Defense secretary Pete Hegseth says military will stay in Los Angeles for 60 days – live

Key events

Show key events only

Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature

Trump's deployment of troops to Los Angeles to cost an estimated $134 million, Pentagon says

Donald Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles is estimated to cost about $134m, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday.

Bryn MacDonnell, who is performing the duties of comptroller at the Pentagon, told lawmakers that the cost included the cost of travel, housing and food for the troops.

The Pentagon has said that it will deploy a total of over 4,000 Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles to help protect federal property and personnel.

Hegseth says he anticipates military will remain in LA for 60 days

Pete Hegseth has told the House committee that he’s anticipating military personnel to stay in Los Angeles for 60 days to “ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere”.

Kristi Noem sought military arrests in LA but request was not granted - San Francisco Chronicle

The day before the Trump administration mobilized 700 Marines to downtown Los Angeles, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem asked defense secretary Pete Hegseth to direct the military to detain or arrest “lawbreakers”, according to the San Francisco Chronicle (paywall).

A letter sent from Noem to Hegseth on Sunday, obtained by the Chronicle, requested that the Pentagon give “Direction to DoD forces to either detain, just as they would at any federal facility guarded by military, lawbreakers under Title 18 until they can be arrested and processed by federal law enforcement, or arrest them.”

Under federal law, the military is generally barred from taking part in domestic law enforcement. Granting Noem’s request would likely require the administration to sidestep those laws by invoking the Insurrection Act (Donald Trump has downplayed suggestions that he plans to do that).

However, the Chronicle reports, a homeland security spokesperson suggested today that the request was not granted after Noem and Hegseth met with Trump, saying: “The posture of our brave troops has not changed.”

Noem also asked Hegseth for “drone surveillance support”, as well as weapons and logistics assistance, per the Chronicle’s report.

California congressman Pete Aguilar pressed defense secretary Pete Hegseth further on why it was necessary to deploy US Marines against civilian protesters in Los Angeles.

“What’s the justification for using the military for civilian law enforcement purposes in LA? Why are you sending war fighters to cities to interact with civilians?” Aguilar asked.

“Every American citizen deserves to live in a community that’s safe, and Ice agents need to be able to do their job. They’re being attacked for doing their job, which is deporting illegal criminals. That shouldn’t happen in any city, Minneapolis or Los Angeles, and if they’re attacked, that’s lawless,” Hegseth replied.

Aguilar then asked the secretary to point to Donald Trump’s legal grounds for deploying troops domestically, noting that under the law he has used, that can only be done on three grounds: to counter “invasion by a foreign nation, ... dangerous rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States or [if] the president is unable with regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

“I don’t know. You just read it yourself, so people can listen themselves, but it sounds like all three to me,” Hegseth shot back. He then claimed that “you’ve got millions of illegals you don’t know where they’re coming from” and “they’re waving flags from foreign countries and assaulting police officers”.

“The governor of California has failed to protect his people, along with the mayor of Los Angeles,” Hegseth continued. “President Trump has all the authorities necessary, and thankfully, he’s willing to do it on behalf of the citizens of Los Angeles.”

House speaker says Newsom should be 'tarred and feathered' over handling of LA protests

Republican House speaker Mike Johnson declined to answer whether he agreed with Donald Trump that California governor Gavin Newsom should be arrested over his handling of protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles..

“That’s not my lane,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.

I’m not going to give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested.

But he ought to be tarred and feathered, I’ll say that.

Benjamin Lee

Celebrities have reacted to the ongoing chaos in Los Angeles, calling out Ice officials and praising those protesting against them.

Oscar-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo posted a lengthy message on Instagram referring to the “oligarchy” that Americans now find themselves in. “You are pointing your guns in the wrong direction,” he wrote. “Can’t you see that maybe we are being tricked to tear each other apart while they rake it in?”

His message saw a positive response from names including Halle Berry, Pedro Pascal, Marisa Tomei and Melanie Griffith. Pascal also shared a video celebrating the diversity of America, writing: “Los Ángeles. Built by the best of U.S. #Protect our #Protectors #RESIST.”

Tyler, the Creator also posted an Instagram story, writing “Fuck Ice” while singer Kehlani, who was recently barred from performing at Cornell University for her anti-genocide comments, wrote: “Long live the resistance”.

As we reported earlier, rapper Doechii used her acceptance speech at last night’s BET awards o express outrage over the situation. “There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order,” she said. “Trump is using military forces to stop a protest.” She added: “We all deserve to live in hope and not in fear.”

