Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told California’s top Democrats to call President Trump, citing cleaner streets in Washington as proof cooperation works, and Newsom’s team fired back.
On Friday night, Karoline Leavitt told Bill Maher that California would look better if Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass worked with the White House the way D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has.
Leavitt, who left the press secretary post in August, pointed to results she said she saw firsthand after living in the capital the past two years. Maher did not push back.
The exchange put a simple test on the table for two Democratic leaders who have made opposition to Trump a core brand: pick up the phone, or keep the standoff going while voters live with the results.
Leavitt framed the choice as practical, not partisan. She said Trump wants results and will work across the aisle when it serves the country.
She told Maher she does not worry about the president’s motives.
"I don’t worry about our president. He loves our country very much and he wants to make it right,"
Leavitt said, adding that Trump has said he will work with Democrats to do what is best.
Then she turned to the capital’s streets. Homelessness down. Crime down. A city that looks better. She had lived there, she said, and watched the change.
"Cleaned up the homelessness, cleaned up the crime, the city is beautiful. I’ve lived there the past two years,"
Leavitt said. Maher’s reply was short: “You’re right.”
The closer landed on California’s Democratic leadership.
"Maybe your governor should call, maybe your mayor here should call, and California would look a lot better."
That line is the challenge Newsom and Bass now own in public. Call, work the problem, or explain why the standoff is better for the people they govern.
Townhall.com flagged the segment on X on October 24, 2026, noting Leavitt’s direct shot at the state’s Democratic leaders inside Maher’s studio.
Newsom advisor Izzy Gardon did not let the remark sit. He posted on X that outreach already happened, and that Trump answered with force.
"Gavin Newsom spent 90 minutes in the Oval Office with Donald Trump. Trump responded by illegally seizing control of California’s National Guard and deploying 4,700 troops to Los Angeles,"
Gardon wrote. The “illegally” charge is his framing; the deployment fight is the record Democrats want voters to remember.
The timeline behind that post runs through disaster aid, street protests, and a hard break in tone. In February 2025, Newsom met Trump in the Oval Office to seek federal disaster relief and recovery help after the Los Angeles County wildfires.
Newsom had talked about an “open hand, not a closed fist.” That language did not last.
That June, Trump federalized more than 4,000 California National Guard troops without Newsom’s consent and used them in response to protests against federal immigration enforcement. Gardon’s figure put 4,700 troops in Los Angeles.
By March 2026, Newsom’s public line had hardened into a closed door. In an interview that month he said you cannot work with Trump, only for him, and that everyone learns the lesson.
Tension climbed again after Newsom revealed that the Trump Justice Department was probing him and his wife over tax returns and other matters. California Post contacted Newsom’s and Bass’s offices for comment on Leavitt’s challenge.
Leavitt’s turn on Maher’s set fits a larger pattern of Trump-aligned women stepping from the West Wing into the public argument. After leaving the White House, she is joining Fox News as a contributor, keeping the same fight on air.
The administration has kept that lane open. Trump has continued to put trusted voices at the briefing room lectern, including the choice to tap Katie Zacharia as press secretary in a separate move that kept a steady messenger on camera.
Those jobs draw heat the moment the midterm calendar tightens. When Katie Zacharia takes the podium under political pressure, the same split appears: one side wants cooperation on crime and disorder, the other treats contact with Trump as surrender.
Maher himself had already crossed a cultural line by sitting down to dinner with Trump, a move that brought backlash from the left before Leavitt ever walked into his studio. The host’s on-air agreement with her D.C. description only sharpened the contrast with California’s elected Democrats.
Newsom and Bass built political identity on resisting Trump. Leavitt’s point was narrower: cities that work with the White House on visible disorder get cleaner streets, and leaders who refuse the call own what voters see next.
That argument does not require liking every federal move. It asks whether pride is worth more than results on homelessness and crime, problems California’s biggest city has not solved by press release.
Democrats already police their own over Trump-era positioning. Celebrity voices have piled on Newsom from the left as well, including when Mark Ruffalo said Newsom is disqualified from a White House run, a reminder that the governor’s national brand is contested inside his own coalition.
Republicans face their own midterm math. Even friendly analysts have cautioned that a midterm washout remains possible if the party loses the plot. The California standoff still hands Trump a clean contrast: offer to work the problem, watch the other side freeze.
Leavitt’s challenge was not complicated. She named the governor. She named the mayor. She pointed to a capital city she said looks better after cooperation. And she left the next move with Sacramento and Los Angeles City Hall.
Voters can tell the difference between a leader who picks up the phone and one who would rather keep the fight. California’s Democrats now get to show which they are.