By Joseph Ax and Trevor Hunnicutt
(Reuters) -Soon after scattered protests broke out in Los Angeles on Friday in the wake of federal immigration raids, President Donald Trump and California Governor Gavin Newsom spoke by phone. Trump never mentioned any federal response, according to Newsom, who described the conversation as “very cordial” on MSNBC on Sunday.
Twenty-four hours later, Trump ordered thousands of National Guard troops to the state, bypassing Newsom and igniting another firestorm over his aggressive efforts to deport migrants living in the U.S. illegally.
For Newsom, governor of the nation’s most populous state and a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, Trump’s gambit has created substantial political risks.
Throughout Trump’s first and second terms, Democratic governors have struggled to find the most effective approach to dealing with the mercurial Republican president; confronting Trump can result in backlash, but conceding ground sometimes encourages him to push harder.
Newsom and Trump have often clashed in the past, with Trump calling the governor “Newscum” and Newsom declaring after Trump’s election victory that he would “Trump-proof” California.
During Trump’s first months in office, however, Newsom has often opted for appeasement rather than antagonism – meeting the president on the tarmac when Trump visited during January’s devastating wildfires and interviewing leading Trump acolytes such as Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his new podcast.
But Trump’s decision to send troops into California – the first time in decades that a president had done so absent a request from a governor – and his claim that Los Angeles was being “invaded” by violent mobs appear to have convinced Newsom to abandon his conciliatory approach.
“I’ve always wanted to approach engagement with the president of the United States in a respectful and responsible way,” Newsom told MSNBC on Sunday. “But there’s no working with the president, there’s only working for him – and I will never work for Donald Trump.”
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said Newsom was incompetent and that he should be arrested.
“I think his primary crime is running for governor because he’s done such a bad job,” Trump said when asked what crime Newsom had committed.
‘A DELICATE ACT’
The state sued Trump on Monday, seeking to force him to rescind the Guard deployment. Meanwhile, about 700 Marines will be sent to Los Angeles until more Guard personnel can arrive, a U.S. official said.
Newsom is trying to navigate choppy political waters, according to strategists from both parties. As the governor of California, a deep-blue Democratic state that Trump has gleefully caricatured at every opportunity, Newsom could struggle to appeal to swing voters as a national candidate without moderating his image.
There is also the risk that angering Trump could harm Newsom’s 39 million constituents; the governor is still waiting for federal funding to help rebuild after the wildfires, while the president recently threatened to cut the state’s education funding after a transgender girl competed in a girls’ track and field championship event.
At the same time, Democratic voters want to see their leaders fight tooth-and-nail against what they see as Trump’s lawlessness and corruption.
“He’s serving his own ambitions as well as the state of California, and those two things don’t often coincide,” said Steven Maviglio, a longtime Democratic consultant in the state. “It’s a dilemma for Newsom.”
The protests allowed Trump to tout his hardline immigration policies while claiming California was helpless to stop the violence without his intervention.
“On this one, I think the president has really check-mated the governor,” Maviglio added. “This fed right into his scenario of what California is all about…a wildly liberal state with lawlessness and immigrants and no rules.”
Jon Fleischman, a Republican strategist and former executive director of the state Republican Party, said images of burning cars and protesters waving Mexican flags only served to bolster Trump’s position. Newsom, he argued, had taken Trump’s bait by blaming him for the escalation of violence.
“Donald Trump can’t force somebody to throw a rock at a police car,” he said.
Other Democratic governors have grappled with similar predicaments under Trump’s administration.
In April, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, also seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, visited the White House to discuss the future of a military base in her state, but was caught by surprise in the Oval Office when Trump signed executive orders targeting his political enemies. A photograph of the governor covering her face from cameras went viral.
“Balancing your state’s needs and working with President Trump, if you’re a Democratic governor, is always going to be a delicate act,” said Chris Meagher, a Democratic communications consultant.
“I think the more that Governor Newsom can keep his head down and do the work and show that he has the situation under control, the better off that he’s going to be.”
(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by Paul Thomasch and Nia Williams)
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