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.
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 gain victory in the US-Israeli war against Iran.
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Those sacrifices, he implied, could include the destruction of American cities, in case of an Iranian attack.
“It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” Trump said, seemingly in reference to the knock-on effects of the war, including rising fuel and fertiliser prices.
“They 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’s going to be over with very soon.”
Trump has downplayed the impact of the war – now in its eighth month – despite polling that shows the conflict is widely unpopular in the US. He has also repeatedly promised the war would end soon, though no lasting ceasefire has been reached so far.
The fallout from his Nebraska remarks was swift. Gavin Newsom, an outspoken critic of Trump and the Democratic governor of California, said the president was “deranged”.
“This is not only madness. This is dangerous,” Newsom said in a video on the social media platform X, in which he called for Congress to rein in Trump’s behaviour.
Newsom, a possible contender in the 2028 presidential race, has clashed repeatedly with Trump.
Last year, the two faced off over Trump’s decision to deploy federal troops to California, as part of an effort to support a crackdown on undocumented immigration in the Los Angeles area.
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’s Nebraska rally.
“The president of the United States – 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 – just invited Iran to take out Los Angeles and San Diego,” Newsom said.
He added that Trump’s remarks should convince those who “didn’t think the November election mattered” to vote in the upcoming midterms.
Some from Trump’s own party have also expressed shock at his remarks.
Jim Desmond, a Republican running in a competitive race for the House of Representatives near San Diego, was among those who distanced themselves from Trump’s statement.
“I vehemently disagree with President Trump’s 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,” Desmond wrote on X.
“No American city is expendable, and no American family should ever be treated as collateral damage.”
US Representative Kevin Kiley, an independent who caucuses with Republicans and is running for re-election in northern California, also called Trump’s comments “unhelpful”.
But the White House has dismissed criticism of the remarks, calling it part of a “media freakout” that “is not rooted in reality”.
“He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped,” White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung wrote on social media.
“America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.”
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 of Representatives, at 52.
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs in November’s midterms, along with a third of the Senate. Also on the ballot are key state and local races.
With Republicans’ control of Congress on the line, the results of the midterms are expected to weigh heavily on the final two years of Trump’s second term.
