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cover of episode Deployment of Marines and National Guard to LA Raises New Authoritarianism Concerns

Deployment of Marines and National Guard to LA Raises New Authoritarianism Concerns

2025/6/12
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Mina Kim: 作为主持人,我引导讨论了特朗普总统在洛杉矶部署国民警卫队和海军陆战队这一行动的意义和动机,并邀请嘉宾分析这一举动对民主可能造成的威胁。我认为理解这一事件的深层含义对于公众至关重要。 Juliette Kayyem: 作为前国土安全部助理部长,我认为特朗普总统的军事部署既无必要也缺乏计划性。我强调,这种行为是对文职控制军队原则的侵蚀,并且可能被滥用以压制未来的抗议活动。我认为我们必须警惕这种权力扩张,并采取一切可能的手段来阻止它。 David Graham: 作为《大西洋月刊》的撰稿人,我认为特朗普总统的行动是一种“威权主义姿态”,旨在欺压各州并转移公众视线。我认为他试图通过制造混乱和恐吓来巩固自己的权力,这对美国的民主制度构成了严重威胁。我认为我们必须认识到这种行为的本质,并采取行动来捍卫我们的民主价值观。 Gavin Newsom: 作为加州州长,我认为特朗普总统未经我允许就在加州部署军队是对民主的侵犯。我认为这种行为是对宪法的践踏,并且威胁到加州人民的自由。我认为我必须采取法律行动来阻止这种行为,并捍卫加州的自治权。

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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim. Coming up on Forum, we talk with former Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Julia Kyan and the Atlantic's David Graham about the meaning and motivation behind the president's mobilization of now 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles and 700 Marines following protests against ICE raids. Here's Governor Newsom on The Daily Podcast today. I think it's a red line when you're using

military that are trained for foreign incursions to do domestic law enforcement in American cities. I think that's a red line. If that's not a red line, I don't know what red lines mean. We also look at the latest efforts to restrain the deployment. Join us. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

A San Francisco federal judge will hold a hearing today on Governor Newsom's request for a temporary restraining order against President Trump's use of National Guard troops and Marines in Los Angeles. Here's Newsom this morning on The Daily. Well, right now, I'm trying to figure out how to keep this democracy up and deal with the militarization of my streets because this guy is running this country right now without any reason.

oversight because we lost the House, we lost the Senate, and I don't want to lose my country and I'm counting on the damn courts. A preview of the Trump administration's legal response came in a filing last night that argued neither a state or the courts had a right to question the president's decision to deploy what has now become 700 Marines and up to 4,000 National Guard troops in California. Listeners, what do you think about the increase in recent days of federal troops here?

For more of this hour, we're joined by David A. Graham, staff writer at The Atlantic who covers the Trump administration and is an author of The Atlantic daily newsletter. David, welcome back. Thank you.

It's great to be here. Glad to have you. Juliette Kayyem is also with us, faculty chair of the Homeland Security Project at Harvard Kennedy School and a senior national security analyst for CNN. She's also former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama and former Massachusetts State Homeland Security advisor who oversaw the National Guard.

Juliette Kayyem, welcome. Thank you for having me. And with those credentials, it's clear you know what goes into making an assessment to deploy National Guard troops by a president. We're also dealing with the Marines now. Have you seen anything that justifies these actions? No, no. I mean, there's the legal side, but just I'll start with the operational side.

So a state's National Guard reports to the governor, it's fully integrated into the public safety apparatus, local police, state police, state emergency management. And it's basically there for legitimate reasons to be drawn upon when sort of capacity is spent. So and it's not it's not always nefarious. And so we have to be very clear about the distinction between state National Guard and federal and the federalization that Donald Trump did previously.

Under Title 10, a state National Guard, for example, is deployed here during the Boston Marathon just to be able to help with crowd control. They're not allowed to arrest, but they're, you know, they're sort of bodies, right? And or after a big win in a sporting event. So but they're also used in serious moments like a hurricane or disaster relief.

So that's normal. And the training occurs. It's not ideal or perfect, but it's certainly better than the alternative, which is what Donald Trump did, which is for the first time in history in an urban, you know, under the guise of urban unrest, I'll put it that way. Donald Trump federalized the National Guard over the objection of a governor. The last

Two times it happens, and I'm a contributing writer for The Atlantic, so I gave a little history on this because I teach on this, is the L.A. riots and Hurricane Katrina. Those arguably were two, I mean, not even arguably, those were cities that had no...

capacity in terms of what they were facing. New Orleans no longer had a police department to speak of. And the L.A. riots in 92, of course, were the police were the focus because that was done after the acquittal of the four policemen

for the Rodney King meeting. So that's what happens. Donald Trump throws this group in. They don't really know what they're doing. No one quite knows what they're doing. And the history, at least of the L.A. riots, showed that it's at best...

