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Trump claims US is under attack 'by a foreign enemy' | LBC
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Jun 12, 2025
LBC's Washington Correspondent, Simon Marks, provides James O'Brien with the latest. It comes after around 700 Marines were deployed to LA amid protests over ICE migrant raids, as Donald Trump said "anarchy will not stand". He told the crowd "anarchy will not stand" in LA, noting that he has deployed thousands of National Guard troops to protect federal law enforcement from the attacks of a "vicious and violent mob". He said: "What you are witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, public order, and national sovereignty carried out by rioters carrying foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country." Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #jamesobrien #simonmarks #usa #donaldtrump #trump #uspolitics #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
View Video Transcript
0:00
Simon Marks is in Washington, D.C., LBC's U.S. editor
0:04
I almost dread to ask, Simon, but what's the latest? Well, the latest, James, is that we are, I think
0:11
on the verge of seeing a pretty substantial expansion of Donald Trump's determination to flood the streets of cities
0:19
all over the country with federal law enforcement agents as he threatens to, in his words, liberate Los Angeles
0:29
a city that hasn't actually been seized. Very small pockets of Los Angeles, of course
0:34
are still facing substantial numbers of protesters who don't like Donald Trump's mass deportation policies
0:42
and who are determined to continue demonstrating against them. There was a curfew put in place by the mayor of Los Angeles
0:50
Karen Bass, again in small pockets of the city. Last night from eight o'clock in the evening local time
0:56
Police, National Guard and other law enforcement agents were involved in various scuffles with protesters trying to enforce that curfew overnight
1:07
But it was a relatively quiet night in Los Angeles for the second night running
1:13
And what we are seeing on a daily basis here is an inverse response to relative calm by the president of the United States who looks at a situation and says that he believes that Los Angeles is now coming under assault by a foreign enemy
1:33
And that language is really important because under the terms of the law, Trump supporters claim that he can invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, which he hasn't quite done yet, if he deems that the country is coming under attack by a foreign enemy
1:52
and by insisting that these protesters, and they are not now only in Los Angeles
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they also took to the streets last night in Atlanta, in New York, in Chicago
2:04
These protests are now spreading as a direct consequence of Donald Trump's overheated response to them
2:11
By claiming that America is coming under attack by a foreign enemy
2:15
He definitely appears to be laying the groundwork to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, which would be the point at which he can deploy members of the U.S. armed forces
2:28
The Marine Corps will already be on the streets of Los Angeles today
2:33
He can deploy the men and women in uniform who are supposed to only have duties outside this country fighting America enemies there he can deploy them he will argue on the streets of America as well
2:47
And they, of course, took an oath to the Constitution, not to the President or to any politician
2:54
Yeah, they did, but I don't see yet very much pushback coming from the ranks of the armed forces
3:01
And remember, at senior levels, Pete Hegseth, the Defence Secretary, has purged
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Many of the top generals within the armed forces that don't share Donald Trump's worldview
3:13
So, I mean, one of the more bizarre images that we witnessed yesterday were aerial shots of a baseball field in Los Angeles
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looked like a high school baseball diamond, where the Marines were training
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They were being trained in how to bring protesters under control. because, of course, that's not part of what the Marines are supposed to do
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You've now got more members of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps
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infantry progrades as well, deployed on American streets than you've got deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria
3:54
I think Hegseth had misled people on that one, hadn't he, by claiming that they were trained and ready previously
4:01
Yes, absolutely, yes. And also obfuscated about what all of this was costing in a very contentious hearing with the Budget Committee in the House of Representatives yesterday
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They've now finally conceded that so far just sending the Marines to Los Angeles is costing them $143 million
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Bear in mind also that the martial images that we've seen include pictures of train loads of tanks and howitzers and armored personnel carriers coming here to Washington for Donald Trump's big birthday parade on Saturday
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It's officially to mark the 250th anniversary of the creation of the formation of the U.S. Army happens to be on Donald Trump's birthday
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But those images were accompanied yesterday by a threat from the president of the United States that any demonstrators
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any protesters who take to the streets of Washington to register any objection to that $45 million event will also be immediately rounded up and arrested
5:12
I mean that First Amendment territory because that would include I saw those comments and they were you know characteristically incoherent But what was coherent was the threat to peaceful protesters being punished being sanctioned Yeah absolutely But he characterises all protesters now certainly in Los Angeles as criminal aliens and migrants
5:34
