Transcription
This is Democracy Watch. Mark, you just published a piece on Democracy Docket, your news outlet that I had to read multiple times. Uh, I'm going to put the headline right here on the screen. Trump's urban power grab raises fear of troops at the polls. You go on to say, "Legal and constitutional experts worry that Trump is laying the groundwork to use the Guard to seize control of any city he wants to bring to heal. On Monday, he signed an executive order that primes the Guard for rapid mobilization across the country."
And so you and I have spoken at great length about the prospect of Donald Trump kind of using these deployments right now in LA, less so in DC because of the Home Rule Act, but across the country um as a test case to be able to do it in other states, namely swing states with big blue liberal uh strongholds that really serve as the as the as the um decider of whether the election is going to go red or blue. And so what are you looking at here most specifically with regard to the legality of these deployments, these rapid deployments of federal troops across the country?
Yeah, let me first start by saying I need everyone to pay attention to this and watch this video to the end because there is a lot that we're going to cover and it is super important and also share this video with your friends because too few people understand the risks that are facing our democracy with Donald Trump's deployment of federal official of federal law enforcement uh that are themselves sort of militarized paramilitary operations uh as well as the military itself. Look, um I believe and have been saying for some time that Donald Trump is a dictator and that he we are further along the road of authoritarianism than people want to admit. You know, if you go back and look at what people in Hungary said about their country, they too were very slow to say that Victor Orbin was a full-out dictator. Donald Trump is not deploying the military in these cities because he cares about the people of those cities. He's not even really deploying them for immigration. Now, he has made ICE like the what would be essentially the fourth largest military in the world if it was a military, right? So, he's deploying a ton of resources around uh uh deportations. I believe though this whole thing with the National Guard, the deployment of the Marines is about uh the 2026 elections and perhaps even the 2028 elections when he wants to be able to be in control of the ground uh in which people are voting particularly in democratic cities.
And so Jim Saxo who's a reporter uh reporter at democracy docket uh wrote a piece about this and less you think this is just something that people on the left are worried about or someone like me who is you know very prominent in the pro-democracy community is focused on that article quotes uh Patrick uh Eddington who is a senior fellow fellow at the Ko Institute and the Ko Institute is you know a pretty right-wing uh libertarian think tank well respected but definitely not a not the kind of organization that usually would agree with my thoughts or uh would be contributing uh their their input to a democracy docket article. And he goes so far as to say that the first place where they may try this is Virginia in the midterm, I'm sorry, in the off-year elections, the 2025 elections this November as a dry run.
And so, how are you thinking about this in terms of the ongoing litigation in California? So, there is a lawsuit in California. I can't remember if there was a uh an attempt for a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order in that state, but in any case, that failed. And so now this case uh regarding the legality of deploying troops uh Marines, National Guard to Los Angeles is being challenged in court. And so how does the outcome of that case, how is that going to inform how you look at Virginia?
So Brian, I'm really glad you asked about this because I think that this case in California, the Newsome v. Trump case, may very well be the most important case for democracy right now. how it is something that democracy docket is covering uh every uh every nit and jot of what happens in that case. This was, as you say, born out of Trump's deployment of the National Guard and the Marines in Los Angeles. Um, uh, citing a, uh, essentially a national emergency or, you know, law enforcement emergency when there was not one. And, uh, Governor Nome sued. Uh, it went to the district court on a preliminary injunction. The district court actually agreed with Governor Nuome, but the Ninth Circuit reversed it and basically said that they were going to take at face value for purposes of the preliminary injunction what it was that the president said that the president said it was an emergency and therefore they were going to take that at face value. Um that is now uh that then went back to the trial court where there has now been a full trial and we are awaiting a decision. And if ever there were a reason to hit the subscribe button on this YouTube channel, that this case alone would be the reason. And make sure you hit the bell because I promise you when that decision comes out, you're going to want to be alerted that there is that there is more content coming out of um Brian's uh uh channel. Uh but to give you some sense of wh why this case is so important, this California case is so vital to the future of democracy, this is what Christine Gnome, the the director of homeland security said about their deployments in uh Los Angeles. And Brian, I want to put the quote up so that people can read it for themselves as I as I say it. We're not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that the governor and this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried uh to insert into the city.
All right. So set aside all of the rhetoric. She is saying that they are in Los Angeles to liberate the city from the burdensome leadership of the governor and the mayor. Okay. Do you know what the burdensome leadership of the governor and mayor is otherwise? Free and fair elections. Yeah. Like literally, she is there in federal uh uh uh uh masked uh agents and and and Donald Trump is sending in the military because we want to liberate the the city of Los Angeles from its elected leadership. I mean that is the definition of tyrannid. I mean that literally is what a dictator is says and does right. They say you have elected the leaders you want, but we are going to undo them. We're going to lift their burden and we are going to take over through the military and through heavily armed masked agents. This is a five alarm fire for democracy. And as we said, because we started by talking about this in Virginia and in other places in 2026, this is not going to end in California. I mean, if this is how she views and how Donald Trump views, you know, Gavin Nuome and Mayor Bass in Los Angeles in, you know, when there are no elections in sight, just imagine what they are going to say when there are elections happening in 2026. And as I said, it is not me. It is a conservative at the KO Institute who has said, "Watch out for November of 2025 in Virginia to see if Donald Trump and Len Young pull it there."
