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Trump Orders the National Guard to Los Angeles

In a historic move, Donald Trump has federalized the California National Guard and sent the Guard to Los Angeles to snuff out some small-scale immigration protests and throw several tons of red meat to his base. Neither Mayor Karen Bass nor Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) requested help and both opposed the presence of the Guard. The local police were perfectly capable of handling the situation, but Trump decided that his base would love the spectacle of his taking over a blue city in a blue state and pushing aside the elected Democratic leadership there. After getting the media, law firms, and universities to bow down to him, the next logical step on the way to autocracy was showing state and local officials who is boss in this town. Make no mistake. This action was not about law enforcement, since the LAPD and county sheriff's department could have handled the situation if things got out of hand. It was a raw power play on Trump's part.

Normally, when there are serious riots (and there were none in L.A. this past weekend) the president might ask the governor if he or she needed help. Trump skipped that step because he wanted a PR stunt. It is hard to find any historic precedent for federalizing the National Guard against the wishes of the governor under circumstances like this. The most recent occurrence was in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson did that in Selma, AL, to protect protest marchers because he didn't believe the local police would do it. The Guard was also federalized (with the consent of the governor) in New York during the 1970 postal strike and after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

The unrest began Friday, when ICE began raids in the Westlake District, downtown, and South L.A. ICE requested help from the LAPD, which responded within an hour. At least 118 allegedly undocumented immigrants were arrested. Protesters gathered around the areas where ICE was operating; ICE quickly began using tear gas and flash-bang grenades, a pretty self-evident attempt to escalate the situation and create some photo-ops. Trump and Newsom spoke on Friday for 40 minutes; Newsom opposed the idea of deploying the Guard, saying it would only escalate tensions, which it did, but Trump didn't care what the governor wanted. He had his own plans.

On Saturday, there were protests in the city of Paramount, which is a predominantly Latino enclave within Los Angeles, south of downtown. They spilled over into Compton, where a car was set on fire. Law enforcement shot at the crowd with nonlethal bullets. More demonstrations against ICE were planned for Sunday. Then Newsom sent out this tweet:

Gavin Newsom's tweet about the National Guard; It reads: 'Trump is sending 2,000 National Guard troops into LA County--not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis. He's hoping for chaos so he can justify more crackdowns, more fear, more control. Stay calm. Never use violence. Stay peaceful.'

Newsom also said that Trump's moves were "the acts of a dictator, not a president." He also said he would file a lawsuit against Trump Monday since the law Trump invoked to federalize the Guard allows federalization only in the event of an invasion or a rebellion, neither of which occurred.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who represents Compton, Inglewood, and Hawthorne, showed up at the protests and pleaded with the Guardsmen not to shoot anyone:



Waters called the deployment of the troops an unnecessary escalation. She said: "Why are they out here with guns? This is an escalation. The president is working to impose martial law." She attempted to talk to someone in command but was turned away.

Republican officials took exactly the opposite tack, starting with Trump, who wrote on his boutique social media site: "If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can't do their jobs, which everyone knows they can't, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!" Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem went on Face the Nation yesterday and brought up the riots in Minneapolis after a police officer killed George Floyd: "We are not going to let a repeat of 2020 happen. If you remember it happened in Tim Walz's state, in Minneapolis, and the governor Tim Walz made bad decisions and when [Trump] tried to send our National Guard in to bail him out, he let his city burn for days on end."

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) went on CNN's State of the Union and criticized some protesters for carrying a Mexican flag. Mullin said: "They were literally out there protesting, carrying a foreign flag. That is absolutely insane." CNN's Dana Bash responded: "Carrying a flag is not illegal, as you know." Speaker Mike Johnson said he found nothing "heavy handed" about the administration's approach, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's threat to deploy the Marines to Los Angeles (which is illegal). Johnson said: "One of our core principles is maintaining peace through strength." We are always so deeply impressed by his commitment to Christian values. The staff theologian is off for the weekend, but we're pretty sure "peace through strength" is from the Gospel according to Mark. Or maybe it's Luke. It definitely comes right after the part where Jesus says that an eye for an eye is the only way to go. (V)

Supreme Court Allows DOGEys to Access Social Security Data

When most people think about Social Security, they think about seniors getting monthly checks and that is about it. But the Social Security Administration does more than send out 74 million checks every month. And to do its work, it collects a vast amount of data about every American, including their name, Social Security number, date and place of birth, gender, addresses, marital and parental status, parents' names, lifetime earnings, bank account information, immigration and work authorization status, health conditions (for people applying for disability benefits), and use of Medicare. Further, via data-sharing agreements with other federal agencies (including IRS and HHS) there is often additional data there about some people. By law, this information is private and available to only a limited number of people who need it in order to carry out Social Security's work, and then only under rigid conditions.

