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Early Start with Rahel Solomon
Trump Administration Deployed National Guard Without Request; Clashes Erupt in LA in Third Day of Immigration Protests. Aired 4:30- 5a ET
Aired June 09, 2025 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Tom Homan told NBC on Sunday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JACOB SOBOROFF, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: You've also mentioned Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom, and there have been threats, you know, previously that if you stand in the way of your enforcement operations, you know, you could be subject potentially to arrest. Are you saying that about Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom? Are they at risk of being arrested?
TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: I'll say it about anybody. You cross that line. It's a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal illegal alien.
It's a felony to impede law enforcement from doing their job.
SOBOROFF: Do you think that the mayor of LA is doing that?
HOMAN: You know, if she crossed that line, we'll ask DOJ to prosecute. Do I think she's crossed the line? I don't think she's crossed the line yet.
But I'm telling you, the warning we're sending is we're not going to tolerate people attacking our officers.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL: CNN's Chief Law Enforcement Analyst John Miller says that the president's move to mobilize those 2,000 National Guard members was done in an unusual way. He's got a lot of experience. He says he's never seen this before.
While the president does hold authority to do so, it usually happens after requests for help from the state. Miller says, in all of his experience, that this deployment is, as we mentioned, something that he's never seen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: We have to begin with the question of what are they doing there? Typically, the request will come from an overwhelmed law enforcement community that will go to the governor and say, we need help from outside, and that's going to be the National Guard. That did not happen, nor did the governor ask for assistance from the National Guard.
This is the Trump administration in Washington federalizing the California National Guard out from under the governor and deploying them based on their assertion that they are not satisfied with the force protection that they got from the local law enforcement agencies, whether that was the LAPD deployed Friday and Saturday at the federal building or whether it was the LA Sheriff's people who were deployed in Paramount, California, near the ICE facility there.
So they're basically saying, we're federalizing the whole operation, not just the enforcement piece based on civil immigration law, but also the protection of the federal building, the protection of the federal agents. And I haven't seen that before, and I've been around a long time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL: And there are also concerns that the situation in Los Angeles could continue to get worse. Earlier, my colleague, Brian Abels, spoke with the former chief of Homeland Security and Intelligence for D.C. Here's what he thinks could happen.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you're going to find in these type of protests, and I've done a lot of these, is there's three different types of protests. It's really four. One is a law-abiding citizen that's just out there to kind of, you know, participate in First Amendment protected activity.
Law enforcement gives them orders. They'll usually start disbanding. Then there's those individuals who are a little bit more hardened. They need a little bit more nudging. So some of the smoke grenades and the pepper spray and the horses mounted units.
And then you have the criminal element. And those individuals usually hang out in the crowd. They stir things up. And those are the individuals that will usually stay. They're a little bit more recalcitrant, and they're not going to leave when ordered to do so. And those are the elements that we worry about when night falls because that's when really the violence you can expect to see.
BRIAN ABEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We heard Kyung Lah earlier on CNN talk about the changes, the different crowds than there were earlier in the day, talking about, you know, the introduction of agitators there. Is that organic? Is that something that traditionally happens with protests like this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, the other type that I didn't mention before are the opportunists, right? And every protest we see, we see kind of a spectrum of individuals from nonviolent all the way to violent, and those opportunists, right? So they will use all those other individuals as shields, as human shields to kind of throw Molotov cocktails or rocks or whatever and instigate.
They may not even be from the community. Often they're not, and they don't have a vested interest. Sometimes they don't even care about the cause.
What we saw a little bit earlier, if you had seen some of the other footage, were there individuals out there with Palestine flags saying, free Palestine. So they're clearly not out there in regards to the immigration crackdown that you're seeing. They're opportunists.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL: And Democratic lawmakers in California, they are also speaking out, offering criticism that the White House crackdown on the Los Angeles protests are really making the situation worse. Congresswoman Annette Barragan represents part of Southern California. She told us earlier that she believes that President Trump is actually using these demonstrations, in her opinion, as a diversion.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. NANETTE BARRAGAN (D-CA): This is the president's way to create some theater. It's a way for him to grab power. And it's very dangerous.
It creates mistrust, and it's a misuse of the National Guard. And we know this is his way of trying to control the scene.
