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In defending his decision to deploy the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, President Donald Trump has distorted comments made by Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell.
Trump claimed that the police chief said the situation with immigration protests “had gotten away from them” and that “we really did need this help.” That’s not what McDonnell said.
On the third day of protests, McDonnell did say his city police officers were “overwhelmed as far as the number of people out there engaged in this type of activity and the type of things that they’re doing,” but he also said he didn’t ask for federal assistance. Rather, he said, the protocol is to first reach out for mutual aid assistance from local and state law enforcement officials. The following day, McDonnell said that those partners have handled the situation “effectively.”
The situation never reached a point where national help was needed, he said. Moreover, he said, the National Guard and Marine troops sent to Los Angeles have not been tasked with working with local police “on the streets to maintain order, restore order and keep everybody safe.”
As we’ve written, protests in Los Angeles began in response to the Trump administration ramping up immigration arrests, specifically after federal agents on June 6 rounded up day laborers who were waiting in a Home Depot parking lot to find work and later that day after federal agents served a warrant for “employing illegal aliens” at the headquarters of a clothing company called Ambiance.
That day, demonstrations began to escalate, as some protesters vandalized a building. In addition, the Los Angeles Police Department said that “a small group of violent individuals are throwing large pieces of concrete.” On June 7, Trump issued a memo calling for at least 2,000 California National Guard soldiers to deploy to Los Angeles.
Trump’s decision to federalize National Guard troops has been criticized by some Democrats, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who claimed Trump’s move “inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers, and even our National Guard at risk.”
Trump has responded, in part, by citing comments from McDonnell on June 8, the third day of protests.
Trump and Cotton Cite LA Police Chief
“The head of the police in Los Angeles, a good man, I hear a good man,” Trump said in an address to military troops in North Carolina on June 10. “But he was actually saying we really did need this help. It had gotten away from them. It had long gotten away, and we gave it to him.”
McDonnell was appointed police chief in 2024 by Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, though his political affiliation is unknown. McDonnell told the Los Angeles Times in October that he had once been a registered Republican but during his time as the county sheriff — a position he took in 2014 — he was no longer affiliated with a political party.
“Los Angeles was under siege until we got there,” Trump told reporters on June 10. “The police were unable to handle it. You could speak to the chief. He said it on television three nights ago. He said, ‘That’s just … this is more than we can handle.’ They said that.”
On CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on June 15, Sen. Tom Cotton also cited McDonnell’s comments while defending the president’s decision to send the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles.
“The L.A. police chief said last weekend that his forces were overwhelmed, and they couldn’t manage the situation,” Cotton said.
McDonnell did say late on June 8 in his press conference that police were “overwhelmed” that night. But he never said Los Angeles police couldn’t handle the situation, nor did he ask for federal help. In fact, McDonnell has said Trump’s decision to send federal troops has increased “anxiety” levels at the protests.
McDonnell’s ‘Overwhelmed’ Comment
Here’s the part of McDonnell’s comments at the June 8 press conference that Trump and Cotton are referring to (emphasis is ours):
McDonnell, June 8: It’s escalated now since the beginning of this incident. What we saw the first night was bad. What we’ve seen subsequent to that is getting increasingly worse and more violent. Tonight we had individuals out there shooting commercial grade fireworks at our officers. That can kill you. And we have adapted our tactics to be able to have a chance to be able to take these people into custody and to be able to hold them accountable. We are overwhelmed as far as the number of people out there engaged in this type of activity and the type of things that they’re doing. They’ll, they’ll take backpacks and the backpack will have a cinder block in it. They have a hammer, and they’ll break up the cinder block and use that, pass it around to throw at officers, to throw at cars and throw at other people. … We’ve had liquid of who knows what description thrown at officers. There’s no, no limit to what they’re doing to our officers.
However, McDonnell went on to say that he did not ask for federal help, and that there were several steps he would have taken to increase law enforcement presence short of seeking federal troops.
Here was McDonnell’s response in the same press conference to a follow-up question about whether the National Guard was needed in Los Angeles.
