Congressional Republicans on Monday were quick to endorse President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to quell violent Los Angeles protests against the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Despite Trump deploying thousands of troops against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and federalizing the National Guard for the first time since civil rights protests in the 1960s, Republicans offered the president a wide berth on flexing his authority to prevent more rioting.

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“The president did what the local officials weren’t doing, which is protecting their citizens,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said. “Sometimes, somebody has to step in and protect the American citizens.”

Trump, in the mind of Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), did not have any other choice in the face of escalating clashes between local law enforcement, federal immigration officials, and violent protesters infuriated with the president’s immigration policies.

“The mayor’s idea of containment was to give them a hug and a cup of hot cocoa,” Kennedy told the Washington Examiner. “The president did what he had to do.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, has put the onus on Trump and raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for provoking unrest.  

And Newsom’s resistance to Trump sending the National Guard prompted the president on Monday to suggest it’d be a “great thing” if border czar Tom Homan arrested the Democrat, whom Trump has long sparred with over national politics. Trump and administration officials have declined to say what laws Newsom might have violated through his handling of the protests.

But GOP lawmakers got cold feet when it came to addressing the possible arrest of Newsom, whose state has sued the Trump administration over its deployment of troops that the governor said had climbed to 4,000 as of Monday. Trump is also deploying 700 active-duty Marines, a move Newsom has criticized as “unwarranted” and “unprecedented.”

“I don’t have any comment” on arresting Newsom, said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and third in line to the presidency as Senate president pro tempore.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) declined to weigh in.

“I’m not even sure the context of it,” Johnson said. “I’m not sure what Gavin Newsom has done or said.”

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), a member of Thune’s leadership team, laughed at the idea of Newsom being arrested.

“Democrats have allowed the cities to be completely out of control. It is a riot,” Daines said. “Trump has every right to insert force to bring law and order back to Los Angeles.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who is running for governor of Alabama, was an outlier. He posted to social media that Newsom “failed to do his job” and should therefore face unspecified charges.

“LA looks like a third world country — anarchists are in charge, law enforcement is being attacked, and the rule of law is nonexistent,” Tuberville wrote. “Lock him up.”

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats sounded an alarm that Trump was taking his latest step toward authoritarianism by forcing in the military on U.S. soil against a state’s will. Demonstrations entered their fourth consecutive night in Los Angeles on Monday, as law enforcement and the first several hundred National Guard troops mobilized around federal buildings to prevent damage.

“I think that this administration is fully authoritarian, and the fact that they’re hell bent on arresting elected officials and going after the press and going after universities just continues to show that they are not serious,” Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) told the Washington Examiner. “They want to quell political opposition and dissent, and they want to just operate without any accountability.”

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Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) accused Trump of using the episode as another distraction from his agenda.

“He’s again trying to distract the fact that his policies are unpopular,” Subramanyam said.