[04:35:00]
It's also a way for him to distract from his failed policies. We know he always goes right to immigration when he's failing in other things.
And we know the economy is tanking. He's going to throw millions of people off of their health care. So this is just another way to get back to the conversation on immigration.
And unfortunately, he's targeting California. And we're seeing people who are angry, and they're very upset about his immigration enforcement. They don't want these mass protests and deport -- rather, they don't want the mass deportations in our communities.
So they are coming out to express their -- you know, have their voices heard, and they should do so peacefully.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL: And Congresswoman Barragan also said that President Trump has, quote, no credibility when it comes to law and order.
And it's not just Southern California that's seeing these protests and arrests. I want to show you some pictures from another part of the state.
Police in San Francisco say that this peaceful demonstration took a violent turn, and the result was some 60 people arrested there. It began as a march against immigration raids and deportations. At one point, police there also declaring an unlawful assembly. They say some protesters vandalized property and committed assaults.
Our breaking news coverage of the protests in L.A. continue. After demonstrations swarmed -- demonstrators swarmed the streets of Los Angeles, clashing with police and the National Guard.
We'll get you more after the break.
[04:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANDOVAL: Showing you some overnight pictures here as protesters confront police in Los Angeles on what is now a third day of unrest. Protests erupted after a series of immigration raids across the city. Here are things where they stand as of this hour.
27 people have already been arrested and police have declared all of downtown LA as an unlawful assembly zone that basically allows authorities there to take further action to try to restore peace.
State officials blaming President Trump for inflaming tensions by deploying the National Guard, essentially saying that the tense situation was made even worse by sending armed troops in. California Governor Gavin Newsom says that the state will sue the president for that.
One police officer did appear to target reporter Lauren Tomasi with a rubber bullet during Sunday's protests. In the video that we're about to show you, an officer on the left of your screen turns towards her, aiming and then actually fires. Important to point out, we don't yet know exactly what was happening behind that crew when this happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAUREN TOMASI, REPORTER: Firing rubber bullets at protesters. Moving them on through the heart of LA. You just shut the car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you okay?
TOMASI: Did it hit you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Smashes report that they're fascist. You're not okay. Fascist, fascist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: Yes, a reminder of the risks that come with covering these protests. Fortunately, she suffered only some bruises. She's OK. In fact, it's pretty incredible. She quickly gets back up and continues to do her job.
Now, as the protests escalated in Los Angeles on Sunday, multiple self-driving vehicles were set on fire and vandalized with graffiti.
The video you're seeing here appears to depict Waymo cars suffering some heavy damage. You see they're actually destroyed.
CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter has more on how that company and others are responding to the violence and how misinformation about the protests has been spreading online.
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BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: This was like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel on Sunday, watching these Waymo self-driving cars go up in flames. Waymo has been rolling out these robotaxis in California, first in San Francisco, now in Los Angeles. And by all accounts, they've been a huge hit.
People love the truly self-driving experience, being able to call a robotaxi and have it pull up a minute or two later. In this case, there were a number of these Waymos all lined up on the same street. Vandals were defacing the cars and then ultimately were able to set them ablaze.
These fires were raging for quite some time, as seen on local television news helicopters. Firefighters eventually arrived once the scene was a little bit safer in order to put those fires out.
I spoke with a spokesperson for Waymo, who said the company was in touch with law enforcement about the matter. And that's significant for the following reason. Waymo was able to turn off its app, turn off the ability to request rides around the area where protests were happening. Turning off that functionality meant that other cars could not be ordered by riders for the intent of possibly defacing or lighting them on fire.
So a very 21st century problem for a 21st century technology on the streets in downtown LA. And it's not the only example of digital city infrastructure being used and weaponized on Sunday.
[04:45:00]
We also saw Lime scooters, which are seen on street corners in lots of major cities, used in order to try to damage police vehicles. Vandals took some of those scooters and threw them onto police cars that were parked on Interstate 101.
Lime didn't immediately have any comment on the matter, but frankly, there wasn't much the company could say. It wasn't as if its scooters were being used illegally by those vandals.
We've seen lots of accurate information spread on social media about this unrest. Lots of people posting their own videos and photos after going out and protesting.
