No, Trump Did Not Issue an Emergency Proclamation to Send Troops to L.A.

I don't know who did, but it wasn't Trump

The media, including the anti-Trump media, consistently claims that Trump issued a memorandum sending the National Guard to L.A. to battle whatever it is that TACO Con is afraid Angelenos might do that scares him.

Photo by Brendan Beale on Unsplash

I’m going to quote from The Bulwark¹, which is a prominent Never Trumper Substack publication that is so effective at Never Trumping that Trump won re-election somehow against an exciting female candidate who consistently drew enthusiastic crowds bigger than NBA championships.

This morning, The Bulwark, in attempting to explain the Trump regime’s latest chicanery, wrote this while describing the latest White House communications regarding the National Guard’s unwelcome visit to California (bold is mine):

On Saturday evening, June 7, 2025, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, issued a presidential memorandum addressed to the secretary of defense, the attorney general, and the secretary of homeland security. One might call it the Usurpation Proclamation. And while this weekend’s mobilization of two thousand National Guard troops in Los Angeles has alarmed many observers, I suspect we aren’t alarmed enough by this presidential order, which has implications far beyond this one action in one place.

Okay, stop right there. The president of the United States did no such thing. Why do I say this? Because the man is illiterate. He issued nothing. Someone else did. And someone else wrote what was issued, too.

It might be helpful to discover who wrote it, but what we must stop doing is “crediting” Trump with this kind of stuff. It normalizes him and makes him seem like a supreme being of power instead of the TACO chicken that he is.

Screenshot from Twitter

Let’s take a look at that memorandum, then at something that Trump writes for realz, to see what I mean.

Here’s the memorandum in full.² Tell me if you can possibly believe he is capable of writing this shiz:

SUBJECT: Department of Defense Security for the Protection of Department of Homeland Security Functions

Numerous incidents of violence and disorder have recently occurred and threaten to continue in response to the enforcement of Federal law by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions and supporting the faithful execution of Federal immigration laws. In addition, violent protests threaten the security of and significant damage to Federal immigration detention facilities and other Federal property. To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.

In light of these incidents and credible threats of continued violence, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard under 10 U.S.C. 12406 to temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions, including the enforcement of Federal law, and to protect Federal property, at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations. Further, I direct and delegate actions as necessary for the Secretary of Defense to coordinate with the Governors of the States and the National Guard Bureau in identifying and ordering into Federal service the appropriate members and units of the National Guard under this authority. The members and units of the National Guard called into Federal service shall be at least 2,000 National Guard personnel and the duration of duty shall be for 60 days or at the discretion of the Secretary of Defense. In addition, the Secretary of Defense may employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary to augment and support the protection of Federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion.

To carry out this mission, the deployed military personnel may perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary to ensure the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property The Secretary of Defense shall consult with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security prior to withdrawing any personnel from any location to which they are sent. The Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security may delegate to subordinate officials of their respective Departments any of the authorities conferred upon them by this memorandum.

Woah, dude! Where did you learn to write like that? Did the same people who created the Biden robot clones³ install a chip in your brain?

At 2:41 am that next morning, the nutter-in-chief wrote this on his personal social network, True Sociopath (or whatever he calls the damn thing):

Great job by the National Guard in Los Angeles after two days of violence, clashes and unrest. We have an incompetent Governor (Newscum) and Mayor (Bass) who were, as usual (just look at how they handled the fires, and now their VERY SLOW PERMITTING⁴ disaster. Federal permitting is complete!), unable to to handle the task. These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED. Also, from now on, MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED⁵ to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why??? Again, thank you to the National Guard for a job well done!⁶,⁷

Do you notice any difference in writing style?

Even some of the most beloved legal beagles within our echosphere of sanity are reporting this as though Trump is some great mastermind everyone must fear.

Why it matters

It’s easy to dismiss my concern as a trivial nitpick. After all, the memorandum was issued, and now we’re staring at a new level of authoritarianism in its ugly face. Who cares who wrote it?

I don’t really care who wrote it, either. Maybe it was Susie Wiles,⁸ the White House Chief of Staff. Maybe it was Stephen Miller, the Gestapo wannabe who is descended from immigrants who fled political conflict and has hated other immigrant families since he was a teenager.⁹

Maybe it was someone else, like one of the lawyers now working for the mad king, and who was probably supposed to have been judged by a jury of his peers not so long ago, before Merrick Garland handed over the government to a con man by letting himself get flooded with arcane legalese versions of the word phrase, “careful, don’t be hasty.”

