By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers
NEW YORK: The latest Donald Trump–Gavin Newsom confrontation began, as many of their earlier clashes have, with California. Trump has done it before and he has done it again and he will do it again.
Trump is known to make off the cuff remarks, knowingly or unknowingly, of the impact it makes on the listener or the persons aimed at. Is it a strategy or unintentional that came from the top of his mind or not, no one knows. But this time around it has caused a fluster.
But this time the words were extraordinary. Speaking at a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, on October 5, President Donald Trump was talking about the economic costs of the war with Iran, particularly higher gasoline prices, when he suddenly invoked two California cities.
“It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” Trump told the crowd. “They can take out a city. Let ’em take out Los Angeles. Let ’em take out San Diego.” The crowd applauded. Trump continued that the war would be over soon and that gasoline prices would subsequently fall.
The remark immediately exploded into a political and public-safety controversy in California. Newsom responded on social media that Trump’s comments were “dangerous — if not treasonous,” saying that they put a target on two of the state’s largest cities, as well as one of the country’s largest naval hubs. He ordered California’s State Threat Assessment Center to actively monitor the situation in case foreign actors interpreted Trump’s words as an invitation to attack the state.
The White House, however, offered a different interpretation. Communications Director Steven Cheung said the president was not advocating an Iranian attack on American cities. Rather, he argued, Trump was saying that without stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, American cities could have been threatened — and that the economic pain caused by the war was a small price for preventing that danger. FactCheck.org and PolitiFact, examining the full speech, likewise concluded that the context supported that interpretation, although they acknowledged that Trump’s wording was confusing.
That distinction is important. Trump did not explicitly call upon Iran to attack Los Angeles. But he did use the words “let ’em take out Los Angeles” and “let ’em take out San Diego” while arguing that the consequences of the war were an acceptable price for national security. The resulting controversy therefore became less about what Trump formally intended and more about what a president’s words mean when he names two American cities as possible targets.
Los Angeles is not simply another American city in Trump’s political vocabulary. For years, California has been one of Trump’s principal symbols of what he regards as the failures of Democratic government: immigration, homelessness, crime, taxes, regulation, elections and what he describes as excessive liberalism.
The Los Angeles region also sits at the intersection of several issues that have become central to the Trump–California confrontation. California has the country’s largest Hispanic population. Census estimates put the state’s Hispanic or Latino population at about 15.8 million, the largest of any state, while Los Angeles County alone had nearly 4.7 million Hispanic residents in 2023.
California’s geographical position adds another dimension. Its southern border with Mexico makes immigration enforcement an unavoidable political issue. For Trump, California’s sanctuary policies and Democratic leadership have long represented resistance to his immigration agenda. For Newsom, federal immigration enforcement without state cooperation has become a question of state authority and civil liberties.
The state’s homelessness crisis supplies another recurring element in the political argument. California recorded approximately 187,084 people experiencing homelessness in the 2024 federal point-in-time count — by far the largest state total and about 24% of the national total. About two-thirds of California’s homeless population was unsheltered.
Los Angeles itself counted 75,312 homeless people across Los Angeles County in 2024, including 45,252 in the city. Those numbers have made California a favorite Republican example of Democratic governance gone wrong, while Newsom and California Democrats point to the state’s housing costs, economic inequalities and the scale of the problem to argue that homelessness cannot be reduced to a partisan slogan.
There is another dimension. Gavin Newsom is the strongest possible US Presidential candidate for the Democrats in the 2029 race to the White House while Trump is backing at least for the time being JD Vance his deputy as he is believed he is carved out of his image, a younger version. Though the republican primaries will ultimately decide the candidate.
The latest exchange cannot be understood without looking back to June 2025. Federal immigration raids began across Los Angeles County on June 6, 2025. Protests followed. Trump then federalized California National Guard troops over Newsom’s objections and ultimately sent about 700 Marines into the Los Angeles area. California sued the administration, arguing that the federal government had exceeded its authority.
