Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) warned during a recent interview that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) should be wary of making deals with President Trump amid the administration’s threats to pull federal funding if the state does not bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
“We should not bend the knee to Donald Trump,” Khanna told CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday. “Look, this is a pattern of threatening states, threatening institutions.”
“The real issue here is less about transgender athletes and more about Donald Trump acting like he can threaten any state, any institution in this country that he disagrees with — and it is a total violation of federalism and the Constitution,” he added.
Trump threatened to revoke California’s education funding Tuesday after a transgender high school track and field athlete qualified over the weekend for the state championship meet. The president blasted Newsom, a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, over the issue with a pejorative nickname in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.
“California, under the leadership of Radical Left Democrat Gavin Newscum, continues to ILLEGALLY allow ‘MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS,'” he wrote. “THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS.”
AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old junior at Jurupa Valley High School in Southern California, won the girls long jump and triple jump at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF)’s Southern Section Masters meet Saturday, qualifying for the state championships later this week.
Trump signed an executive order in February opposing “male competitive participation in women’s sports.” It stated that “educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities” would risk losing federal funds.
“Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to,” the president wrote in his Tuesday post about California. “In the meantime I am ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow the transitioned person to compete in the State Finals.”
“This is a totally ridiculous situation!!!” he added.
Trump said he planned to speak to Newsom directly about the issue later in the day.
The White House and Newsom’s office didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s requests Wednesday for details about whether the discussion took place or if an agreement was reached.
Newsom has previously signaled that he’s open to exploring regulations on transgender athletes “in a way that’s respectful and responsible and could find a kind of balance.” He also said on his podcast in March that he thinks transgender athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports is “deeply unfair.”
Some Democrat-led states, including Maine, have openly rejected Trump’s order, arguing that it violates anti-discrimination laws. The CIF, which governs high school sports in the Golden State, previously cited a 2013 state law in defending its decision to continue to allow transgender athletes to compete based on their gender identity.
The federation announced Tuesday that it is testing a new entry process to allow “any biological female student-athlete who would have earned the next qualifying mark for one of their Section’s automatic qualifying entries in the CIF State meet, and did not achieve the CIF State at-large mark in the finals at their Section meet” to still compete at the state level.
“The CIF believes this pilot entry process achieves the participation opportunities we seek to afford our student-athletes,” the organization said in a statement.