On the campaign trail last year, Donald Trump promised that he was not going to tolerate left-wing lawlessness on American streets and would use the full force of his presidential powers in response.
The protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts in California on Saturday night gave him an opening to follow through on that promise.
Never mind that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said that the protests were largely peaceful, or that the ones that were more disruptive involved just a few hundred individuals.
Trump administration officials said that immigration agents were being targeted and injured – and that local law enforcement had been too slow to respond.
"Waiting several hours for LAPD to show up - or them telling us that they're not going to back us up until they have an officer in a dangerous situation - is something that just isn't workable when you have violent protests going on," Homeland Security Secretary Kirsty Noem told CBS News on Sunday morning.
