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Exclusive: California AG Rob Bonta Speaks Out After Judge Blocks Trump National Guard Deployment
California’s top law-enforcement officer joins Michael Popok of Legal AF to unpack how the courts stopped Trump’s unlawful National Guard deployment, and what comes next.
In an extraordinary late-night rebuke of executive overreach, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, issued her second temporary restraining order in as many days blocking Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops into Oregon. This time, the order came after the administration attempted to sidestep her Saturday ruling by deploying California’s National Guard instead. Moments ago, California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Legal AF host Michael Popok to break down the legal and constitutional stakes of what has become a dramatic showdown between the federal government and the states.
“This was an Oregon case until about half a day ago,” Bonta explained. “Then it became a California and Oregon case” as Trump ordered roughly 300 federalized California National Guard personnel “moved a thousand miles up north to Portland, where a judge had already said yesterday that the conditions on the ground absolutely do not justify the federalization of National Guard.”
Judge Immergut’s original 31-page order on Saturday held that Trump lacked the legal authority under federal statutes to commandeer Oregon’s National Guard. She wrote that the case “involves the intersection of three of the most fundamental principles in our constitutional democracy” — the relationship between the federal government and the states, the limits on using armed forces for domestic law enforcement, and the role of the judiciary in ensuring the executive branch abides by the law. Quoting James Madison, she warned that “a standing military force with an overgrown executive” is “not long… safe companions to liberty” and concluded, “This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law.”
Yet within hours, the Trump administration had begun sending California’s Guard into Oregon. According to Bonta, Judge Immergut was “completely miffed” by the attempt to circumvent her ruling. “Her first set of questions of the federal government were, how does this not violate my order from yesterday? And I think she’s right,” he told Popok. “This sort of super-technical approach… was untethered from reality.”
Bonta also revealed that just minutes before Sunday’s emergency hearing, his office learned through a memorandum from Trump’s Defense Secretary that the Texas National Guard had also been federalized, with hundreds slated for deployment to Portland and Chicago. “It is clear that it’s a sort of whac-a-mole approach… you stop the Oregon National Guard from being federalized, [they] bring up the California National Guard. You stop the California National Guard, [they] bring in the Texas National Guard,” Bonta said. “So we asked the judge to issue a broad order… that applies to every National Guard in every state and the District of Columbia.” Immergut granted that request from the bench.
Bonta praised the teamwork between California and Oregon’s legal teams, working overtime on a Sunday to protect constitutional limits. “Democracy needs to be protected every day. And the rule of law does as well,” he said. He also emphasized the real-world stakes: “The conditions have not changed in 24 hours. National Guard being deployed in Oregon was unlawful yesterday. It’s unlawful today as well. It doesn’t matter where the National Guard comes from — Oregon’s, California’s, or Texas’.”
Popok noted the irony of Trump’s attacks on a judge he himself appointed. Immergut, a former federal prosecutor and U.S. Attorney with deep experience in Portland, has been unflinching in her rulings. “She knows what’s at stake. She knows what the issues are here,” Popok said. “She’s following the facts, following the law. Let the chips fall where they may.”
For now, Bonta expects the federal government to comply with the second restraining order, which bars the California Guard from performing any official duties in Portland. But the legal battle is far from over. Appeals have already been filed, and Trump’s pattern of open defiance suggests further clashes ahead. Still, for the moment, the courts have drawn a line. As Bonta summed it up, “The Trump-appointed judge nailed it and appropriately stopped Trump from this unlawful conduct.”
In a moment when the separation of powers and state sovereignty are being tested, Judge Immergut’s orders reaffirm a basic democratic principle: the president cannot simply deploy troops into American cities at will. This is, as she wrote, “a nation of constitutional law, not martial law.”
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