Even though Elon Musk has called Social Security the "biggest Ponzi scheme of all time," he thought it would be cool to get access to this trove of information for his own (unknown) purposes, so he unleashed a dozen 20-something hackers on the SSA and told them to go after the data. A coalition of unions and retiree groups didn't like this so much and sued. In April, U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland, a Barack Obama appointee, made a temporary ruling that the DOGEys had no business mucking around in the SSA databases and had to destroy any information they had already copied into their own computers until the case could be heard on its merits because their actions likely violated the 1974 Privacy Act. Among other things, she said that the administration showed no evidence why DOGE needed such sweeping access to personal information, rather than anonymized or statistical information. In May, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld Hollander's temporary ruling, 9-6. The administration was incensed at this restriction and made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

On Friday, SCOTUS delivered. In an unsigned 6-3 ruling, the Court reversed Hollander's decision. The three Democratic appointees dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warning of "grave privacy risks for millions of Americans." Solicitor General John Sauer argued that the courts should not micromanage DOGE's ability to hunt for waste, fraud, and abuse, but didn't explain why this was an emergency and couldn't go through the regular order and wait until the courts had examined the merits of the case. In the Trump administration, many things are emergencies.

The newly confirmed head of the SSA, Frank Bisignano, called the ruling "a major victory for American taxpayers." On the other hand, Kathleen Romig, of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said: "While the appeals court considers whether DOGE is violating the law, its operatives will have 'God-level' access to Social Security numbers, earnings records, bank routing numbers, mental and reproductive health records and much more." Romig noted that when she previously worked at SSA, she had to be fingerprinted and go through a thorough background check to be even allowed to view anonymized data to do her research as a regular SSA employee. Now the DOGEys have free rein until the case is heard on its merits and fully appealed. (V)

Git Along, Little DOGEys

Elon Musk may be gone, but the DOGEys are still there, moving along, doing what DOGEys do: attempting to destroy the federal government from the inside and scoop up data for Elon Musk's (unknown) purposes. Friday's Supreme Court decision will only make their work easier. What Musk did before departing was embed his 20-something hacker kids in many government departments and agencies, sort of like the political commissars in the old Soviet Union. They are not going anywhere and will continue to wreak havoc on the government and country since Donald Trump has probably forgotten they are there. Maybe in a few departments and agencies, the actual head will push back on them, probably not in all of them.

How they are embedded varies from department to department. At the Department of Energy, a DOGEy, Carl Coe, is now chief of staff, meaning that all communications going to Sec. Chris Wright go through the DOGEy filter. At the Department of the Interior, several DOGEys are now regular federal employees. One of them, Tyler Hassen, is now an acting assistant secretary. He has the authority to fire people and cancel contracts without the approval of Sec. Doug Burgum. Who needs a cabinet secretary when you have an acting assistant secretary? Hassen is clever enough to know which way the wind is blowing. He has canceled contracts with Harvard (about earthquake relief) and contracts with Maine (because Trump is in a fight with the state about trans people in sports).

At the EPA, two high-level DOGEys are hard at work trying to destroy the agency. Trump certainly isn't going to get in their way. He hates the EPA even more than he hates the spotted owl. At the Social Security Administration, DOGEys Aram Moghaddassi and Michael Russo are co-chief information officers.

Of course, Trump is extremely mercurial. If the fight with Musk heats up again (for example, because in a ketamine-fueled rage, Musk tweets something Trump doesn't like), Trump could ask Susie Wiles to find and purge all the remaining embedded DOGEys. On the other hand, OMB Director Russell Vought, who sees his mission as decimating the federal government, may use his power to keep them in place and slashing away, even if Trump orders them fired. He won't know the difference anyway.

In addition to slashing budgets and firing federal employees, the DOGEys are still hoovering up data for Musk. They have tried to gain access to over 80 federal data systems while no one is watching. And even when they are caught at it, the Supreme Court may approve (see above item). What Musk wants with the data is not clear. Maybe he wants to train his AI bots on data no one else has. Maybe he wants to spy on his competitors. Who knows?

