Tensions are escalating between President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom as protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue to grip Los Angeles and spread to New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Austin, Texas, and other cities.
Trump deployed about 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines to LA against Newsom's wishes.
A federal appeals court Thursday delayed an order requiring the Trump administration to return control of the National Guard to Newsom, dealing the administration a temporary reprieve to what would have been a major reversal of its policy on the protests.
Seven-hundred Marines in California have been ordered to assist in Los Angeles and they’re expected to arrive over the next 24 hours, a U.S. official confirmed.
The Marines are from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines at Twentynine Palms, California, whom U.S. Northern Command had said Sunday were on a "prepared to deploy status" if the Defense Department needed them.
Minutes before the Marines' deployment was confirmed, President Donald Trump was asked by ABC News if he planned on sending Marines to LA, and he said, "We’ll see what happens."
"I mean, I think we have it very well under control," Trump said. "I think it would have been a very bad situation. It was heading in the wrong direction. It's now heading in the right direction."
-ABC News' Luis Martinez and Karen Travers
Jun 09, 2025, 3:46 PM EDT
Trump says if protesters spit at National Guardsmen 'they will be hit'
President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that if protesters spit in the faces of National Guardsmen in Los Angeles, they'll "be hit harder than they have ever been hit before."
"IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT," Trump wrote. "Such disrespect will not be tolerated!"
A California National Guard vehicle drives down a street in downtown Los Angeles, June 9, 2025.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images
"The Insurrectionists have a tendency to spit in the face of the National Guardsmen/women, and others. These Patriots are told to accept this, it’s just the way life runs. But not in the Trump Administration," Trump said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in response to Trump's post, "You sent your troops here without fuel, food, water or a place to sleep."
The guardsmen are "forced to sleep on the floor, piled on top of one another," Newsom wrote on social media. "If anyone is treating our troops disrespectfully, it is you @realDonaldTrump."
-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart
Jun 09, 2025, 3:39 PM EDT
Homan: More resources are needed in LA
Border czar Tom Homan deferred to President Donald Trump when asked by ABC News if active duty Marines should be dispatched to LA, but he said he thinks more resources are needed.
"What we saw last night, I would ask for more resources, absolutely," Homan told ABC News Monday, warning that the "sky-high" rhetoric could cause protests to turn deadly.
Tom Homan, White House border czar speaks with Matt Gutman of ABC News in Los Angeles, June 9, 2025.
ABC News
Earlier on Monday, Homan refuted claims that he was going to arrest LA Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, telling Fox News that an interview from this weekend was taken out of context.
"The reporter asked about, 'Could Governor, Governor Newsom, or Mayor Bass, be arrested?' I said, 'Well, no one's above the law, if they cross the line and commit a crime. Absolutely they can,'" Homan explained. "So there was no discussion about arresting Newsom."
Homan said he was speaking broadly that if anyone "crosses the line," they will be prosecuted.
Police officers look on as a worker cleans a wall in Fletcher Bowron Square near the Edward Roybal Federal Building, following a night of protests in response to federal immigration operations in Los Angeles, June 9, 2025.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
But hours later on Monday, Trump said it would be a "great thing" if Homan arrested Newsom.
"The president is backing me up," Homan explained to ABC News. "He knows better than anybody … no one is above the law."
If Newsom "broke the laws like any other U.S. citizen, we’ll ask the attorney general to investigate," Homan said.
A protestor is detained in downtown Los Angeles, June 8, 2025.
Eric Thayer/AP
Newsom is slamming the Trump administration sending the National Guard into LA as "authoritarian tendencies," but Homan said he disagrees.
Homan said the guard is in LA because Newsom "failed," and he said Trump "made a great move" sending the guard in to "protect property, officers and the general public."
Jun 09, 2025, 2:33 PM EDT
California AG outlines decision to sue Trump administration
California Attorney General Rob Bonta outlined why he and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are suing the Trump administration, saying President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unlawfully "trampled over" California’s sovereignty when they federalized the California National Guard.
The Trump administration "unlawfully invoked a law that’s intended to prevent an invasion by a foreign nation or [prevent] a rebellion or [in response to] local and state law enforcement [making] it so that the laws of the United States cannot be executed," Bonta explained at a news conference. "Those are the only three triggers that would provide for the invocation of the National Guard, and none of them were present here."
Members of the California National Guard stand outside the Edward R. Roybal federal building after their deployment by President Donald Trump, in response to protests against immigration sweeps, in Los Angeles.
Mike Blake/Reuters
Bonta said the situation didn’t warrant the National Guard and Trump's "counterproductive" decision to send the troops in "skipped over multiple rational, common sense, strategic steps that should’ve been deployed to quell unrest." (edited)
