‘He refused to act on Jan 6’: Nancy Pelosi questions Donald Trump’s Los Angeles troop deployment; slams hypocrisy in National Guard use

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has sharply criticised US President Donald Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles without state approval.The veteran Democrat leader questioned why he refused a similar move during the January 6 Capitol riot.Pelosi pointed to what she called a troubling contrast. “On January 6th, we begged the president of the United States to send in the National Guard. He would not do it. And yet, in a contra-constitutional way, he has sent the National Guard into California. Something is very wrong with this picture,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

The comments come after Trump deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles in response to protests triggered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.

California governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass condemned the move, saying it risked fuelling more violence. The White House has defended the action, claiming local authorities were not doing enough to protect federal property and personnel.Pelosi accused Trump of hypocrisy, drawing a parallel to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. She said that during the attack, lawmakers from both parties urged Trump to act.

“In a bipartisan way, on Jan. 6 — with violence against the Constitution, against the Congress and against the United States Capitol — we begged the president of the United States to send in the National Guard,” she said. “He would not do it.”At the time, Trump supporters had stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, following Joe Biden's victory in the presidential race. The riot followed months of Trump claiming, without evidence, that the election had been stolen.

In a speech that day, Trump had urged his supporters to march to the Capitol, resulting in violent clashes where more than 150 law enforcement officers were injured.Trump has since insisted that he authorised National Guard deployment on January 6, but former acting defence secretary Christopher Miller testified in 2022 that no such formal order was given.Pelosi also took aim at Trump for later pardoning individuals involved in the January 6 violence. “When law enforcement people were being harmed — some later died — he would not send [the Guard] in,” she said. “He forgave those people.”