“Donald Trump is mentally ill,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom told TIME and other media outlets in a statement after the President made remarks Monday suggesting an attack by Iran on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego would be “a small price to pay.”
“TIME FOR THE 25TH!” Newsom added, in apparent reference to the 25th Amendment, a constitutional provision that establishes procedures for presidential succession and for replacing or declaring a President unable to perform their duties. Newsom has referred to the 25th Amendment before, alongside other lawmakers and critics, who have suggested that, among other things, Trump’s struggle to find an off-ramp for the war he started with Iran in February—and his expressions of willingness to let civilians in Iran and the U.S. die en masse—suggest that he is unfit to hold office.
The California politician, serving his last term as governor, is widely seen as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in the 2028 election. Newsom and Trump have clashed over a host of issues, including immigration enforcement, environmental and climate policy, and state funding.
Trump made his recent scrutinized remarks at a rally in Nebraska, as he sought understanding from voters grumbling about the costs of the war. Trump initially promised to end it in weeks, and Democrats, including Newsom, have criticized him for prolonging the conflict.
“It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” Trump said of letting the conflict rage a few more weeks until after the U.S. midterms, after which he has vowed the war will come to an end. “They can take out a city. Let them take—let it—let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s—this is a very small price to pay.”
In separate posts across multiple social media accounts following Trump’s Monday remark, Newsom warned that the President’s comment was not only “madness” but also “dangerous” and “deranged.” Speaking to journalist Jim Acosta, Newsom argued that the statement puts over 130,000 active-duty military personnel stationed in San Diego at risk: “Don’t think for a second our adversaries aren’t listening to that.”
Newsom also claimed that Trump’s remark could be “treasonous.” He posted that the President’s statements make one of the U.S.’s largest naval hubs a potential target and that he directed California’s State Threat Assessment Center “to actively monitor the situation in the event that foreign actors interpret the President’s remarks as an invitation to target” the state.
The White House has defended Trump’s remark on the California cities and claimed that it’s being misinterpreted.
“The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung posted on social media. “He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped. America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.”
Trump’s statement on Los Angeles and San Diego has since become fodder for California’s Democratic politicians ahead of the November general elections.
“Thirteen million Californians call LA and San Diego counties home,” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra posted on social media. “Their lives are not a ‘small price to pay’ or a punchline for Donald Trump.”
The Democratic mayors of those cities also rebuked Trump. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the President’s remark “completely irresponsible,” adding that the “role of a President is to protect the country, not to actively threaten it and encourage attacks on American lives.” Todd Gloria, San Diego’s mayor, posted that his city was “not collateral damage” in the war with Iran, and exclaimed: “Keep our city out of your reckless war talk.”
More than 40 Democratic members of U.S. Congress representing California, including Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, also signed a statement demanding that Trump apologize to more than 16 million Americans living in the cities.
And it’s not just Democrats.
Jim Desmond, a Republican candidate for a U.S. House seat in the state’s 48th congressional district, disagreed with Trump’s remark. “As a Navy veteran, I served to protect Americans, not write off American cities as an acceptable price of war,” Desmond posted on X. “Our job is to keep Americans safe, stand up to our enemies, and make sure a threat like that never becomes reality. No American city is expendable, and no American family should ever be treated as collateral damage.”
Speaking to a local Fox affiliate, Rep. Kevin Kiley, a former Republican running for reelection as an independent in California’s 6th congressional district, said that while there is “no evidence” Iran could strike a city in the state, “such rhetoric is unhelpful.”
Trump’s “small price to pay” phrasing isn’t new—he made a similar comment about fuel costs during a rally in Mobile, Ala., last week: “Remember about the oil: You’re paying a price, but boy, is that a small price than what it would be if these lunatics were allowed to have a nuclear weapon and used it on Mobile, Alabama.”
Observers, however, say his comment on the California cities may not be malicious but does signal increasing incoherence, adding to questions that have swirled for years about Trump’s mental acuity and fitness for the presidency.
Those concerns gained renewed attention following Trump’s recent interview with TIME. The interview showed “moments of confusion, incoherence, and paranoia that look like windows into Trump’s mental state,” a politics writer for Slate summarized. “Suffice it to say that if any other president—or person—spoke the way Trump does, you’d probably worry about their psychological and perhaps medical well-being.”
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Critics have long questioned Trump’s mental and cognitive health, though his Administration has repeatedly argued that the President remains fit to carry out presidential duties, citing regular checkups.
Lawyer George Conway, a Republican-turned-Democrat and a vocal Trump critic who has called for his removal from office since 2019, posted on X: “You can reasonably dispute the meaning of a lot Trump says because he’s so incoherent and inarticulate. But what you can’t reasonably dispute is that he is a sadistic and delusional narcissistic sociopath, at once both psychopathic and psychotic, who is lacking in morality, conscience, empathy, remorse, and impulse control, and whose only concern if a city (in any country, including ours) were to be wiped off the face of the Earth, would be how it affects him.”
