At a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, President Donald Trump looked out at a crowd and said of Iran, "They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay." California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded by demanding the 25th Amendment, and the White House responded by telling everyone they were hearing it wrong.
What Trump Actually Said in Nebraska
Let's start with the quote, because the quote is the whole story. According to Fox News, Trump made the remarks Monday at the Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds while discussing the costs of the conflict with Iran.
His words, per Fox: "They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay." He had just finished telling the crowd that Americans were paying a "small price" for "keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe."
Two cities. Roughly 13 million people in the Los Angeles metro area alone. A very small price. That is the president of the United States, speaking at a rally, in front of a crowd that presumably included some people who have cousins in San Diego.
Newsom Goes Nuclear, Rhetorically
Gavin Newsom did not wait for a clarification. According to Fox News, the California governor said in statements provided to multiple outlets, "Donald Trump is mentally ill. TIME FOR THE 25TH!" He also posted on X that the president is "deranged and dangerous."
This is not Newsom's first trip to this particular well. Fox reports that in July he called Trump's election integrity speech a "legitimate 25th Amendment moment" and described it as "the rambling of a mad king." So the man has a bit.
And Fox notes that Republicans pounced on the July comments, accusing Newsom and other Democrats of a double standard after they spent years defending Joe Biden against questions about his age and cognitive fitness. That is a fair hit as far as it goes, and we will get to what it does and doesn't prove.
The White House Would Like You to Reconsider Your Ears
Enter White House communications director Steven Cheung. According to Fox News, Cheung called the "media freakout" "not rooted in reality" and said Trump "was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped."
He added, "America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money."
Here is the problem with that defense. The charitable reading requires the word "let" to mean something other than "let." "Let them take out Los Angeles" is an instruction to a hypothetical attacker, followed by a verdict on the cost. Maybe Trump was mangling a point about what a nuclear Iran could have done. Maybe he was riffing, as he does, and the sentence ran off the road. But the White House statement is describing a speech that is not the one in the transcript.
The Amendment Nobody Is Going to Invoke
Fox explains the mechanics: the 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, allows the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet, or another body designated by Congress, to declare a president unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office.
Read that again. The vice president and a majority of the Cabinet. The people who would have to pull this trigger are the people who were handpicked by the man in question and who get fired on social media when they displease him. Newsom is not issuing a legal strategy here. He is issuing a press release with a constitutional citation attached.
Fox also flags a related segment in which "The View" co-host Sunny Hostin suggested the Cabinet could invoke the amendment if Republicans lose Congress. Fox further reports that House Democrats have unveiled a bill to examine removing Trump under the 25th Amendment. Plenty of noise, in other words. Zero mechanism.
Both Sides Have a Credibility Problem Here
The Republican complaint about Biden is not nothing. For years, Democrats and much of the press insisted questions about Biden's mental acuity were cheap partisan smears, until a debate performance made denial impossible. Calling for the 25th every time Trump says something unhinged does trade on a cheapened standard, and Newsom has done it twice now.
But the Biden comparison only gets the right so far. Nobody in this story is arguing Trump is forgetful. The argument is that the president stood at a podium and described the destruction of American cities as an acceptable cost of a foreign war, and then his own staff had to translate it into something else. You can believe Newsom is grandstanding and still be unsettled by the quote.
The Dingo Take
The White House says Trump was warning that a nuclear Iran would have threatened American cities. The transcript says he told Iran to "let them take out Los Angeles" and called it "a very small price to pay." Those are two different sentences, and one of them was said on tape in front of a crowd in Nebraska.
Here is what we actually know. A president who has spent a second term bragging about how safe he has made the country described the loss of two major American cities as a bargain. Maybe he botched a point about deterrence. Maybe he was telling the crowd that the war's price tag is nothing next to the alternative. Either way, he reached for LA and San Diego as the throwaway numbers, and he did it with a smile. Cheung's job is to say the media misheard. The media heard the words.
As for Newsom, the 25th Amendment demand is theater, and he knows it. The Cabinet is not going to depose the guy who hired them. But theater is not the same as being wrong about what happened. A president can be unfit to joke about mass death in American cities without anyone having a constitutional remedy, which is roughly the situation we have all been living in since 2015. Get used to it, or vote like it matters.
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