Protests in Los Angeles continued to escalate late Monday, after the first contingent of National Guard troops, deployed by President Donald Trump, arrived to the city on Sunday.
Late Monday news broke that Trump planned to deploy additional National Guard members to quell violent protests.
Images out of L.A. showed scenes of chaos — Waymo self-driving cars lit on fire as masked protesters waved Mexican flags.
At least five cars were set ablaze, according to a CBS News report. The Google-owned taxi service said they don’t believe protesters intentionally targeted their vehicles but paused its service in the areas where it faced disruption.
The LAPD announced they made 50 arrests during the demonstrations over the weekend. As Fox News’ Bill Melugin reported, the charges included attempted murder with a Molotov cocktail, and assault with a deadly weapon on an officer.
“Five officers and five LAPD horses have sustained minor injuries, and crowds were using hand held radios to communicate law enforcement movements to each other,” Melugin reported.
There was a brief reprieve in the violence early Monday, although city residents continued navigating street and freeway closures amid protests.
Among the demonstrators was an interfaith group that sung hymns in front of the police, as CNN showed Monday morning. ICE agents stood behind LAPD officers.
Trump announced Saturday night he would deploy 2,000 National Guardsmen to Southern California to protect federal buildings and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who were carrying out raids on migrants in the country illegally.
On Monday, the Trump administration moved to also send 700 Marines to quell the protests. The troops were scheduled to arrive over the next 24 hours.
“You watch the same clips I did: cars burning, people rioting, we stopped it,” Trump said, speaking at the White House.
“If we didn’t do the job, that place would be burning down just like the houses,” he added, referring to the wildfires in Los Angeles in January.
“I feel we had no choice ... We did the right thing.”
While Trump says he felt his administration didn’t have a choice and “did the right thing,” California Democrats argue the president escalated the situation.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who opposed the deployment of National Guard troops, criticized Trump for sending soldiers to California in a post on X.
“U.S. Marines have served honorably across multiple wars in defense of democracy,” Newsom said.
“They shouldn’t be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President,” he said. “This is un-American.”
Hours later, in a separate post, Newsom said he “was just informed Trump is deploying another 2,000 Guard troops to L.A.”
He claimed the first set of National Guard members Trump sent to California didn’t receive food or water and only roughly 300 of them are actively deployed while the rest await their next orders in federal buildings.
“This is Reckless. Pointless. And Disrespectful to our troops,” Newsom added.
Newsom sues Trump White House
Newsom urged the Trump White House to rescind the National Guard deployment on Sunday.
By Monday, his administration had filed a lawsuit against the federal government.
Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced they sued the Trump administration for sending the National Guard without the governor’s authorization or request during a press conference Monday.
“Donald Trump is creating fear and terror by failing to adhere to the U.S. Constitution and overstepping his authority. This is a manufactured crisis to allow him to take over a state militia, damaging the very foundation of our republic,” said Newsom.
“Every governor, red or blue, should reject this outrageous overreach,” the governor added.
According to Bonta, this marks California’s 24th lawsuit against the Trump White House over the past four months.
Newsom urged Californians to protest peacefully. During Monday’s press conference, Bonta also cautioned violent demonstrators against breaking the law to avoid arrests.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass claimed the ICE raids last week and the military presence in the city sparked increased violence over the weekend.
“If you dial back time and go to Friday, if immigration raids had not happened here, we would not have had the disorder that went on last night,” Bass said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”
“If they see ICE, they go out, and they protest, and so it’s just a recipe for pandemonium that is completely unnecessary. Nothing was happening here. Los Angeles was peaceful before Friday.”
Vice President J.D. Vance told the governor to do his job. “That’s all we’re asking,” he added.
Trump patted himself on the back for deploying the National Guard in a post on Truth Social.
“We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California,” he said. “If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”
He criticized Newsom and Bass for not accepting the federal government’s help nor expressing any gratitude for it.
“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,’” he wrote.
