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Gavin Newsom used a late-night couch with Stephen Colbert to deliver what can only be described as theatrical vilification of federal immigration enforcement, calling recent ICE operations “authoritarian actions” and mocking agents who wear masks during sensitive operations. He doubled down on alarmist rhetoric, warning ominously about the future of elections while painting ICE as a faceless arm of tyranny. For a governor who pretends to be a defender of institutions, this performance was a reckless escalation of division rather than sober leadership.
Just hours after Newsom’s primetime barbs, a sniper opened fire at an ICE field office in Dallas on September 24, 2025, killing a detainee and critically wounding others before killing himself, according to authorities investigating the scene. The attacker, later identified as Joshua Jahn, fired from an elevated position and struck a transport van in the facility’s sally port, inflicting carnage on people in custody while no ICE officers were physically harmed. The raw facts of the attack are grim and demand an unambiguous condemnation of political violence from every corner of the country.
Investigators recovered unspent ammunition at the scene with the words “ANTI-ICE” etched into a casing, and FBI leadership described the evidence as indicating an ideological motive behind the attack. That chilling detail makes any rhetoric that dehumanizes federal agents or treats enforcement as a moral monolith not just irresponsible, but dangerous; words have consequences when they feed a narrative that law enforcement are enemies to be eliminated. Political leaders who traffic in demonization must reckon with the real-world fallout when fringe actors choose violence.
Unsurprisingly, senior Republicans pushed back hard, with Vice President J.D. Vance publicly calling out Democrats and naming Gavin Newsom as part of a rhetorical climate that, in his view, encourages attacks on law enforcement. The backlash is not partisan posturing so much as a demand for consistency: if you condemn violence you must stop portraying those who enforce the law as illegitimate targets. Accountability matters—both for those who pull triggers and for the public figures who stoke the flames that fringe actors feed on.
Conservatives can and should denounce both the violence and the politics that help create the conditions for it, while insisting that our institutions and the brave men and women who serve in them deserve respect and protection. Governor Newsom’s theatrics on national television were a dereliction of duty—leadership calls for calming a country in crisis, not fanning the embers of rage for ratings. If Democrats and their media allies truly care about preventing bloodshed, they will stop normalizing language that paints federal officers as enemies and instead work toward policies and rhetoric that preserve public safety and the rule of law.
