Tag Archives: Marines
Daily Beast: Newsom Mocks Stephen Miller’s Meltdown Over Legal Defeat
The governor ridiculed the top White House official after a judge halted Trump’s National Guard deployment plans.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom went on a wild posting spree mocking Stephen Miller after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deploying out-of-state National Guard troops into Portland.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who was nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump, issued an order preventing the administration’s plans to move troops from California and Texas into the Democratic stronghold of Portland, Oregon.
Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, melted down in a lengthy X post over the ruling, calling it “one of the most egregious and thunderous violations of constitutional order we have ever seen.”
“A district court judge has no conceivable authority, whatsoever, to restrict the President and Commander-in-Chief from dispatching members of the U.S. military to defend federal lives and property,” Miller added.
Newsom, a rumored Democratic 2028 contender who has taken to trolling MAGA figures online, targeted Miller with a barrage of social media posts.
In response to Miller’s 219-word X rant, Newsom posted the “I ain’t reading all that” meme–a screenshot of a direct message commonly used to dismiss long online tirades.
The Newsom’s press office account piled on after the ruling, posting “Live look at Stephen Miller tonight” alongside a photo of Voldemort, the Harry Potter villain–a common nickname for the top Trump ally seen as the architect behind many of the president’s hardline immigration plans.
Elsewhere, Newsom’s office mocked Miller after he clashed online with Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, who asked whether ordering National Guard troops from GOP-led states into Democratic states was a “red line” for Republicans.
“US Senator thinks troops can only serve in one state,” Miller wrote. In response, Newsom’s press office posted, “Stephen Miller thinks governors can ship National Guard troops across state lines to be used AGAINST American citizens. RT if you think Stephen Miller should be FIRED!”
Newsom also hit out at Trump’s plan to deploy the Texas National Guard into Chicago, as revealed by Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
“This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power by the President of the United States,” Newsom wrote. “America is on the brink of martial law. Do not be silent.”
In response, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said no one “cares” what Newsom says on X. However, polls suggest that the governor’s trolling tactic is seen as more favorable than unfavorable, and is improving Newsom’s national profile ahead of a potential White House bid.
On Saturday, Judge Immergut also halted the Trump administration’s deployment of Oregon’s own National Guard into Portland, ruling the president’s claims that it was justified to tackle unrest in the city were “untethered to facts.”
“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Immergut wrote.
Newsom has publicly rebuked Trump for months following the president’s controversial decision in June to deploy the National Guard and Marines into Los Angeles to assist law enforcement during protests against ICE raids.
In September, a federal judge ruled that the deployment was illegal, blasting Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for “moving toward creating a national police force with the President as its chief.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gavin-newsom-mocks-stephen-millers-meltdown-over-legal-defeat
Washington Post: Senators ramp up pressure on Trump to abandon threats to send troops into U.S. cities
A group of Democratic senators is filing a friend of the court brief Tuesday in California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lawsuit against President Donald Trump, stepping up pressure to keep Trump from overriding Democratic leaders and sending National Guard troops into Democrat-led cities like Chicago.
The 19 senators are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to overturn a temporary order issued by a three-judge panel in June that found that Trump had the authority to send National Guard troops into Los Angeles this summer over Newsom’s objections. The Democratic senators argue that the issue has gained greater salience since then, as Trump began threatening to go into other states and cities against the wishes of their governors and mayors.
The senators are amplifying Newsom’s argument that the president’s use of the federal troops — at a moment when local law enforcement officials said they did not need federal support — violated the separation of powers doctrine by usurping Congress.
A federal district court judge initially sided with Newsom on June 12. Then, on June 19, the three-judge panel issued their temporary ruling siding with Trump. California is waiting on a final ruling from the appeals court.
Led by California Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, the group includes senators who represent Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, and Portland — all cities that Trump has threatened to send in National Guard troops to “straighten it out” as he ramps up enforcement on crime and immigration. Schiff said in a statement that he hoped the Newsom case would become “the line drawn in the sand to prevent further misuse of our service members on the streets of American cities.”
The senators argue in their brief that by federalizing 4,000 California National Guard troops for domestic law enforcement over Newsom’s objections “without showing a genuine inability to enforce federal laws with the regular forces,” Trump violated the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering mandate and contravened the provisions of the Constitution assigning power over militias to Congress.
