Gavin Newsom unloaded on President Donald Trump and his top aide Stephen Miller over the sweeping immigration raids that have rocked Los Angeles.
The Democratic governor accused Miller–widely credited as the architect of Trump’s hardline immigration agenda–of wanting to “divide this country” by unleashing federal agents to round up migrants in California, which houses the country’s largest immigrant population.
“This is about sowing distrust and chaos,” Newsom told The Daily Beast Podcast. “This is about creating civil unrest. This is about making things worse so that they can employ more tactics and more oppressive force.”
Newsom said Miller, his fellow Californian, was helping Trump indulge in his “authoritarian tendencies.”
“There is a cruelty. They want to divide this country. They don’t believe in the rule of law,” he said. “He doesn’t want opposition or opponents… Stephen Miller’s part of that.”
Trump has so far deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to quell clashes over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Protests rolled into their sixth day on Wednesday as law enforcement and protesters continued to lob tear gas and rocks at each other.
Newsom has repeatedly blasted Trump for taking over the California National Guard against his wishes. The governor earlier filed a lawsuit against Trump and the Defense Department over the “illegal takeover.”
Newsom believes Trump’s endgame is “power, dominance, control.”
“He’s a bully, but he’s also, you know, he’s a flim-flammer in the vernacular. He’s a carny. He’s the music man. He’s a bulls–t artist is what he is,” he said.
“But he happens to be President of the United States. I revere the Office of the Presidency. That’s why I talked to him for 20 minutes a few nights ago and had a very cordial conversation. Hours later, he referred to me as ‘Newscum,’ and a day later, he talked about my arrest. That’s Donald Trump in a nutshell.”
On Monday, Trump said he would support the arrest of Newsom over the anti-ICE protests. The president has consistently maintained that Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have failed to rein in protesters, which he used as a justification for deploying the National Guard.
Newsom hit back in a scathing address on Tuesday that branded Trump a “dictator.”
“This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next,” he said, adding: “This moment we have feared has arrived.”
