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      Trump’s insurrection routine: fuel violence, spawn chaos, shrug off the law | Sidney Blumenthal

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      Donald Trump’s stages of insurrection have passed from trying to suppress one that didn’t exist, to creating one himself, to generating a local incident he falsely depicts as a national emergency. In every case, whether he inflates himself into the strongman putting down an insurrection or acts as the instigator-in-chief, his routine has been to foster violence, spawn chaos and show contempt for the law.In his first term, Trump reportedly asked the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?” Trump was agitated about protesters in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. On 1 June, Trump ordered the US Park police to clear the park. Some charged on horses into the crowd. Trump emerged after the teargas wafted away to walk through the park, ordering Milley to accompany him, and stood in front of St John’s Church on the other side to display a Bible upside down.Milley felt he had been badly used and exercised poor judgment in marching with Trump. “I should not have been there,” he said. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” A day later, the secretary of defense, Mark Esper, held a news conference to oppose publicly the use of the military for law enforcement and any invocation of the Insurrection Act. Trump was furious with Milley and Esper. He was determined to have a pliable military, generals and a secretary of defense to do his bidding, whatever it might be.Then, Trump staged an insurrection in a vain last attempt to prevent the ballots of the electoral college from being counted that would make Joe Biden the elected president. While Trump’s mob on 6 January chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” the vice-president hunkered down in the basement garage of the besieged Capitol, where he made the call for the national guard that Trump refused to give as he gleefully watched for hours on TV the followers he had organized and incited batter police and threaten the lives of members of the Congress.On the day of his inauguration to his second term, Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 insurrectionists convicted or charged in the 6 January attack. At least 600 were charged with assaulting or obstructing the police, at least 170 were charged with using a deadly weapon, and about 150 were charged with theft or destruction of government property. Trump granted commutations to 14 members of extremist militia groups convicted of or charged with seditious conspiracy to overthrow the US government.Now, Trump is toying with invoking the Insurrection Act to put down a supposed rebellion in Los Angeles. But his application of the act would be a belated attempt to cover his unlawful nationalization of the California national guard and deployment of marines to Los Angeles in response to a conflict that his administration has itself provoked.In late May, Stephen Miller, Trump’s fanatical deputy chief of staff in charge of his immigration policy, called a meeting of leaders of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to berate them for failing to pile up the statistics he demanded of deported immigrants. Restraint and the law were to be cast aside in their new wave of raids, which hit a flashpoint in LA.“Federal agents make warrantless arrests,” reported the Wall Street Journal. “Masked agents take people into custody without identifying themselves. Plainclothes agents in at least a dozen cities have arrested migrants who showed up to their court hearings. And across the US, people suspected of being in the country illegally are disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers, according to attorneys, witnesses and officials.”Miller ordered Ice agents to target Home Depot, where construction workers, many of them immigrants, go to purchase materials. On 6 June, masked Ice agents swooped down on a store in LA, arresting more than 40 people. Meanwhile, Ice agents raided a garment factory of a company called Ambience Apparel and placed at least a dozen people in vans.Soon, there was a demonstration at the downtown federal building where they were detained. Several Waymo robotaxis were burned within a four-block area near the relatively sparsely populated downtown. But the LAPD appeared to have the situation quickly under control, until Trump unilaterally federalized the national guard, whose presence prompted further demonstrations. One contingent of soldiers was sent to guard the federal building miles away in Westwood, an upscale neighborhood by the UCLA campus, where they were nuisances to people going shopping and to restaurants. Trump declared he would send in 700 marines.On 10 June, the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, filed a complaint on behalf of the state seeking a restraining order in federal court against Trump and the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. “To put it bluntly,” it stated, “there is no invasion or rebellion in Los Angeles; there is civil unrest that is no different from episodes that regularly occur in communities throughout the country, and that is capable of being contained by state and local authorities working together.”“All of this was unlawful,” wrote Bonta of the administration’s actions. Trump’s use of the guard was in violation of the law that requires an order to be issued through the governor. Trump’s deployment of marines was “likewise unlawful”, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the US armed forces for civilian law enforcement. “These unlawful deployments have already proven to be a deeply inflammatory and unnecessary provocation, anathema to our laws limiting the use federal forces for law enforcement, rather than a means of restoring calm.”Ironically, the Posse Comitatus Act was instrumental in the demise of Reconstruction. US troops stationed in the south after the civil war were forbidden from enforcing the law to protect Black civil rights. The Ku Klux Klan and other white terrorist organizations seized control of state governments, disenfranchised Black people and imposed Jim Crow segregation. In 1957, Dwight Eisenhower, then president, circumvented the Posse Comitatus Act by invoking the Insurrection Act; he used federal forces to implement the supreme court’s desegregation ruling in Brown v Board of Education to integrate Little Rock Central high school.As a further irony, Trump had been indicted by the special prosecutor Jack Smith under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 for his actions leading to the January 6 insurrection. Count four read: “From on or about November 14, 2020, through on or about January 20, 2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States – that is, the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.”Trump evaded justice through a series of delaying actions by the conservative majority of the supreme court that culminated in its ruling for “absolute” presidential immunity for “official acts”. He was allowed to run out the clock and never held to account. If Trump’s trial had proceeded on the original charges as scheduled on 6 March 2024, he would have undoubtedly found guilty and eliminated as a presidential candidate.On 10 June, Trump appeared before soldiers at Fort Liberty in North Carolina in anticipation of the Washington military parade he ordered for 14 June, opportunistically using the 250th anniversary of the US army (really the continental army) to celebrate his 79th birthday, “a big day,” he said. “We want to show off a bit.”Soldiers of the 82nd airborne division were screened for attendance at Trump’s rally based on their political support and physical appearance. “If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don’t want to be in the audience then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out,” read a note sent by the command, according to Military.com. “No fat soldiers,” said one message.A pop-up store for 365 Campaign of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which sells Trump merchandise, was set up on the base for the Trump visit. Aside from the usual Maga gear, it sells T-shirts reading: “When I Die Don’t Let Me Vote Democrat”, “I’m Voting for the Convicted Felon”, and a false credit card that reads, “White Privilege Card: Trumps Everything”. Send in the marines, but first send them to the Maga merch store.In violation of longstanding military policy on discipline, the selected troops cheered Trump’s sneers and jeers. He announced he had renamed the fort to Fort Bragg, in honor of Braxton Bragg, a confederate general and large slaveowner notable for his defeats and bad temper and disliked by his officers. “Can you believe they changed that name in the last administration for a little bit?” he said.He told the troops that they were to fight a war within the US against “a foreign enemy”, “defending our republic itself”, in California, where there was “a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country”.Trump spontaneously invented a conspiracy theory on the spot. “The best money can buy, somebody is financing it,” he claimed, “and we’re going to find out through Pam Bondi and Department of Justice, who it is.”He complained to the soldiers that the election of 2020 was “rigged and stolen”. Then, he swiveled to talk about George Washington: “Has anybody heard of him?” Then, he attacked Biden, “never the sharpest bulb”, or perhaps the brightest knife. Twice, Trump said he would “liberate” Los Angeles, and promised that after that the Republican Congress would pass his “big, beautiful bill”, his budget stalled in the Senate. “They call it one big, beautiful bill. So, that’s good and that’s what it is.” And then he rambled about the JD Vance-Tim Walz vice-presidential debate, and how some “ladies”, “beautiful, wonderful women”, followed him to “138 rallies”, and on. Along the way, he praised his new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Daniel Caine, who Trump insists on calling “Razin Caine”.The next day, 11 June, Caine appeared before the Senate appropriations committee, and was questioned by Hawaii’s Democratic senator, Brian Schatz, whether the events in LA show the US is “being invaded by a foreign nation”. “At this point in time,” replied the general, “I don’t see any foreign, state-sponsored folks invading.”As Caine was testifying, the Department of Homeland Security posted a cartoon of Uncle Sam hammering up a sign: “Help Your Country…And Yourself…” Then, in capital letters: “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS.” Which was followed by the telephone number for Ice.

      Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of The Court of History podcast More

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      Has Trump turned the US into a police state? – podcast

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      Archive: CBS News, AP, ABC 7 Chicago, ABC News, FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, FOX 11 LA, NBC News, PBS Newshour
      Listen to Football Weekly
      Subscribe to the Guardian’s new narrative series Missing in the Amazon
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      Help support the Guardian. Go to theguardian.com/politcspodus More

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      Trump keeps national guards in LA for now as appeals court puts brakes on ban

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      An appeals court has temporarily returned control of California’s national guard to Donald Trump, just hours after a federal judge ruled the president’s use of the guards to suppress protests in Los Angeles was illegal and banned it.The 9th US Circuit court of appeals order means Trump retains command of the guards for now and can continue to use them to respond to protests against his immigration crackdown. The court could later decide against his control.It’s a temporary victory for Trump in back-and-forth court decisions on who should control the security force, an issue that has pitted California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, against the president and angered Democrats, who see the deployment as an abuse of power.The three-judge panel that paused the ruling included two judges appointed by Trump in his first term. The other is a judge appointed by Joe Biden. The panel said it would hold a hearing on Tuesday to consider the merits of the order from District Judge Charles Breyer from earlier in the day.Breyer ruled the Guard deployment was illegal and both violated the 10th amendment and exceeded Trump’s statutory authority. The order applied only to the National Guard troops and not Marines who were also deployed to the LA protests. The judge said he would not rule on the Marines because they were not out on the streets yet.In issuing a temporary restraining order against Trump, Breyer found the president had failed to show there was a “rebellion” in Los Angeles that required him to federalize the guard and failed to comply with the procedural steps to notify the governor.“His actions were illegal – both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States constitution. He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor,” Breyer wrote.The request for the injunction is part of a lawsuit filed by the state of California challenging Trump’s move to call up more than 4,000 national guard troops and about 700 active-duty marines based in Twentynine Palms, California, over Newsom’s objections.Beryer’s decision came after a hearing in federal district court in San Francisco where the justice department argued Trump had the sole and unreviewable power to decide whether there was a “rebellion” that needed federal intervention.Breyer rejected both arguments in his sweeping 36-page opinion, effectively rebuking the justice department for trying to suggest the conditions to take control of the guard had been met as long as Trump had decided himself that was the case.“The president’s discretion in what to do next does not mean that the president can unilaterally and without judicial review declare that a vacancy exists in order to fill it. That is classic ipse dixit,” Breyer wrote, adding that the definition of rebellion had clearly not been met.The temporary restraining order did not touch on Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, moving to deploy the marines, in large part because the justice department told the judge they were only being used to protect federal buildings and personnel.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUsing the military for protective purposes, Breyer suggested at the hearing, would not be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th-century law prohibiting the use of troops to engage in law enforcement activities on domestic soil.Trump has been suggesting the idea of deploying troops against Americans since his first term, when some Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 turned violent. He opted against doing so at the time, but has since expressed regret to advisers that he did not punish them more aggressively.Notably, during a campaign rally in 2023, Trump vowed to respond more forcefully if elected to a second term. “You’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in,” he said of the president’s usual role in deciding whether to send in the military. “The next time, I’m not waiting.”The Associated Press contributed reporting. More

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      Trump news at a glance: Democrats rage after Secret Service, FBI shove and handcuff senator

