Vice President JD Vance visited Los Angeles on Friday, a day after a federal appeals court temporarily ruled in favor of the administration’s federal presence in the state. Vance said the ruling demonstrated that President Donald Trump’s authority to mobilize troops in such a way is “legitimate.”
“I think what the 9th Circuit said very clearly is that when the president makes a determination that you’ve got to send in certain federal officials to protect people, that determination was legitimate,” Vance told reporters, reacting to the Thursday ruling. “And the president’s going to do it again if he has to. But hopefully it won’t be necessary.”
Vance acknowledged at the start of his remarks to reporters that “the rioting has gotten a lot better,” in reference to the protests that led to Trump mobilizing thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to the area. The demonstrations were against federal immigration raids in the area and have calmed significantly in recent days.
“But the bad news is … unfortunately, the soldiers and Marines are still a very much a necessary part of what’s going on here because they’re worried it’s going to flare back up,” Vance said.
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Vance spent the day meeting with the Marines deployed to the city and toured a multi-agency Federal Joint Operations Center and a Federal Mobile Command Center. He is also in the state to fundraise.
“The president has a very simple proposal. … If you enforce your own laws and if you protect federal law enforcement, we’re not going to send in the National Guard because it’s unnecessary,” Vance said on Friday. “But if you let violent rioters burn great American cities to the ground, then of course we’re going to send law enforcement in to protect the people the president was elected to protect.”
California filed its lawsuit against Trump’s decision to deploy Marines and the National Guard almost immediately after he mobilized the troops. A lower court ruling on June 13 would have halted the deployment, but it was blocked by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the same three-judge panel that ruled unanimously on Thursday to grant a stay.
The court, which cited evidence of protesters vandalizing property and throwing objects at law enforcement vehicles, ruled the president demonstrated reason to believe the protesters were interfering with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s official duties.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to keep litigating the issue.
“The court rightly rejected Trump’s claim that he can do whatever he wants with the National Guard and not have to explain himself to a court,” Newsom said in a statement on Thursday. “The President is not a king and is not above the law. We will press forward with our challenge to President Trump’s authoritarian use of U.S. military soldiers against citizens.”
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Amelia Benavides-Colón is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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