White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt scoffed at a reporter’s suggestion that President Donald Trump is against peaceful protests that are opposed to his agenda during Wednesday’s briefing.
Jasmine Wright, a politics reporter for NOTUS, asked Leavitt to “clarify” the types of protests that Trump supports after he warned that any protests at the upcoming military parade would be met with “very big force.” The press secretary said that Trump supports the First Amendment and peaceful protest.
“Can you clarify what kind of protest President Trump does support or find acceptable?” Wright asked.
“The president absolutely supports peaceful protest, he supports the First Amendment, he supports the right of Americans to make their voices heard,” Leavitt said. “He does not support violence of any kind, he does not support assaulting law enforcement officers who are simply trying to do their job. It is very clear to the president what he supports and what he does not. Unfortunately for Democrats, that line has not been made clear and they’ve allowed this unrest and this violence to continue and the president has had to step in.”
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Wright then asked if Trump would accept peaceful protests at the parade, to which Leavitt called a “stupid question.”
“So if there were peaceful protests on Saturday for the military parade, President Trump would allow that?” Wright asked.
“Of course the president supports peaceful protest. What a stupid question,” Leavitt replied.
Trump deployed at least 2,000 National Guard troops and around 700 U.S. Marines to combat the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) riots that have broken out in Los Angeles since Friday. The riots erupted in response to ICE’s raids and arrests of illegal immigrants who were convicted of heinous crimes, including second degree murder and attempted rape.
The state of California, along with Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom, sued the Trump administration over its deployment of the National Guard. A federal judge rejected California’s bid to immediately block the administration’s action in a Tuesday ruling.
Rioters have burned cars, looted stores, vandalized public property and vandalized police and law enforcement officers. Rioters threw rocks at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents as they attempted to leave Paramount, California, causing one agent to suffer from a minor incarceration to his hand after a rock broke through the windshield, Fox News’ Bill Melugin reported on Saturday.
Local stores and businesses have boarded up their shops to prevent any more looting.
LOS ANGELES: Some shops are boarding up now as it’s two hours till curfew. Massive group is still waking the streets of downtown @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/7lgBzIYtc5
— Hailey Grace Gomez (@haileyggomez) June 11, 2025
LOS ANGELES: Adidas is boarding up their store that already got looted. Shops next to it have workers cutting wood to finish up as we’re now about 40 minutes out from curfew @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/Pshx5lixbZ
— Hailey Grace Gomez (@haileyggomez) June 11, 2025
Rioters in Little Tokyo tagged the walls with anti-Trump and anti-ICE rhetoric, writing things like “Fuck ICE, Trumps A Lame.”
LOS ANGELES: These signs on a local school in Little Tokyo were asking people not to tag the walls. Not sure when they went up, but clearly, they didn’t stop anyone @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/tEFublzbsY
— Hailey Grace Gomez (@haileyggomez) June 11, 2025
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed on Wednesday that Emiliano Garduno-Galvez, a Mexican national who had previously been deported from the U.S., will be charged with attempted murder after he threw a Molotov cocktail toward ICE agents during the riots.
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