Unnecessary, at worst, very confusing. Communications, chain of command, mission orientation, integration with protesters or public safety is not known. And you hear that from the L.A. police chief. I mean, he's definitely like, I have no idea like what's going on.

The other part is, of course, the militarization under no legal authority and deploying the Marines. The Insurrection Act has not been deployed or not been announced yet. My understanding is the Marines, you know, are basically...

you know, deployed by tweet and they are sent there and they, until a few hours ago, were still in training. So it just, you know, so part of this is just the performative nature of the military that we'll get into later that Donald Trump uses. But operationally, this was both unnecessary and unplanned. And, you know, David, to Juliet's point,

There were two times when the National Guard was deployed in an urban environment, and that was with a governor's request. The last time it was done against a governor's wishes was because the governor himself was not following the law, right? Right, exactly. This was in 1965 when you had law enforcement, both local and state, harassing civil rights marchers trying to march from Selma to Montgomery.

And Lyndon Johnson called out the National Guard to protect the marchers. That's such a different situation here. In that case, you had the law enforcement people who were actively antagonizing protesters. In this case, the police are clearly trying to contain the protests. They're trying to crack down. It's not like they're working at cross purposes of what the Guard and Marines want to do, which makes it even more confusing and nonsensical.

Yeah. And Juliet, you pointed out that, you know, the hastiness of the situation sort of implicates the president's decision as well. Yeah. I don't know how David feels about this, but I'm always sort of torn in moments like these between the sort of gravity of what's going on and also the idiocy. And I never know what my attitude should be. You know, should I be mocking it or should I be horrified? Because if you actually think if you were serious, if you were...

If you were truly serious about a deployment, you would have. Well, what we know now is they weren't ready for sleeping quarters for these Federalized National Guard. And so therefore they were sleeping on the floor or outside because it was done so hastily. Their pay was.

which now should come from the federal government, not the state government. It's a complicated distribution of payments. So their health care and their salaries have not been authorized. And any variety of other issues, including the training that the Marines have to do. So no one should, even if I'm going to give the White House all of the arguments, which you can't because...

This is an absurd operationally. It's an absurd use of the military. It's not what this is about. But even if you give them that argument, if you were serious about it, you wouldn't do it this way. I mean, you wouldn't do it without contacting the L.A. police chief. I mean, if you were truly serious about it. Yeah. So that's the idiocy part. In terms of the gravity part...

Why should we be so careful about using the federal military against the citizens of the United States, against our people, Juliet? Just...

Well, I mean, it's like a third rail has been crossed. I mean, if you really think about what makes a democracy, it's that you have a division between civilian and military. In the United States, we have this hybrid, which is called the National Guard, but we have hundreds of years, you know, of rules and regulations about limiting their authority and having checks on what they can do.

The greatest check on the active military is, of course, the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits them from being used as a law enforcement entity for homeland security or homeland defense purposes. So there is a series of rules that have been set up to ensure that military

The constitutional guarantee under the 10th Amendment that essentially public safety and public health basically fall within a state's architecture, that that is protected. That is why we have state police, local police. And I just, you know, I sort of sit here and I think, you know, yes, there were burning cars. I'm not minimizing it. Yes, some of the violence, some of the protests got violent.

But any rational person looking at this wouldn't be using the language Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, you know, of insurrection are using. But also, that's what police are for. I mean, the whole idea of police is because some people sometimes act unlawfully. And so, and they had it under control. But we know that this was to be able to deploy the military with a very low bar and

And then to make that the norm for not only future rallies about immigration, but future rallies about democracy, about elections, about anything else. And that is why this week...

is a significant break towards the kind of powers that we should be worried about that Donald Trump is acquiring. And that's why whatever the legal basis is for the governor suing Trump, I mean, you just have to try to stop this in every way possible.

You said something chilling on all things considered, Juliet, where you said the military deployment in society where people are allowed to protest peacefully, where there are important debates about this, what this country is and who we want to be. You add a military into that calculation and it's not a future. I really like seeing that.

Let me invite our listeners to join the conversation. Listeners, what do you think the president's motivations are? What questions or concerns do you have about this increase in federal troops here? Maybe you're a veteran or a police officer or first responder. What perspective do you have on this issue? A protester? What do you think is going to happen next? Where do you think this goes? You

You can email forum at kqed.org. You can find us on our social channels, Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, or Threads at KQED Forum. Or you can call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.

David, we're going to get more into this after the break because we're coming up on one right now. But OK, so if this is not out of a genuine interest to support the state, what may be driving Trump's willingness to do this? You know, one of the things that you mentioned.

you talked about was that Trump wanted to provoke or it could be in his interest to provoke a confrontation with California. Why? Yeah, I think there's several things. I mean, he is interested in bullying states. He wants to sort of knock down anything that seems like a competing power center. And that's why we've seen him go after independent agencies and go after universities and now go after California, the largest and most powerful state in

So I think that's part of it. I think it's about trying to provoke disorder involved in immigration, which allows crackdowns. It's also about creating a norm, sort of as Juliet was talking about, using the military to police protests. So I think it does seem sort of hastily done, but it definitely serves several of his priorities. A norm toward what? Why normalize it?

