The Senate Appropriations Committee questioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, criticizing the deployment of National Guard troops and active-duty Marines amidst ongoing protests in Los Angeles.
Hegseth has backed President Donald Trump’s decision to send thousands of active military members to the nation’s second-largest city. Hegseth told senators that every action taken in Los Angeles was “constitutional” and “lawful” but wasn’t able to provide the specific statute that authorized the administration to deploy active-duty Marines.
“Our Office of General Counsel, alongside our leadership, has reviewed and ensured, in the order that we set out, that it’s completely constitutional for the president to use federal troops to defend federal law enforcement,” he said.
Patty Murray, D-Wash., had strong words for the defense secretary during Wednesday’s hearing.
“Those sorts of actions and that sort of rhetoric from a President of the United States should stop every one of us cold,” Murray said. “Threatening to use our own troops on our own citizens at such scale is unprecedented, it is unconstitutional, and it is downright un-American.”
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine testified alongside Hegseth. He danced around questions about whether he had seen a “rebellion” in Los Angeles, one of the reasons why a president might invoke the Insurrection Act. The law grants the president the right to engage the military in law enforcement actions, as Trump and Hegseth appear to be doing.
“There are definitely some frustrated folks out there,” Caine offered.
Caine shot down the Trump administration’s repeated assertion that there has been an “invasion” of migrants into the country.
“I don’t see any foreign, state-sponsored folks invading, but I’ll be mindful of the fact that there have been some border issues,” he said.
The Trump administration’s military deployment to Los Angeles has been widely criticized. California Gov. Gavin Newsom unsuccessfully requested a temporary restraining order blocking the move, though a hearing of Newsom’s case against the admin is scheduled for tomorrow.
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