Newsom blasts Trump over Iran strikes: ‘Weakness masquerading as strength’

In his remarks, Newsom joined his party’s harshest critics of the strikes, even as some battleground Democrats on Saturday took a more cautious tone.

California is home to more than half of the nearly 400,000 Iranian immigrants in the United States. The West Los Angeles neighborhood known as Tehrangeles had erupted earlier Saturday in celebration amid reports Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed. Many Iranian Americans hope it will mean the fall of the Islamic Republic’s regime.

Trump had called Khamenei’s death “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Newsom, in a social media post earlier Saturday, said while the “leadership of Iran must go,” that sentiment does not justify Trump sparking an “illegal, dangerous war” that could endanger the lives of American military members.

The governor, speaking to journalist Kara Swisher in San Francisco, said Trump has failed to explain to the American public what immediate crisis justified the attacks on Iran, referring to the situation as “manufactured crisis.”

“That’s Donald Trump, the chaos president,” he said, “this wrecking ball president, across the board. Destruction is not strength. And, once again … we’re seeing him destroy any capacity to explain fundamentally what the core American interest is at this moment to declare war.”