WASHINGTON — The governor and the president are talking past each other.
The two men, despite their politics and ambition, have worked together before, through devastating fires and a pandemic. But as immigration raids roil Los Angeles, President Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom cannot even agree on how they left their last conversation, late on Friday evening on the East Coast, as protests picked up around the city.
Aides to Trump told The Times he issued a clear warning: “Get the police in gear.” His patience would last less than 24 hours before he chose a historic path, federalizing the National Guard against the wishes of state and local officials.
The governor, on the other hand, told MSNBC the account is a lie. In their 40-minute call, not once did the president raise the prospect of wresting control over the National Guard from state and local officials.
They have not spoken since, a White House official said.
Trump went even further on Monday, raising the specter of Newsom’s arrest and supplementing the National Guard operation with a historic deployment of active-duty U.S. Marines.
The troop deployment is yet another extraordinary effort to quell simmering demonstrations across Los Angeles, some of which have turned violent, in protest of flash raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in recent days.
‘Subjecting himself to arrest’
Newsom’s government said Monday it would sue the Trump administration over the deployment and issued scathing criticism of Trump’s leadership, calling his Defense secretary a “joke” and the president “unhinged.” But the president and his top advisers responded with an especially pointed threat, suggesting the governor could be arrested for obstruction.
“It is a basic principle in this country that if you break the law, you will face a consequence for that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Times in an interview. “So if the governor obstructs federal enforcement, or breaks federal laws, then he is subjecting himself to arrest.”
Earlier in the day, Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, said that no one is above the law and that anyone — including the governor — who obstructs immigration enforcement would be subject to charges.
“I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump said, pursing his lips as he appeared to consider the question as he was speaking to reporters on Monday. “I think it’s great.”
“He’s done a terrible job,” Trump continued. “I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy. But he’s grossly incompetent. Everybody knows.”
The White House is not actively discussing or planning Newsom’s arrest. But Newsom took the threat seriously, vehemently decrying Trump’s remarks as the mark of an authoritarian.
“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,” Newsom wrote on X.
“It would truly be unprecedented to arrest a governor over a difference in policy between the federal government and a state,” UC Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Monday. “Even when Southern governors were obstructing desegregation orders, presidents did not try to have them arrested.”
A backfiring effort at deterrence
Leavitt said that Trump’s initial decision to deploy the Guard was “with the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard would hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.”
“He told the governor to get it under control and watched again for another full day, 24 hours, where it got worse,” Leavitt said. “The assaults against federal law enforcement upticked, the violence grew, and the president took bold action on Saturday evening to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal personnel.”
The opposite occurred. The worst violence yet took place on Sunday, with some rioters torching and hurling concrete at police cars, hours after National Guard troops had arrived in L.A. County.
The protests had been largely peaceful throughout Friday and Saturday, with isolated instances of violent activity. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, have “handicapped” the Los Angeles Police Department, “who are trying to do their jobs.”
Local leaders “have refused to allow the local police department to work alongside the feds to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, and to detain and arrest violent criminals who are on the streets of Los Angeles,” she said.
“As for the local law enforcement,” she added, “the president has the utmost respect for the Los Angeles Police Department.”
‘All options on the table’
Leavitt, in a phone call on Monday afternoon, said she would not get ahead of Trump on whether he will invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that allows the president to suspend Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the military from engaging in local law enforcement.
But she took note that, on Monday, the president referred to some of the rioters as insurrectionists, potentially laying the groundwork for an invocation of the law.
“The president is wisely keeping all options on the table, and will do what is necessary to restore law and order in California,” she said. “Federal immigration enforcement operations will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been completely overrun by illegal alien criminals that pose a public safety risk and need to be removed from the city.”
The president’s order, directing 2,000 National Guard troops to protect federal buildings in the city, allows for a 60-day deployment. Leavitt would not say how long the operation might last, but suggested it would continue until violence at the protests ends.
“I don’t want to get ahead of the president on any decisions or timelines,” she said. “I can tell you the White House is 100% focused on this. The president wants to solve the problem. And that means creating an environment where citizens, if they wish, are given the space and the right to peacefully protest.”
“And these violent disruptors and insurrectionists, as the president has called them, are not only doing a disservice to law-abiding citizens, but to those who wish to peacefully protest. That’s a fundamental right this administration will always support and protect.”
Wilner reported from Washington, Wick from Los Angeles.