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      Democrats have criticized the forcible removal of a senator who posed a question on Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown at a news conference as “violent”, “horrifying” and “a stunning abuse of power”.Secret Service and FBI officers grabbed, shoved and pushed to the ground Democratic senator Alex Padilla before handcuffing him after he showed up and asked a question at the conference held by the secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem.Tensions have flared for days between Democrats and the Trump administration over the president’s use of the national guard and marines to quell protests against the administration’s anti-immigration program in Los Angeles. A court decision temporarily banned Trump’s control of California’s national guard, only for an appeals court to pause the ban and restore his power – for now.“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question … you can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla said after the incident.Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic national committee, said the incident “sent a violent message to all of America: If you dissent against Donald Trump and openly disagree with the government, then you are not safe in our country”, adding the incident was “straight out of an authoritarian playbook”.Kamala Harris, who formerly held Padilla’s seat, called it “a shameful and stunning abuse of power”, while senator Cory Booker said it was “a violent act”, adding “there can be no justification of seeing a senator forced to their knees, lay flat on the ground, their hands twisted behind their back and being put into restraints”.Homeland security accuses Padilla of ‘political theater’In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said the senator “chose disrespectful political theater” and disrupted a live news conference. They falsely claimed that Padilla had failed to identify himself and believed he was an attacker when he “lunged toward” Noem as she delivered remarks.In video taken of the incident that has since gone viral on social media, Padilla is seen being restrained and removed from the room by the agents, saying, “I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary.” He shouts, as he struggles to move past against the men pushing him back toward the exit.Read the full story9th US Circuit court of appeal pauses earlier ban on Trump’s control of California’a national guardThe 9th US Circuit court of appeals temporarily returned control of California’s national guard to Trump, just hours after a federal judge ruled the president’s use of the guards to suppress protests in Los Angeles was illegal and banned it. The decision is not final and the court could later decide against his control.It’s a temporary victory for Trump, nonetheless, in back-and-forth court decisions on who should control the security force, an issue that has pitted California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, against the president and angered Democrats, who see the deployment as an abuse of power.Read the full storyTroops sent to LA by Trump deeply troubled by deployment California national guards and Marines deployed to Los Angeles to help restore order after days of protest against the Trump administration have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.Read the full storyTrump’s a ‘stone cold liar’, says Newsom as protests continue Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has called Trump a “stone cold liar”, condemned the federal deployment of troops in Los Angeles as “theater” and “madness”, and even questioned the president’s mental fitness, as protests over immigration raids in the city continue.Read the full storyUS rights groups warn of Republican effort to undercut LA advocacy workImmigration and civil rights organizations across the US are warning of a growing effort to undermine their advocacy work as rightwing lawmakers accuse them of fueling the demonstrations against federal raids in California.Advocacy groups voiced alarm on Thursday after Josh Hawley, a Republican US senator from Missouri, threatened multiple immigration and civil rights groups with investigations over claims that they are “bankrolling civil unrest” in Los Angeles.Read the full storyHouse votes to claw back $9.4bn in spending including from NPR and PBSThe House narrowly voted on Thursday to cut about $9.4bn in spending already approved by Congress as the Trump administration looks to follow through on work by the so-called “department of government efficiency” when it was overseen by Elon Musk.Read the full storyHegseth suggests Pentagon has prepared plans to invade Greenland and PanamaUS defense secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon had contingency plans to take Greenland and Panama by force if necessary during a congressional hearing on Thursday. When repeatedly asked by representative Adam Smith if invading the two countries was a policy of the defence department, Hegseth replied: “Our job at the defense department is to have plans for any contingency”Watch the full videoWhat else happened today:

      A judge released a Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher charged with smuggling frog embryos into the US on Thursday, freeing her on bail after a brief hearing.

      Donald Trump has blocked California’s first-in-the-nation rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, signing a resolution on Thursday to stymie the state’s ambitious attempt to tackle the climate crisis by pivoting to greener vehicles.

      The US justice department said on Thursday that it had filed a lawsuit against New York state, challenging state policies that blocked immigration officials from arresting individuals at or near New York courthouses.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 11 June More

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      Democrats vying for mayor of New York City clash in second and final debate

