Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to commit to following federal court or Supreme Court rulings regarding the Pentagon’s extraordinary deployment of National Guard members and Marines into Los Angeles.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pressed Hegseth on the question, which he repeatedly dodged.
“What I will tell you is my job right now is to ensure the troops that we have in Los Angeles are capable of supporting law enforcement,” Hegseth told Khanna.
After another effort, Hegseth said the U.S. should not have “local judges determining foreign policy or national security policy for the country.”
Khanna pointed to signals from others in the Trump administration, specifically Vice President Vance, that they could ignore court orders they disagrees with.
“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal,” Vance said in February on the social platform X. “If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal.”
“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” he added.
Hegseth’s reference to limits on the judiciary’s power over foreign policy harkens to the administration’s legal argument against returning Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a Salvadoran prison. Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. on June 6 and now faces charges over alleged smuggling crimes.
California quickly sued the Trump administration over the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and mobilization of hundreds of Marines to the state. A federal judge declined to issue an immediate order removing the troops from Los Angeles, pending further consideration of the case.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has also engaged in a war of words with President Trump and Hegseth throughout the week, warning their overreach in California will spread to other cities and states — particularly those run by Democrats.
Hegseth, who is testifying in Congress for the third straight day, has sparred with Democrats over the deployments. He has said the troops are carrying out a constitutional duty to protect law enforcement agents carrying out Trump’s immigration policies.
Protests in Los Angeles were spurred by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carrying out workplace raids to arrest immigrants in the country illegally in a heavily Hispanic part of the city.
Khanna on Thursday also grilled Hegseth over the U.S. military posture with Israel reportedly threatening an imminent attack on Iran.
Khanna repeatedly asked Hegseth whether he could commit to not directly attacking Iran unless the Islamic Republic first fired on the U.S. Hegseth would make no such assurance.
He said Trump is “giving Iran every opportunity, with talks ongoing, but he also fully recognizes the threat that Iran, with a nuclear blow up, would exist,” Hegseth said.
“Will you commit to us not bombing them?” Khanna repeated, noting some prominent MAGA figures have spoken out against the risk of war with Iran.
“It wouldn’t be prudent for me to commit or not to commit. My job is to be postured and prepared,” Hegseth said.