California officials and the Trump administration locked horns over protests targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Los Angeles.
California Governor Gavin Newsom lambasted both President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the federal decision to activate military support in the area.
The controversy ignited on Sunday following a post by Hegseth on the X platform.
The Defense Secretary had reposted a message from President Trump’s Truth Social feed that praised the National Guard’s role in Los Angeles after “two days of violence, clashes and unrest.”
“Smart guys running the operation. The National Guard wasn’t even deployed on the ground when Trump posted this. Pete Hegseth runs the Pentagon as well as he throws an axe on a Fox News set,” Newsom wrote, referencing an infamous 2015 incident involving Hegseth accidentally injuring a bystander during a televised stunt.
Smart guys running the operation.
The National Guard wasn’t even deployed on the ground when Trump posted this.
Pete Hegseth runs the Pentagon as well as he throws an axe on a Fox News set. https://t.co/KospLn0vkw
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 8, 2025
Trump dispatched 2,000 members of the National Guard to Southern California on Saturday to combat increasingly aggressive protests aimed at ICE and the federal agents carrying out deportation operations.
“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!!!” the president posted to Truth Social.
According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the action was prompted by “violent mobs” assaulting federal officers engaged in basic enforcement duties.
The administration viewed the breakdown in order as an unacceptable failure by local leadership.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass disputed the need for federal troops, calling the decision “completely unnecessary.”
In a Saturday night interview, she argued that the local police department was capable of managing the demonstrations.
“My conversations with the administration today have been to assure them that if there are protests that break out and if there is violence associated with those protests, that the Los Angeles Police Department is well equipped to handle that,” Bass said.
“Two thousand officers, 2,000 in our city will not be a positive thing and will not be helpful.”
Despite the criticism, National Guard personnel began arriving in the Los Angeles area by Sunday morning.
#USNORTHCOM can confirm that elements of the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team from the California National Guard have begun deploying to the Los Angeles area, with some already on the ground. Additional information will be provided as units are identified and deployed. pic.twitter.com/BxqZM2YG1G
— U.S. Northern Command (@USNorthernCmd) June 8, 2025
A statement issued on X by the U.S. Northern Command confirmed that some troops were already on the ground.
Newsom used social media again Sunday to offer a critical take on the federal action, stating that Washington was “taking over the California National Guard” because they were “looking for a spectacle.”
“Don’t give them one. Never use violence. Speak out peacefully,” Newsom posted.
In a separate message, the governor cautioned demonstrators to remain nonviolent, arguing that the president was “hoping for chaos so he can justify more crackdowns, more fear, more control.”
Newsom also blasted Defense Secretary Hegseth’s reported consideration of deploying active-duty Marines to the region, labeling it as “deranged behavior.”
Hegseth sniped back that the military was only involved because Newsom and his cronies allowed the riots to get out of control.
“Deranged = allowing your city to burn & law enforcement to be attacked,” he posted.
Deranged = allowing your city to burn & law enforcement to be attacked.
There is plenty of room for peaceful protest, but ZERO tolerance for attacking federal agents who are doing their job.
The National Guard, and Marines if need be, stand with ICE. https://t.co/KVjvvnaL70
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) June 8, 2025
“There is plenty of room for peaceful protest, but ZERO tolerance for attacking federal agents who are doing their job. The National Guard, and Marines if need be, stand with ICE.”
Leavitt, defending the administration’s stance, pointed to the border crisis and escalating violence in major cities as justification for Trump’s directive.
“These operations are essential to halting and reversing the invasion of illegal criminals into the United States. In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens,” Leavitt stated.
“That is why President Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester.”
Meanwhile, Newsom’s press team did not hold back, drawing comparisons between the current federal response and the events of January 6, 2021.
In posts targeting the Department of Homeland Security’s labeling of demonstrators as “violent rioters,” Newsom’s office evoked the Capitol riots as a counterexample.
Among the voices opposing Trump’s intervention was Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who called the president’s move “hypocritical at best.”
He also connected the administration’s reaction in Los Angeles to the controversial handling of the Capitol riot more than four years ago.
“Since years before I was born, law enforcement knows it’s good when there’s cooperation and coordination,” Booker said.
“For the president to do this when it wasn’t requested, breaking with generations of tradition, is only going to incite the situation and make things worse.”
“We are now at a point where we have a president who sat back and did nothing as people stormed our Capitol, viciously beat police,” he stated.
“And then when those people who viciously beat police and led to some of their deaths, therefore, cop killers, were convicted by juries, he then pardoned them all.”
Vermont’s Independent Senator Bernie Sanders also took issue with the deployment, asserting that Trump acts as if legal limitations do not apply to him.
“He does not believe in the Constitution; he does not believe in the rule of law,” Sanders remarked on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“My understanding is that the governor of California, the mayor of the city of Los Angeles, did not request the National Guard, but he thinks he has a right to do anything he wants,” Sanders continued.
On the other hand, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin suggested that the National Guard presence should be sufficient to restore calm and that the additional deployment of Marines would likely not be needed.
“It won’t be necessary. Bring in the, you know, the National Guard, that’s what happened here in Wisconsin, and it worked. I’m quite sure it’ll work in California,” Johnson told CNN’s Dana Bash.
Tom Homan, a former ICE director and current federal immigration policy adviser, issued a stern warning to California leaders.
He suggested that if anyone “crosses the line” to obstruct enforcement actions, there could be legal consequences.
“The rhetoric is so high against ICE officers in this city that it’s a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt,” Homan said in an interview with NBC News’s Jacob Soboroff.
“We’ve got help coming, and we’re going to do our job, and we’re going to continue doing that job.”
Soboroff asked whether Homan’s previous comments about prosecuting those who interfered with ICE activities applied to Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass. Homan replied, “I would say that about anybody.”
“It’s a felony to knowingly conceal and harbor an illegal alien,” Homan stated. “It’s a felony to impede law enforcement from doing their job.”
Although he said he didn’t believe Bass had violated the law yet, he added that “we will ask DOJ to prosecute” if circumstances warrant it.
“What we’re saying is we’re not going to tolerate people attacking our officers,” Homan said.
