An intense exchange at a White House press briefing signals increasing discord between the president and the California governor concerning National Guard deployment and redistricting initiatives.
The political conflict between President Donald Trump and California Governor Gavin Newsom intensified during a White House press conference on Monday, August 11, 2025. Trump launched into a profanity-filled tirade against the Democratic governor while responding to reporters.
Addressing the media, Trump declared, “Gavin Newscum is incompetent. He’s got a good line of (expletive), but that’s about it. He’s incompetent.” The outburst was significant enough that Fox News briefly interrupted its regular programming to air live coverage of the press conference.
This heated interaction arises as both political figures are set to contest in a federal court to determine whether Trump breached a 147-year-old statute when he deployed the National Guard to suppress protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles, California.
In June 2025, hundreds gathered in Los Angeles, California, to protest a series of immigration enforcement raids that led to numerous detentions and deportations. Trump invoked a rarely used law permitting the president to federalize the National Guard during times of actual or threatened rebellion or invasion, or when regular forces cannot enforce United States laws. Despite opposition from Governor Newsom and local officials, the president federalized and dispatched 4,000 National Guard members and 700 US Marines to Los Angeles.
Newsom filed a lawsuit on June 9, 2025, against Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, claiming they violated the Posse Comitatus Act and the 10th Amendment. The Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits using the military as a domestic law enforcement body.
The trial, occurring in San Francisco, California, is overseen by Judge Charles Breyer of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. California contends that the troops assisted immigration agents during raids and established security perimeters, effectively imposing “military occupation” on Los Angeles residents. The federal government refutes these allegations, maintaining that the president holds the authority to deploy troops to enforce federal laws, including immigration statutes.
A military general involved in Trump’s deployment testified he never heard the protests described as a “rebellion,” —one of the statutory bases the administration could have relied on—while the government argues the deployment was justified because regular forces were unable to execute federal law.
The dispute extends beyond the legal arena. In reaction to Trump’s redistricting efforts in Texas and other red states, Newsom issued a warning. On Instagram, the governor urged Trump to “call your lapdogs off.”
In his social media post, Newsom emphasized that Trump should contact Governor Greg Abbott and ask him to halt actions, asserting that Trump was not “entitled” to five congressional seats. Newsom warned that failing to restrain allies would prompt swift and decisive action at the ballot box from California to counter any political gains, stressing that California would not allow democracy to be undermined.
The redistricting issue began two weeks ago when Trump encouraged Texas Governor Greg Abbott to secure five congressional seats through mid-decade gerrymandering, an uncommon practice since redistricting typically follows the United States Census every ten years. Texas Democrats have obstructed redistricting by leaving the state and seeking refuge in Illinois and other blue states to prevent the Texas GOP from achieving a quorum.
Newsom has vowed to advocate for redrawing California’s district lines in response to potential Republican advances in Texas. This would entail requesting California voters to abandon the current maps established by an independent commission. New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker have pledged similar actions in their Democratic-controlled statehouses.
With only 300 National Guard troops remaining in Los Angeles, California, Newsom’s legal team is seeking primarily symbolic relief: a declaration that the memorandum used to federalize the National Guard and Hegseth’s directives were unauthorized and illegal. According to Newsom, the remaining troops are stationed at Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, California, “without a clear mission, direction, or a timeline for returning to their state duties.”
The trial’s outcome could have broader implications for the president’s capacity to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and may establish a precedent for future deployment of the National Guard in California or other states. The case also exemplifies the escalating tension between Trump and Newsom, as both figures engage in increasingly contentious rhetoric over federal and state authority.
