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Anti-ICE Protests Expand As Agency Amps Up Arrests To Meet Quotas; Police: More Than 370 Protesters Attested In L.A. Since Saturday; L.A. Mayor: Downtown Curfew Will Last Several Days; Protests Spread Across U.S. As ICE Amps Up Arrests; Newsom: "It's Time For All Of Us To Stand Up" Against Trump. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 11, 2025 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Dana Bash in Washington.

And we are following a tidal wave of protests across the country over President Trump's deportation policies. It's not just Los Angeles. We're talking about Dallas, Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, New York, the list goes on and on. And the primarily peaceful protesters are enraged and horrified that ICE officials are ramping up the speed and magnitude of their arrests in American communities all to meet White House quotas.

Multiple sources tell CNN that the Trump administration is instructing agents to search anywhere and everywhere for undocumented immigrants. California Governor Gavin Newsom emphasized that the majority of the people they're targeting are not violent criminals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CALIFORNIA, CA): We're seeing unmarked cars, unmarked cars in school parking lots, kids afraid of attending their own graduation. Trump is pulling a military dragnet all across Los Angeles, well beyond his stated intent to just go after violent and serious criminals. His agents are arresting dishwashers, gardeners, day laborers and seamstresses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, we saw raids across California like this one on Saturday with ICE agents setting up a staging area outside of Home Depot, just south of L.A. that is what helped trigger the unrest this weekend in Los Angeles. And yesterday in Omaha, Nebraska, immigration officials raided a meat production plant, taking dozens of workers away. The company was shocked, as it reportedly uses a federal database to check the status of all employees. It's just some of what is fueling the anger on America's streets.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is in Los Angeles. Stephanie, what's the vibe there today? We are now, what five days in, and obviously the government, the Democrats who run the state, and also the mayor of Los Angeles is trying to minimize the pockets of real unrest and violence and allow for the peaceful protests to continue, correct?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's correct. And Dana, the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, has said today that she does believe that the curfew is working. The curfew is long too. It starts at 8 pm local time, and it goes until 6 am local time. And so, we were out here overnight. I can tell you that the streets were pretty clear, whereas the night before, we did see a few people out, didn't really see them this last few hours getting out here.

So, there is a bit of a difference here. We also saw some of the interactions between law enforcement and protesters start earlier in the afternoon yesterday, even as we saw protesters get onto the 101 freeway right here by where we're standing and shut the freeway down.

That's why you see some of this here right now, where you see the highway patrol has been out here since when we got out here. They're keeping the on ramps and the off ramps closed so that people are on the freeway. They can go through downtown, but they can't actually get off and come in here.

What we've also learned is that there are about two dozen businesses that were looted. So, coming in, I can tell you, businesses are boarded up. It looks like we've gone back in time to the George Floyd protest days, because they're boarded up because they don't want to take the chances.

And frankly, no one knows how long this is going to go on. And we've talked to some residents who have said that even though they live down here in downtown Los Angeles, they think it's an overreach to have, you know, Marines, the National Guard deployed onto an American city streets under these conditions.

L.A.'s mayor saying that they do think that they have this contained. They're saying most of the arrests, about 200 arrests yesterday, most of them were for unlawful assembly because they were out during the curfew here. So definitely take a more aggressive stance and begin this -- since the protests began, there have been about 400 arrests, and half of them were yesterday.

So, taking a change of tone, but really local law enforcement and the mayor saying that they can handle this themselves. And again, protests happen here in downtown L.A. This is where they happen. This is not new. These things happen all the time. The difference here is just the attention that this is getting.

[12:05:00]

But overall, the city itself operating as usual. The traffic is running. People are coming down here to work. The roads around the detention center, which I can see here, and also around the federal building, are open so people are able to drive past these buildings. That is really key to putting into perspective on how shutdown and how dangerous it is. It's not how it's been portrayed.

