The Denver Post

Trump heads to California this week

- By Jill Colvin and Michael R. Blood Elliott Spagat, The Associated Press — The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES» Donald Trump is coming — at last — to the state he loves to hate, setting foot in California for his first time as president.

This is turf he lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton by more than 4 million votes in 2016. He has mocked its judges for blocking his agenda, sued over its lax enforcemen­t of immigratio­n laws and threatened to pull out federal agents.

But there’s something he’s dying to see here: the prototypes for his longpromis­ed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. And there’s something he’s eager to do here: raise cash from the Beverly Hills crowd.

Trump’s arrival Tuesday will come just days after his Justice Department sued to block a trio of state laws designed to protect people living in the U.S. illegally. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown likened it to “an act of war” with Trump’s administra­tion.

“The State of California is sheltering dangerous criminals in a brazen and lawless attack on our Constituti­onal system of government,” Trump complained in his weekly address, accusing California’s leaders of being “in open defiance of federal law.”

“They don’t care about crime. They don’t care about death and killings. They don’t care about robberies,” he said, calling on Congress to block the state’s federal funds.

Last week, Oakland’s mayor warned residents of an impending immigratio­n raid — a move that Trump called disgracefu­l. He said it put law enforcemen­t officers at risk.

The state also has joined lawsuits aimed at stopping constructi­on of Trump’s stalled border wall. And its judges repeatedly have ruled against policies Trump has tried to enact.

In recent months, Trump and other administra­tion officials have threatened both to flood the state with U.S. Immigratio­n and Customs Enforcemen­t agents and to pull ICE out of the state completely.

“I mean, frankly, if I wanted to pull our people from California, you would have a crying mess like you’ve never seen in California,” Trump said last month, predicting “crime like nobody has ever seen crime in this country.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s acting ICE director has repeatedly threatened to increase its enforcemen­t footprint in the state in retaliatio­n for its limited cooperatio­n with federal immigratio­n authoritie­s — and he appears to be making good on his promise.

“California better hold on tight. They’re about to see a lot more special agents, a lot more deportatio­n officers,” Thomas Homan said on Fox this year before his agency conducted a series of raids.

White House officials said the trip has been in the works for months and the timing so close to recent flare-ups was coincident­al.

When asked if Trump planned to play nice on the trip, White House spokeswoma­n Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “Look, I think if anybody is stepping out of bounds here, it would be someone who is refusing to follow federal law, which is certainly not the president. And we’re going for what we hope to be an incredibly positive trip.”

Trump’s overnight visit will include a stop in San Diego to inspect eight sample designs for the wall he’s been raring to build.

He will be speaking with members of the military and traveling to Los Angeles for a splashy Beverly Hills fundraiser, where attendees will pay up to $250,000 per person.

Trump’s appearance­s in the left-leaning state during the 2016 campaign were marked by sometimes-violent clashes between his supporters and opposition groups. In some cases, protesters blocked traffic and threw rocks and beer bot-

Flake says anti-tariff Republican should challenge Trump in 2020.

WASHINGTON» A prominent Republican critic says President Donald Trump should be challenged in 2020 by a candidate who opposes tariffs and objects to Trump’s full-throated attacks on political opponents and the media.

Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona holds those views and he says he is aware that such a campaign “would be a tough go” because the GOP “is the Trump party right now.”

But Flake says “that’s not to say it will stay that way.” He is retiring from the Senate and has not ruled out a run for president.

Flake also chided Trump for attacking the press at a political rally Saturday night in Pennsylvan­ia.

Flake was speaking Sunday with NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.” Trump used a vulgar phrase to describe Todd at the rally. tles. Protests are expected during this trip.

Trump’s more than yearlong absence from the naeconomy tion’s most populous state — home to one in eight Americans and, by itself, the world’s sixth-largest — has been conspicuou­s but not surprising. Trump country, it’s not.

As a candidate, Trump suggested he could win California, a state that hasn’t supported a Republican for the White House in three decades.

Since his election, Sacramento has emerged as a vanguard in the so-called Trump resistance. Democratic state Attorney General Xavier Becerra has filed over a dozen lawsuits to block administra­tion proposals.

California was the home of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, but Republican influence here has been fading for years as a surge in immigrants transforme­d the state and its voting patterns.

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