“Our concern that President Trump will continue to act in bad faith and abuse his power is borne out by his recent deployment of state militias to Washington, D.C. and his stated intent to deploy state militias elsewhere (like Chicago and Baltimore),” the senators wrote in the brief obtained by The Washington Post that will be filed in court Tuesday. They warned that courts are the last resort to “prevent the President from exceeding his constitutional powers” and that failing to do so could “usher in an era of unprecedented, dangerous executive power.”
In court filings this summer, the administration argued that Trump was compelled to send the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property because numerous “incidents of violence and disorder” posed unacceptable safety risks to personnel who were “supporting the faithful execution of federal immigration laws.” Department of Justice lawyers argued that Trump was within his rights to mobilize the National Guard and Marines “to protect federal agents and property from violent mobs that state and local authorities cannot or choose not to control.”
Before Trump sent National Guard troops into Los Angeles this summer in the midst of protests against his administration’s immigration raids, prior presidents had deployed Guard troops on American soil primarily to assist after natural disasters or to quell unrest.
The senators write that the last instance in which a president federalized the National Guard without consent from the state’s governor is when Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D) ordered the Alabama Highway Patrol to prevent the Rev. Martin Luther King, Rep. John Lewis and others from marching from Selma to Montgomery. President Lyndon B. Johnson intervened to protect the marchers.
Our arguments to the court make clear that Trump’s unprecedented militarization of Los Angeles should not be used as a playbook for terrorizing other cities across America,” Padilla said in a statement.
Last month, the president deployed National Guard troops and federal agents to D.C., arguing that they needed to tackle a “crime emergency” that local officials say does not exist. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, a Democrat, last week sued the Trump administration, seeking to force it to withdraw troops from the city.
In recent days, Trump has escalated his warnings to intervene in Chicago, posting on his social media site that the city is “about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” a reference to the Defense Department.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said on social media Monday that Trump’s threats were not “about fighting crime,” which would require “support and coordination” from the administration that he had not yet seen.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it had launched an operation to target immigrants in Chicago as the president vowed a broader crackdown on violent crime. A spokesperson for Pritzker said Monday that the governor’s office has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration or information about its plans.
USA Today: ‘Unconscionably irreconcilable’. Sotomayor rips Supreme Court’s pro-Trump ICE ruling
The liberal justice called the order “unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees.”
- Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion criticizing the majority’s decision and the Trump administration’s actions.
- Sotomayor argued the ruling allows the government to seize people based on their appearance, language, and type of work.
- The Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s order that had restricted ICE agents’ tactics in Los Angeles.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted the Trump administration’s operation of the Los Angeles immigration raids, vowing not to stand idly by while the United States’ “constitutional freedoms are lost.”
On Sept. 8, the Supreme Court lifted a restraining order from a federal judge in LA who had restricted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from conducting stops without reasonable suspicion.
In July, US District Judge Maame Frimpong of the Central District of California said the government can’t rely solely on the person’s race, the language they speak, the work they perform, and whether they’re at a particular location, such as a pickup site for day laborers.
However, the Sept. 8 reversal by the Supreme Court’s mostly conservative majority gave the Trump administration another victory, as Sotomayor condemned the vote.
“That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Sotomayor wrote in a blistering, 21-page dissent on Sept. 8. “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job.”
Sotomayor called the order “unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation’s constitutional guarantees.”
The justice, an Obama appointee, ripped her high court conservative colleagues and the government over the ruling. Sotomayor declared that all Latinos, whether they are U.S. citizens or not, “who work low-wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.”oss California by broadening its scope from those only with criminal records to anyone in the United States without proper authorization. The crackdown ignited protests, prompting Trump to call in the National Guard and eventually the Marines to diffuse the outrage.
In June, the Trump administration ramped up immigration raids across California by broadening its scope from those only with criminal records to anyone in the United States without proper authorization. The crackdown ignited protests, prompting Trump to call in the National Guard and eventually the Marines to diffuse the outrage.
Sotomayor takes exception to Kavanaugh’s explanation
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who agreed with the Trump administration, said in his concurrence on Sept. 8 that the District Court overreached in limiting ICE’s authority to briefly stop people and ask them about their immigration status.
“To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors,” Kavanaugh said.
He added, “Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of US immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations.”Despite fears, still looking for work:
Sotomayor took exception to Kavanaugh’s comments. She said ICE agents are not simply just questioning people, they are seizing people by using firearms and physical violence.
Sotomayor added that the Fourth Amendment, which is meant to protect “every individual’s constitutional right,” from search and seizure, might be in jeopardy.
