WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday that he’d arrest California Gov. Gavin Newsom if he were border czar Tom Homan — after anti-ICE riots ravaged Los Angeles.
“I would do it, if I were Tom,” Trump said upon returning to the White House from Camp David — joking later that Newsom’s “primary crime is running for governor since he’s done such a bad job.”
“Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing,” the president said after three nights of unrest in America’s second-largest city.
“I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy, but he’s grossly incompetent, everybody knows that.”
Newsom had dared Homan to cuff him on Sunday night, telling NBC News that the Trump official should “come after me. Arrest me. Let’s just get it over with, tough guy.”
Despite his taunting invite, the governor tweeted Monday that he was appalled to hear Trump humorously endorse the idea.
“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor,” Newsom wrote. “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.”
Homan had warned that both Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could face charges for attempting to thwart ICE agents from deporting illegal migrants.
“I’ll say it about anybody,” Homan had warned Saturday, also to NBC.
“You cross that line, it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.”
Homan partially walked back the remark Monday morning, telling the Peacock Network that “I never threatened to arrest Governor Newsom” and insisting that his words were taken out of context.
Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 members of the National Guard Saturday to tamp down demonstrations.
Newsom’s administration filed a federal lawsuit Monday claiming Trump violated California’s 10th Amendment rights by invoking a law enabling federal control of Guard troops during rebellions.
“I wouldn’t call it quite an insurrection, but it could have led to an insurrection,” the president said of the violence moments after the lawsuit was filed.
Trump told reporters that he called up the National Guard to prevent spiraling violence — likening clashes over ICE operations to initial nights of rioting in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd by police in May 2020.
“It was heading in the wrong direction. It’s now heading in the right direction,” Trump said.
“If we didn’t do the job, that place would be burning down,” the president said. “I watched Minneapolis burn [in 2020]… There’s so many different places where we let it burn. We wanted to be politically correct … I think Gavin, in his own way, is probably happy I got involved.”
The first service members were spotted arriving on the scene Sunday, responding to protesters lighting cars on fire and waving flags of Mexico and other nations in solidarity with illegal migrants.
“We made a great decision in sending the National Guard to deal with the violent, instigated riots in California. If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated,” Trump wrote on Truth Social en route to Washington from the presidential retreat.
“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.’”
The president added that “we will always do what is needed to keep our Citizens SAFE, so we can, together, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
