The National Guard, ICE, and Dr. Phil
The Trump administration's hypocrisy is on full display right now. In the wake of Senator Alex Padilla being forcibly removed from the DHS press conference, and the protests happening nationwide, I want to make something clear: the President is escalating this situation.
This isn't just a disagreement about the right course of action or the appropriate way to enforce immigration laws. Hell, President Obama deported far more people than Trump — those with criminal records, and he did it responsibly and lawfully. He didn't need to call in the National Guard.
And guess what? Trump didn't need to either.
The Governor didn't even ask the National Guard to be called in. Now, looking back at a quote from Donald Trump in 2020 after January 6th, when asked why he didn't call in the National Guard, he said:
"We have to go by the laws. We can't move in the National Guard. I can call Insurrection, but there's no reason to ever do that, even in a Portland case. We can't call in the National Guard unless we are requested by the governor."
Those are Donald Trump's words — live on national television in 2020 — but boy, has he changed his tune."
Flash forward to 2025, and Trump is praising the National Guard for calming the situation, and at the time, they weren't even there yet. Why praise people for work that hasn't been accomplished yet? Because this isn't about enforcing immigration laws — which is what they were supposedly sent there to do — it's about creating a spectacle to justify his authoritarianism.
Need more proof that it's a spectacle? How about Dr. Phil? Yes, that Dr. Phil.
Reality TV personality Dr. Phil was embedded with ICE agents during the raids in California like some White House-escalated made-for-TV spectacle.
I'm not afraid to call this what it is: a manufactured crisis produced and orchestrated by Donald Trump because he thinks it helps him politically. Will you help me continue to make noise about this? We have to accelerate our efforts to hold him and his enablers accountable — thousands of hard-working people are counting on us.
In solidarity,
Jim McGovern
