Trump's Golden State bad blood
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President Trump. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
Expect America's most prominent hate-hate relationship to get even nastier as President Trump and California clash in the lead-up to 2020.
Quick take: Hillary Clinton walloped Trump there by 30 percentage points in 2016 and the Democratic "blue wave" in 2018 swept loads of California Republicans from the House. And it's not just elections: Trump has turned the power of the federal government on California, while the Golden State has taken the lead in seeing him in court, Politico Mag's Michael Grunwald reports.
The big picture: The most meaningful political fight in America in 2019 isn't between Trump and Congress — it's between Trump and liberal states, led by California.
Trump's offensive, flagged by Axios' Scott Rosenberg and Ben Geman:
- Threatening California funding for topics ranging from forest management to high-speed rail.
- Threatened to yank back a Clean Air Act waiver that effectively gives California the ability to set higher miles-per-gallon rules.
- Publicly derided the 9th Circuit based in San Francisco, which has repeatedly challenged his administration's actions.
And a brief list of areas where California has sued Trump, per Axios' Stef Kight:
- The border wall
- The border emergency
- DREAMers
- Child separation
- Sanctuary cities
- Immigration questions on the 2020 census
- Trump's attempt to ban transgender troops
- Birth control
- The Affordable Care Act
- Ozone rules
- Federal coal leasing
- Methane release on public and tribal land
- 3D guns
Go deeper: The bad blood between Trump and California
