Breakdown between Trump and Newsom deepens as L.A. crisis intensifies

Washington – The governor and the president speak to each other.

The two men, despite their policy and ambition, have already worked together, through devastating fires and a pandemic. But while immigration raids are royal in Los Angeles, President Trump and Governor Gavin Newsom cannot even agree on how they left their last conversation on Friday evening on the East coast, while demonstrations resumed in the city.

Aid to Trump told Times that he had made a clear warning: “Put the police in equipment.” His patience would last less than 24 hours before choosing a historic path, federalizing the National Guard against the wishes of the national and local authorities.

The governor, on the other hand, told MSNBC that the account was a lie. During their 40 -minute call, the president did not make the prospect of fighting against the control of the national guard of state officials and local authorities.

They have not spoken since, said a White House official.

Trump went even further on Monday, increasing the spectrum of Newsom’s arrest and completing the National Guard operation with a historic deployment of American navy in active service.

The deployment of troops is another extraordinary effort to repress the demonstrations flowing in Los Angeles, some of which have become violent, to protest against the flash raids led by immigration and customs agents in recent days.

“Subject to arrest”

Newsom’s government said on Monday that it would continue the Trump administration about deployment and criticized Trump’s management, qualifying his defense secretary of “joke” and “unleashed” president. But the president and his best advisers responded with a particularly sharp threat, suggesting that the governor could be arrested for obstruction.

“It is a fundamental principle in this country that if you violate the law, you will therefore be for this,” said the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt, in Times in an interview. “So, if the governor hinders the federal application or breaks federal laws, then he submits to arrest.”

Earlier in the day, Tom Homan, the so -called president’s border tsar, said that no one was above the law and that anyone – including the Governor – hinders the application of immigration would be subject to accusations.

“I would do it if I were Tom,” said Trump, continuing his lips when he seemed to consider the question when he was addressed to journalists on Monday. “I think it’s great.”

“He did a terrible job,” said Trump. “I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy. But he is roughly incompetent. Everyone knows it. “

The White House does not discuss or actively plan the arrest of Newsom. But Newsom took the threat seriously, vehemently denouncing Trump’s remarks as the brand of an authoritarian.

“The President of the United States has just called for the arrest of an in -practice governor. It is a day when I was hoping to see in America. I don’t care if you are a democrat or a republican, it is a line that we cannot take as a nation – it is an undoubted step towards authoritarianism,” wrote Newsom on X.

“It would be really unprecedented to arrest a governor for a difference in policy between the federal government and a state,” said the Faculty of Law of the Berkeley, the law faculty Erwin Chemerinsky on Monday. “Even when the southern governors hampered the orders for desegregation, the presidents did not try to have them arrested.”

An effort to return to deterrent

Leavitt said Trump’s initial decision to deploy the goalkeeper was “awaiting that the deployment of the National Guard would prevent and dissuade part of this violence.”

“He told the Governor to control him and looked again for another full day, 24 hours, when it got worse,” said Leavitt. “The attacks on federal police have been strengthened, violence has increased and the president took daring measures on Saturday evening to protect spaces for federal detention and federal buildings and federal staff.”

The opposite has occurred. The worst violence took place on Sunday, with burnt down rioters and launching concrete in police cars, a few hours after the arrival of the national guard troops in the county.

The demonstrations had been largely peaceful during Fridays and Saturday, with isolated cases of violent activities. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, “disabled” the Los Angeles police service, “who tries to do their job”.

Local leaders “refused to allow the local police service to work alongside the federal authorities to enforce the immigration laws of our country and to have and to stop violent criminals that are in the streets of Los Angeles,” she said.

“As for the local police forces,” she added, “the president has the greatest respect for the Los Angeles police service.”

“All options on the table”

Leavitt, during a telephone call on Monday afternoon, said that it would not become becoming Trump on the question of whether he will invoke the insurrection law, a law which allows the president to suspend posse comitatus, which prohibits soldiers from engaging in the application of local laws.

But she noted that, on Monday, the president described certain rioters as insurrectionists, potentially laying the basics of an invocation of the law.

“The president wisely keeps all the options on the table and will do what is necessary to restore public order in California,” she said. “The federal operations of the application of laws will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been completely overwhelmed by illegal extraterrestrial criminals which have a risk of public security and must be removed from the city.”

The President’s order, ordering 2,000 troops from the National Guard to protect the city’s federal buildings, allows a deployment of 60 days. Leavitt would not say how long the operation could last, but suggested that it would continue until the end of violence during demonstrations.

“I don’t want to get ahead of decisions or deadlines,” she said. “I can tell you that 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, have the space and the right to protest peacefully. ”

“And these violent and insurrectionist disruptors, as the president have called them, do not only render a bad service to the citizens respectful of the laws, but also to those who wish to protest peacefully. It is a fundamental right, this administration will support and always protect. ”

Wilner reported Washington, Wick from Los Angeles.