Trump Says Newsom, Bass Should Thank Him For Deploying National Guard ‘To Keep Our Citizens SAFE’

President Donald Trump defended his decision to deploy 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, saying on Monday that the city “would have been completely obliterated” without his action.

Trump said that California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass should be thanking him, adding, “Instead, they choose to lie to the People of California and America by saying that we weren’t needed, and that these are ‘peaceful protests.'” The president argued that the footage of the anti-ICE riots that broke out in L.A. over the weekend “tells you all you have to know.”

“We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The very incompetent ‘Governor,’ Gavin Newscum, and ‘Mayor,’ Karen Bass, should be saying, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR.'”

Over the weekend, rioters attacked federal, state, and local law enforcement by pelting them with rocks and concrete and shooting fireworks at them as the Trump administration carried out immigration raids in the city. On Sunday night, Trump promised to “liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.”

Newsom said on Sunday that California would file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the deployment of National Guard troops. The governor argued that Trump’s move was “unconstitutional” and that the administration did not coordinate with his office before deploying the National Guard, a power typically exercised by governors. The Insurrection Act of 1807, however, allows the president to federalize the National Guard and deploy the U.S. military to quell domestic disorder or violence.

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Trump has not yet officially invoked the Insurrection Act, and has ordered Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Attorney General Pam Bondi “to take all such action necessary” to address the riots.

Mayor Bass also condemned Trump’s move, arguing that it was “about another agenda” and “not about public safety.”

“There is clearly no plan, and I want the people of Los Angeles to know that we stand with all Angelenos no matter where you were born,” Bass added, according to KTLA 5.

The anti-ICE protests-turned-riots began after federal immigration agents arrested suspected illegal immigrants in a Home Depot parking lot and in L.A.’s fashion district on Friday. Among those arrested in the immigration raids were sex offenders, gang members, and some who had been convicted on gun and drug charges, Fox News’ Bill Melugin reported.