California Gov. Gavin Newsom has eviscerated Donald Trump for saying he’d allow Iran to destroy two American cities if it meant winning the war he started with the regime.
Newsom, 58, put out a series of furious posts on X after the president, 80, suggested during a Monday rally in Nebraska that allowing Tehran to “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego would be “a very small price to pay” for “keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.”
Those cities, the largest in California and both controlled by Democrats, are home to more than 5 million people. No other president in U.S. history ever suggested they would accept the mass destruction of an American city, let alone two, as an acceptable cost of victory.
Newsom immediately shot back at Trump’s “deranged and dangerous” comments, later adding that they were “disgusting” and ought to disqualify the president from office. “This is not normal. None of this is,” he wrote. “And we will continue to remind folks of that every day.”
He was joined by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who added that Trump should “keep our city out of your reckless war talk,” and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who said that “the role of a president is to protect the country, not to actively threaten it and encourage attacks on American lives.” She later added: “Keep LA out your damn mouth.”
Trump’s remarks at the Monday rally come as his war of choice with the Islamist regime has helped push his approval ratings down to 32 points, the lowest of his political career so far. They also come ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, with the conflict helping Democrats gain a staggering 9-point lead on the generic congressional ballot.
The president campaigned partly on a promise to end foreign military entanglements and boost the economy. The conflict, which he pledged would last a “few weeks” and has now entered its eighth month, has sent gas prices skyrocketing and driven up inflation, with voters now rating unaffordability as one of their chief anxieties going into next month’s races.
Trump has repeatedly assured voters that the conflict will end just as soon as those results are in. Negotiations for a lasting ceasefire remain stalled, Tehran has yet to reopen a vital oil shipping corridor in the region, and Iranian proxies in Yemen have opened a new front in the conflict with attacks over the summer against Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
