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00:00Hello, everyone. I'm François Picard. U.S. federal troops deployed to Los Angeles
00:14can temporarily detain individuals until law enforcement agents arrive. But the 4,700 National
00:23Guard and active duty Marines deployed by the Trump administration don't have the authority
00:30to make arrests. That's the clarification of a military spokesperson after a fourth night
00:36of anti-deportation protests that turned tense at times, a curfew strictly enforced in downtown
00:43L.A. by local police. Well, for more, let's cross to correspondent Fraser Jackson. Fraser,
00:53it's still the situation is expected. We're seeing a spread, rather, of these protests
01:03across the country. And we've had some questions from lawmakers where you are on Capitol Hill.
01:11Yeah, this is now spreading beyond Los Angeles. And the days that have followed since those
01:17remarkable images coming out of California, we have now seen a spreading of these protests
01:24and of this violence, really. Although the center is remaining in L.A., they are still spreading to
01:30other parts of California, including San Francisco and Santa Ana, just outside of L.A., but also
01:35up the West Coast in Seattle. There's also been a significant spike in Texas, in Austin, Houston,
01:41Dallas. The National Guard has been deployed to San Antonio ahead of planned protests there
01:47this Wednesday, a move that the mayor of San Antonio has called unnecessary. He actually
01:52said much of this federal administration's work, in my opinion, is being geared towards
01:56theater and provocation. That's echoing the sentiments of California Governor Gavin Newsom
02:03as well. We're also seeing significant demonstrations over the last couple of days in Chicago, Atlanta,
02:09Philly, Boston, New York. And we're expecting more to happen in Raleigh, North Carolina and
02:15Eugene, Oregon as well. So a significant spread of these protests, not just in California, which
02:22remains the epicenter. But of course, this is pulling out of the very social fabric of the
02:27United States. And what many on the left see is the overreach of the Trump administration
02:33is being met with violence and also a lot of peaceful protest on the stages of cities across
02:41the entire country. There's been some strong words from what's become a personal showdown
02:49between the U.S. president and the governor of California. Let's listen to Gavin Newsom.
02:54He chose theatrics over public safety. He federalized another 2,000 Guard members.
03:02He deployed more than 700 active U.S. Marines. These are the men and women trained for foreign
03:09combat, not domestic law enforcement. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here.
03:15Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment,
03:23we have feared, has arrived. So Fraser Jackson, are people viewing this as a showdown over democracy
03:32or personal animus between the president and the governor of California?
03:39Like many things in this country, I think it depends on which side of the political spectrum
03:43you stand on. There are many lawmakers, there are many people that I speak to who are seeing this
03:49as the White House testing its power, testing the limits of its power or trying to push against
03:56the pre-established norms here in the United States. But many on the right are also saying that
04:02the things that are happening in Los Angeles are unacceptable and that this kind of wanton violence
04:08cannot be allowed to stand. We're also seeing that in the response, like I just mentioned,
04:14in San Antonio, the National Guard there being deployed by Governor Greg Abbott of Texas,
04:19who has long been a supporter of President Trump's. But of course, the difference there is that the
04:25governor himself called in the National Guard, something which is normally the way these things
04:29are meant to go. But of course, in California, the National Guard has been effectively implemented
04:34on the streets of L.A. without the governor say so. So there is an obscure statute that Donald Trump
04:42is using here. It's not the traditional avenue that the president would normally take to enable these
04:50troops to be operating on American soil, the Insurrection Act, for example. He's using a more
04:55obscure statute, one which has not really been tested in legal theory. So the worry that many people have
05:03here is that these troops are now going to be on the ground among the civilian population. And that fear
05:09is even being felt by the head, the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, who said that the
05:16National Guard who has been sent to L.A. has not been sent there to help with protests, but rather to
05:21help the ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, to help with their immigration enforcement
05:29duties. And now we're hearing just in the last few minutes that these 700 Marines who have been sent
05:36there are not actually completed their training yet on de-escalation and that they are still being
05:42trained on the outskirts of L.A. before they will be deployed onto the streets. No word as to when
05:48that will actually end up happening. So a war of words between the governor and the president at the
05:54moment. But of course, there is a very real consequences for this war of words as well on the streets.
