'Weakness masquerading as strength': Hear Newsom's blistering speech on Trump as LA protests persist
CNN
June 10, 2025
#CNN #News
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said President Donald Trump “chose theatrics over public safety” in deploying the National Guard to respond to protests in Los Angeles. He criticized the Trump administration for carrying out mass deportations. When immigration raids took place in Los Angeles, “everyday Angelenos came out to exercise their constitutional right to free speech and assembly, to protest their government’s action,” Newsom said.
VIDEO:
Joy Reid Blasts Mainstream Media for ‘Selling a Lie’ About L.A.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
“The lies the regime is telling about Los Angeles are easy to disprove,” the former MSNBC host said.
by Eboni Boykin-Patterson
June 11, 2025
Daily Beast
Arturo Holmes/Getty
Ex-MSNBC host Joy Reid is accusing the “mainstream media” of “helping” Donald Trump spread his narrative about what’s happening in Los Angeles during the protests against his ICE raids.
Not too long after losing her coveted primetime spot on MSNBC in February, Reid wrote in her “A Daily Reid” Substack newsletter on Wednesday that “the mainstream media at this point, is participating in selling a lie: that Los Angeles is so out of control, it’s plausible that Trump would send in the military as an occupying stabilizing force.”
Mayor Karen Bass issued a curfew in parts of downtown Los Angeles following days of protests in the city. prolonged protests. Benjamin Hanson/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
The new podcast host said she and members of her “Joy Reid Show” staff have been in L.A. since last Thursday, where she’s gotten a different picture of the city than what’s been portrayed. “The lies the regime is telling about Los Angeles are easy to disprove. You just have to go to Los Angeles,” she wrote. “Starting on Thursday, we were all over the city—from West Hollywood to downtown, including city hall.”
All the former TV host and her team saw on the ground in L.A. was ICE “terrorizing randomly selected brown people all over the state and making racial profiling great again,” she wrote, in order to meet “MAGA Nosferatu’s 3,000 brown person a day kidnap quota.”
The new podcast host said she and members of her “Joy Reid Show” staff have been in L.A. since last Thursday, where she’s gotten a different picture of the city than what’s been portrayed. “The lies the regime is telling about Los Angeles are easy to disprove. You just have to go to Los Angeles,” she wrote. “Starting on Thursday, we were all over the city—from West Hollywood to downtown, including city hall.”
All the former TV host and her team saw on the ground in L.A. was ICE “terrorizing randomly selected brown people all over the state and making racial profiling great again,” she wrote, in order to meet “MAGA Nosferatu’s 3,000 brown person a day kidnap quota.”
Los Angeles has seen protests throughout the weekend following federal raids searching for illegal immigrants and increased tension after President Trump ordered the National Guard to L.A., over the objections of California Governor Gavin Newsom. (Photo by Jay L Clendenin/Getty Images) Jay L Clendenin/Getty Images
On Sunday, “our photographer ventured into the belly of the downtown protests that followed day three of random, military-style ICE raids that took place all over Los Angeles County,” she wrote of the “warlike operation” that made stops at unassuming places one normally wouldn’t hope to find the violent criminals Trump said his raids would prioritize.
The president deployed about 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines to quell protests against the expansive ICE raids in the city over the weekend, even though mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom insisted they were under control until the armed forces incited violence. Those reports have not deterred the president from escalating the White House’s response to demonstrators, who he’s called “animals” and a “foreign enemy.”
On Sunday, “our photographer ventured into the belly of the downtown protests that followed day three of random, military-style ICE raids that took place all over Los Angeles County,” she wrote of the “warlike operation” that made stops at unassuming places one normally wouldn’t hope to find the violent criminals Trump said his raids would prioritize.
The president deployed about 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines to quell protests against the expansive ICE raids in the city over the weekend, even though mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom insisted they were under control until the armed forces incited violence. Those reports have not deterred the president from escalating the White House’s response to demonstrators, who he’s called “animals” and a “foreign enemy.”
A protestor holds up a Mexican flag as burning cars line the street on June 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Mario Tama/Getty Images
“Trump, Bondi, Hegseth,” and “the puppy killer” Kristi Noem “have created a fake, dystopian version of Los Angeles as a cheap excuse to launch a military occupation of California,” Reid went on, and are now threatening to “use the Insurrection Act to put the whole country under martial law.”