BASH: Well, not by you. Stephanie, you're doing a great job. And, you know, you mentioned, protests happen in Los Angeles all the time. Big difference here is that you have almost 2000 -- actually almost 4000 promised National Guard troops by President Trump, not to mention 700 U.S. Marines. We're going to have to leave it there. Stephanie, we'll get back to you. It's always great to have you on.

And as Los Angeles woke up, where Stephanie is there, Attorney General Pam Bondi had a message for residents there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Right now, in California, we're at a good point. We're not -- we're not scared to go further. We're not frightened to do something else if we need to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: But she didn't elaborate on what going further means. I'm joined now by a terrific group of reporters here. CNN's Kasie Hunt, Jeff Mason of Reuters, Tia Mitchell of Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and David Weigel of Semafor.

I just -- because, you know, we just talked to Stephanie about what's going on in L.A. But Kasie, it has been fascinating to see the not the unrest, not the pockets of terrible vandalism, and you know, some violent vandalism, but protests going on across the country, certainly bluish states, but -- excuse me, bluish cities, but even bluish cities in some red states. You see that.

And it's not something we have seen for some time. But this is very deliberate. It is, you know, organized by a lot of people who are saying it's time to get out to the streets and protest what the president is doing. It's also very organic.

KASIE HUNT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It is, Dana. And, you know, it is a shift, an evolution, from what we saw at the beginning of President Trump's second term here, where there was a notable difference in how many who opposed the president voted against, you know, voted not in favor of the president handle.

What happened. Remember, we talked a lot about how there were marches in the streets in the first Trump administration, there was the resistance. "It was much more muted" when Trump came in the second time. And it does seem as though you are starting to feel a shift here.

And, you know, I think that that plays into, or perhaps reflects, maybe it's a chicken and egg problem. You know, President Trump, it seems, and his administration, the people around have been him have been sort of itching for this fight, right?

BASH: Yes.

HUNT: They've been very quick to escalate. Certainly, Gavin Newsom also has political incentive to not back down from that fight, but it is creating an atmosphere that is much more similar to what we saw during Trump's first term. And this one honestly has new and potentially, you know, more kinetic variables to it. JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: And just piggybacking on that. A, I think the Trump White House is happy to have this fight, and the visuals are good for him and them politically in that he wants to show that they are fulfilling the campaign promises that he made about immigration and also is very happy to draw contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans on immigration policy.

And to be able to say, hey, Democrats don't want what they call illegals to leave the country. Well, that's fine. And to show the show of force, which is also another hallmark of Trump's presidency. This time around, he likes to show force. He's about to have a big military parade this coming weekend. He went to Fort Bragg yesterday. That's all in line with the choreography and the imagery that he likes to have.

BASH: Yeah.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Yeah. I think it's interesting just to take a step back as far as kind of the root issue here, which is Trump's immigration policy. And I think some of the protests, both the organic protests at the ICE facilities and the more organized protests. We'll see this weekend during the No Kings Day protests, are all about the people who are saying, we are uncomfortable with how this is starting to play out, picking up day laborers at the Home Depot.

People not feeling comfortable going to schools and graduations and their appointments at government facilities. That's not necessarily what we asked for. And of course, President Trump says, that's the mandate I feel that I received. That's what I campaigned on. And you're right.

We remember the mass deportations now signs at Trump's rallies, but the key point is, there are people in swing states who helped Trump become president, who aren't the type of people to go to rallies, and they're not necessarily looking for these types of mass deportations of people without violent criminal records. And the question is, do they now believe Trump is going too far?

[12:10:00]

BASH: Yeah. And so, I mean, you hit on such an important point there. And Dave Weigel, one of the questions was when, not if, but when President Trump and the people around him, Stephen Miller in particular, started to push for deportations beyond the criminals, whether or not the people in those communities would say, stop. Enough is enough. And that is what we are starting to see.

