Trump Gives Up on 3 National Guard Deployments
A protester confronts a line of National Guard members in downtown Los Angeles, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer, File)
The prolonged dispute over control of California’s National Guard has come to an end after the Trump administration withdrew its legal challenge. State Attorney General Rob Bonta said federal officials dropped their effort to block a court order restoring command of the Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to ABC10. As a result, a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is now fully in effect, ending months of extended federal authority over the Guard.
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, President Trump also announced that he was abandoning plans to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, the Associated Press reported.
“We are removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, despite the fact that CRIME has been greatly reduced by having these great Patriots in those cities, and ONLY by that fact,” Trump wrote. He added that the federal government’s intervention had prevented those cities from collapsing and warned that troops could return in the future if crime rises again.
Troops had already withdrawn from Los Angeles, and although deployments were announced for Portland and Chicago, court challenges meant Guard members were never placed on the streets in those cities, the AP noted. A spokesman for Newsom, Izzy Gardon, said the state prevailed legally, telling the New York Times, “We won in court.”
According to ABC10, the administration’s reversal followed a related U.S. Supreme Court decision stemming from an Illinois case that rejected what California officials described as an expansive interpretation of presidential authority over state National Guard units. Earlier, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause the California district court’s injunction, ordering the Los Angeles-area deployment to wind down. Despite that ruling, the Guard remained under federal control until the administration formally withdrew its request to delay enforcement.
Bonta described the case as a significant test of constitutional limits on executive power. He accused the administration of using National Guard members for political purposes, including immigration enforcement and public demonstrations. “There is a reason our founders decided military and civilian affairs must be kept separate,” Bonta said. “Our military is, by design, apolitical.” He added that, following what he called a sharp rebuke from the Supreme Court, the administration stepped back from its effort to federalize and deploy California’s National Guard.
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