- 7/17/2025
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) holds a press briefing in response to ICE raids in Los Angeles, California.
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00:00film, demanding as if they were running the place, demanding she simply walk away.
00:08She knew her rights. She exercised her rights.
00:12I think it's important to highlight that.
00:15It's one thing to know your rights.
00:17Another important and imperative thing to do is to exercise them.
00:21And she did that. She videotaped what occurred.
00:24And it's an example of what's occurring all over here in Southern California,
00:28and what's occurred at a level we've not seen in modern times.
00:32I just had an opportunity to visit with business leaders, small business.
00:36And when I say mom and pop, I mean mom, dad, kids, grandkids, generational businesses in Bell.
00:47I met one business owner. They've been 20 years in business.
00:52They said we miss COVID. They said it was much easier.
00:58They have lost 80% of their business.
01:02And they said they've lost something more precious, which really put it in perspective.
01:07They said they've lost a sense of community.
01:09They said they missed their customers, not the business.
01:13They missed the tables being filled.
01:15That's what a family business is all about.
01:19They're barely making ends meet.
01:21They're trying some catering work.
01:23They have a 15-year employee.
01:27He won't even show up to work.
01:29He's here with documentation.
01:31But he's scared to death.
01:33He hasn't shown up in weeks since four raids occurred and nearby.
01:37He won't even show up because he's scared to death of being pulled over for simple reason
01:42because of the way he looks, because he's being racially profiled.
01:46I met a mother and her beautiful daughter.
01:51Daughter's going to Bible school.
01:53She just got off.
01:54She was walking into an ice cream store.
01:57And her mom came to me.
01:58She says, I'm here legally, but I'm carrying my passport if you need any proof.
02:06I said, you don't need to impress me.
02:07She's here legally.
02:11She's carrying her passport.
02:12And her daughter was just coming back from Bible school.
02:17That's Trump's America.
02:202025.
02:22Downey in Bell, California.
02:26L.A. County.
02:28The most diverse, most populous county and the most diverse and most populous state
02:33in the world's most diverse democracy, the United States of America, in 2025.
02:40It's a disgrace.
02:43The President of the United States decided to advance his rote cruelty
02:50by utilizing the brave men and women of the National Guard
02:56as pawns in an effort to theatrically show his strength.
03:03He federalized the National Guard.
03:08He deployed roughly 5,000 military, not overseas.
03:14In fact, his entire first term, the President of the United States
03:17did not even send the military boots on the ground overseas.
03:21His entire first term.
03:23First six months of his administration, he decides to send them
03:25to the United States of America.
03:275,000 military.
03:294,000 federalized by the National Guard, close to 1,000 U.S. Marines.
03:34He sent them to a United States city.
03:38The utilization rate of our National Guard, less than 5%.
03:415%, by the way, the folks that were taken and brought into armories
03:58waiting for a mission assignment, our summer school teachers,
04:04our paramedics, our firefighters, our police officers themselves.
04:10Finally, because of the absurdity of this and the complete incapacity of the Pentagon
04:19to reconcile the fact they weren't doing a damn thing,
04:23they manipulated this 26% number.
04:26It's about 5%.
04:28They even realized the absurdity of this and they're talking about a demobilization
04:34of roughly 2,000 of the 79th Infantry.
04:39That process will take a couple weeks.
04:42They'll go through medical reviews and exams.
04:45They'll be in the process of filling out their pay stubs,
04:47getting reimbursements for travel,
04:49trying to get their lives back on track.
04:52We still have thousands of National Guard.
04:55The 49th MPs, you know them well here in Southern California.
04:59Those are the 49th MPs that spent 45 days, up to 60 days, doing recovery
05:04and protecting the people of Los Angeles.
05:09They're still waiting for the Pentagon to get their act together,
05:13to end this theater once and for all.
05:16This cruelty.
05:18It's about terrorizing communities.
05:20It's about appearing tough.
05:22I've said it and I'll repeat it.
05:25Weakness masquerading as strength.
05:28Weakness masquerading as strength.
05:32And so we're here, mindful of people living here.
05:37I said to someone, I said, I got it easy.