To call it more often. Yeah. Yeah. Once you can do it in a minor situation like this, where there's some disorder, but certainly not widespread rioting or anything like that, suddenly you can use the military for all sorts of things. Now the military is what you use for basic policing. Now you have the military in the streets. If you want to declare an emergency, if you want to seize control of elections, something that was discussed in 2020, for example, you have people used to the military on their streets and taking power of things. And that's very helpful. We'll have more about Trump's intensifying efforts next.

to deploy the federal military, federal troops in California. Stay with us, listeners. You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Support for Forum comes from the University of San Francisco School of Management. Celebrating 100 years of partnership with the Bay Area business community, the USF School of Management connects students to the city's vibrant culture, hands-on internships, and a wealth of career opportunities.

where AI and sustainability are integrated into every facet of business education, and where students bring innovation, ethics, and entrepreneurial leadership to a planet in need. The University of San Francisco School of Management. Change the world from here. Support for KQED Podcasts comes from Earthjustice. As a national legal nonprofit, Earthjustice has more than 200 full-time lawyers who fight for a healthy environment.

They wield the power of the law to protect people's health, preserve magnificent places and wildlife, and advance clean energy to combat climate change. Earthjustice fights in court because the Earth needs a good lawyer. Learn more about how you can get involved and become a supporter at earthjustice.org. Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

After his deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and now Marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell ICE protests, we're talking about the president's efforts to assert his executive power and do this over the objections of Governor Newsom. We're talking about it with Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Her recent piece for CNN,

The Atlantic is titled Trump's Gross Misuse of the National Guard. David A. Graham is also with us. His recent pieces for The Atlantic is Trump versus California. And the protests are just starting.

He's a staff writer for The Atlantic, who is an author of The Atlantic Daily Newsletter. And you, our listeners, are joined in the conversation with your questions and comments. What questions do you have about the increase in federal troops? What do you think Trump's motivations are? Are you someone who's been in the military or a first responder with a perspective on the issue?

What do you think is going to happen next? Where do you think this goes? 866-733-6786 is the number. The email address is forum at kqed.org. You can find us on our social channels at KQED Forum. And Juliette, Bill writes, the primary objection to the presence of the National Guard and the Marines appears to be that they incite violence. But wouldn't Trump's order look foolish if there was no violence to contain the individuals who commit violent acts?

choose to go to high-risk areas and incite a reaction from the military. Your thoughts on that? I'm glad you asked that because I think it's not a question of whether there was violence or there was unlawful behavior. Stopping of federal immigration raids by ICE is actually illegal. Stopping the 405 is actually illegal. So that is absolutely right. The question is,

that we have to confront right now is what's the appropriate response to that illegality? Illegalities are happening all the time, murder, rape, financial crimes, whatever. And we have a structure in government that

through our constitution, through the way that our, it's not just legally, it's also operationally, how people are trained, how they understand what their roles are, that the first responders are truly the first responders. They are the localities and the state. There might have been arguably 90 minutes on Saturday when it looked really bad and the LAPD maybe have been flat-footed. You cannot tell me as a professional looking at this

that after that, even with, you know, the protests and cars burning, whatever, that the LAPD had lost control of Los Angeles. And if you're going to make your standard for military deployment is, I don't like what I see on CNN or Fox, right? There's a burning car. You have now just completely eviscerated the civil-military divide that has been the basis of

of our democracy from its start. There is a reason why we have civilian control over the Pentagon. It is why we have governor's control over the National Guard. If you make them, if you make the National, federalize the National Guard or you deploy active military, you have now just eviscerated it. You may think that's the right thing to do, but you got to admit it and then you got to tell me what's the check.

If you allow it in this, what is the check? What is the limiting principle? Is it that Trump just watches Fox News and decides he wants to send someone? We know what this is. This is not a law enforcement effort. It is a power play. And we have to call it out, even if there is violence on the street. A power play for what? So just before the break, David Graham was commenting on

on the use in an election setting. So David Frum, of course, at the Atlantic Voter Peace, that called this a dress rehearsal and essentially says that this is a way to start normalizing use of military force in a setting that may have, you know, some scattered pockets of arrest potentially for an election. Do you share that concern, Juliette?

Yeah. I mean, I do. I think I'm not, you know, look, the... I'm going to put it a different way or finish this sentence. We have to think about what's going on less as an on-off switch. And I think as David Frum has been writing for a while, this is sort of a dimmer and it goes up and down. And we risk being the frog in boiling water if we

Do not challenge it every step. And there are different roles for different entities to challenge it. So I actually, I'm going to be honest with you, I think that the Marine deployment delay in the training, so they're deployed Saturday night because Secretary of Defense Hegseth, you know, has never seen a person from California he likes, right? I mean, we know what Hegseth is itching for.

