- 6/10/2025
Dr. Houman Hemmati, who serves of the Board of Directors of 'Saving California,' joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss the protests in Los Angeles over workplace ICE raids, as well as President Donald Trump deploying the National Guard and Marines against Governor Gavin Newsom's wishes in response.
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00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now
00:07is Dr. Human Hamadi, who serves on the board of directors of Saving California. Dr. Hamadi,
00:12thank you so much for joining me. Thanks so much for having me again.
00:15I would love to talk about what exactly is happening in the LA area right now,
00:20because let's start from the beginning. On Friday, protests broke out over workplace raids by ICE,
00:26and the scene on the ground since then have been described by some reports as largely peaceful
00:32with pockets of violence or chaos. LA Police Chief Jim McDonald said this over the weekend,
00:37quote, in recent days, many protests across the city have been peaceful before adding that law
00:42enforcement must respond firmly, quote, when peaceful demonstrations devolve into acts of
00:47vandalism or violence. He also said things have gotten increasingly violent in the city.
00:51There have also been videos and images of cars lit on fire, vandalism, skirmishes,
00:56between protesters and police, even one video of a motorcycle ramming into a group of police
01:02officers. So can you describe exactly what has happened and unfolded in Southern California over
01:07the past couple of days? Absolutely. So, you know, as you know, President Trump, one of the reasons
01:13that he was elected to begin with was on his promise to deport criminal illegal aliens from the US,
01:20something that has very broad support for obvious reasons. One problem is, however, that since
01:28Obama was in office and Obama deported very large numbers of illegal immigrants who were criminals as
01:36well, the state of California has passed a handful of laws wherein the state is now a sanctuary state.
01:44What does that mean? In the past, when Obama was president, prior to the sanctuary laws in California,
01:50when the federal government wanted to apprehend and deport criminal illegal aliens, they would simply
01:57go into the prisons, go into the courts, or the state would physically hand them over. There was
02:02electronic cooperation, there was physical cooperation, and it would be a seamless process without any
02:09fanfare. However, now that California is a sanctuary state, they release the criminal illegal aliens back
02:16into the general population, forcing the federal government, when they do want to apprehend and
02:21deport them, to find them where they are, whether it's at the workplace, whether it's at home, whether
02:26it's out in the community, and take them from there and process them and deport them. So what's happening
02:33now is that the process of this has become such, you know, involved affair, that it now attracts attention from
02:43people who otherwise wouldn't be noticing that this is happening, right? It requires large numbers of heavily armed
02:48people in body armor, with armored vehicles in many cases, coming in in the open to communities, and, you know,
02:56apprehending in a lawful manner, and then processing and deporting individuals. The problem is now,
03:03that this is obviously being met with a huge amount of resistance, something that otherwise would not
03:08have happened, had there not been those sanctuary laws. And that resistance has turned into a lot of
03:14anger, understandably, on some parts, but it's also turned into protests, which are legitimate. But
03:21obviously, in LA, protests never stay as protests. And we have a large number of people who were ready,
03:27it seems, to respond violently. And that's what's happened.
03:30And so let's talk about those protests, because they started on Friday, and they kept it up over
03:36the weekend. And there's a real standoff between your state's governor, Governor Gavin Newsom, and
03:42President Donald Trump. President Trump deployed the National Guard, 2,000 troops to begin with,
03:47and that was against Governor Gavin Newsom's wishes. What do you make of that move by the president?
03:52Yeah, so this, we really need to clarify something here, because the way that Newsom and the way that the
03:59media generally are portraying the deployment of the National Guard and even the Marines is as a
04:05general deployment to handle the civil unrest of the riots that are happening in parts of Los Angeles.
