White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Trump called in the National Guard with the expectation that it would "hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.”

Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the legal action at a press conference, and called the president's move to federalize the National Guard an "infringement" on state sovereignty

The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor’s permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama.