"We are not playing around," Donald Trump warned reporters earlier today. "These are paid insurrectionists, these are paid troublemakers," Trump continued, describing the attacks on LAPD on Sunday by people throwing large chunks of concrete down on police officers and cars, among other such violence in the LA riots. 

Still, that was two days ago. Trump's clearly not playing around, but at least thus far, the violence has not reached a point where Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act to take full control over the city:

🚨JUST ANNOUNCED: President Trump on LA Riots: "If there's an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. If we didn't get involved, right now Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago. We are not playing around."

Newsom and Bass should resign… pic.twitter.com/MNYI0GKLD2

— AJ Huber (@Huberton) June 10, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would invoke the Insurrection Act if he determined there was an insurrection under way as part of street protests in Los Angeles.

"If there's an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We'll see," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, a day after ordering some 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, as part of a federal strategy to quell demonstrations opposing immigration raids.

What does that mean? Given the persistent level of violence in LA up to now, including the attacks on local police and federal law enforcement, this sounds as though Donald Trump is reluctant to pull the Insurrection Act trigger. There is good reason to hesitate, but also a lot of pressure on Trump to act, largely on the basis of his Section 12406 declaration and the defiance of Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. 

Tom Cotton essentially re-published his 2020 New York Times column on the Insurrection Act option today at the Wall Street Journal. Newsom and Bass refuse to restore order, the Senator from Arkansas argues, and the federal government must step in to do so:

Is anyone surprised? Democrats also stood idly by or even celebrated as the Black Lives Matter riots ransacked our cities five years ago. If anything, these riots are worse. At least the BLM rioters didn’t wave foreign flags.

The solution now is the same as I said then: an overwhelming show of force to end the riots.

As always, local police are the first line of defense, but when the police can’t restore order—or aren’t allowed to by Democratic mayors—the National Guard must be called out. We reached this point in Los Angeles, where the police chief has said that the “disgusting” violence has “overwhelmed” his forces, adding that “there’s no limit to what they’re doing to our officers” and “we’ve seen violence at a level that disgusts every good person.” ...

Finally, if the Guard alone can’t restore order and protect federal officers and property, the president can use active-duty troops under the Insurrection Act of 1807, a law almost as old as the republic. Thus far, Mr. Trump has taken a measured approach and said he doesn’t yet see a need to invoke the Insurrection Act. Let’s hope that the National Guard, federal law enforcement and local police can end the anarchy and restore order to Los Angeles.

Shipwreckedcrew also argues that Newsom's dereliction of duty, especially after the Section 12406 declaration from Trump, opens the legal door to such a declaration:

The language of the Insurrection Act is not nearly as controversial as the spin tha has been put on it by the media and interest groups. Title 10 U.S.C. Sec. 253 is most directly applicable AFTER the issuance by Newsom of his letter calling for the National Guard to be withdrawn. ...

Newsom’s rejection of Trump’s invocation of Sec. 1240[6] — along with Mayor Karen Bass’ idiotic commentary the entire weekend — now satisfies one of the pre-conditions for invocation of the Insurrection Act, i.e, that authorities in California are “unable, fail, or refuse” to protect rights “named in the constitution” that belong to others in Los Angeles. The President is not required to stand by and watch parts of Los Angeles be destroyed because the Democrat party, its members, and its constituencies are accepting of violent street protests as an expression of disapproval of the Trump Administration policy to enforce federal immigration laws.

And that is what this all comes down to — the Democrat Party and politicians have normalized violent street protests as an expression of political opposition. But this isn’t the street protests in the tradition of the Civil Rights movement — non-violent civil disobedience to advance the interests of United States citizens about whom there was no legitimate controversy.

These protests being encouraged and advocated by Democrats and other political opponents are overtly violent by intention, and they advocate the interests of foreigners and foreign interests that have no lawful place in the United States, were rejected in the most recent nationwide election, and are widely rejected by the vast majority of the population of the country as a whole.

Ship and Cotton make a good argument for what Trump can do. I'm not sure it's a good argument for what he should do. The difference here is the Pottery Barn Rule, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that Trump grasps this very clearly: You break it, you bought it.

Right now, the Section 12406 deployments allow Trump to protect federal personnel and facilities while giving the LAPD and Los Angeles Sheriff's Office enough room to take a firmer hand. However, it still leaves the mess created by the radical leftists operating as the responsibility of Newsom and Karen Bass. Once Trump makes an Insurrection Act declaration, the responsibility for order in the entire city then falls into Trump's lap -- certainly politically and arguably legally as well.  That leaves Newsom and Bass off the hook for the results that come from federal control of the city. The media would certainly cover it that way, as we all see with the gaslighting already taking place, and with slightly more justification.  

That would be a trap that Trump should resist. Instead, he can simply boil that frog by deploying more and more National Guard troops into LA and forcing Newsom to deal with the costs. Unless the city actually revolts under Bass and declares itself autonomous to the US -- which would be bat-guano insane, but, y'know, Bass -- Trump has better options to set an example to radicals in other blue states. And more importantly, to make sure all other blue-state governors understand that Trump really isn't playing around. 

Update: I mistakenly identified Cotton as the senator from Alabama, not Arkansas. I've corrected it, and thanks to VIP member Sojourner for catching that error.