04:11That is actually not the case, right? The president does not have the right to do that unless certain
04:17things are done, like the Insurrection Act is invoked. Legally, what the president is entitled to do,
04:23in which what the president has done is to deploy troops through the National Guard or even the
04:28Marines to protect federal properties, period, right? And you can see that, by the way, from all of the
04:36news footage. Not once do you see National Guard troops present with machine guns, present just even
04:42unarmed in any of those urban areas where rioting is occurring. They're not stopping people from
04:48looting stores. They're not stopping people from attacking police on the freeways, etc. They're
04:53simply positioned at federal buildings throughout Los Angeles where federal employees are to protect
05:00the buildings and protect the employees. And that is it, and that's legal. However, Newsom is trying to
05:06gain political points by misrepresenting what's happening, frankly lying about it, vilifying the National
05:13Guard, who he himself had called in after the fires to try to protect parts of Los Angeles.
05:18And making it seem like this is a war between California and federal troops who are invading
05:24his state. But there is no such thing. To that point, I mean, he's accused President Trump of
05:29stoking tensions here, fanning the flames, turning up the temperature by deploying those troops.
05:36What do you make of his characterization there? It's absolutely false, because when you talk about
05:41turning up the temperature, who has turned up the temperature? It's been Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass,
05:46and all of their friends who are out there talking about how we will not stand for this using fighting
05:52terms, vilifying federal officers, and trying to turn this into almost a civil war of sorts. And they're
05:59basically encouraging people without telling them to go and physically fight. They're basically telling
06:05them to go out there and obstruct and to try to prevent the feds from doing what the feds are legally
06:11entitled to do, albeit in a very public sort of manner. And so when you think about it, these federal
06:18troops, they are simply there to protect and guard federal buildings, something that wasn't happening.
06:23When you look at Friday, Saturday, Sunday, what was going on? Immense amounts of graffiti on federal
06:29buildings with a lot of profanity and threats of violence. There was damage, physical damage. They were
06:35breaking concrete bollards around the buildings. They were trying to invade the buildings, even burn
06:40them down. That can't stand. And when you don't have LAPD or CHP doing their jobs, because they're
06:46overwhelmed, and they frankly, in some cases, don't even want to be involved, who else is going to
06:52protect those federal facilities? It has to be the feds. And the feds, the only recourse they have is
06:57to bring in National Guard and other forces. I know that those, those federal troops, those 4,700 troops
07:06are there to protect federal buildings. And I've seen plenty of videos, plenty of images of vandalism, of
07:13cars on fire. But is that number, do you think, an overcorrection? Do you think there really needs to be
07:194,700 troops right now, protecting federal buildings in the LA area?
07:25All right, well, first of all, I'm not an expert in military or law enforcement, and I won't pretend to be
07:31an expert in that. That said, when you have such a large number, you have to keep in mind, as we saw
07:37with the fires, right? We had a very large number of National Guard present for the fires. Not all of them
07:43were out there in the field at any given time, right? They have to take shifts. They have to sleep at some
07:48point. You have a lot of people who are involved in housing them, in feeding them, in doing
07:54coordination, doing command and control. And so you don't have 4,700 people, 24-7, standing there with
08:00weapons in front of buildings and in the streets. That's simply not the case, right? And I think so,
08:06when we talk about these numbers, a lot of it's exaggerated in terms of what is actually visible
08:11and what people are doing. But frankly, when you think about it, you can't have 5 or 10 or even 50
08:17people around a federal building when you have thousands of people potentially coming to attack
08:22it. You can't be overwhelmed that way. And because of that, I don't think they have any choice but to
08:27have a very large presence so that they cannot become overwhelmed. The last thing they want is
08:32to have to get into a shooting fight with people who are Americans or illegals, doesn't matter, who are
08:39trying to come and attack a federal building. What's much easier to do is to physically obstruct them
08:43than to have to shoot people who are attacking. I know that LA Mayor Karen Bask and Governor Gavin
08:49Newsom said that people who vandalize, people who commit violent acts, they will be held accountable
08:56here. But there is a clear distinction in leadership here of California leadership against President
09:04Trump right now. Governor Gavin Newsom suing President Trump over deploying the National Guard
09:09and the Marines. As I said earlier, he calls this an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism and a
09:14blatant abuse of power on President Trump's part. What do you make of Governor Gavin Newsom's leadership in
09:21this moment right now? You know, Newsom actually has squandered an incredible opportunity to appear like a
09:28strong leader, even appear presidential. We all know that it's no secret that he has some presidential ambitions in
09:332028. He had an opportunity here when all of the violence was beginning, when the attacks on police,
09:40when attacks on his own CHP, who are part of his protective detail, for goodness sakes, were occurring
09:44to get out there in the field, get off of Twitter or X, physically go out, not just do press conferences
09:52or one-on-one interviews in some bunker with his select journalists, but to go out there, address the
09:58people directly who are involved in this and say, this will not stand and issue orders for them to be
10:03arrested. He didn't do that. How many have been arrested? Dozens? At most? We're not seeing hundreds
10:10or thousands of people being taken in for criminal behavior, even though that criminal behavior is
10:15happening right in front of us, live. So he squandered that opportunity. Instead, he's gone to X.