And let me just give some examples of what has been happening over the past few days. Detroit, a high school student was detained by ICE after a traffic stop during a field trip. In Mississippi, according to the Free Press, ICE arrests a Mississippi father at his citizenship hearing, threatening deportation. Cincinnati.com, can't imagine what I'm feeling. That's a mom and a coach speaking out after a 19-year-old was detained by ICE. DAVID WEIGEL, POLITICS REPORTERS, SEMAFOR: Well, you mentioned Stephen Miller, and he's always been clear on this. Even if these people are in the country without documentation and they haven't committed other crime, they're in the country, they don't have documentation, that's a crime. That is how the administration sees this. It's a civil offense. But anytime they are having that argument, they're very comfortable making it.

This is an administration that has this very zero-sum view of who should be in the country. There are foreign students in the country. Let's get them out. Let's get Americans in their slots and Lee colleges, or any colleges. There are foreign workers. Get you heard Governor Newsom refer to day laborers, in their view, they shouldn't be here. Those are jobs that could be filled by Americans.

And there's a democratic debate going long back or rhetoric, I should say, saying, who's going to do those jobs? And the administration's positions, we'll figure that out, that we don't want. When they refer, when Trump referred to deportations in 1950s under Eisenhower, that it's always been the model.

So, this is not surprising in some ways. It really is, when would -- what would the confrontation be? The fact that it was not a massive Watts Riots riot, that it was something very contained in this one neighborhood in Los Angeles. There're more Marines mobilized, and there have been people arrested or people at some of these protests.

The point is, they want to send the message, if you're resisting this anywhere, if you're in New York resisting this, this could happen and we're not having any special dispensation. If you're just here illegally, not committing a crime because you shouldn't be here.

BASH: And, you know, I -- yesterday was texting with a Trump ally, and who's, you know, insistent on the fact that despite these stories, like I just talked about a 19-year-old detained people -- fathers getting, you know, taken away at their hearings, where they're going and trying to play by the rules of the process as it is now.

I asked, you don't think that there is going to be any sympathy here. And the response was -- and I can see you, you're nodding your head, and continues to be, no, because we believe that we are on the side of the majority of people in this country. And despite the empathetic stories that we are hearing, they believe that the immigration issue, no matter how it plays out, how personal it gets, how sad it can be, is on their side.

HUNT: Well, and it's the flip side of what Tia said, which is there -- are these people in swing states who are not really protesting one way or the other. You said, perhaps they'll think that the administration is going too far. Most Republicans I talked to, and quite frankly, a lot of Democrats I've talked to, say they actually, the reverse is probably true.

When they see, you know, people waving Mexican flags in the streets and American flags burning. And people, you know, committing acts of vandalism that it cuts precisely the different way -- the opposite way with swing voters. And people who, you know, don't want to see a defense of any of that kind of behavior.

So, I think they actually feel like they're on pretty solid ground politically. I mean, if you listen to Senator Fetterman from Pennsylvania, you know, you'll get that point of view from at least one Democrat.

BASH: Yeah. You know, he's very vocal.

MITCHELL: And I think the question is, are people at home who are watching, watching news reports? And we understand, if they get a news report like we heard from Stephanie, they'll get a perspective, but they might get a different perspective on a different network, from a different reporter.

BASH: Stephanie, you're going to get the facts.

MITCHELL: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And but the question is, as they start to digest what they're seeing and hearing, can they separate that there are protests who may have elements that people think are problematic, the Mexican flags, the vandalism versus the root issue of how Trump's immigration enforcement is being played out. And they may disagree both with the Mexican flags and American flags burning and cars burning but also disagree about fathers being picked up at their immigration hearing.

