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L.A. Braces for Fifth Day of Protests Over Immigration Raids; Homeland Chief Claims Without Evidence Protesters are Being Paid; Hegseth Expected to Face Questions Over Use of Military in L.A. Protests at Capitol Hill Hearing. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 10, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, Pete Hegseth on Capitol Hill, the defense secretary expected to face questions on the role of the military in the L.A. protests. We're live with his testimony.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Forced out, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Gutting the CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee. He says, it's all in an effort to restore public trust in vaccines.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

We begin this hour in downtown Los Angeles where protests over immigration raids have raged for four straight nights.

Police officers broke up crowds last night and made arrests. Some protesters were seen throwing objects at police, including what appears to be fireworks. L.A.'s Police chief has said that commercial grade fireworks fired at officers could be deadly.

Here's the latest we're getting right now. The protests are largely concentrated in downtown L.A., according to our CNN reporters who are on the on the ground. President Trump is doubling his deployment of National Guard troops to 4,000 and about 700 US Marines have been activated to help protect federal personnel and property.

California is suing the Trump administration for deploying the National Guard without state consent. Some protesters are saying they don't feel safe and that police have fired rubber bullets recklessly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Can you show us the (INAUDIBLE)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, this happened during -- when we were walking right up the street, yelling, peaceful protest. And what happened is the police shot the lady in front of me. And as soon as I said, hey, you shot a lady, he shoots me. No, thank you very much, just water. So, all we were doing is just try to express our concerns and then they start shooting at us.

So I don't even know where we can go and be safe or we can express ourselves without feeling intimidation of the police.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The protests are spreading to cities across the country right now, from California to Dallas and Atlanta, Louisville and New York. Many protesters say it's time to take a stand against the Trump administration's policies and what they feel are heavy-handed and heartless enforcement.

We're covering all the angles right now. CNN's Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller is in New York, Elam is in downtown Los Angeles.

Stephanie, what are you seeing this morning?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. As rush hour is getting underway here, Wolf, I just want to show you the aftermath of some of what we've seen last night. This is an Adidas store in downtown Los Angeles, and you can see what's remaining here. Overnight, we watched them board up one of the doors here on this store where there's looting and breaking into it.

And we've heard Mayor Karen Bass talk about this. She has said that the people who are out here looting are not out here concerned about immigration rights. Clearly, she's like, these are different people and they're not on the same page. In fact, take a listen more to what she said about this being an experiment, what's going on here in Los Angeles?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR KAREN BASS (D-LOS ANGELES, CA): These are not the people that we were told were going to be detained. And it makes me feel like our city is actually a test case, a test case for what happens when the federal government moves in and takes the authority away from the state or away from local government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: And out here this morning, I can tell you that already we're seeing some of the graffiti being painted over. People are out here cleaning up. It's really important to emphasize here that the vast majority of Los Angeles is business as usual, and most of downtown Los Angeles is the same case. But still, you can see where this, this disruption has happened. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. Stephanie Elam reporting for us, Stephanie, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: Joining us now, Wolf, is CNN, Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller. Hey, John, thanks for being here.

So, President Trump has doubled the National Guard deployment to 4,000 troops and 700 Marines are also activated.

[10:05:03]

Tell us about how they're able to coordinate. I mean, does this create communication difficulties between local law enforcement and the military troops?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it shouldn't in that the LAPD has set up their IMT, the incident management team. They've gone into their ICS, the incident command system. They've developed a unified command where they're talking from one command center to California Highway Patrol, Los Angeles sheriff, LAPD, and the National Guard that is stationed at the federal building in downtown L.A. basically guarding the perimeter or the front of the building, not even the perimeter. Yesterday, they only left the steps one time briefly.

If you're going to have thousands more, you could see the same kind of deployment around the federal building in West L.A., which has been the subject of less attention than the one downtown, and they'll be able to communicate.

The key here, Pam, though, is what is their mission going to be? You'll have another 2,000 troops that are basically going to be posted outside these buildings. But as far as the city of L.A., the LAPD, the incident command team are concerned, and as far as they've been told, they will not be moving through the streets or taking police action or acting in any way in the field.

BROWN: But, you know, as has been discussed by the mayor and by the governor of California, their concern are the optics of it, right? That these are members of the military with guns and their concern is that.

I want to go to the issue of crowds control in the L.A. protest. We want to look at, at this video right here, you can see, here we go, protesters moving in on police throwing fireworks and other projectiles. But you can then see police use what looks like smoke or tear gas to push back the crowd.

Can you describe the thought process behind what's going on here and the tactics used?