And the Marines are training, I'm putting it in quotes, for four days. I think that is a form of resistance by a military that does not want its highly trained, highly expensive Marines encountering an 18-year-old on summer break protesting ice raids. I think so there are disciplined things involved.

that way. I think that the legal challenges, I think the political challenges, I think all of it. Right before I came on air, Donald Trump tweets out that he's going to rethink immigration enforcement because, of course, he's hearing from all of his business people that these

insane raids that launched it at a Home Depot and other places in California are really bad for business. So Donald Trump just, you know, cut the, you know, cut the motivation in many ways and is going to start or hopefully start to align immigration deportation, which is appropriate and

to the people that he said he would do, which is, of course, violent criminals and others. Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff, has now interpreted

unlawful as anyone under in sort of an illegal status. And so you're going to see that push and pull. So there's going to be internal checks. The House and Senate GOP have been pushing back at the White House on that. There's going to be external checks. There's going to be operational checks.

But you've got to do it every single time. The show before was talking about resistance because if you don't, then people won't see how different this is. And the biggest fear is that this becomes normalized. I've been doing a lot of TV and I was on with a guy on Saturday night, a police officer who was like, you know, trying to be like...

you know, like we deploy the National Guard all the time for support and whatever. And I'm like, I'm sort of like stop lying. Like that's actually not true because we don't normally federalize them. But in some ways that language is they're trying to get you to think this is no big deal. And it is a big deal. So all of this pushback from the mocking to the lawsuits to the whatever, all of it is necessary. And you just try to reset the dimmer as Donald Trump

Trump keeps pushing the envelope towards, you know, 2026 and 2028. And if I can jump in on that briefly. Yeah, please, David. Something that...

Yeah.

Yeah. I remember, Juliet, you saying what Trump cannot do through the processes of politics, he does through the processes of force. Yeah. I mean, that's, I just, you know, as I said, I'm going to spend the next four years like fluctuating between like, you know, total like, oh my God, what's going on? And these people cannot be serious because it's just like, you're just like, you're sort of looking at it and you're like, is this for real? And it is for real. I'm not denying that. But, you know, I think part

part of this is Donald Trump is very bad at consensus building. And he wants people to think that he has a mandate. He does not have a mandate. He's barely holding on to past 2026 in terms of

Senate and the House. People have to remember that because they have to feel like there is an opportunity for pushback. He asserts authorities if he has a mandate. He does not. And I actually think the assertion of that

that power is because he cannot get done what he wants to get done through normal processes. Think about Doge. Like, you know, he's got the House and Senate. What the heck is Doge? And it was an utter failure. So I think people have to believe, you cannot believe that this is an on-off switch. And part of this is giving people agency to know that these things do have impact on

in terms of switching the dimmer around every once in a while may look futile. It's not. I want to ask you about something else you just said earlier, too, before I go deeper into this, which is that you said that there's some interesting sort of resistance potentially with the use of the Marines. And there was this Guardian piece where several service members told advocacy groups that they felt like pawns in a political game and that this assignment was not necessary.

Can you just remind us, what are the Marines trained to actually do? And is there any role that's appropriate for them to take here? Not a single role for the Marines. I'm going to be very clear about that. Never once in my operational capacity, either as a state Homeland Security advisor or as Assistant Secretary of DHS, could I name a single thing that happened previously.

over, you know, 20 years in a career in and out of government that would justify that. Now, I could think about maybe a nuclear thing or something where you want the Marines. Nothing. And it's not just... One, it's because it's not necessary. 9-11, we didn't even deploy active military except for aviation purposes, which makes sense. And...

and they're not trained for it. So the, and the, and the military knows that. So what you're hearing in these sort of pushback within the military, we also had that horrible rally that Donald Trump had in front of, um, in at Fort Bragg that you're starting to see pushback about, um, is, is there is a culture within the military, whatever people think about it on the outside, there is a culture that does like the divide between homeland defense and, and, uh,

and national defense. And this slow roll, which that's what I would call what the Marines did, this slow roll is an important check. I don't know how long it holds, but part of it is also, never forget, Secretary Hegseth is very much hated within the Pentagon. So he has incredible power. He is the Secretary of Defense. But these

these ways in which you're seeing a resistance, so to speak, within even a conservative element saying this stuff is crazy and it's super expensive, are additional ways in which you just are constantly putting up

barriers to Trump's desires. And I don't know how this ends. I'm being honest here. I don't know how this ends. But I certainly know how you don't want to proceed. You don't want to not push back in whatever method you have.

Suzy writes, this is how the authoritarian playbook works. Start with militarizing our states and keep going. Arrest and deport immigrants and then arrest protesters who are not immigrants. This regime wants to defund our country, get rid of the courts and get rid of any media that disagrees with them. David, you called this act of deploying and federalizing the National Guard and so on a gesture of authoritarianism. Talk about why you chose that.