Helping his cause is “dramatic media coverage,” Reid wrote, linking subscribers to CNN’s dystopyian reports from on the ground. “Mainstream journalists are even going so far as to casually inquire about the insurrection act,” she continued, “which gives Pam Bondi the chance to do her Leni Riefenstahl act” in her comments to press Wednesday morning.
Reid also quoted from Mayor Bass’ comments to local outlet NBC4 on Tuesday, that “those of us in Los Angeles understand that the unrest that has happened are a few blocks within the downtown area. It is not all of downtown, and it is not all of the city. Unfortunately, the visuals make it seem as though our entire city is in flames, and it is not the case at all.”
L.A. is a “perfectly normal, quiet city almost everywhere,” Reid concluded—and the “the businesses Pam Bondi pretends to care about? The risk to them is not their own dish washers, cooks, clerks and construction workers. It’s the Trump regime, that keeps kidnapping their employees. Maybe they should stop doing that. If they do, and withdraw their occupation forces, L.A. and the rest of California can go on about its business.”
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“Trump, Bondi, Hegseth,” and “the puppy killer” Kristi Noem “have created a fake, dystopian version of Los Angeles as a cheap excuse to launch a military occupation of California,” Reid went on, and are now threatening to “use the Insurrection Act to put the whole country under martial law.”
Helping his cause is “dramatic media coverage,” Reid wrote, linking subscribers to CNN’s dystopyian reports from on the ground. “Mainstream journalists are even going so far as to casually inquire about the insurrection act,” she continued, “which gives Pam Bondi the chance to do her Leni Riefenstahl act” in her comments to press Wednesday morning.
Reid also quoted from Mayor Bass’ comments to local outlet NBC4 on Tuesday, that “those of us in Los Angeles understand that the unrest that has happened are a few blocks within the downtown area. It is not all of downtown, and it is not all of the city. Unfortunately, the visuals make it seem as though our entire city is in flames, and it is not the case at all.”
L.A. is a “perfectly normal, quiet city almost everywhere,” Reid concluded—and the “the businesses Pam Bondi pretends to care about? The risk to them is not their own dish washers, cooks, clerks and construction workers. It’s the Trump regime, that keeps kidnapping their employees. Maybe they should stop doing that. If they do, and withdraw their occupation forces, L.A. and the rest of California can go on about its business.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Eboni Boykin-Patterson
Entertainment Reporter
https://truthout.org/articles/labor-leader-released-on-bond-after-being-swept-up-in-ices-violent-raid-of-la/
News
Politics & Elections
Labor Leader Released on Bond After Being Swept Up in ICE’s Violent Raid of LA
SEIU California President David Huerta was arrested while protesting the Trump administration’s militarized raid of LA.
by Sharon Zhang
June 10, 2025
Truthout
SEIU California President David Huerta speaks to the media after he was released from federal court in Los Angeles on Monday, June 9, 2025. David Crane / MediaNews Group / Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images
California union leader David Huerta has been released from federal custody after his arrest by federal immigration agents sparked an outcry from labor and other advocates across the country amid President Donald Trump’s rogue, militarized raid of Los Angeles.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California President David Huerta was arrested on Friday while protesting an immigration raid in LA. He was released on a $50,000 bond, and has been charged with obstructing law enforcement — a charge that could lead to a sentence of up to six years in federal prison, if he’s convicted.
Huerta’s arrest has been widely condemned by Democratic leaders, labor advocates, and immigrants’ rights groups, who say that Trump’s crackdown is a show of accelerating authoritarianism and a major erosion of free speech rights.
“David Huerta was arrested while standing up for immigrants’ rights. Today, a judge set him free after federal authorities attacked, injured, and unjustly detained him since Friday,” said SEIU President April Verrett in a statement demanding the release of everyone “unjustly detained” amid the protests.
“But this struggle is about much more than just one man,” Verrett went on. “Thousands of workers remain unjustly detained and separated from their families. At this very moment, immigrant communities are being terrorized by heavily militarized armed forces. The Trump regime calling in the National Guard is a dangerous escalation to target people who disagree with them. It is a threat to our democracy.”
