Trump Called Threat to Journalistic Freedom After Foreign Press Hit by ‘Non-Lethal’ Rounds

Protests Were Largely Peaceful Before Being Inflamed by Trump

Trump said he was sending 2000 troops from the National Guard, but there are reportedly about 300 on the ground. Trump also put 500 Marines been put on “prepare to deploy” orders before the protests escalated as a result of Trump sending in the National Guard.

Lest anyone buy the Trump administration’s propaganda about the protests in Los Angeles, the local police had the protests under control. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said that the protests were largely peaceful, and that they could handle the clashes that did turn violent. 

There was no reason to bring in the National Guard, and in fact both Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass explicitly said they did not want the National Guard to come in and did not need them. 

The entire world can see that Trump sent in the National Guard to inflame the protests against their inhumane ICE raids, and they also know that he not only did not call in the National Guard during the insurrection he was impeached for inciting on January 6th when his supporters violently stormed the Capitol and attacked police officers in their efforts to “hang” Mike Pence and more.

Therefore, Trump’s claims that he called in the National Guard because the protests were unlawful don’t hold up.

Most critically as he and his administration dehumanize immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists,” Trump is a convicted felon who pardoned violent January 6th insurrectionists who abused and assaulted law enforcement and he was found liable for sexual assault. 

Violence is not right as a form of protest and it does not work. But the violence we are witnessing in Los Angeles is a result of militant policing and performatively cruel ICE raids. 

Trump escalated what was a largely peaceful protest against unnecessarily violent and traumatizing immigration raids in LA by masked and unidentified ICE agents and then U.S. law enforcement shot ‘non-lethal’ bullets at British and Australian members of the press, thereby awakening the world to the tactics being used against the media and citizens here in the U.S. 

Shooting at the international press is the sort of thuggish self-own we can expect from our militarized law enforcement, which is one of many reasons why free countries do not use the military to enforce the law in their own borders.