Trump Deploys the Military to L.A., Endorses Arresting Gov. Newsom–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: June 9, 2025

Indy Digest: June 9, 2025

ABC News punished a prominent correspondent after he made his feelings known about the motivations of President Trump and Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff.

The Associated Press reports:

It’s shocking to see a big-name network reporter speak out like this, and it’s no surprise that ABC News took action after he did. It does not matter that what Moran said was accurate, and demonstrably so.

(I’ve been asked a time or three why I’ve chosen to publish small local publications rather than pursue a career at a big-name media outlet. The ability to speak truth to power is one gargantFTruuan reason why.)

I am in San Diego for a couple of days on a working vacation. Last night, my friends and I got takeout from Buona Forchetta, the restaurant that made national news after a brutal, militaristic Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on May 30. As NBC 7 San Diego put it, the “raid involved at least 20 masked agents in military-style gear taking a group of workers into custody, while also confronting and handcuffing others and at one point detonating flash-bang grenades in the vicinity.”

Our food wasn’t quite ready when we arrived. As we waited, the restaurant phone rang. The young woman working the pickup counter took a break from folding cloth napkins to politely answer—before abruptly hanging up after just a few seconds. With a sigh, she explained that ever since the raid, the restaurant has been repeatedly receiving angry, harassing phone calls.

There’s no question that our immigration system is messed up and in serious need of reform. If the restaurant owner, who is accused of forging visas and other wrongdoing, is found guilty, he should be held accountable.

That said, there is no reason for ICE to be engaging in military-style raids at restaurants, U-Haul locations and grocery stores—which is exactly what’s been happening across Southern California in recent days, including in the Coachella Valley.

But Stephen Miller—whose extreme anti-immigrant views (or, I should say, anti-nonwhite-immigrant views) are well-established—has demanded that ICE needs to up their game, and start arresting 3,000 immigrants a day.

Given ICE’s recent targets of dishwashers and people looking for day work, and the horrifying use of force being deployed, it’s clear this isn’t about safety. It’s about hate.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Unless you live under a rock, you’re aware that things have gotten rather ugly in parts of downtown Los Angeles. Here’s the Los Angeles Times’ updated coverage. Also from the LA Times: I highly recommend this column by Pulitzer Prize finalist (and friend of the Independent) Gustavo Arellano, headlined “Trump wants L.A. to set itself on fire. Let’s rebel smarter.” A snippet: “At moments like these, I remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous maxim that ‘a riot is the language of the unheard,’ even as he described riots in the same 1967 speech as ‘socially destructive and self-defeating.’ Most who took to the streets last weekend are righteously angry at what Trump has done, and plans to do, to L.A. But their fury was too easily co-opted by the few who want to wantonly destroy and used the cover of protest to do so.“

• To show how truly weird and scary things are getting: The president has said he’d be fine with arresting the governor of California. KTLA explains: “Speaking to reporters at the White House Monday, the president responded to a question from Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy regarding the ongoing back-and-forth between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Trump’s ‘border czar’ Tom Homan. ‘Gavin Newsom is daring Tom Homan to come and arrest him,’ Doocy asked Trump in the video captured by CNN cameras. ‘Should he do it?’ Trump endorsed the idea, responding, ‘I would do it if I were Tom.’ ‘I think it’s great. Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing,’ Trump said. He continued by calling Newsom a ‘nice guy,’ but ‘grossly incompetent.’ Newsom responded quickly on social media. ‘This is a day I hoped I would never see in America,’ he wrote. ‘I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation—this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.’”

• A professor of history from the U.S. Naval Academy offers some context on how alarming Trump’s actions in California truly are: “Responding to street protests in Los Angeles against federal immigration enforcement raids, President Donald Trump ordered 2,000 soldiers from the California National Guard into the city on June 7, 2025, to protect agents carrying out the raids. Trump also authorized the Pentagon to dispatch regular U.S. troops ‘as necessary’ to support the California National Guard. … My recent book, ‘Kent State: An American Tragedy,’ examines a historic clash on May 4, 1970, between anti-war protesters and National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio. The confrontation escalated into violence: troops opened fire on the demonstrators, killing four students and wounding nine others, including one who was paralyzed for life. In my view, dispatching California National Guard troops against civilian protesters in Los Angeles chillingly echoes decisions and actions that led to the tragic Kent State shooting. Some active-duty units, as well as National Guard troops, are better prepared today than in 1970 to respond to riots and violent protests—but the vast majority of their training and their primary mission remains to fight, to kill, and to win wars.”

• The New York Times reports on journalists who were injured covering the protests: “Several journalists have been injured while covering the protests in Los Angeles, including a television reporter who was struck when a law enforcement officer fired a nonlethal projectile while she was on the air. The reporter, Lauren Tomasi of 9News Australia, a CNN affiliate, was conducting a live broadcast from the scene of a protest on Sunday afternoon when she was hit. Video of the broadcast shows Ms. Tomasi standing off to the side of an intersection in downtown Los Angeles. Armed police officers, some on horseback, are seen behind her, squaring off against protesters as booms are heard in the background. … Then, the video shows a law enforcement officer pointing a weapon toward Ms. Tomasi and firing it. She shrieks and limps away. According to the broadcaster, Ms. Tomasi was hit with a projectile and left sore but not seriously hurt. … The L.A.P.D. said it did not have ‘any comment or statement on any specific incident pertaining to the protests.’” Ugh.

• In other horrific news: Robert F. Kennedy has removed all members of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel on vaccines. CNBC reports: “Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday said he is ‘retiring’ all 17 members of a crucial government panel of vaccine advisors, a shocking step that could help to sow doubts about immunizations in the U.S. ‘A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,’ Kennedy said in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. Kennedy is removing all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The group reviews vaccine data and makes recommendations that determine who is eligible for shots and whether insurers should cover them, among other efforts. ACIP members are independent medical and public experts who make recommendations based on rigorous scientific review and evidence. The CDC director has to sign off on those recommendations for them to become official policy.”

• An update: Last week, we published a community voices piece by Palm Springs Mayor Ron deHarte. In it, he made the case that a proposal to phase out natural-gas water heaters and furnaces would harm the Coachella Valley’s most financially vulnerable residents. Our partners at Calmatters report that the proposal was rejected: “After a contentious, five-hour hearing, Southern California air quality regulators rejected measures that would have phased out residential gas-powered water heaters and furnaces in the Los Angeles basin. The two rules, designed to clean up one of the biggest sources of the region’s severe smog, would have set increasing targets for sales of zero-emission products in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties over the next decade—beginning with 30% in 2027. The targets would not have been mandatory, although manufacturers would pay fees for each natural gas water heater or furnace they sell. … The board voted 7-4 to send the two proposed rules back to a committee, which means any new version likely won’t be considered until next year.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … eggs! SFGate says: “Recalled eggs sold throughout California are part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest salmonella outbreak alert, which applies to nine states total. A total of 79 people across seven states have been sickened with salmonella linked to eggs sold by August Egg Co., including 21 people who were hospitalized, the CDC announced Friday. The Hilmar-based company recalled 1.7 million dozen brown cage-free and brown certified organic eggs distributed to retail stores in California and Nevada, including Safeway, Raley’s, Food 4 Less, Lucky, Save Mart, FoodMaxx and Ralphs. The eggs also found their way to Walmart stores in California, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Nebraska, Indiana and Illinois. The eggs were shipped during the period from Feb. 3 through May 6 or May 15, depending on location, according to the FDA. The recall notice has the company’s full list of egg brands that were part of the recall.”

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