An escalating clash pits a Republican president looking to fulfill his mass deportation goals against a Democratic governor with White House aspirations hoping to mobilize opposition.

The governor bragged about working with ICE in California but said that President Trump was “trying to gin things up to create problems” at protests.

Gavin Newsom must have thought it would be a crime to ignore Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders after she condemned the protests in Los Angeles. On Thursday he issued a blistering correction to the former White House press secretary for President Donald Trump.

Gavin Newsom questions Trump’s mental state as he blasts president’s response to LA protests - California governor accused president of ‘making up’ details of a conversation

"This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers and even our National Guard at risk. That's when the downward spiral began." Start the day smarter.

Once Trump began fabricating parts of their conversation later that day, Newsom alleged, it started “to disturb me on a different level that maybe he actually believed he said t

Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended President Trump deploying National Guard to L.A., stating Gavin Newsom is "choos[ing] rioters and criminal illegals" over American law enforcement.

The public fight between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump keeps intensifying, with name calling, insults and accusations traded over television and social media networks.

With California and the White House now in a legal standoff over Trump's deployment of federal troops in Los Angeles, Gov. Newsom is no longer holding back in his fierce criticism of the Trump administration.

Trump and Gavin Newsom locked in bizarre LA protests meme battle - ANALYSIS: The administration and the governor have locked horns in courts, in back-and-forth statements, and, increasingly, with meme