Mayor Karen Bass on Marines in Los Angeles

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Obama, News, Wnyc, Washington, Barack, President, Lizza, Wickenden

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🗓️ 28 July 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

The city of Los Angeles has declared itself a sanctuary city, where local authorities do not share information with federal immigration enforcement. But L.A.—where nearly forty per cent of residents are foreign-born—became ground zero for controversial arrests and deportations by ICE. The Trump Administration deployed marines and the National Guard to the city, purportedly to quell protests against the operation, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, spoke of the government’s intention to “liberate” Los Angeles from its elected officials. This week, David Remnick talks with the city’s mayor, Karen Bass, a former congressional representative, about the recent withdrawal of some troops, and a lawsuit the city has joined arguing that the Trump Administration’s immigration raids and detentions are unconstitutional. (A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the government.) “I’ve described L.A. as a petri dish,” Bass says. The Administration “wanted to . . . show that they could come in and do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and however they wanted. They were putting every other city in America on notice: ‘mess with us will come for you.’ ”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the political scene. I'm David Remnick. Early each week, we bring you a conversation from our episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:15.9	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:24.2	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. When Karen Bass was elected
0:31.0	mayor of Los Angeles in 2022, she won in part because of a promise to address the city's
0:37.2	pervasive and very deep housing crisis.
0:40.3	But now there's a different crisis at her doorstep.
0:43.3	Los Angeles is very much an immigrant city.
0:46.3	According to the census, more than a third of the city is foreign-born.
0:50.3	The Trump administration has been targeting L.A. as part of what the president called
0:55.7	the largest mass deportation operation in history. Ice raids have swept up immigrants who were in the
1:02.4	U.S. legally and in some cases are American citizens. In June, as protests against ICE developed,
1:10.1	Trump sent a military force of thousands of troops, National Guard, and even Marines, into Los Angeles, very much against the will of Mayor Bass and the governor, Gavin Newsom.
1:21.4	Some have gone home, but some troops are deployed in the city even now.
1:25.6	In Los Angeles, a battle has taken shape between a federal government
1:29.4	that asserts an absolute mandate and a local government that says we represent our people and will
1:36.2	take care of our issues. I spoke recently with Mayor Karen Bass. Mayor Bass, how are you?
1:44.7	Good. Good, good. I'm holding a good. You know, we haven't had any raids in a few days,
1:49.6	and so I'm doing just fine. So that's what counts for being good, is not having any fires
1:54.8	and not having any raids in a few days. How distorted is that? And you know what? And our men and
2:00.2	women are going home. And that's very
2:02.8	meaningful to me because to see the National Guard misused. And I think that most people don't
2:08.3	understand who the National Guard are. You know, they're part-time. They have lives.
	...

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