California Gov. Newsom calls out Trump, Johnson over Shreveport homicide rate

SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Shreveport and Sacramento are nearly 2,000 miles apart, but that didn’t stop California Governor Gavin Newsom from highlighting the city’s homicide rate in a recent podcast interview.

On Friday morning, Gov. Newsom posted a clip on his X account aimed at President Donald J. Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, a Shreveport native and the city’s representative in Congress.

The post read: “If Donald Trump is worried about “crime” he should start with Shreveport, Louisiana, and @speakerjohnson’s district–that has SIX TIMES the per capita murder rate of San Fransico.” The post was accompanied by a clip from Newsom’s recent interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, with the Governor expressing that sentiment related to President Trump’s actions that include a federal law enforcement takeover of Washington D.C.”

Newsom went on to mention that eight of the top ten “murder states” were red states, calling the president’s crime crackdown bull—-. The California governor and the president have traded jabs since inauguration day. And as the executive branch tests the threshold of grasping power in U.S. cities, Newsom’s opposition has intensified.

Murder rates are measured per capita or 100,000 residents, and according to CDC “Homicide by Mortality” data, the top states for homicides per capita are all red – Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Alabama. D.C. crime is at the top, but it exists as a district as opposed to a state with no Senate representation and only one (non-voting) House representative.

The fact is, nationally, homicides are down and have been on a steady decline since 2022, according to FBI data. That is true for Washington, D.C., Louisiana, and Newsom’s California. However, the statistics do not seem to matter because, as the president announced the D.C. takeover, he also mentioned Baltimore, New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Chicago as possible targets for federal policing action in the future.

“We have other cities also that are bad, very bad. “You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland,” President Trump said on Monday during a press conference.

A suit was filed against the federal government by Washington, D.C., claiming the U.S. government illegally declared a takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department and was “abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law”.

President Trump invoked an emergency provision in the Home Rule Act, allowing for federal control for 30 days. Congress must approve a joint resolution for any extension that would exceed the allowed 30 days.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s office was contacted for a statement regarding Newsom’s comment.