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Democratic leaders are struggling to mount a unified response to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, as party officials “watched in horror” at the president’s escalating tactics in Los Angeles.

That’s according to a new report in The Bulwark, which described Wednesday how protests over ICE raids have become a “playground for Donald Trump’s authoritarian fantasies.” But while Democrats have mostly come out to condemn the raids and the use of the National Guard to target immigrant communities, including garment workers and day laborers, many in the party remain uncertain about how to confront Trump politically.

Democratic leaders are “all over the place,” one prominent immigration advocate told The Bulwark. A Democratic aide described a House caucus meeting Tuesday meant to hone the party's message as “boring” with no strategy.

The internal chaos comes as the party has, so far, been unable “to unite around a single, effective countermessage about Trump’s trampling of L.A.,” according to the report. And behind closed doors, frustrations are boiling.

“The diverging approaches and bubbling frustrations attest to the unease many Democrats continue to feel in conversations about immigration,” The Bulwark said. “It’s also highlighted that the Democratic party remains in disagreement over how much urgency and alarm it should offer in response to what many believe is an existential threat to American democracy.”

“Democrats aren’t going to be able to wish away the news coverage that for the last few days has been dominating the news cycle, simply because we decide we have nothing to say,” one Congressional Hispanic Caucus member said.

Still others in the party, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have emerged in the public debate with a sharper tone targeting Trump. The Democratic governor warned Tuesday in a nationally televised address that “democracy is under assault before our eyes.”

But while Democrats “continue to struggle to find their footing,” some fear that the internal party debate will allow Trump to control the narrative, the Bulwark added, as Trump plows ahead with his escalating immigration enforcement threats.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered a blistering rebuke of Donald Trump on Tuesday, accusing the president of unleashing a “military dragnet” across Los Angeles and targeting vulnerable residents under the guise of law and order.

“This moment we have feared has arrived,” Newsom proclaimed in a televised address Tuesday.

“California may be first, but it clearly will not end here,” the Democratic governor added. “Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes.”

Newsom said Trump’s federal agents were arresting “dishwashers. gardeners, day laborers and seamstresses” – far beyond the stated goal of apprehending violent criminals.

“That's just weakness. Weakness masquerading as strength,” he said. “Donald Trump's government isn't protecting our communities; they're traumatizing our communities, and that seems to be the entire point.” But he added: “California will keep fighting.”

He announced that the state had filed an emergency court order Tuesday to block the use of military forces for domestic law enforcement. The new action follows a legal challenge California filed Monday over what he called Trump’s “reckless deployment” of troops.

“Trump is pulling a military dragnet all across Los Angeles,” Newsom said Tuesday.

Newsom also warned that Trump has taken “a wrecking ball to our Founding Fathers’ historic project – three co-equal branches of independent government,” and also saved a jab for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

“Speaker Johnson has completely abdicated that responsibility,” Newsom said.

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MSNBC's Joe Scarborough blasted Sen. Mike Lee's (R-UT) Monday over his response to the shootings of two Democratic state legislators and their spouses.

The Republican senator blamed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for the assassination of former House speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark and the wounding of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. Vance Boelter, an apparent religious conservative and Donald Trump supporter, has been accused of the attacks.

The "Morning Joe" host was appalled by Lee's social media post.

"One politician, and I will say a man that I've known and in the past have had a good relationship, and, like, seemed like a soft- spoken man, but somebody that posted this weekend, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, obviously facing strong criticism for social media posts about the Minnesota shooting suspect," Scarborough said.

"Yesterday, Lee posted a picture of the suspect at the door of one of the lawmakers with the caption, 'This is what happens when Marxists don't get their way.' It is a pinned tweet at the top of his page, [and] 25 minutes later, the senator posted another picture of the suspected shooter with the caption, 'Nightmare on Walz Street,' mocking, of course, the situation with the name of the Minnesota governor. This post came hours before Lee tweeted a 'Happy Fathers Day' message."

"'What the hell is Mike Lee doing?'" Scarborough added, quoting conservative journalist Brad Polumbo. "'Has he completely lost it?'"

Lee faced widespread condemnation, and Scarborough added his own by stating that he would have thought the senator was above that sort of social media trolling.

"We're used to wackos on the extremes on both sides posting bizarre things on social media," Scarborough said. "What happens when it's mainstreamed by a senator? Again, a guy that I've known and used to try to be a thoughtful, conservative voice for small-government conservatism.

"When he starts posting things like this, and what is the, what's the United States Senate's answer to that? I only ask that because I can tell you back in my day, I guess in the Stone Age it is now, I mean, the senator on either side would have been roundly condemned by members of his or her own party if they had done this."

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