SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom used his written State of the State address Tuesday to cast California as a bulwark against a menacing Trump administration he accused of dismantling public services, flouting the rule of law and using extortion to bully businesses and universities. The remarks came as Newsom’s national profile has grown and given him a broader political stage, even as he ...

Gavin Newsom announces the May budget revision in Sacramento on May 12.

Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom used his written State of the State address Tuesday to cast California as a bulwark against a menacing Trump administration he accused of dismantling public services, flouting the rule of law and using extortion to bully businesses and universities.

The remarks came as Newsom’s national profile has grown and given him a broader political stage, even as he skipped the literal one — opting to send his speech to lawmakers in writing rather than deliver it from the Assembly rostrum, which is customary. His address painted a portrait of a state under siege by the federal government even as it grapples with the aftermath of the devastating Los Angeles County fires, spiraling housing costs and an uneven economic recovery.

While he framed Donald Trump and his allies as the chief obstacle to progress, he leaned on familiar themes of California’s resilience, pointing to disaster response, investments in schools and clean energy and the state’s economic staying power. He said as California celebrates the 175th anniversary of statehood, “the state of the state is strong, fully committed to defending democracy, and resolved to never bend.”

“It would be a mistake to think California is cowering in the face of this onslaught,” Newsom said in the 2,300-word address accompanied by a shortened video version.

The written address marks the fifth year in a row that Newsom has diverged from the decades-old tradition of the governor delivering the annual address in person to lawmakers at the state Capitol.

His unconventional approach has drawn some criticism, particularly by Republicans who previously characterized it as an example of Newsom lacking respect for the institution. California’s Constitution only requires that the State of the State be submitted as a written letter to the Legislature, which was how governors up until roughly the 1960s fulfilled their duty. Starting with the late Gov. Pat Brown, the addresses were delivered in person, typically in January as a way to set the agenda for the year.

Newsom, who dislikes reading from a teleprompter due to his dyslexia, has not delivered his State of the State in the Capitol since 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, Newsom’s address was streamed from an empty Dodgers Stadium and, two years later, he declined to give a speech in lieu of a statewide press tour, during which he unveiled new policies.

This year’s speech arrives unusually late in the year, as lawmakers race to approve hundreds of bills ahead of Friday’s legislative deadline. It also comes at a moment when Newsom, in the final stretch of his governorship, is drawing national attention not only for his confrontations with Trump but also for a shrewd social media assault that borrows the president’s own trolling style to energize supporters and burnish his public brand.

But Newsom’s record has also drawn sharp criticism.

After nearly two terms, California continues to wrestle with entrenched homelessness, soaring housing costs and one of the nation’s highest costs of living. A budget deficit has swelled in part because the governor expanded Medi-Cal healthcare coverage to include all income-eligible undocumented immigrants. And his move to undercut Texas lawmakers who redrew legislative maps to add additional Republican seats in Congress by asking California voters to do the same to add Democrats has fueled charges that he is accelerating a national wave of partisan gerrymandering and energizing state Republicans.

“My last letter to you warned about the poisonous populism of the right and the anxiety many people were feeling about the state of this country — some of it grounded in real fear about the national economy, but much of it stoked by misinformation and bigotry,” Newsom wrote to lawmakers. “We are now nine months into a battle to protect the values we hold most dear and to preserve the economic and social foundation we built for California. We are facing a federal administration built on incompetence and malicious ignorance, one that seeks the death of independent thinking.”

Newsom said California showed the country its resilient spirit in January during the deadly wind-driven wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes and forced mass evacuations in Los Angeles County. Newsom credited emergency responders who put their lives at risk saving trapped residents.

He glossed over criticisms that pre-deployed fire engines were inadequate, evacuation alerts were delayed and elderly and disabled residents were left stranded. Instead, he focused on the “historic speed and scale” for which federal, state and local officials responded. That commitment, he said, will be there until the last residents return and local businesses recover.

“Through executive orders waiving red tape, the state paved the way for debris-removal crews to move quickly through damaged areas and streamlined permits to speed rebuilding,” Newsom wrote. “Homes are now rising.”

While California looked to the Trump administration for help, Newsom said the state has found none.

“Even as fires still burned, the newly elected President began targeting our state — testing our resolve with his relentless, unhinged California obsession,” Newsom wrote.

From fires to immigration, Newsom said Trump’s approach has been the same: Abandon California when it is in crisis and attack its liberal values. The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for federal authorities to return to mass immigration arrests at workplaces, bus stops and other places in Los Angeles. Newsom said Trump’s decision in June to deploy the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to help with immigration enforcement was a “cowardly attempt to scare us into submission.”

“We are committed to protecting the men and women who make this state stronger through their hard work and entrepreneurial spirit,” Newsom wrote before pivoting to Trump’s ongoing attacks on university funding. “And when the President threatens to bankrupt UCLA — an engine of innovation and economic prosperity, a world leader in science and medicine — with his own bankrupt ideas, he will fail.”

California has led the way in building a green economy, Newsom said, pointing to more than2 million zero-emission vehicles sold in the state and 51 miles of Caltrain railroad tracks now electrified. The state’s grid has run for the equivalent of 60 full days using 100% clean electricity, he added.

“Our climate investments will create millions of new jobs and cut air pollution by more than 70%,” Newsom wrote. “In California, economic growth and environmental protection go hand in hand.”

Like past governors, he used the speech to underscore California’s outsized role in the national economy. With a gross domestic product topping $4.1 trillion, he said the state leads in startups, venture capital and space technology.

The governor closed on a note of defiance, promising to report next year — in what would be his final State of the State — that California is “brighter and more prosperous than ever before.”