Stone Cold Liar: Trump Incited Riot after Threatening to Cancel Funding for CA

Gavin Newsom is doing a fair amount of press as he monitors the response to the protests and conflict in Los Angeles. In a number of those interviews, including this MSNBC one, Newsom accused Trump of lying when he claimed the two discussed deploying the National Guard on Friday.

Gavin Newsom: We talked for almost twenty minutes. And he barely — this issue never came up. I kept trying to talk about LA, he wanted to talk about all these other issues. We had a very decent conversation.

Jacob Soboroff: When was this?

Newsom: This was late Friday night. About 1:30 plus, his time.

Soboroff: After the protests had started?

Newsom: After the protests. And he never once brought up the National Guard. He’s a Stone Cold Liar. He said he did. Stone Cold Liar. Never did. It was a very civil conversation. I’ve always wanted to approach engagement with the President of the United States in a respectful and responsible way. But there’s no working with the President. There’s only working for him. And I will never work for Donald Trump.

Soboroff: Did you mention to him in that phone call on Friday night the types of raids that were happening in your state on Friday. There were reports that and video of enforcement operations in ways that they haven’t traditionally. ICE officers [went] to Home Depots around Los Angeles and picking off day laborers. Did you bring that up with him?

Newsom: The conversation started with the frame of what’s happening in LA, he immediately pivoted to other things and other interests.

He went on to correct Soboroff’s comment that this was about immigration. After putting it in context with all of Trump’s other attacks on the Constitution, Newsom described, “It is a serious moment under the guise of immigration. but it’s much deeper than that.”

Newsom is giving these interviews in advance of suing Trump to end the National Guard deployment (by the time he sues, some Marines that Pete Hegseth is readying may already be deployed). We may learn more specifics about the time and content of the conversation the two men had on Friday night via that lawsuit.

But as he describes it, Newsom spoke to Trump — in an attempt to talk about LA — in the wake of reports, relying on White House sources, that Trump was threatening to cut funding from CA.

The Trump administration is preparing to cancel a large swath of federal funding for California, an effort that could begin as soon as Friday, according to multiple sources.

Agencies are being told to start identifying grants the administration can withhold from California. Sources said the administration is specifically considering a full termination of federal grant funding for the University of California and California State University systems.

“No taxpayer should be forced to fund the demise of our country,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement Friday afternoon, criticizing California for its energy, immigration and other policies. “No final decisions, however, on any potential future action by the Administration have been made, and any discussion suggesting otherwise should be considered pure speculation.”

Newsom spoke to Trump late on Friday, wanting to talk about LA. Trump kept pivoting to “other things and other interests.”

And out of that, Newsom stated, “there’s no working with the President. There’s only working for him. And I will never work for Donald Trump.”

Obviously, Newsom is right: As I noted the other day, Stephen Miller loves the racism, but immigration is also one tool of his authoritarianism. The defunding makes clear that the pretext of antisemitism is another.

But this assault on California is an expansion of a pattern.

Trump asked law firms to work for him. Some capitulated, and they’re increasingly paying a price. Others refused and, thus far at least, have survived.

Trump asked Ivy League universities to work for him. Columbia capitulated, and they’re paying a price. Harvard refused and, thus far at least, has survived.

Trump is now seeking to bring California to heel using some of the same tools used with law firms and universities.

California’s governor refused.

And then Trump sent in the Armed Forces.