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      Seven Democratic candidates vying to become New York City’s next mayor clashed on Thursday night in the second and final debate before the June primary.The two-hour debate quickly turned combative with the frontrunners, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and democratic socialist assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, sparring over their records and qualifications.Cuomo, 67, who is attempting a political comeback after resigning from his role as governor in 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations, dismissed 33-year-old Mamdani as unprepared and too inexperienced for the role of New York City mayor.“I think inexperience is dangerous,” Cuomo said, before running through a list of political institutions that he claimed Mamdani had never dealt with.“He’s never built anything,” Cuomo continued. “He’s never dealt with a natural emergency. He’s never dealt with a hurricane, with a flood, etc. He’s never done any of the essentials. And now you have Donald Trump on top of all of that.”Mamdani fired back: “To Mr Cuomo, I have never had to resign in disgrace, I have never cut Medicaid, I have never stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA, I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment, I have never sued for their gynecological records, and I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr Cuomo.”Mamdani also criticized Cuomo for repeatedly mispronouncing his name: “The name is Mamdani. You should learn how to say it.”Cuomo continued his attacks, calling Mamdani “a man who has done nothing”.Mamdani defended his record as an assemblymember, citing work and organizing he did to help New York City taxi drivers. Mamdani, who said it was “time for a new generation of leadership”, urged New Yorkers to judge him by the campaign he’s running, where he manages 36,000 volunteers.He promised to bring “innovation and competence” to city hall and hire “the best and the brightest”.In addition to Cuomo and Mamdani, five other candidates were on the stage: the city comptroller, Brad Lander; the council speaker, Adrienne Adams; the state senator Zellnor Myrie; the former comptroller Scott Stringer; and the former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson.The debate opened with moderators asking the candidates about the Trump administration’s immigration raids in Los Angeles and the administration’s response to the protests against the immigration crackdown.“If you were mayor of New York right now, how would you handle this situation, if something like that happened here?” the moderators asked.“We are going to protect our immigrants,” Cuomo said. “This is a sanctuary city, and we are going to defend the laws of the sanctuary city.”“Donald Trump only picks fights that he can win. He cannot win a fight with me as mayor of New York,” Cuomo added.Mamdani pledged to block any New York City police department cooperation with federal immigration agents if elected, and vowed to provide and fund legal support for immigrants facing deportation cases.Other candidates, such as Adrienne Adams, said they would sue the federal government.Cuomo faced sustained criticism throughout the night. Lander, the city comptroller, repeatedly challenged Cuomo’s record.Early in the debate, Lander pressed Cuomo on his use of the term “illegal immigrants”, prompting Cuomo to switch to “undocumented”. Throughout the debate, Lander accused Cuomo of failing to take accountability for things that had occurred while he was governor.“I lead by building the best teams, not through sexual harassment, corruption and disgrace,” Lander said.Cuomo was asked about the sexual harassment allegations against him that led to his 2021 resignation. Cuomo called them “political” and urged voters to “look at the facts”.Lander responded by saying that if Cuomo were elected mayor, he would not tell college students to work in city government, and that he would have to tell them: “Don’t go work at city hall because the mayor is a sexual harasser.”Cuomo hit back, saying that Lander was telling lies.On housing, all of the candidates said that they would want to build more housing in New York City. Cuomo and Tilson were the only candidates on the stage who did not support a rent freeze for rent-stabilized units for this year.On public safety, Myrie said the issue called for subway teams made up of both police and mental health experts, and said that he would institute 50,000 more summer youth jobs and after-school programs.Tilson attacked Mamdani, arguing that he had “demonized” the police.In response, Mamdani said that if elected he would “not defund the police” and said that he would “work with the police because I believe the police have a critical role to play in creating public safety”. He also called for mental health and social workers to help the police respond to emergency calls.Moderators pressed Cuomo on why, during “10-plus years as governor”, he had not made a “public visit to a mosque” and asked him what he would say “to more than 760,000 Muslims here in the city about whether or not you would reach out to them, make them feel welcome, make them feel protected?”In response, Cuomo said that he believed he had visited a mosque and added: “I would say, we are a city of immigrants, I welcome them, I love them.”Mamdani was also asked to address concerns from Jewish New Yorkers supportive of Israel who “fear for their safety in this current political climate”.Mamdani responded: “I hear them and that I have heard them over the course of this campaign and before that”, adding: “I will protect Jewish New Yorkers and deliver them that safety.”Mamdani received criticism from Cuomo and Tilson over his criticisms of Israel.Tensions also escalated when Mamdani, who is Muslim, accused Cuomo’s Super Pac of altering a photo on a leaked draft campaign flyer to make his beard look darker, longer and thicker. Mamdani first made the accusation earlier on Thursday on Instagram, calling it “blatant Islamophobia”.Unlike the previous week’s debate, which was held without an audience, Thursday’s event had a live crowd that reacted audibly throughout with clapping, cheering, booing and laughter.The final debate on Thursday came after several major recent endorsements. The New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threw her support behind Mamdani after last week’s debate, while the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed Cuomo this week.New polling released this week underscores just how tight the race has become.The Democratic primary election will be held on 24 June, with early voting beginning 10 days earlier, on 14 June. The election will use ranked-choice voting, allowing New Yorkers to rank up to five candidates in order of preference.The current New York mayor, Eric Adams, who ran as a Democrat in 2021, is seeking re-election as an independent candidate.The general mayoral election is set for 4 November. More