05:45White guy, all the privileges.
05:49Talking to members of the community,
05:51they feel like democracy is already gone.
05:53For me, it still seems to be, you know, on life support.
05:58But moving along, they feel like authoritarianism has already come to their community.
06:04They're not even walking the streets.
06:06We were here, not just in businesses that are empty.
06:09The entire shopping mall is empty.
06:12It's summertime.
06:14There was no one.
06:15Until that young woman came in with that, that young girl came in with her mom.
06:20There was no one in the ice cream store in the middle of the day.
06:23In the summer.
06:24One of the most beautiful communities, Bell, in California.
06:27Tourists.
06:31He said, what happened to the tourists?
06:34Not just from Mexico, not just from Canada, from Europe.
06:37They said the tourists aren't coming.
06:39Wrecking the economy.
06:42Destroying families.
06:44Destroying generational businesses.
06:46I spent the morning with Officer Cano's family.
06:53A CHP officer that just lost his life a few weeks ago.
06:59Half of the service was in Spanish.
07:06They met in Mexico.
07:09His wife, Melissa.
07:10The pride that his dad had in his son becoming first-generation law enforcement officer.
07:20That's America.
07:23That's California.
07:25And that's what's being torn asunder by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller.
07:32This is about families.
07:34It's about community.
07:36It's about the sense of place.
07:39It's about our economy.
07:41And it's about time Donald Trump grow up.
07:46It's about time Donald Trump understand the hell he is doing.
07:53And so I'm here in front of a church on church grounds.
08:00Mindful that our democracy is not on firm ground.
08:04And mindful of our responsibility to be assertive at this moment.
08:09And we are to support our diverse communities.
08:12And we will continue to do just that.
08:15The budget we just signed included additional dollars for legal representation.
08:19We did a special session providing resources for legal representation.
08:24Over $75 million we carried forward from last year for additional support.
08:31But we must be vigilant and resolved.
08:34That as we focus on Epstein, we focus on the next day or distraction,
08:39that communities like Bell and Downey are being torn apart because of his cruelty and because of his incompetence.
08:51And so that's the purpose of this opportunity to share and to engage and, of course, ask any questions here today.
09:02Governor Newsom, your personal and your governor's press office social media accounts have taken a much more aggressive tone over the last couple weeks.
09:12Recently, the press office called Stephen Miller a cup on Twitter.
09:16How do you differentiate yourself from Trump if you're using the state and personal social media accounts to name, call, and attack him?
09:24Well, it's a response to Stephen Chung in the White House and his use of that word.
09:29I don't think they understand any other kind of language.
09:31So I have no apologies for standing tall and firm and pushing back against their cruelty.
09:37And if it requires more clear language, requires a recognition that things have radically changed with Trump presidency,
09:48then I will assert myself as I feel fit.
09:53And I'll do so with clarity and conviction.
09:55The difference between Donald Trump and the Trump administration and the state of California
10:02and the work that's being done by many elected officials here
10:06is we don't just exercise our formal authority.
10:10We also exercise our moral authority.
10:13Governor Newsom, last week you saw that the core civic California City, former California prison
10:20has now been renamed the California City Immigration Processing Center.
10:25What is the state of California planning as far as health and safety oversight
10:30or other constitutional oversight of that facility when infant land reopens as an ICE?
10:37So California, and we had advanced in the first Trump administration,
10:42California updated and advanced a lot of its oversight rules and regulations
10:48as it relates to the authority of the state that's vested in us
10:52as it relates to the specific issue of health and safety.
10:54We also had to recognize that we had to reconcile the federal jurisdiction
10:58and there were certain limits as it relates to our direct involvement and direct engagement.
11:04The good news is having gone through a version of what we're experiencing here today
11:09but not at the scale of the cruelty that we're experiencing,
11:13that we had updated a lot of those rules and regulations,
11:16including resourcing members of the Department of Justice,
11:20specifically the AG's office, to provide that kind of oversight.
11:25I specifically had on this topic conversations with immigrant rights leaders
11:31about what their expectations were in terms of that support,
11:35how we can coordinate, collaborate, and share information,
11:38and that is our intent as it relates to that specific facility as well.