SEIU California President David Huerta was arrested while protesting the Trump administration’s militarized raid of LA.
by Sharon Zhang
June 10, 2025
Truthout
SEIU California President David Huerta speaks to the media after he was released from federal court in Los Angeles on Monday, June 9, 2025. David Crane / MediaNews Group / Los Angeles Daily News via Getty ImagesCalifornia union leader David Huerta has been released from federal custody after his arrest by federal immigration agents sparked an outcry from labor and other advocates across the country amid President Donald Trump’s rogue, militarized raid of Los Angeles.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California President David Huerta was arrested on Friday while protesting an immigration raid in LA. He was released on a $50,000 bond, and has been charged with obstructing law enforcement — a charge that could lead to a sentence of up to six years in federal prison, if he’s convicted.
Huerta’s arrest has been widely condemned by Democratic leaders, labor advocates, and immigrants’ rights groups, who say that Trump’s crackdown is a show of accelerating authoritarianism and a major erosion of free speech rights.
“David Huerta was arrested while standing up for immigrants’ rights. Today, a judge set him free after federal authorities attacked, injured, and unjustly detained him since Friday,” said SEIU President April Verrett in a statement demanding the release of everyone “unjustly detained” amid the protests.
“But this struggle is about much more than just one man,” Verrett went on. “Thousands of workers remain unjustly detained and separated from their families. At this very moment, immigrant communities are being terrorized by heavily militarized armed forces. The Trump regime calling in the National Guard is a dangerous escalation to target people who disagree with them. It is a threat to our democracy.”
Related Story:
Op-Ed
Immigration
LA Protests Signal Public’s Readiness to Rebel Against Anti-Immigrant Fascism
Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to crush protests against ICE’s deportation raids has only fueled the uprising.
by Chris Newman
June 9, 2025
Truthout
Huerta was one of dozens arrested while protesting immigration authorities’ raids of numerous retail stores in LA. Federal agents have claimed that Huerta blocked access to one of these workplaces that was supposedly suspected of employing undocumented workers. A law enforcement officer had reportedly physically tried to remove Huerta from where he was protesting, the officer has said, and then pushed Huerta on the ground after the labor leader reportedly pushed back.
Chaotic video footage reportedly showing the incident shows masked immigration officers seemingly indiscriminately shoving and grabbing anyone standing near or in front of a police car attempting to enter a gate. Huerta’s head appears to have landed on a concrete curb. SEIU has said that Huerta was arrested during the raid.
Labor advocates have raised alarm about the dangerous implications of union leaders being targeted in particular.
“Be warned: attacking unions is a hallmark of fascism,” said former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.
Democratic leaders also condemned the arrest.
In a letter written by California’s senators and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York), lawmakers expressed “grave concerns” over Huerta’s arrest.
“It is deeply troubling that a U.S. citizen, union leader, and upstanding member of the Los Angeles community continues to be detained by the federal government for exercising his rights to observe immigration enforcement,” the lawmakers wrote.
Huerta’s release on bond comes as the Trump administration is escalating its raid on LA in response to mass protests, with the administration sending another 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines to the area after days of violence from law enforcement officers.
Another concerning target of the crackdowns is journalists, numerous of whom have been injured by law enforcement officers while simply reporting on the raids. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, dozens of journalists have been assaulted or obstructed while covering the raids. At least one journalist had to receive emergency surgery after police struck him with a plastic bullet while he was clearly identified as a journalist.
In another incident, a video of an Australian journalist reporting live on air showed a police officer aiming and shooting at the reporter, striking her leg with a rubber bullet at close range.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sharon Zhang
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/10/trump-violence-los-angeles
‘While a government may have the means to inflict mass violence, it is ultimately the people who hold the power. These are the lessons we need to be studying.’ Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters
Opinion
Opinion
Trump administration
Trump is deliberately ratcheting up violence in Los Angeles
The president is escalating the situation to justify greater force and repression. Now he’s talking about sending ‘troops everywhere’
by Moustafa Bayoumi
10 June 2025
The Guardian
Donald Trump was on his way to Camp David for a meeting with military leaders on Sunday when he was asked by reporters about possibly invoking the Insurrection Act, allowing direct military involvement in civilian law enforcement. Demonstrations against Trump’s draconian immigration arrests had been growing in Los Angeles, and some of them had turned violent. Trump’s answer? “We’re going to have troops everywhere,” he said.
