Newsom Calls for Threat Assessment as Trump Critics Defend President’s ‘Rambling’ Comments on Iran Nuking L.A., San Diego

California Governor Gavin Newsom is pouncing on remarks President Trump made at a Nebraska rally that left critics parsing his words about whether it would be acceptable to lose Los Angeles and San Diego to an Iranian nuclear attack. Speaking to a rowdy red state crowd on Monday night, the president was commenting about high gas prices in the face of a protracted conflict with Iran. Mr. Trump said that oil and gas prices are temporarily and artificially high due to the simmering war, but the American offensive was needed to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions.“It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” the president said of the elevated prices at the pump. He then offered a choppy vision of what the alternative could look like without American deterrence. “They can take out a city. Let them take — let it — let him take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it’s going to be over with very soon. It’s essentially almost over with, but it’s going to end very soon, and it’s going to end one way or the other.” Critics went ballistic, so to speak, suggesting the president’s syntax was not merely sloppy, but “treasonous.”“Donald Trump’s remarks were dangerous — if not treasonous — putting a target on two of our biggest cities and one of America’s largest naval hubs,” Mr. Newsom wrote on X on Tuesday afternoon. “I am directing the State Threat Assessment Center to actively monitor the situation in the event that foreign actors interpret the President’s remarks as an invitation to target California.”“The words of an American President weigh a ton. He must not be frivolous with the weight of his office,” Representative Nancy Pelosi wrote Tuesday afternoon. “Donald Trump has gone beyond the pale saying Iran can ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego. How could he say the slaughter of Americans is a ‘small price to pay’?”Immediately after the president’s remarks, the White House went into cleanup mode. Director of Communications Steven Cheung called the “media freakout” not “rooted in reality.”Mr. Trump “was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped. America is safer because of the president. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money,” Mr. Cheung said. While Mr. Newsom, a 2028 presidential aspirant, and other Democrats went into reflexive criticism, some of the president’s usual detractors offered an unexpected defense.“Trump has repeatedly argued that the consequences of the war, like higher gas prices, are a small price to pay compared to what an unchecked Iran could allegedly do,” a normally stern Trump critic and fact-checker, Daniel Dale, wrote on X, criticizing activists for taking the president out of context.“Last night, in especially rambling and incomplete fashion, he 1) claimed high prices are temporary and suggested they’re ‘artificial;’ 2) contrasted that to the damage of Iran supposedly taking out a city; 3) and then, in especially confusing style, repeated his old point that ‘this,’ as in the consequences of the war, is a small price to pay to avoid something like a city being wiped out,” Mr. Dale added. “Trump’s phrasing was a jumbled mess, as is often the case,” wrote conservative TV pundit, Stephen Hayes, an editor of the Dispatch, which has a long history of criticizing the president. “But clear from the context that he wasn’t advocating attacks on LA and SD. He was defending the Iran war and the high cost of fuel today.”Speaking Tuesday at a manufacturing announcement at a shipyard at Baltimore, Maryland, the president repeated that the war is not quite over. Iran has been the “bully of the Middle East,” he said, and while its wings have been clipped, “we have to finish up, and it’s only a question of which way, do we want to do it, the nice way or the not-so-nice way. And pretty soon you’ll find out.”

Newsom Calls for Threat Assessment as Trump Critics Defend President’s ‘Rambling’ Comments on Iran Nuking L.A., San Diego

Newsom Calls for Threat Assessment as Trump Critics Defend President’s ‘Rambling’ Comments on Iran Nuking L.A., San Diego

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