California Gov. Gavin Newsom is challenging President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan to make good on his threat to have him arrested.
Homan said he is prepared to arrest “anybody” who obstructs immigration enforcement, including Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. The Democratic politicians have been highly critical of the Trump administration for sending federal personnel to conduct sweeping immigration operations in L.A. and then deploying 2,000 National Guard troops—against the wishes of state leaders—to quell furious protests against the raids.
“It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job,” Homan told NBC News on Saturday, saying that if either politician “crossed that line, we’ll ask the DOJ to prosecute.”
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“I have absolutely no respect for this governor,” Homan added. “He’s an embarrassment to his state.”
But Newsom called the border czar’s bluff when asked about his remarks Sunday.
“He’s a tough guy,” Newsom told NBC News of Homan. “Why doesn’t he do that? He knows where to find me.”
“Come after me,” Newsom added. “Arrest me. Let’s get it over with, tough guy. I don’t give a damn. But I care about my community. I care about this community. The hell are they doing? These guys need to grow up. They need to stop, and we need to push back.”
Bass, meanwhile, dismissed Homan’s threats and said she had no desire to start a fight with the Trump administration.
“He had absolutely positively no reason to even say that,” the mayor said. “I spoke to him last night. He understands that I am the mayor of the city; the last thing in the world I’m going to do is get into a brawl with the federal government.
“So that just made no sense. There was no reason for that comment.”
A total of 27 people were arrested Sunday in downtown Los Angeles as the protests against the immigration crackdown continued to rage. Authorities said the alleged crimes included a motorcycle being driven into a police line and a Molotov cocktail being thrown at an officer. Those arrests came after 29 people were detained during the protests Saturday.
Elsewhere in his interview, Newsom claimed violent protesters were giving Trump exactly what he wanted, adding that images of the chaos in Los Angeles are “unacceptable.”
But the governor still blamed Trump as the instigator of the unrest, saying: “We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved.”
Newsom said he spoke to the president on Friday night and the issue of sending in troops never came up once during the conversation.
“He never once brought up the National Guard. He’s a stone-cold liar,” he added.
“There’s no working with the president. There’s only working for him, and I will never work for Donald Trump,” he said.
“You’re creating the conditions that you claim you’re solving,” Newsom later added.
Newsom went even further in a post on X, claiming the president had “manufactured a crisis and is inflaming conditions.”
“If he can’t solve it, we will,” Newsom wrote. “To the bad actors fueling Trump’s flames—California will hold you accountable.”
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to add fuel to the fires, ranting on Truth Social that more troops need to be deployed to Los Angeles “NOW!”
“Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” the president wrote on Truth Social late on Sunday. “ARREST THE PEOPLE IN FACE MASKS, NOW!”
