‘Take out’ L.A. or San Diego? This buffoon thinks Trump was way out of line

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I went to bed at a decent hour Monday night and got a pretty good sleep.

I woke up refreshed Tuesday morning, only to see the news that President Trump seemed to have told a crowd in Nebraska that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Iran attacked Southern California.

“Let ‘em take out Los Angeles. Let ‘em take out San Diego,” he said in a typically meandering speech, perhaps trying to justify a war he has repeatedly claimed is keeping the U.S. safe, even as gas prices have spiked. “This is a very small price to pay.”

“San Diego is not collateral damage,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.

Such “dangerous” remarks could “potentially compromise our safety,” said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.

“He is deranged and dangerous,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom.

President Trump throws a pen into the crowd after he signed an executive order during a campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center in Grand Island, Neb., on Oct. 5, 2026. (Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty Images) About 8 a.m., I took my dog Philly out for our morning walk. This is usually a lovely time for us. I clear my head. For Philly, a 3-year-old beagle, these are essentially business trips.

I got to thinking about the similarities in the daily routines of Philly and the president of the United States.

The thing is, I carry bags with me and clean up after Philly. The president to my knowledge has nobody on his staff doing this. We are at a point in American politics at which we must consider posting signs, everywhere Trump travels, that say, “Please Curb Your President.”

Not that it would be easy to clean Trump’s daily messes. You’d need the equivalent of those parade attendants in overalls who run along behind the horses with shovels.

The White House does not use poop bags. Instead, it uses denial and spin.

Trump made the remarks during a rambling speech in which he said gas prices would be lower soon, touted his ouster of Venezuela’s dictator, and made attacks on news outlets.

Critical reactions to Trump’s Nebraska comments were “not rooted in reality,” said White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung, who claimed Trump was misrepresented.

We’ve got to respect Cheung’s opinion. Does anyone in the world have more experience when it comes to analyzing comments not rooted in reality?

Some of you may know there are two topics I often revisit in my column. One is the effects, good and bad, of aging. The other is failure of leadership.

So I feel eminently qualified to psychoanalyze the president.

I don’t mean to generalize, but as people age, it’s not unusual for them to undergo behavioral changes. Some folks mellow, they abide, they lean into the ride. Others can become churlish, combative or grouchy.

Not only is Trump the poster boy for the latter group, but as things go wrong, he becomes more obstinate.

The war in Iran is a disaster. The president is personally responsible for rising gas prices. He’s ruined the economy with his tariffs. He’s picked a fight with Canada. He may cost his party the House and the Senate because his almost daily outrages have pumped oxygen back into the blood of long-slumping Democrats.

A normal person would have the good sense to scale back or shrink away.

President Trump at the campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on Oct. 5, 2026, in Grand Island, Neb. (Win McNamee / Getty Images) Trump keeps doubling down, wants to put his name on everything, and lashes out the way someone does when it’s not clear what’s bigger — their ego or their insecurity.

I’ve been to Nebraska, by the way. Nice place, met a lot of lovely people.

Not wild about “Children of the Corn,” the slasher movie based on Stephen King’s short story. But thank you very much, Nebraska, for Fred Astaire, Johnny Carson and Henry Fonda, who, by the way, was born in Grand Island, where Trump made his cracks Monday about California.

Did it occur to any of the shuckers who cheered Trump’s throwaway line about an attack on San Diego and L.A. that:

B: San Diego has one of the nation’s largest military installations, with thousands of personnel currently deployed to the Middle East because of the war in Iran.

C: Maybe we should expect more from someone serving as president and commander in chief.

In defending Trump, the White House said news outlets had misunderstood and misrepresented the president’s comments in what amounted to a “media freakout.” A White House media post singled out an L.A. Times post that said Trump suggested “letting Iran take out” L.A. and San Diego.

“No, he didn’t, you buffoons,” said the White House. “He was saying the U.S. is fighting to STOP Iran from having the ability to take out LA and San Diego with a nuclear weapon — which they would if they had the chance.”

This buffoon would like to point out that this is yet another case of Trump using California as a punching bag to prop up support for the war and nail down what’s left of his diminishing base. But even some of his longtime disciples know that he has said on dozens of occasions that the war had ended, was ending, or had been won, and not once were any of those words rooted in reality.

It’s not clear whether we’re any safer in the U.S. as a result of the war, although it is clear that we have paid with lives and higher costs.

So maybe a gratuitous and unfunny line about anyone taking out American cities is better left unsaid.

I’m fresh out of muzzles, but I do have extra poop bags.

Trump loves to bash California to rally the base. ‘Let ’em take out’ L.A. is just the latest Trump says he wants to send federalized troops to L.A., San Francisco March 26, 2026 Voices Arellano: Trump wants to erase the tragedy of the Californios. We shouldn’t let him Sept. 5, 2025 Show Comments CaliforniaWorld & NationPoliticsMidterm Election 2026Trump AdministrationCalifornia Politics The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist. Lopez is the author most recently of “Independence Day: What I Learned About Retirement, From Some Who’ve Done It and Some Who Never Will.” His book “The Soloist,” inspired by his columns on his relationship with a Juilliard-trained homeless person, was a Los Angeles Times and New York Times best-seller, winner of the PEN USA Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and the subject of a Dream Works movie by the same name. He has also written three novels and two column collections.

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