California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) rebuked President Trump during a visit to South Carolina on Tuesday, vowing, “we cannot let him win.”
Newsom said during the first day of a two-day trip in the Palmetto State that the people of the country are experiencing “America in reverse,” saying the Trump administration is trying to revert the country to a “pre-1960s world” on issues including voting rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights and women’s rights.
“We cannot let him win,” he told a crowd during a stop in Kershaw County. “We cannot allow him to win. That’s why I’m here.”
Newsom revealed last week that he would visit South Carolina on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of a tour called “On the Road With Governor Gavin Newsom.” His visit comes amid speculation that he’ll seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.
The state was the first to vote in the Democratic nominating process in 2024 and will likely be one of the first states to hold a primary again in 2028. Observers will be watching national figures’ visits to states like South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire as possible indicators of presidential ambitions.
Newsom has increasingly taken on a larger national platform over the past couple of years and has been rumored to be a possible presidential candidate since before the 2024 election. He and Trump have faced off on multiple occasions, denouncing each other as part of an ongoing feud.
Newsom said during the appearance he had just left Los Angeles, where Trump deployed thousands of National Guard troops to address protests against raids that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been conducting. He said he was hoping Trump would put out a statement recognizing the anniversary of a winter wildfire that claimed 30 lives, particularly as major flooding has claimed more than 100 lives in Texas recently.
He also said he hoped the president would release a statement recognizing the country had just celebrated the Fourth of July and that the country is “all in this together” and should “find a little grace, a little humility.”
But Newsom said Trump instead sent members of the National Guard, who had helped California with wildfires in the past, in military gear and tanks “running down the streets” in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass confronted federal agents at the park Monday as ICE said it was conducting a “large-scale federal immigration enforcement operation.”
“Not one arrest was made,” Newsom said. “It was an act of cowardliness, and it was an act of cruelty, intended for one purpose, cruelty, to divide us, to make us more apathetic, to make us more cynical and more fearful.”
