‘Deranged!’ Gavin Newsom and Pete Hegseth Trade Blows After Troops Deployed to LA
Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth exchanged blows on social media over the weekend after President Donald Trump prematurely praised the National Guard for quelling unrest in Los Angeles.
In a Truth Social post early Sunday, Trump congratulated the Guard for its response to what he called “two days of violence, clashes and unrest” in the city.
He slammed Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass as “incompetent” and declared, “These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED.”
Trump also added that protesters would no longer be allowed to wear masks, asking, “What do these people have to hide, and why???”
Hegseth reposted Trump’s message without comment on X after vowing to send Marines to LA if needed.
Newsom criticized Hegseth, writing, “The Secretary of Defense is now threatening to deploy active-duty Marines on American soil against its own citizens. This is deranged behavior.”
Hegseth fired back, writing “Deranged = allowing your city to burn & law enforcement to be attacked. There is plenty of room for peaceful protest, but ZERO tolerance for attacking federal agents who are doing their job. The National Guard, and Marines if need be, stand with ICE.”
At the time of Trump’s Truth Social post, no National Guard troops had been deployed to the streets of LA.
Newsom seized on that fact and wrote, “Smart guys running the operation. The National Guard wasn’t even deployed on the ground when Trump posted this. Pete Hegseth runs the Pentagon as well as he throws an axe on a Fox News set.”
The jab was presumably a reference to Hegseth’s tenure at Fox News, when, during one segment, he accidentally hit a drumline performer with an axe during a live segment.
In a separate post, Newsom again shared Trump’s statement on the National Guard and commented, “For those keeping track, Donald Trump’s National Guard had not been deployed on the ground when he posted this.”
