President Donald Trump, right, talks with California Gov. Gavin Newsom after arriving on Air Force One at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles on Jan. 24. (AP file photo)

WASHINGTON — It was earlier this year that California Gov. Gavin Newsom was making nice with President Donald Trump as he sought help for his wildfire-battered state and moderating his approach ahead of a potential bid for the White House.

But now the gloves are off after Trump took the extraordinary step of federalizing the National Guard in Los Angeles over Newsom’s objections and the governor responded by suing the administration, alleging abuse of power that marked an “unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.”

The escalating clash pits the leader of the Republican Party against a Democrat with ambitions of leading his own party, with a striking backdrop of a domestic troop deployment meant to control a city in unrest and now to assist in arresting migrants — the centerpiece of the president’s agenda.

Trump said Thursday that without the military, Los Angeles “would be a crime scene like we haven’t seen in years.”

Newsom had “totally lost control of the situation,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, misspelling the governor’s first name while using a derogatory nickname for him. “He should be saying THANK YOU for saving his ass, instead of trying to justify his mistakes and incompetence!!!”

For Trump, it’s another chance to battle with Newsom, a frequent foil who leads a heavily Democratic state the president has long criticized. And for Newsom, the feud has handed him a national platform as a beleaguered Democratic Party seeks a leader able to resist Trump.

Trump wages a war against California

Trump has long been a foe of California, which overwhelmingly rejected him in all three of his presidential campaigns.

Over the years, Trump has threatened to intercede in the state’s long-running homeless crisis, vowed to withhold federal wildfire aid as political leverage in a dispute over water rights, called on police to shoot people robbing stores and warned residents “your children are in danger” because of illegal immigration.

As a candidate in 2023, Trump said California was once a symbol of American prosperity but is “becoming a symbol of our nation’s decline.”

“The world is being dumped into California,” Trump said at the time. “Prisoners. Terrorists. Mental patients.”

Trump and Newsom make nice over wildfire catastrophe

There was a handshake and a warm pat on the back.

Newsom was there on the tarmac in Los Angeles in January, welcoming Trump and first lady Melania Trump, who had traveled west to survey the damage from the deadly wildfires in Southern California.

Then they spoke to reporters together, pledging cooperation to rebuild the area and appreciating each other’s presence.

“You were there for us during COVID. I don’t forget that,” Newsom said. “And I have all the expectations that we’ll be able to work together to get this speedy recovery.”

Trump added: “We will. We’re going to get it done.”

Newsom also traveled to Washington in February to press Trump and lawmakers for more federal wildfire relief. The governor called his meeting with Trump one that was marked with a “spirit of collaboration and cooperation.”

The cordial attitude was part of Newsom’s unmistakable appeal to the center, painting himself as a pragmatist to reach out to those who had fled from a party that had just lost all battleground states in the 2024 presidential election.

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Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Blood from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Kevin Freking in Washington contributed.