McDonnell, June 8: Well, you know, it’s an interesting question because I would have said that, you know, we could handle this. I believe that we would have gone through a number of steps before we’d have deployed the National Guard or requested deployment of the National Guard. We would normally go to 50% deployment [of LA police] to handle radio calls and do the business of policing, and everybody else would be focused on the initial problem. Beyond that, then we would request through the sheriff mutual aid, and that would bring in members of the 44 other police departments in LA County, as well as the sheriff’s office. And so that didn’t occur in this case because it wasn’t done through the sheriff or … through the normal chain. It was done from the top down from the president directing that that happen. And then the National Guard was federalized. So they’re working for the US Army, not for the California State National Guard.
Asked again if Los Angeles needed the federal troops, McDonnell said, “Well, looking at tonight, you know, this thing has gotten out of control. … Before I could answer that, I’d have to know more about what their [National Guard] capabilities are, what their, their role is intended to be, to be able to make that determination. But we have great cops in Southern California here that work together all the time. So we have tremendous capability here. To say that we would go to that right away, I’d say we’re not, we wouldn’t have been there yet. Looking at the violence tonight, I think we got to make a reassessment.”
McDonnell Pushes Back on Trump’s Comments
In a press conference the following day, June 9, McDonnell was asked if he was concerned about the mobilization of federal troops in Los Angeles.
McDonnell, June 9: When I look at this — and my assessment may not be accurate based on this thing continuously churning — but I see two parallel tracks that don’t work together, if you will. We’re dealing with the issues on the street that you see every day. We deal with that with LAPD resources. When we need additional resources, then we reach out to the sheriff who brings in mutual aid. We have 14 different agencies working with us for that purpose. And then only if we weren’t able to continue to deal with that, needed additional help, would we reach out to the sheriff who would then request National Guard from the governor. So that’s one line.
The other part then is the National Guard were federalized by the president to support federal agents who are working on behalf of ICE to do their operation. The Marines were brought in then today, evidently, to join the Army National Guard in doing what their main mission has been identified as, which is the protection of federal employees and federal property.
Asked if he believed the federal troops were making a difference on the streets, McDonnell said it was “a very emotional topic” but that it had “certainly heightened everybody’s level of awareness and certainly anxiety.”
That same day, McDonnell released a statement warning that “the possible arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles — absent clear coordination — presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city. The Los Angeles Police Department, alongside our mutual aid partners, have decades of experience managing large-scale public demonstrations, and we remain confident in our ability to do so professionally and effectively.”
McDonnell became more direct in the following days that the federal troops were not requested nor needed to maintain peace on the streets.
“We don’t need the National Guard, and they are not here to help us right now,” McDonnell said on “CBS Mornings” on June 11. “They are here to facilitate what the federal agencies are doing on the immigration front.”
Pushing back on Trump’s characterization of his comments several days prior, McDonnell said on CNN on June 11, “We were not in a position to request the National Guard. We have a protocol that we work up through. First, we bring in all internal resources to bear on the issue, whatever it is. Then we mobilize the department or part of the department to be able to get everybody out there dealing with the issue. If we don’t have the capacity at that point to be able to do that, then through the sheriff, we request mutual aid and we get our law enforcement partners from police departments and sheriff’s departments throughout the Southern California region to assist us in doing what it is we need to do. We’re at that level now. And we’re nowhere near a level where we would be reaching out to the governor for National Guard, at this stage. And my hope is that things are going in the right direction now and that we wouldn’t have had to have done that, or we won’t either.”
In a June 14 interview with NBC4 News in Los Angeles, McDonnell continued to maintain that local police, with the aid of other local and state law enforcement agencies, were “ready for whatever comes our way.” In a June 13 press conference, McDonnell said coordination with federal troops was minimal and that the mission of federal troops was to “support and protect federal employees. … Their mission is not to work with us on the streets to maintain order, restore order and keep everybody safe.”
FactCheck.org Undergraduate Fellows Sanjana Juvvadi, Andrew Noh and Ashley Wang contributed research to this article.
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