CNN’s Elie Honig Explains Why Court Decision Won’t Stop Trump’s Guard Deployment

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said on CNN Tuesday that a new court ruling marked only a temporary and limited setback for President Donald Trump and does nothing to stop his deploying the National Guard in California.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, appointed to the bench in California by former President Bill Clinton, ruled that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated the law by using National Guard troops to assist immigration enforcement in Los Angeles. Honig said on “Anderson Cooper 360” that the decision reinforced the legal firewall between the federal military and local police, but it left Trump’s broader power intact.

“This was a setback for Donald Trump today, but temporary and limited in scope. Trump won the big issue, which is whether he could constitutionally send National Guard troops into California in the first place,” Honig told host Anderson Cooper.

Honig said Tuesday’s decision highlighted the enduring divide between the military and civilian law enforcement.

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“Today‘s ruling, Judge Breyer uses to reinforce this fundamental wall of separation that exists in this country between the federal military, on the one hand, and civilian law enforcement on the other,” Honig said.

Honig said Breyer made clear he disagreed with the decision allowing Trump’s National Guard deployment but drew a line on how the troops could be used. (RELATED: Scott Jennings Needs Only 3 Words To Shred Tim Walz For Hoping Trump Dies)

“What Judge Breyer says today is OK, fine. He doesn‘t like the opinion. He got reversed. He doesn‘t like the fact that National Guard is there. But he says the way they‘re being used crosses over that wall,” Honig said. “They can‘t be helping with search warrants and arrests and traffic stops and that type of thing. So it puts a limit on what these National Guards can do clearly with an eye towards Donald Trump’s announced intention to send them into other states.”

In June, Trump deployed thousands of National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area to back federal immigration operations, triggering a lawsuit from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Violent anti-ICE demonstrators clashed with officers and inflicted millions in property damage during the unrest.

Trump’s deployment of troops in the Los Angeles area has produced results, as the Department of Homeland Security announced in late August that ICE and Border Patrol agents apprehended their 5,000th illegal migrant since the intensified crackdown began in June.

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