Director Ava DuVernay, who recently called out Trump’s criminal behaviour in a rousing speech, wrote about the hypocrisy of what’s happening. “I’m witnessing tear gas and non-lethal rounds being unleashed on peaceful protesters in DTLA,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “People of all ages and stripes from all over the city, raising their voices. And being treated worse than January 6 terrorists.”

Texas governor Greg Abbott said more than a dozen protesters were arrested during demonstrations in Austin on Monday.

“Peaceful protesting is legal,” Abbott wrote on social media. “But once you cross the line, you will be arrested.”

Democratic congressman for California John Garamendi said Donald Trump’s response to the protests in downtown Los Angeles is about Trump “pretending that he is the king of this nation, that he has the ultimate power and authority to do anything he wants to do.”

Garamendi, speaking to CNN on Tuesday, said the “very significant blowback” created by recent immigration raids and Trump’s actions were to be expected. He said:

They are not finding criminals. They’re finding people that are hard-working family members, some of them are in school. They’ve created fear all across this country.

Hegseth on decision to deploy troops in LA: 'Ice ought to be able to do its job'

Pete Hegseth was pressed about his decision to deploy Marines and Guard troops to Los Angeles by Betty McCollum, the top Democrat on the House appropriations subcommittee before which the defense secretary is testifying.

McCollum wanted to know how much the deployments, which have been made over the objections of California’s governor Gavin Newsom, would cost, and what training and other duties the troops were passing up because of the deployment.

She also noted that no such troops were deployed in 2020 during protests that followed George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Hegseth said:

In Los Angeles, we believe that Ice, which is a federal law enforcement agency, has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country, especially after 21 million illegals have crossed our border under the previous administration. Ice ought to be able to do its job, whether it’s Minneapolis or Los Angeles. The police chief said she was overwhelmed, so we helped.

McCollum objected to Hegseth’s answers, saying he refused to respond to her questions about the defense department’s budget.

Here are some pictures coming out of LA this morning.

Hegseth faces grilling on Capitol Hill for first time since Signal scandal and troops sent to LA

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to field sharp questions from members of Congress about his tumultuous start as Pentagon chief, including his sharing of sensitive military details over a Signal group chat, in three separate Capitol Hill hearings beginning today.

This will be his first appearance before a House committee since his epic and controversy-ridden Senate confirmation hearings over four months ago – and a lot has happened since then, so it could be a lengthy one.

Lawmakers are also sure to quiz Hegseth on the legality of his mobilization of 700 active-duty marines to assist more than 4,100 national guard troops in protecting federal buildings and personnel. We can expect questions about what the troops are expected to do and how much it will all cost.

Under the Posse Comitatus Act, troops are prohibited from policing US citizens on American soil. Invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows troops to do that, is incredibly rare, and Trump has downplayed suggestions that he plans to do that.

Hegseth’s conduct around Signalgate is bound to come up, both in terms of his sharing of attack plans in Yemen and his subsequent denials that the information was classified. We can also expect questions around the general sense of chaos around the Pentagon since he took charge, with a number of key staff being fired.

Lawmakers also have made it clear they are unhappy that Hegseth has not provided details on the administration’s first proposed defense budget, which Donald Trump has said would total $1tn, a significant increase over the current spending level of more than $800bn.

It will also be lawmakers’ first chance to ask Hegseth about a myriad of other controversial spending by the Pentagon, including plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on security upgrades to turn a Qatari jet into Air Force One and to pour as much as $45m into a parade recently added to the Army’s 250th birthday bash, which happens to coincide with Trump’s birthday on Saturday.

We did say a lot’s happened. We’ll bring you all the key lines here.

CNN reporters on the ground in downtown Los Angeles, the site of much of the anti-Ice protests over the past five days, report that while some buildings have been vandalized, and there is graffiti in downtown, much of LA has not been affected by the protests.

According to CNN – and very much contrary to Trump’s comments about the city – the damage was “not a sliver just of Los Angeles, it’s really a sliver of downtown. Much of the rest of the city is functioning as per normal.”

‘The language of authoritarianism’: how Trump and allies cast LA as a lawless city

Trump’s language in that last post is just another example of the familiar script of the president and his allies, who – as my colleague Tess Owen writes – over the last few days cast the sprawling city of Los Angeles in shades of fire and brimstone, a hub of dangerous lawlessness that required urgent military intervention in order to be contained.

But as we know, the demonstrations were actually confined to very small areas of the city and life generally went on as usual across much of LA.