11:41I talked to Sabrina.
11:43I talked to Sabrina.
11:43I talked to you about the six-year-old housewife.
11:47She says your kids are afraid to go out.
11:50Yeah.
11:51Of course.
11:53They're afraid to go out to shop.
11:54She wants the leaders to have police that involve ICE operations.
12:01Well, they're not.
12:02I mean, under the tenants, the police officers are not to aid and abet.
12:08As it relates to the issues of these raids, it's very clear as it relates to the policies,
12:14local policies, which distinguish themselves from state policies,
12:18that that is not the role of local law enforcement,
12:21the role of local law enforcers to create a framework of trust.
12:25As it relates to safety of individuals, be it their state employees, local employees, or federal employees,
12:34they have a responsibility as it relates to public safety.
12:36So I'm deeply mindful of that.
12:39There's a balancing act there.
12:40But when it comes to the safety of officers, I wish them no harm.
12:44Most of these folks have been conscripted.
12:47I mean, the National Guard men and women are heroes.
12:50A lot of you are out there taking selfies with them.
12:52The biggest issue they had in places like Santa Monica is so many jugs of water came, so much food came.
12:58We were really proud of them.
12:59They're the same people.
13:00They're just under now a jurisdiction of someone who's unhinged by the name of Donald Trump.
13:07And so I want people to recognize that and respect that.
13:12So it's about public safety in that respect.
13:14Broadly defined, that safety includes federal employees as well.
13:17Governor, do you anticipate a possibility of a further drawdown of the National Guard and or shipping Marines back to the base,
13:28given the rules that Washington wants as far as the ability of ICE officers to arrest anybody who attacks federal officers?
13:35The White House on the 11th said, look, they knew it would be folks rocks when they were assaults.
13:40They're freeing up ICE to actually contain and arrest those people for assault.
13:44If those rules would engage with hope, are you anticipating a further drawdown because there's no need for soldiers or anyone else to provide any kind of a bumper around ICE officers doing those type of operations?
13:54Again, the utilization rate, the mission tasking of roughly 5,000 military personnel is about 5%.
14:02They claim it's 26.6%.
14:05And that's because they're in an operational readiness.
14:09But they're in Los Alamitos, an hour and a half away.
14:13They're sitting there behind the walls looking for things to do, 5%.
14:21So as it relates to the drawdown, they're a solution right now in search of a problem.
14:25But more importantly, I think this is the issue that I think I want to highlight.
14:28This is a preview of things to come.
14:30If you think this is about California, you are fooling yourself.
14:33These are operations you're going to see all across the United States of America.
14:37They've tested the boundaries of the law.
14:39They've tested the boundaries of public perception and what the public will accept.
14:43And they're going to export, including potentially, members of our own state National Guard to other states.
14:51So when they draw down and demobilize, the question is for what?
14:57To go where?
14:58Under whose command, whose control?
15:00And to me, that's a more interesting question, is what ultimately becomes of these members of our National Guard.
15:08But look, you recall, we had close to 1,600 officers at certain points at the peak of what was going on in a couple square blocks or a couple blocks in Los Angeles.
15:20CHP officers and LAPD were protecting the National Guard, to your question, not the other way around.
15:30That's how absurd this whole thing has become.
15:33You would think there would be some congressional oversight, but those guys have disappeared.
15:39Speaker Johnson, in name only.
15:43We can get to that.
15:44The question is how long he'll be Speaker.
15:46They're, of course, trying to change the game on that.
15:49That's a separate conversation.
15:50What's the plan here?
15:55Well, I want to get them back under my control so we can get them back doing the kind of work to control wildfires, to keep our community safe, to address the issue of counter-narcotics, to address the issue of fentanyl.
16:08I want to remind you guys, I put 394 of your National Guard men and women years and years ago on the border.
16:16I've hardly been timid.
16:17I've deployed the National Guard in multiple locations, multiple times.
16:21Going back to George Floyd, one of the largest deployments in U.S. history, with thousands of them, the 49th infantry, the MPs, rather, that were out there on the streets after the fires.
16:34They need to get back doing the rattlesnake teams, which are basically teams that work in partnership with other state agencies and conservation corps and CAL FIRE to do the vegetation and forest management, hundreds of them, so they'll be reassigned when they come back under our control.
16:49About 190 were already redeployed.
16:53The rest will start coming back as they're demobilized.
16:57I want to get them back in our counter-narcotics efforts and our drug interdiction efforts and the task forces that have been firmly assigned, and to support Border Patrol as it relates to some of that effort, not just what's coming in north, but what's going down south with all the gun running and cash that are going through, including those tunnels, that I had the opportunity to explore and witness firsthand with my National Guard or your National Guard just a matter of months ago.
17:25So, that's part of it, but I also want them back teaching our kids.
17:32I want them back walking the beat with their masks off, building trust, sense of community.
17:40And I'll tell you, the most damaging thing about what's going on right now is other law enforcement agencies, these good folks, are being impacted because people are losing trust in local law enforcement now.
17:54They don't know who is who.
17:57This is, if you wrote this script, some Hollywoods could say, that doesn't see past any stats.
18:02People running around with masks and sunglasses on and they can run around.
18:07I mean, I was in a farmer's market, true story, two weeks ago.
18:13And all of a sudden I started feeling, I had my hat and sunglasses on, walked a few blocks so no one can see.
18:23But they saw a few cars that we drove up in, a white and black car.
18:27And you started to feel, as I'm walking around, no one said a word.
18:33I was casually buying a week's food for the kids.
18:38And you felt something.
18:40And all of a sudden, the manager of the farmer's market came up asking our folks who they were.
18:48Because they heard that ICE was there.
18:51It was just the governor.
18:52That's how bad it's become.
19:02Well, they better do it now.
19:07Today.
19:08Next few hours.
19:11I'm a taxpayer.
19:12I don't like to see my money wasted like this.
19:16There's no fiscal conservatives left.
19:18They prove that in the Big Beautiful Betrayal.
19:20But this is comedy.
19:23Donald Trump waxing on about the Fed chair today and cost overruns on a new building.
19:30How about the hundreds of millions of dollars he's burned?
19:34Just to try to sear in your mind that he's some tough guy because he didn't get enough hugs from his parents growing up.
19:42Governor, you alluded to this.
19:44I'm sorry.
19:44Thank you, Governor.
19:45Alex Bader, Trump, you took that.
19:47Do you credit the Trump administration for assisting in restoring the law and order to Los Angeles?
19:52The exact opposite.
19:55He incited more anxiety.
19:57He's incited more unrest.
20:00He's incited more uncertainty.
20:02He's exacerbated the conditions.
20:04Exactly the opposite.
20:06It's not even a close call.
20:09I revere the men and women in uniform.
20:12Police officers from city jurisdictions, county jurisdictions, state jurisdictions.
20:18Universally, they say that.
20:21Not just the governor of California saying that.
20:24No, I don't credit him.
20:25I credit him for creating chaos.
20:28He's a chaos agent.
20:31He is not about calming people's nerves.
20:33He's not about public safety.
20:35This is the same president of the United States that incited almost a riot, in fact, did incite a riot,
20:42and tried to torch this democracy on January 6th.
20:46Police officers were hurt.
20:47He incited that riot.
20:49He promoted violence.
20:50He has no problem promoting violence, Donald Trump, as long as it services his aims.
20:55In his ends, he did not provoke peace.
20:59Quite the contrary.
21:01Governor, you alluded just now to...
21:03Forgive me, because...
21:06She's never going to ever talk to me again, so forgive me.
21:11No, no.
21:12No, this is...
21:13Sorry.
21:15Thank you for your patience.
21:16Governor, you alluded earlier to Speaker Johnson maybe not being Speaker anymore in this conversation
21:21that's been going on about redistricting.
21:23No, that's good.
21:26Yeah.
21:28It sounds like you're looking for, if you potentially wanted to reopen this conversation about drawing masks...
21:33Which I don't.
21:34Goes to your question.
21:36Well...
21:37These guys, look, you got to...
21:38I don't.
21:40It's not what I want to do.
21:42Let me explain it.
