In announcing his decision to send in National Guard troops to quell demonstrations against his deportation campaign, President Donald Trump said Los Angeles had been “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals.”

Trump said he had to order in the military to “address the lawlessness” of the city that covers 500 square miles and is home to nearly 4 million people.

Then, in a speech to Army troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Trump contended that LA was “a trash heap,” with “entire neighborhoods under control” of criminals.

Such rhetoric was the backdrop to a trip I took last weekend with family members to the City of Angels. We traveled to the heart of Los Angeles to see the Dodgers play the San Francisco Giants on June 14.

I confess to feeling some trepidation, given the way Trump was portraying Los Angeles. It did not help that some of the protests the weekend before in the city involved demonstrators getting command of self-driving cars and setting them on fire. That occurred downtown, which was across Highway 101 from Dodger Stadium.

So just what did I experience? In summary, nothing out of the ordinary.

Saturday was sunny in Los Angeles and around 80 degrees. Blue sky and clear views. Traffic flowed smoothly on Interstate 5 toward downtown as we headed to the game. All remained good as we got onto surface streets near the stadium. There were no demonstrators, police, National Guard or Marines, who had been called up by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to support local law enforcement.

Life in the Elysian Park neighborhoods, next to Dodger Stadium, was normal. It was the same after the game in the Echo Park neighborhoods we drove through. Businesses catering to the nighttime crowd were open as usual. There were no barricades, burning cars, hooded demonstrators or military members.

Far from a “trash heap,” Los Angeles was as vibrant and busy as ever.

Calling National Guard

It is not good journalistic practice to write about nothing happening. But in this case, Trump ramped up the imagery so much that the normalcy of a Saturday night in Los Angeles became newsworthy.

Viewers of television news have to remember that the cameras can only show whatever they are trained on. Almost by definition, TV cannot show the whole reality of a place.

Trump is famously known as a television news consumer. By watching endless coverage of burning self-driving Waymo cars on the streets of downtown L.A., he would have concluded that mayhem was breaking out and a big show of force in response was required. But that impression was not nearly the whole picture.

Protesters for days confronted police, with some throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks. The National Guard forces formed a protective barrier around federal buildings. The area remains under a nightly curfew.

As California Gov. Gavin Newsom would later say, Trump’s ordering the National Guard without state request — the way it is supposed to work — just added fuel to the protest fire.

But for all the images on TV and online, the action was largely confined to a 10-block area of the downtown. Beyond that point, one would not have known of the protests.

No trash heap

By characterizing Los Angeles as a “trash heap,” Trump violated Rule No. 1 for the president: Be America’s cheerleader. The president should extol, not denigrate, our nation’s cities.

Los Angeles is a world-class place. It has incredible museums, big-league sports and striking natural wonders.

Does it have problems? Of course. Do criminals “control” some neighborhoods? Show me a big American city where that does not happen.

Why does Trump constantly run down parts of the country he does not like? And why does he not like them in the first place?

Using American cities that are led by Democrats as political punching bags is simply wrong. As the president of America, Trump is over all of it — even places that did not support him.

Los Angeles is not burning down. Criminal gangs are not rampaging everywhere. It is no more a trash heap than any other place.

President Trump, your ordering up the National Guard is specious at best. Los Angeles police had the protests well under control. Please stop the reckless mischaracterizations of America’s second-largest city.

All it takes is one visit to see how wrong you are.

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