MILLER: So, this is within the LAPD manual procedure training, and the parameters are these. First, there's a peaceful protest and the LAPD responds and manages a peaceful protest for crowded traffic. Then at some point, objects are thrown, fireworks, MAD, commercial grade fireworks, there was a Molotov cocktail thrown at law enforcement during this series of demonstrations, bottles, rocks, bricks. Once you get to that stage. They go to 409 P.C. California penal code. They declare an unlawful assembly, basically saying it's not safe to be here for demonstrators, for other citizens because we're in this kind of conflict.

Once they declare it an unlawful assembly, they start to try and move it out. And when they take -- and what you're seeing there is a laser. You know, the police were hit with lasers, fireworks, and so on. That's when they move forward. They fire the less lethal munitions, these rubber bullets, they'll deploy gas, essentially trying to disperse the crowd.

And we saw through the night, as they did that, the crowd got smaller and smaller until it basically dwindled down to really the core group that was throwing the stuff and was, you know, kind of the core anarchist group.

BROWN: So, I want to go to you on this sound from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Nome, who claims that some of these people are professional protestors in L.A. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: These are organized. These are people that are being paid to do this. You can follow how they behave, the signals they give to each other in these crowds and these protests to instigate violence. This is an operation and it's professionally done. They've done it before, and we're going to stop it and make sure that we prosecute every single one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Now, she did not provide any evidence to back up those claims. But, John, what do you make of these accusations? Are you seeing the signals that she refers to or any other evidence that these are paid, coordinated protestors?

MILLER: Most definitely. But it's really important here to be careful about painting with a broad brush. These protest groups will break into three essential pieces. One, organic protesters, I came to show my feelings about this issue. Those are people from the community who are concerned.

Then you have protest organizers. These are actual advocacy groups that may be involved in a series of issues that actually do receive fundings from foundations, donations that they collect in their own fundraising and so on. And they deploy support, communications, online platforms to call for more people at protests.

But behind them, you see the anarchists, and that's what we're looking at on the screen right now, which is those are the people who engage in what law enforcement calls black block tactics.

[10:10:06]

They come dressed in black with hoods. They deploy umbrellas when they're doing a direct action. Direct action to them means take on the police, throw things, set cars on fire.

And then you have the looters who turnout in most cases not to be protesters at all. These are opportunists who see police resources are dwindling. There's a lot of confusion. Let's take advantage of the anarchy and, you know, see what we can get. And, you know, when you make those arrests, you generally find out they had nothing to do with the march.

BROWN: Let me just follow up with you though, because you just laid out the different buckets and you said what the DHS secretary, you see it as well, but she also said that they're paid. So, is your understanding that these anarchists that are in that bucket of coordinated protestors are being paid?

MILLER: I think it's an issue of precision in language. Because they raise funds and some of them actually work for these groups, some of them have other jobs too, you could say that they're paid protesters. But they would say that they are professional activists who work for various causes.

It's interesting when you do a deep dive into where the money comes from, it can come from very respectable foundations who believe that they are funding, you know, a particular cause and not realizing that it'll go to protests that sometimes get violent.

But I think the impression the secretary is trying to give is that, you know, there's some guy who grabbed a bunch of people off the street, said, here's some cash, go out there and make trouble, it's more complicated than that and it is layered. You've got the organizers who are willing to do some things in terms of being aggressive, but then you've got the anarchists, and that is specifically their game.

BROWN: All right. John Miller, thanks so much. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, Pamela. Questions over the use of the U.S. military in the protest is expected to be front and center up on Capitol Hill this morning. The U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is at a defense oversight hearing that began just a little while ago. I take it, Natasha, so far, the subject of the military in Los Angeles has not come up.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Not just yet. Hegseth just provided his opening statements to the committee and he did not mention the deployment of the Marines or the activation of the National Guard there. Instead, he kind of focused on the last several months of his tenure at the Department of Defense, focusing on things like anti-diversity initiatives, as well as merit-based practices that he has implemented at the department. He also talked a little bit about the budget, which is ostensibly what this hearing is actually supposed to be about, is President Trump's defense budget.

But, you know, this obviously is going to be a chance for lawmakers to question him on a whole range of subjects for the first time in several months because he hasn't actually testified before lawmakers since his confirmation hearings back in January. And so much has happened since then. I mean, you have obviously the Marine deployments. You have Signal gate, in which he disclosed classified information on a Signal chat. This will be the first time they can question him about that under oath. You also have the firing of top generals earlier this year, including the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, C.Q. Brown. BLITZER: Hold on. He's now being asked about the use of the U.S. military in Los Angeles. I want to listen to the question and the answer.

REP. BETTY MCCOLLUM (D-MN): -- the Minnesota National Guard. At no point did we need the citizens of Minnesota request that the Marines be deployed. Our state and local law enforcement along with our National Guard who have worked on crowd control, they were more than enough. They were more than capable of handling this situation.

