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CNN’s Brownstein: Trump Sees LA as ‘Hostile Territory to Be Subdued’
Wednesday morning, The Situation Room aired CNN political analyst and Bloomberg opinion writer, Ron Brownstein, in order to talk about the ongoing situation in Los Angeles, California. Brownstein tried his best to create clear division between parties while downplaying the events of the riots and made President Trump the aggressor attempting to “subdue blue jurisdictions” by using the military.
As read by co-host Wolf Blitzer, Brownstein wrote this in a Bloomberg piece, “Trump is governing as a wartime president, with blue America, rather than any foreign adversary, as the enemy. He is trying to use national power for factional ends: to impose the priorities of red America onto blue states and cities that have rejected them.”
When asked about it, he doubled down with rhetoric meant to stoke fear of a military takeover by Trump:
Then we’ve seen them arresting a mayor in Newark, a U.S. representative in New Jersey, a judge in Milwaukee, now a labor leader in California. And now we have kind of the next step, which is kind of the militarization of immigration enforcement. It’s really important to understand that what the administration is now not only asserting, but doing. Posting themselves yesterday, is they are not only using the National Guard and Marines, potentially, to protect federal buildings downtown, which is the image we’ve seen.
They are using them to provide perimeter defense on ICE raid in neighborhoods in U.S. cities, in Los Angeles, and presumably establishing a template that they will use elsewhere. So, what we are seeing is an extraordinary attempt to use national power to basically compel compliance with blue states. And as I wrote in that same piece, he is clearly viewing blue states. The governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, not as partners in governing, but as hostile territory to be subdued.
Brownstein tried to set the tone by bringing up examples of Trump’s “unprecedented efforts” to treat “blue America…as the enemy.” He cited four examples of Democratic figures who impeded and obstructed federal agents from conducting lawful operations. With one of them even on video leading an illegal immigrant out of a court house through a non-public entrance in an attempt for him to escape from ICE agents.
It’s unclear if Brownstein did research on these cases or is strictly going off of CNN talking points.
Brownstein stated that the National Guard use of perimeters around ICE agents so they can do their job without obstruction was “an extraordinary attempt to use national power to basically compel compliance with blue states.” As Brownstein so obviously failed to see, protestors in L.A. had been assaulting officers, destroying vehicles, and blocking ICE agents and vehicles.
According to Brownstein, the National Guard should have just let the protestors overwhelm and attack ICE agents as they attempted to conduct their lawful arrests.
Brownstein didn’t stop there. When he spoke of the riots, he suggested Americans would be appalled to see the National Guard and the Marines protecting ICE and federal facilities (Click “expand”):
Well – look – I mean – it’s interesting, you know, public opinion I think can seem complex on this, but I actually think there’s a very clear through line. Americans don’t like disorder, they don’t like chaos, so when they see images of cars burning in downtown L.A., even though it is a very, you know, limited area and a very small part of this overall protest. Not surprisingly, in the polling that’s come out this week by YouGov, most Americans say they oppose the protests.
I think it was like 46-38, but roughly almost exactly the same number say they oppose the deployment of the National Guard to L.A.. Even larger pluralities say they oppose the deployment of the Marines, and that’s for protection of dealing with the riot, I mean, I think we’re going to get polling in the next few days. I can’t imagine Americans are going to be comfortable with the images that ICE itself was posting yesterday of National Guard, heavily armed National Guard troops, providing a perimeter to ICE enforcement. Presumably in a civilian neighborhood with their guns pointed at, you know, basically civilians.
In an attempt to downplay the riots Brownstein called them small and limited, then he went on to say that the American public generally disagreed with the protests. To call multiple cars being burned, looting, and assaults to officers “small” was delusional.
Brownstein ended the interview with this following Blitzer’s question about how personal the riots are for him because he lives in L.A. (Click “expand”):
Well look – I mean — you know, restoring — maintaining public order and public safety is the prime responsibility for any level of government. For the mayor, for the governor, for the president, but just think about how dysfunctional it is that they are trading arguments in a courtroom and not strategizing together in a conference room about how to ensure safety.
The last time, as you know, the president federalized the National Guard over an objection of a governor was during the civil rights era when southern governors were actively impeding the enforcement of federal law. Nothing like that has happened in California. This is about, I think, much more sending a signal like the arrests we’ve seen of elected officials. that they are going to use any means necessary to, as I said, subdue blue jurisdictions and try to compel them to fall in line behind an agenda that they reject.
Brownstein said that maintaining public order and safety was the prime responsibility of the government, including the governor. Here’s California Governor Gavin Newsom saying he was refusing to work with Trump.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view.
CNN’s The Situation Room
10:30:40 AM EST
June, 11th, 2025
WOLF BLITZER: Joining us now, right here in The Situation Room, CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, he’s also an opinion columnist for Bloomberg. Ron, thanks very much for being here, I want to share with you something with our viewers, something you wrote in Bloomberg.
You wrote this quote, “Trump is governing as a wartime president, with blue America, rather than any foreign adversary, as the enemy. He is trying to use national power for factional ends: to impose the priorities of red America onto blue states and cities that have rejected them.” What is the president's long term game here?
RON BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, that is becoming, I think, more literal every day. Look, I mean, the president you’ve seen from the beginning of the administration, unprecedented efforts to compel blue states to adopt social policies that they had rejected. On things like LGTBQ rights, or classroom teaching of race and gender, or diversity, by threatening to cut off their federal funding? In fact, just before all this happened, the stories in CNN last Friday was the administration was planning a wide scale termination of federal grants to California.
Then we’ve seen them arresting a mayor in Newark, a U.S. representative in New Jersey, a judge in Milwaukee, now a labor leader in California. And now we have kind of the next step, which is kind of the militarization of immigration enforcement. It’s really important to understand that what the administration is now not only asserting, but doing. Posting themselves yesterday, is they are not only using the National Guard and Marines, potentially, to protect federal buildings downtown, which is the image we’ve seen.
They are using them to provide perimeter defense on ICE raid in neighborhoods in U.S. cities, in Los Angeles, and presumably establishing a template that they will use elsewhere. So, what we are seeing is an extraordinary attempt to use national power to basically compel compliance with blue states. And as I wrote in that same piece, he is clearly viewing blue states. The governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, not as partners in governing, but as hostile territory to be subdued.
BLITZER: It's hard to believe what's going on.
(...)
10:33:15 AM EST
BROWNSTEIN: Well – look – I mean – it’s interesting, you know, public opinion I think can seem complex on this, but I actually think there’s a very clear through line. Americans don’t like disorder, they don’t like chaos, so when they see images of cars burning in downtown L.A., even though it is a very, you know, limited area and a very small part of this overall protest. Not surprisingly, in the polling that’s come out this week by YouGov, most Americans say they oppose the protests.
I think it was like 46-38, but roughly almost exactly the same number say they oppose the deployment of the National Guard to L.A.. Even larger pluralities say they oppose the deployment of the Marines, and that’s for protection of dealing with the riot, I mean, I think we’re going to get polling in the next few days. I can’t imagine Americans are going to be comfortable with the images that ICE itself was posting yesterday of National Guard, heavily armed National Guard troops, providing a perimeter to ICE enforcement. Presumably in a civilian neighborhood with their guns pointed at, you know, basically civilians.
(...)
10:34:46 AM EST
BLITZER: And you understand what's going on in L.A.?
BROWNSTEIN: I do.
BLITZER: You live in Los Angeles. So this is very personal for you as well.
BROWNSTEIN: Well look – I mean — you know, restoring — maintaining public order and public safety is the prime responsibility for any level of government. For the mayor, for the governor, for the president, but just think about how dysfunctional it is that they are trading arguments in a courtroom and not strategizing together in a conference room about how to ensure safety.
The last time, as you know, the president federalized the National Guard over an objection of a governor was during the civil rights era when southern governors were actively impeding the enforcement of federal law. Nothing like that has happened in California. This is about, I think, much more sending a signal like the arrests we’ve seen of elected officials. that they are going to use any means necessary to, as I said, subdue blue jurisdictions and try to compel them to fall in line behind an agenda that they reject.
(...)
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