Friday morning President Trump held a press conference at the White House announcing that he’d be declaring a national emergency along the US/Mexico border and predicted that the administration would be sued over it, likely in the Ninth Circuit.

Less than an hour later, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Xavier Becerra held their own press conference, lambasting Trump and vowing to challenge the declaration in court.

Newsom started his portion of the press conference recalling the disastrous fires in California and other natural disasters and how he has worked with Trump and other federal officials to ensure that Californians who need recovery assistance receive it. Then he turned to the issue at hand.

“What is remarkable about this is that we also stood here a week ago and recognized that there was legitimacy to the concerns about drugs flowing through the border. We talked about the cartel activity…that is becoming more and more acute in parts of California.

“We talked about our desire to work with POTUS on drug interdiction, to address the legitimate concerns around our ports of entry.

“We talked about redeploying and partnering our redeployed members of the National Guard with the DEA and other federal agencies to promote more comprehensive interdiction. That is exactly the work that is now at risk because of this declaration of emergency. That irony…should not be lost on any Californian.”

Well, Governor, isn’t your reaction a bit of a “I’m gonna take my ball and go home” temper tantrum that puts the health and lives of Californians at risk? You admit that there is a crisis with drugs pouring into California from Mexico and yet you threaten to halt this joint effort between the California National Guard and the DEA? (Another question – how does SB 54 affect this cooperation?)

Newsom then can’t help himself and goes Trumpian with his insults.

“…[Trump risks cooperation from CA] for a vanity project, for a monument to stupidity, a wall that will do nothing to impact drugs coming over our border.”

Governor, no one believes that the sole purpose of the wall is to prevent drugs coming into the country. Newsom continues:

“Nancy Pelosi has run circles around the President of the United States not once now, but twice. He’s been embarrassed, and his base needs to be fed. And as a consequence of that he’s impacting the lives of millions and millions of Californias and millions and millions of Americans.”

Newsom drones on and on about the drug issue, ignoring the human/sex trafficking crisis (probably because there is a poison pill in the budget bill protecting traffickers, as my colleague Mike Ford pointed out), ignoring the fact that many illegal aliens end up essentially as indentured slaves because of the massive debts they owe coyotes, ignoring the fact that the Mexican Mafia and other cartels control the border and rule with an iron fist, and ignoring the fact that cartels would willingly allow terrorist organizations to cross the border, weapons in tow – for the right price.

The duo’s press conference was largely symbolic: Becerra admits that he doesn’t yet know exactly what his office will do, because the text of Trump’s declaration wasn’t yet available. But they know they’ll #Resist!