History has proven that law enforcement and the National Guard are more than capable of handling situations more volatile than what happened this weekend. We all see the continuous loops on T.V., but this looks nothing like the George Floyd protest or the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992.

Mr. Secretary, this is a deeply unfair position to put our Marines in. Their service should be honored. It should not be exploited. The president has issued an executive order and talked about deploying troops across the country. Los Angeles County has 17,000 law enforcement personnel, and the state of California has 24,000 National Guard troops. So, that's why the Los Angeles chief police to say, and I quote, the possible arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles is an absent a clear coordination presents a significant logistical operational challenge for those of us who are charged with safeguarding the city, the end of this quote.

As I mentioned before, in Minnesota, we trained for those things together, so there's no need for the Marines to be deployed.

[10:15:03]

So, here are my budget questions, though. What is the current cost for what is taking place in California and how is it going to affect this budget or the budget we're currently serving under? How much are these deployments going to cost for both the Marines and the National Guard? And what training or duties are not taking place because of these deployments? Where in your limited budget, sir, are you going to find in the remainder of this fiscal year, are you going to pull the money to cover these deployments? What holes are being created?

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, Congresswoman, thank you for the question. You are right. We are both originally from Minnesota which is why I recall 2020 quite well when Governor Walz abandoned a police precinct and allowed it to be burned to the ground, and also allowed five days of chaos to occur inside the streets of Minneapolis.

The police precinct, ma'am, was abandoned and burned to the ground. And because of that, the National Guard was eventually far too late mobilize. And President Trump recognizes a situation like that improperly handed by a governor, like it was by Governor Waltz, if it gets out of control, is a bad situation for the citizens of any location.

So, in Los Angeles, we believe that ICE, which is a federal law enforcement agency, has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country, especially after 21 million illegals have crossed our border under the previous administration. ICE ought to be able to do its job, whether it's Minneapolis or Los Angeles.

MCCOLLUM: I have limited time. I asked a budget question. Could the secretary please address the budget? Thank you.

HEGSETH: You asked about the situation in Los Angeles and we believe --

MCCOLLUM: I asked about the budget.

HEGSETH: -- ICE agents should be allowed to be safe, the budget in doing their operations, and we have deployed National Guard and the Marines to protect them in the execution of their duties because we ought to be able to enforce integration immigration law in this country, unlike what Governor Walz did in 2020.

There are 17,000 LAPD. You mentioned that. There would be 18,000 if not for the defund movement that folks like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass have implemented. The police chief said she was overwhelmed --

MCCOLLUM: The secretary is not going to ask the budgetary questions. I will yield back my time if the secretary refuses to answer the budgetary questions I put before him. They're important. What training missions aren't happening? Where are you pulling the money from and how are you planning this moving forward? These are budget questions that affect this committee and the decisions we're going to be making in a couple of hours. If you're not going to answer them, please let the chairman know and I will take back my time and I will yield it back to the chairman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Secretary, I want you to just let us know what accounts are you pulling the money to fund --

HEGSETH: Well, thankfully, unlike the previous administration, we've got a 13 percent increase in our defense budget, and we will have the capabilities to cover down on contingencies, which is something the National Guard and the Marine planned for. So, we have the funding to cover down on contingencies, especially ones as important as maintaining law and order in a major American city.

As far as training all of the units on the ground have been fully trained in their capabilities of what they're executing on the ground.

MCCOLLUM: Chairman, can I ask for budgetary if he needs to get back to the committee with the numbers, I'd appreciate it, current and present.

HEGSETH: I'd be happy to submit them for the record.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentlemen, we received an answer to the question for the record. Gentlemen from Oklahoma, Mr. Cole.

REP. TOM COLE (R-OK): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, again, welcome. As I mentioned in my opening comment -- BLITZER: All right. We're going to continue to monitor this important hearing, the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. We just heard the ranking Democrat, Betty McCollum of Minnesota, asking budget related questions, how much it's going to cost to deploy the thousands of National Guard personnel and the thousand, potentially thousand U.S. Marines who were being deployed as well.

He really didn't answer those questions, Natasha and this is a budget related hearing appropriations, as it's called up on Capitol Hill. You would think he'd be anxious to discuss this issue. Maybe he just simply doesn't know.

BERTRAND: Yes. So, the ranking member was pressing him on the cost of this deployment of the Marines and of the activation of the National Guard, and he really didn't answer except to say that DOD has increased its budget and therefore it will have money available for contingency operations such as this. But he did not give a specific number as to how much this is likely to cost to deploy over 700 Marines and the activation, of course, of 4,000 now National Guard members.

She also asked him what training is not happening because of this. In other words, what are these troops being diverted from in terms of their training and other perhaps important missions so that they can go and essentially stand on the streets of Los Angeles and supports the LAPD there, as well as ICE officers?

