Washington – The tense phone call at the end of President Trump's night with Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday night came with a warning: “Take the police in progress.” His robbery staff was the president in a 7-eleven and the Federal Police with lacerations.
His patience would last less than 24 hours before federalizing the National Guard in a historical action.
“He told the governor to control him and see him again for another full day, 24 hours, where he got worse,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House Secretary, to Times in an interview. “The assaults against the application of the federal law dump, the violence grew and the president took bold measures on Saturday night to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal staff.”
The president did, Leavitt said: “With the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard hopefully would prevent and deter part of this violence.”
The opposite happened. The worst violence until now took place on Sunday, with some uproarist burned and throw concrete in the police records, hours after the National Guard troops arrived at Los Angeles County.
The protests had been largely peaceful throughout Friday and Saturday, with isolated cases of violent activity. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, have “harmed” the Los Angeles Police Department, “who are trying to do their job.”
Local leaders “have refused to allow the Local Police Department to work together with the federals to enforce the immigration laws of our nation and stop and arrest the violent criminals that are in the streets of Los Angeles,” he said.
The president and his so -called immigration tsar, Tom Homan, have suggested that political leadership, including Newsom himself, could face the arrest for “obstructive” behavior.
“It is a basic principle in this country that if it violates the law, will face a consequence for that,” Leavitt said. “Then, if the governor clogs the federal application, or breaks federal laws, then he submits to arrest.”
Leavitt said that Trump would not be advanced on whether he will invoke the insurrection law, a law that allows the President to suspend the POSSE Commitatus, which prohibits the military from participating in the application of the local law.
But he took note that, on Monday, the president referred to some of the uproarists as insurrectionists, potentially laying the foundations for an invocation of the law.
“The president wisely maintains all the options on the table, and will do what is necessary to restore the law and order in California,” he said, “and protects US citizens respectful of the law. And federal operations of immigration application will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been complete city”.
The president's order, which leads 2,000 National Guard troops to protect federal city buildings, allows a 60 -day deployment. Leavitt did not say how long the operation could last, but suggested that he would continue until violence in protests ends.
“I don't want to get ahead of the president in any decision or term,” he said. “I can tell him that the White House is 100% focused on this. The president wants to solve the problem. And that means creating an environment where citizens, if they wish, are given the space and the right to protest peacefully.”
“And these violent disruptors and insurrectionists, as the president called them, not only harm citizens respectful of the law, but those who wish to protest peacefully. That is a fundamental right that this administration will always support and protect.”
