Saying “let’s be clear,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asserted that President Donald Trump‘s order to mobilize National Guard troops in Los Angeles in response to the demonstrations against ICE deportation tactics is “not about the protests there.”
Nor is it about “ICE, or immigration,” according to Sanders.
The longtime Vermont Senator contends that the deployment is instead an authoritarian power play by Trump, both unconstitutional and part of a larger plan to concentrate power in the executive branch.
Listing ways in which he sees Trump practicing that concentration of power, Sanders says: “This is a president who has usurped the constitutional responsibilities of Congress; threatened to impeach judges who rule against his policies, sued media that criticize him; extorted money from law firms that have represented his opponents; and is withholding funds from universities for teaching courses he doesn’t like.”
Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in California is not about the protests.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 9, 2025
It is about expanding his never-ending grasp for more power. It is about moving this country toward authoritarianism.
All Americans must stand together against this gross abuse of power. pic.twitter.com/a2QlYRqqpV
Sanders also reminds citizens that in “our federalist form of government, it is the governor of a state who deploys the National Guard – not the president of the United States.”
The latter point is something Trump conceded in a first-term interview that is currently recirculating on social media.
Trump in 2020: We have to go by the laws. We can't move in the National Guard. I can call insurrection but there's no reason to ever do that, even in a Portland case.
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 9, 2025
We can't call in the National Guard unless we're requested by a governor. pic.twitter.com/0sTAa9CiCX
“Look, we have laws,” Trump said then. “We have to go by the laws. We can’t move in the National Guard. I can call insurrection but there’s no reason to ever do that.”
Trump added: “We can’t call in the National Guard unless we’re requested by a governor.”
This week in defiance of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is suing the administration for the move, Trump has sent National Guard forces to Los Angeles in what Newsom says is an effort not to solve but to “exacerbate” the protest situation.
Newsom said that before Trump’s mobilization move, “local law enforcement had no needs — they were not requesting any additional resources. I’ve got a hundred now. I’ve got 175 CHP officers, technically trained officers, tactical teams, to address Donald Trump’s mess.”
Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 9, 2025
Come and get me, tough guy.
I don't give a damn.
It won’t stop me from standing up for California.pic.twitter.com/DvVQljAgir
Newsom called Trump’s escalation in LA a “manufactured crisis” — language similar to that which Sanders and others used to decry Trump’s power-grab claim that the U.S. faced a dire economic “emergency” that allowed him to employ “emergency powers” to supersede the role of Congress and impose tariffs on America’s trade partners.
Sanders warns: “Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in California is not about the protests. It is about expanding his never-ending grasp for more power. It is about moving this country toward authoritarianism.”
.jpg){kind=link}