[10:20:04]

And he did not answer that question either. He seems to have taken it as, are they well trained to perform this mission rather than what other important activities are they being taken away from in order to do this? So, he didn't really answer either of those questions, but I would expect him to be asked about it again.

BLITZER: Yes, I'm sure it's going to come up over and over again. Natasha, stand by. Pamela?

BROWN: I want to bring in our CNN Military Analyst and Retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Colonel, you have actually prepped a defense secretary for a big hearing like this. Are you surprised he didn't have the answers to the questions he was asking?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I am Pamela, because, you know, one of the key things when it comes to preparing people like the secretary of defense is that you always give them the budgetary information. You give them answers to questions such as, you know, what other training is not being done, as Natasha mentioned.

And these things are critically important because when it comes to appropriations, the Congress has to make decisions based on the resources that they have available, plus the military has to provide its priorities. And when you have a Congressional hearing like this, this is an opportunity for the secretary of defense to actually say, okay, these are the things that we're doing, this is what I need. And in order for me to achieve the goals that the president has, I need resourcing for A, B, C, and D, all of these kinds of functions. And he really didn't do that in any of this, in any of his answers that we've seen so far.

BROWN: So, I want to talk to you about the mobilization, just overall, of the Marines and the National Guard members to Los Angeles, as we see here in this video. Is it justified, in your view?

LEIGHTON: No, it's not Pamela. And the reason I say that is because it looks at the present time, at least, as if the LAPD and the L.A. County sheriffs have the situation pretty well in hand. Things do look messy in certain specific areas at night, absolutely, no question about it, but as we saw last night, when you look at the way in which the LAPD and these other associated law enforcement agencies, local law enforcement agencies that were working with the LAPD, they could move the crowd as they needed to. They were able to disperse the crowd. They made some arrests. There was some looting but none of that would've been stopped by the Marines or by the National Guard if they had been in a law enforcement role. And, by the way, they shouldn't be because the Comitatus Act still applies in this case.

BROWN: All right. Colonel Cedric Leighton. Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much.

BLITIZER: And we'll continue, of course, Pamela, to continue to monitor this important hearing up on Capitol Hill as well.

Also still ahead, new comments from climate and human rights activists Greta Thunberg about her detainment in Israel.

BROWN: And next, mobilizing the military to Los Angeles. We're going to speak to someone from the ACLU about the message it's sending to the community there and the rest of the nation.

You're in The Situation Room.

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[10:25:00]

BLITIZER: The ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, is slamming President Trump's decision to deploy active duty Marines and National Guards personnel to Los Angeles. In a statement, the ACLU writes, and I'm quoting now, every move President Trump has made since Saturday night has been escalatory and inflammatory. The idea that these Marines have anywhere near the kind of training required to police protests while respecting people's constitutional rights would be laughable if the situation weren't so alarming, end quote.

Joining us now is Eva Bitran, director of immigrants rights for the A CLU of Southern California. Eva, thanks so much for joining us.

What is the ACLU's biggest concern right now with the deployment of members of the U.S. military to Los Angeles?

EVA BITRAN, DIRECTOR OF IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS, ACLU OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: We have two main concerns ongoing. The first is the safety of our friends and family members who are out protesting with righteous anger about what has happened to the immigrant community and the effect that this deployment has on chilling people's First Amendment rights.

Our second concern is for the immigrants who were taken from their homes in the middle of the night or from their work sites in the middle of the day, held in a basement with no access to council and are still detained, pending what happens next in their cases.

BLITIZER: Presidents in the past have used the National Guard without the state governor being on board. I want to read what President Trump posted just a little while ago. Let me read it, and it's a quote. If I didn't send in the troops to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful in great city would be burning to the ground right now, close quote. Trump is suggesting he had to send in the military to quell the unrest. How do you respond to that?

BITRAN: That's just absolutely false. The situation in Los Angeles was well under control. Most of what we're seeing is peaceful protests, people really worried about their immigrant friends and families, their loved ones, and their neighbors, going out singing songs, dancing in the streets, trying to call attention to our vibrant community. That is facing this danger from afar. There's absolutely no justification for the National Guard being called in. And as the governor's suit demonstrates, it does not fall within the narrow category of permissible action for the National Guard to be deployed.

BLITIZER: But I think you'll acknowledge there has been some violence during the course of those protests, right.

BITRAN: Look, everyone has a right to engage in First Amendment protected conduct, and we know that escalation and violence just serve the president's narrative and play into his purported justification for responding however wrongly with force. But it's important to recognize that people are heartbroken and really, really angry because ICE is kidnapping beloved members of our community and our families. And protest is an outlet for this righteous anger.

BLITIZER: The Trump administration, Eva, says it's going to take a hard line with demonstrators out in Los Angeles, including saying of protesters, they spit, we hit.

[10:30:00]

What's your response to that?