California Gov. Gavin Newsom was pressed Wednesday on his anti-ICE rhetoric and victory lap over a landmark state law prohibiting law enforcement from concealing their identity during official operations.
Hours before a sniper fired "indiscriminately" at the Sally Port of a Dallas ICE facility, killing at least two detainees allegedly using ammunition inscribed with anti-ICE messages, Newsom joined CBS’ "Late Show" to lambast President Donald Trump and the way he has conducted his mass deportation operations.
Fox News Digital asked Newsom on Wednesday morning for his response to the shooting and whether his anti-ICE rhetoric has fueled rising threats and attacks on Homeland Security agents.
Newsom spokeswoman Diana Crofts-Pelayo responded that "violence is never the answer, and we expressly condemn what happened in Texas this morning."
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"Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. As we begin to understand exactly what has happened, we must continue advocating for peace and justice in times of division."
Fox News Digital pressed Newsom on whether he regrets his anti-ICE rhetoric and his support for a new, Democrat-led state law he signed Saturday prohibiting masks and other implements used to obscure ICE officers’ identities.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, separately slammed Newsom -- along with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. -- after the Dallas ICE shooting, saying his "rhetoric must end."
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance proclaimed that "if your rhetoric encourages violence… you can go straight to Hell."
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Newsom had criticized the Trump administration for what he considered federal overreach in the mass arrests of Californians, while also saying that people should retain their First Amendment right to speak freely and criticize their government.
He, however, has also been criticized by conservatives for the about-face on masking-up in public, only a few years after his administration implemented public mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic.
On CBS, Newsom recounted the detention of a teenager outside a school, describing it as "men jumping out of unmarked cars. People disappearing. No due process. No oversight. Zero accountability: Happening in the United States of America today."
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"People ask: ‘Well, is authoritarianism you being hyperbolic?’ Bulls--- we’re being hyperbolic… These are not just authoritarian tendencies, these are authoritarian actions by an authoritarian government," Newsom told host Stephen Colbert.
"ICE: unmask – what are you afraid of?" Newsom asked rhetorically at a press conference earlier this week announcing the first-in-the-nation law banning law enforcement from obscuring their identities.
He previously blasted Trump and the Department of Homeland Security during a spate of immigration raids in Los Angeles earlier this summer.
The architect of those raids, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, has since shifted his focus to Chicago, where leaders are echoing Newsom’s criticisms of the feds.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said at a recent press conference that the U.S., under Trump, looks as if the Confederacy had won the Civil War.
Source: Fox News - Politics
