Members of the Republican Party have joined Democrats in questioning remarks made by United States President Donald Trump about the California cities of Los Angeles and San Diego.<\/p>\n
Much of the backlash came on Tuesday, a day after Trump told a midterm rally in Nebraska that Americans should be willing to make sacrifices to deny Iran a nuclear weapon \u2014 even though Tehran has long rejected accusations that it is seeking atomic bombs.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,\u201d Trump said, seemingly in reference to the knock-on effects of the war, including rising fuel and fertiliser prices.<\/p>\n
Then, he said: \u201cThey can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it\u2019s going to be over with very soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House said Trump was arguing that if Iran were allowed to secure a nuclear weapon, it could strike US cities.<\/p>\n
But Democrats and some Republicans accused the president of suggesting that some of the country\u2019s cities were expendable.<\/p>\n
Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California and outspoken critic of Trump, said the president was \u201cderanged\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not only madness. This is dangerous,\u201d Newsom said in a video on the social media platform X, in which he called for Congress to rein in Trump\u2019s behaviour.<\/p>\n
Trump has downplayed the impact of the US-Israel war on Iran \u2013 now in its eighth month \u2013 despite polling that shows the conflict is widely unpopular in the country. He has also repeatedly promised the war would end soon, though no lasting ceasefire has been reached so far.<\/p>\n
Newsom, a possible contender in the 2028 presidential race, has clashed repeatedly with Trump.<\/p>\n
Last year, the two faced off over Trump\u2019s decision to deploy federal troops to California, as part of an effort to support a crackdown on undocumented immigration in the Los Angeles area.<\/p>\n
In December, a federal judge ruled that the deployment had been illegal and ordered its end. Newsom, who opposed the deployment, cited that conflict in his remarks about Trump\u2019s Nebraska rally.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president of the United States \u2013 the same one who sent in the National Guard into Los Angeles, sent 700 active duty Marines to the second-largest city in the United States of America \u2013 just invited Iran to take out Los Angeles and San Diego,\u201d Newsom said.<\/p>\n
He added that Trump\u2019s remarks should convince those who \u201cdidn\u2019t think the November election mattered\u201d to vote in the upcoming midterms.<\/p>\n
Some from Trump\u2019s party have also expressed shock at his remarks.<\/p>\n
Jim Desmond, a Republican running for California\u2019s 48th congressional district, was among those who distanced themselves from Trump\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI vehemently disagree with President Trump\u2019s comments. America must stand up to Iran and defend our interests, but the first responsibility of our Commander in Chief is to protect the American people and our homeland,\u201d Desmond wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo American city is expendable, and no American family should ever be treated as collateral damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
US Representative Kevin Kiley, an independent who caucuses with Republicans and is running for re-election in northern California, also called Trump\u2019s comments \u201cunhelpful\u201d.<\/p>\n
But the White House has dismissed criticism of the remarks, calling it part of a \u201cmedia freakout\u201d that \u201cis not rooted in reality\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn\u2019t been stopped,\u201d Steven Cheung, White House director of communications, wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.\u201d<\/p>\n
California has the largest population and economy of any state in the US. Because of its population, it also has the most seats in the House \u2013 52.<\/p>\n
All 435 seats in the House are up for grabs in November\u2019s midterms, along with a third of the Senate. Also on the ballot are key state and local races.<\/p>\n
With Republicans\u2019 control of Congress on the line, the results of the midterms are expected to weigh heavily on the final two years of Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the Republican Party have joined Democrats in questioning remarks made by United States President Donald Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[536,989,405,100,13,74,76,75,435,9098,129820],"class_list":["post-487998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-government","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-us-midterm-elections-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}