House Speaker Mike Johnson got draconian as he upped the ante on the Trump administration’s threats against California Governor Gavin Newsom.

During a press conference with House Republican leadership Tuesday, Johnson was asked whether he believed Newsom should face legal consequences, after Donald Trump said it would be “great” if acting ICE Director Tom Homan had him arrested for obstructing immigration enforcement operations in Los Angeles.

“That’s not my lane, I’m not gonna give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested, but he ought to be tarred and feathered, I’ll say that,” Johnson said.

“He’s standing in the way of the administration and carrying out of federal law. He is applauding the bad guys, and standing in the way of the good guys,” Johnson said, calling the governor a “participant and an accomplice” in the assault on federal officers.

“Do your job, stop working on your rebrand and be a governor,” Johnson added, likely referring to Newsom’s newfound centrist politics.

Newsom swiftly responded to Johnson’s comment, which seemed to sit somewhere between counseling ridicule and mob violence.

“Good to know we’re skipping the arrest and going straight for the 1700’s style forms of punishment,” Newsom wrote in a post on X. “A fitting threat given the @GOP want to bring our country back to the 18th Century.”

All of this started over the weekend when Homan was asked whether he would consider arresting Newsom or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass if they got in the way of the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement. Homan said that no one was above the law but did not specifically threaten to arrest Newsom. On Monday, Trump said that he thought arresting Newsom would be a great P.R. stunt for the Democrat, but Newsom hit back saying that Trump’s green light was “an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.”

Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration alleging that the president had overstepped his authority by deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to protests opposing several ICE raids last week.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the president’s plan to use the military against U.S. citizens will cost taxpayers a jaw-dropping sum.

Testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense Tuesday, Hegseth initially refused to address how exactly his department’s overstretched budget would afford the sudden deployment of 700 Marines to Los Angeles—until he was backed into a corner. In the end, persistent questioning from the committee forced Hegseth to turn to his acting comptroller, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, to provide a figure for the unpopular deployment: $134 million.

MacDonnell said the sum would come from the department’s operations and maintenance accounts, though Hegseth seemed to have little idea how the money would actually be reshuffled.

“What is the current cost for what is taking place in California, and how is it going to affect this budget?” asked Representative Betty McCollum. “How much are these deployments going to cost, for both the Marines and the National Guard? And what training or duties are not taking place because of these deployments? Where in your limited budget, sir, are you going to find—in the remainder of this fiscal year—are you going to pull the money to cover these deployments? What holes are being created?”

After jotting a note to himself, Hegseth appealed to McCollum’s shared background in Minnesota, where he claimed that protests had been “improperly” handled in 2020.

“So in Los Angeles, we believe that ICE—which is a federal law enforcement agency—has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country, especially after 21 million illegals have crossed our border under the previous administration.” (Fact checks indicate that stat—which has been touted by Trump since he was on the campaign trail to stoke fear—is tangibly untrue. Approximately eight million undocumented immigrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration.)

“I asked a budget question. Could the secretary please address the budget? Thank you,” said McCollum.

“You asked about the situation in Los Angeles, and we believe that ICE agents should be allowed to be safe in doing their operations. We have deployed the National Guard and the Marines to protect them in the execution of their duties, because we ought to be able to enforce immigration law in this country, unlike what Governor [Tim] Walz did in 2020,” Hegseth continued, before going on about the “defund the police” movement that took root that year.

“Mister Chairman, if the secretary is not going to [answer] the budgetary questions, I will yield back my time if the secretary refuses to ask the budgetary questions put before him. They’re important,” McCollum said. “What training missions aren’t happening, where are you pulling the money from, and how are you planning this moving forward? These are budget questions that affect this committee and the decisions we’re going to be making in a couple of hours.”

Despite MacDonnell finally providing the estimated cost, questions remain about what will happen when the Marines finally step foot in Los Angeles. Despite the defense secretary’s pledge that the Marines are arriving in L.A. fully trained, Pentagon officials are reportedly still working to draft guidelines for soldiers who have never been tasked with engaging the public.

Trump’s order violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law dating back to 1878 that forbids the government from........

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