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Fact Check
The president claimed, without giving evidence, that the protesters were “paid” agitators, that the Los Angeles police asked for the National Guard, and that swaths of the city were under gang control.
June 13, 2025Updated 6:17 p.m. ET
The protests in Los Angeles, entering their eighth day on Friday, have spurred President Trump to deploy National Guard troops to the city, an extraordinary move that he has justified with a number of dubious claims.
The demonstrations against the president’s widening crackdown on immigration have led to clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement. But many of Mr. Trump’s claims follow a yearslong pattern of expressing skepticism and contempt toward protesters and are not rooted in fact. They seek to portray the protests as fraudulent, the deployment of troops as lauded and the city in need of liberation.
Here’s a fact check.
What Was Said
“These people are agitators, they’re paid, they’re professionals, they’re insurrectionists, they’re troublemakers. They’re all of those things. But I believe they’re paid.”
— at a bill signing on Thursday
This lacks evidence. For years, Mr. Trump has accused those protesting his political candidacy and aims as “paid” and their demonstrations as inorganic. But he and his allies have provided scant evidence.
Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, on Wednesday cited Mr. Trump’s “common sense” and images of “very professionalized masks and rioting equipment” as proof of his claims. A day later, the interim U.S. attorney for the Central District of California announced that the F.B.I. had arrested a man for distributing face shields to “suspected rioters.” The complaint against the man, Alejandro Theodoro Orellana, accuses him of conspiracy to commit civil disorder, but does not name any group he is affiliated with or indicate that he was paying protesters.
In an interview with Fox News, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, cited “ads put up on Craigslist offering people thousands of dollars a week to go out and conduct these violent and dangerous riots.” That appeared to be a reference to an ad posted on Craigslist on June 5 in the Los Angeles area looking for “THE TOUGHEST dudes in the area” and offering $6,500 to $12,500 a week in payment. As numerous news outlets have noted, a pair of pranksters who host a YouTube show called “Goofcon 1” had placed the ad, and in an episode a day later, they called people who responded.