06:00Fraser Jackson reporting and couching all of this as an invasion coming from abroad is,
06:11many say, the brains behind a fight that Donald Trump has wanted to pick for a long time with
06:18California is his deputy chief of staff. More on Stephen Miller, the 39-year-old, many call him the
06:28ideologue behind this anti-immigration policy with Kemi Knight.
06:36Stephen Miller is rarely at the president's side when the cameras are rolling,
06:40but he meets with him daily and stands as one of the most influential figures of Donald Trump's inner
06:45circle. Serving as deputy chief of staff, the 39-year-old is the architect behind the administration's
06:51hardline immigration policies, recently ordering ICE officials to arrest 3,000 people per day
06:58and consistently referring to undocumented migrants as criminals. Think about how corrupt
07:03and hateful and evil a system is that allows gangs to come into this country and rape and murder little
07:10girls. I'm not just saying that. You've read the stories. It happens every day.
07:15Born in 1985 in Santa Monica, California, Miller gained attention as a provocative conservative
07:21voice in high school and college. Some of you may or may not know who I am.
07:25Before working for then-GOP Senator Jeff Sessions. His hardline stance on immigration
07:31caught Trump's attention during the 2016 campaign, where he helped craft some of his most famous speeches.
07:37They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
07:44As senior policy advisor during Trump's first term, Miller was the driving force behind the travel
07:49ban, family separation policies and the push to build a border wall. Among Trump's aides,
07:54Miller is the rare advisor who served all four years of the president's first term and returned
07:58to serve again this year. Observers believe his staying in power stems from his ability to translate
08:03Trump's policy ideas into action. His hardline approach has come into sharp focus this week
08:09during the Los Angeles protests, Miller taking to social media, calling the demonstrations
08:13an organized insurrection.
08:15And for more, let's cross to New York. Ruth Ben-Ghiad is professor of history at New York
08:21University, author of the New York Times bestseller, Strong Men, Mussolini to the Present. Thank you for
08:27speaking with us here on France 24.
08:31Glad to be here.
08:31Based on the past, how would you characterize Stephen Miller? Is he the ideologue? Is he just
08:41a strategist? What role is he playing? He's an ideologue. I do see him as an ideological fanatic.
08:52And he is in my book, which was written during the first Trump administration. He's very important
08:57as a kind of theorist of the idea of population engineering based on, you know, getting rid of
09:05immigrants. He's consistently echoed right-wing narratives of Putin and Orban and others in
09:14Europe. He's very connected to this kind of transnational community, seeing this as a crusade to
09:22save white Christian civilization. His grandparents were Holocaust survivors, but he has embraced the
09:30the cause of white Christian civilization. And so he's been depicting this, these protests in Los
09:38Angeles as a kind of existential fight and putting this thing that's so dangerous is he's, he's talking
09:48about this, I kind of trying to manufacture this crisis, which is a crisis of the whole nation,
09:54which pits an internal enemy, which are criminal illegal aliens, as he calls it. And Secretary of Defense
10:02Hegseth uses the same script, same words. And an external enemy, they're colluding with an external
10:09enemy, and that is foreign terrorists and drug cartels, this kind of transnational shadowy criminal
10:16elements. And then he's inserting, this is the very, the new and dangerous part, a third element,
10:22which is part of this, which is protesters, which were labeled by President Trump as insurrectionists.
10:29So once you start labeling domestic protesters, civilians, as part of this criminal mix,
10:35you're in very, you're in uncharted territory. And that is why there's
10:40this recourse to National Guard and active duty Marines.
10:45And how much traction is he getting? We're speaking between the beginning of those riots
10:51in Los Angeles and next Saturday, where Donald Trump will be having a military parade on his
10:57birthday, while there are no King's Day protests in many cities across the US.
11:02Yes, and President Trump doesn't want his birthday parade marred by any protesters. So he's already
11:12announced that there'll be any protests will be met with heavy force. And so, you know, many people see
11:20this as this whole thing as a kind of manufacturing in a crisis to justify a kind of crackdown. And I see
11:29this as when, when we start to have federalized National Guards and an infantry battalion of Marines
11:38that has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. No wonder, as you said in your reportage,
11:44they're still training because they're not used to de-escalation. They're, they're a battalion that fights
11:52enemies in the field. And so now they're supposed to be on the streets of Los Angeles. So this is
11:58obviously what some see as an authoritarian use of of the military. And that's why also it's getting
12:06so much attention. But there are those who say this is theater. They're going to stay at barracks
12:11mostly or just in front of one or two federal buildings. And that perhaps, yeah, democracy may
12:19be under assault, as the governor of California says. But the United States has a court system.
