WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump on Monday defended his decision to send the California National Guard to Los Angeles despite objections from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has warned that the action will only serve to further inflame tensions as he pursues legal action.

"We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated," Trump claimed on social media.

He said Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass should be thanking him, but instead "they choose to lie to the People of California and America by saying that we weren’t needed, and that these are 'peaceful protests'."

"We will always do what is needed to keep our Citizens SAFE, so we can, together, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" he said.

Trump later described the protesters as "insurrectionists."

"The people that are causing the problem are professional agitators, they’re insurrectionists. They’re bad people, they should be in jail," he told reporters at the White House.

He declined to answer a follow-up question on whether he would invoke the Insurrection Act to activate the military in response to domestic unrest. He previously said the action is not off the table.

Newsom on Monday announced that California is suing the Trump administration after the president on Sunday deployed the National Guard to confront protesters incensed by ongoing federal immigration raids.

"Donald Trump is putting fuel on this fire. Commandeering a state’s National Guard without consulting the Governor of that state is illegal and immoral," Newsom wrote on X. "California will be taking him to court."

On Saturday, Trump signed a memo invoking his authority to deploy a minimum of 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles County after confrontations between immigration officials and protesters.

The protests began Friday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained hundreds of people in Los Angeles suspected to be living in the US illegally.

The Trump administration said it will continue with its ICE raids despite the protests, as part of the president's immigration crackdown.

Critics of the raids say ICE is going after law-abiding undocumented migrants, a vital part of the community and the local economy, rather than the criminals and “bad hombres” that Trump has long vowed to deport.