SACRAMENTO, California — Gavin Newsom announced Thursday he’s sending new teams of state police to major California cities —contrasting the effort with Donald Trump’s unilateral deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles and Washington.
The California Highway Patrol troopers will target crimes like auto theft and drug dealing in Los Angeles, San Diego, inland regions and the San Francisco Bay Area. Trump recently threatened to send Guard members to San Francisco, saying he would “clean up” the city.
Newsom insisted he was “not reacting and responding to anything” relating to Trump and emphasized the state’s deployment, unlike the president’s, was not being done over the objections of local governments.
“As it relates to the president in particular, he’s doing things to people, not with people, and it’s a point of profound, consequential contrast. He’s de facto militarizing American cities,” Newsom told reporters.
The announcement is Newsom’s latest attempt to take the lead in offering a competing Democratic vision of governance to Republican Washington ahead of a likely 2028 presidential run. The governor has laced into the Trump administration for its law enforcement tactics, on Wednesday telling POLITICO that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents work as the president’s “private police force.” White House border czar Tom Homan said the governor was an “embarrassment” in response.
“If he had an ounce of integrity he’d be calling President Trump and thanking him for making LA safer,” Homan said.
Newsom’s move comes ahead of a ruling in a lawsuit California filed against the federal government over its deployment of troops to Los Angeles. The governor said the state’s attorneys have deposed members of the Trump administration, Border Patrol and the military and that he was preparing for a decision from the Northern District Court of California “any hour, any day.” The ruling is slated to have sweeping implications for Trump’s plans to send troops to more blue cities across the U.S.
“I think its consequences will be profound,” Newsom said.
California has also sent state police to Bakersfield, San Bernardino and Oakland. The expanded forces will work with local law enforcement, sharing intelligence and placing more patrol cars on the street to deter crime, the governor said.