Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
Read more
The chief fundraising arm for Donald Trump’s campaign is using protests in Los Angeles to solicit donations from supporters.
The Trump National Committee Joint Fundraising Committee — which has sent more than 1,000 fundraising emails since the president’s inauguration — issued a “breaking Trump alert” on Monday after three days of demonstrations in Paramount and downtown Los Angeles against a series of immigration raids.
The subject line in the latest message reads: “Looking really bad in LA!”
“ATTACK ON THE HOMELAND,” reads the message, under a photograph of Trump surrounded by the words “BREAKING TRUMP ALERT.”
The message goes on to promote the president’s sweeping ban on entry into the United States from travelers and immigrants from more than a dozen countries, which takes effect Monday.
open image in gallery
“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,” the message says. “That’s why I announced the new TRUMP TRAVEL BAN…but I really need to make sure we’re on the same page!”
Message recipients are asked to complete a “citizens only survey” to answer whether they support “defending the homeland” and “instituting a Trump travel ban to keep America safe.”
Links surrounding the text of the message take supporters to a fundraising page that asks whether the recipient is an “American citizen” or “illegal alien” — if they choose the latter, they’re told to “end survey immediately.”
“We’ve seen terror attack after attack carried out by foreign visa overstayers from dangerous places,” according to the message.
Joint fundraising committees — in which individual campaigns and political actions committees can join — effectively act as one-stop shops that allow donors to make large contributions shared across those entities.
open image in gallery
Campaign fundraising committees supporting the president — using his images and signature as if the messages were sent by Trump himself — have routinely relied on his scandals to raise millions of dollars.
His criminal indictments — including his mugshot, which has been branded in products from T-shirts to Christmas wrapping paper — are featured in hundreds of messages. His attacks against “activist” judges who delivered court rulings against his administration’s immigration enforcement decisions are included in dozens of recent emails.
Militarized law enforcement officers fired tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and pepper spray against crowds of protesters following growing outrage against the administration’s ramped-up immigration arrests.
Some protesters tossed rocks and bottles or launched fireworks at law enforcement vehicles and set fire to a handful of self-driving Waymo vehicles. The president labelled demonstrators “insurrectionists” as he defended his administration calling up the National Guard to support local law enforcement.
open image in gallery
Trump has long sought a showdown with a major Democratic-led state over a signature campaign issue, rapidly drawing the most populous county in America into the administration’s plans to escalate a federal law enforcement crackdown on immigration enforcement.
On his Truth Social, the president claimed Los Angeles has been “invaded and occupied” by “violent, insurrectionist mobs,” and directed administration officials to “liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion.”
Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to the city without the consent of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who said the president’s invocation of the National Guard without his approval was “inflaming tensions.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also suggested Marines at Camp Pendleton could be mobilized “if violence continues.”