21:43Because I'm going to validate where you're going.
21:46I was one of...
21:51At the time, I don't recall, this may be overstated, but I thought I was one of a few, a handful of Democrats in elected office that supported independent redistricting when it first was promoted.
22:01And I think it should be done at a national level.
22:09At the same time, I also am mindful until next year is the 250th anniversary of the founding of this great country.
22:17And I'm very fearful about what's going on in this country.
22:23When Donald Trump calls in to the Texas legislature, along the lines of the phone calls he made saying, find me some votes in Georgia, and says, find me five more seats in Texas, they're playing by a different set of rules.
22:40They can't win by the traditional game, so they want to change the game.
22:45We can act taller than now.
22:48We can sit on the sidelines, talk about the way the world should be.
22:52Or we can recognize the existential nature that is this moment.
22:59And so it took me a moment to reconcile my own feelings.
23:05Very proud of the work Governor Schwarzenegger and others did on that.
23:08It's a national model.
23:10Right now, there may not be a nation to model.
23:16And so my response to that, and I want to finish, because it's the question you're asking, has been to explore what we can do about it.
23:24And that's exactly what I've tasked my team.
23:26And there are two alternatives if you're interested.
23:29You can call a special session, and we can move forward.
23:35And we're exploring that.
23:36And we've had real conversations about that.
23:39There are also a number of legal experts that have come to us exploring an alternative to that.
23:45Through an urgency measure, the legislature can move forward with new maps as it relates to federal districts.
23:55And that is option that is also being considered.
23:58And both of those are being advanced in real time, not only with members of the legislature, but others that are interested because they feel the same pressure as I do about the existential threat of what Donald Trump and some of these Republican states are trying to do.
24:15Forgive me to ask a question to this, but forgive me to ask a question to this, I'm having a hard time squaring how that does still either of those options not fundamentally bump up against the will of the voters who approved it independent.
24:26Well, it's pretty easy.
24:27Well, it's pretty easy that option one is by definition reconciles that.
24:32By definition, because it would require those same voters to make a determination on the basis of current facts.
24:39We can be stubborn, you know, and just assume everything's status quo ante.
24:48I mean, they've changed.
24:49There's there's no you should be three co-equal branches of government.
24:53One's completely disappeared in real time.
24:55The rule of law is being challenged every single day.
24:58That's all the mass people running around here.
25:00People are disappearing quite literally word you hear all the time.
25:03People are quite literally disappearing with no due process.
25:05No rights.
25:06The courts take forever to advance the cause of any reconciliation.
25:12You've got a president talking about recalling folks and judges he disagrees with or just completely dismissing runs right up to the edge on the rule of law on decisions that are made by the courts and whether or not it works for him or or decides on a whim that it won't.
25:30So things have changed.
25:31And so that would be the argument I would make.
25:33But again, I don't come to this lightly.
25:37This is not a point of, you know, it's just a point of rationalization.
25:43And I hope a realization for everyone else.
25:45Everything has changed and it's changing in real time.
25:49And I'm not going to be the guy that said I could have, would have, should have.
25:52I'm not going to be passive at this moment.
25:54I'm not going to look at my kids in the eyes and say I was a little timid or I didn't like the word that this guy used.
26:00I'm just not going to be that guy.
26:03I'm sorry.
26:04What more evidence do you need?
26:05I mean, everything that dams happened last six months in this part of the state.
26:10So that's my approach.
26:12And to the extent that others share it, by definition, it requires the consent of our represented body, the legislature.
26:20And they'll make that determination.
26:22And if they choose the path of a ballot initiative, the people of this state will decide for themselves in the spirit that brought you that law in the first place.
26:32Governor, given we have a federal judge who tactics and ICE has been using on the streets here until the county's run in for a problem.
26:41If that is okay, we have to change the tactics regarding count officers who are on the street, how we're identifying how they actually do arrest comprehension.
26:50If ICE is forced to modify these tactics and policies, do you think there may be a reduction of a number of problems that we have regarding enforcement?
26:58Well, I would hope so.
27:00Just the indiscriminate nature of this.
27:01And by the way, I take it back to see to no one.