“The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be ‘free from arbitrary interference by law officers,'” Sotomayor said. “After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little.”
Independent: Federal agents to ‘flood the zone’ after Supreme Court opens door for racial profiling in Los Angeles immigration raids
The Trump administration is vowing to “FLOOD THE ZONE” after the Supreme Court opened the door for federal law enforcement officers to roam the streets of Los Angeles to make immigration arrests based on racially profiling suspects.
A 6-3 decision from the nation’s high court Monday overturned an injunction that blocked federal agents from carrying out sweeps in southern California after a judge determined they were indiscriminately targeting people based on race and whether they spoke Spanish, among other factors.
The court’s conservative majority did not provide a reason for the decision, which is typical for opinions on the court’s emergency docket.
In a concurring opinion, Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that “apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion” but it can be a “relevant factor” for immigration enforcement.
Attorney General Pam Bondi called the ruling a “massive victory” that allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to “continue carrying out roving patrols in California without judicial micromanagement.”
The Department of Homeland Security said its officers “will continue to FLOOD THE ZONE in Los Angeles” following the court’s order.
“This decision is a victory for the safety of Americans in California and for the rule of law,” the agency said in a statement accusing Democrat Mayor Karen Bass of “protecting” immigrants who have committed crimes.
Federal law enforcement “will not be slowed down and will continue to arrest and remove the murderers, rapists, gang members and other criminal illegal aliens that Karen Bass continues to give safe harbor,” according to Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
The court’s opinion drew a forceful rebuke from liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the bench, who accused the conservative justices of ignoring the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful protects against unlawful searches and seizures
“We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,” she wrote in a dissenting opinion.
“The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be “free from arbitrary interference by law officers,’” she added. “After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little.”
Immigration raids throughout the Los Angeles area in June sparked massive protests demanding the Trump administration withdraw ICE and federal agents from patrolling immigrant communities.
In response, Trump federalized National Guard troops and sent in hundreds of Marines despite objections from Democratic city and state officials. The administration deployed roughly 5,000 National Guard soldiers and Marines to the Los Angeles area, assisting with more than 170 law enforcement operations carried out by federal agencies, according to the Department of Defense.
The Pentagon has ended most of those operations, but hundreds of National Guard members remain active in southern California.
California Governor Gavin Newsom sued the administration, alleging the president illegally deployed the troops in violation of a 140-year-old law that prohibits the military from performing domestic law enforcement operations.
ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang, representing groups who sued to block indiscriminate raids in Los Angeles, said the Supreme Court order “puts people at grave risk.”
The order allows federal agents “to target individuals because of their race, how they speak, the jobs they work, or just being at a bus stop or the car wash when ICE agents decide to raid a place,” she said.
“For anyone perceived as Latino by an ICE agent, this means living in a fearful ‘papers please’ regime, with risks of violent ICE arrests and detention,” Wang added.
In his lengthy concurring opinion, Kavanaugh suggested that the demographics of southern California and the estimated 2 million people without legal permission living in the state support ICE’s sweeping operations.
He also argued that because Latino immigrants without legal status “tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work,” work in construction, and may not speak English, officers have a “reasonable suspicion” to believe they are violating immigration law.
Sotomayor criticized Kavanaugh’s assessment that ICE was merely performing “brief stops for questioning.”
“Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor,” she wrote. “Today, the court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.”
Because the court did not provide a reasoning behind the ruling, it is difficult to discern whether the justices intend for the order to have wider effect, giving Donald Trump a powerful tool to execute his commands for millions of arrests for his mass deportation agenda.
Bass warned that the ruling could have sweeping consequences.
“I want the entire nation to hear me when I say this isn’t just an attack on the people of Los Angeles, this is an attack on every person in every city in this country,” she said in a statement.
Knewz: Gavin Newsom launches new mock nickname for J.D. Vance
California Governor Gavin Newsom has escalated his online feud with J.D. Vance, leaning into his new nickname for the vice president — “Just Dance Vance.” Knewz.com has learned that Newsom’s communications team recently posted a meme of Vance’s face edited onto the body of Australian break-dancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, who became a viral sensation after scoring zero points in the 2024 Olympic breakdancing competition.
