6 hours ago
Markey: Trump using National Guard in LA to distract from big cuts in ‘Big Beautiful Bill'
President Donald Trump's historic decision to federalize California National Guard personnel to confront protesters in Los Angeles is little more than a stunt to distract public attention away from his deficit-busting domestic spending mega-bill and to 'create a chill' in the nation's immigrant communities, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey said Monday.
'Why are they doing it? They're trying to make families afraid,' Markey, D-Mass., told an audience of business and community leaders in Boston.
'They're trying to create a chill in all of these immigrant communities. That's what it's all about. And when Trump deploys the National Guard or federalizes it to go into [Los Angeles] in a situation that the police already had under control, it's for a very simple reason.'
'He's trying to distract America from what he's really trying to do. And that just becomes the circus.' Markey told the meeting convened by The New England Council at the Boston Harbor Hotel. 'There was never a threat ... they had it under control. The governor didn't ask for any additional help. No president for 60 years has sent in federal troops without a governor requesting it.'
Golden State Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, told MSNBC that he intended to sue the Republican White House over the deployment, describing it as "an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act.'
Trump has cited a legal provision that allows him to mobilize federal service members when there is 'a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.'
Roughly 300 National Guard members arrived in the city over the weekend, and Trump said he had authorized 2,000 members to deploy if needed, according to The Associated Press.
The move comes as Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to eye changes to Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill,' which would cut hundreds of billions of dollars from social safety net programs to underwrite tax cuts — mostly for the richest Americans.
Read More: A 'historic battle': Mass pols protest Medicaid cuts in 'Big Beautiful Bill' | John L. Micek
The bill has broad implications for Massachusetts, Markey said.
Markey told the crowd that he's trying to work with Republicans, most of whom represent heavily rural states, to avert cuts to Medicaid, which would hurt rural hospitals.
In Massachusetts, the state's MassHealth program, as Medicaid is known here, also would be impacted. Republican cuts would cost the state's health care system $1.75 billion, affecting 250,000 people statewide, according to the Healey administration.
The state's major research hospitals also depend on Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements as the bedrock to do other work, such as finding cures for diseases, he added.
'If you take that away from Mass General and Beth Israel, the Medicaid and Medicare funding, which they were expect to have there as a foundation, then it creates, basically, a seismic-like threat,' Markey said.
Markey also sounded the alarm Monday about language in the bill that would phase out energy tax credits in a version of the bill approved by the U.S. House. If that language is allowed to stand, it would hurt Massachusetts' offshore wind sector, Markey said.
'And if you kill the tax breaks for solar, for offshore wind as well, you have further made our region dependent on energy sources from other regions of the country, when we had a capacity to find our own pathway for the next generation,' he said.
Senate Republicans are looking to get a finished bill onto Trump's desk by the July 4 holiday, and can only afford a handful of defections under the 'reconciliation' they are using to pass the legislation.
'And at a time when our nation's politics and our very identity are at a crossroads, it's more important than ever that Democrats and Republicans come together for a business plan for our entire nation,' he said.
Associated Press reports are included in this story.
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