Another factor that could play a role here is the courts. A lawsuit is pending claiming the entire DOGE operation is unconstitutional because the officers have not been confirmed by the Senate. If that suit succeeds the whole show might have to be shut down and driven out of town. (V)

Among Republicans, Musk Is Almost as Popular as Trump

If the fight between Donald Trump and Elon Musk lights up again, Trump has to be careful. If he wants to get rid of the DOGEys, he has to be careful about how he does it. For example, he could move the main office of DOGE to Fairbanks, AK, and transfer all the DOGEys there, rather than firing them. Then their rallying cry would be "Mush!" instead of "Musk!" The reason he has to be careful is that Musk is very popular with Trump's base.

In a recent Economist/YouGov poll, Musk's approval rating among Republicans was 76%, only 11 points lower than Trump's own 87% approval rating and only 4 points below J.D. Vance's 80% approval rating. Messing with a guy who is only slightly less popular than Trump himself needs to be done subtly and subtle is not Trump's strong suit. By way of comparison, only 15% of Democrats approve of Musk. In case you missed it, when Musk trashed Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) as a "disgusting abomination," very few Republican politicians went after him. They understood that he is very popular with the base.

The reason for Musk's popularity is not because lots of Republicans have Teslas. It is because many of them (90%) deeply believe in cutting the size of the government. He is also a larger-than-life figure, a combination of William Randolph Hearst and Howard Hughes, with a huge power center of his own, separate from the official Republican Party. Musk's 220 million followers on eX-Twitter dwarf the 9 million that Trump has on his boutique social media site. And, of course, Musk has enough money to fund a primary opponent to every Republican who votes for the OBBB, should he decide to do that. Even if he doesn't plan to right now, Trump knows that he could. Musk took quite a beating in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, but that was a partisan general election. Funding one Republican over another in a primary is a whole different kettle of fish.

In short, Trump can take various actions against Musk, but he has to be careful not to rile the South African too much. The President threatened to cancel the contracts with SpaceX and Starlink, but those are idle threats since no other company is capable of jumping in and doing the work right now, not even Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. There are things Trump could do to hurt Musk below the belt radar, though. He could have many government departments vigorously enforce existing laws, especially in cases where Musk's companies are already under investigation. Musk sees the future of Tesla as operating a fleet of self-driving taxis. Trump could create regulations making that impossible. Trump could kill off tax credits for electric cars, battery plants, and charging stations to hurt the sales of electric cars. He could push for a road tax on them. On the space front, he could offer subsidies to Blue Origin to get it to the point where it can compete successfully with SpaceX for government contracts. And much more. All of this stuff is in the weeds and Musk's fans would never know about it, but Musk sure would. (V)

The OBBB is Still Up for Grabs

A group of 13 moderate House Republicans wrote a letter to their Senate colleagues begging them to restore to the One Big Beautiful Bill the clean energy tax credits that they themselves voted to eliminate. Truly profiles in courage. Their districts benefit from the credits but they didn't have the guts to tell Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) that they would not vote for the bill unless the credits were restored. Of course, if the Senate puts the credits back, the House Freedom Caucus will balk.

Another hot issue is the SALT limit. In the House bill it is $40,000, but unlike representatives from affluent suburban districts, there are no Republican senators from affluent blue high-tax states, so the Senate is likely to lower the cap, making it harder for the bill to pass the House the second time.

Another issue that is going to tear the Senate apart is Medicaid. There are at least four Republican senators who don't like the big cuts to Medicaid: Susan Collins (ME), Josh Hawley (MO), Jim Justice (WV) and Lisa Murkowski (AK). Removing the cuts to Medicaid from the House bill will be expensive. It can be (partially) paid for by lowering the SALT cap, but again, that will anger the House Republicans from New York and California. Another factor here is that Donald Trump does not want cuts to Medicaid, so making the math work will be tough.

SNAP (food stamps) is another tough nut to crack. The House bill cuts $267 billion from the program. This means some people will go hungry. Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee John Boozman (R-AR) understands that his colleagues don't want to run on "They deserve to be hungry" next year, but he hasn't been able to yet cobble together an alternative that has the votes.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) don't like adding to the deficit, so they are going to be a problem unless the bill is at least revenue-neutral, which can only be done with magic asterisk accounting, which Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough may not approve of. If both of them vote no, then two more defections will sink the bill. The bottom line is that the Senate is nowhere near where it needs to be to get the bill signed by July 4, which is the current goal.

Then there is the PR war. Two outside groups, Unrig Our Economy and Families over Billionaires, are launching a $5 million advertising campaign in seven states where Republican senators up in 2026 are potentially vulnerable. The ads are already running in Iowa and are featuring Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and her now-infamous line: "Well, we all are going to die." Here is that ad:



The ad is very effective. It is only 1 min. Watch it.

