As anti-ICE rioters torched cars and clashed with police in Los Angeles on Saturday, CNN described the chaos as "lawful protests" with "some unrest." The comments came after the network cut away from its broadcast coverage of the violent protests to air George Clooney's journalism-themed Broadway musical.

"So there’s unrest. Let’s start with, there’s protests, lawful protests, which is allowed in this country," said CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem, who is also a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School. "There is some unrest, generally dealt with by local law enforcement and if there needs to be state support through state police, and sometimes even national guard under a governor’s authority."

Kayyem's comments came after CNN turned its focus away from Los Angeles and toward Manhattan's theater district, where it aired a "special" live broadcast of Good Night, and Good Luck, Clooney's Broadway adaptation of the 2005 film chronicling former CBS broadcaster Edward Murrow.

CNN ran a segment on Los Angeles around 6 p.m. eastern time before cutting to interviews with Clooney and the play's director, a Washington Free Beacon review found. A "pre-show" special then aired from 6:30 to 7 p.m. before the play aired uninterrupted from 7 to 9 p.m. CNN also aired a post-show panel hosted by Anderson Cooper, cutting away from it at one point to detail the clashes in California and break the network's roughly three-hour gap in coverage. Kayyem then joined for much of the 10 p.m. hour.

The violence in Los Angeles unfolded as protesters attempted to impede ICE raids taking place in the city. They burned an American flag, vandalized cars, setting one on fire, and pelted rocks at law enforcement officials, injuring one. Dozens were arrested throughout the day for "imped[ing] agents in their ability to conduct law enforcement operations."

Kayyem has a history of downplaying left-wing violence. Last week, she blasted the FBI for labeling the anti-Semitic firebombing at an Israeli hostage march in Colorado a "targeted terror attack." "It makes law enforcement look so disorganized and it makes the FBI look so juvenile," she said.

Kayyem took a different approach when discussing truck drivers who protested COVID-19 vaccine requirements in 2022. In that case, Kayyem called to arrest drivers, slash their tires, and suspend their licenses. "Trust me, I will not run out of ways to make this hurt. … These things fester when there are no consequences," she said at the time. 

President Donald Trump responded to the scenes in Los Angeles by pledging to "step in and solve this problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved," echoing his rhetoric from the summer of 2020, when violent demonstrations broke out in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis. CNN was widely criticized for its coverage of those demonstrations, which included a caption detailing "Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests" as a building burned in the background.

Trump went on to sign a Saturday presidential memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen "to address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester." On Sunday morning, National Guard troops began rolling into Los Angeles, assembling downtown at the federal building that houses the Metropolitan Detention Center, which has been the site of anti-ICE clashes.

The LAPD initially described Saturday’s protests as "peaceful." Later that evening, however, LAPD’s Central Division declared an unlawful assembly outside a federal building in downtown Los Angeles.

On her TikTok campaign account, Rep. Norma Torres (D., Calif.) called for ICE to "get the f— out of LA so that order can be restored."