Newsom Condemns Latest ICE Raid At SoCal Park As 'Cruel' Political Theater

Gov. Gavin Newsom cast the Trump administration's latest large-scale raid at a park in Los Angeles as "cruel" political theater at a Monday news conference.

The Democratic governor's scathing response to the administration's latest immigration operation came on the sixth-month anniversary of the destructive Los Angeles fires.

"What theater. On the sixth-month anniversary after all of these fires, that's the message from the polluted heart of the president," Newsom told reporters.

The show of heavily armed forces was compared to the set of a Hollywood movie as troops in tactical gear arrived with horses and armored vehicles while wielding rifles.

The operation, which saw military forces march through McCarther Park, disrupted youth programming and spurred widespread confusion.

"Those National Guard men and women that were out there protecting people [during the LA fires] are now being used as political pawns. Out there on horseback running through soccer fields in the middle of the day."

McCarther Park is situated in the heart of a densely populated immigrant community. Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez called it the "Ellis Island of the West Coast," the LA Times Reported.

The park has also been known as a hotspot for drug abuse and crime, but the city has worked to change things in recent years.

“Please understand that what’s happening here in the city of Los Angeles, we are the canary in the coal mine. What you see happening in MacArthur Park is coming to you ... So wake up," she said.

For Newsom's part, the governor with suspected presidential aspirations, has remained entrenched in an ongoing political and legal battle over the deployment of National Guard troops to California, which he has staunchly opposed.

Newsom on Monday vowed to protect the state's diverse communities and to "push back against this cruelty."

It is unclear if any arrests were made at the park on Monday.

Thousands of military troops deployed to guard Downtown Los Angeles amid anti-ICE protests have become both a spectacle and a flashpoint in California, as the Trump administration presses forward with controversial immigration raids and militarization over the objections of Newsom and local leaders like LA Mayor Karen Bass.

Bass was notified of the raid while she was on her way to another news conference in Pasadena, when she pivoted to make an appearance at the park.

"Minutes before, there were more than 20 kids playing — then, the MILITARY comes through,” Bass wrote on X. “The SECOND I heard about this, I went to the park to speak to the person in charge to tell them it needed to end NOW. Absolutely outrageous.”

Monday's sweep of McCarther Park comes just days after President Trump signed a bill that will inject some $350 billion into immigration enforcement and detention facilities across the nation.