White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Trump called in the National Guard with the expectation that it would ‘hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.’
President Trump’s tense, late-night phone call with Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday night came with a warning: “Get the police in gear.” The president was being shown evidence by his staff of theft at a 7-Eleven and of federal law enforcement with lacerations.
His patience would last less than 24 hours before federalizing the National Guard in a historic action.
“He told the governor to get it under control and watched again for another full day, 24 hours, where it got worse,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told The Times in an interview. “The assaults against federal law enforcement upticked, the violence grew, and the president took bold action on Saturday evening to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal personnel.”
The president did so, Leavitt said, “with the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard would hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.”
The opposite occurred. The worst violence yet took place on Sunday, with some rioters torching and hurling concrete at police cars, hours after National Guard troops had arrived in Los Angeles County.
