Former President Trump painted a dystopian picture of California as a crime-ridden city with water shortages and flooded with immigrants in the country illegally, presenting it as a warning of what will happen to the nation if Kamala Harris is elected president.
“I’m here today in California with a very simple message for the American people: We cannot allow Comrade Kamala Harris and the communist left to do to America what they did to California,” he told reporters Friday from his clifftop golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, with the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island in the background. “The state of California is a mess, with people leaving and nothing is going to stop them.”
Trump said that if elected, he would stop sending federal firefighting aid to California unless Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom he repeatedly referred to as “Newscum,” implemented his policy priorities on issues like taxes.
“If he doesn’t sign those papers, we’re not going to give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him all the money to put out the fires, he’s going to be in trouble,” Trump said. “He’s a terrible governor.”
Newsom responded in X that Trump was revealing who he was.
“Every voter should know this. @realDonaldTrump just admitted he will block emergency disaster funding to settle political vendettas,” Newsom wrote. “Today it’s the California wildfires. Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding in North Carolina or flood assistance for homeowners in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump doesn’t care about America, he only cares about himself.”
Despite losing the 2020 presidential election by 5 million votes in California, the former president claimed he would win the state if the votes were counted correctly.
“They don’t have an honest voting system. They send out millions and millions of ballots. They send them everywhere,” he said. “They have a very dishonest system here. If I ran with an honest ballot counter in California, I would win in California.”
There is no evidence to suggest that elections in California or any other state were improperly conducted, and voters have overwhelmingly favored Democratic candidates in statewide ballots for many years.
Trump pledged to increase Californians' access to water if elected.
“I’m going to give you more water than almost anybody has, and farmers up north will be able to use 100 percent of their land, not 1 percent, and the water will come all the way to Los Angeles, and you’ll have more water than ever before,” Trump said. “So, California, vote for Trump and you’ll have water, and you’ll have growth, and you’ll have prosperity.”
In his first news conference since his debate with Harris on Tuesday, Trump spoke for more than an hour. He repeatedly criticized the moderators as biased, claimed that he had won (even though post-debate polls suggest otherwise) and also promised that he would order mass deportations, starting with Ohio and Colorado, if elected.
Ohio is home to Springfield, which has a large population of Haitian immigrants. Trump claimed during the debate that they were eating people's pets, a baseless claim that has been refuted by local officials. Asked about bomb threats the city received following his comments at the debate, Trump said, “The real threat is what's happening at our border.”
Trump was repeatedly asked about his association with far-right activist Laura Loomer, who has drawn the ire of some Republicans for promoting conspiracy theories and bigoted rhetoric.
Before the debate, Loomer wrote on X that if Harris wins, “the White House will smell like curry and White House speeches will be facilitated through a call center.”
Trump said he was not familiar with what Loomer wrote, but said she was a supporter and had strong opinions. When a reporter pointed out that they had seen Loomer traveling on his plane, Trump responded: “A lot of people do that. It's a very big plane.”
During a news conference filled with dark images and angry pronouncements, Trump also found time to brag about his golf course.
“It’s a world championship course, overlooking the Pacific Ocean… Very few courses have views of the Pacific Ocean,” he said. “I have the ocean; Pebble Beach has the bay. The ocean is better than the bay.”
Donald Trump leaves a news conference at his Trump National Golf Club on Friday.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Trump bought the golf course in 2002 for the discounted price of $27 million after the 18th hole fell into the Pacific three years earlier. The property played a role in Trump's fraud trial in New York, with the state attorney general Suing Trumpthree of his children and his company for allegedly inflating the value of the club and the conservation easement as part of a broader lawsuit that included other Trump properties across the country.
The former president plans to build up to 23 homes around the golf course, which is a half-mile from the active landslide zone. His campaign said it was “monitoring” conditions in the city.
Harris' campaign called Trump's appearance “strange.”
“Donald Trump brought his debate stage disaster straight to California,” said campaign spokesman James Singer. “In a disorganized, defensive and often incoherent rally to promote his golf course, he once again showed the country how it is falling apart.”
The golf course is in Rancho Palos Verdes, a city that is under a state of emergency issued by Newsom this month due to extreme ground movement caused by back-to-back rainy winters.
Hundreds of nearby homes were left without power and gas. Neighborhoods near the golf course are under an evacuation warning issued by the city as the cracked ground moves between 9 and 12 inches a week and homes are cracking and sliding off their foundations.
John Cruikshank, the city's mayor, met with Trump and spoke briefly about the need for state and federal aid to shore up the land.
Trump was in the middle of a two-day fundraising tour of Harris' home state. On Thursday, donors paid up to $250,000 to attend an event in Beverly Hills.
The former president is scheduled to attend a fundraising event Friday afternoon in the Bay Area hosted by relatives of Newsom's wife. Couples are being asked to pay up to $500,000 to attend the Woodside event hosted by Tom and Stacey Siebel. Tom Siebel is a billionaire software developer and entrepreneur who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump’s 2024 campaign and is a second cousin of Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the Democratic governor’s wife.
On Thursday, Trump called the debate “a monumental moment” and told an audience in Tucson that he had won. He lashed out at moderators and falsely claimed that Harris supports allowing babies to be killed after birth and wanted to confiscate people’s guns. He also attacked immigration, a major issue in his campaign and an important one in the border state.
“People said they were angry about the debate,” Trump said. “And yes, I am angry, because he allowed 21 million illegal immigrants to invade our communities,” he added, apparently referring to President Biden.
Trump announced a new economic plan: “There will be no tax on overtime.” He has already called for the elimination of taxes on tips and social security benefits.
“That gives people more incentive to work,” Trump said of his new proposal. “People who work overtime are among the hardest-working citizens of our country, and for too long, no one in Washington has been looking out for them.”