This language is deliberate, says Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University and scholar on fascist and authoritarian movements, who tells Tess the rhetoric coming from the Trump administration is “an authoritarian trick”.

You create a sense of existential fear that social anarchy is spreading, that criminal gangs are taking over. This is the language of authoritarianism all over the world.

What is the only recourse to violent mobs and agitators? Using all the force of the state. Thus we have the vision of the national guard, armed to the teeth. It’s like a war zone. That’s on purpose, it’s habituating Americans to see those armed forces as being in combat on the streets of American cities.

The protests turned violent when federal immigration authorities used flash bang grenades and tear gas against demonstrators. Over the weekend, fiery and chaotic scenes played out in downtown LA, Compton and Paramount. Dozens of people were arrested for an array of crimes, including an alleged tossing of a molotov cocktail towards Ice officers. Protesters shut down a freeway, several self-driving vehicles were torched and dumpsters were set alight, and there were scattered reports of looting.

Still, as mayor Karen Bass noted on CNN on Monday, on “a few streets downtown, it looks horrible”, but there was “not citywide civil unrest”.

Trump has also repeatedly suggested that some of the individuals involved in the protest were “paid”, invoking a popular rightwing conspiracy about dark money bankrolling liberal causes.

This, too, is another tactic out of the authoritarian playbook, according to Ben-Ghiat.

If there are any protests against the autocrat, you have to discredit them by saying they are crisis actors, they are foreign infiltrators. You have to discredit them in the public eye.

Trump again defends decision to 'send in the troops'

Donald Trump has again defended his decision to deploy the Guard to LA, claiming if he hadn’t “that once beautiful and great city would be burning to the ground right now”.

As many have pointed out already, the demonstrations started out peacefully, and while some buildings have been vandalized and looted, some cars were set alight and there is graffiti downtown, much of Los Angeles has not been affected at all.

Trump then went on a tirade about rebuilding houses in LA and again attacked governor, Gavin Newsom, and mayor, Karen Bass. It’s unclear where Trump got the “25,000 houses burned to the ground from”, but if he’s referring to the most recent wildfires, which caused significant damage and displacement in the area, the number of homes, businesses and other structures destroyed was around 12,000, not 25,000.

Here’s Trump’s Truth Social post:

If I didn’t “SEND IN THE TROOPS” to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now, much like 25,000 houses burned to the ground in L.A. do to an incompetent Governor and Mayor - Incidentally, the much more difficult, time consuming, and stringent FEDERAL PERMITTING PROCESS is virtually complete on these houses, while the easy and simple City and State Permits are disastrously bungled up and WAY BEHIND SCHEDULE! They are a total mess, and will be for a long time. People want to rebuild their houses. Call your incompetent Governor and Mayor, the Federal permitting is DONE!!!

The day so far

Last night Trump sent another 2,000 Guard troops to LA, following the original 2,000 sent on Saturday.

A battalion of 700 marines were also temporarily mobilized to Los Angeles, marking another escalation in Trump’s response to street protests over his aggressive immigration policies. LAPD said it had not been formally notified and the marines’ arrival would present “a significant logistical and operational challenge”.

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, said US marines are “not political pawns” and called the Trump administration’s deployment a “blatant abuse of power”. He again accused Trump of “trying to provoke chaos”.

Dozens of people were arrested in California, as other protests sprung up in at least nine other US cities overnight, including New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. In Austin, Texas, police fired nonlethal munitions and detained several people as they clashed with a crowd of several hundred protesters.

California yesterday said Trump’s deployment of the Guard was illegal and violated the state’s sovereignty and federal law, according to a court filing of its lawsuit against the US government.

Australia’s prime minister denounced the “horrific” shooting of a rubber bullet at an Australian television reporter covering the unrest in LA. Anthony Albanese said the reporter could reasonably have expected not to be “targeted” with a rubber bullet while doing her job in Los Angeles. The footage showed she was “clearly identified” as a member of the media, with “no ambiguity”, he said. “We don’t find it acceptable that it occurred, and we think the role of the media is particularly important.” He said he had raised the incident with the Trump administration.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll will also be at Tuesday’s event where Donald Trump will address US soldiers at Fort Bragg as the President deploys the military in an attempt to quiet immigration protests in Los Angeles.

Driscoll will attend along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, service members, veterans and their families to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Army.

Fort Bragg, located near Fayetteville, North Carolina, serves as headquarters for US Army Special Operations Command. Highly trained units like the Green Berets and the Rangers are based there.