Trump defends National Guard deployment as protests spread to other cities

Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is de­fend­ing his de­ci­sion to send an­oth­er 2,000 Na­tion­al Guard troops along with 700 Marines to Los An­ge­les, es­ca­lat­ing a mil­i­tary pres­ence lo­cal of­fi­cials and Gov. Gavin New­som don’t want and the po­lice chief says cre­ates lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges for safe­ly han­dling protests.

Ad­di­tion­al protests against im­mi­gra­tion raids are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue in oth­er cities Tues­day. —(AP)

What to know:

Pen­ta­gon re­veals cost: Af­ter per­sis­tent ques­tion­ing from mem­bers of Con­gress on Tues­day, De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth turned to his act­ing comp­trol­ler, Bryn Wool­la­cott Mac­Don­nell, who said it would cost $134 mil­lion to send the Na­tion­al Guard and Marines to Los An­ge­les. She said the mon­ey will come from op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance ac­counts.

Cal­i­for­nia push­es back: Cal­i­for­nia At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Rob Bon­ta filed a law­suit Mon­day over the use of Na­tion­al Guard troops fol­low­ing the first de­ploy­ment, telling re­porters that Trump had “tram­pled” the state’s sov­er­eign­ty.

Mon­day’s protests: Com­pared to Sun­day’s demon­stra­tions, Mon­day’s were far less rau­cous, with thou­sands peace­ful­ly at­tend­ing a ral­ly at City Hall and hun­dreds protest­ing out­side a fed­er­al com­plex that in­cludes a de­ten­tion cen­ter where some im­mi­grants are be­ing held fol­low­ing work­place raids across the city.

Here are the lat­est de­vel­op­ments…

Trump sug­gests he’s open to in­vok­ing In­sur­rec­tion Act to quell protest in LA

By AAMER MAD­HANI

The pres­i­dent dur­ing his Oval Of­fice en­gage­ment with re­porters left open the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­vok­ing one the most ex­treme emer­gency pow­ers avail­able to a U.S. pres­i­dent.

“If there’s an in­sur­rec­tion, I would cer­tain­ly in­voke it. We’ll see,” Trump said. “But I can tell you last night was ter­ri­ble, and the night be­fore that was ter­ri­ble.”

The In­sur­rec­tion Act au­tho­rizes the pres­i­dent to de­ploy mil­i­tary forces in­side the Unit­ed States to sup­press re­bel­lion or do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or to en­force the law in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions.

It is of­ten re­ferred to as the “In­sur­rec­tion Act of 1807,” but the law is ac­tu­al­ly an amal­ga­ma­tion of dif­fer­ent statutes en­act­ed by Con­gress be­tween 1792 and 1871.

Cal­i­for­nia Re­pub­li­can Con­gress­man de­nounces ‘vi­o­lence and van­dal­ism’ while ex­press­ing con­cern about ICE raids

By MATT BROWN

Rep. David Val­adao, a mod­er­ate Re­pub­li­can who rep­re­sents much of the state’s San Joaquin Val­ley, urged for peace­ful protest and said he was al­so con­cerned over how the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion is con­duct­ing ICE raids in the Gold­en state.

“I sup­port the First Amend­ment right to peace­ful­ly protest, but the vi­o­lence and van­dal­ism hap­pen­ing in Los An­ge­les is un­ac­cept­able and I stand with our law en­force­ment of­fi­cers work­ing to pro­tect peo­ple and re­gain con­trol over the sit­u­a­tion,” Val­adao wrote on so­cial me­dia.

“I re­main con­cerned about on­go­ing ICE op­er­a­tions through­out CA and will con­tin­ue my con­ver­sa­tions with the ad­min­is­tra­tion—urg­ing them to pri­or­i­tize the re­moval of known crim­i­nals over the hard­work­ing peo­ple who have lived peace­ful­ly in the Val­ley for years,” he added.

Peace­ful protests out­side Seat­tle’s im­mi­gra­tion court

By MARTHA BEL­LISLE

About 50 peo­ple gath­ered out­side the im­mi­gra­tion court in down­town Seat­tle on Tues­day, chant­i­ng with drums and hold­ing up signs that said “Free Them All Abol­ish ICE” and “No to De­por­ta­tions.”

Le­gal ad­vo­cates who nor­mal­ly at­tend the im­mi­gra­tion court hear­ings as ob­servers and to pro­vide sup­port to im­mi­grants were not al­lowed in­side the build­ing. Se­cu­ri­ty guards al­so turned away the me­dia.