Well, look, you have been absolutely cleareyed about not just following these threats as they relate to the ballot box, but also forwardleaning in terms of bringing these lawsuits and and actually fighting Trump in the courts where he's trying to pull these uh anti-democratic extrajudicial measures. So, for anybody who's watching right now, one very small step that we can all take to support the invaluable work that Mark and his team are doing is to sign up for Democracy Docket, which is his news outlet that focuses on everything voting in elections. It's something that I use on a daily basis. I'll put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video.
Mark, you had mentioned how California and Gavin Newsome were not granted this uh temporary restraining order or this injunction on Trump's deployment of these troops because they just kind of relied on the presumption of regularity. It's that if the federal government comes in and says that there is a predicate um to be able to send in the troops that you know they are relying on the goodwill of the federal government from decades and centuries past to say hey if they say if they say that it's necessary we're going to defer to them. Does something like this go away? Um, if based on the merits of this case, the the courts actually rule in Gavin Newsome's favor and against Donald Trump, do other judges still confin to heap this presumption of regularity onto Trump, or do they start to recognize that this is somebody who's not acting in good faith, who doesn't deserve the presumption of regularity? and and when when you have governors who request these preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders against these illegal uh troop deployments that the difference should actually be paid to the states and not the federal government.
That's absolutely right. I mean, look, you put your finger on I wrote a piece months ago about the presumption of regularity and said that if judges don't get over this and don't stop providing it to Donald Trump, we have very little chance of surviving as a democracy over the course of four years. And we have slowly but seen surely seen some judges depart from it. But I have to be honest with you, it is still the basic baseline that judges operate under even you know the Ninth Circuit which is one of the more reasonable uh circuits did in in the preliminary injunction. Now hopefully that'll change after the trial when there is full evidence presented. But you know I it this reminds me of something that I wrote about uh for democracy docket uh this morning uh about you know what's going on with the train stations. And I know you're asking, well, what the hell does all this have to do with train stations? What it has to do with train stations is Donald Trump has had the Department of Transportation take over Union Station in Washington DC, uh take over uh uh uh Penn Station in New York City and also the major Amtrak station uh in Boston. And I don't think that this is an accident. I mean, he's not taking over these train stations because he wants to make sure that, you know, there is better service. He's not taking over these train stations because he is, you know, like Joe Biden a big fan of Amtraks, right? He is he is taking over these train stations both because symbolically dictators love train stations, right? I mean, what how did the Holocaust happen if but through train stations? What has uh Vladimir Putin done in the Ukraine? Uh well, he tried to take over train stations and to prevent the the Ukrainians who wanted to leave that country from being able to do so. In North Korea, Kim Jong-un has targeted train stations. Right? Dictators in this world attach a real symbolic importance to train stations. They have throughout the the decades and the centuries been the focal point that dictators like Vladimir Putin, like Kim Jong-un, like the Nazi regime that they focus on them because of their both practical significance in moving people and preventing other people from moving quickly and anonymously. you know, you get on a plane, you got to go through nine levels of security with everything. But people can get on a train, you know, in a matter of moments and be someplace else. And so the reason I connect this up to what's happening in uh in California with Gavin Newsome's critically important litigation, the reason why I connect it up to what the uh the the scholar at the Kato Institute said is because each one of these things may seem in isolation explainable. Oh, DC, it's a federal city, so that's why the National Guard is there. Well, explain to me why other states National Guards are there. Right. LA. Okay. Well, it makes sense that they had the National Guard because there were, you know, protests or riots or whatever at the Home Depots. Okay. But explain to me why the Marines are there, right? Oh, the train stations, you know, we have an underfunded uh uh we have underfunded uh infrastructure in this country. Well, Donald Trump's not funding the the infrastructure for rail, right? All of these things are connected. It is his effort to deploy the military, take over vital infrastructure, and collectively send a message to ordinary Americans that he controls the country. He controls the streets through the military. He controls uh policing through his uh his rapid expansion and misuse and abuse and weaponization of federal law enforcement. And he controls the ability of people to move about the country by taking over these train stations.
Well, look, I think on on that exact point again, and I said this earlier in this video, and I'll repeat it now, you have been absolutely cleareyed in terms of the intent of Trump and this administration and this Republican party. And I think that anybody who refuses to see what's happening, what's unfolding right in front of our eyes is just dooming us to the same fates of the other places uh that have watched this unfold and decided that they didn't want to be alarmist by saying anything too soon. We know what Donald Trump is doing. We he is broadcasting what he's doing. We've seen this play out in history before. And so I think we all benefit from focusing on the people who are rightly calling it out. So again, if you are not yet signed up uh for Mark's newsletter, his uh his news outlet, Democracy Docket, I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. If you are going to support any independent outlet, let this one be it. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen. I'm Mark Elias. This is Democracy Watch. [Music]