President Donald Trump and the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, are dedicated to a bitter struggle for the management of protests against immigration and the application of customs continue in Los Angeles, and both are also framing their confrontation in family political terms.
On Monday, the president said it would be a “big thing” if the border tsar Tom Homan arrest Newsom; In response, the governor of California shot back that the comment is an “unmistakable step towards authoritarianism.”
In a sign of how much policy the confrontation is promoting, Trump, when ABC News asked him on Monday afternoon what crime Newsom has pledged to guarantee his arrest, Trump said that the “primary crime of the governor is running for governor because he has done a bad job.” Newsom responded in X“Donald Trump admits that he will arrest a acting governor simply because he ran for a position.”
With the protests, Trump, which has characterized them as “violent and insurrectionist mobs” and “Gavin Newscum inspired disturbances”, He has deployed members of the National Guard in Los Angeles. Newsom has asked the administration to terminate the deployment and said Monday that he is demanding to the Trump administration, claiming that Trump illegally federalized the National Guard.
But Trump not only criticizes protesters, but is criticizing the democratic leaders of the State and the city as failures.
President Donald Trump talks to the media when he arrives at the White House, on June 9, 2025 in Washington.
Shawn Thew/EPA-EFE/Shuttersock
“The very incompetent ‘governor’, Gavin NewScum and ‘Mayor’, Karen Bass, should say:” Thank you, President Trump, you are so wonderful. We would be nothing without you, sir “,” Trump wrote on its social media platform Mondays. “Instead, they choose to lie to the people of California and America saying that we were not necessary, and that these are ‘peaceful protests’.”
Trump has long criticized leadership in most states administered by Democrat, often focusing his anger in California.
The situation, separately, gives Trump the opportunity to take high profile measures on the application of immigration, a key issue for the president during his 2024 campaign and one that has remained a priority during the first months of his administration. A recent one Marquette Law Faculty Survey Taken early in mid -May, he discovered that Trump had a positive approval or around a work in border security and immigration.
Newsom, meanwhile, has explicitly accused the White House to exacerbate the situation for political benefit.
“They want a show. They want violence,” he told supporters sent through their political action committee on Sunday night. “They think this is good for them politically.”
The White House responded to a request for comments from ABC News on Monday afternoon.
“The innumerable leadership of Gavin Newsom is directly responsible for the disturbances without law and violent attacks against the police in Los Angeles. Instead of writing electronic emails to collection of funds aimed at scoring political points with their leftist base, Newsom should focus on protecting Americans through the restoration of the law and order to their state,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesman.
Newsom and Trump have disagree, although the two had a brief hold in their relationship in recent months.
Following forest fires in January that devastated the Los Angeles region, Trump visited the city towards the end of the month and was received in the asphalt by Newsom with several handshakes and a hug; Newspaper He also met with Trump In Washington, at the beginning of February, and told CNN later: “I have all the confidence in the world that it will be a solid association in the future.”
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, announces the alphabetization plan of the Golden State and the deployment of literacy coaches throughout the state, in Clinton Elementary School in Compton, California, on June 5, 2025.
Daniel Cole/Reuters
But Newsom, at that time, Also approved $ 50 million for funds that could be used in legal battles against the federal government.
And Newsom became more critical of Trump in later months, attacking the president’s tariff policy In an ad That was broadcast on Fox News, where he said that “rates punish families.”
The Trump administration has seemed to direct the punishment in California as well. Earlier this month, Trump promised to impose “large -scale fines” to California after a transgender teenager competed in a final competition of the California state on athletics. Last week, the Trump administration said it would reduce federal funds for a high -speed rail project in the state.
Newsom, separately, has begun to build a national profile amid speculation that it could apply for president in 2028, which included enlivening more speculation through a launch of Podcasts Buzzy in March. Newsom is limited to term and cannot be applied for governor in 2026.
While the Los Angeles situation is linked to the current Newsom work as governor and not to any current or future campaign, it replaces it in the National Center for Attention and in the center of one of the most profile political problems in the nation.
Newsom made reference to what he framed as national bets in his response to Trump’s comments about his possible arrest: “This is a day that he expected to never see in the United States … This is a line that we cannot cross as a nation.”
Molly Nagle and Michelle Stoddart of ABC News contributed to this report.