I mean, I think that, you know, I'm thinking through what the listener just wrote in said. And it's the sort of thing that if you if you don't think about it, it might sound sort of over the top. And then you look through the series of steps and that's exactly what he has done. Each of those things. You know, I just hesitate to to go sort of full hair on fire in some of these cases because because it is this dimmer and because we have seen Trump back down and because I think in many ways he is very weak and will fold quickly when faced with some resistance.

But I think it's really chilling to see the way he is going after any kind of resistance, any kind of dissent, pushing back on it, trying to intimidate it. And that, to me, is what, you know, what his response to protests is, what his response to the state of California is, what the use of a federalized National Guard is. These are all trying to send a message to people that if they fall foul of him, they will be met with a great deal of force. That's what authoritarians do.

Right. Let's not forget, this is all of a piece of extraordinary actions that he's taken with regard to universities, law firms, and so on and so forth. Can you talk a little bit more, David, about what this reveals about Trump's view of federalism, of the relationship between the federal government and states?

You know, Trump sees everything as needing centralization. And so that means, you know, within the federal government, we've seen him pushing to defy courts and sometimes even doing so. We've seen him grabbing powers from Congress. We've seen him taking over parts of the government that don't traditionally belong to him. So that's one sphere within the federal government, but also outside of the federal government. I think he's doing something similar with states.

He doesn't have a whole lot of time for federalism. He doesn't want states that are resisting him or for state governors who might be rival power centers. So where he can seize power from them, he will do that. So his consistent pattern with states, particularly in this term, but not only, is that if a state didn't vote for him or if their leader is critical, he may try to withhold, for example, disaster funding. He may try to cut off funding for other projects.

When states need things like disaster relief, Trump isn't there, though. You know, we've seen him talking about dissolving FEMA and not issuing disaster declarations for for major disasters. So he sees the relationship with states, it seems like as a one way street. He wants them to be subservient. He wants them to be responsive to him, which is not the way the Constitution sets up the relationship.

And not the way that, at least in the past, people accepted their president governing. They had to govern for all of America. Zona writes in a sort of related comment, a recent Atlantic article by Timothy Ryback detailed the history of Hitler's destruction of opposition by taking away the power of the states. I believe the Trump administration's actions are following that playbook. Once they succeed in California, they will sweep across the nation. Well, we'll see if they succeed in California. And Lewis writes, quote,

What do you think Trump's eventual major moves will be? Martial law? Cancellation of the 2026 midterm elections? Juliet, do you think it could go that far? No, I mean, I'm a little bit like David. Like, you know, those are before the hair on fire part. You know, we really, you know, assess these. We need, we, and I don't mean like Democrats or the resistance, just like people who want to do.

who care about this country. That's how I would define this group. And it involves a lot of Republicans and certainly a lot of independents have a responsibility on all levels to protect

to push back. I think things like martial law, I mean, we have a very long tradition of democracy. I'm not saying it's permanent. It's just a different analogy than, say, what happened to Germany in 1930 after a world war that they lost and an economy. In other words, each thing is very, very different. In many ways, federalism

is also going to save us in many ways because you do have an opportunity to push back, if not in federal elections, but in local elections. The state and local still have a lot of authority. And so the game plan, honestly, I'm going to be honest, I don't think Trump really has a game plan. I mean, I know people think, oh, he's going to stay in office in third term. I think...

And I'm not going to get into his mental capacity. I think someone should at this stage, but that was not me. I'm not a doctor. But I don't think Trump wakes up with like the plan. I think J.D. Vance does, which would essentially be, you know, Republican rule forever by limiting the ability of Trump.

of non-Republicans to vote. But I think Trump is... I heard someone say in his first term, for Trump, there's no yesterday and there's no tomorrow. Like, in other words, he learns nothing from history and he never thinks through the consequences of it.

of anything. So the fact that I could say like four minutes before we got on there, Trump just completely rearranged his immigration policy. Everyone's like, okay, as if yesterday didn't exist and tomorrow doesn't exist. And so I, that's why I, that's, that's honestly, that's what gives me hope is that, is that this is,

This is whack-a-mole in many ways, but it's important to identify. And we have more checks than just the courts. I actually think that Trump...

pushing back or, you know, basically throwing Stephen Miller under the bus is not just because the business people said it, but because he's looking at his polling. The man is, again, he is not Voldemort. He is widely unpopular and does not have a mandate. I want everyone to wake up every morning who worries and remember that. Hmm.

Well, we'll talk more about the potential checks on Trump and also what he responds to that often curbs his behavior right after the break. But just a couple of comments I want to get in from listeners. This listener on Discord writes, I'm absolutely against active duty military without proper training, taking on the role of crowd control and being deployed on home territory. But I'm also against Gavin Newsom's grandstanding. What if he played the game and welcomed the national troops and did his best to coordinate communication and deployment?

