‘I Am Not Playing Around’: Trump Hammers Home His Determination On L.A. Riots

President Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that he would not back down from intervening in the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles, declaring, “I am not playing around.”

On Monday night, Trump mobilized an additional 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to join the 2,000 Guardsmen deployed by the Trump administration over the weekend, along with 700 Marines that were sent on Monday.

“If I didn’t ‘SEND IN THE TROOPS’ to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now, much like 25,000 houses burned to the ground in L.A. due to an incompetent Governor and Mayor,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday morning.

Later in the day, speaking to a panel on Fox Business, Trump stated, “Last night was terrible. The night before that was terrible. As you’ve seen, it was on most of your networks, people with big, heavy hammers pounding the concrete and pounding curbs, pounding, breaking up, and handing these big chunks of concrete to people. And they were taking that concrete, going up on bridges, and dropping it into the roof of a car. They were throwing it at our police; they were throwing it at our soldiers that are there.”

“And we got it stopped and we have them in custody right now,” he continued. “Look, if we didn’t get involved, right now, Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago with all the houses that were lost. Los Angeles right now would be on fire. And we have it in great shape. I am not playing around.”

President @realDonaldTrump: “If we didn’t get involved, right now, Los Angeles would be burning… and we have it in great shape. I am not playing around." pic.twitter.com/Cj0JuW4YMd

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 10, 2025

California filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday over the National Guard deployment, arguing that the president infringed on Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s role without there being a clear threat of “invasion” or “rebellion.” Sending in the National Guard is a power typically exercised by governors but also granted to the president in certain circumstances.

But National Review published an editorial explaining why Trump has the right to send the National Guard:

The president is relying on what a 1971 Office of Legal Counsel memo called his “inherent authority to use troops for the protection of federal property and federal functions,” as well as 10 U.S.C. 12406, which provides for the emergency mobilization of the National Guard. That statute says the president can call up the Guard when there’s an actual or threatened invasion or rebellion, or when he can’t execute the laws with regular federal forces.

Given what’s being done to attack and obstruct ICE agents who are simply enforcing the immigration laws, the latter condition applies. This is not an invocation of the Insurrection Act, which would involve federal troops taking on general law-enforcement functions. Instead, the role of the Guard is limited, as the presidential proclamation stipulates, to ensuring“the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property.”

“There need not be an actual rebellion — only the danger of one — for the president legitimately to call the Guard into federal service,” former Assistant United States Attorney Andrew McCarthy, who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and eleven others,  added. “Moreover, the explicit purpose of the ongoing rioting and mayhem is to thwart the enforcement of the federal immigration laws. Section 12406 expressly authorizes the use of military force when ordinary law enforcement has been violently prevented from carrying out federal functions.”

Zach Jewell contributed to this article.