Democrats in this deep-blue state have spent years working to shield California from a hostile White House, dating back to his first term. But for them, the week’s events registered a new low — a multifront assault that not only threatened the state’s liberal values, but exposed the limits of California’s ability to control its destiny when the federal government has other ideas.
“The moment we’ve feared,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Tuesday night address, “has arrived.”
Trump’s focus on California is predictable. The state was a perennial first-term target term that Republicans and conservative media allies have relentlessly portrayed as dysfunctional and lawless. It has produced national Democratic figures, like Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris, who have eagerly hoisted the anti-Trump banner.
Elected officials spent months preparing for a second Trump administration. They studied Project 2025 and set aside money to contest Trump’s agenda in court.
But the scale and aggressiveness of the onslaught has still stunned them.
The harrowing stretch for California Democrats began with immigration raids across the Los Angeles area. Then, when protests sprang up, Trump deployed thousands of National Guard troops to the region over Newsom’s objections. He then moved to eliminate California’s vehicle emissions standards as his administration contemplated withholding education dollars over California’s policies on transgender athletes.
By Thursday, Democrats were watching with outrage a video clip of Padilla being forcibly removed from a Department of Homeland Security news conference, pulled to the ground and handcuffed. And that night, just hours after a federal judge ordered the president to end his unilateral deployment of the state’s National Guard, an appeals court preserved his ability to do so, at least temporarily.
It marked a major escalation of the Democratic state’s long-running feud with the president to a new, existential echelon of antagonism.
“Federalizing the National Guard was in the 2025 plan, but we hoped he wouldn’t do something so drastic and dramatic,” said Dana Williamson, who was Newsom’s chief of staff until earlier this year. “He’s pulling the trigger on everything all at once.”
Trump’s decision to enlist the National Guard and Marines in his immigration agenda — and in Los Angeles, a bastion of Latino political power — has made California a globally watched test case for the limits of federal power.
Many Democrats argued the White House had pushed California to the precipice of authoritarianism. Federal pressure on California’s political luminaries extended beyond Padilla’s confrontation with Noem: Officials detained prominent union leader David Huerta; Sen. Josh Hawley launched an investigation into a Los Angeles-based immigrant advocacy group; and Border czar Tom Homan threatened to arrest anyone, including Newsom, who interfered with federal enforcement.
“This is about an abuse of power. This is about a desire to cross red lines time and time again,” said California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks.
“We see that in other parts of the world,” Hicks added about Padilla. “We don't see that here. If there weren’t enough wakeup calls over the last week, that sure is one.”
