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President Donald Trump suggested he would be willing to arrest California Gov. Gavin Newsom if his administration obstructs ICE operations amid riots in Los Angeles on Monday.
Trump made the statement in a brief exchange with reporters after disembarking from Marine One outside the White House. Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Trump whether he though Border Czar Tom Homan should take up Newsom on his dare to come arrest him.
“He’s daring Tom Homan to come and arrest him. Should he do it?” Doocy asked.
“I would do it I were Tom,” Trump responded. “I think it’s great. Gavin likes the publicity. But I do think it would be a great thing. He’s done a terrible job. I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy, but he’s grossly incompetent. Everybody knows.”
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Trump went on to state his belief that many of the rioters and protesters in Los Angeles are professional agitators rather than real protesters.
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“The people that are causing the problem are professional agitators. They’re insurrectionists. They’re bad people. They should be in jail,” Trump said.
Newsom swiftly responded to Trump’s comments in a post on social media.
“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor,” Newsom wrote. “This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.”
Homan told “Fox & Friends” earlier on Monday that he had told an NBC reporter that “no one’s above the law,” but there was no discussion about arresting Newsom at that time.
“What we discussed was for those protesters that crossed the line… you can protest, you get your First Amendment rights… But when you cross that line, you put hands on an ICE officer, or you destroy property, or I’d say that you impede law enforcement, or you’re knowingly harboring and concealing an illegal alien… that’s a crime, and the Trump administration is not going to tolerate it,” he said.
“Then the reporter asked me, well, could Governor Newsom or Mayor Bass be arrested? I said, ‘Well, no one’s above the law. If they cross the line and commit a crime, absolutely they can,’ so there was no discussion about arresting Newsom.”
Homan lambasted the blue state’s response to riots against the Trump administration’s immigration raids that rocked Los Angeles over the weekend, with some protesters throwing projectiles at law enforcement and torching American flags and cars.
Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to the city in an effort to quell some of the unrest, much to the dismay of Democratic officials.
Fox News’ Taylor Penley and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
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