Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested Wednesday that the Trump administration could send troops to any city in America over the objections of state and local officials, as it is doing now in Los Angeles.
During a Senate Appropriations Committee defense subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, asked Hegseth about the fact that the order President Donald Trump issued Saturday that has sent Marines and the National Guard into L.A. mentioned neither a specific location nor specific units that it applies to.
"Do you think this order applies to any Guard anywhere, any service branch anywhere?" Schatz asked. "Did you just potentially mobilize every Guard everywhere and every service member everywhere. I mean, create the framework for that?"
Hegseth responded that one intention of the order "is getting ahead of a problem, so that if in other places, if there are other riots in places where law enforcement officers are threatened, we would have the capability to surge National Guard there if necessary."
Hegseth added that "hopefully" governors in other states would mobilize their Guards themselves and took a swipe at California Gov. Gavin Newsom for "playing politics."
Trump ordered about 4,000 Guardsmen and 700 Marines into Los Angeles in response to protests against immigration raids in the city and its suburbs despite the fact that Newsom and L.A. officials said local law enforcement had the situation under control and did not need military assistance. The Marines were still being trained on crowd control tactics and had apparently not been sent into the city yet on Wednesday afternoon.
While there have been isolated incidents of protesters throwing rocks, burning cars, vandalizing buildings and committing other violent or destructive acts, local reports have said the protests have been largely peaceful and limited to a few blocks in downtown L.A.
Meanwhile, protests against immigration raids have spread to other cities, including Seattle, Austin, Chicago and Washington, D.C., according to The Associated Press.
Some states with governors aligned with Trump, such as Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas, have deployed their National Guard to quell protests.
The Trump administration is also reportedly planning on expanding the type of immigration raid that sparked the L.A. protests to other cities or areas with Democratic leaders, including Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, northern Virginia and New York, according to NBC News.
The administration is pursuing increasingly aggressive mass deportation raids across the U.S. Images of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents -- often in tactical gear and masks -- arresting people in communities across the country have proliferated, while high-profile deportations to a mega prison in El Salvador without court hearings have triggered lawsuits.
Trump's Saturday order that provided his legal framework for deploying troops to L.A. called for "at least 2,000 National Guard personnel," but otherwise had few specified details, including any geographic constraints. The order said the deployment would be 60 days, but could be extended "at the discretion of the secretary of defense."
It also said the secretary "may employ any other members of the regular armed forces as necessary" and that deployments could happen anywhere protests against immigration officers are "occurring or are likely to occur."
National security law experts have said the vague wording of the memo could presage Trump deploying troops anywhere he wants.
Trump himself said Tuesday that the L.A. deployment "is the first, perhaps, of many."
The legal authority Trump invoked for the deployments was Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, according to the Saturday memo.
That law stipulates that the National Guard can be federalized in three scenarios: if the U.S. "is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation;" if "there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States;" or if "the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States."
In addition to pressing Hegseth on whether the administration believes it can deploy troops anywhere in the U.S., Schatz on Wednesday pressed Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine on whether the country is being invaded by a foreign nation.
"At this point in time, I don't see any foreign state-sponsored folks invading," Caine replied, though he added he is "mindful" of immigration issues and would defer to the Department of Homeland Security.
Schatz also asked Caine whether there is "a rebellion somewhere in the United States."
Caine said only that he thinks "there's definitely some frustrated folks out there."
Related: Hegseth, Democrats Tangle over Troop Deployments to Los Angeles
