Newsom Threatens to Sue If Federal Government Sends National Guard to San Francisco

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has backed Newsom’s repeated threats to take action.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks in Los Angeles on Sept. 25, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

California Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to sue the Trump administration if it deploys National Guard troops to San Francisco.

“Send troops to San Francisco and we will sue you,” Newsom wrote in an Oct. 22 post on X directed at President Donald Trump.

Newsom debuted a pre-written lawsuit that he promised to file in a “nanosecond” if Trump sends the National Guard to the Bay Area.

“Homicide reduction is the lowest it’s been in 60 years,” Newsom said at a news conference on Oct. 22.

“It’s one of the safest large cities in this country that’s experienced an economic rebirth and growth. Only Donald Trump can wreck that, and we will push back with clarity and conviction and we’ll continue to win in court.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has backed Newsom’s repeated threats to take action.

“There is no basis to send National Guard troops to San Francisco,” Bonta said in a statement on Oct. 21. “No emergency. No rebellion. No invasion. Not even unrest.

“This is outrageous, indefensible—and most importantly illegal. San Francisco may be the President’s latest target, but California is no stranger to the President’s political games and unconstitutional tactics.”

Newsom made repeated threats to sue after Trump suggested sending troops to the Bay Area during an interview on Oct. 19 with Fox News.

Trump has since paused plans to “surge” San Francisco, which he claimed was set to happen on Oct. 25, according to his Truth Social post on Oct. 23.

“Friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge ... [because San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie] was making substantial progress,” Trump wrote on his platform.

“I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around. I told him I think he is making a mistake, because we can do it much faster, and remove the criminals that the Law does not permit him to remove. I told him, ‘It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, and safer but, let’s see how you do?’”

San Francisco has experienced a slight drop in homicides this year, according to public crime reports from the San Francisco Police Department.

The city experienced 22 homicides between Jan. 1 and Oct. 19, which is four fewer than during the same period in 2024.

Reports of rape, robbery, assault, burglary, arson, and motor vehicle theft have also dropped from the same period in 2024.

But reports of human trafficking in San Francisco have doubled in 2025.

There were eight reports of human trafficking during the first 10 months of 2024. Police have reported 19 cases of human trafficking so far in 2025.

Trump sent thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June. Most of them were pulled out by mid-July, but hundreds remained at Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, California.

Newsom wants to use National Guard troops for a different purpose.

Instead of having them walk the streets of San Francisco, he wants to use them to respond to the fallout from the government shutdown, which is the second-longest in U.S. history.

“I am deploying the National Guard on a humanitarian mission to support [California’s] food banks,” Newsom wrote on X on Oct. 22.

Newsom said this action is aimed at helping feed “millions of California families” who will experience a delay in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, often called food stamps, starting on Nov. 1 if the shutdown continues.