BASH: I want to go back to something that you mentioned, Jeff, which is the president's speech at Fort Bragg yesterday. Let's watch and talk about it on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The fake news back there, and the fake news. Ladies and gentlemen, look at them. Look at them all, aye yai yai, what I have to put up with. Fake news. What I have to put up with people that burn the American flag should go to jail for one year. What they should be doing. And the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles. They said, ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump is projected to be the winner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:15:00]

BASH: Jeff, I want you to weigh in, but I quickly want to go to a post by our friend and really fantastic American Colonel Cedric Leighton, who put up the following. Fort Bragg commanders failed to get their troops in line. That display was totally unacceptable. You've been covering presidents addressing troops for a very long time. Have you ever seen anything like that?

MASON: Well, I was also with him at West Point, and it reminds me of that. I mean, West Point is the next generation of troops. And he turned that into a very political speech as well. And you may not have had the same reaction as we saw yesterday, but I think that that is, you know, he considers the troops a constituency. He feels like that's a campaign rally, just like he does for nearly all of these speeches. And adding on to that and what Kasie was saying earlier, and everyone, getting positive feedback is what he wants. Any kind of resistance, from his perspective, is wrong, fake or disloyal.

BASH: That's true. But when it's the military, it feels different.

HUNT: Well, I would just say, Dana, that while, you know, I take Cedric Leighton's point for sure. Where does the responsibility lie here, right? Like these are troops hearing from their commander in chief. There have been plenty of times. I'm sure you've been at speeches where presidents of both parties have made positive comments about the country and have received cheers from the troops.

And it was on them to recognize the setting that they were in and to be appropriate, and to not put those troops in the position of having to not respond to their commander in chief because he was saying something that was too political --

BASH: On the entire president.

HUNT: It's on the president, right? It's on the presidents who decide whether or not to use these opportunities in a way that's appropriate or not. President Trump has a track record of using them in a way that is breaking a norm that has existed for a long time in this country.

BASH: Well said. Don't go anywhere. When we come back, we'll talk a bit more about Governor Gavin Newsom, who delivered an address last night that went beyond the intense constitutional fight he is having on behalf of California. Was it a blueprint that many frustrated Democrats have been looking for.

And tonight, at the end of the day, President Trump heads to the Kennedy Center to see his first show since naming himself as chairman of the Kennedy Center. How will the audience and the cast receive him? We'll talk about that later.

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[12:20:00]

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BASH: Governor Newsom delivered an impassioned primetime rebuke of President Trump, accusing him of orchestrating a stepped-up assault on democracy and calling on Americans to rise up against authoritarianism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWSOM: Some of us could be snatched off the streets without a warrant based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe. Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there. Trump and his loyalists, they thrive on division because it allows them to take more power and exert even more control. And by the way, Trump, he's not opposed to lawlessness and violence, as long as it serves him. What more evidence do we need than January six? This is a president, who in just over 140 days, has fired government watchdogs that could hold him accountable, accountable for corruption and fraud. He's declared a war, a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself. Databases, quite literally, are vanishing.

He's de legitimizing news organizations, and he's assaulting the First Amendment, and the threat of defunding them, a threat. He's dictating what universities themselves can teach. He's targeting law firms and the judicial branch that are the foundations of an orderly and civil society. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And my panel is back. Dave Weigel, you -- what we talked a lot with all of you at this table about the pleading among Democratic voters, among Democrats across the country, for their leaders to do something, to fight back.

Gavin Newsom was handed an opportunity, and he's trying to use it to the best of his ability, not just with the content of what he said, but just even the way that he delivered it. It was kind of a state of the -- state of the state address, speaking directly to camera, to members of the resistance.

WEIGEL: Yes. And that is exactly what Democrats want to hear. I was in New Jersey and New York the last few days were primary in New Jersey yesterday, primary coming up in New York in two weeks. This is how they're talking about Trump universally. The candidates who were scanned as more moderate in these states, and the candidates who are scanned as more as more left wing.

Andrew Cuomo was calling what Trump's doing authoritarian and he is not (inaudible). He obviously, clash with Trump when he was governor, and that's a lot of what his campaign is about. But what they're trying to do in real time is because they're very aware, every Democrats, very aware.