‘Just Dance Vance’
Newsom’s team first rolled out “Just Dance Vance” during debates over Republican redistricting strategies. GOP officials in states like Texas and Indiana have been under pressure from President Donald Trump’s allies to redraw congressional maps in their favor ahead of the 2026 midterms. In a recent post on X, Newsom’s office wrote, mocking President Trump’s signature pattern of tweeting in all caps, “NOT EVEN JD ‘JUST DANCE’ VANCE CAN SAVE TRUMP FROM THE DISASTROUS MAPS ‘WAR’ HE HAS STARTED.”
Newsom’s team doubles down on Vance’s nickname
The nickname gained traction again after reporter Nick Sortor posted that Vance would join Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington. Sortor hinted at another potential Oval Office clash, recalling the tense February exchange in which Vance told Zelensky to “offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who’s trying to save your country.” Newsom’s team replied with the meme of Vance’s face on Gunn’s body, captioned, “A highly anticipated ‘showdown.’”
Tensions rise between Newsom and Trump
The barbs came at a time of escalating tensions between President Donald Trump and the California governor. In June, Trump ordered thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to Los Angeles to counter large protests against his mass deportation campaign. Newsom condemned the move, arguing that Trump’s true goal was to advance “the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial president.” The episode deepened their already hostile relationship, which has increasingly played out on social media. While Trump often calls the governor “Newscum,” Newsom has hit back by calling the president “tiny hands” in his posts. The back-and-forth has expanded to include other figures in Trump’s inner circle, with Vance becoming Newsom’s latest target.
Newsom’s “creepy” obsession with Trump
The White House brushed off Newsom’s tactics as an unhealthy fixation. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Gavin’s obsession is getting a little creepy at this point,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Newsweek. Newsom, on the other hand, defended his approach, insisting that he is simply mirroring Trump’s own behavior. “I’m just following his example. If you have issues with what I’m putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns with what he’s putting out as president,” he said in a statement.

https://knewz.com/gavin-newsom-launches-new-mock-nickname-for-j-d-vance
CNBC: Trump can’t use National Guard in California to enforce laws, make arrests, judge rules
Major smackdown for our Grifter-in-Chief!
- A federal judge Tuesday barred President Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops in California to execute law-enforcement actions there, including making arrests, searching locations, and crowd control.
- The ruling came in connection with a lawsuit by the state of California challenging Trump’s deployment of the Guard to deal with protests in Los Angeles over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
- Judge Charles Breyer said that Trump’s deployment of the troops violated the federal Posse Comitatus Act.
A federal judge on Tuesday barred President Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops in California to execute law-enforcement actions there, including making arrests, searching locations, and crowd control.
The ruling came in connection with a lawsuit by the state of California challenging Trump’s and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s deployment of the Guard to deal with protests in Los Angeles over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
Judge Charles Breyer said that Trump’s deployment of the troops violated the federal Posse Comitatus Act, which bars U.S. Military forces from enforcing the law domestically.
Breyer’s ruling in U.S. District Court in San Francisco is limited to California.
But it comes as Trump has considered deploying National Guard troops to other U.S. cities to deal with crime.
“Congress spoke clearly in 1878 when it passed the Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the use of the U.S. military to execute domestic law,” Breyer wrote.
“Nearly 140 years later, Defendants — President Trump, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, and the Department of Defense — deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that federal immigration law was enforced,” the judge wrote.
“There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence,” Breyer wrote.
“Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/trump-national-guard-california-newsom.html
Wall Street Journal: White House Moves Forward on Plans for a Department of War
The Trump administration is drawing up plans to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, according to a White House official, following up on the president’s push to revive a name last used in 1947.
Restoring the discarded name of the government’s largest department could be done by an act of Congress, but the White House is considering other avenues to make the change, according to the official.
Trump has broached the idea repeatedly since taking office. “As Department of War, we won everything. We won everything,” Trump said Monday, referring to wars fought before the creation of the Department of Defense after World War II. “I think we’re going to have to go back to that.”
The Pentagon began developing legislative proposals to make the change in the early weeks of Trump’s second term, according to a former official. One idea was to ask Congress for authority to restore the former name during a national emergency, while also reviving the title of secretary of war for the department’s top civilian official, the former official said.
The old name “has a stronger sound,” Trump said Monday in an Oval Office meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. He added the change would be made “over the next week or so.”
The structure of the military has evolved considerably since the Department of War was created in 1789, and so has the name for the bureaucracy overseeing it. Initially the Department of War oversaw the Army, while a separate Department of the Navy ran naval forces and the Marines.