10:24He did, in a 24-hour period between, I think, Sunday and Monday, he did 34 tweets just from his
10:31personal account alone, not even counting his official California governor account, which had
10:36many more as well. He's been on a rampage, just attacking Trump, but not once has he actually shown
10:43any direct leadership regarding dealing with the crime and the violence and the rioting that's
10:49happening on his own streets. And so I think he's squandered it. He's appearing like a petulant
10:53child rather than appearing like someone who can take charge of a situation. I don't think anyone on
10:59the ground, people who live in Los Angeles who are being impacted by this, are really worried about
11:05the political aspects of this, the Trump versus Newsom political fight. What they're worried about
11:10is, are they going to come to my neighborhood? Are they going to burn down my, you know, stores? Are
11:15they going to loot my neighborhood? And that's, that's what their concern is. Am I car going to
11:19get blocked on the freeway? No one's caring about anything else. And Newsom is, is a bit tone deaf
11:24when it comes to this. And he thinks that he can score political points by using this to attack
11:29Trump. But that's, that's failing. I know that you said this at the beginning of the conversation,
11:35that people have the right to protest. That's their First Amendment right. You're allowed to peace,
11:39peacefully protest. But do you think anyone in California right now, any California leadership
11:44is doing a good job of walking the line of, hey, Californians, people of Los Angeles,
11:50you're allowed to peacefully protest, but you can't cross this line when it gets violent,
11:55when it gets chaotic, when there's vandalism. Is anyone doing a good job of really showing,
12:02showing that line? No, that's the problem. I mean, there's, you know, look to his credit,
12:08Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, who's a, you know, very far left member of the California State Assembly,
12:13good person, but has political views that are on one extreme side. He's trying to encourage that he's
12:21trying to show up to the protests and depict images of people who actually are being peaceful to his
12:27credit. So there is that aspect. But there aren't too many who are encouraging that most others are
12:32focused on trying to encourage people to be a little more than just loud. Being loud at a protest is
12:39absolutely legal, as long as you're not harming anyone, as long as you're not obstructing anyone.
12:45But most of what we're seeing here is crossing that line.
12:48And I want to talk about some comments from President Trump before I let you go. And I want
12:52to first start by saying, border czar Tom Holman said there's no plan to arrest Governor Gavin Newsom.
12:59But President Trump said that I would do it if I were Tom, meaning Tom Holman, on arresting Gavin
13:05Newsom. He said that Gavin Newsom's, quote, primary crime was running for governor because he's done
13:10such a bad job. What do you make of President Trump's comments there? Do you think that's
13:14really helpful to this situation that's in California right now?
