{"id":73817,"date":"2025-06-30T15:55:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T22:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73817"},"modified":"2025-06-30T15:55:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T22:55:02","slug":"department-of-defense-agrees-its-time-for-trumps-militarization-of-los-angeles-to-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=73817","title":{"rendered":"Department of Defense agrees: it\u2019s time for Trump\u2019s militarization of Los Angeles to end"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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What you need to know:\u00a0<\/strong>As President Trump’s illegal militarization of Los Angeles continues to hamstring crucial firefighting resources in California, new reporting indicates top military officials are asking the Secretary of Defense to return troops to firefighting operations as Governor Newsom has\u00a0urged<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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SACRAMENTO\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 According to new reporting by the\u00a0Associated Press<\/a>, the top military commander overseeing troops illegally deployed to Los Angeles is asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to return 200 of those troops to firefighting operations \u2013 echoing Governor Gavin Newsom\u2019s\u00a0continued<\/a>\u00a0pleas.<\/p>\n

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With fires popping up across the state and red flag conditions in the forecast, the California National Guard\u2019s (CalGuard) critical firefighting crews \u2013 known as Task Force Rattlesnake \u2013 are operating at just 40% capacity. Eight of 14 teams have been diverted to Los Angeles as part of President Trump\u2019s illegal \u2013\u00a0and highly inefficient<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 federalization of the Guard.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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“We\u2019re glad to see the top military commander overseeing Trump’s illegal militarization of Los Angeles agree: it\u2019s time to pull back National Guard troops and get them back to their critical firefighting duties. President Trump: listen to your military leaders, and stop the political theater.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Governor\u00a0Gavin Newsom<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Joint Task Force Rattlesnake<\/a>\u00a0is made up of over 300 California National Guard (CalGuard) members, who work at the direction of CAL FIRE to help fight and prevent fires. The President\u2019s illegal federalization of the Guard has\u00a0already impacted firefighting efforts<\/a>, leaving CAL FIRE to step in to fill the gaps left by the Guard\u2019s understaffing.<\/p>\n

The National Guard impact is on top of the Trump administration\u2019s dangerous\u00a0cuts to the U.S. Forest Service<\/a>, which also threatens the safety of communities across the state. The U.S. Forest Service has lost 10% of all positions and 25% of positions outside of direct wildfire response \u2013 both of which are likely to impact wildfire response this year.<\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s unlawful deployment has also\u00a0slashed California\u2019s National Guard fentanyl and drug interdiction force<\/a>\u00a0by 32% \u2014 undermining public safety and weakening border fentanyl seizure operations.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s unprecedented wildfire readiness<\/h2>\n

Despite the strain caused by President Trump, California stands ready to protect communities. As part of the state\u2019s ongoing investment in wildfire resilience and emergency response, CAL FIRE has significantly expanded its workforce over the past five years by adding an average of 1,800 full-time and 600 seasonal positions annually \u2013 nearly double that from the previous administration. Over the next four years and beyond, CAL FIRE will be\u00a0hiring thousands of additional firefighters<\/a>, natural resource professionals, and support personnel to meet the state\u2019s growing demands.<\/p>\n

This builds on consecutive years of intensive and focused work by California to confront the severe ongoing risk of catastrophic wildfires, and Governor Newsom\u2019s emergency proclamation signed in March to fast-track forest and vegetation management projects throughout the state. Additionally, to bolster the state\u2019s ability to respond to fires, Governor Newsom recently announced that the state\u2019s\u00a0second C-130 Hercules airtanker is ready for firefighting operations<\/a>, adding to the largest aerial firefighting fleet in the world.<\/p>\n

New, bold moves to streamline state-level regulatory processes builds long-term efforts already underway in California to\u00a0increase wildfire response and forest management in the face of a hotter, drier climate.<\/a>\u00a0A full list of California\u2019s progress on wildfire resilience is available\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What you need to know:\u00a0As President...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73818,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73817\/revisions\/73818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}