President Donald Trump and the California Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, intensified his confrontation on Monday for the management of protests in Los Angeles triggered by Trump’s immigration offensive.
After Newsom opposed Trump to send to the National Guard without his consent, Trump also ordered hundreds of marines to the city.
Earlier on Monday, arriving at the White House after the weekend in Camp David, Trump had told journalists that he would arrested Newsom if it were “Tsar Border” Tom Homan, hours after Homin said there had been no “discussion” about the arrest of Newsom.
“I would do it if it were Tom. I think it’s great,” Trump told journalists at South Lawn.
Newsom quickly shot.
“The president of the United States has just asked for the arrest of a acting governor,” Newsom published on Instagram along with a video of Trump’s comments. “This is a day I expected to see in the United States. I don’t care if you are a Democrat or Republican, this is a line that we cannot cross as a nation, this is an unmistakable step towards authoritarianism.”
“These are the acts of a dictator, not a president,” Newsom published in X.
In a White House event on Monday afternoon, the correspondent of the White House of ABC News asked Karen Travers what Crime Newsom had committed that he would guarantee his arrest.
“I think his main crime is postulated for governor because he has done a bad job,” Trump replied.
President Donald J. Trump in Washington, on June 9, 2025 and the governor of California Gavin Newsom in Compton, California, on June 5, 2025.
EPA-EFE/Shuttersock/Reuters
Hominas himself on early Monday retreated the idea that he was going to arrest Newsom and the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, both Democrats.
In an interview with NBC News during the weekend, Homan had not ruled out the possibility, which led Newsom to answer: “He knows where to find me.”
Homin on Monday morning, during an interview in Fox, he commented more about his comments to NBC.
“The journalist asked: ‘Could the governor, Governor Newsom or Mayor Bass, be arrested?
“I have said it many times, you can protest, you get your rights to the first amendment, but when you cross that line, you put your hands on an ice officer, or destroy the property, or ICE says that you are preventing the police … that is a crime, and that the Trump administration will not tolerate. You cross that line we will see the prosecution in the Department of Justice,” Homan said.
The president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, said solidarity with the president after the president suggested that Newsom should be arrested.
“I heard that for the first time sitting next to the president when they asked him that question in the White House. I don’t know what all that implies, but he gave comments there, and I will stay with what he said,” said Johnson, and added that he also agreed with Trump’s decision to send to the National Guard, predicting that he will have a “deterrent effect.”
“We have to maintain the rule of law, and if state and local leaders cannot or are not willing to do so, it is the work of the federal government to intervene,” Johnson told journalists outside the White House.
Trump also doubled on Monday his decision during the weekend to deploy the National Guard in California, for Newsom’s objections.
Trump said in 2020 that a governor’s request was needed to send to the National Guard. On Monday, ABC News asked Trump what changed between his statement at that time and now.
“Well, the biggest change of that statement is that we have an incompetent governor,” Trump said. Trump said his administration was “straightening his problems.”
“I mean, I think we have it very well under control. I think it would have been a very bad situation. He was going in the wrong direction. He is now heading in the right direction,” Trump said.
Trump has long expressed the desire to cancel the protests that he considered dangerous through the use of the military, although the use of federal troops on US soil is mainly prohibited by the POSSE Committus Law of 1878. Trump deployed the National Guard in this situation under Title 10 of the United States Code.
When asked if Marines would deploy in Los Angeles on Monday, Trump had said “we will see what happens.”
Shortly after the president’s comments, an American official confirmed ABC News 700 Marines from Twentynine Palms, California, he was ordered to help in the streets of Los Angeles, although it was not clear exactly what role they would play.
Newsom said the State is demanding the administration of Trump deploying the National Guard.
“He called the fires and acted illegally to federalize the National Guard,” Newsom wrote on social networks. “The order that signed not only applies to California. It will allow you to enter any state and do the same. We are demanding it.”
John Parkinson from ABC News contributed to this report.
