The Trump administration’s efforts to show strength grew more fevered this past weekend, with Donald Trump deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles to quell protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s detention and deportation campaigns. In sending in the troops, as Tom Cotton urged during the George Floyd protests, Trump got a chance to flex his muscles and create a standoff with a highly visible liberal foe, California governor Gavin Newsom; he may next take the more extreme step of invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807.
At the same time, Trump is busy planning a lavish Flag Day celebration-slash-79th birthday party set for this coming weekend in Washington, a massive military parade that will feature 7 million pounds of tanks, fighting vehicles, and weaponry, as well as several thousand soldiers. The June 14 event, ostensibly being held to honor the Army’s 250th birthday (but also falling on Trump’s own), will require more than 18 miles of fencing to be put up in the capital.
Despite their being grand displays of military might, these actions, if you look closely, don’t seem like those of an administration tired of winning. And they come as the Trump administration has been awash in bad news, of both the policy and personnel variety. The country is still reeling from Trump and Elon Musk’s epic blowup, which reportedly saw the president call his biggest donor a “big-time drug addict.” Meanwhile, Musk endorsed a call for Trump’s impeachment and alleged that he was mentioned in files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, suggesting “that is the real reason they have not been made public.”
Eventually, Musk appeared to delete those tweets, but for those of us able to remember Trump 1.0, this ugly episode felt oddly familiar and like a death knell, essentially, to the fallacy that Trump 2.0 would somehow function like a normal administration. Trump and company came in this year with a right-wing policy playbook, Project 2025, and the president fired off a flurry of executive orders in dizzying fashion.
But the public has shown its disapproval of Trump’s policies, while the courts have kept the White House in check, something the GOP-led Congress has failed to do. The recent return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man illegally deported to El Salvador, came after top officials said he would not be brought back to the United States, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying there was “no scenario” in which that would happen. “This is a victory for the Supreme Court and the rule of law over a reluctant executive branch,” wrote the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Even some of Trump’s supporters are bristling at his immigration enforcement actions, with Florida state senator Ileana Garcia, who cofounded the group Latinas for Trump, calling them “unacceptable and inhumane.” Yes, even some people who backed Trump, whose nominating convention featured supporters waving “Mass Deportation Now!” signs, are bothered by the cruelty on display.
California National Guard stands guard as protesters clash with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles at the Metropolitan Detention Center due to the immigration raids in L.A. on Sunday, June 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA.By Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times/Getty Images.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Trump’s big, beautiful (bullshit) bill is facing opposition from within the president’s own party. Musk, of course, called the bill a “disgusting abomination,” as it’s expected to grow the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And as Politico noted, he “threatened to target or primary Republican incumbents in the midterm elections.”
While there’s plenty of speculation that the Tesla chief’s unaired complaint is that the bill also eliminates EV credits, the same can’t be said when it comes to Senator Rand Paul, a Republican who also opposes the bill. Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who reportedly “laid into” top immigration officials for not arresting and deporting enough people, took some time during his Sunday tweetstorm about the “invaders” in Los Angeles to criticize Paul. If Democrats are smart, they will exploit this tension: The BBB is a uniquely bad piece of legislation that will grow the deficit and cut funding for Medicaid and food benefits for children and adults.
