The US President made the remarks in the Oval Office this morning – claiming, apparently seriously, that LA would have burned to the ground if he hadn’t sent in the National Guard over the weekend
Donald Trump has branded people protesting against his programme of mass deportations “animals” – claiming without evidence that they are “paid insurrectionists.”
The US President made the remarks in the Oval Office this morning – claiming, apparently seriously, that LA would have burned to the ground if he hadn’t sent in the National Guard over the weekend.
“It would have been total control if we didn’t have the military in there, the National Guard, and we also sent in some Marines….
We had some bad people. We had people they look in your face and they spit right in your face. They’re animals.
“And these are paid insurrectionists. They’re paid troublemakers. They’re agitators. They’re paid.”
And he warned anyone protesting his military parade in Washington DC on Saturday they would be met with “heavy force”.
He went on: “It looks like a planned disaster.
“This didn’t just happen. They had weapons, they had tools. They had everything you needed…
“These are very dangerous people. These are bad people. They were met with heavy force and they folded.”
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The US President went so far as to claim “we may not even be here” had he not deployed the Military.
Protests erupted over the weekend over a wave of immigration raids in the city – part of the Trump administration’s push to deport undocumented people by the millions.
The White House had already sparked fury by sending 2,000 of the National Guard – America’s state-based military force – into Los Angeles in a bid to quell the unrest, a move criticised as both unhelpful and likely unlawful.
The protests started out peacefully – and while there was some vandalism, burning of cars and looting, most of the city was unaffected by them.
Yet Trump ramped up the deployment – sending another 2,000 National Guard and 700 US Marines to the city last night.
California Governor Gavin Newsom wrote to supporters, branding Trump’s troop movements a “theatrical display of toughness from an increasingly unhinged president”.
He went on to claim the troop deployments were “DESIGNED to escalate tensions and violence in Los Angeles that he hopes will spread to other parts of the state and country.”
Meanwhile Democratic members of California’s congressional delegation have accused Trump of creating a “manufactured crisis”.
“It’s a deliberate attempt by Trump to incite unrest, test the limits of executive power and distract from the lawlessness of his administration,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez, who organised a press conference at the US Capitol on Tuesday morning.
Rep. Jimmy Panetta said that Trump’s decision to send in the military was designed to “give him the image and give him the fight and give him the pictures that he wants.”