Thousands of National Guard members have served in the L.A. region since last month. Six soldiers spoke in interviews about low morale over the deployment.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday ordered the removal of 2,000 National Guard troops sent to Los Angeles to protect federal property and personnel during protests last month.

Trump has long flirted with using the Insurrection Act, including during protests over the killing of George Floyd during his first term in office.

It seems clear that Trump is attempting to tighten his authoritarian vise grip on the American people, and the nation’s democracy and society.

“That runs the gamut from making arrests, investigating crimes, and doing police work, all the way up to guarding prisoners or running courts,” says Daniel Maurer, an Army JAG until 2024 who also taught law at West Point and at the Judge Advocate General’s School in Virginia.

How Trump mobilized the National Guard Trump did not invoke the Insurrection Act when he activated and deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles.

The top military commander in charge of troops deployed to Los Angeles to respond to protests against immigration raids has asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth if 200 of those forces could be returned to wildfire fighting duty,

The top military commander of those troops, U.S. Northern Command head Gen. Gregory Guillot, recently submitted a request to Hegseth to return 200 of the National Guard troops back to Joint Task Force Rattlesnake, which is the California National Guard’s wildfire unit, the officials said.