NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff pushed back Monday after Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan claimed he was “taken out of context” and that Soboroff deceptively edited his comments about threatening to arrest California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“It’s right there on the tape,” Soboroff said, airing a clip of Homan saying that Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could be jailed if they “crossed the line” with federal officials.
With the protests in Los Angeles over the president’s immigration raids and mass deportation efforts growing increasingly volatile over the weekend, Soboroff spoke to Homan about the administration’s response to the demonstrations, which included Trump deploying the National Guard to “liberate Los Angeles from the migrant invasion.” California officials, namely Newsom and Bass, have argued that Trump is further inflaming tensions in the region with these actions.
During Soboroff’s interview with Homan, the Trump official suggested that the governor and mayor could face prosecution if they interfered with ICE agents in the area or were found to be harboring undocumented migrants.
“I’ll say it about anybody,” Homan said when asked if this also meant Bass and Newsom. “You cross that line, it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.
During the clips that were aired over the weekend and the online article on NBC News’ digital site, Homan also stated that he didn’t believe that Bass has “crossed the line yet.” At the same time, he also roundly criticized Newsom, calling him an “embarrassment for the state” who didn’t care “about public safety in the state of California” due to the state’s sanctuary laws.
Soboroff would later interview Newsom and bring up Homan’s comments, prompting the governor to taunt the border czar and urge him to “just get it over with” and arrest him. “He’s a tough guy. Why doesn’t he do that? He knows where to find me,” he continued. “That kind of bloviating is exhausting. So, Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”
During appearances on Fox News and MSNBC on Monday morning, Homan would back away from his threats to arrest the Democratic politicians, claiming his comments were misconstrued and deceitfully presented by Soboroff.
“The NBC reporter that interviewed me is very dishonest. We did a 20-minute interview, and he cuts out a little clip and takes my words out of context,” Homan grumbled on Morning Joe.
“I never threatened to arrest Gov. Newsom, so I’m not biting off in that. It’s just that the reporter is dishonest and let them play the whole 20-minute interview, and you’ll see a whole different discussion that we had,” he added.
Appearing on MSNBC a few hours later, Soboroff sought to set the record straight by airing the video footage that Homan claimed had misrepresented his comments.
“Tom Homan said we cut a clip and took his words out of context. We did anything but,” the reporter told MSNBC anchor Ana Cabrera. “In fact, we presented the clips in their entirety in all of our airings, including on NBCNews.com.”
In the clips that Soboroff shared, the reporter was seen directly asking Homan if either Newsom or Bass could face arrest if they were determined to have interrupted the federal government’s attempts to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants.
“I’ll say it about anybody, if you cross that line – it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job,” Homan told Soboroff.
Asked if he felt that the mayor was doing that, Homan added: “If she crosses that line, we will ask DOJ to prosecute. Do I think she’s crossed the line yet? I don’t think she’s crossed the line yet.”
Soboroff also teed up a clip from his Newsom interview, featuring him telling the governor that Homan has not ruled out arresting him before asking if he had a response to the Trump administration official. Soboroff also said that Homan had pointed out that neither Bass nor Newsom had crossed any line yet to warrant prosecution.
“It’s right there on the tape,” Soboroff told MSNBC viewers on Monday. “I don’t know what Tom Homan had seen, but we were very clear in giving the full context of the statement he had made.”The reporter concluded: “He did not believe that Gov. Newsom had crossed a line yet. Nor did Mayor Bass but he said he reserved the right to arrest them if they did, which is what Gov. Newsom responded to in the clip that Tom Homan saw.”
While Homan continues to insist that he never threatened to arrest Newsom, the president himself backed the notion of his border czar jailing the Democratic governor of the nation’s most populous state.
“I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn on Monday. “I think it’s great. Gavin likes the publicity.”
The president’s remarks were quickly denounced by prominent Democrats, who said that Trump’s threat to arrest the governor was the “hallmark of authoritarianism on the road to tyranny.” Newsom also weighed in on Trump’s latest remarks.
“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America,” he tweeted. “I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.”
Meanwhile, Newsom has said that his state will go to court to stop Trump from “illegally” deploying the National Guard to face off against the Los Angeles protesters. He also accused the president of having “flamed the fires and illegally acted to federalize the National Guard,” claiming the violence that has marked some of the protests is “exactly what Trump wanted.”