The war of words between California leaders and the White House over the response to immigration enforcement actions and the ensuing protests in Los Angeles intensified Tuesday, with Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump butting heads and the House Speaker saying Newsom should be “tarred and feathered.”
Speaking to reporters in the White House Tuesday morning, Trump repeated his assertion that his deployment of California National Guard troops to Los Angeles saved the city from “burning,” although those troops were not actively engaged in quelling protests or violence in the streets over the past four nights.
“If we didn’t send the National Guard, and last night we gave them a little additional help, Los Angeles would be burning right now,” Trump said. “Los Angeles would be not a lot different than what you saw take place in California in Los Angeles just a little while ago.”
He also noted that Los Angeles is set to host the Olympics in 2028, “and we don’t want people looking at Los Angeles like it would have been.”
Trump also claimed that he called Newsom “a day ago” and told him “he’s got to do a better job.”
“He’s done a bad job, causing a lot of death, a lot of potential death,” Trump said, although no deaths have been attributed to the recent protests.
Newsom responded quickly on X, writing, “There was no call. Not even a voicemail. Americans should be alarmed that a president deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to.”
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, also took aim at Newsom Tuesday, declining to say whether the governor should be arrested, but saying, “He ought to be tarred and feathered, I’ll say that.”
“Look, he’s standing in the way of the administration and the carrying out of federal law,” Johnson said. “He is applauding the bad guys and standing in the way of the good guys. He is a participant, an accomplice in our federal law enforcement agents being not just disrespected but assaulted. This is a serious problem.”
Newsom also took to X to respond to that remark, writing, “Good to know we’re skipping the arrest and going straight to the 1700s style forms of punishment. A fitting threat given the @GOP want to bring our country back to the 18th Century.”
On Monday night, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller took to X to call out Newsom’s suggestion that Los Angeles “didn’t have a problem” until Trump got involved and dispatched the National Guard to the city.
“Your state is a criminal sanctuary for millions of illegal alien invaders, cartel killers, foreign terrorists, transnational gangs and insurrectionist mobs,” Miller wrote. “Huge swaths of the city where I was born now resemble failed third world nations. A ruptured, balkanized society of strangers. When our courageous ICE officers, fighting to rescue your communities, came under violent organized attack you and the L.A. mayor left them, unforgivably, to fend for themselves. When the rioters swarmed, you handed over your streets, willingly. You still refuse to arrest and prosecute the arsonists, seditionists and insurrectionists. This Administration is fighting to save the city and the citizens you have left to struggle and suffer.”
Newsom countered Tuesday morning, posting in response, “The only people defending insurrectionists are you and (Trump). Or are we pretending like you didn’t pardon 1,500 of them?,” in reference to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol pro-Trump rioters who were pardoned by Trump this year.
Some members of the Southern California Democratic congressional delegation held a news conference Tuesday to accuse federal immigration authorities of flouting the law by conducting warrant-less raids that led to the days of protests.
Rep. Norma Torres, D-Ontario and a former Los Angeles-area 911 dispatcher, accused U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of “indiscriminately” carrying out “violent raids in California and illegally detaining people without warrants.”
She and other congressional representatives called for an end to the immigration activity in the area. They also accused ICE officials of denying members of Congress their legal right to inspect immigration enforcement facilities in the Los Angeles area.
“The conditions that we have been told these migrants are being held under are nothing more than inhumane,” Torres said.
“This is no longer about immigration policy, it is about human dignity and the rule of law,” she said. “We are witnessing ICE ignoring federal laws designed to protect families. We are also seeing people going missing, families being torn apart and even American citizens being detained.”
Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Los Angeles, said he was also denied access to an immigration facility, and he condemned the deployment of the National Guard to the city, saying such a move can’t be made unless requested by the governor.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Monday night disputed Trump’s repeated claims that the National Guard deployment played any role in quelling protests, noting that the troops were in place since Sunday only to protect federal assets, such as the federal buildings in downtown Los Angeles and Westwood. She said the Los Angeles Police Department and other local authorities have been solely responsible for controlling protesters and rioters, and she said the violence in the streets is the result of “unnecessary” ICE raids.
“Stop the raids,” she said. “This is creating fear and chaos in our city and it is unnecessary.”