President Donald Trump called California Governor Gavin Newsom a “liar” on Tuesday after the governor accused Trump of making up a phone call between the two men.
Trump sent a record of the call between himself and the governor to Fox News’ John Roberts, who posted the screenshot on X. He also relayed a message from the president ripping Newsom.
“First call was not picked up. Second call, Gavin picked up, we spoke for 16 minutes. I told him to, essentially, ‘get his a** in gear,’ and stop the Riots, which were out of control. More than anything else, this shows what a liar he is – said I never called. Here is the evidence,” said Trump, according to Roberts.
Roberts then posted a screenshot of a call log from Trump showing a 16-minute conversation early in the morning on June 7.
Here is the call log: https://t.co/Mmp0Np6aqf pic.twitter.com/nZMY9NevZ0
— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) June 10, 2025
Newsom drew Trump’s ire after the governor questioned Trump’s mental acuity and said that the president could not “even know who he’s talking to.” Trump had told a reporter in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he had last spoken with Newsom “a day ago” to tell him “he’s got to do a better job.”
“He’s doing a bad job causing a lot of death and a lot of a lot of potential death. If we didn’t send out the National Guard – and last night we gave him a little additional help – you would have, Los Angeles would be burning right now,” Trump told the reporter.
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Newsom responded in a post on X: “There was no call. Not even a voicemail. Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to.”
Trump initially deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles over the weekend to protect federal law enforcement who are carrying out immigration operations in the area. Since Friday, rioters in the streets of the Los Angeles area have burned cars and demonstrated with the flags of foreign countries. They have attacked law enforcement and damaged property.
The president increased the military presence in the region on Monday, first calling in hundreds of Marines before doubling the size of the National Guard presence in the area, ordering another 2,000 guardsmen to Los Angeles on Monday night.
California has sued the Trump administration over the military deployments. Newsom has said that the Trump administration violated the Constitution by ordering National Guard deployment in California without state leaders’ consent.