The following is a statement that Senator Elissa Slotkin (D - Michigan) posted on Facebook on Sunday, June 8, 2025 in response to Donald Trump deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles to quell protesting Americans.
Yesterday, President Trump called up 2,000 National Guard troops to LA over the objections of the governor, mayor, and the LAPD. It's the first time in 60 years that a president has sent troops into a U.S. state without the Governor’s consent.
I worked at the Pentagon and the CIA for Democratic and Republican presidents. This kind of action should send a chill down the spine of anyone concerned about protecting the apolitical military, and minimizing an escalation of violence in our streets.
First -- Our troops are intended by law to protect America from foreign adversaries, never to advance one party's political agenda. This is what separates American democracy from places like Chinese communism.
It's hard to make the case that this deployment is about public safety instead of politics, when law enforcement leaders did not request the military to intervene.
Second -- the U.S. military is one of the most trusted institutions in America. Using them at home in law enforcement roles is the fastest way to kill that trust. We know this from experience in Michigan. In 1967, the National Guard was deployed to Detroit in response to protests at our then-Governor’s request. It made the violence worse, and the scars are still there 60 years later.
Third -- and connected to the above point, our troops are not trained in law enforcement tactics. The Secretary of the Army reaffirmed this fact to me during his nomination hearing in January.
The military is trained to carry out high-intensity foreign combat, like house-to-house counterterrorism operations. And they do that exceptionally well. But this does not always translate to things like crowd control and urban policing, which can escalate quickly if not properly trained.
I have been focused on this issue since day one because President Trump sought to use the military against American citizens in his first term. I've asked Secretary Hegseth, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and other Pentagon officials about this point explicitly during their nomination hearings, because officials from Trump’s first cabinet, such as former Secretary Mark Esper, wrote first-hand accounts of convincing the president against such actions.
So this is not hypothetical. During President Trump's first term, he asked the Pentagon to deploy active duty 82nd Airborne troops to DC to put down peaceful protests and the National Guard flew helicopters extremely low over protestors.
This deployment of the National Guard is a dangerous step towards misuse of the U.S. military in our streets. This Administration has been looking for excuses to invoke the Insurrection Act, to use the U.S. military against Americans. That’s their playbook, and we should be clear-eyed about that.
P.S. — President Trump's order yesterday is not limited to CA. It authorizes the deployment of the National Guard nationwide.
No President has the right to use the uniformed military in a way that violates the U.S. Constitution and taints the military as an apolitical institution. Whether you’re a supporter of the president or not, every American should be concerned that major lines on the use of force in America are now being crossed.
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