The confrontation became intensely personal. Trump said he supported the arrest of Newsom after his border czar, Tom Homan, suggested that people obstructing federal immigration enforcement could be arrested. Asked whether he would support Newsom’s arrest, Trump replied: “I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great.”
Newsom answered that he hoped Americans would never see the day when a president called for the arrest of a sitting governor. He called it a line the country should not cross.
The dispute escalated beyond words. Newsom challenged the federalization of the National Guard in court. A federal judge subsequently issued a temporary restraining order blocking the federalized Guard from being used for community law enforcement, finding the administration’s action exceeded its statutory authority and violated the Tenth Amendment.
The Marines became another flashpoint. Newsom said Marines should not be used as political pawns and accused the administration of escalating rather than calming the situation. Trump, meanwhile, portrayed Los Angeles as a city overwhelmed by violent protesters and argued that federal intervention was necessary.
Thus, when Newsom responded to Trump’s October 2026 remarks by recalling the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines, he was not responding to the sentence in isolation. He was placing it within a much longer confrontation over who has authority over California.
The Trump–Newsom relationship predates the 2025 immigration confrontation. Trump repeatedly attacked California during his first presidency, particularly over immigration, environmental regulation, homelessness and Democratic governance. Newsom, for his part, made resisting Trump’s policies a central feature of his political identity.
During Trump’s second term, the relationship briefly became more complicated. Trump and Newsom cooperated to some degree during California’s devastating wildfires, and Newsom met Trump when the president visited the state. But the temporary détente collapsed over immigration enforcement.
Reuters reported in June 2025 that Trump and Newsom had actually spoken by telephone shortly after the Los Angeles protests began, with Newsom describing the conversation as cordial. Within roughly a day, Trump had ordered the National Guard into California without Newsom’s request.
That episode established the pattern that continues today: Trump portrays California as evidence of Democratic failure; Newsom portrays Trump’s intervention as an attack on state authority.
The timing of Trump’s latest comments also matters. California’s early voting for the November 2026 midterm elections began as the controversy erupted. Trump has been campaigning around the country urging voters to give Republicans a strong congressional majority. California remains overwhelmingly Democratic in presidential politics, but Republicans continue trying to make gains in congressional and statewide contests.
Trump’s decision to mention Los Angeles and San Diego at a Nebraska rally therefore carried a familiar political pattern: California was being used as a symbol before an audience thousands of miles away.
But the latest language produced an unusual reaction. Some Republicans in California also distanced themselves from the statement. Republican congressional candidate Jim Desmond said no American city was expendable, while Rep. Kevin Kiley called the remark unhelpful. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said it could potentially compromise public safety. That made the episode more than another Trump-Newsom exchange. It became a debate about presidential rhetoric itself.
Los Angeles has survived earthquakes, riots, wildfires, pandemics, economic crises and waves of immigration. It is also home to Hollywood, one of America’s most recognizable symbols of cultural influence. For Trump, however, the “City of Angels” has increasingly become something else: a shorthand for California’s Democratic political culture.
For Newsom, California is a state whose enormous population, diversity and economic importance require protection from what he sees as excessive federal intervention. That is why the latest Trump remark landed with such force. The White House says Trump was making a poorly worded argument about the cost of preventing a nuclear Iran from threatening American cities. Newsom heard something very different: a president casually naming Los Angeles and San Diego as cities that could be “taken out.”
The political war between the two men is therefore unlikely to end with this exchange. Trump has repeatedly used California as a foil before conservative audiences. Newsom has repeatedly positioned himself as the Democratic governor willing to confront him.
And Los Angeles — America’s sprawling, immigrant-rich, economically powerful and deeply complicated City of Angels — has once again found itself in the middle of their argument. This time, however, the words were about something more fundamental than immigration or homelessness. They were about whether an American city could ever be described, even rhetorically, as a price worth paying. (IPA Service)
