US Politics
Who is Gavin Newsom, the Californian governor fighting with Donald Trump?
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California’s governor Gavin Newsom has found himself in another war of words with president Donald Trump, after protests in LA turned violent.
The Democrat has dared the Trump administration to arrest him after he opposed the president’s decision to deploy the National Guard to deal with the chaos.
But Newsom’s fight with Trump over his “deranged” decision is just the latest skirmish in a longstanding rivalry with the president.
Here’s what to know about Newsom’s career to date.
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From mayor to governor
Newsom’s political career began on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1997, and during his time there, he supported a ban on tobacco advertisements visible from streets and tougher penalties for landlords who broke rent control laws.
He married commentator Kimberly Guilfoyle in 2001, and the pair separated in 2004. She later gained prominence on a Fox News chat show and became a senior advisor to Donald Trump, before getting engaged to Donald Trump Jr.
In 2004, he was elected as mayor of San Francisco after being supported in his campaign by Democratic heavyweights including Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
Later that year he gained national attention when he directed the city to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples, a directive which broke state law, and California’s Supreme Court later struck down his directive.
He had begun dating film director Jennifer Siebel in October 2006, and in January 2007 Newsom admitted to a 2005 affair with the wife of his friend and former chief of staff. The following month he announced he would seek treatment for alcohol use disorder.
Newsom and Siebel married in July 2008, and have four children.
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Newsom was elected lieutenant governor of California in late 2010 and was sworn in in January 2011, serving under governor Jerry Brown. He supported a failed bid to end capital punishment in the state in 2012, and again in 2016.
After a failed bid in 2009 to secure the Democratic nomination for governor, he ran again in 2018 and was successful, winning the nomination and subsequent election to be sworn in on January 7, 2019.
In March that year, he declared a moratorium on capital punishment, effectively ending the practice for as long as he remains governor.
Newsom also began pardoning immigrants who faced deportation under the first Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants with criminal records.
Newsom’s time as governor of California is term-limited, and he will leave office after the 2026 election. He has not said if he plans to run for president, but their have been longstanding rumors he is considering a campaign for the 2028 election.
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Ongoing rivalry with Trump
Newsom has had a longstanding rivalry with Trump, who has long called the governor “New-scum” – which Newsom derided in an interview with The Atlantic as a lame “seventh-grade nickname’’.
In the same interview, he said his team was “Trump-proofing California”, working to oppose whatever hostile White House measures they could.
Their rivalry has ratcheted up over the ongoing riots in LA.
“If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs, which everyone knows they can’t, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!” Trump wrote on Truth social.
Later, after sending in the National Guard to confront protestors in the city, despite no request from California to do so, Trump continued to deride Newsom’s handling of the situation.
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“Great job by the National Guard in Los Angeles after two days of violence, clashes and unrest. We have an incompetent Governor (Newscum) and Mayor (Bass) who were, as usual (just look at how they handled the fires, and now their VERY SLOW PERMITTING disaster. Federal permitting is complete!), unable to to handle the task,” Trump said.
He later added: “Governor Gavin Newscum and ‘Mayor’ Bass should apologize to the people of Los Angeles for the absolutely horrible job that they have done, and this now includes the ongoing L.A. riots. These are not protesters, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists. Remember, NO MASKS!”
Newsom has pushed back hard.
“Decisive leadership? You didn’t even know when your own national guard was deployed on the ground,” he said on X, in response to a tweet from vice president J.D. Vance.
“Stop fanning the flames”.
Newsom also hit out at Trump’s border tzar for threatening to arrest him “for speaking out”.
“Come and get me, tough guy,” he wrote on X. “I don’t give a damn. It won’t stop me from standing up for California.”