Glowy on Discord writes, I'm no fan of Gavin Newsom, but I'm glad he's not giving into Trump's false narrative about Los Angeles being a hellhole that needs to be set free. We are talking about the president's motivations and the meaning and impacts of his mobilization of now 4,000 National Guard troops to L.A. and 700 Marines this week with Juliette Kayyem and with David A. Graham. And they'll be with us after the break. Stay with us. This is Forum. I'm Nina Kim.

Support for Forum comes from the University of San Francisco School of Management. Celebrating 100 years of partnership with the Bay Area business community, the USF School of Management connects students to the city's vibrant culture, hands-on internships, and a wealth of career opportunities. Where AI and sustainability are integrated into every facet of business education.

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Executive power, expand executive power, the strategies at play and what the implications are for our democracy. This after his deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and now Marines to Los Angeles after protests against ICE raids. Juliette Kayyem is with us.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, a senior national security analyst at CNN. Also, David Graham is with us, staff writer for The Atlantic, who covers the Trump administration and author of The Atlantic Daily Newsletter. And so are you, our listeners. What questions or concerns do you have about the increase in federal troops? What do you think Trump's motivations are? What do you think the impact will be?

Where do you think this goes? You can email forum at kqed.org. You can find us on our social channels at KQED Forum, and you can call us at 866-733-6786. Let me go to Tom in Point Richmond. Tom, thanks for waiting. Oh, yeah. Thank you for taking my call. This strikes me as a classic example of government overreach. And the primary difference between this country and

And, for example, Russia or Nazi Germany is a system of checks and balances and democracy. And, I mean, that's kind of what we stood as a nation against at the Boston Tea Party was the rule of one man governing democracy.

the people. And so this kind of flies in the face of that. It's totally unconstitutional. It's really sad. And just before I go, I just wanted to say the good news is that there is pushback quietly in the military. It's my understanding that in the most recent West Point graduation, it was decided very quietly that the West Point cadets would not shake the president's hand because it would go against their oath of integrity. And so the good news is that quietly there is pushback in this country.

Tom, thanks for sharing that. And I heard you say, yeah, Juliet, we also have listeners who are concerned and wondering, you know, when will the leaders, this is Leslie who writes, when will the leaders of the military stand up to these threats to our Constitution as they've pledged to do?

Because I think resistance takes different forms depending on your role. I think, you know, I have no tolerance for like the John Kellys of the world. That was the president's first secretary of Homeland Security and his later his chief of staff. He's remained quiet. He was in the military. He should have been quite public. But

You know, a general officer within the military has tremendous authority and influence over his or her troops. And there are ways in which there can be disciplining behaviors around that person.

check the kind of politicization that Hegseth and Trump won. And so I'm respectful of that. For example, I'll just give you an example of the Fort Bragg total nightmare. I mean, you know, they apparently chose who was going to stand behind Trump by

political allegiance and also by looks. They didn't want any heavy military people. And that's consistent with Heg's sort of visualization of the military as a bunch of good-looking guys, and I mean guys specifically. But since then, the leadership of Fort Bragg has an investigation into what happened and has an investigation into how MAGA merch was, Vendor for MAGA, you know, hats and shirts, was allowed on

the military base, that will result in something. We may not know what the something is, but that's the kind of pushback you'll see. So all this stuff is going to take different forms. And sometimes the quiet stuff is helpful. And then you have the Newsoms doing what they're doing, a governor like Newsom, who from the outside, I don't have much to complain about. I think he's doing a combination of mocking and seriousness, which I think the times require.

David, you also were noting earlier that another form of resistance that Trump seems to respond to is protest. In your recent piece, it seemed like you actually are sort of hopeful about the efficacy of protest at this time, peaceful protest, I guess I should say.

That's right. I mean, I think there is there's an understandable group of people who are Trump critics who are worried about how this goes. And they worry that this is a you know, Trump is looking to bait people. And by going into the streets and protesting, they're doing that. And, you know, there is a lot of evidence that shows that violent protest is not effective. I think it's an intuitive idea. But time and again, Trump has thought that he had a lot more power than he did. I think in particular of Trump.

The protests against police violence that we saw in the fall of 2020 and the White House at that time was just so confident that, you know, protests in Kenosha were going to hand them Wisconsin and hand them the election. And of course, that's not what we saw. They lost the election decisively. And I think that's because people understand that Trump is provoking these things and they're against policies from Trump that are very unpopular.

And so I'd hate to tell people, you know, don't do anything, don't protest, when in fact Trump does repeatedly respond to those things and he backs down. Well, it's interesting because Governor Newsom, you know, basically said as much today with regard to calling for peaceful protest on the daily. Well, I'm trying to persuade people.

that there is a way out of it, and it's called active, not inert citizenship. I was quoting Justice Brandeis, in a democracy, the most important office, sorry, Don, Donald, Mr. President, it's not the office of presidency, it's the office of citizen. And I'm really proud of people standing up and these protests and people peacefully protesting. People need to see that. It inspires other people and people feel like they're not alone.