I know Trump is “a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag”, to borrow the words of the Republican senator Rand Paul, and that this president governs using misdirection, evasion and (especially) exaggeration, but we should still be worried by this prospect he raises of sending “troops everywhere”.
Already, Trump and his administration have taken the unprecedented steps of calling up thousands of national guard soldiers to Los Angeles against the wishes of the California governor, of deploying a battalion of hundreds of marines to “assist” law enforcement in Los Angeles, and of seeking to ban the use of masks by protesters while defending the use of masks for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents. Needless to say, none of this would be happening if these times were normal.
What makes this moment abnormal is not the fact that Los Angeles witnessed days of mostly peaceful protests against massive and destructive immigration arrests. We’ve seen such protests countless times before in this country. Nor is it the fact that pockets of such protests turned violent. That too is hardly an aberration in our national history. What makes these times abnormal is the administration’s deliberate escalation of the violence, a naked attempt to ratchet up conflict to justify the imposition of greater force and repression over the American people.
The Steady State, a non-partisan coalition of more than 280 former national security professionals, has issued a warning over these events. “The use of federal military force in the absence of local or state requests, paired with contradictory mandates targeting protestors, is a hallmark of authoritarian drift,” the statement reads. “Our members – many of whom have served in fragile democracies abroad – have seen this pattern before. What begins as provocative posturing can rapidly metastasize into something far more dangerous.”
The hypocrisy of this administration is simply unbearable. If you’re an actual insurrectionist, such as those who participated in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by destroying federal property and attacking law enforcement officers, you’ll receive a pardon or a commutation of your sentence. But if you join the protests against Ice raids in Los Angeles, you face military opposition.
Then there’s Stephen Miller. The White House deputy chief of staff unironically posts on social media that “this is a fight to save civilization” with no apparent awareness that it is this administration that is destroying our way of life, only to replace it with something far more violent and sinister.
Are we about to see Trump invoke the Insurrection Act? It’s certainly possible. On the White House lawn on Monday, Trump explicitly called the protesters in Los Angeles “insurrectionists”, perhaps preparing the rhetorical groundwork for invoking the act. And by invoking the Insurrection Act, Trump would be able to use the US military as a law enforcement entity inside the borders of the US – a danger to American liberty.
The Insurrection Act has been used about 30 times throughout American history, with the last time being in Los Angeles in 1992. Then, the governor, Pete Wilson, asked the federal government for help as civil disturbances grew after the acquittal of four white police officers who brutally beat Rodney King, a Black man, during a traffic arrest. The only time a president has invoked the Insurrection Act against a governor’s wishes has been when Lyndon Johnson sent troops to Alabama in 1965. But Johnson used the troops to protect civil rights protesters. Now, Trump may use the same act to punish immigration rights protesters.
One part of the Insurrection Act allows the president to send troops to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” in a state that “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws”. According to Joseph Nunn at the Brennan Center, “[t]his provision is so bafflingly broad that it cannot possibly mean what it says, or else it authorizes the president to use the military against any two people conspiring to break federal law”.
No doubt, Trump finds that provision to be enticing. What we’re discovering during this administration is how much of American law is written with so little precision. Custom and the belief in the separation of powers have traditionally reigned in the practice of the executive branch. Not so with Trump, who is dead set on grabbing as much power as quickly as possible, and all for himself as the leader of the executive branch. To think that this power grab won’t include exercising his control of the military by deploying “troops everywhere”, whether now or at another point in the future, is naive.
Such a form of governance, with power concentrated in an individual, is certainly a form of tyranny. But tyranny, as Hannah Arendt reminds us in On Violence, is also “the most violent and least powerful of forms of government”. And while a government may have the means to inflict mass violence, it is ultimately the people who hold the power. These are the lessons we need to be studying, and implementing on our streets everywhere, while we still can.