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      Senator Alex Padilla forcibly removed from Kristi Noem’s LA press conference

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      Alex Padilla, a Democratic California senator and vocal critic of the Trump administration’s immigration polices, was forcibly removed and handcuffed as he attempted to ask a question at a press conference held by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, in Los Angeles on Thursday.In video taken of the incident that has since gone viral on social media, Padilla is seen being restrained and removed from the room by Secret Service agents.“I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla shouts, as he struggles to move past against the men pushing him back toward the exit.“Hands off!” Padilla says at least three times. Outside the room, he is pinned to the floor and placed in handcuffs.Emerging afterward, Padilla, the ranking member of the judiciary subcommittee on immigration, citizenship and border safety, said he and his colleagues had repeatedly asked DHS for more information on its “increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions” but had not received a response to his inquiries.“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the DHS responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla, the son of immigrants from Mexico, told reporters. “We will hold this administration accountable.”The extraordinary scene stunned his Democratic colleagues from Capitol Hill to California, though his actions drew criticism from Republicans, including the House speaker, Mike Johnson, who called for Padilla’s censure. It comes amid escalating tensions between California and the federal government, after Donald Trump deployed national guard troops and US Marines to LA to quell protests prompted by immigration raids, over the objections of the state’s governor and the city’s mayor.“I am shocked by how far we have descended in the first 140 days of this administration,” Adam Schiff, the junior senator from California said in a speech from the Senate floor shortly after viewing the video of the incident. “What is becoming of our democracy? Are there no limits to what this administration will do? Is there no line they will not cross?”In a statement, the DHS said the senator “chose disrespectful political theatre” and disrupted a live news conference. They falsely claimed that Padilla had failed to identify himself and believed he was an attacker when he “lunged toward” Noem as she delivered remarks.“Mr Padilla was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands,” the department said in a statement posted on X, adding that officers responded and “acted appropriately”.The deputy FBI director Dan Bongino accused Padilla of “not wearing a security pin” and said he “physically resisted law enforcement when confronted”.“Our FBI personnel acted completely appropriately while assisting Secret Service and we are grateful for their professionalism and service,” Bongino added.Noem was in Los Angeles to accompany federal agents on immigration operations in the area.Noem said Padilla’s approach “wasn’t appropriate” and that she wished he had reached out to her office before interrupting the event. Following the incident, she and the senator met for 15 minutes, according to DHS. Noem told reporters that they had a “great” and “productive” conversation and exchanged phone numbers.Democratic officials said they were stunned by what the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, described as the “manhandling” of a sitting US senator.The California governor, Gavin Newsom, called Padilla “one of the most decent people I know”, before adding: “This is outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful. Trump and his shock troops are out of control. This must end now.”Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, wrote on X that “watching this video sickened my stomach, the manhandling of a United States Senator, Senator Padilla. We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.”Jimmy Gomez, a California representative, wrote on X : “This isn’t just shocking, it’s a threat to the rule of law and democratic accountability. Sen Padilla is conducting oversight over the lawlessness of the Trump and the violations of the #RuleOfLaw. If this can happen to immigrant communities, it can happen to anyone.”Tina Smith, a Minnesota senator, said: “This is disgusting. If this is how they treat Alex Padilla, a United States Senator, how do you think they’ll treat you?”Norma Torres, a California representative, lambasted the treatment of Padilla in an impassioned video, writing: “Let’s call it what it is: a disgraceful abuse of power. Senator Alex Padilla was dragged and handcuffed out for daring to question Secretary Noem. This wasn’t a threat – it was dissent. They’re not keeping us safe – they’re silencing us.”The clash with Padilla comes just days after the Democratic representative LaMonica McIver of New Jersey was indicted on federal charges alleging she assaulted and interfered with immigration officers after a clash with law enforcement at a May protest outside a detention facility in Newark. Democrats have cast the charges as a politically motivated attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate the opposition.As he exited the floor of the House of Representatives, Johnson said the senator had been at fault, accusing him of “charging a cabinet secretary at a press conference” and calling his actions “wildly inappropriate”.“A sitting member of Congress should not act like that,” he said. “It is beneath a member of the Congress, it is beneath a US senator.”Johnson said he believes Padilla’s behavior “merits immediate attention” by Congress and “at a minimum, it rises to the level of a censure”. More

