SAN DIEGO — President Trump ventured into what his team regards as enemy territory on Tuesday and it was not a peace mission.
In his first visit as president to California, the blue bastion of liberal resistance, Mr. Trump unloaded on the Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, and called on Congress to punish jurisdictions in the state that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
“Governor Brown does a very poor job running California,” Mr. Trump said during a visit to the Mexican border where he inspected prototypes of the wall he wants to build. “They have the highest taxes in the United States. The place is totally out of control. You have sanctuary cities where you have criminals living in the sanctuary cities.”
His broadside escalated a feud between the nation’s chief executive and the largest state in his country, an argument rooted in ideology, culture, race and sensibility. Mr. Trump’s administration has filed a lawsuit against California over immigration policy while the state’s attorney general has filed dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration on a variety of fronts. Mr. Brown said last week that Mr. Trump was waging war against the state and Mr. Trump did nothing on Tuesday to disabuse that notion.
“California sanctuary policies put the entire nation at risk,” the president