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national guard
Trump Says National Guard to Leave Chicago, LA, and Portland, But 'Will Come Back'
Accusing "a president desperate to be king" of using troops "as political pawns," California's attorney general noted the announcement followed "a stinging rebuke by the Supreme Court."
Dec 31, 2025
After a series of losses in court, President Donald Trump ended 2025 with an announcement that he is pulling the plug on legally contested National Guard deployments in three major US cities—but he also pledged that troops will return in the new year.
Trump initially sent thousands of California National Guard members to Los Angeles in June amid protests against his violent immigration operations. The remaining troops left the city earlier this month in response to a pair of orders from a district judge and the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
The president also tried to deploy National Guard members to the streets of two other Democrat-led cities—Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois—but those moves were blocked by lawsuits, including one that produced a US Supreme Court decision last week.
Throughout the president's push to deploy troops to these and other cities, he has circulated lies about crime rates. He did so again in the Wednesday announcement on his Truth Social platform, writing, "We are removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, despite the fact that CRIME has been greatly reduced by having these great Patriots in those cities, and ONLY by that fact."
"Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago were GONE if it weren’t for the Federal Government stepping in," Trump claimed. "We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time! It is hard to believe that these Democrat Mayors and Governors, all of whom are greatly incompetent, would want us to leave, especially considering the great progress that has been made???"
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat expected to run for president in 2028, said on social media Wednesday that it is "about time Donald Trump admitted defeat. We've said it from day one: The federal takeover of California's National Guard is illegal."
Newsom and the state's attorney general, Rob Bonta, challenged the LA deployment. In that case, the US Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a brief with the 9th Circuit withdrawing its motion to keep the California troops under federal control.
"For six months, CA National Guard troops have been used as political pawns by a president desperate to be king," Bonta said Wednesday. "Now, in the face of a stinging rebuke by the Supreme Court, the Trump administration is backing away from its effort to federalize and deploy CA National Guard troops."
Although that Supreme Court decision was not directly about California, the justices' rejection of the Trump administration's request to strike down a temporary restraining order that barred the Illinois deployment was expected to inform other cases.
Trump federalized Illinois and Texas national guard troops to patrol in Chicago, but Illinois quickly sued and won a court ruling keeping them out of the city. The troops did training exercises instead. Today, Trump claims that the guard "greatly reduced" crime in Chicago. Did they do it remotely?
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— Mark Jacob (@markjacob.bsky.social) December 31, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, another Democrat who may run for the Oval Office in the next cycle, also pointed to the recent ruling in his response to the president on Wednesday: "Donald Trump's lying again. He lost in court when Illinois stood up against his attempt to militarize American cities with the National Guard. Now Trump is forced to stand down."
"Illinois and Chicago have reduced crime with smart investments in police and community violence reduction programs," he continued. "Meanwhile, Trump cut federal support for both. No matter how many lies he tells, we will keep standing up for truth and against his abuse of power."
Ahead of Trump's announcement, the New Republic's Greg Sargent said that the president and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, "are actually failing in crucial ways. Deportations are lagging behind their goals, courts are mostly functioning, and their fascist, ethnonationalist cruelties have unleashed a countermobilization of unexpected scope and power."
After the new Truth Social post, Sargent added: "Trump just announced that he's pulling the National Guard out of Chicago, LA, and Portland while pretending he won some kind of big victory. Here's the reality: Their authoritarian designs have faced massive civil and popular resistance."
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Supreme Court Deals Trump Major Loss on Illinois National Guard Deployment
"Trump is losing his grip on the dictatorial power he so covets," said one legal analyst.
Dec 23, 2025
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt President Donald Trump a major loss by rejecting the administration's request to strike down a temporary restraining order that barred him from deploying the National Guard in Chicago.
In a 6-3 ruling that featured dissents from Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court determined that the Trump administration had not met statutory requirements needed to justify deploying the National Guard in a state over the objections of its own government.
The court noted that the administration justified its Illinois deployment—pursued alongside a federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants in and around the state's largest city—by pointing to a law stating that the president may federalize the National Guard in the event that he is "unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States."
However, the court found that the "regular forces" referenced in the statute refers to the US military, not civilian law enforcement officials. This is relevant because the president faces significant restrictions on his ability to deploy the military domestically under the Posse Comitatus Act.
"Because the statute requires an assessment of the military’s ability to execute the laws, it likely applies only where the military could legally execute the laws," the justices wrote. "Such circumstances are exceptional: Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is prohibited from 'execut[ing] the laws' 'except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or act of Congress.'"
The justices further said that the Trump administration so far "has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois" and has not invoked any statute that would provide an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.
In conclusion, the court wrote that the federal government "has not carried its burden to show" that the law "permits the president to federalize the guard in the exercise of inherent authority to protect federal personnel and property in Illinois."
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who had sued the Trump administration over the deployment, cheered the ruling and said that "the extremely limited circumstances under which the federal government can call up the militia over a state's objection do not exist in Illinois."
Raoul added that he was "pleased that the streets of Illinois will remain free of armed National Guard members as our litigation continues in the courts."
Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor, celebrated the Supreme Court's ruling as a victory for the rule of law.
"Trump is losing his grip on the dictatorial power he so covets," Kirschner commented on X.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said he was "genuinely shocked" by the court's ruling, and he credited an amicus brief written by Georgetown University Law Center professor Marty Lederman with swaying the court, as it centered the definition of "regular forces" in the statute as central to determining the legality of Trump's actions.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen and co-chair of the Not Above the Law Coalition, hailed the court's ruling but warned that the danger posed by the Trump administration's authoritarian ambitions has not ended.
"With a lawful administration that understood the limits of executive power, this would be the end of the question," she said of the ruling. "Unfortunately, we are living under an authoritarian regime that persists in every possible effort to expand its power and override guardrails. With an administration that displays utter disregard for the Constitution, we must now watch diligently how it will respond to a decisive Supreme Court decision against its lawless power grab."
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'A Good Day for Our Democracy': Judge Orders Trump to End National Guard Deployment in LA
"For more than five months, the Trump administration has held California National Guard troops hostage as part of its political games," said California's attorney general. "But the president is not king."
Dec 10, 2025
In a win for Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, and the residents of Los Angeles, a federal judge on Wednesday ordered President Donald Trump to stop deploying the National Guard in the nation's second-largest city.
"The founders designed our government to be a system of checks and balances," wrote US District Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. "Defendants, however, make clear that the only check they want is a blank one."
Trump mobilized around 4,000 California National Guard troops in June amid protests against his violent crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Since then, the Republican leader has also pursued deployments in other Democrat-led cities, including Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and Washington, DC, where two soldiers were recently shot.
The new ruling from San Francisco-based Breyer comes as the administration was cutting troops in LA from 300 to 100, according to the New York Times.
"Once again, a court has firmly rejected the president's attempt to make the National Guard a traveling national police force."
"Six months after they first federalized the California National Guard, defendants still retain control of approximately 300 guardsmen, despite no evidence that execution of federal law is impeded in any way—let alone significantly," the judge said. "What's more, defendants have sent California guardsmen into other states, effectively creating a national police force made up of state troops."
After ruling in September that Trump's deployment of Marines in Los Angeles violated the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, the judge on Wednesday blocked the president's federalization of California National Guard troops—but he also halted his own decision until next Monday, allowing for appeals.
Despite the prospect that the Trump administration would continue the court fight, Bonta and Newsom—who is expected to run for president in 2028—welcomed the ruling.
"Once again, a court has firmly rejected the president's attempt to make the National Guard a traveling national police force," Bonta said in a statement. "For more than five months, the Trump administration has held California National Guard troops hostage as part of its political games."
"But the president is not king. And he cannot federalize the National Guard whenever, wherever, and for however long he wants, without justification," the attorney general declared. "This is a good day for our democracy and the strength of the rule of law."
In addition to battling Trump's invasion of LA, Bonta has backed lawsuits filed by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, and DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb challenging the president's deployments in their cities and filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court for the Chicago fight.
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