12:24And in the end, there will be checks and balances.
12:30Well, the legal pushback against, in general, this administration, which has been acting with
12:38a speed, rapidity that is unknown in actually other early, early months of other authoritarians,
12:46early Putin, first months of Orban. They don't have anything like the speed of the
12:51violations of rule of law that are going on. And in fact, we're in a period of testing.
12:58Since January 20th, we've had, you know, individual incidents, each one of them breaks the taboo.
13:05We had the arrest of a judge. We had the arrest of a mayor, the mayor of a major city, Newark, New Jersey.
13:13And now we have the spectacle of active duty troops who could be on the streets, but are being trained
13:22and mobilized. So each one of these things habituates the public. And Donald Trump is a man of images.
13:29He's a man of messaging. He understands that you have to condition the public. Each of these is a test.
13:35So I also see Los Angeles right now as not only a test of executive power over an insubordinate governor,
13:43Gavin Newsom of California, but a test to habituate the public to a different role for the military,
13:52which Donald Trump is on record for years saying he would like a military that's loyal to him,
13:58which is why the former general of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley spoke out,
14:04even calling Trump a fascist before the election.
14:07And are we dealing with something akin to fascism or is this simply an authoritarian bend by one man?
14:22I'm originally a historian of fascism, but I use the word authoritarian because, honestly,
14:29Donald Trump has always been inspired as much by communist leaders. He's lauded China's system of
14:36justice. He's made friends with Kim Jong-un, as well as right-wing authoritarians. And what he wants is
14:44the eternal authoritarian dream of a boundless power. And all institutions have to be remade
14:52according to that mandate. And the military is supposed to be no exception.
14:58And is there a precedent in U.S. history?
15:02I mean, the National Guard was federalized and sent out during the civil rights era. There have been
15:13precedents, but we have to see it in context. It's this, as well as the roundups by, you know, masked bands
15:23of ICE agents and who, you know, the images of this look like what happens in Turkey under Erdogan,
15:30an authoritarian leader himself, where you'll be minding your own business. And if you're considered
15:36an enemy of the state, you know, masked bands and in plain clothes come and stuff you into a van and
15:42take you away. And that has been happening even to international students, to all kinds of people.
15:47And now these ICE roundups. And this is why people are out protesting. And the question is,
15:53how many of these people are out protesting? Because you talk about those that are energized
15:58behind Donald Trump. There are those who are energized against them. You talked earlier about
16:04the general population just being made to feel as though this is the new normal.
16:09Is Donald Trump succeeding? Is it the new normal?
16:11It's not clear if he's going to succeed. And the fact that protests, that people are actually,
16:20despite the crackdowns, people are going out, ordinary people are going out on behalf of the
16:26vulnerable. That's the real image that this state doesn't want. They don't want people to see
16:34examples of empathy, of kindness, of trying to protect the vulnerable.
16:38So it's not clear to me what the end will be. But what we do know is that this mobilization of
16:47force with thousands of National Guard, again, calling up Marines who fought abroad in Iraq and
16:53Afghanistan, is completely disproportionate to the threat presented by the protesters. And that's where
17:01the accusations of theater and performance come in.
17:04One final question for you, Ruth Ben-Ghiat. The period of history that you studied, the 1920s,
17:13the 1930s, the mass medium of the day was radio. You also had movies in those days to get your message
17:19across. In the age of social media, is the political agenda different?
17:28You know, one of the things I found in writing this book that goes over a hundred years is that
17:37the scripts and the narratives are very similar. Mussolini talked about the need to, you know,
17:43crack down against criminals coming over the border. So did Pinochet. That's very important. Chile and the
17:50military dictatorship. Very important. But social media allows for the circulation of propaganda.
17:56And we see that we're in a culture of images now. Think about the importance of TikTok and Instagram.
18:03And so Donald Trump is a leader who knows very well from being a reality TV host how important images are
18:11in cementing public perceptions and changing those perceptions. And he's been very successful,
18:18such as with election denial and having a cult of personality, which I believe he has,
18:24using images very effectively. And this is no exception, this episode.
18:29Ruth Ben-Ghiat, so many thanks for joining us from New York City.
18:33A pleasure.
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