Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week that he is expanding a program to deploy state-funded crime suppression teams to major metropolitan areas in California.
It’s a move that comes as President Donald Trump threatens to deploy the National Guard to Democratic-led cities across the country under the pretense of a “crime emergency.”
These state “crime suppression” units will be deployed to “high-crime areas” in large cities, such as San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and the Bay Area. The units would target “repeat offenders, and seize illicit weapons and narcotics,” according to a news release.
Newsom’s news event Thursday to tout the deployment was staged in a somewhat similar fashion to Trump’s Oval Office announcements, with several aides and police officers standing beside him as he sat at a large desk. However, the governor, who in recent weeks has mimicked Trump online and emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s most reliable foils against the president, insisted that the extension of the program was not a reaction to Trump’s actions.
“We’ve been pretty consistent with these kinds of announcements,” Newsom said. “So we’re not reacting or responding to anything.”
However, it didn’t take long for Newsom’s news conference to focus on Trump. The governor said that the president’s recent suggestions that Democratic-led states should ask the federal government for help to deal with crime were politically motivated.
“As it relates to the president in particular, he’s doing things to people, not with people. It’s a point of profound contrast. He’s militarizing American cities,” Newsom told reporters, adding that he would take further action if Trump “moves in our direction,” referring to California.
Newsom said that if Trump was “sincere” about the issue of crime then he would deploy the National Guard to Republican-led states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri, which Newsom said have higher per-capita murder rates than California.
In a news release supporting the deployment, Newsom’s office cites 2023 mortality rates data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supporting his claims.
“Where’s the president of the United States? I thought he cared. These are the states that voted for him. His state of mind doesn’t seem to be focused on the issue of crime and violence,” Newsom said, adding that Trump was more focused on “expressions of authoritarianism.”
This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS — a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute — and NEWSWELL, home of Times of San Diego, Santa Barbara News-Press and Stocktonia.