Paul writes, I think Trump's plan is to create enough disruption and to lower the threshold of what constitutes an emergency to the point where he can declare martial law and suspend or cancel the election. Perhaps, hopefully, he will experience the same fate as South Korea's former president. I get what people are saying, Juliet, and I get

David, what you were also saying about your the concerns of your colleagues with regard to large scale protests, like it's better not to give him the pretext and so on, because protests are very volatile, messy, very unpredictable. They can play right into the president's hands. What do you say to that, David?

You know, they are messy. I think that's true. And it's a little bit hard to convey how protests work, I think, in the media. The things that get the most attention are, for example, burning Waymos. And you don't get a sense of the scale and you don't get a sense of what a small part of a city a protest is going on in or how few people are involved.

And I think that is, you know, that's a that's a struggle with media and that's a struggle with protests in general. But I think it is important for people to stand up for for what they believe in. And if that is if they think that Trump is overreaching, I think it's important for citizens, as Gavin Newsom said there, to speak up. If there is not resistance to power grabs, then they will certainly continue.

Basically, if there's nothing, then this goes on. If there's no protest, it won't curb him. And if you do sporadic violent protests, he'll crush those or use them as...

He might. He might or he might not. I mean, I think there's a desire to do that, but I'm not sure that there's actually the stomach for that from Trump or from people around him. Yeah. What do you think, Juliet? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, there's one way to look at this like this is a trial run. I think it was so unsuccessful. And I do. I mean, you look at it's not just the polling. It's like it's.

you know, in terms of the resistance, the pushback, but also people being Trump is now underwater on immigration. Like that's hard to do. Right. If you're a Republican, like your own party is now turned against you. And so I wonder I don't have the answer to this. I wonder if this was premature that.

that the immigration number, that the protest numbers were so small. I think I saw something that the geographic area of the protest was 0.02% of Los Angeles County. And so in some ways, again, you know, reporting on it, the kind of stuff that David and others are doing at the Atlantic and the legal requirement that Trump is going to actually have to show

what it was that qualified as justification for the federalization you just sort of laid out there. So I don't know... I don't... You know, was this a success or failure? The media likes to report that the White House is loving this. I don't... I mean, I'm looking at these numbers and I'm looking at Trump's tweet where he's now turned 180 degrees about immigration enforcement. And I'm wondering, I don't think they're loving it. I think they're trying to convince the media that they're loving it. Yeah, I think there's...

There's been baked in this idea that because Trump has won these elections, he's sort of a strategic genius who never makes a misstep. And of course, they're going to say they're winning. You never see a White House admit that they're losing. But I just don't think the numbers back that up. And I think the protests are themselves a sign of weakness. If people supported his policies, if this is what they wanted, you would not see people going out in the streets in L.A. and now in cities across the country to protest.

Yeah, go ahead, Julia. There's a weird thing I've been thinking about. Not weird, but if I can imagine a society in which we had responsible government. There's something interesting coming out of this in terms of the revulsion of what's going on in terms of the mass deportation. When the polling was going on

when Trump was running, you know, Americans are for mass deportation than when you actually ask them what it meant. But it's very interesting to see what's going on in America now. And I was critical of the Biden administration for, I think, in my opinion, and, you know, for three and a half years, sort of viewing border as sort of a Fox News issue. And I thought the

I think they showed that they could have been tougher on border control. So I think you're finding a consensus within the American public outside of comprehensive immigration reform, and you're seeing it in the response to what's going on with the Stephen Miller approach, which is most Americans...

want tough borders. They don't like massive asylum loopholes. They don't like seeing caravans. And we're not unique. We're not horrible in that sense. Most countries actually, even liberal countries, have an idea of borders. Even Canada has an idea of borders. We're not horrible people for that. But

Interior enforcement, they really do want the focus on illegal activity and criminal behavior. That's where it seems like the American public is. I don't know if anyone's going to run with it in the future, but there's this weird alignment going on through this because of the excesses of the Trump administration. And one could argue, which was in response to, I think, some of the...

some of the sort of more loose looseness of the Biden administration. Well, Mike is somewhat skeptical about the power protest. Mike writes, we have a president who only cares about himself. He is a convicted felon, so he does what he wants. Negotiation doesn't work. Protests have limit effect. Change will only come from within one's ideology.

