President Donald Trump told a Monday night rally in Nebraska that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles or San Diego, calling the possibility “a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.” Millions of Californians live in those two cities. The White House says he didn’t mean it as it sounded.
On Tuesday, the White House insisted Trump wasn’t calling for an attack on U.S. cities. Officials said he was explaining that he wanted to stop Iran from gaining that capability. Communications Director Steven Cheung blamed a “media freakout” that was “not rooted in reality.” He wrote that Trump “was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped. America is safer because of the President.” Cheung added that Iran “has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.” Iran says it isn’t pursuing nuclear weapons, though it has enriched uranium to near-weapons-grade levels that have no civilian purpose.
Who Hears the Remark
Trump spoke about the Iran war and the resulting high gas prices, which have become a midterm liability for Republicans. He followed his familiar, meandering rally style, speaking for an hour or more and only occasionally using the teleprompter.
The reaction crossed party lines. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who could run for president in 2028, called Trump “deranged and dangerous,” saying he was “saying our foreign enemies should ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego.” Then came a rebuke from within Trump’s own party. Jim Desmond, the Republican congressional nominee in a metro San Diego district, wrote: “As a Navy veteran, I served to protect Americans, not write off American cities as an acceptable price of war.” He added, “no American family should ever be treated as collateral damage.”
The Nebraska remark fits a pattern. Trump has often criticized U.S. cities on the campaign trail, especially large areas that lean heavily Democratic. At a recent North Carolina rally, he called the state’s cities “blood-soaked killing fields.” FBI statistics put North Carolina’s violent crime rate in the middle third of states.
The Smithsonian’s Budget Strings
Away from the rally stage, the White House is using the federal budget to press another institution. It’s conditioning nearly $190 million in Smithsonian funding on the museum complex’s compliance with Trump’s March 2025 executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
A fiscal-year-2027 footnote sets the condition for funds carried over from last year in two of the Smithsonian’s main salaries and expenses accounts. It reads: “To the extent permitted by law, amounts apportioned shall be available for obligation in a manner consistent with Executive Order 14253 (March 27, 2025), ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.’” Public records show the footnote appeared in two recent apportionments of federal funds.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget is using the condition to influence how the Smithsonian tells the American story. The executive order accuses the institution of spreading “divisive narratives.”
A Pattern of Pressure
The footnote isn’t the only lever. Trump has tried to fire a Smithsonian museum director on social media, ordered warning signs outside its American-history museum and demanded the museum remove a modernist sculpture he dislikes. A letter from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum revealed new details about the warning signs the White House plans to install near the American-history museum.
The Atlantic reported on the funding condition in an article by staff writer Kelsey Ables.
Why This Matters:
Two stories share one thread: the power of the presidency used to shape how Americans see themselves and each other. A president’s casual talk of cities as an acceptable “price” lands differently in Los Angeles and San Diego than at a rally in Nebraska, and even a Republican nominee felt compelled to say no family should be collateral damage. Meanwhile, tying nearly $190 million in public money to an executive order about history puts a cultural institution’s independence on a budgetary leash. Museums receive taxpayer funding, but their credibility rests on being free from political direction. Whether Congress and the public hold the line on that principle remains an open question.