After World War II in an effort to increase efficiency, President Harry S. Truman put the armed forces under one organization, initially called the National Military Establishment under a bill passed by Congress in 1947. The legislation merged the Navy and War Departments and the newly independent Air Force into a single organization led by a civilian secretary of defense.
Much of the opposition to the changes arose over ending the Navy’s status as an independent department. “We shall fight on The Hill, in the Senate chamber, and on the White House lawn,” read an inscription on a blackboard of a Navy captain who opposed the new system, according to a December 1948 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article. “We shall never surrender.”
Congress discarded the National Military Establishment in 1949 and renamed it the Department of Defense, giving the cabinet-level secretary more power to oversee the services, including their procurement procedures. That ignited concern that the enhanced powers would make the defense secretary a “military dictator,” according to a July 1949 article in the Los Angeles Daily News.
Trump has said his concern is that the title isn’t bellicose enough. In April, during an Oval Office event, he said that the Defense Secretary used to be known as the War Secretary. “They changed it when we became a little bit politically correct,” he said.
He raised the idea of reviving the title at a NATO summit in The Hague in June: “It used to be called Secretary of War,” Trump said at a gathering of foreign leaders. “Maybe we’ll have to start thinking about changing it.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth weighed in Tuesday during a cabinet meeting, saying Defense Department “just doesn’t sound right.”
Associated Press: ‘Leave our kids alone’: Schools reopen in DC with parents on edge over Trump’s armed patrols
“Mr. President, do not come to Chicago,” [Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said, standing in a park about a mile from the Chicago skyscraper that features Trump’s name in large lettering. The governor said he would fight the “petty whims of an arrogant little man” who “wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidents and score political points.”
Public schools reopened Monday in the nation’s tense capital with parents on edge over the presence in their midst of thousands of National Guard troops — some now armed — and large scatterings of federal law enforcement officers carrying out President Donald Trump’s orders to make the District of Columbia a safer place.
Even as Trump started talking about other cities — “Do not come to Chicago,” was the Democratic Illinois governor’s clipped response — the president again touted a drop in crime that he attributed to his extraordinary effort to take over policing in Washington, D.C. The district’s mayor, meanwhile, was lamenting the effect of Trump’s actions on children in her city.
“Parents are anxious. We’ve heard from a lot of them,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a news conference, noting that some might keep their children out of school because of immigration concerns.
“Any attempt to target children is heartless, is mean, is uncalled for and it only hurts us,” she said. “I would just call for everybody to leave our kids alone.”
Rumors of police activity abound
As schools opened across the capital city, parental social media groups and listservs were buzzing with reports and rumors of checkpoints and arrests.
The week began with some patrolling National Guard units now carrying firearms. The change stemmed from a directive issued late last week by his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Armed National Guard troops from Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee were seen around the city Monday. But not every patrol appears to be carrying weapons. An Associated Press photographer said the roughly 30 troops he saw on the National Mall on Monday morning were unarmed.
Armed Guard members in Washington will be operating under long-standing rules for the use of military force inside the U.S., the military task force overseeing all the troops deployed to D.C. said Monday. Those rules, broadly, say that while troops can use force, they should do so only “in response to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm” and “only as a last resort.”
The task force has directed questions on why the change was necessary to Hegseth’s office. Those officials have declined to answer those questions. Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, Hegseth said that it was common sense to arm them because it meant they were “capable of defending themselves and others.”
Among their duties is picking up trash, the task force said, though it’s unclear how much time they will spend doing that.
Bowser reiterated her opposition to the National Guard’s presence. “I don’t believe that troops should be policing American cities,” she said.
Trump is considering expanding the deployments to other Democratic-led cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and New York, saying the situations in those cities require federal action. In Washington, his administration says more than 1,000 people have been arrested since Aug. 7, including 86 on Sunday.
“We took hundreds of guns away from young kids, who were throwing them around like it was candy. We apprehended scores of illegal aliens. We seized dozens of illegal firearms. There have been zero murders,” Trump said Monday.
Some other cities bristle at the possibility of military on the streets
The possibility of the military patrolling streets of Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, prompted immediate backlash, confusion and a trail of sarcastic social media posts.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a first-term Democrat, has called it unconstitutional and threatened legal action. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker deemed it a distraction and unnecessary as crime rates in Chicago are down, as they are nationwide.
Trump suggested multiple times earlier Monday that he might dispatch the National Guard to Chicago regardless of Pritzker’s opinion, calling the city a “killing field.”