[12:25:00]

The footage you saw in L.A., even a couple days ago, is going to be in campaign ad for the next four years. I'm still seeing the same B roll of stuff burning in Minneapolis in ads in rural South Carolina five years later. They know that's going to happen. They are trying to win an argument right now, that says this is not necessary, that Donald Trump could have handled this differently, and he's trying to accelerate this for that imagery, for those purposes, for political gain.

And the only thing that this has rested on whether this will work is in 2020 that is how a lot of voters reacted. What Trump is doing is not -- they're pulling after especially the incident outside the White House holding the Bible up in front of the church. Most Americans said, he was making the tensions worse. He was responsible for the riots getting worse. In Portland, same sort of thing happened, different topic, because that was about racial justice.

This is about non-citizens, but that is where they're all trying to get. And the Democrats are -- who are taking some criticism because why are you can -- why are you not just condemning the riots and going, they just don't think they can. They need to say this is authoritarian and not necessary.

BASH: Yeah. And then just back on Newsom, the way that he is doing this. Again, what he is saying and the way that he is doing it, not just in that speech, but also on social media. He just TikTok alone. The beginning of this month, which was like last week, he had 603 followers on TikTok. Now he has a million followers. And he's got 600 -- 603,000 June 4, and now he has a million. So, he's almost doubled his followers, and his videos have gotten hundreds and hundreds of thousands, millions of views.

MITCHELL: I think when there are inflection points, usually, you know, where people feel that Trump has kind of done something that they consider particularly problematic, there's always an entry point for a Democrat to kind of become the face of the resistance on that issue. You know, Cory Booker had his moment, for example.

And so, we've seen Democrats able to make a moment out of these opportunities. I think Governor Newsom is definitely having a moment. The question is, a, is it sustainable? Because we're already seeing people now saying, well, Cory Booker had a moment, but then he had some votes. You know, for Trump nominees or policies that Democrats wanted him to vote no, and he voted yes, and now they're frustrated with him again. Hakeem Jeffries, same thing. Chuck Schumer, same thing.

So the question for, you know, Governor Newsom politically, is, how can he sustain this in the question for the Democratic Party is, how can they create some consistency where people don't just see someone having a good moment that Democratic voters say, we think the party is on the right trajectory to truly meet the moment on a permanent basis. And we know that there are a lot of members of the Democratic base who don't have that confidence yet.

BASH: Well, I mean, and Newsom also has a podcast where he has been talking to some pretty controversial figures, people who are considered controversial among those Democratic voters. And so, he's kind of been straddling all sides of this politically, but in politics, it's about meeting the moment.

HUNT: It is about meeting the moment. I would also say some of the credit for Governor Newsom's surge in visibility, shall we say, is owed to Donald Trump. And so, if Trump, you know, wants Newsom to be the Democratic nominee in '28, he thinks that's who Republicans should run against. I mean, I think that there's some of that potentially going on as well. I mean, he clearly wants to pick this fight with him.

And, you know, Trump also kind of delights in seeing his enemies attempt to take him on and not succeed, right? And I think you're seeing an element of that as well. Because, you know, it's -- I think it's worth noting that, you know, Newsom also hasn't been successful in the courts so far to the extent he would like -- probably like to be.

And I think that is really the -- one of the big questions here for Democrats. I mean, what their base is demanding of them is that they do something that so far, the system is not allowing them to do. And Democrats are working within the systems that, you know, our democratic systems, that they so vociferously depend on.

And so, this is, you know, this enormous tension here, and this is why Trump is able to kind of exploit the Democrats or agitators who, whoever they are, that are going outside the system. Because Trump can look at that and say, look at this. This is violent. This is wrong. This is horrible. But on the flip side, you know, the systems that are, you know, are in place, have not so far given Democrats what they want.

BASH: OK. Everybody standby. Coming up, President Trump is touting a trade deal with China, but there's still a long way to go. What it all means? Phil Mattingly will be here to tell you the answer to that.

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