Calif. Governor Gavin Newsom, who recently trolled Donald Trump with a TikTok set to Taylor Swift’s “Actually Romantic,” will fight in court against the president’s deployment of his state’s National Guard to Oregon.
“After a federal court blocked his attempt to federalize the Oregon National Guard, Donald Trump is deploying 300 California National Guard personnel into Oregon. They are on their way there now,” Newsom wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We are taking this fight back to court. The public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States.”
The news came a day after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deploying Oregon’s own National Guard troops to Portland — over the governor’s objections — in order to confront and quell protests over immigration enforcement, detentions, and deportations.
“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, wrote when issuing a temporary restraining order through at least Oct. 17, the day she will hear arguments over whether the restraining order will be suspended or extended.
“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” the judge added. “Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation.”
Trump, meanwhile, has been threatening in recent weeks to “protect War ravaged Portland” from “domestic terrorists” with “Full Force, if necessary.”
But as Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson reported, Portland is “not ravaged by anything” and does not resemble the picture the administration has painted of a city overtaken by chaos and violence.
“President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement on Sunday. “For once, Gavin Newscum should stand on the side of law-abiding citizens instead of violent criminals destroying Portland and cities across the country.”
Despite what the White House says, even Portland’s own police chief acknowledged that the protests by the ICE detention facility were isolated to a small area.
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“The city of Portland is 145 square miles. And this is one city block,” Portland Police Chief Bob Day said on Monday, referring to the protests near the ICE facility.
Immergut wrote in her opinion that the protests in the last month “generally did not involve violence against federal property or personnel.”
