FACT CHECK: Trump claims LA protesters came in with bricks, bore foreign flags

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday made controversial claims in his speech at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, calling the protesters "animals" and "a foreign enemy" and vowed to "liberate Los Angeles".

An aggressive Trump used the occasion held to recognize the 250th anniversary of the US Army as a platform to defend deploying the military on demonstrators opposed to his immigration enforcement raids. He also used the speech to peddle his theories about the Los Angeles protests and downgrade the city as a "trash heap" with "entire neighbourhoods under the control" of criminals.

However, he also mouthed controversial statements, many of which were total falsehoods and misleading. 

Trump referenced the viral conspiracy theory that pallets of bricks were left out for protesters to hurl at police officers in LA. "They came in with bricks," Trump said, adding that protesters were breaking up the roadside curbs to throw red bricks a police. 

The US President made the claim in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests when he boosted the viral conspiracy theory by releasing a compilation of video clips posted on social media by those who falsely believed that piles of bricks were brought by "Antifa and professional anarchists" to inspire violence at protests.

However, it was quickly debunked when reporters revealed footage of bricks being taken from nearby construction sites.  

Conservatives on social media also posted a video claiming the protests were organised by nonprofit organisations supported by left-wing supporter George Soros. However, it was later proved to be to be from the website of a building materials wholesaler in Malaysia. 

 "These days, it feels like every time there’s a protest, the old clickbaity ‘pallets of bricks’ hoax shows up right on cue," the Social Media Lab, a research center at the Toronto Metropolitan University, wrote on Bluesky. "You know the one, photos or videos of bricks supposedly left out to encourage rioting. It’s catnip for right-wing agitators and grifters."
 

Another claim of his was that the anti-immigration raid protests were led by "paid rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion". 

"These are animals, but they proudly carry the flags of other countries. They don't carry the American flag. They only burn it. Did you see a lot of the flags being burned?" Trump asked the crowd, adding that they weren't being burned by people from the US.

These theories were also echoed by top Trump adviser  Stephen Miller and Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary Kristi Noem. Both claimed on social media that "foreign nationals, waving foreign flags" were "rioting".

However, Trump claim is most likely baseless as though some protesters were seen waving flags of Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, they are used in combination with the US flag as a show of "ethnic pride and solidarity with immigrants".

Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, associate professor of Chicana, Chicano and Central American Studies at UCLA, accused Trump of using the well-documented move" to demonise protesters, "knowing that every single demonstration of this type brings out the Mexican flag." 

Jorge Castañeda, former Mexican foreign minister, told CNN that the use of the Mexican flag goes back to the 1990s when many people protested against Proposition 187 at the time." He added that "practically all of the demonstrators, all of the protesters, are American citizens", adding that one had to "quite reckless and foolish to be a Mexican citizen without papers, or even as a legal permanent resident, to go out and demonstrate today."