A former homeland security official walked through a number of president Donald Trump's claims about the Los Angeles protests and found that almost none of them were accurate, and some were unlawful.
The president has called out thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of U.S. Marines to the city, where protesters have clashed with local police over the Trump administration's recent immigration crackdown, and former Department of Homeland Security undersecretary Juliette Kayyem fact-checked the president's justification for escalating the conflict.
"I think what you're seeing is the by the administration is a standard of description of what's going on in Los Angeles that sort of, you know, is, I would say, exaggerated," Kayyem said, "in terms of [saying that immigrants are] taking over the country, California wouldn't exist, insurrection, incitement, war – all of this language to describe what is essentially, right, it is unruly, violent rioters, at times, who are who are part of a larger, peaceful protest against part of these ICE raids."
"So the question isn't, are there bad things going on in Los Angeles?" Kayyem added. "Yes, I mean, yes, you see it – there are burning cars, there's unruliness, there is looting. But is that supposed to be dealt with with a federalized military or in a civil society with police officers and firefighters and state police?"
Gov. Gavin Newsom has sued the administration for calling up the state National Guard, over which he is commander-in-chief, without his authorization, and he warned in an address Tuesday night that the president was seeking "blanket authority" over other states' guards as part of a “brazen abuse of power” that “inflamed a combustible situation.”
"That is the debate that the White House wants it to be a debate about immigration," Kayyem said. "Gov. Newsom, as we heard last night in his speech, says this is a debate about power and federalism and this and the military in American society, and I have come to believe that that Newsom is probably right in that regard. When you look at the streets in Los Angeles – I'm from Los Angeles. Yes, it's bad. It's a big city, the city is not falling apart. It is having a public safety problem."
" CNN This Morning" guest host Erica Hill agreed, saying that Trump's claims about the situation in Los Angeles were easily debunked.
"Yeah, the city is not burning, despite what the president may claim," Hill said.
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