Pritzker and other Illinois officials said the Trump administration has not reached out to Chicago leaders about any federal initiative to deploy military personnel to the city to combat crime. They cited statistics showing drops in violent crime in Chicago and cast Trump’s move as performative, partisan and racist.
“Mr. President, do not come to Chicago,” Pritzker said, standing in a park about a mile from the Chicago skyscraper that features Trump’s name in large lettering. The governor said he would fight the “petty whims of an arrogant little man” who “wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidents and score political points.”
Others raised questions about where patrols might go and what role they might play. By square mileage, Chicago is more than three times the size of Washington, and neighborhoods with historically high crime are spread far apart.
Former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who also worked for the New York Police Department, wondered what the National Guard would do in terms of fighting street violence. He said if there was clear communication, they could help with certain tasks, like perimeter patrol in high-crime neighborhoods, but only as part of a wider plan and in partnership with police.
National Guard troops were used in Chicago to help with the Democratic National Convention last summer and during the 2012 NATO Summit.
Overall, violent crime in Chicago dropped significantly in the first half of 2025, representing the steepest decline in over a decade, according to police data. Shootings and homicides were down more than 30% in the first half of the year compared with the same time last year, and total violent crime dropped by over 22%.
Still, some neighborhoods, including Austin on the city’s West Side, where the Rev. Ira Acree is a pastor, experience persistent high crime.
Acree said he’s received numerous calls from congregants upset about the possible deployment. He said if Trump was serious about crime prevention, he would boost funding for anti-violence initiatives.
“This is a joke,” Acree said. “This move is not about reducing violence. This is reckless leadership and political grandstanding. It’s no secret that our city is on the president’s hit list.”
In June, roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines were sent to Los Angeles to deal with protests over the administration’s immigration crackdown. California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and other local elected officials objected.
CNN: US military deploying over 4,000 additional troops to waters around Latin America as part of Trump’s counter-cartel mission
The US military is deploying more than 4,000 Marines and sailors to the waters around Latin America and the Caribbean as part of a ramped-up effort to combat drug cartels, two US defense officials told CNN — a dramatic show of force that will give the president a broad range of military options should he want to target drug cartels.
The deployment of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit to US Southern Command, which has not been previously reported, is part of a broader repositioning of military assets to the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility that has been underway over the last three weeks, one of the officials said.
A nuclear-powered attack submarine, additional P8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, several destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser are also being allocated to US Southern Command as part of the mission, the officials said.
A third person familiar with the matter said the additional assets are “aimed at addressing threats to US national security from specially designated narco-terrorist organizations in the region.”
On Friday, the US Navy announced the deployment of the USS Iwo Jima, the 22nd MEU, and the two other ships in the Amphibious Ready Group — the USS Fort Lauderdale and the USS San Antonio — but did not say where they were going.
One of the officials emphasized that the military buildup is for now mostly a show of force, aimed more at sending a message than indicative of any intention to conduct precision targeting of cartels. But it also gives US military commanders — and the president — a broad range of options should Trump order military action. The ARG/MEU, for example, also features an aviation combat element.
The deployment of the Marine Expeditionary Unit, however, has raised concerns among some defense officials who worry that the Marines are not trained to conduct drug interdictions and counter drug-trafficking. If that is part of their mission set, they will have to lean heavily on the Coast Guard, officials said.
MEUs have been instrumental in the past in supporting large-scale evacuation operations; a MEU was stationed for months in the eastern Mediterranean, for example, amid tensions between Israel, Hamas and Iran.
A Marine official told CNN that the MEU “stands ready to execute lawful orders and support the combatant commanders in the needs that are requested of them.”
The US military deployed destroyers to the areas around the US-Mexico border in March to support US Northern Command’s border security mission and reinforce the US’ presence in the western hemisphere. The additional assets being moved now, however, will fall under US Southern Command, and are set to support SOUTHCOM for at least the next several months, one of the officials said.
CNN previously reported that a memo signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this year stated that the US military’s “foremost priority” is to defend the homeland, and instructed the Pentagon to “seal our borders, repel forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities, and deport illegal aliens in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.”
The same memo also formally asked Pentagon officials for “credible military options” to ensure unfettered American access to the Panama Canal, CNN reported at the time.
So when do we invade Mexico, our future 52nd state (after Canada)?

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/15/politics/us-military-deploying-caribbean-latin-america-cartel-mission

