California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Monday accused the Defense Department of “lying to the American people” in justifying deploying National Guard troops to the state to quell Los Angeles protests against federal immigration raids, asserting that the situation intensified only when the Pentagon deployed troops.
“The situation became escalated when THEY deployed troops,” Newsom posted to X, referring to the Pentagon. “Donald Trump has manufactured a crisis and is inflaming conditions. He clearly can’t solve this, so California will.”
Newsom was responding to a post from DOD Rapid Response on X, a Pentagon-run account, which claimed that “Los Angeles is burning, and local leaders are refusing to respond.”
President Trump on Saturday deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area amid the ICE protests, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying the decision was made due to “violent mobs” attacking “Federal Law Enforcement Agents carrying out basic deportation operations.”
While protests have intensified in recent days, devolving at times into violence, the majority of gatherings have been largely peaceful. Still, California National Guard troops began arriving in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, with some 300 deployed on the ground later that day at three locations: Los Angeles proper, Paramount and Compton.
White House officials have sought to highlight images of burning vehicles and clashes with law enforcement to make the case that the situation had gotten out of control.
“The people that are causing the problem are professional agitators. They’re insurrectionists. They’re bad people. They should be in jail,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
In addition, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to deploy approximately 500 U.S. Marines to the city, with U.S. Northern Command on Sunday confirming the service members were “prepared to deploy.”
The use of American troops has rankled California officials, who have said the federal response “inflammatory” and said the deployment of soldiers “will erode public trust.”
Newsom also has traded insults with Hegseth, calling him “a joke,” and that the idea of deploying active duty Marines in California was “deranged behavior.”
“Pete Hegseth’s a joke. He’s a joke. Everybody knows he’s so in over his head. What an embarrassment. That guy’s weakness masquerading as strength. . . . It’s a serious moment,” Newsom said in an interview with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen.
The tit-for-tat continued when chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell then took to X on Monday to attack Newsom.
“LA is on FIRE right now, but instead of tackling the issue, Gavin Newsom is spending his time attacking Secretary Hegseth,” Parnell wrote. “Unlike Newsom, [Hegseth] isn’t afraid to lead.”
Newsom, who has formally demanded the Trump administration pull the National Guard troops off the streets, has declared the deployment “unlawful” and said California will sue the Trump administration over its actions.
“There is currently no need for the National Guard to be deployed in Los Angeles, and to do so in this unlawful manner and for such a lengthy period is a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation,” David Sapp, Newsom’s legal affairs secretary, wrote in a letter to Hegseth on Sunday.
“Accordingly, we ask that you immediately rescind your order and return the National Guard to its rightful control by the State of California, to be deployed as appropriate when necessary.”
In the past 60 years, a U.S. president has only on one occasion mobilized a state’s National Guard troops without the consent of its governor to quell unrest or enforce the law. That was in 1965, when former President Lyndon Johnson sent Guard members to Selma, Ala., to protect civil rights protesters there.