US President Donald Trump and First Woman Melania Trump are greeted by California Governor Gavin Newson upon arrival at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport in Los Angeles, California, on Jan. 24, 2025, to go to the area devastated by the Palisades and Eaton fires.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Photos
President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to strip “giant scale federal funding” from California if the state goes in opposition to his executive order banning transgender athletes from collaborating in girls’s sports activities.
That funding could possibly be withheld “completely” if California continues to flout the Feb. 5 order, Trump warned on Reality Social.
The president’s submit complained {that a} trans athlete who certified to compete in opposition to girls in an upcoming competitors is “virtually unbeatable.”
He wrote that he’ll order “native authorities, if essential, to not enable the transitioned individual to compete within the State Finals.”
Trump added that he’ll converse with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, later Tuesday “to search out out which method he needs to go” on the problem.
Trump didn’t title the athlete whose participation in girls’s sports activities drew his ire. AB Hernandez, a California highschool pupil and transgender athlete competing in ladies monitor and area, has lately obtained media attention.
California’s Interscholastic Federation, which governs college sports activities within the state, stated later Tuesday that it had created a brand new “pilot entry course of” to make sure organic feminine pupil athletes will not be displaced on the state’s upcoming monitor and area championships.
CIF stated the brand new coverage was hashed out over the weekend, previous to Trump’s submit.
The pilot course of “is an inexpensive, respectful strategy to navigate a posh situation with out compromising aggressive equity — a mannequin price pursuing,” Izzy Gordon, Newsom’s director of communictions, stated in a press release. “The Governor is inspired by this considerate method.”
Trump’s risk to close off federal funding could possibly be vital for California, the world’s fourth-largest economy.
Over one-third of the state’s finances comes from the federal authorities, in keeping with the California Budget and Policy Center. The state’s 2025-2026 finances contains greater than $170 billion in federal funds.
The risk additionally carries weight in mild of Trump’s growing willingness to cancel billions of dollars in federal funds to universities, cities and different entities whose whose conduct he opposes.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump moved to cancel all remaining federal authorities contracts with Harvard University — reportedly totaling roughly $100 million — within the administration’s environment salvo in opposition to the elite establishment.
Trump has beforehand threatened to withhold federal funds from Maine over the state’s compliance with Trump’s govt order barring transgender women and ladies from collaborating in feminine sports activities.
Newsom, broadly seen as a contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, has been a vocal critic of quite a few Trump insurance policies, together with on tariffs and immigration.
He downplayed the talk over trans athletes in April, saying the problem has been “weaponized by the fitting to be 10x, 100x larger than it’s.”
However he additionally recommended in March that trans athletes collaborating in ladies’ and girls’s sports activities was “deeply unfair,” separating himself from lots of his fellow Democrats.
“I believe it is a problem of equity. I utterly agree with you on that,” Newsom informed conservative influencer Charlie Kirk on his podcast.