Gavin Newsom built his entire political brand on being the resistance to Donald Trump.
The California governor never missed a chance to pick a fight with the President.
But Gavin Newsom just waived the white flag of defeat in this war with Trump.
California regulators quietly surrender on electric truck mandate
The California Air Resources Board voted to repeal the state’s zero-emission purchasing rule for private trucking companies’ fleets, marking the end of Newsom’s aggressive push to force electric trucks on the industry.¹
The rule would have required large trucking companies to buy more electric trucks as part of California’s broader plan to ban diesel vehicles entirely.
But reality caught up with Newsom’s green fantasies.
According to Politico, the vote represented the collapse of California’s push to force electric trucks on the industry, since the state couldn’t get federal approval before Trump returned to office.²
Under the Clean Air Act, California needs waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt emission regulations that are stricter than the federal baseline.
Trump made it clear those waivers weren’t coming.
And without federal permission, California’s electric truck mandate became nothing more than expensive paperwork.
The California Air Resources Board – the same agency that spent years crafting these radical mandates – quietly abandoned two other groundbreaking standards just days before Trump’s inauguration.
One would have ended the sale of new diesel trucks in 2036 and required large companies to convert their fleets to electric by 2042.
The other would have forced railroads in California to transition new diesel locomotives to electric power.
All gone without a fight.
Trump’s strategy worked perfectly against Newsom
Trump didn’t need to declare war on California’s electric vehicle mandates.
He just needed to stop enabling them.
In June, Trump signed three resolutions that revoked EPA waivers allowing California to enforce stricter emissions standards.³
That move effectively killed California’s electric vehicle mandate for cars, which would have banned gas-powered vehicle sales by 2035.
Last month, the Department of Justice sued California for allegedly circumventing the resolutions and trying to enforce its electric truck mandate anyway.⁴
Now California has thrown in the towel completely.
“We officially rescued the U.S. auto industry from destruction by terminating the California electric vehicle mandate once and for all,” Trump declared when he signed the Congressional resolutions.⁵
The President was right to focus on the economic damage these mandates would cause.
A diesel-powered semi-truck can drive from Reno, Nevada, to Los Angeles and back on a single tank of fuel.
The same journey in an electric truck would require multiple charging stops, adding an estimated nine hours to the trip.⁶
For an industry that operates on thin margins and tight schedules, California’s mandates were economic suicide.
Truckers and business owners knew it.
Even some Democrats in Congress knew it – 35 House Democrats voted to repeal California’s EV mandate earlier this year.⁷
Newsom’s climate agenda crumbles under pressure
This isn’t just about trucks.
Newsom’s entire climate agenda is falling apart as economic reality sets in.
Vermont paused its electric vehicle mandate law in May as consumers continued buying gas-powered cars.⁸
Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware have all withdrawn, delayed, or scaled back plans to mandate EVs.
“Not enough customers and insufficient charging for these unachievable EV sales requirements,” explained John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.⁹
Even in California, EV sales are falling short of Newsom’s ambitious targets.
The governor’s notorious press office tried to spin Thursday’s surrender as progress toward electric vehicle goals.
But you can’t spin away the fundamental problem: Americans don’t want to be forced into electric vehicles that don’t meet their needs.
The Biden administration’s $7.5 billion program to install EV charging stations has built just 384 charging ports at 68 stations since November 2021 – less than 0.2 percent of the roughly 219,000 public EV charging ports nationwide.¹⁰
If the federal government can’t build charging infrastructure, how was California supposed to force everyone into electric vehicles?
Trump understood what Newsom refused to accept: you can’t mandate your way to success in a free market.
The President focused on removing the federal props that made California’s mandates possible.
Without EPA waivers, without federal funding, without Washington’s blessing, Newsom’s green dreams collapsed like a house of cards.
Newsom spent years positioning himself as Trump’s biggest enemy.
He filed lawsuit after lawsuit, issued press release after press release, made speech after speech about “resistance.”
But when Trump actually fought back with smart policy moves instead of rhetoric, Newsom folded faster than a cheap suit.
The California governor who built his national profile on opposing Trump just discovered the difference between Twitter fights and actual governing.
And in this war, Trump didn’t need to fire a shot to win.
¹ Matthew Xiao, “California drops electric truck mandate amid Trump crackdown,” Washington Free Beacon, September 26, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ NBC News, “Trump signs resolutions blocking California’s pro-EV rules,” June 12, 2025.
⁴ Xiao, “California drops electric truck mandate.”
⁵ NBC News, “Trump signs resolutions blocking California’s pro-EV rules.”
⁶ Overdrive, “Trump ends California’s electric truck sales mandate,” June 13, 2025.
⁷ San Joaquin Valley Sun, “House votes to repeal Newsom’s 2035 electric vehicle mandate,” May 1, 2025.
⁸ Xiao, “California drops electric truck mandate.”
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Ibid.
