We’ve seen flashes of Trump administration fascism all over the country recently, from his takeover of the Washington, DC, police department and his National Guard deployment there to the ongoing arrests and removal of law-abiding immigrants with court dates at New York’s Federal Plaza, to raids at Home Depots and car washes in Los Angeles. On Thursday, though, there was a gratuitous display of federal muscle at a Los Angeles event that had nothing to do with crime or immigration: a press conference by California Governor Gavin Newsom and other state officials announcing plans to redistrict his state, and create more Democratic congressional seats, if the Texas GOP goes ahead with its plans to do the opposite.

Dozens of masked and armed Border Patrol agents turned up at the press conference, held at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. Regional Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino declared that his crew was making “Los Angeles a safer place, since we don’t have politicians who can do that. We do that ourselves.” Some of his men brandished rifles.

“They decided they were going to come and thumb their nose in front of the governor’s face,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told reporters. “That’s unbelievably disrespectful. It’s a provocative act.”

Newsom, who’s been trolling Trump on social media, imitating his ludicrous, all-caps braggadocio, immediately posted via his press office on X: “BORDER PATROL HAS SHOWED UP AT OUR BIG BEAUTIFUL PRESS CONFERENCE! WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED!”

Flanked by Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, Newsom also mocked Trump during his remarks on redistricting. “Who else sends ICE [at the] same time we’re having a conversation like this?“ Newsom said. ”Someone who’s weak. Someone who’s broken. Someone whose weakness is masquerading as strength.”

The symbolism of the Border Patrol’s harassment wasn’t lost on the chair of the museum, William Fujioka. The museum sits on the site where Japanese Americans who lived in Los Angeles “were told to come here and put on buses and sent to camps,” he said, calling the show of force “a parallel of what happened in 1942.”

While Democrats nationally appreciate Newsom’s bold maneuver—New York’s Kathy Hochul, Illinois’s J.B. Pritzker, and Maryland’s Wes Moore have all expressed interest in similar moves—his redistricting initiative, which he’s labeled the “Election Rigging Defense Act,” isn’t a given to pass when Democrats put it on the ballot this November. It’s underwater with all voters, especially independents, after Newsom and other Democrats have spent years pushing for an independent bipartisan commission to draw congressional boundaries, a system imposed in 2010. The governor insists that he has to fight “fire with fire,” and if GOP states stand down on their plans to gerrymander more seats, California will retain the current system.

On Tuesday, hundreds of Angelenos, many wearing union T-shirts, protested ICE abuse at MacArthur Park. Protesters told of even legal immigrants being afraid to leave their houses, and of dwindling business for local shopkeepers. “This is a hunting of people,” said a local resident of 40 years, who lost his garment industry job due to ICE raids. He describes “panic” at “the thought of being detained and being separated from my family.” Still, he came out to protest anyway.

Current Issue

September 2025 Issue

On Thursday, only one man was detained by the Border Patrol near the press conference: a worker named Angel delivering strawberries to a Little Tokyo courthouse. (Dozens of Border Patrol agents, one detainee. Great work, chief Bovino!) Coworker Carlos Franco came to check on Angel and found him taken away, his delivery van still parked outside the museum. He advised people “to be careful in general, whether you’re undocumented or not.”

Also Thursday, a person was reported killed by an SUV, as they were fleeing an immigration raid at a Monrovia Home Depot, just south of Los Angeles. Way to make our cities safer, Mr. President.

Newsom, widely considered a 2028 contender, alienated some progressives early in Trump’s second term, when he hosted wing nuts like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his podcast, suggested Democrats might have to compromise on transgender rights, and called the seizure of Kilmar Ábrego García a “distraction” from the kitchen-table issues Democrats should be addressing. But Trump’s assault on Los Angeles and its immigrant population gave Newsom back his spine.

It’s not clear whether he has the political clout to cajole wary voters to back his preferred maps, but he’s certainly gotten their attention.