"Shortly after President Trump praised the National Guard for their work in Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass reminded residents that the troops had not arrived."

"'Just to be clear, the National Guard has not been deployed in the City of Los Angeles,' she said on social media."

Written in the NYT, 3 hours ago.

More detail, again from the NYT, published 3 hours ago:

National Guard troops will arrive in Los Angeles County within the next 24 hours, the Trump administration’s top law enforcement official in Southern California said, to quell protests over immigration enforcement that are “out of control.”

Bilal A. “Bill” Essayli, the interim U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in an interview on Saturday night that the 2,000 troops were needed to keep the peace in the sprawling region.... "They threw rocks at the officers,” Mr. Essayli said. “We had Molotov cocktails thrown. We had all kinds of assaults on agents. The state has an obligation to maintain order and maintain public safety, and they’re unable to do that right now in Los Angeles. So the federal government will send in resources to regain order.”...

Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed back against the president’s order, calling it “purposefully inflammatory.” Mr. Trump had federalized the National Guard “not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle,” Mr. Newsom said.

“The governor doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said Mr. Essayli, a former Republican state legislator who before his federal appointment in April was a frequent critic of Mr. Newsom, a Democrat.

"It’s like daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off."

This is a big topic on X this morning:

MEL GIBSON on Trump heading to California today: “It’s like daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off.”

pic.twitter.com/8mFU55JP7N

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 25, 2025

Scanning the posts over there, I'm mostly seeing the sharing of the video, in a manner that seems to approve of Trump's style and Gibson's rhetoric. The articulated criticism seems to have more to do with a purported weirdness to calling Trump "daddy" than any outrage about using the corporal punishment of children as a simile. I'd say "he’s taking his belt off" is much milder than "he's kicking ass" (which is a very common and accepted metaphor), so the focus on "daddy" seems apt. What I'd say about that is there's a longstanding practice of analyzing Democrats and Republicans as the "mommy party" and the "daddy party," and — as we can see in the video with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Trump, blogged below — the mommy/daddy contrast was very much on display in California yesterday. 

I'll make a more refined criticism of Gibson's simile. Mayor Bass represented the maternal tendency of the Democratic Party. She's in the mother position, not the child. Trump represented the role of the father, but if "daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off," he should be going after his children, because they've misbehaved. With respect to the children's mother, his wife, he should be helping her solve problems with the children, not going after her. I think — as you can see by my earlier post — that Trump was trying to encourage her to step up and to use her executive powers, to be an effective co-parent. Mommy and Daddy can work together. 

"If people are willing to get a dumpster and do it themselves and clean it out.... It'll look perfect within 24 hours and that's what he wants to do."

"He doesn't want to wait around for 7 months till the city hires some demolition contract... $25,000 to do his lot.... You have emergency powers just like I do, and I'm exercising my emergency powers. You have to exercise them.... You have a very powerful emergency power and you can do everything within 24 hours. Yes. And if individuals want to clear out their property, they can."

Said President Trump to L.A. Mayor Karen Bass:

 

Bass, struggling to keep up with Trump's time pressure, ventured: "Well, yes, but you know that you will be able to go back soon.... we think within a week."

7 months wasn't good enough for Trump and neither was a week. He said: "That's a long time away — I'll be honest — to me..... And — the most important thing — a week is a long [time to people who want to go in and clean out their own house]."

Bass interrupted to say that she wanted people to be safe, and Trump cut her off and overpowered her: "They're safe. They're safe. You know what? They're not safe. They're not safe now. They're going to be much safer. A week is actually a long time.... I watched hundreds of people. standing in front of their lots and they're not allowed to go in. It's all burned. It's gone. It's done.... It's not going to burn any more. There's nothing to burn. There's almost nothing to burn. And they want to go in there...."

Bass embodied caution. She articulated the interest in safety, but perhaps she wants to save the work for the contractors who — Trump says — will charge $25,000 for each lot cleared. Trump pictures the homeowners rushing in grabbing armloads of debris and heaving it into dumpsters overnight. But don't you need contractors to deliver and pick up those dumpsters? And won't some of those homeowners — are they the homeowners — injure themselves jumping about in the wreckage? What is the big hurry? But Bass comes across as weak and afraid to take action, while Trump seems commanding and sanguine, ready to unleash the power of the individual citizens who are raring to get in there and transform the landscape overnight. You can do everything within 24 hours. 

"The Cubans also have two medicines, one for diabetes, of which my mother died for, lung cancer, which my father died for, and I would like to have those drugs tested in the United States."

Said Karen Bass — a congresswoman on Biden's VP shortlist — on "Meet the Press" today when she was prompted by Chuck Todd to talk about what seems to have been her "celebrating" of the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba.

My bullshit detector went off at "diabetes, of which my mother died for, lung cancer, which my father died for." I don't doubt that her mother died of diabetes and her father died of lung cancer, but obviously they did not die for their disease. I don't think that's an error that arises out of ignorance of proper English. I think that's the kind of thing that gets out when you're thinking something different from what you are saying.

And what are the drugs that they have in Cuba that aren't even tested here? I'd like to know. Bass was oddly enthusiastic about Cuban medicine and purported to have expertise:

[F]or the last 20 years, I've actually been working on health care related issues in Cuba. You know, the Cubans train U.S. doctors. And I've been recruiting those doctors to work in the inner city because they come in tuition free....