The Morning: Marines in L.A.

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2025-06-10 12:52

June 10, 2025

Good morning. Trump is sending hundreds of Marines into Los Angeles, where police officers broke up protests last night.

We’re covering that first, then we have more news — including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to fire all members of a C.D.C. vaccine panel and Meta’s new A.I. lab to pursue “superintelligence.”

A child leans out the window of a silver car, waving a Mexican flag.

In front of the Federal Building in downtown L.A. Mark Abramson for The New York Times

Troops in Los Angeles

By the staff of The Morning

The Marines are heading to Los Angeles. The Trump administration deployed a battalion of 700 to the city, along with 2,000 additional National Guard troops, in response to days of protests in the city. The demonstrations were more limited last night, and state officials criticized Trump’s orders.

“This is a provocation, not just an escalation,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in an interview with The Times. “This is intended to sow more fear, more anger, and to further divide.”

The Pentagon did not make clear why it would need more National Guard troops in the city. The state has also sued to block the use of the National Guard. And Democrats expressed alarm about the arrival of Marines. As our colleagues explain in this article, American military troops are supposed to be used inside the U.S. only in the rarest and most extreme situations.

Strangely, even as his administration deployed the armed forces, Trump said the situation in Los Angeles had already calmed down. “It’s still simmering a little bit,” he told reporters at the White House yesterday afternoon. “But not very much.”

The police and small groups of protesters clashed in the Little Tokyo neighborhood yesterday, where the L.A.P.D. made arrests, and used tear gas to disperse crowds. But there generally seemed to be fewer clashes between protesters and police officers. So far, the National Guard appears to have largely stayed out of those confrontations.

ICE’s escalation

Troops in helmets and camouflage pointing riot-control weapons.

ICE agents outside a federal building downtown on Sunday. Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

Why are the protests against Trump’s immigration raids happening now? Hamed Aleaziz, who covers immigration, explains:

The eruption in Los Angeles began when immigration agents showed up to arrest people at their jobs. They hadn’t told the city they were coming, and protesters tried to stop them.

This probably won’t be the last such conflict. The Trump administration is escalating its immigration crackdown, and worksite raids are the next major step. Future arrests are likely to be disruptive.

Finding more migrants: For most of this year, officials from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement have snagged the easiest-to-find migrants: People with criminal records, court petitions, asylum requests. Agents often knew where these people would be.

The result: The government was deporting about 700 per day, not much more than the Biden administration.

Last month, Stephen Miller, Trump’s immigration czar, delivered a message: ICE needed to hit a “minimum” of 3,000 arrests a day — about 10 times the figure under Biden.

Creative answers: To get there, the agency is seeking new tactics. The government has dismissed criminal cases against migrants and then arrested them as they left court. It is showing up at workplaces. And it has asked the National Guard and the Marines to help with enforcement.

Can Trump do that?

The White House says it deployed federal troops to Los Angeles because the local police need help to counter “insurrectionists.” But the Posse Comitatus Act says the armed forces aren’t law enforcement. We asked Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School and a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, what’s allowed.

Is this all legal?

The founders wanted to prevent the president from using federal troops against “we the people” because of the way the Red Coats used warrants to do whatever they wanted in people’s homes. But National Guard troops are local citizens; they live in their communities. So they’re allowed to help with police work — until they’re federalized. Which is what Trump did last weekend. Then they became indistinguishable from active-duty military. All they can do is defend federal workers like ICE agents, and federal buildings like an ICE detention center.

So the California National Guard and the Marines can’t contain the protests?

Not unless the president invokes the Insurrection Act! That law lets troops police our streets to suppress insurrections and help execute federal law in the face of rebellion.

Trump said yesterday that the protesters were “insurrectionists.” What counts as a rebellion?

It’s very vague — the law doesn’t say. It could be people trying to stop ICE agents from doing their job. I don’t think courts are going to want to argue about what constitutes a rebellion. The founders gave the president discretion here, so if Trump does invoke the Insurrection Act he’s on firm legal footing.

More on the responses

Immigrants are being cautious about going to work and school because they fear ICE sweeps, The Los Angeles Times reports.
On social media, people are posting misleading photographs and conspiracy theories to stoke outrage toward immigrants and political leaders, principally Democrats.
Waymo, the driverless taxi company, is limiting services in San Francisco after protesters set fire to five of its cars.
On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart addressed residents of L.A.: “Is your city ever not on fire?”

THE LATEST NEWS

Health

The panel of vaccine experts that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired at the C.D.C. made significant decisions about who receives immunizations, including vaccines for children.

