California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) is condemning President Donald Trump for “disappearing [people] on the basis of the color of their skin” amid his violent, sweeping ICE raids.
Appearing on “All the Smoke” podcast Saturday hosted by former NBA stars Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, Newsom was asked how the nation can “recover” from Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“We talk about authoritarianism, and people say, ‘What do you feel here?’ For guys like me, maybe not yet,” Newsom said, speaking on the president’s increase in immigration and deportation raids. “But for the black and brown community, are you kidding me?”
The Democratic governor went on to decry the way immigrants have been terrified to do everyday tasks like walking their dogs, going to the clinic or attending family members’ funerals as they fear being targeted by ICE.
“It’s not just on the basis of the skin, it’s where you congregate. It’s the language you speak or your accent. In the United States in 2025, people [are] disappearing [with] no due process rights,” he continued.
Newsom noted that “masked” ICE agents are “literally jumping out the back of U-haul [trucks]” without identifying themselves to capture “Americans, tourists [and] some people [who are] here with documentation, some without.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Newsom opened up about meeting a teenager who grew up in Ventura County, California, who he said was frightened to speak to him following his parents’ disappearance after an ICE attack. The politician said ICE “smashed [their car] window” and arrested them on their way to work at a “packing facility.”
“That’s America in 2025 — Donald Trump. Terror on the streets of America,” he added. “Taking black hawk helicopters and getting people to rappel [into people’s homes] and sitting there as kids are in their diapers, in their cribs.”
Newsom further slammed ICE for attacking people “who are naked and sleeping, and literally putting guns to their heads and zip-tying them” before brutally “throwing them out onto the streets and sidewalks.”
Stressing that this is “happening in America right now today,” Newsom continued, “So this is serious, and it’s happened in [Los Angeles] — first city that was terrorized [by Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and ICE agents] … [It] continues to this day.”
He added, “Now you got it in Portland, and you got it in places like Illinois. They threatened San Francisco yesterday.”
Newsom’s remarks came after he vowed last week to sue the Trump administration in a “nanosecond” if the White House advanced its plan to deploy the National Guard to San Francisco.
Newsom argued that Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s reported plans to send more than 100 federal immigration agents to the San Francisco Bay Area is a part of the pair’s “authoritarian playbook,” alleging that “they’re looking” to “invoke chaos.”
Trump and Newsom have repeatedly publicly clashed as the latter has frequently criticized the president over his blanketed targeting of immigrants.
The political figure, who condemned the use of masked federal agents, particularly during raids in Los Angeles, signed a bill last month banning law enforcement officials from wearing masks, which he told Barnes and Jackson he was “proud” to do so.