President Donald Trump hit back at Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s claims that the president did not recently call him, telling Fox News he spoke to the governor for about 16 minutes on Saturday.
Trump told Fox News Tuesday while traveling to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that Newsom did not pick up his first call over the weekend, but that he picked up the second call and the pair spoke for about 16 minutes on Saturday.
“I told him to, essentially, ‘Get his ass in gear,’ and stop the riots, which were out of control,” Trump said Tuesday. “More than anything else, this shows what a liar he is – said I never called.”
Trump provided a screenshot of the phone call dated June 7 at 1:23 a.m.
White House director of communications Steven Cheung added in comment to Fox Digital Tuesday afternoon: “The President called Gavin Newsom to tell him to get his ass in gear. The Governor has clearly decided to disgustingly side with the violent rioters instead of protecting Californians. The only liar here is Newsom who continues to fail his state as he prioritizes doing interviews with leftist media to gaslight the public instead of helping his state.”
Earlier Tuesday, Trump held an event addressing wildfire response and prevention from the Oval Office, where he fielded a handful of questions from the media regarding the ongoing anti-ICE riots in Los Angles, telling a reporter he spoke to Newsom “a day ago.”
“A day ago. I called him up to tell him (he’s) got to do a better job. He’s done a bad job,” Trump said.
In a response post on X, Newsom claimed Trump did not call him or leave a voicemail in the past day.
“There was no call. Not even a voicemail. Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to,” Newsom posted to X Tuesday afternoon, accompanied by video of Trump in the Oval Office.
“This call is from 3 days ago,” the governor’s press office added on X following the White House’s pushback on Newsom’s claim that Trump did not call.
Newsom’s office added in an email to Fox News Digital Tuesday that: “The Governor’s comment is clearly in regards to the President’s comment this morning of ‘a day ago,’” adding that Newsom had already confirmed his Saturday phone call in a media interview on Sunday.
Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon added in a comment to the Sacramento Bee Tuesday: “I just personally looked through the governor’s phone. No missed call. No voicemail. Nothing. The last time they spoke was Friday when the governor called him.”
Los Angeles descended into violent riots Friday when federal immigration officials converged on the city to carry out raids targeting illegal immigrants. Local leaders such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom, however, quickly denounced the raids in public statements while offering words of support for illegal immigrants in the state.
Protests over the raids soon devolved into violence as rioters targeted and launched attacks on federal law enforcement officials.
Trump announced Saturday that he was deploying 2,000 National Guard troops to help quell the violence. The Trump administration also deployed hundreds of U.S. Marines to respond to anti-immigration chaos on Monday evening as the violence continued.
“If I didn’t ‘SEND IN THE TROOPS’ to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Tuesday morning.