13:18You know, look, I think what President Trump said about arresting Gavin Newsom was playing into
13:24Newsom's own request to say, hey, come and arrest me, which he said in multiple interviews over the
13:30last two or three days. I think he's doing that sarcastically and doing that in order to draw
13:36attention to how insane this entire situation has become and how outlandish some of the comments that
13:43Newsom has been making are. And so I don't think in any way, shape or form that Trump is serious about
13:50arresting a sitting governor. Should he actually commit a true crime? Absolutely. But I don't think
13:56that's necessarily occurred. What he's what he's doing is showing really a failure of leadership.
14:00Failing as a leader is not necessarily criminal. It's something that should be punished by
14:04the voters through recall or through not electing. He's he's term limited out. So the only thing that
14:10voters really can do is to a remove him from power should they wish. It's something that I hope would
14:16happen. But, you know, there are many steps involved in that. And the other step I think Californians
14:20really need to take is to take a hard look in the next election in 2026 for governor and ask
14:26themselves, is this the kind of leadership that we want again for our state for four years into 2030?
14:32Or do we want to go and vote for someone who is really the opposite of Newsom? And there are plenty
14:38of people who are who've announced the running who are very different than Newsom politically.
14:42And there are many others who are exact clones and many people somewhere in between. And I think
14:47California voters really need to sit down and ask themselves, is this the kind of leadership that
14:52we want? And in many cases, when we look at the mismanagement of the fires, the mismanagement
14:57of the rioting and everything else that's been mismanaged with respect to economy, energy prices,
15:03taxation, homelessness and crime, we have a really, you know, disastrous picture for the type of Newsom
15:10governance that we've seen in the last several years. And many people are fed up and want something
15:15very different. So I want to talk about where we are right now and what exactly you're looking for
15:19in the future. And as you and I sit here, it's day five of these protests. And as of now, they are a
15:26little more muted than over the past couple of days and especially over the weekend. But on the ground,
15:31there are going to be 4,700 troops. I'm curious what you're looking out for next, because as you and
15:37I know, the protests, the anti-ice demonstrations are spilling out to other cities. So what are you looking
15:42out for next when it comes to California? Look, in California, there's always that concern that the
15:47protests or the rioting, as I'm calling it, the protests I'm not worried about, right? The rioting
15:52can spill over to other communities. Right now, even though, you know, in the media, it's portrayed
15:57as Los Angeles is rioting. We have to be honest, the rioting is confined to certain areas, mostly around
16:05the downtown LA area in a nearby community called Paramount, where there are some raids
16:10last Friday. It's not a widespread rioting like happened, you know, when the Rodney King riots
16:17occurred in 1992. That said, LA has also shown a propensity for rioting to spill over. When you
16:23look at May 2020 with the BLM riots, what happened? It started in the downtown LA area, spread to the
16:32Fairfax area, the Grove area, from there to Beverly Hills. And on the 31st of May in 2020, spread to
16:38Santa Monica, after which it finally started to die down. And I think in this case, a similar sort
16:44of pattern may occur. Remember, we have protesters who are not really causing problems. You have
16:50rioters who are causing problems. And then you also have the opportunistic looters, professional
16:56groups of people who like to take advantage of the lawlessness and chaos to go and loot. And there's
17:01always a chance. And we saw looting happening on Broadway in downtown LA last night when, you know,
17:07some restaurants and even the big Apple store on Broadway were looted, completely emptied out in a
17:13very short span of time, that that can spread citywide. And unless we have a good law enforcement
17:18presence on the ground, it very likely could. And that's the concern. Remember, the National Guard
17:24is not there in a capacity to stop any of that from happening. Legally, the National Guard cannot
17:29currently, under their current deployment orders, get involved in prevention of looting,
17:34prevention of rioting, anything that does not have to do directly with federal facilities or
17:40federal employees. That's still on Newsom, and that's still on Karen Bass.
17:44Dr. Hamadi, I appreciate you coming on, sharing your insight here into this situation. And as it
17:49develops, I hope you come back on and join me. Dr. Hamadi, I appreciate the time today.
17:53Be a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on again.
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