Trump ultimately was talked down by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, but he has publicly expressed regret over not acting more forcefully.
Top Trump allies, including architects of the far-right roadmap «Project 2025,» have at various points called for using the Insurrection Act to secure the border, preempt Inauguration Day protests, and even subvert the 2020 election.
For Trump, the Los Angeles protests represent a perfect opportunity to fuse power, politics and spectacle.
Immigration is Trump’s home turf — his best-polling issue and the political anchor of his 2024 campaign, which promised mass deportations beginning on «day one.»
The governor of California Gavin Newsom, his primary Democratic foil in the escalating showdown, is the ultimate MAGA (Make America Great Again) bogeyman and a likely 2028 presidential candidate.
California, to many conservatives, embodies the chaos of Democratic rule: a sanctuary state that they claim is being overrun by migrants and plagued by crime.
What they’re saying: «The American people have made their opinion known on the President’s immigration agenda, which is why President Trump is in the White House and Democrats lost the Presidency, the House, and the Senate,» White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
The Trump administration has already shown it’s willing to steamroll longstanding norms around immigration enforcement — emboldened by the belief that public opinion is firmly on its side.
Over the past two months, a Wisconsin judge, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and even a sitting member of Congress have been among those arrested for allegedly obstructing federal immigration operations.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signaled he’s itching to get in on the action, with Pentagon social media accounts dropping the pretense of non-partisanship to attack California’s leaders in openly political terms.
«We’re not going to let them get away with it,» Trump said Sunday. «We’re going to have troops everywhere, we’re not going to let this happen to our country. We’re not going to let our country be torn apart.»