The ad being run in North Carolina against Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) says that Tillis will soon vote on a bill that will force rural hospitals to close and take health care away from 580,000 North Carolinians just to pay for tax breaks for billionaires. Here is that ad:



The ad in Maine is aimed, of course, at Susan Collins. It says life is getting more expensive and Collins wants to cut taxes for billionaires. It also notes that the bill will shut down rural hospitals and raise insurance costs. Here is that ad:



Ads targeting Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Josh Hawley (R-MO), John Husted (R-OH) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) are still being prepared. (V)

How Voters Get Their News Matters

There is an increasing amount of evidence that there is a strong correlation between not being aware of the news and supporting Donald Trump. For example, among people who had never heard of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (or didn't know much about him) Trump's approval rating was 55%; among those who knew about that story, it was 46%, nine points lower. This, and related data points, might suggest that when people learn about what Trump is doing, some of them stop supporting him. Alternatively, it could be that people who like Trump don't bother to consume much news, but people who don't like him consume more of it.

Data from Catalist show that the newest additions to Trump's 2024 coalition were low consumers of news, especially Black people (54% follow the news), voters under 30 (53%), and Latinos (50%).

A gap between the informed/not informed voters also holds for specific topics. Among people who follow the news, people prefer the Republicans' positions on the economy over the Democrats' by 1 point. Among people who don't follow the news, they prefer the Republicans on the economy by 13 points.

Ill-informed voters tend not to vote in midterm elections, which could work to the Democrats' advantage in 2026. If many of Trump's 2024 voters sit out 2026 because they are barely aware there is an election, it could reduce Republican turnout more than it reduces Democratic turnout. Midterm turnout is always lower than presidential-year turnout. In 2022, 108 million people voted in House elections; in 2024, 152 million people turned out.

Navigator Research, a Democratic polling company, has done some focus groups on how people consume news, which is different from how much news they consume:

All in all, how people get news and how much news they get is changing rapidly and campaigns need to deal with it. (V)

Kirsten Gillibrand Wants to Take the Democrats Back 20 Years

DSCC chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) believes in time travel. She wants to take the Democratic Party back 20 years. Forget woke. Forget DEI. But remember that in 2005, in the 109th Senate, the Democrats held one Senate seat in Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and two Senate seats in Arkansas, North Dakota and West Virginia. Yup, 13 Senate seats in what are now red states. Check the link above if you don't believe it. Here are the names of the Democratic senators by state: Blanche Lincoln (AR), Mark Pryor (AR), Bill Nelson (FL), Tom Harkin (IA), Evan Bayh (IN), Mary Landrieu (LA), Max Baucus (MT), Byron Dorgan (ND), Kent Conrad (ND), Ben Nelson (NE), Tim Johnson (SD), Jay Rockefeller (WV) and Robert Byrd (WV).

What happened? The country changed somewhat, but the Democrats moved far to the left of the people in dozens of states. Many Democrats used to be prairie populists and won easily in red states on economic issues. To some extent, the change since then was due to a brilliant strategy by Karl Rove to de-emphasize economic issues and run on culture-war issues, but people still care about kitchen-table issues that affect them.

What Gillibrand is proposing is to rerun the 2006 midterms. Then, as now, the Democrats were shut out with a Republican trifecta. But in the 2006 midterms, the Democrats picked up 31 seats in the House and five in the Senate and captured both chambers. In that election, they flipped Republican seats in Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. How did they do it? They recruited culturally conservative candidates who had backgrounds more like GOP candidates but who were with the Democrats on the economic issues. They recruited a sheriff from Indiana, a former NFL quarterback from North Carolina, and an assistant high school football coach from Minnesota. Some of them opposed abortion rights. But they all won, allowing Harry Reid to become majority leader. And they blocked George W. Bush on almost everything.

To win the Senate, especially in red states, Democrats need to recruit candidates that match their states. That means candidates who hold views on hot-button issues that are absolutely anathema to progressives. The question for lefty Democrats is: Would you prefer to have a pure-as-the-driven-snow minority in a Senate that rammed through one Trump appointment after another (especially judges), or a mixed-bag Senate that blocked many of Trump's nominations, his budget, and all his proposed laws? How about a Senate that would hold a weeks-long trial with dozens of witnesses each time Trump was impeached by the House?

What Gillibrand is proposing is to just drop all the culture-war issues (which will displease the progressive wing of the party) and focus on Trump's cuts to the entitlement programs, Trump's massive corruption, and potentially the people vs. the billionaires. All of these fly in red states.

