Newsom on Trump homeless threat: 'I don’t know that he knows what it means'

EMERYVILLE — California Gov. Gavin Newsom turned Donald Trump’s threat to “intercede” on homelessness back on the president Tuesday, welcoming federal help but faulting Trump for floating budget cuts to safety net programs.

“It sounds like the president of the United States recognizes he has work to do on this issue,” Newsom said, spinning the president’s comments as “encouraging” — while rebuking Trump for proposals that would mean “decreasing the social safety net to address the reasons people are out on the streets and sidewalks in the first place,” questioning if Trump was “familiar with the tenets or details of his budget.”

The back-and-forth marked the latest exchange in a long-smoldering feud between the two executives. Long accustomed to deriding California as an example of failed liberal governance, Trump has increasingly cited the state’s homeless epidemic as exhibit A.

“You take a look at what’s going on with San Francisco, it’s terrible,” Trump told Tucker Carlson in an interview last night, linking homelessness to “the liberal establishment.”

“We’re looking at it very seriously. We may intercede. We may do something to get that whole thing cleaned up,” Trump added.

It was unclear what specific steps Trump has in mind. Newsom noted that uncertainty — telling reporters during an event trumpeting a new affordable housing development that “I don’t know what that means. I don’t know that he knows what it means” — before warning that Trump's ideas would make things worse.

“If interceding means cutting budgets to support services to get people off the street, he’s been very successful in advancing those provisions in addition to the massive Social Security cuts and Medicare cuts — two things he promised he wouldn’t do,” said Newsom, who earlier faulted Trump for trying to slash funding for Section 8 housing vouchers.

The Democratic governor also tweaked Trump on economic growth, the Republican president’s primary point of pride.

“I think Donald Trump should be pointing out the reason he got to 2.9 percent” GDP growth was thanks in large part to the strength of California’s economy, Newsom said, which is principally “emanating from the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles region.”

Just a day earlier, the California-D.C. rivalry flared up as Newsom touted a new budget — his first as governor — that offers health insurance to undocumented immigrants who are 25 and younger. Trump later threatened to “stop it.”

If Newsom was fazed by those comments and wary of a federal crackdown, he did not show it. “I’ve not been sleeping well. Last night was one of the better nights' sleep,” Newsom told reporters.

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine