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SAN DIEGO – California officials, including San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, criticized President Donald Trump after he suggested during a campaign rally in Nebraska on Monday that Iran could “take out” a US city with a nuclear weapon, mentioning San Diego and Los Angeles.
Gloria said Tuesday no American city should be treated as expendable.
“San Diego serves America,” the Filipino American mayor said. “We are an anchor of our nation’s security in the Pacific and home to one of the largest concentrations of military assets in the world.”
Gloria, the first person of color elected mayor of San Diego, pointed to the thousands of servicemembers, shipbuilders, scientists and researchers who live and work in the city.
San Diego ‘not collateral damage’
“These are not abstractions or statistics. They are our neighbors, friends and family – among the nearly 1.4 million people who call San Diego home and whose lives the president so casually dismissed,” he said.
San Diego County is home to more than 215,000 Filipinos, according to the 2020 US Census.
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Trump made the controversial remarks Monday during a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, while discussing the war with Iran and higher prices associated with the conflict.
“It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe,” Trump said before adding that Iran could “take out a city” and naming Los Angeles and San Diego.
Gloria initially responded on social media, saying: “San Diego is not collateral damage. We are not expendable. And we are never a ‘small price to pay.’ Keep our city out of your reckless war talk.”
In a lengthier statement Tuesday, Gloria said protecting Americans is among the president’s most basic duties.
“The most fundamental responsibility of a president is to protect the American people – all of them,” Gloria said. “No American city, regardless of its politics or geography, should ever be described as expendable or an acceptable price to pay.”
The Fil-Am mayor called on Trump to withdraw the remarks and “apologize to the people of San Diego.”
“A president does not get to decide which American communities are worth protecting,” he said. “His duty is to all of us.”
White House defends Trump’s remark
San Diego has one of the largest military footprints in the United States and is home to major Navy and Marine Corps installations. Military bases in the region employ more than 136,000 active-duty personnel and civilians, according to a 2025 report cited by Axios.
The White House pushed back against criticism of Trump, saying his remarks were being misinterpreted.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Trump was making the point that American cities would have been at risk if Iran had been allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.
“The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality,” Cheung said. He said Trump was arguing that US cities “would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped.”
‘No American city is expendable’
Trump’s remarks drew condemnation from officials across California and from both sides of the political aisle.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the comments were “dangerous” and directed the State Threat Assessment Center to monitor the situation in case foreign actors interpreted them as an invitation to target California.
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, a Republican and Navy veteran, also rejected Trump’s remarks, saying that “no American city is expendable” and that the commander in chief’s first responsibility is to protect Americans.
The US Conference of Mayors also condemned the remarks, saying that political differences should never extend to treating an attack on an American city by a foreign adversary as acceptable.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said a president’s role is to protect the country, not encourage attacks on American lives.
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