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      House votes to claw back $9.4bn in spending including from NPR and PBS

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      The House narrowly voted on Thursday to cut about $9.4bn in spending already approved by Congress as Donald Trump’s administration looks to follow through on work by the so-called “department of government efficiency” when it was overseen by Elon Musk.The package targets foreign aid programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides money for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, as well as thousands of public radio and television stations around the country. The vote was 214-212.Republicans are characterizing the spending as wasteful and unnecessary, but Democrats say the rescissions are hurting the United States’ standing in the world and will lead to needless deaths.“Cruelty is the point,” the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, said of the proposed spending cuts.The Trump administration is employing a tool rarely used in recent years that allows the president to transmit a request to Congress to cancel previously appropriated funds. That triggers a 45-day clock in which the funds are frozen pending congressional action. If Congress fails to act within that period, then the spending stands.“This rescissions package sends $9.4bn back to the US Treasury,” said Representative Lisa McClain, House Republican conference chair. “That’s $9.4bn of savings that taxpayers won’t see wasted. It’s their money.”The benefit for the administration of a formal rescissions request is that passage requires only a simple majority in the 100-member Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to get spending bills through that chamber. So, if they stay united, Republicans will be able to pass the measure without any Democratic votes.The Senate majority leader, John Thune, said the Senate would probably not take the bill up until July and after it has dealt with Trump’s big tax and immigration bill. He also said it was possible the Senate could tweak the bill.The administration is likening the first rescissions package to a test case and says more could be on the way if Congress goes along.Republicans, sensitive to concerns that Trump’s sweeping tax and immigration bill would increase future federal deficits, are anxious to demonstrate spending discipline, though the cuts in the package amount to just a sliver of the spending approved by Congress each year. They are betting the cuts prove popular with constituents who align with Trump’s “America first” ideology as well as those who view NPR and PBS as having a liberal bias.In all, the package contains 21 proposed rescissions. Approval would claw back about $900m from $10bn that Congress has approved for global health programs. That includes canceling $500m for activities related to infectious diseases and child and maternal health and another $400m to address the global HIV epidemic.The Trump administration is also looking to cancel $800m, or a quarter of the amount Congress approved, for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation, and family reunification for those forced to flee their own country.About 45% of the savings sought by the White House would come from two programs designed to boost the economies, democratic institutions and civil societies in developing countries.The Republican president has also asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1bn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount it is slated to receive during the next two budget years. About two-thirds of the money gets distributed to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Nearly half of those stations serve rural areas of the country.The association representing local public television stations warns that many of them would be forced to close if the Republican measure passes. More

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      Newsom calls Trump a ‘stone cold liar’ as LA protests against Ice raids continue

