WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is warning those protesting against his unprecedented immigration crackdown in Los Angeles against targeting police officers and thousands of National Guard troops he’s deployed there, promising to exact retribution on anyone who commits violence against them.
“Nobody’s going to spit on our police officers. Nobody’s going to spit on our military,” Trump told reporters on Monday, before posting on his social media website: “IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT, and I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before. Such disrespect will not be tolerated!”
But Trump felt differently about violence against law enforcement when he issued blanket pardons earlier this year for hundreds of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in an effort to keep him in office after his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. His pardons included those convicted of assaulting or interfering with police officers, roughly 1,000 nonviolent offenders and around 200 people accused of assaulting police. A number of those pardoned have reportedly since been rearrested for other alleged crimes.
“These are the hostages. Approximately 1,500 were pardoned. Full pardon,” Trump said after issuing the pardons on his first day in office.
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About 140 police officers were injured in the attack on the Capitol, something that Trump has called a “beautiful day” despite being impeached by the U.S. House for inciting an insurrection by spreading lies about election fraud.
“Their hypocrisy just smacks you in the face,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who investigated the Capitol attack as a former member of the House, told HuffPost in response to Trump’s response to LA’s unrest. “Violence is never appropriate. It wasn’t appropriate on Jan. 6 and it’s not appropriate in LA or anywhere else. We need to be consistent about that.”
Trump quickly deployed thousands of troops to California over the weekend — including 700 U.S. Marines — despite no request from the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who has warned the president’s actions will further inflame the unrest. The protests initially began after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents executed raids at a Home Depot store in Los Angeles at the direction of the White House.
As president on Jan. 6, 2021, however, Trump issued no order or formal request for National Guard troops to aid beleaguered U.S. Capitol police who were overrun by hundreds of his supporters.
“On Jan. 6, both the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress were begging Donald Trump to make a statement, to call off the MAGA mob that invaded the Capitol,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told HuffPost. “People were begging him to call out the National Guard, and he sat there and did nothing, and now he’s acting in a situation where the officials in charge are telling him that federalizing the National Guard and sending in the Marines will only exacerbate a situation which is under control.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House speaker at the time of the attack on the Capitol, also slammed Trump for federalizing the National Guard and sending troops to Los Angeles, something he refused to do when Congress was under attack.
“We begged the president of the United States to send in the National Guard. He would not do it,” Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday. “And yet, in a contra-constitutional way, he has sent the National Guard into California. Something is very wrong with this picture.”
While Democrats have slammed Trump’s response to the protests, Republicans are broadly welcoming the federal intervention in California — even those who have long espoused the importance of states’ rights and the ability of local governments to enforce their laws. In 2024, for example, a group of 24 conservative House Republicans warned then-President Joe Biden not to federalize the Texas National Guard as some Texas Democratic lawmakers had been urging him to do, saying it would be an “encroachment on Texas’ constitutionally protected sovereignty.”
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Asked Tuesday if Trump is being inconsistent by sending troops to Los Angeles after pardoning Jan. 6 rioters, meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) dodged the question entirely.
“The issue that’s in front of us is the chaos in LA. The political leadership there wasn’t up to the task,” he said at his weekly press conference.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has disagreed publicly with Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 rioters, said Democrats aren’t being consistent on the issue by not sufficiently condemning violence in Los Angeles.
“I think Democrats who feel like the president is wrong to bring out force would be on firmer ground if they denounce the actions of violence in Los Angeles, Kenosha, and Portland,” he said, without specifying which Democrats have refused to speak out.
Even Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a libertarian-leaning voice in the Senate, suggested Trump was within his rights to federalize the National Guard and send troops into California without approval from the state’s governor.
“Democrats have failed to have law and order,” Paul said. “I’ve always preferred local law enforcement to federal but this is a time in which it looks as though the state government is resisting enforcing federal law.”
It’s not clear what federal law the senator is referring to. Newsom has also condemned violent protesters and urged the demonstrators to remain peaceful.
“The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles — not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle,” Newsom said Sunday.
“Don’t give them one. Never use violence. Speak out peacefully,” he added.
Arthur Delaney contributed reporting.