Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized Vice President JD Vance for vacationing at Disneyland over the weekend
Vance and his family were met by protestors outside the Disney parks amid ongoing backlash to immigration raids
“Hope you enjoy your family time, @JDVance,” Newsom wrote on social media. “The families you’re tearing apart certainly won’t”
Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t take kindly to JD Vance vacationing in California as Newsom feuds with the White House over ongoing immigration raids.
The vice president and his family — including his wife, Usha Vance, and their three children — were photographed at Disneyland over the weekend, drawing ire from the Democratic governor.
“JD is back in California. He won’t take the time to debate and defend gutting our Medicaid system, taking away kids’ school meals, militarizing America’s streets, or adding trillions to the debt,” Newsom wrote on X. “Instead, he’s off to Disneyland. Probably to detain Mickey Mouse at this rate.”
He later wrote, in another post, “Hope you enjoy your family time, @JDVance. The families you’re tearing apart certainly won’t.”
Vance replied by reposting Newsom’s jab, adding cooly, “Had a great time, thanks.”
The Vances’ group of around 50, which also included security personnel and Disney staff, was met by dozens of protestors outside the park in downtown Anaheim.
While the trip wasn’t on official government business, the vice president also spent time hiking with Marines at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, while his wife advanced her summer reading initiative by reading with Blue Star children at the base.
As Newsom eyes a potential White House run in 2028, he has ramped up his feud with the Trump White House. His state has become a focus of the administration’s immigration crackdown.
Most recently, officials detained 361 reported unlawful immigrants in a raid on two marijuana farms in Ventura County. One worker, 57-year-old Jaime Alanís Garcia, fell off a greenhouse roof during the raids and suffered fatal injuries.
The Thursday, July 10, raid came just as a federal judge ruled to block certain I.C.E. raids in Los Angeles based on methods being used to target detainees. U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ruled that using external factors like race, language, a person’s vocation or location to determine a “reasonable suspicion” to detain them violates the Fourth Amendment.
Newsom celebrated the ruling on X, writing, “Justice prevailed today. The court’s decision puts a temporary stop to federal immigration officials violating people’s rights and racial profiling.
“California stands with the law and the Constitution — and I call on the Trump Administration to do the same,” he added.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused the judge of “making up garbage” in the ruling.
“We will be in compliance with all federal judges’ orders,” she said at an event in Tampa, Fla., on Saturday, July 12, per the L.A. Times. “We’re going to appeal it, and we’re going to win.”
Noem claimed the marijuana farm raid was related to a child labor investigation.
“We went there because we knew, specifically from casework we had built for weeks and weeks and weeks, that there was children there that could be trafficked, being exploited, that there was individuals there involved in criminal activity,” she said.