Gavin Newsom says Donald Trump “has lost his mind” after Trump stood in front of a rally crowd in San Antonio on Wednesday night and again talked about Iran hitting Los Angeles and San Diego with a missile.
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“Let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles on the way,” Trump said. “You want to see a horror show? Let them hit San Diego. Let them hit Los Angeles. You want to see some bad things happen?”
He followed it with, “We’re not going to let that happen.”
The rally was meant to fire up voters for Texas Republicans ahead of the midterms. Trump used the moment to defend the war with Iran, which began in March, describing the two California cities as what Iran would target if it ever got a nuclear weapon. He also argued that rising oil prices from the war are a small price to pay to keep the country safe.
Gavin Newsom responded on X shortly after the clip spread. “Trump thinks he will scare people into voting for MAGA candidates by threatening the bombing of over 16 million Americans,” Newsom wrote. “He has lost his mind.”
Wednesday’s remarks were Trump doubling down, not a first offense. At a rally in Nebraska on Monday, he told supporters, “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego,” and the crowd cheered. The backlash from California was immediate.
Newsom told The Hill on Tuesday that Trump was “mentally ill” and called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked. The 25th Amendment is the part of the Constitution that lets the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet remove a sitting president from power if they decide he can no longer do the job.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the comments dangerous and said they could compromise the city’s safety. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said in a statement that his city is “not collateral damage.”
The White House pushed back hard. Communications director Steven Cheung wrote on X that the media freakout over Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality, arguing the remarks were taken out of context.
In San Antonio, Trump stuck with the same line and stretched it out. “You want to see trauma? You want to see problems? You want to see a horror show? Let them hit San Diego,” he said, before adding that he would not let the country fall into chaos.
Los Angeles and San Diego are the two largest cities in California, and Newsom’s figure of 16 million covers the people living across both metro areas. For the governor, the issue is not whether Trump meant it as a hypothetical. It is that the man leading the country in a war keeps naming American cities as targets to cheering crowds, and Gavin Newsom is betting California voters will remember it in November.