Governor Gavin Newsom has shot back at the White House over President Donald Trump’s renewed threat to send the National Guard back to California.
“So you can have them sleep on the floor again? We’re good,” Newsom posted on X, accompanied by a photo of several dozen National Guard troops napping between piles of equipment and their bags at what appears to be a federal building in the western state.
The online feud came as a federal judge ruled that Trump’s use of the National Guard in Los Angeles was illegal—a significant blow to the president as he prepares to deploy the military to other U.S. cities.
The photo posted on X appears to date from the Trump administration’s deployment of roughly 4,000 troops to Los Angeles in June, part of broader efforts to quell protests in the city against the White House’s mass immigration crackdown.
Newsom also led the backlash then, accusing the president of dispatching the National Guard without any forward planning, and therefore “without fuel, food, water, or a place to sleep.”
His comments on Tuesday came in response to Trump’s suggestion earlier in the day that California may soon find itself again in need of the unsolicited support. “Newsom didn’t want us there,” the president told reporters. “He’s gonna need us again because it’s starting to form again.”
So you can have them sleep on the floor again? We’re good. https://t.co/ZsObNXU3dh pic.twitter.com/t64cf9Umyp
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 2, 2025
There have been no protests in Los Angeles since the spate of riots in June. Meanwhile, the California attorney general’s office is pursuing a federal legal action against the White House, challenging the legality of the National Guard deployment as well as that of roughly 700 Marines.
Tipped as a prospective Democratic challenger to the GOP for the 2028 presidential polls, Newsom has increasingly emerged as one of Trump’s most virulent prominent critics, trolling the MAGA White House with online posts as part of a wider apparent effort to emulate the kind of viral appeal that won Trump the election last year.
These have included ALL-CAPS rants, puerile nicknames like Donald ‘Tiny Hands’ Trump and JD ‘Just Dance’ Vance, pop culture memes, and rhetorical flairs in the vein of “Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter.”
Newsom has said he’s imitating the president’s tactics as a means of holding a mirror up to the Republican administration. “I’m just following his example,” the governor has said. “If you have issues with what I’m putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns with what he’s putting out as president.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Newsom’s office for comment on this story.
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