But there's also been a lot of misinformation that I've been seeing online about these protests and, in some cases, about the unrest that has resulted. Senator Ted Cruz, for example, posted a video seemingly criticizing the 2025 protesters, but the video was actually from 2020, showing police cars on fire during the George Floyd uprisings. A number of conservative influencers posted the same video clip on Sunday, acting as if it was happening live on television.
The intent, it seems, is to lump in violent rioters and peaceful protesters, acting as if they are all the same, when in fact, of course, they are not. That misinformation led California Governor Gavin Newsom's office to warn people to double check before they were sharing content on social media. Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL: Brian Stelter reporting.
California's governor and several mayors in that state, they are slamming President Trump's decision to call up the National Guard. They say, making things even worse.
More of our breaking news coverage when we come back.
04:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANDOVAL: And welcome to our breaking news coverage here on CNN. Police in Los Angeles have declared the city's downtown area an unlawful assembly. Sunday was the third day of protests there over immigration raids in Los Angeles.
The city's police chief says that in the wake of Sunday's violence, he will reassess the need for the National Guard. President Trump now urging him to, quote, bring in the troops. California's governor says that he will sue the White House for sending in the National Guard over the weekend.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says that those protests are a response to the government's aggressive immigration crackdown. He spoke with my colleague, Jim Sciutto, earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA, FORMER LOS ANGELES MAYOR: We haven't done something like this in 60 years. And back then, it was to protect the civil rights of people, not to infringe on their civil rights. Look, on Friday, David Huerta, a union leader, was demonstrating peacefully, thrown to the ground, taken to a hospital and injured, and then jailed.
People have a right to protest. Now, they don't have a right to engage in violence. And I'm asking people to please maintain peaceful demonstrations the way most of them have.
But look, when you come in with flashbang grenades, when you come in with fully masked, like Putin's soldiers in Russia, when you come in in the way that they have, this military style, mass deportations, going into shopping districts, going into courthouses, going into schools, look, people believe that we should secure our borders. We all believe that. Every country does. But we should do so humanely, to do what they're doing. They said they were going to go after criminals, serious, violent criminals. Nobody has a problem with that.
But they're not doing that. They're dividing children from their parents. They're coming in like, you know, brown shirts. And it's absolutely unacceptable, these military style mass deportations.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL: LA's former mayor there speaking to the root cause when he initially started these demonstrations earlier in the weekend. Again, many of those peaceful before things took a turn later in the weekend.
So you heard from the former mayor. I want you to hear now from one rights activist earlier on CNN walking us through what is happening to people detained in those immigration raids that people on the ground are so angry about.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANGELICA SALAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COALITION FOR HUMANE IMMIGRANT RIGHTS: The raids continue. There were two worksite raids today at car washes on the west side of Los Angeles and in Inglewood. And men who work in those car washes were actually picked up.
This morning, I began my day going to the Adelanto Detention Processing Center in Adelanto, California. After unsuccessfully being able to provide legal representation to individuals who were detained here in Los Angeles yesterday with three members of Congress -- four members of Congress yesterday, we then found out that many of the detainees were actually taken to the Adelanto Processing Center in Adelanto, California.
So at 9 o'clock in the morning, I was there with Congresswoman Judy Chu, Congressmember Derek Tran, and also Congressmember Gil Cisneros. They were asking for oversight of the detention center to check in on the detainees and on the conditions in which they were being held.
Instead of receiving us, you know, and receiving lawyers who were there to represent individuals as well as family members who have been looking for their loved ones for now several days.
[04:55:00]
We were actually received with locked doors. They immediately, upon seeing us, ran to the gates and then locked them up for us with a padlock. So they did not allow us to come in.
We were there waiting outside the gates for two hours. At this point, now there have been three days without our ability to actually provide legal representation to those individuals.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL: It appears that President Trump does have some support from a former friend turned foe talking about Elon Musk. He appears to be backing the President Trump's actions against protesters in LA. On Sunday, the billionaire posted a screenshot of Trump's Truth Social post bashing the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles.
The shared post from the president said in part, These are not protesters, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists -- the words of the commander in chief.
I want to thank you for joining us for this EARLY START hour. We'll be joining you right after the break with more breaking news coverage out of California.
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