L.A. protests led demonstrations across the country against Trump and his aggressive immigration policy Saturday, while in D.C. veterans and other citizens protested Trump’s military parade, Joe Lauria & Ann Wright report.
The protest in downtown L.A. on Saturday. (Joe Lauria)
By Joe Lauria
in Los Angeles
Special to Consortium News
Thousands of angry protestors denouncing Donald Trump and his aggressive immigration policies marched peacefully through downtown Los Angeles on Saturday with the day marred by L.A. police who fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd.
U.S. Marines and California National Guardsmen, controversially deployed by Trump to counter the protestors were not seen during the downtown march, which started at City Hall and ended peacefully with speeches at Pershing Square.
However, about three hours later roughly 100 protestors surrounded the U.S. federal building downtown. Trump’s U.S. marines were deployed there ostensibly to protect federal property.
Protestor arguing with police in L.A. (Joe Lauria)
The LAPD said on X: “People in the crowd are throwing rocks, bricks, bottles and other objects. Less lethal has been approved. Less lethal may cause discomfort and pain. It is advised that all persons leave the area.”
The police then charged on horseback into the crowd firing tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the area in front of the building.
Neither the Marines nor Guardsmen took part in the violence. Both the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles oppose Trump’s deployment.
A federal court this week ruled that Trump had to return control of the National Guard to the governor but that order was paused by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. A hearing is slated for Tuesday.
Curfew Enforcement
Police remove people from convenience store after curfew. (Joe Lauria)
The mayor has declared an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, and riot police were in the downtown streets to enforce it. A standoff ensued after 8 p.m. in front of the hotel where I am staying, with just a handful of remaining protestors facing two rows of helmeted police.
The standoff ended when police entered a 7-11 convenience store to remove people inside. A lone, homeless man slouched shirtless on a curb outside the store was totally ignored even though he too was in violation of the curfew.
The sounds of helicopters and sirens continued into the night.
The downtown L.A. protest — the ninth consecutive day of such demonstrations — was just one of more than a dozen in Southern California and part of about 2,000 around the United States on Saturday.
The protests coincided with a military parade Trump organized in Washington for his 79th birthday.
By Ann Wright
in Washington
Having served 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves and retiring as a Colonel, I am ashamed that the 250th birthday of the institution I was in for almost 3 decades has been politicized by President Donald Trump for his birthday celebration.
The idea of a big military parade was quashed by military leadership in Trump’s first term. But Trump’s appointment of Pete Hegseth, his chief interviewer on FOX News and extremely unqualified person as Secretary of Defense, has insured there are no objections to Trump’s wild decisions on how to use the U.S. military as his personal plaything, his toy.
That includes ordering a parade in his honor, no matter how the $3 billion Pentagon public relations team tries to portray it as a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States Army.
In our polarized U.S. society, the administration has defended its decision to have the parade by taking extraordinary measures on the security of the parade and military equipment.
Many streets in downtown Washington, D.C. have been closed. The entire national mall and the White House have been cordoned off by 12 foot high metal fences.
The level of closure of national property in Washington is unprecedented even including Presidential inaugurations.
Vets protesting in Washington on Saturday. (Courtesy of Greg Stoker via Ann Wright)
Ironic Protection for US Army From Citizens
It is quite ironic that Trump and his advisors feel that the mighty U.S. Army personnel and equipment must be protected from its citizens.
I suspect that all the way from top leaders of the Army down to the Army privates that are driving the tanks and other equipment in the parade are embarrassed about Trump’s decision to politicize the anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army…and then feel the need to protect them from their fellow citizens.
US Military as Trump’s Private Militia
I also suspect that the rank and file of the U.S. military is beginning to feel like they are now considered to be Trump’s private militia, not the military charged with defending the country.
Many in our military do recognize that the rationale of defending the country by invading and sanctioning other countries is not defending our country, is putting our country in danger by these actions which are the reasons for tragic events such as 9/11.
They also know that the federal law precludes deployment of active duty personnel in the United States unless there is a true national emergency, not a “trumped-up” political campaigning decision.
The deployment of active duty and California National Guard by Trump into the streets of Los Angeles and by federalizing areas around the southern border have made this suspicion a reality for many of them.
Veterans Demand ‘Military Off Our Streets’
With Trump’s explicit threat of extreme force to be used against any protest of his birthday parade, yesterday, in the evening Friday, June 13, 2025, hundreds of U.S. military veterans rallied in Washington, DC with a press conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court denouncing Trump’s threats of violence and declaring that they want “Military Off Our Streets.”
Organized by About Face, Veterans For Peace and other veterans groups, 60 were arrested for sitting peacefully and nonviolently on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She also was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years. She resigned in 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq. She has been in Israeli prison twice with the Gaza flotilla missions and has been on segments of four other missions. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
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I am a US citizen, but I have no confidence I can’t be kidnapped and exized by some ICE goon in a mask.
MAGAlomaniacs…
Thank you, Joe Lauria and Ann Wright, for your many excellent actions and reports.
Guys, fight the tyrant with sharp wits and not violence. Make a joke out of him. Be positive, non-partisan and peaceful (but energetic and determined) and more people will join.
Sorry…but the only language these people understand is violence…Non-violent, peaceful demonstrations – also world-wide, have gotten us exactly NOWHERE. We are at the point, in my opinion, that you fight FIRE WITH FIRE.
The little village near my tiny-home in the high desert, population about 200, had a 100 protesters along the only paved road. There were a few sour faces among some tourists, but otherwise the sense was of subdued gaiety: a general realization of the dangers of this political moment while being buoyed up by the gathering. Ours was a very small thing, and I have no idea if such micro-protests were happening in other villages around the country, but I would very much like to know more about the truly ‘grassroots’ sentiments beyond the flashpoints of the big cities. While I suspect that in political reality we are, I hope we are not completely irrelevant.