Outside the Beltway

Some Random Tweets And Thoughts On The LA Protests

There's always a tweet

Matt Bernius · Sunday, June 8, 2025 · 7 comments

Earlier this morning, James covered the Administration’s federalization of the California Guard to “protect” ICE agents from ongoing protests. Rather than retreading that conversation, I wanted to highlight some tweets from Administration officials and others that struck me as noteworthy.

To start with, President Trump kicked off today (at 2:41 am) by thanking the California Guard for a job they haven’t done yet:

Full text:
Donald J. Trump Truth Social 06.08.25 02:41 AM EST Great job by the National Guard in Los Angeles after two days of violence, clashes and unrest. We have an incompetent Governor (Newscum) and Mayor (Bass) who were, as usual (just look at how they handled the fires, and now their VERY SLOW PERMITTING disaster. Federal permitting is complete!), unable to to handle the task. These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED. Also, from now on, MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why??? Again, thank you to the National Guard for a job well done!

As James noted, the guard has just been called up and has yet to be mobilized during any protests. I’m also not sure how “masks will not be allowed to be worn at protests” unless there is a local regulation that allows that. And I’ll note that ICE and other law enforcement officers will still be able to conceal their identities.

Then we have Trump’s director of the FBI commenting:

The irony here is that before he was appointed Director of the FBI, Patel was an advocate for January 6th defendants (and ran a legal defense fund for them). And Trump himself pardoned 169 individuals who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers and commuted the sentence of at least one January 6th participant convicted by a jury of assaulting police officers. Admittedly, Patel attempted to distance himself from those pardons during his confirmation hearings. Still, this seems like another case of “we treat our perceived allies differently than our perceived enemies.” Not to mention another example of the administration promising to protect law enforcement regardless of their actions.

And on the topic of flip-flopping, there’s always a tweet, isn’t there:

Full Text:
Kristi Noem @KristiNoem Feb 6, 2024
If Joe Biden federalizes the National Guard, that would be a direct attack on states’ rights. Over the last several years, we’ve seen Democrats try to take away our Freedoms of religion, assembly, and speech. We can’t let them take away our right to defend ourselves, too. South Dakota defends the Constitution.

I mean that was over a year ago, but apparently Governor Kristi Noem would really object to actions taken by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem… or at least she should if she was ideologically consistent on any other topics than “It’s correct when we do it.”

Looking outside of LA, ICE is taking similar actions (showing up at immigration hearings to arrest people who were following the procedure) across the country. That leads us to this “my leopards are eating my face” tweet from Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar of Florida:

https://twitter.com/MaElviraSalazar/status/1931154553849684158

The key portion of Representative Salazar’s tweet:

“Arrests in immigration courts, including people with 1-220’s and pending asylum cases, the termination of the CHNV program, which has left thousands exposed to deportation, and other similar measures, all jeopardize our duty to due process that every democracy must guarantee.”

I think most high level folks in the Trump administration and it’s supporters who tend to post at sites like our would fundamentally disagree with this.

As far as a final, and far more somber tweet, to understand what people are protesting, here’s one tweet that speaks to ICE’s excesses:

Yesterday, the masks yanked my employee's son's friend out of his car at Home Depot and detained him as non-documented for three hours saying they didn't believe his driver's license was real and taunting him in Spanish.
Kid is a citizen and Armenian. https://t.co/MFH9pyvvUz

— Heather Thomas (@HeatherThomasAF) June 8, 2025

Granted, this is a single anecdote that has yet to be verified. At the same time, this echoes many reported and confirmed stories.

More importantly, this verified example of the excesses of ICE in Los Angeles also speaks to what people are protesting:

I suggest listening to it with the volume turned up.

And, also, the LA Police Department is contesting some descriptions of the protests as being violent:

Ultimately, I believe it’s essential to acknowledge the reasons behind these public actions. For that, I turn to our commenter Hal 10000, who also writes for one of the other few remaining OG political analysis blogs, Ordinary Times. You should read more of Hal.