'Are they trained?' Expert shares massive red flags as troops go into LA

President Donald Trump has ordered 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to widespread protests against immigration raids, but a national security correspondent said the government hasn't provided answers to some basic questions about how they'll be deployed.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass both have objected to the deployment, saying troops would needlessly escalate the situation. NBC News correspondent Courtney Kube told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that federal law limits their role in significant ways.

"They cannot make arrests or conduct what we think of as very basic law enforcement activities," Kube said. "That's a violation of Posse Comitatus, which is an act that essentially says you can't have federal or federal troops conducting law enforcement in the continental United States."

The president deployed the National Guard under Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services, which is typically used to send troops overseas but can cover domestic deployment in the event of "a rebellion or danger of a rebellion," and Kube said the move was highly unusual.

"What's the most unique part about this is the president doing it despite the governor saying, the governor not asking for these troops, but specifically saying that he doesn't want the troops to be there," Kube said. "Now the Marines here, 500 are now under or on hot standby. They have to be ready to go very quickly. What's really critical about them is they will also be federalized. That makes sense, they are active duty."

"The question everyone should be asking here, though, is. are they actually trained for any of the kinds of law enforcement or the sorts of functions that they could be called upon to do here?" she added. "That's one of the questions we've been asking."

Trump and other top administration officials have characterized the protests as an insurrection, although he has not invoked the Insurrection Act. But Kube said federal law was clear about the actions National Guard troops can carry out domestically.

"So they can do very basic things in support of LAPD and ICE, so traffic enforcement, you know, they can put them outside of federal buildings," Kube said. "That's one thing that we've already seen where they're basically a show of presence. Now we have seen from the video and the photos there that they are armed. We have asked about the basic rules of force here. When you're talking about an overseas mission or a combat, you hear rules of engagement. When you're talking in the homeland, they refer to it as rules of force."

"We don't have an answer beyond they are still under the authorities of the basic rules of force here," Kube added. "So presumably that means that they will follow the law and they will, you know, they'll protect federal buildings, they will protect ICE agents, they will protect any kind of federal personnel who are there, but they will not engage in things like arrests."

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