Newsom threatens lawsuit if Trump sends National Guard to San Francisco
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California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday threatened to sue the Trump administration if National Guard troops were sent to San Francisco.
“Send troops to San Francisco and we will sue you, @realDonaldTrump,” Newsom wrote on X.
“We are going to be fierce, we are going to be focused in our response. Literally, this is the lawsuit that I will file in the nanosecond following any effort to send the military into one of America’s greatest cities, San Francisco,” he said at a news conference, brandishing a document.
The governor said California authorities would “fight back with clarity and conviction,” adding that they would “continue to win in court.”
TRUMP’S IMMINENT Crackdown IN SAN FRANCISCO CAUSES REACTION FROM MAYOR NEWSOM
California Governor Gavin Newsom has threatened to sue the Trump administration over the impending deployment of the National Guard to San Francisco. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
This comes after President Donald Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that the National Guard will next head to San Francisco, having already been deployed to various U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., to help reduce crime, support federal immigration enforcement and respond to protests.
“We’re going to go to San Francisco,” Trump said Sunday. “The difference is I think they want us in San Francisco. San Francisco really was one of the greatest cities in the world, and then 15 years ago it went bad. It woke up.”
The administration is also deploying 100 agents from Customs and Border Protection as well as the Alameda Coast Guard Base in San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Newsom also promised Tuesday that California would challenge the federal government in court if it deployed troops to San Francisco.
NEWSOM SUES TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FOR ORDER TO DEPLOY CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD TO OREGON
California Governor Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump shake hands January 24, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
“We are a nation of laws and accountability – not a nation that turns a blind eye to abuses of power,” he said in a statement. “Donald Trump, himself a convicted felon who has pardoned felons convicted of assaulting federal law enforcement officers, is misleading the public with his false narrative that America, and particularly California, is a lawless wasteland.”
“But California proves him wrong, in court and on the facts,” the governor continued. “We do not bow to kings, and we stand up to this would-be tyrant. The idea that the federal government can deploy troops into our cities without justification based in reality, without oversight, without accountability, without respect for state sovereignty, is a direct attack on the rule of law. We draw the line: California will always defend the Constitution, our people, and our values against authoritarian excesses.”
Newsom touted San Francisco’s decline in homicides, and the city’s mayor, Democrat Daniel Lurie, said the city was safe.
“We had this in San Francisco,” the mayor told The Associated Press last week.
President Donald Trump speaks with law enforcement and National Guard troops August 21, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
Lurie said Monday that San Francisco would appreciate more federal help cracking down on drug dealers and drug markets, but that he opposed deploying the National Guard.
“The National Guard does not have the authority to arrest drug dealers — and sending them to San Francisco will do nothing to take fentanyl off the streets or make our city safer,” he told the Associated Press.
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California officials sued the administration over the summer when it sent the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to take control of anti-ICE protests.
“California has seen enough. President Trump and Stephen Miller’s authoritarian playbook is coming to another of our cities, and violence and vandalism are exactly what they are looking for to invoke chaos. Help keep yourself and your communities safe. Stay in peace,” Newsom wrote on X on Wednesday.
