, had anticipated many of Mr. Trump's anti-immigrant stances, the congressman said in an interview, 'White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?' Republican leaders in the House stripped Mr. King of his committee assignments over the remark, and he lost re-election in 2020. But the issue did not die. One of President Trump's first moves in January was an executive order to end birthright citizenship. Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments over Mr. Trump's order.
