President Donald Trump said that he would invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the Los Angeles riots if “there’s an insurrection.”
As riots broke out across the streets in L.A. in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in the area, Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard troops to deploy to the city. Hundreds of Marines were then deployed to downtown L.A. to help control the riots, raising the question of whether Trump would consider using the Insurrection Act, which allows the deployment of U.S. troops to ease domestic unrest. (RELATED: Trump Says Tom Homan Should Arrest Gavin Newsom As Riots In LA Rage)
“Will you invoke the Insurrection Act to deal with the situation in California?” RealClear Politics White House correspondent Phil Wegmann asked Tuesday.
“If there is an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it, we’ll see. Can I tell you, last night was terrible. The night before that was terrible as you have seen on your networks,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“People were with heavy hammers pounding the concrete, pounding the curbs and handing these big chunks of concrete to people and they were taking that concrete going up to 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. 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. We have it in great shape. We’re not playing around.”
“How will you determine whether or not there is an insurrection?” Wegmann followed up.
“Well you take a look at what is happening. I could tell you there were certain areas of Los Angeles last night you could have called it an insurrection. It was terrible these are paid insurrectionists,” Trump began.
“These are paid trouble makers. They get money. When you take a look at what they do, when they show up … everyone is like, ‘what is he doing?’ The one guy is pounding the curb, breaking the curb and handing big pieces of granite, in some cases it’s granite, and concrete to other people and running out with it and watch the other people and they try to throw it into the face of the soldiers, throw it into the face of the police and they hurt people badly,” he continued.
The Insurrection Act of 1807 gives the president the authority to use the National Guard and military in order to combat “unlawful obstruction or rebellion” within U.S. borders. Former President George H.W. Bush was the last to use the act in 1992 to quell Los Angeles riots. Before him, Eisenhower used the act in 1957 to enforce school desegregation in the south.
The unrest began over the weekend after ICE agents arrested 100 illegal immigrants, including drug traffickers and gang members, in raids across the city. The protests eventually turned into violent riots where some anti-Trump protesters burned cars and threw Molotov cocktails, rocks and fireworks. Some property was defaced with slogans like “KILL ICE.”
There were nearly 1,000 rioters that descended on the city as they caused damage to federal buildings and assaulted ICE agents, slashed tires and destroyed government property Friday night, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