In a sharply written open letter, dozens of employees at the National Institutes of Health accused the government of undermining the agency’s work and endangering people’s health.

More on the Trump Administration

A group of Democratic-led states sued to challenge the reversal of a Biden-era effort to ban devices that turn semiautomatic rifles into makeshift machine guns.
Trump is asking federal job applicants to describe their allegiance to administration policy in an essay. He’s the first president to take that step, experts said.
The Smithsonian said it retained authority over personnel, including at the National Portrait Gallery, whose director Trump says he’s fired.

Israel-Hamas War

A man wearing a yarmulke and a Jewish prayer shawl standing at prayer, wrapping the ritual leather tefillin straps around his left arm.

Omer Shem Tov Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times

Omer Shem Tov was 20 and not particularly religious when gunmen took him hostage on Oct. 7. He found God during his 505 days of captivity. Read his interview with The Times.
The Israeli-backed group set up to bypass the U.N. in Gaza aid distribution said Hamas had threatened its workers. Hamas denied the accusation.
Israel said it was preparing to deport Greta Thunberg and other passengers of an aid ship it intercepted on the way to Gaza.

War in Ukraine

A man standing amid debris next to a single-story building with a destroyed roof.

In Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Reuters

Russia launched almost 500 drones and missiles at Ukraine, the largest drone barrage of the war, Ukrainian officials said.
The leader of NATO urged member states to spend more on their military or “learn to speak Russian.”

More International News

Two people and two dogs on a ledge near a tennis court.

In Tehran. Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Iran is cracking down on pet dogs, which its Islamist authorities regard as impure and a sign of Western influence.
Several people were killed in a school shooting in Austria. The authorities are rushing to figure out what happened.
Violence has surged in Peru. Gangs are extorting people and businesses and attacking those who won’t pay.
Pesticides are a leading method of suicide in agricultural areas of developing nations. Suriname, a tiny nation on South America’s Atlantic coast, is working to restrict access.

Business

The U.S. needs samarium, a rare earth metal, to build fighter jets and missiles. One problem: China produces the entire world’s supply.
Meta’s new lab dedicated to pursuing “superintelligence” wants to develop a hypothetical A.I. system that exceeds the powers of the human brain. The company is spending billions in a tech arms race.
Apple revealed a new design for its software. While most of tech is building A.I. systems, Apple is focusing on making its products look prettier, Tripp Mickle and Brian Chen write.
Warner Bros. Discovery is splitting into two companies, separating its cable networks and streaming business.

OPINIONS

Trump’s order to send the National Guard into Los Angeles is creating the chaos it was supposed to prevent, the Editorial Board writes.

Democrats can’t create a “Joe Rogan of the left” because Rogan doesn’t represent a political agenda; he represents a culture, Michael Hirschorn writes.

Here’s a column by Michelle Goldberg on resisting autocracy.

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MORNING READS

A photo of a taxi cab on a red Etch A Sketch.

Jens Mortensen for The New York Times

Taxicab geometry: The Etch A Sketch is more than a toy; it’s a gateway to a different kind of math.

Reborn dolls: Extremely lifelike baby dolls set off a political debate in Brazil.

Kindergarten: Boys lag behind girls from the start.

Your pick: The most-clicked article in The Morning yesterday was an Opinion essay about Trump’s appeal in increasingly empty American towns.

Trending: A judge dismissed the defamation lawsuit that Justin Baldoni filed against his former co-star Blake Lively; her husband, Ryan Reynolds; and The New York Times.

Lives Lived: Frederick Forsyth used his early experience as a British foreign correspondent and an occasional intelligence operative as fodder for swashbuckling, best-selling thrillers in the 1970s and ’80s, including “The Day of the Jackal” and “The Dogs of War.” Forsyth died at 86.

SPORTS

N.H.L.: The Panthers have a 2-1 series lead in the Stanley Cup Final. They defeated the Oilers, 6-1, in Game 3.

Broadcasting: ESPN announced a multiyear contract extension with Dick Vitale. The deal will bring Vitale’s tenure to nearly 50 years.

ARTS AND IDEAS

A Goodyear blimp viewed head-on in a hangar.

Nic Antaya for The New York Times

For decades, the Goodyear blimp has been ubiquitous at major sporting events. Blimps may seem a quaint technology in the age of drones, but their ability to capture a skyline, a stadium or the flight of a golf ball has made them an indispensable part of broadcasts. Read more about why the blimp endures, 100 years after its debut.