To get a lasting majority, Democrats also need states like Mississippi to turn blue. Mississippi? Yes. The state is 38% Black, and nearly all Black voters in Mississippi are Democrats. That means it is sufficient to peel off roughly 20-25% of the white voters. Could a conservative candidate do that? It would require a lot of voter registration and education, but in a race dominated by kitchen-table issues, Trump's attack on entitlements, and his corruption, maybe it would be doable with the right candidate.

Four potential red states that could be targeted in 2026 are Ohio, Montana, Iowa and Texas. In Ohio, the strongest Democrat is probably former senator Sherrod Brown against an appointed senator. In Montana it is former senator Jon Tester. There are no obvious candidates yet in Iowa or Texas, but Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) has been hurt by her remark that we will all die. The whole campaign could be about her insensitivity and support for gutting Medicaid. In Texas, Republicans might well nominate Ken Paxton, whose corruption rivals Trump's and who was impeached by the Texas House (but escaped conviction). Democrats have rarely had such an easy target in Texas, but they need a candidate who looks good in a cowboy hat and knows how to ride a horse. (V)

New Jersey Holds Gubernatorial Primaries Tomorrow

Both major parties are holding gubernatorial primaries tomorrow in New Jersey. In all, 11 candidates—six Democrats and five Republicans—want to move to Trenton, depressing as it is. There are also primaries for local offices, but the governor's mansion is the big prize.

This is the first statewide test of the electorate during Trump v2.0. Will the most anti-Trump candidate win the Democratic primary, or will other (local) factors dominate? How do blue-state Republicans feel about him? Still, New Jersey is an interesting test case. Kamala Harris won the state by 6 points, whereas Joe Biden won it by 16 points in 2020.

This will be the first gubernatorial election under new rules. Up until 2024, county bosses picked their favorite and the ballot design made it easier to vote for the bosses' candidates. Now all the candidates are treated equally. Here are the candidates (with their current polling average):

Democrats

However, note that 24% are undecided, so late-breaking news could have a big effect.

Republicans

On this side, 23% are undecided, and if they all go in the same direction, that could upend everything. Still, the smart money thinks Ciattarelli will get a second shot at it. (V)

Never Forget: For The Records

Today's remembrance is courtesy of J.D. in Cold Spring, MN:

Thank you for the reminiscences of M.S. in Canton, which led off this series. My own father served in the Navy during World War II and, like many of his generation, seldom spoke of his wartime experiences. I knew he was injured during the war, as he lived the rest of his life with a distinct limp and scar on his left knee. He died at a relatively young age and a major regret of my life is that I never asked him about those experiences.

When his youngest sister, and last remaining survivor of that generation of my family, passed away some years ago, I thought that I had lost the last direct link to his life. I then decided I needed to do something to honor his memory.

After a little digging, I learned that it was possible to obtain my father's military records from the National Archives. It turned out to be the greatest thing I could do to honor his memory. As I am sure that (Z) knows, such records were a treasure trove for an amateur historian. There is minutia, like the precise time he returned from shore-leave in Newport Rhode Island, and frustrating gaps (Where was he serving between the time his convoy left the states in late 1942 and the day he was injured, July 29, 1943?).

From this 2-inch-thick stack of photocopied pages, I was able to then go on and piece together a first draft of his military life. He served on a LCT (landing craft, tank) during the allied invasion of Sicily, ferrying the U.S. Seventh Army from Tunis to the beaches at Gela. I learned that while his ship came under machine-gun fire on the beach, his injury occurred back in Tunis, 2 weeks after the initial landings, when a truck crashed into a stack of fuel canisters that he was helping to load onto his LCT for a return to Sicily.

The most memorable item in the records was his enrollment papers, many in his own handwriting, still clearly recognizable to me 83 years after they were written, and more than 50 years after his death. To the question "Why do you want to enroll?" my father answered, simply, "I want to serve my country."

M.S. in Canton suggests that we have a duty to remember. I couldn't agree more. In my father's case, I may be the last living person who has direct memories of him. But his military records, and my own attempt to draft a timeline of his service based on them, mean that my children and grandchildren will have a way of coming to know, and remember, a man they never had a chance to meet.

Readers can find information on how to obtain military records here. There are some restrictions on who can obtain records, but generally any records older than 62 years are public and can be obtained by anyone. I encourage everyone who, like M.S, feels a duty to keep memories alive to consider this route for remembering those who served. (And, let us hope that the U.S. Archives have withstood DOGE's sins enough that they can continue providing this invaluable service.)

Thank you, J.D. This issue came up in the weekend posts, and this helps to reiterate the point. (Z)


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