The chief of the Los Angeles Police Department has shot down Donald Trump’s claim that he asked the president to send in the National Guard to help control immigration protests in the city.
Speaking to CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said the department was “not in a position” to make such a request and that they were “nowhere near” the stage where such action would be necessary.
“We have a protocol that we follow,” McDonnell said. “First, we bring all internal resources to bear on the issue, whatever it is. Then we mobilize the department, or part of the department, to get everybody out there dealing with the situation.”
“If we still don’t have the capacity to manage it, then through the sheriff we request mutual aid and bring in law enforcement partners from other police departments and sheriff’s offices throughout Southern California,” he continued. “We’re at that level now—and we’re nowhere near needing to reach out to the governor for the National Guard.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Trump sparked outrage in California after ordering the federalization of the California state National Guard and send troopers into Los Angeles to quell protests against federal immigration crackdowns.
The move came without approval from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has repeatedly blasted Trump and accused him of like a dictator, imposing a “mindset of militarization, power, dominance, and control,” rather than following “the rule of law.”
Trump defended the deployment while speaking to reporters ahead of his visit to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—an institution he has controversially reshaped under his MAGA agenda—to watch Les Misérables.
“If we weren’t there, if we didn’t bring in the National Guard and the Marines, you’d probably have a city that was burning to the ground,” Trump claimed. “In fact, the police chief said as much. He said, ‘We’re very lucky to have had them.’”
But McDonnell contradicted that narrative, and reiterated that the LAPD had not requested federal assistance to manage the unrest in parts of downtown L.A.
“My hope is that things are moving in the right direction now, and that we won’t have to, or wouldn’t have had to, take that step,” he told Collins.
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