What we do know is who didn’t write it. But it goes far beyond that supposedly trivial question. We also know that Trump doesn’t have the slightest understanding about the authority under which he has unleashed the National Guard upon the American population.

Even the legal beagles¹⁰ who are covering this much better than I ever will have had to dust off the law books and try to figure out the potential rationale behind this latest travesty, even though the presidential memorandum cites 10 U.S.C. 12406, a law Trump knew nothing about before his minions dug it up for him.

All presidents, of course, have had advisors. All presidents have had teams of legal experts whose job is to do nothing but dig up documented rationales for their actions.

The difference is that most modern presidents, with the possible exception of George W. Bush (who, years after his presidency, is the same age as the mad king), had a basic understanding of American law, constitutional and otherwise.

And even Bush was, although a bit of an idiot, not a nasty man you wouldn’t want within a thousand miles of your children.

I guess what frustrates me is that somehow we have forgotten that Trump’s mind, never exactly one envied by physicists or even tele-shrinks, is a fraction of its former self.

We need to remember that when something happens, Trump didn’t do anything. He’s the mouthpiece that roared. Nothing more.

We are being subjected to a coalition of Christo-nationalist fascists who have discovered how to run a regime under a despicably grotesque figurehead who is no more capable of issuing hundreds of AI-issued executive orders than I am of reciting War and Peace in Russian.

Treating him any differently than the unhinged, deranged, and mentally unwell dipshit that he is when writing about him is burying the lede.

So if you’re writing about Trump, do at least one thing: Stop burying the lede. Every story about him should include something about his degraded mental capacity, which he documents himself in the wee hours almost daily on his True Sociopath platform.

Treat him the way he should be treated. Not as some clever maniac. We don’t even know at this point if he’s truly in charge. I know he thinks he is. But I think people like Susie Wiles know better. And they’ve seized the country on his behalf.

This is the Weekend at Bernie’s presidency. Let’s treat it like that.

An easy-to-follow tutorial on writing about the Trump regime

Here’s my very short tutorial on writing about the Trump regime’s many acts of malevolence:

Instead of writing, “Trump issued an order calling for the end of the world as we know it,” write: “The Trump regime issued an order calling for the end of the world as we know it.”

That’s not so hard, is it?

Notes

UPDATE: California Governor Gavin Newsom has filed suit against the Trump regime to halt the National Guard operation, giving the Federalist Society-installed Supreme Court a big, beautiful opportunity to further erode American democracy.

---

Thanks for reading! Please stay safe if you’re out in the streets protesting. Don’t give them an excuse to shoot you.

Footnotes

1. Kristol, William, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift. 2025. “It’s Always Darkest before It Goes Pitch Black.” Thebulwark.com. The Bulwark. June 9, 2025.

It’s Always Darkest Before It Goes Pitch Black

2. “Department of Defense Security for the Protection of Department of Homeland Security Functions.” 2025. The White House. June 8, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/department-of-defense-security-for-the-protection-of-department-of-homeland-security-functions/.

3. BAHL, Vedika. 2025. “Truth or Fake - Yes, Trump Reposted a Conspiracy Theory That Biden Is a ‘Robotic Clone.’” France 24. FRANCE 24. June 3, 2025. https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20250603-yes-trump-reposted-a-conspiracy-theory-that-biden-is-a-robotic-clone.

4. What does that even mean?

5. Oh, no? Care to cite the part of the Constitution or federal law, mad king?

6. It seems worth mentioning here that the National Guard had not yet been deployed when he congratulated them on a job well done. I don’t know what goes on in that furry brain of his at 2:41 in the morning, but I do know that most of the soldiers were probably asleep at that hour, like the rest of us who aren’t gallivanting through the streets looking for trouble at that hour.

7. “Donald J. Trump (@RealDonaldTrump).” 2025. Truth Social. 2025. https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114646378582957392.

8. Ruminato. 2025. “Meet Stephen Miller’s Boss: Susie Wiles.” Ruminato.com. Ruminato. April 29, 2025. https://www.ruminato.com/p/meet-stephen-millers-boss-susie-wiles.

9. Bastille, Charles. 2024. “Meet Stephen Miller — the Last Man Standing.” Ruminato.com. Ruminato. September 23, 2024. https://www.ruminato.com/p/meet-stephen-miller-the-last-man.

10. I leave the legal interpretations to the qualified among us. My usual go-tos on the various legal questions posed by the criminal-in-chief are Jay Kuo and Joyce Vance, along with the online pub, Lawfare.