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With the national spotlight firmly on a fatal shooting in Minnesota involving an ICE agent, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California used a high-profile speech to target President Donald Trump over “citizens shot” and what the likely Democratic presidential contender claimed was “using American cities as training grounds for the United States military.”
Newsom’s comments on Thursday, in his final State of the State address as governor of the nation’s most populous state, came in the wake of the shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, after she confronted ICE agents from inside her car in Minneapolis.
Video of the incident has gone viral, and while Democrats have heavily criticized the shooting, the Trump administration is vocally defending the actions of the ICE agent.
“The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense,” Trump said in a social media post.’
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A Border Patrol Tactical Unit agent sprays pepper spray into the face of a protester attempting to block an immigration officer’s vehicle in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)
And the president argued that “the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis.”
Vice President JD Vance, at a Thursday White House briefing, claimed Good was “brainwashed” and suggested that she was tied to a “broader, left-wing network.”
Hours after the incident, Newsom charged it was “state-sponsored terrorism.”
PHOTOS RELEASED OF RENEE NICOLE GOOD, THE US CITIZEN KILLED BY ICE IN MINNESOTA
And a day later, in his address to the California legislature, the governor took aim at the president and his unprecedented moves during his first year back in the White House.
“The president believes that might makes right, that the courts are simply speed bumps, not stops. That democracy is a nuisance to be circumvented. Secret police, businesses being raided, windows smashed, citizens detained, citizens shot, masked men snatching, people in broad daylight, people disappearing,” Newsom charged.
And the governor, who has been arguably the most vocal and visible Democrat leading the resistance to Trump, accused the president of governing through fear by instigating “purposeful chaos emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
And he criticized what he called “a carnival of chaos” as he pointed to the Trump administration’s National Guard deployments to Democrat-governed cities, including Los Angeles, as well as cuts in key federal funding.
“None of this is normal,” Newsom emphasized.
Newsom said that California must stand up to Trump’s “assault on our values,” while warning that democracy is at stake.
Newsom and the president have repeatedly clashed in the first year of Trump’s second administration, from the National Guard deployment to Los Angeles to the federal government’s push to block California’s fuel standards and efforts to eventually ban new gas-powered cars.
And the two politicians have also taken aim at each other over the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires that killed over 30 people and destroyed neighborhoods. Wednesday was the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of those wildfires.
President Donald Trump speaks as first lady Melania Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom listen, after arriving on Air Force One at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
Officially, Newsom’s State of the State address was designed to showcase his accomplishments as governor and lay out his agenda for his final year in office. “You’ve seen double-digit decreases in crime overall in the state of California,” the governor touted.
California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin, responding in a statement, charged that “Governor Newsom told Californians that homelessness is down, crime is at record lows, schools are improving, and Los Angeles is recovering after the Palisades fires. Governor Newsom painted a picture of a California that exists in his imagination.”
Unofficially, the speech was an opportunity for Newsom to portray himself as a national leader of the Democratic Party ahead of what many expect will be a 2028 White House run.
And the governor didn’t waste the opportunity.
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Newsom, who led the fight against Trump’s redistricting push ahead of November’s midterm elections, said, “We’re not retreating.”
And he described California as “a beacon” that is :providing a different narrative and operational model of policy for others to follow.”