People can see that they're not, though. I don't want to trivialise it, but I'm reminded of when he claimed they were eating the cats and eating the dogs and they couldn't find anybody to confirm that
5:45
People can see that these are not aliens or foreigners conducting the
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And yet he persists with the lie. Well, he persists with the lie aided by a pliant media
5:57
Some of the protesters in Los Angeles are waving Mexican flags, large Mexican banners
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Those images are being played on a loop by networks like Fox News, by the right leaning streaming channels here that do Donald Trump's bidding on a daily basis
6:14
So they are creating, they are helping to underscore his alternative fact that all of these demonstrators are criminal aliens. Are some of them criminal aliens? Yeah, probably. But there are also lots of American citizens who don't like the fact that these mass deportations are taking place, don't like the manner in which they are taking place, and really worry now that Donald Trump is putting this country on the fast track to becoming a police state
6:44
And what does that mean? I mean, some people think, I can't remember whether we've had this conversation, that it may be a precursor to trying to swerve the midterms. What's the goal, do you think? And we now are in the realms of opinion rather than reportage
7:00
Well, I think that there is no question that should he invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act and should he succeed in deploying all of these troops across the country
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And NBC News was reporting last night they now have plans to send troops to tactical units of ICE, the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement Division, to five more cities across the country
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This is one can argue that this is designed to create so much tumult in American society, foment violence in towns and cities all over the country, create circumstances that would potentially allow Donald Trump at some point to say, I have to declare a state of emergency now
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And I'm really sorry, we may even have to suspend various parts of the Constitution
7:49
And those midterm elections in November of 2026 I just don know if we going to be able to do them under these circumstances in which the country is coming under an assault by alien criminals a foreign enemy I mean there is definitely that possibility coming He may not do that now He may not even be thinking yet about doing that now But it is absolutely a series of
8:13
possibilities that one cannot rule out, given the seeming determination of the President of the
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United States to confront these protesters with muscle that absolutely is in inverse proportion
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despite the appalling images that we've seen of protesters dropping cinder blocks on police cars
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in small pockets of Los Angeles. The response, thousands of members of the National Guard deployed
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the Marines standing by, infantry brigades being dispatched to Los Angeles. The response is in inverse proportion to what has actually been taking place
8:53
And probably, I mean, I always wonder whether we need reminding, but it doesn't do any harm to remember his response to the January the 6th riots
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when, of course, a murderous mob of his supporters were baying for the blood of his own vice president
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They've subsequently been pardoned and praised by Donald Trump for undertaking behaviours at least as bad and at least as violent
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as the small pockets of rioting that you described. No-one's died yet, have they, Simon, in this
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No, no-one has died yet, with the emphasis on word yet. Yes, of course, but another difference between that and January the 6th
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Final question, and be brief if you would, because PMQs is about to start. Where's the pushback coming from
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Well, the pushback's coming from Governor Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California
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who made an address to the state last night in prime time. But in reality, it was an address to the nation
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in which he absolutely accused Trump of a brazen abuse of power
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saying that he was bringing a wrecking ball to American democracy, insisted that he's taking legal action to try and get these armed forces
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off the streets of the city. But what he was really doing was laying claim to leadership within the Democratic Party
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He wants to be the Democrats 2028 presidential nominee, and he's not going to stand by and watch Trump destroy those aspirations
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Simon Marks, thank you. There was a Nazi philosopher or at least a German jurist who joined the Nazi party
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Of course, you had to at that time in history called Carl Schmitt, who coined the phrase state of exception, which is when a sovereign transcends the rule of law by often by inventing a crisis
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And I think we're very, very squarely in that kind of territory here, as Simon has just brilliantly explained
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But don't forget, it's Zelensky, it's Volodymyr Zelensky, Alex reminds us, who is the real dictator here, even as Trump tries to potentially do exactly what he accused Zelensky of doing
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when Zelensky hadn't
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