Trump is deliberately ratcheting up violence in Los Angeles
The president is escalating the situation to justify greater force and repression. Now he’s talking about sending ‘troops everywhere’
by Moustafa Bayoumi
10 June 2025
The Guardian
Donald Trump was on his way to Camp David for a meeting with military leaders on Sunday when he was asked by reporters about possibly invoking the Insurrection Act, allowing direct military involvement in civilian law enforcement. Demonstrations against Trump’s draconian immigration arrests had been growing in Los Angeles, and some of them had turned violent. Trump’s answer? “We’re going to have troops everywhere,” he said.
I know Trump is “a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag”, to borrow the words of the Republican senator Rand Paul, and that this president governs using misdirection, evasion and (especially) exaggeration, but we should still be worried by this prospect he raises of sending “troops everywhere”.
Already, Trump and his administration have taken the unprecedented steps of calling up thousands of national guard soldiers to Los Angeles against the wishes of the California governor, of deploying a battalion of hundreds of marines to “assist” law enforcement in Los Angeles, and of seeking to ban the use of masks by protesters while defending the use of masks for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents. Needless to say, none of this would be happening if these times were normal.
What makes this moment abnormal is not the fact that Los Angeles witnessed days of mostly peaceful protests against massive and destructive immigration arrests. We’ve seen such protests countless times before in this country. Nor is it the fact that pockets of such protests turned violent. That too is hardly an aberration in our national history. What makes these times abnormal is the administration’s deliberate escalation of the violence, a naked attempt to ratchet up conflict to justify the imposition of greater force and repression over the American people.
The Steady State, a non-partisan coalition of more than 280 former national security professionals, has issued a warning over these events. “The use of federal military force in the absence of local or state requests, paired with contradictory mandates targeting protestors, is a hallmark of authoritarian drift,” the statement reads. “Our members – many of whom have served in fragile democracies abroad – have seen this pattern before. What begins as provocative posturing can rapidly metastasize into something far more dangerous.”
The hypocrisy of this administration is simply unbearable. If you’re an actual insurrectionist, such as those who participated in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by destroying federal property and attacking law enforcement officers, you’ll receive a pardon or a commutation of your sentence. But if you join the protests against Ice raids in Los Angeles, you face military opposition.
Then there’s Stephen Miller. The White House deputy chief of staff unironically posts on social media that “this is a fight to save civilization” with no apparent awareness that it is this administration that is destroying our way of life, only to replace it with something far more violent and sinister.
Are we about to see Trump invoke the Insurrection Act? It’s certainly possible. On the White House lawn on Monday, Trump explicitly called the protesters in Los Angeles “insurrectionists”, perhaps preparing the rhetorical groundwork for invoking the act. And by invoking the Insurrection Act, Trump would be able to use the US military as a law enforcement entity inside the borders of the US – a danger to American liberty.
The Insurrection Act has been used about 30 times throughout American history, with the last time being in Los Angeles in 1992. Then, the governor, Pete Wilson, asked the federal government for help as civil disturbances grew after the acquittal of four white police officers who brutally beat Rodney King, a Black man, during a traffic arrest. The only time a president has invoked the Insurrection Act against a governor’s wishes has been when Lyndon Johnson sent troops to Alabama in 1965. But Johnson used the troops to protect civil rights protesters. Now, Trump may use the same act to punish immigration rights protesters.
One part of the Insurrection Act allows the president to send troops to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” in a state that “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws”. According to Joseph Nunn at the Brennan Center, “[t]his provision is so bafflingly broad that it cannot possibly mean what it says, or else it authorizes the president to use the military against any two people conspiring to break federal law”.
No doubt, Trump finds that provision to be enticing. What we’re discovering during this administration is how much of American law is written with so little precision. Custom and the belief in the separation of powers have traditionally reigned in the practice of the executive branch. Not so with Trump, who is dead set on grabbing as much power as quickly as possible, and all for himself as the leader of the executive branch. To think that this power grab won’t include exercising his control of the military by deploying “troops everywhere”, whether now or at another point in the future, is naive.
Such a form of governance, with power concentrated in an individual, is certainly a form of tyranny. But tyranny, as Hannah Arendt reminds us in On Violence, is also “the most violent and least powerful of forms of government”. And while a government may have the means to inflict mass violence, it is ultimately the people who hold the power. These are the lessons we need to be studying, and implementing on our streets everywhere, while we still can.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist
Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist
