President Donald Trump is trying to justify his decision to deploy National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area this weekend by describing protesters broadly as violent “insurrectionists” hell-bent on destroying the city. It’s a dishonest claim meant to delegitimize protest — and it foreshadows a more sinister power grab. Here’s a quick overview of the events leading up to Trump’s insidious intervention.

Throughout the rioting in her city, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has frequently lashed out at President Donald Trump's decision to send National Guard and active-duty troops to protect federal buildings and keep the peace. "It makes me feel like our city is actually a test case," Bass told reporters Monday, "a test case for what happens when the federal government moves in and takes the authority away from the state or away from local government." Of course, Bass was referring to the Trump's...

A judge has rejected California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) emergency request to limit President Trump’s Los Angeles troop deployment. Newsom had earlier Tuesday asked a federal judge to immediately intervene to limit Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in L.A., asking for an emergency ruling by 1 p.m. PDT that day. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, however, granted the Trump administration’s request for more time to respond to Newsom’s request. The...

Elon Musk said he went “too far” criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump last week, in the latest sign of a truce between the two feuding former allies. “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X on Wednesday morning. “They went too far.” A bitter public quarrel erupted between the tech mogul and Trump after Musk — who was the president’s main hatchet man as the two sought to pare back federal spending this...

The absurd L.A. freak-out President Trump’s activation of the California National Guard has launched a thousand op-eds warning of his authoritarianism.  “This Is What Autocracy Looks Like,” Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times declares. Edward Luce of the Financial Times maintains: “Sending the National Guard into LA is the administration’s clearest step yet towards authoritarianism.” CNN, too, has a piece saying, “Trump is acting like an...

Cuts to U.S. aid for Ukraine in the upcoming budget "will lead to more casualties" for Kyiv, a senior Ukrainian lawmaker has told Newsweek. His warning comes as spluttering ceasefire negotiations fail to yield significant progress toward a deal to end the fighting, and Russia keeps up its aerial bombardment of the war-torn country. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told U.S. lawmakers during a committee hearing on Tuesday that there will be a "reduction" in the next fiscal year's...

Elon Musk has expressed contrition for some of his tweets about Donald Trump last week, in an apparent effort to retreat from an explosive falling out that has threatened to damage the Tesla boss’s business interests. Musk was by far the biggest donor to Trump’s presidential campaign, but tensions between the two erupted into public view last week and rapidly escalated, as the world’s richest man called for the president’s impeachment and mocked his connections to...

Republican senators are rejecting the White House argument that extending President Donald Trump’s tax cuts can be paid for with tariff revenue. The administration’s notion of offsetting tax cuts with a tax increase via tariffs, paid by U.S. consumers, is a conflicting one that’s complicating the White House’s messaging as it works to win over holdouts. “Most people don’t believe that,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a staunch opponent of Trump’s tax and spending bill, told the...

Humble beginnings.