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California governor Gavin Newsom has vowed to sue Donald Trump for deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles as authorities braced for further protests against raids on suspected illegal immigrants.
At the same time, the president endorsed the idea of Tom Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arresting Newsom.
“I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great,” Trump said as he returned to the White House from Camp David on Monday. “Gavin likes the publicity . . . He’s done a terrible job. I like Gavin Newsom, he’s a nice guy, but he’s grossly incompetent, everybody knows that.”
The intensifying clash between Trump and the governor of the US’s most populous state came after about 300 members of the National Guard arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday. The troops took up positions downtown, where thousands gathered to protest against raids by federal immigration agents in the state. The guardsmen used tear gas on the crowds, witnesses said.
Demonstrations gathered pace on Sunday afternoon, as Waymo taxis were set on fire and a large crowd blocked a stretch of a major roadway. Police declared the city’s downtown to be an “unlawful assembly area” and arrested dozens over the weekend.
The dramatic scenes were the latest escalation in a broader stand-off between the White House and state and local leaders, as Trump and his allies pressed ahead with their sweeping plans to strengthen the power of the president.
Trump on Monday claimed the “people that are causing the problem are professional agitators, they’re insurrectionists”.
“They’re bad people, they should be in jail,” he said.
Newsom, a Democrat, blamed Trump’s decision to “federalise” the California National Guard — or transfer the military troops from state to federal control — for making matters worse. The president has authorised 2,000 guardsmen to be deployed.
“This is exactly what Donald Trump wanted,” Newsom said in a post on X. “He flamed the fires and illegally acted to federalise the National Guard. The order he signed doesn’t just apply to [California]. It will allow him to go into ANY STATE and do the same thing. We’re suing him.”
But Trump fired back by accusing the governor of lying about the situation. The president insisted Los Angeles would have been “completely obliterated” without the National Guard.
Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform on Monday: “The very incompetent ‘Governor,’ Gavin Newscum, and ‘Mayor,’ Karen Bass, should be saying, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR.’”
“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’,” he added. “Just one look at the pictures and videos of the Violence and Destruction tells you all you have to know.”
Federalising the National Guard is unusual. President George HW Bush sent guardsmen to Los Angeles in 1992 to control riots following the beating by police officers of Rodney King — a move that had been requested by California’s then governor, Pete Wilson.
This time Trump overruled the wishes of Newsom, one of his chief political rivals. Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco who has been governor of California since 2019, is one of the most prominent Democratic politicians and seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2028.
A US president last deployed a state’s National Guard without being asked by its governor in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson sent troops to protect civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama.
Pete Hegseth, defence secretary, said the marines were on “high alert” and suggested they could be deployed in Los Angeles, where isolated protests began on Friday and lasted through the weekend. On Sunday evening, Trump did not rule out sending in marines. “We’ll send whatever we need to ensure there’s law and order.”
In an interview with progressive YouTube podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, Newsom said Trump’s actions in California were a “preview of things to come”. He added: “Donald Trump is unhinged right now.”
Demonstrations also took place in San Francisco at the weekend. Several hundred people gathered downtown, according to local news, after an immigrant justice advocacy group reported that at least 15 people including children as young as three, had been detained during scheduled check-ins at the city’s ICE office.
On Sunday night, 60 people were arrested as the protest turned into a tense stand-off with police. Three police officers were injured, one of whom went to hospital for treatment.