Bill Maher admitted Trump cleaned up Washington DC live on his own show.
Karoline Leavitt told Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass exactly why California is suffering.
Then she issued Newsom and Bass a direct challenge, live on Maher's own show.
Karoline Leavitt Walked Into Bill Maher's Studio and Left Newsom With No Excuse
Trump's former press secretary didn't need a friendly audience.
Karoline Leavitt sat down with Bill Maher on Real Time and told California's Democrat leaders something they've been ignoring for two years.
She pointed to Washington DC as proof that working with Trump delivers results.
"Cleaned up the homelessness, cleaned up the crime, the city is beautiful," Leavitt told Maher – describing the capital she'd watched transform over two years of living there.
"You're right," Maher replied.
Then Leavitt issued the challenge Newsom and Bass still haven't answered: "Maybe your governor should call. Maybe your mayor here should call. And California would look a lot better."
Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass have spent years building their political brands around opposing Donald Trump.
Bass abandoned Los Angeles for a foreign trip while the city burned during the wildfires.
After the wildfires, Newsom said he wanted an "open hand" toward Trump.
By March 2026, he was telling reporters you "can't work with him, you can only work for him."
That's not a political philosophy – that's a man covering for two years of failure.
California Has a Homelessness Crisis. Washington DC Just Showed Everyone How to Fix It.
Trump's team used existing DC municipal code to clear homeless encampments that had plagued the capital for years.
Leavitt lived there and watched it happen.
Newsom watched cooperation work and then walked away from it.
Before Newsom went to war with the White House, he asked Trump for federal disaster aid, and Trump delivered.
California Republican assembly leader James Gallagher: "Trump did everything Gavin asked for."
Newsom knows how to make the call.
He stopped making it because 2028 donors don't fund cooperation.
Los Angeles remains a national embarrassment.
The city that failed to prepare for its own wildfires can't house its homeless population, can't control its crime rates, and has a mayor whose answer to every crisis is a press release blaming the White House.
Bass's office responded to Leavitt's challenge by citing Trump's National Guard federalization as proof that cooperation is impossible.
Not one word about why California's streets still look the way they do.
Newsom's advisor Izzy Gardon pointed to a February 2025 Oval Office meeting as proof Newsom had tried.
One meeting in eighteen months doesn't qualify as working together.
Newsom called a special legislative session in late 2024 specifically to "Trump-proof" California, then turned around and complained that federal partnership wasn't working.
He sued the federal government while simultaneously demanding federal disaster relief.
California paid the price for the choice Newsom and Bass made.
Bill Maher Just Made Gavin Newsom's 2028 Campaign a Much Harder Sell
Leavitt didn't take this to Fox News – she made her case on Real Time, and Bill Maher agreed with her.
When a host who spent a decade calling Trump dangerous tells his HBO audience "you're right" about a Trump policy working, that gets through to people who wouldn't hear it from Sean Hannity.
Newsom is running a 2028 presidential campaign dressed up as a governorship.
Every decision he makes in Sacramento is field-tested for a national donor base, not the people who live there.
The lawsuits against the federal government are fundraising pitches for 2028, and every press conference blaming Trump is a campaign ad aimed at the radical left donors writing Newsom's checks.
But real Californians – the ones paying the highest taxes in America, watching homelessness explode on their streets, surviving a wildfire disaster their own government couldn't manage – deserve leaders who pick up the phone.
If Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass won't listen to their voters, they should at least listen to Bill Maher.
Sources:
- Titus Wu, "Ex-White House Press Sec. issues blunt challenge to Newsom, Bass: 'Maybe they should call,'" California Post, October 24, 2026.
- Fox News Staff, "Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass 'not worried' about supposed 'animosity' between Trump and California," Fox News, January 2025.
- NewsNation Staff, "Bill Maher on upcoming Trump dinner: 'Let's talk face to face,'" NewsNation, 2025.