LOS ANGELES, CA - California National Guard troops began to arrive in Los Angeles Sunday on the orders of President Donald Trump despite the state's governor's objections, where protests led to clashes between immigration authorities and demonstrators.
Governor Gavin Newsom sharply criticized the move as inflammatory and unnecessary. "The federal government is sowing chaos so they can have an excuse to escalate. That is not the way any civilized country behaves.
Newsom urged protesters to remain calm. "Don’t give Trump what he wants," Newsom wrote on social media.
“We’ll send whatever we need to make sure there’s law and order,” Trump said about sending troops to Los Angeles. “Last night (Saturday) in Los Angeles, we watched it very closely; there was a lot of violence there, and it could have got much worse.”
The unrest began on Friday when law enforcement officials in full riot gear arrived in Los Angeles to detain day laborers at a building supply shop. This operation was part of a broader enforcement initiative by the Trump administration aimed at addressing issues related to undocumented immigration.
So, when can a president deploy the National Guard? Here is the answer and more in the latest edition of Just the Facts:
The President can deploy the National Guard directly under the Insurrection Act, but only in specified situations.
The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the President to federalize the National Guard and deploy it on US soil when:
- The US is invaded or in danger of invasion
- There is a rebellion or danger of rebellion against the US government
- The President is unable to execute the laws of the United States with regular forces.
Did Trump invoke the Insurrection Act?
In response to the outbreak of protests in Los Angeles, President Trump did not invoke the Insurrection Act but instead referenced a specific provision of the U.S. Code on Armed Services, which allows for the federal command of National Guard troops in the event of "a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority" of the United States.
However, the law also stipulates that such orders should be issued through the governors of the states, raising questions about Trump's legal authority to bypass Governor Newsom.
Examples of National Guard deployments by presidents
- 1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson deployed the National Guard to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators.
- 1968: The Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination Riots prompted the federalization of the National Guard in several cities.
- 1970: The New York Postal Strike led to the deployment of the National Guard to assist with postal operations.
- 1992: President George H.W. Bush deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles after riots following the acquittal of police officers in the Rodney King beating case.
- 2020: In the wake of protests following the killing of George Floyd, National Guard troops were deployed in some states.
Calls for reform
In 2022, the Brennan Center for Justice submitted a proposal to the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack, advocating for reforms to the Insurrection Act. The aim of these reforms is to clarify ambiguous language and update the Act to address contemporary issues.
The Brennan Center identified specific sections that require clarification, including the criteria under which the President can invoke the Act, which states that "any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy" is acceptable grounds.
The Center contends that this language is overly broad and could be interpreted in a way that allows the President to use the Act to respond to various forms of conspiracy, including protests or minor criminal acts, with active-duty military forces.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum. He is the publisher of the Latino News Network and an accredited Solutions Journalism and Complicating the Narratives trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.