CNN
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President Donald Trump is nothing if not skilled at crafting alternate realities and using them to benefit himself politically. But his messaging around the Los Angeles protests has taken it to another level.
You could be forgiven for thinking Trump wants to create the illusion of a federal crackdown on protesters without everything that comes with the real deal. That’s not to say Trump is bluffing about a hands-on response — but there’s also value in creating perceptions.
Trump’s decisions to send in the National Guard and mobilize the Marines are controversial for a whole host of reasons. But for now, the guard and the Marines aren’t actually allowed to conduct law enforcement. The guard has had little engagement with protestors.
Unless Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, the guard is restricted to protecting federal property and personnel. That translates to mostly guarding an immigration detention center and possibly assisting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that set off the protests. The Marines have done even less so far – the commandant, Gen. Eric Smith, said Tuesday that the Marines, while mobilized, haven’t yet been called in to respond.
As CNN’s Josh Campbell reports, the bulk of the 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines that have been mobilized actually remain out of public view and likely won’t even be seen publicly. And CNN’s Haley Britzky and Natasha Bertrand reported Tuesday that the Marines have not received official tasks or orders yet and many are undergoing additional training before they potentially assist with the protests, citing US officials.
But to hear Trump tell it, his decision to call in the troops has made all the difference in putting down violent demonstrations.
“We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California,” Trump said Tuesday in a social media post. “If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”
He added later: “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.”
Trump’s comments gloss over the fact that the protests and violence are actually confined to a small portion of Los Angeles, with the vast majority of the city and Los Angeles County going about its regular business.
But they also imply a much bigger role for the troops than we’ve actually seen.
Trump made similar comments at a White House event later in the day.
He said “we ended” the violence, and: “Los Angeles was under siege until we got there. The police were unable to handle it.”
“Last night, they had total control,” Trump said. “If we didn’t have the military in there, the National Guard – and then we also sent in some Marines,” he added before trailing off.
Trump made similar comments on Monday, saying the guard had arrived “just in time.”
Talking about possibly sending in the Marines, Trump said, “I mean, I think we have it very well under control. I think it would have been a very bad situation.” Shortly after, despite those comments, the Pentagon went on to mobilize 2,000 more National Guard troops and the 700 Marines who are standing by.
The increased military presence could be acting as a deterrent to some violence. CNN’s Kyung Lah, who is on the ground in Los Angeles covering the protests, told me the guard’s biggest impact is as a “show of force” and a target for people’s ire, rather than engaging with protesters or rioters.
After Trump’s comments on Tuesday, CNN footage showed that law enforcement from the California National Guard, Department of Homeland Security as well as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement fired non-lethal tear gas outside a federal detention center to disperse protesters.
Before that incident, Lah noted to me that guardsmen at the detention center at one point Sunday used their shields to push the crowd out. On Monday, they responded to a bottle being thrown at them by running down the steps and chasing people away.
“But that’s about the extent of it,” Lah said. “The real face-to-face, the clearing of the streets, all of that has been the LAPD.”
It’s theoretically possible that the shows of force and the mere threat of a truly hands-on federal crackdown could dissuade protesters from getting more violent. But there is little evidence this has truly quelled the protests. And Lah noted that many people have showed up to protest because of the deployment of the guard.
The image Trump has painted in recent days evokes his yearslong flirtation with justified violence and the prospect of cracking down on demonstrators and supposedly evil forces within the United States. Trump has also spoken fondly of the ability of foreign strongmen to control their populations and squelch internal dissent.
But while that image obviously appeals to Trump, an actual crackdown is much more fraught. That creates the possibility of an overzealous response and ugly scenes. And CNN polling five years ago amid racial-justice protests showed that 60% of Americans didn’t want the military called in to respond to domestic protests, compared to 36% who said they did.
It’s possible Trump still aims for the real thing. But for now, he seems happy with trying to create the perception that the troops he called in are quashing the protests in LA.
Emma Tucker and Kyung Lah contributed to this report.
