California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued President Trump on Monday, challenging his decision to deploy the National Guard to quell anti-ICE protests, saying the president helped cause the chaos.
Mr. Newsom said Mr. Trump had no legal basis to federalize the guard, saying the violent protests didn’t rise to the level needed for the president to act.
“Donald Trump is creating fear and terror by failing to adhere to the U.S. Constitution and overstepping his authority,” Mr. Newsom said. “This is a manufactured crisis to allow him to take over a state militia, damaging the very foundation of our republic.”
The lawsuit is the latest escalation in a battle between the sitting president and a Democratic governor who envisions himself taking that spot in the 2028 election.
Hours before the lawsuit was filed, Mr. Trump said he would like to see Mr. Newsom — whom he calls “Gavin Newscum” — arrested for failing to preserve safety in the nation’s second-largest city.
Some 2,000 California Army National Guard soldiers have been placed under federal command under Mr. Trump’s Saturday order. As of Sunday evening, 300 of them were deployed to three locations around Los Angeles.
Another 500 Marines based at Twentynine Palms, California, are also prepared to deploy “should they be necessary,” according to U.S. Northern Command.
Mr. Trump said on social media Monday that the deployment was “a great decision.”
“If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated,” the president said.
He said Mr. Newsom should have responded with a “Thank you, President Trump, you are so wonderful. We would be nothing without you, sir.”
California said it will ask for a temporary restraining order to halt the deployment.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the lawsuit, called the deployment “unnecessary and counterproductive.”
He said local law enforcement had the protest under control, but that changed after Mr. Trump’s “unnecessary, counterproductive and, most importantly, unlawful order.”
“Since Trump announced his plan to deploy troops, the situation on the ground has escalated quickly,” he said. “This was not inevitable.”
He and Mr. Newsom said their lawsuit is about trying to draw a line to prevent Mr. Trump from federalizing guard troops in other states and situations, too.
And they said Mr. Trump himself used to recognize lines he’s now erasing.
Mr. Newsom’s office pointed to remarks Mr. Trump made in 2020, when he suggested he lacked the power to call up the guard to quell anti-police violence unless there was an “insurrection.”
“We can’t call in the National Guard unless we’re requested by a governor,” he said.
U.S. Northern Command, in announcing the call-ups this weekend, said it was acting under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which allows a call-up in times of invasion, rebellion or danger of rebellion, or when the president is unable to secure execution of the law.
In 1965, President Johnson bypassed the Alabama governor to send troops to protect a civil rights march.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.