Here is a look at some of the legal questions surrounding the move.
- Is it legal? -
Trump relied on a seldom-used law known as Title 10 to send an initial 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles. He has since ordered another 2,000 Guard members and 700 Marines to the Californian city.
National Guard troops are normally mobilized by a state governor and used domestically to respond to natural disasters such as floods or wildfires.
Trump, exceptionally, sent the troops to Los Angeles against the wishes of California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
The last time a president defied a state governor to deploy the Guard was in 1965, when president Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights protestors.
Title 10 permits National Guard federalization in times of "a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States" but does not give the troops the powers to perform domestic law enforcement duties.
The troops deployed to Los Angeles have been used so far only to provide security around federal buildings in the second-largest US city.
Newsom has accused Trump of exceeding his authority by deploying the troops without his green light and has filed suit in federal court seeking to have the deployment declared unlawful.
- Insurrection Act -
Trump would need to invoke the rarely-used Insurrection Act of 1807 to allow troops to expand their current role in Los Angeles, according to legal analysts.
The Insurrection Act gives a president the authority to deploy the military domestically to perform law enforcement duties such as conducting searches and making arrests.
The Insurrection Act was most recently invoked by president George H.W. Bush at the request of the then California governor to help put down riots in Los Angeles in 1992 that followed the acquittal of police officers involved in the beating of a Black motorist, Rodney King.
It was used by president Johnson in 1968 to quell riots that broke out in the nation's capital and other cities following the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
- Posse Comitatus -
Using the military domestically to conduct law enforcement activities is normally barred by another law, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.
The Insurrection Act lets a president sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act to suppress "armed rebellion" or "domestic violence" and use the armed forces "as he considers necessary" to enforce the law.
William Banks, a professor emeritus of law at Syracuse University, said the Insurrection Act and waiving of Posse Comitatus has been infrequent because of a long US history of "leaving law enforcement to civilians."
"To sum up the conditions where (the Insurrection Act) may be used, it's for when all hell breaks loose," said Banks, co-author of the book "Soldiers on the Home Front: The Domestic Role of the American Military."
"When state and local officials are unable to control civil affairs without federal involvement, the federal government may intervene," he told AFP. "It's normally been requested by the state officials, and the president simply agrees and decides to send a federal force."
Newsom has said repeatedly that there was no need for the deployment of the National Guard and Marines and that the Los Angeles Police Department was fully capable of handling the unrest.
Trump uses US army birthday to lash out over LA protests
Fort Bragg, United States (AFP) June 10, 2025 -
President Donald Trump turned a trip marking the US army's 250th birthday into a political-style rally Tuesday, wrapping himself in martial symbolism as he defended his decision to send soliders to protest-hit Los Angeles.
The US commander-in-chief goaded troops to boo political opponents and the media and called protesters "animals" in what was meant to be a non-partisan event at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the country's biggest military installation.
The Republican president meanwhile reinforced his strongman image as he watched spectacular rocket fire, special forces training and parachute displays, standing behind sandbags while surrounded by military officers in camouflage.
The event came days before tanks are set to rumble through Washington in a huge and highly unusual military parade on Saturday, which coincides with Trump's own 79th birthday.
Trump has long shown a fascination for the military -- and envy for the military parades that his foreign counterparts preside over.
But on Tuesday he spent much of his speech talking about anything but the army, preferring instead to go on a diatribe on the Los Angeles protests.
"They're incompetent," Trump said of California Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, as some troops in the audience booed.
Newsom has attacked Trump as "dictatorial" after the president deployed thousands of troops including 700 active duty US Marines to Los Angeles following clashes sparked by US government immigration raids.
- 'Theater of leadership' -
Pointing at the "fake news," Trump said "look what I have to put up with" as troops booed again.
Democratic former president Joe Biden also earned a few boos when Trump mentioned him.
Trump then ramped up the military language as he promised to "liberate" Los Angeles, saying he would "not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy."
The Republican also announced that he would be restoring the names of other US Army bases that, like Fort Bragg, honored military figures of the pro-slavery Confederacy from the US Civil War.
He was accompanied by Pentagon chief and former Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth, who hailed the end of what he called "woke" in the US military.
In scenes that resembled one of his election rallies last year, Trump finally left the stage to cheers as he did his trademark dance to the Village People song "Y.M.C.A."
The event comes in a week loaded with military symbolism for Trump.
He made it clear earlier that he would not tolerate anyone spoiling the parade on Saturday -- which marks the 250th anniversary of the army but falls on his birthday too.
"If there's any protest that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force," Trump said earlier at the White House.
For Trump, "what matters is the spectacle. And the military is a heck of a spectacle," said Peter Loge, director of George Washington University's School of Media.
"The military parade, the military in Los Angeles is theater of leadership, theater of governing, without paying attention to the real-world consequences," Loge told AFP.
- 'Speaking German' -
Trump was sent to a military academy as a child by his property tycoon father, and seems to have loved military pomp ever since -- even if repeated educational and medical deferments meant he could avoid the draft to fight in Vietnam.
He first had the idea for a grand military parade after attending France's annual Bastille Day parade in Paris at the invitation of his friend, President Emmanuel Macron, but is only getting around to it in his second term.
World War II meanwhile appears to have been increasingly on Trump's mind since returning to office.
He recently designated May 8 "Victory Day," noting that unlike much of Europe, the United States had no day to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany -- and he has repeatedly downplayed the role of US allies in the war.
"Without us, you'd all be speaking German right now, maybe a little Japanese thrown in," Trump said at Fort Bragg.
Critics say that Trump's military fascination underscores an authoritarian streak.
"The imagery is very much strongman: I am Donald Trump, America is a nation of force and power, because look at all the images of force and power," Loge said.
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