Donald Trump just got a green light to keep National Guard troops in Los Angeles. His reaction wasn’t measured or presidential—it was a clear warning to the rest of the country: He’s ready to send in troops anywhere, anytime, if he feels like it.
A federal appeals court handed Trump a partial win on Thursday, saying he could keep deploying the Guard in L.A. to respond to protests against ICE. But the court also ruled that his decisions can still be reviewed by the courts. That part matters. Trump wanted full control—no oversight. He didn’t care.
Trump jumped on the ruling and immediately used it to threaten a broader military crackdown. He wrote:
“The Judges obviously realized that Gavin Newscum is incompetent and ill prepared, but this is much bigger than Gavin, because all over the United States, if our Cities, and our people, need protection, we are the ones to give it to them should State and Local Police be unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done.”
With that, Trump is now claiming the right to send the military into any U.S. city if local police aren’t doing what he thinks they should.
This isn’t just about California anymore. It’s about Trump testing the limits of his power—and pushing hard to break through.
The law says presidents can only take over the Guard during foreign invasion, rebellion, or if they can’t enforce federal laws. A lower court said none of those things are happening in L.A. But the appeals court backed Trump’s claim that protests were making it hard to enforce laws. That’s a shaky call—and it gives him dangerous cover.
Legal expert Elizabeth Goitein put it bluntly: “The facts on the ground don’t remotely support that assertion.” But the court still gave Trump wide latitude to define the threat any way he wants.
That’s the core problem. Trump has been stretching the definition of “emergency” since day one. He’s called immigration a foreign invasion. He’s called trade deficits a national security threat. And every time he says “emergency,” he tries to grab more unchecked power.
Even some Trump-appointed judges are worried. One said letting Trump “unilaterally define” an invasion would “remove all limitations” on his authority. Another warned that Trump’s abuse of trade law could give him “unbounded authority.”
This latest ruling rejected Trump’s argument that no court should be able to second-guess him. That’s good. But the danger is still real. Trump believes he should have that power. And he’s not hiding it.
Legal expert David French looked at how Trump’s advisers talked during the L.A. deployment. He said they seemed to be hoping things would escalate—just so they could justify sending in even more force.
Ilya Somin, another legal scholar, didn’t mince words: what Trump is doing—inventing crises to justify military crackdowns—is “a standard tactic of various authoritarian regimes around the world.”
This isn’t just a power grab. It’s a blueprint for future ones.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Georgetown law professor Stephen Vladeck. “We’ve never seen transparently cynical domestic deployments of the military. We’ve never seen transparently retaliatory executive branch conduct.”
Trump doesn’t follow court rulings unless they go his way. When the Supreme Court told him to help deportees return home, he ignored it. Then he turned around and claimed total victory because of one line about presidential deference.
He’s playing a dangerous game—cherry-picking what he likes from the system and discarding the rest.
Legal expert Leah Litman put it this way: “Any system of laws will rely on some kind of assumption of good faith… Trump’s level of bad faith threatens to crash the system.”
Trump is openly treating L.A. as a test case. And with this ruling, he’s now saying the quiet part out loud. He’s not just willing to use troops against cities that don’t bend to his will—he plans to.
