{"id":43267,"date":"2025-08-15T12:44:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T19:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=43267"},"modified":"2025-08-15T12:44:44","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T19:44:44","slug":"you-have-poked-the-bear-defiant-gavin-newsom-puts-trump-on-notice-in-speech-pushing-new-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/08\/15\/you-have-poked-the-bear-defiant-gavin-newsom-puts-trump-on-notice-in-speech-pushing-new-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"‘You Have Poked the Bear’: Defiant Gavin Newsom Puts Trump on Notice in Speech Pushing New Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"'You<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at Google San Francisco office in San Francisco, California, on August 7, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo: Tayfun Coskun\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Who else sends ICE at the same time while having a conversation like this? Someone who is weak. Someone who’s broken. Someone whose weakness is masquerading as a strength,” said Newsom.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BRAD REED<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aug 14, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday struck a defiant tone during a political rally in Los Angeles aimed at promoting<\/a> a ballot initiative that would allow the state legislature to redraw the Golden State’s electoral maps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his speech, Newsom emphasized his preference to having an independent commission draw up districts in California and across the country. However, he said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to have Texas Republicans redraw<\/a> their state’s map in the middle of the decade to gain five more Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives has left him with no choice but to return the favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You have poked the bear, and we will punch back,” Newsom said during the speech, addressing Trump directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The California governor then explained why doing nothing in response to Trump’s pressure on Texas is not an option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“[Trump] doesn’t play by a different set of rules\u2014he doesn’t believe in the rules,” Newsom said. “And as a consequence, we need to disabuse ourselves of the way things have been done. It’s not enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil, and talk about way the world should be. We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt, and we have got to meet fire with fire!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsom also pointed out that several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials had stationed themselves nearby where California Democrats were holding their rally, which he called a deliberate attempt at intimidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Newsom said that instead of subduing lawmakers and advocates with the mass deportation force, Trump was only exposing his weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He is a failed president,” Newsom declared. “Who else sends ICE at the same time while having a conversation like this? Someone who is weak. Someone who’s broken. Someone whose weakness is masquerading as a strength. The most unpopular president in modern history.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsom encouraged voters in his state to approve a ballot initiative this coming November 4 that would allow the redrawing of California’s congressional map on a temporary basis before returning to the independent commission that has long been used in the state starting in 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BRAD REED<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at Google San Francisco office in San Francisco, California, on August 7, 2025. \u00a0(Photo: Tayfun Coskun\/Anadolu via Getty Images) “Who else sends ICE at the same time while having a conversation like this? Someone who is weak. Someone who’s broken. Someone whose weakness is masquerading as… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43267"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43268,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43267\/revisions\/43268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}