California Democrats have long been fighting Donald Trump. But they have never encountered such a fierce offensive as they did this week.
Between the deployment of federal agents in Los Angeles, the tingling of climate standards and the leadership of the senior Senator of the United States, the state swallowed a show after another from the president. And in the balance of the Forces between the Trump Administration and the most populated country of the nation, California was on the losing end.
“We are in Defcon 1 in the conflict between California and the Trump administration,” said democratic strategist Katie Meryl. “This is the order more than what we have seen ever.”
The Democrats in this deep blue state have spent years working to protect California from the hostile White House dating from his first term. But for them, the events of the week recorded a newly low – a multifront attack, which not only threatened the liberal values of the state, but set out the limits of California’s ability to control its fate when the federal government had other ideas.
“The moment we were afraid,” Gavin News said at an address on Tuesday night, “arrived.”
Trump’s focus on California is predictable. The state was a perennial period of the primary plan, which Republicans and conservative media allies are mercilessly presenting as dysfunctional and lawless. He produces national democratic figures, such as Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris, who eagerly crashed Banner to fight Trump.
The selected employees spent months preparing for the Second Trump Administration. They studied the 2025 project and set aside money to challenge Trump’s agenda in court.
But the scale and aggressiveness of the pressure still stuns them.
The hating section of California Democrats began with immigration raids in the Los Angeles region. Then, when protests appeared, Trump unfolded thousands of troops at the National Guard in the region because of Newsom’s objections. He then moved to eliminate vehicle emission standards in California, as his administration was considering withdrawing dollars for education on California policies on transgender athletes.
By Thursday, the Democrats watched with outrage a video of Padila, which was forcibly removed from a press conference by the Ministry of Homeland Security, drawn to Earth and with handcuffs. And that night, just hours after the Federal Judge ordered the president to terminate his unilateral deployment at the National Guard of the State, the Court of Appeal preserved his ability to do so, at least temporary.
He noted a major escalation of the long -standing feud of the democratic state with the president to a new, existential echelon of antagonism.
“The federalization of the National Guard was in the plan of 2025, but we hoped he would not do something so drastic and dramatic,” said Dana Williamson, who was the head of the Newsom headquarters until earlier this year. “He pulls the trigger on everything at once.”
Trump’s decision to join the National Guard and Marines in his immigration program – and in Los Angeles, a bastion of Latin American political power – has made California a worldwide test for the borders of federal power.
Hours before Judge Charles Brayer issued his decision by ordering Trump to end his deployment on the security, Padila embarks on a press conference to question Interior Security Minister Christie Nov and was forcibly restrained. The images of a lying down, surrounded by federal agents, have ignited a universal democratic condemnation and came to symbolize the bets on the fight of California with the federal government.
Many Democrats claim that the White House has encouraged California to the abyss of authoritarianism. Federal pressure on California’s political luminaries extends beyond the confrontation of Padila with Nov: Officials detained the prominent Union leader David Huerta; Senator Josh Hooley has launched an investigation into an intercession group for immigrants based in Los Angeles; And the border king Tom Homan threatened to arrest anyone, including Newsom, who intervened in federal law enforcement.
“This is about abuse of power. This is a desire to cross the red lines again and again,” said the chairman of the California Democratic Party Rusty Hicks.
“We see that in other parts of the world,” Hicks added to Padila. “We don’t see this here. If there were not enough awakening in the last week, that’s sure.”
The treatment of the Padila attracted a wall cover to the wall. But it was just a storm in the storm covering California.
While immigration raids dive into California in political Malstrom, Newsom and other employees also faced the threat of financing the Trump administration, as President and Education Minister Linda McMahon attacked the state’s trance -student policy. At that time, Trump was moved to cancel some of the climate change policies in California.
“They are looking to make California in the drill bag,” said California Environment Voters CEO Mike Young. “We are blurry and really disgusted by what is happening.”
As a pillar of democratic politics and the fourth largest economy in the world, California has long been striving to form a broader economic and political program. During Trump’s first term of office, California passed a Law on Sanctuary, which protects immigrants and achieved a car issue deal that Newsom announced as a “check -up” over Trump.
But it turned out to be just one move in a bigger chess match. And Trump demonstrates that he owns the most powerful pieces: a compatible Republican Congress, a conservative Supreme Court, and most of all, federal supremacy over even large, wealthy countries.
“The idea that the federal government can beat the state government is coming to the fore,” said Law School Professor Jessica Levinson. “We are experiencing that if you have a power struggle between the federal government and the United States, the Federal Government is likely to win.”
While Newsom marked a victory on Thursday when a judge ordered Trump to abandon control of the National Guard, she turned out to be short -lived when the Court of Appeal blocked the order for at least a few days, placing a hearing on Tuesday. The governor replied his threat to avenge the refused financing by blocking the Tax Dollars flow from California to Washington.
Republicans claim that the Constitution is on their side, claiming that they save California citizens from a destructive immigration and climate policy.
White House spokesman Abigail Jackson said in a statement that Trump “has rightly joined to protect federal law enforcement officers” when Newsom is gone. White House spokesman Harrison Fields said Trump had acted to break through the “expensive, unrealistic and tyrannical” climate policies of California.
“The goal is to help California,” said GOP reporter Kevin Kili, who heads the boil to turn the Newsom gas car phase, “and unfortunately helping California means too often to fight or counteract politicians who hold power in our country.”
Democrats say Trump presses the law restrictions and regularly violates it.
“The lie has become more rated. The excessive old has become more clear,” said Xavier Besera, former Prosecutor General and former Health Secretary with President Joe Biden. “They gained the burden, the instability of their actions, gained the intensity of their wrong presentations, but at the end of the day the same illegal actions rejected the first time Donald Trump was president.”
He said, “This president will not take no answer. He will continue to try to do so, even if he opposes the Constitution.”
The current General Prosecutor in California Rob Bont, whose office on Thursday filed a lawsuit to block the retirement of the environment and then abandoned the lawyers of the Ministry of Justice regarding the deployment of the National Guard – told reporters that it was up to date to lead two legal action.
This reaction is a recent urgent need, he suggested.
“The speed and volume in Trump 2.0 are significantly different,” Bont said. “The shamelessness and insolence of the violations – they look more severity.”