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      Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has called Donald Trump a “stone cold liar”, condemned the federal deployment of troops in Los Angeles as “theater” and “madness” and even questioned the president’s mental fitness, as protests over immigration raids in the city continue.Trump federalized 2,000 of California’s national guard on Saturday, with a US president acting over the objections of a state governor in this way for the first time in more than half a century. It followed the outbreak of protests over a series of sweeping immigration raids in the LA area, with Newsom criticizing Trump’s actions as illegal overreach, unconstitutional and “provocation”.Now US marines are being added to this force to back up arrests by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency, in tactics Newsom said have been used to “disappear” people unlawfully in these raids rather than confront the protesters who have destroyed property around an Ice facility in downtown Los Angeles.Newsom, a Democrat, said that Trump never raised with him the federalizing of the national guard before it occurred, when the two spoke by phone last Friday, despite the president’s claims to the contrary. “He lied, stone cold liar,” the governor told the New York Times podcast the Daily on Thursday morning in an interview.Of the subsequent rare commanding of the national guard troops by the president, rather than the governor, Newsom told the Daily: “It came completely out of left field.”The federalized national guard have been taken from their duties on the border and working in California’s forests to clear undergrowth to prevent wildfires and have had to be protected by police as protesters were specifically angry at them being deployed by the president, Newsom said.“That is how ridiculous this whole thing is,” he said. “This is theater, it’s madness, it’s unconstitutional, it’s immoral. It puts people’s lives at risk, these people are being used as pawns.”Newsom said that “looting is unacceptable” but that more than 1,600 police were dealing with the situation and his greater concern was the “thuggish behavior” of the Trump administration in ordering the military on to the streets of a US city. Several members of the federalized national guard have told friends and family they are deeply unhappy about the deployment.“This sends fear and chills up the spines of law-abiding citizens,” said Newsom, who has warned that other states and US democracy itself is under threat from the presidential overreach. “That is a red line crossed, it is a serious and profound moment in American history.”Newsom told local media that Trump’s age seemed to be affecting him.He claimed to the Times that the president can’t recall the phone conversation they had on Friday and that “he’s not all there”, echoing comments first made by the governor on Monday that Trump, who turns 79 on Saturday, is “incapable of even a train of thought” and that he has “lost it”.Trump has said that he wants to “liberate” Los Angeles from protesters and has escalated a feud with Newsom, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028, by even suggesting the governor himself could be arrested. Los Angeles was calmer on Wednesday evening than at the weekend and the city’s mayor, Karen Bass, has emphasized in local appearances how small an area has been affected by any trouble, with a limited area under curfew and no looting experienced there overnight into Thursday.However, as protests continue, several hundred further arrests were made late on Wednesday.Newsom also said in the interview broadcast, published on Thursday, that his 15-year-old daughter came home from school crying at the prospect of him being arrested. “I said that doesn’t matter, what matters is the military on the streets,” he said. “I will handle that, I will be fine. I am worried about you, I’m worried about this country, I’m worried about everything we’ve taken for granted and fought so hard for disappearing overnight.”At a press conference on Thursday, Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, suggested without evidence that the protesters could be “funded” by “NGOs out there, unions, other individuals” and said Newsom had not returned her calls. Security guards forcibly removed Alex Padilla, a California senator, from the press conference as he attempted to ask Noem a question.In a statement after his removal, Padilla’s office said he was in Los Angeles “exercising his duty to perform congressional oversight of the federal government’s operations”.“He tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents, forced to the ground and handcuffed. He is not currently detained, and we are working to get additional information,” the statement said.The protests have spread to other cities including New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Seattle and Spokane in Washington state, Austin and San Antonio in Texas. Meanwhile immigration “enforcement activity” has extended to California’s agricultural heartland, where many farm workers are undocumented people.Los Angeles area mayors on Wednesday called on the Trump administration with withdraw troops and stop the raids that have caused widespread fear in immigrant communities.“I’m asking you, please listen to me, stop terrorizing our residents,” said Jessica Ancona, the mayor of El Monte, who said she was struck by rubber bullets during a recent raid in the city.On Wednesday, Trump was both booed and cheered while attending a performance of Les Misérables in Washington at the Kennedy Center in the capital, which he took over after returning to the White House. Trump said that the actions in Los Angeles were necessary. “If I didn’t act quickly on that, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground right now,” Trump said. More