Debbie, on the other hand, writes, get the word out and go to the No Kings protest around the country this Saturday. We are stronger together. And now is the time to make our voices heard, to make a lot of peaceful noise. Let me remind listeners, you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Vivian writes on Discord, currently all this is being challenged in the courts. If the best case scenario happens and the courts tell the Marines and National Guard to get out and the administration says,

does what it's been doing and tries to avoid complying, what happens then? Okay, well, let's just take the first two things. One is, Juliette, how do you think this will do in court? And just to remind listeners, as we mentioned at the very top of the hour, at least today, later today, there's going to be hearing over Newsom's request for a temporary restraining order that would

limit what these troops can do, but then he's also suing over the illegality of it as well, which was filed Monday. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I have a law degree and still pay my bar dues, so I'm the last person that I haven't been in a courtroom in 25 years, but I, you know, just based on history, I think courts will, at least higher courts, will be reluctant to interpret or look under the hood of a president's

military authority. On the other hand, Title 10 does have standards and the, and the, and the administration, uh, is going to have to satisfy those standards in terms of does this, you know, does, does this satisfy the, the criteria of, of, of unrest and, and, um, uh,

and sort of societal degradation that was anticipated in Title X. So let me, I don't mean to sound too wonky. This will be interesting in the sense everyone's going to have to put up. I don't think the lower court's going to shut it down immediately. And I'm looking at, and my personal feeling is, that the deployment will be deactivated before the White House has to put up. And you see this even with some of their immigrations. If they take everything to the line,

And then they don't cross that line. Maybe one day they will cross that line. But this gets to that. You've had three different callers call in and use the words martial law. And I don't, it's not my job to make people feel better, but I sort of feel like if you get there in your head, you've missed a lot of steps to stop that. The Constitution, there is no such thing as martial law. If there is martial law, it's over in a sense. Like, I don't even know what world you're talking about. There are

our Constitution does not have an on-off switch. A president cannot turn the Constitution off. We still have courts. We still have open courts. And so there's lots of bad things happening. But if you get to

The worst, and this goes to David's point about protest and community and seeing action and seeing reaction. If you get to martial law, you know, because you didn't have your, you know, over a cup of coffee in the morning, you're not going to see that we have agency. It's bad. I'm not trying to make people feel better. But I don't think, you know, I mean, as I said, it's not my job. But it does worry me that people get there that quickly because we have agency still.

Well, this listener writes...

I think Trump is correct in sending in the National Guard. I think things are out of hand in L.A. Businesses are being harmed. People need to be peaceful. I guess we'll see what the courts think, because that's where this is around that question for sure. Around what you were just saying, Juliet, I actually want to play one more cut from Gavin Newsom on today's Daily Podcast, because he had a lot to say today, this morning when I woke up and saw this published. So I just want to play one more. I think people that care about this country

People care about knowledge and culture and history. People care about their kids and grandkids, or dare I say, people care about the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law. I think we need to wake up that what he wants is our silence. And if we're silent about that, then we are complicit as we see these fundamental rights

I think this was, again, in connection to talking about people needing to come out and almost asking for a peaceful but large-scale response this Saturday. And I guess one of the things that I wanted to get your take on, Juliette, because I know we talked a little bit about this with David, is just how fragile this moment does feel, even if you're trying to make people feel better. Yeah.

Like, what if things do go wrong this weekend? Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean, it is fragile. Every moment is fragile. I just, you know, I feel it on a personal level. I have two kids that are entering the job market. I feel it on a parental level as I look at their opportunities. But, not a but, but...

It is fragile, but just it is it that means that there's room. I mean, of course, that what we have to do is buttress the the the engagement, the voting, the civil society. And look, you know, and there are elections and that we should focus on those as well. You can't beat somebody with nobody. And the Democratic Party's got to figure that out as well.

Well, a YouGov flashball found 47% of respondents disapproved of trans-military deployment, while 34% agreed, though, of course, overwhelmingly Democrats disapproved of it.

David, this last comment from Tom real quick. He's like, as a manipulator of the media, could Trump be using troop deployments as a red herring to get public attention off the discussion of the budget bill or the negatives associated with it and so much stuff? As always, there's this question of was this all for distraction? Where do you stand on that? I don't think so. I mean, you know, he may enjoy changing the subject, but this is not something that I think is positive for him.

as those numbers show and as a lot of other numbers show, nor is the budget bill. I don't think there's a winning thing. And I don't think that there's some sort of grand strategy behind this. If you're concerned about disorder, I think the disorder is what's coming from the Oval Office. And he's spinning his wheels looking for something or anything that might work to project power. David A. Graham, staff writer at The Atlantic, covers the Trump administration and is author of The Atlantic Daily Newsletter. Check out his recent pieces, Trump versus California. And the protests are just starting.

Juliette Kayyem, Faculty Chair of the Homeland Security Project at Hartford Kennedy School, former Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama. Thank you to both of you. Thank you. Thank you. We've been talking about the meeting, motivation and potential impacts of President Trump's mobilization of troops here in Los Angeles. And thank you, listeners, for sharing your thoughts and perspectives on this. Caroline Smith produced this segment. You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Support for Forum comes from the University of San Francisco School of Management. Celebrating 100 years of partnership with the Bay Area business community, the USF School of Management connects students to the city's vibrant culture, hands-on internships, and a wealth of career opportunities. Where AI and sustainability are integrated into every facet of business education.

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