The hear­ings are nor­mal­ly open to the pub­lic. Or­ga­niz­ers said they were there sol­i­dar­i­ty with pro­test­ers in Los An­ge­les.

The protest was peace­ful and there were no law-en­force­ment of­fi­cers in the area in the morn­ing.

Protests over fed­er­al im­mi­gra­tion raids have sprung up in cities across the US

By JIM VER­TUNO

Al­though most have been peace­ful with marchers chant­i­ng and car­ry­ing signs, some have re­sult­ed in dozens of ar­rests.

The demon­stra­tions have ranged from gath­er­ings out­side of fed­er­al of­fice build­ings or state capi­tol build­ings, and march­es through the down­town of sev­er­al ma­jor cities. A se­ries of so-called “No Kings” ral­lies were planned Sat­ur­day to co­in­cide with Pres­i­dent Trump’s sched­uled mil­i­tary pa­rade in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Kristi Noem post­ed on so­cial me­dia on Tues­day that the agency would con­tin­ue its pro­gram of raids and de­por­ta­tions de­spite the protests.

“ICE will con­tin­ue to en­force the law,” Noem post­ed on X.

Armoured ve­hi­cles block roads in San­ta Ana

By AMY TAX­IN

In San­ta Ana, Cal­i­for­nia, ar­moured ve­hi­cles blocked the road Tues­day morn­ing lead­ing in­to the Civic Cen­ter, where fed­er­al im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers and nu­mer­ous city and coun­ty agen­cies have their of­fices.

Work­ers swept up plas­tic bot­tles and bro­ken glass. Tiny shards of red, black and pur­ple glass lit­tered the pave­ment.

Near­by build­ings and the side­walk were tagged with graf­fi­ti con­tain­ing ob­scen­i­ties and Trump’s name crossed out. A work­er rolled paint over graf­fi­ti on a wall to block it out. Na­tion­al Guard of­fi­cers wear­ing fa­tigues and car­ry­ing ri­fles pre­vent­ed peo­ple from en­ter­ing the area un­less they worked there.

Few signs of tu­mult in down­town Los An­ge­les

By JAKE OF­FEN­HARTZ

A hand­ful of Na­tion­al Guard mem­bers are sta­tioned in front of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan De­ten­tion Cen­ter, long guns and wood sticks slung over their shoul­ders. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly, a pass­ing dri­ver will honk at or heck­le them, draw­ing no re­sponse.

News crews are sta­tioned on the op­po­site side of the street, await­ing the pos­si­ble ar­rival of the U.S. Marines. Oth­er­wise, there are few signs of the tu­mult that has gripped the city in re­cent nights, aside from the graf­fi­ti scrawled across sev­er­al build­ings – “Abol­ish ICE,” “Amerikkka,” and ob­scene slo­gans di­rect­ed at Trump and fed­er­al law en­force­ment.

At the Walt Dis­ney Con­cert Hall, work­ers were busy wash­ing away the graf­fi­ti on Tues­day morn­ing.

Los An­ge­les de­ploy­ment to cost at least $134 mil­lion and last 60 days, Pen­ta­gon says

By LOLI­TA C. BAL­DOR, TARA COPP

U.S. De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth de­liv­ers his speech dur­ing the 22nd Shangri-La Di­a­logue sum­mit in Sin­ga­pore, Sat­ur­day, May 31, 2025. (AP Pho­to/Anu­pam Nath,File)

U.S. De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth de­liv­ers his speech dur­ing the 22nd Shangri-La Di­a­logue sum­mit in Sin­ga­pore, Sat­ur­day, May 31, 2025. (AP Pho­to/Anu­pam Nath,File)

The de­ploy­ment of Na­tion­al Guard troops and Marines to Los An­ge­les will cost at least $134 mil­lion and last at least the next 60 days, De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth and a se­nior de­fense of­fi­cial told law­mak­ers Tues­day.

“We stat­ed very pub­licly that it’s 60 days be­cause we want to en­sure that those ri­ot­ers, loot­ers and thugs on the oth­er side as­sault­ing our po­lice of­fi­cers know that we’re not go­ing any­where,” Hegseth told mem­bers of the House ap­pro­pri­a­tions de­fense sub­com­mit­tee.

Af­ter per­sis­tent ques­tion­ing from mem­bers of Con­gress, Hegseth turned to his act­ing comp­trol­ler, Bryn Wool­la­cott Mac­Don­nell, who pro­vid­ed the to­tal and said this “is large­ly just the cost of trav­el, hous­ing and food.”

She said the mon­ey will come from op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance ac­counts.