27:03You want to coordinate Donald Trump, you want to partner, you've got to partner.
27:06You want to coordinate with violent criminals?
27:10I'm happy to partner with you.
27:11I've got the receipts.
27:12No other governor could like claimed over 11,000.
27:1611,000 individuals we've coordinated with ICE since I've become governor of the state of California.
27:21Violent criminals.
27:22This is not about violent criminals.
27:24Quite the contrary.
27:25So as it relates to the random nature, this indiscriminate nature, I hope the judge begins to rationalize that, this sort of racialization of these enforcements.
27:35I mean, Holman himself, talk about a tough guy.
27:39Holman himself, I mean, just talk about a self-inflicted woman.
27:42He said, yeah, on the basis we can do whatever we want, on the basis of how you look.
27:46In some cases, what car you're driving.
27:49So that was a pretty obvious decision, the lower court.
27:53But what's no longer obvious is what happens at the appellate and obviously the Supreme Court.
27:58But I'm hoping it will rationalize some of this.
28:01And at peril, again, you're going to see this in other cities.
28:04And I worry about people's lives.
28:06I'm telling you, we're on the verge.
28:10This is serious.
28:12I mean, if someone just randomly, if I'm walking down the street with my kids and someone grabs me with a mask on and tries to throw me in an unmarked van,
28:23and I am looking at my kids, I'm surprised someone hasn't gotten hurt.
28:29Someone is going to get hurt.
28:31So the best thing that happened to this administration, maybe that they have to come to realization of what they're doing and change their tactics,
28:39even if they're not compelled to do so at the appellate level.
28:43I pray that's the case.
28:44Are you thinking a Kent State moment as possible?
28:47I'm not going there.
28:48And look, that gets hyperbolic.
28:50Somebody already fired shots at federal agents the other day.
28:52Yeah, I worry about that.
28:54And you got someone to drop 30 feet because they were scared to death and lost their lives.
28:59Farm worker.
29:02Yeah, I met that 16-year-old kid.
29:04His mom and dad were disappeared after 20 years going to the same workplace, dragged out of their cars.
29:10I met an 86-year-old woman who, by the way, coincidentally, in 1986, was able to get her citizenship.
29:23Yeah.
29:24And she said she literally had PTSD.
29:27She was expressing and she was shaking.
29:30As she was sitting there in a coffee shop, she said,
29:32when I heard the helicopters, it reminded me when I was a kid.
29:35And we used to learn how to hide in the baskets in the fields.
29:38She said that's what it felt like again.
29:43Despite Donald Trump saying we're not going after workplaces,
29:46we're not going after nonviolent folks that are essential to our economic well-being.
29:51We're not going after farm workers.
29:52We're not going after folks in the hospitality and leisure industry.
29:57Last question.
29:58Yeah, we're trying to, it's interesting, it was a question I got today.
30:07And I think it's much deeper than people think.
30:11You know, we tend to measure things in the aggregate.
30:15We don't live in the aggregate.
30:18You know, it's not about GDP.
30:20It's about communities, these small businesses.
30:23This is not, with all due respect, about Apple and NVIDIA.
30:27You know, it's not about Tim Cook being able to make a call and get an exemption.
30:31Or some of those farmers that, after the rage in Ventura,
30:35on behalf of the Farm Bureau, because they were big donors to Donald Trump,
30:39made the call.
30:40So he, the next day, said, I'm going to back off.
30:42Of course, he didn't.
30:43But said he would.
30:44But, they have no advocate, these small businesses.
30:48It's incalculable when you're down 6% to 7% in business.
30:55Imagine being down 60% or 70%.
30:57You don't get that back.
30:59You could lose your house because you've got a line of credit on your house
31:03against your business.
31:05You could lose everything, your dreams, your family.
31:11How do you calculate that?
31:12And so I don't know the answer to that.
31:15I want to know the answer.
31:16I'm mindful.
31:17We need to understand that.
31:20And I just, I pray that these guys pay attention in Washington, D.C.
31:26and end this charade.
31:27Thank you guys very, very much.
31:29Thank you, guys.
31:29Thank you, guys.
31:30The rest of the state here.