President Donald Trump’s border czar is furiously backpedaling after suggesting California Governor Gavin Newsom could be arrested for interfering with the administration’s crackdown on protesters in Los Angeles.
Speaking to Fox News Monday morning, Tom Homan said that Newsom could “absolutely” be arrested if found to have committed a crime such as impeding law enforcement, but claimed his original remarks on the matter were misconstrued by host Jacob Soboroff during an interview for MSNBC.
“He’s just a joke. He’s a dishonest reporter,” Homan said. “I said many times, ‘You can protest; you get your First Amendment rights’—but when you cross that line, you put your hands on an ICE officer, or you destroy property or impede law enforcement, or you’re knowingly harboring and concealing an illegal alien, that’s a crime. And the Trump administration is not going to tolerate it."
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Homan continued to recount the interaction.
“Then the reporter asked, ‘Could Governor Newsom or Mayor [Karen] Bass be arrested?’ I said, ‘Well, no one’s above the law. If they cross the line, commit a crime—absolutely, they can. So there was no discussion about arresting Newsom,” Homan added.
Homan’s original remarks to Soboroff on Saturday came amid widespread demonstrations and rioting across Los Angeles over federal immigration raids being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In his remarks on MSNBC, Homan said anyone found obstructing immigration enforcement could face arrest and did not rule out Newsom or Bass being detained under such circumstances.
“I’ll say it about anybody,” Homan told MSNBC. “You cross that line—it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.”
Homan admitted that neither of the Democratic politicians is accused of breaking any law during the protests.
Newsom called Homan’s bluff in his own interview with Soboroff on Sunday.
“He’s a tough guy—why doesn’t he do that? He knows where to find me,” Newsom said. “Arrest me. Let’s get it over with, tough guy. I don’t give a damn.”
Newsom has also repeatedly attacked Trump for his response to the L.A. protests, which include deploying thousands of National Guard troops without prior approval from the state of California and posting inflammatory remarks that risk inflaming tensions.
Elsewhere during his Fox News interview, Homan attacked Newsom for putting a negative spin on the immigration crackdowns in L.A.
“ICE took a lot of bad people off the street that day. We arrested a sexual predator, arrested gang members, arrested somebody that had an armed robbery conviction. So we made L.A. safer, but you’re not hearing any of this,” Homan said.
“All you hear is rhetoric about ICE being racist and ICE being Nazis and terrorists, and Governor Newsom feeds that.”
