Noem Says National Guard Occupation Is Meant To ‘Liberate’ LA From Its Mayor And Governor

Just before Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was forcibly removed from a Department of Homeland Security press briefing, forced to the ground and then handcuffed for asking a question, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was in the middle of making a bizarre but crucial point. 

“We are not going away,” she said, referring to the National Guard and DHS presence in Los Angeles this week amid protests against Trump’s sweeping and drastic deportation mission in the city. “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

The statement said the quiet part out loud: the military was there to “liberate” a city from its democratically elected governor and mayor. (It was also not entirely clear what “burdensome” actions she was referring to.)

Leading up to this moment in the press briefing, Noem spent several minutes thanking the National Guard, FBI, local law enforcement and the IRS (??) for their efforts on the ground in LA. (Apparently, per Noem, IRS agents have been there in person working to determine what groups are organizing the protests in the city! Normal stuff!) She then said that the National Guard and DHS were working to “make every single community great again and safe again” before lamenting that the people of LA were “suffering” “under the policies of Governor Newsom and under the policies of Mayor Bass.” 

Those remarks combined with the liberation speak amount to a pretty pellucid admission of the Trump administration’s ultimate vision here. As I noted earlier this week, much of the effort to deploy troops to LA to clamp down on mostly peaceful protesters in the city can be seen through the lens of the president’s months-long effort to punish blue cities and states. While he is hiding behind the guise of targeting Democratic-led states and cities that function as sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants, Trump’s barely disguised his bloodlust for using his second term to punish all of his perceived political enemies. Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass most certainly fall into this category. 

Moments after Noem made the remarks about, essentially, trying to undermine the authority of local and state elected Democrats in California, Padilla was forcibly removed from the briefing room, forced to lay on the ground face-down and placed in handcuffs. Because he tried to ask a question. You can catch up on the details of the incident in our liveblog coverage of today’s events here. My colleague Josh Kovensky articulated the depravity of the moment well this afternoon: 

In some ways, it’s a microcosm of how the Trump administration has intentionally conflated peaceful protest with criminal activity over the past week. Just as the White House order authorizing the military deployment to LA declares that “protests” which “inhibit” law enforcement “constitute a form of rebellion” against the U.S. government, so does a U.S. Senator asking a question at an open presser make him a threat. 

Desantis Reminds Floridians They Can Hit Protesters With Their Cars If They Want

“If you’re driving on one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee for your safety, and so if you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you,” DeSantis told podcaster Dave Rubin in an episode of his podcast that went live Wednesday night. “You don’t have to sit there and just be a sitting duck and let the mob grab you out of your car and drag you through the streets.”

“You have a right to defend yourself in Florida,” he added.

You may recall similar sentiments about vehicular assault articulated by Republicans in the past. In response to the George Floyd protests that broke out in the summer of 2020, Republicans in state legislatures across the country passed laws directly attacking the constitutional right to lawfully assemble. Many states passed laws that provided substantial immunity to drivers who, intentionally or not, strike protesters with their vehicles. This 2021 piece in the New York Times breaks down the groundswell of bills that become law in the months following Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. 

Their aim has been pretty blatant for some time as they attempt to normalize casual violence against people exercising their right to protest. A few years back I wrote about Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) ongoing relationship with encouraging violence against protesters. At the time he was openly mulling whether some protesters might need to have “their skin ripped off.” 

Also relevant: Cotton was also one of the early adopters of MAGA’s newfound advocacy for the deployment of the military to the streets of U.S. cities to violently break up protests. 

Will Senate Republicans Eat DOGE Cuts Too?

As my colleague Emine Yücel reported earlier this afternoon, House Republicans voted to rubber-stamp the Trump administration’s constitutionally backward power grab by passing the rescissions package the White House sent over. The whole endeavor is meant to give an air of legitimacy to Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts, which lawlessly froze and rescinded federal funds. Musk, of course, then left the administration and got into a fight with Trump on Twitter. 

At least three Senate Republicans have signaled some unease about being force-fed the Musk bros’ dangerous handiwork. Stay tuned. 

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