{"id":314726,"date":"2025-10-19T00:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T00:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/314726\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T00:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T00:42:09","slug":"plan-to-fire-artillery-over-a-highway-during-vance-visit-irks-californias-newsom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/314726\/","title":{"rendered":"Plan to fire artillery over a highway during Vance visit irks California’s Newsom"},"content":{"rendered":"

A plan to fire live artillery shells over a major Southern California highway as part of a military showcase attended Saturday by Vice President JD Vance<\/a> drew strong objections from Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a>, who said safety concerns forced him to close a portion of the busy interstate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President is putting his ego over responsibility with this disregard for public safety,\u201d the Democratic governor said in a statement. \u201cFiring live rounds over a busy highway isn\u2019t just wrong \u2014 it\u2019s dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

But U.S. Marine officials said there was nothing unsafe about the exercise at Camp Pendleton, where firing off artillery is a routine occurrence, and that it was unnecessary to disrupt traffic on Interstate 5, which is the main highway along the Pacific coast between San Diego and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Republicans castigated the highway shutdown.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents a district east of the base, called it \u201ca spiteful publicity stunt\u201d by Newsom.<\/p>\n

Vance, a Republican, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the base in north San Diego County to celebrate the Marine Corps\u2019 250th anniversary, and watch troops put on a show of amphibious vehicles and Marines demonstrating a beach assault. Vance, a Marine Corps veteran, and his wife, Usha, watched as aircraft shot across the sky and columns of smoke rose from munitions strikes.<\/p>\n

The state had considered closing the freeway earlier in the week, but the U.S. Marines said Thursday that the event would occur on approved training ranges and comport with established safety protocols.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: Plan to fire artillery over a California highway during JD Vance base visit irks governor<\/p>\n

AP correspondent Julie Walker reports a plan to fire artillery over a California highway during Vice President JD Vance\u2019s visit irks the governor.<\/p>\n

State transportation officials ultimately made the decision to close the freeway after practice firings Friday evening and a request from event organizers for signage along the road stating \u201cOverhead fire in progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

The California Highway Patrol closed a 17-mile (27 kilometers) stretch of the highway for periods before and during the Saturday exercise. Severe traffic delays were reported Saturday morning and early afternoon. No mishaps were reported related to the artillery fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all because of the White House-directed military event, that for the safety of the public, we need to shut down the freeway since they\u2019re sending live ordinances over the freeway,\u201d California Department of Transportation spokesperson Matt Rocco said.<\/p>\n

U.S. Marines Capt. Gregory Dreibelbis said in a statement that there is artillery fire at the base nearly every week and that the exercises didn\u2019t endanger motorists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeeks of deliberate planning and rehearsals ensured success at every phase of execution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In a statement to The New York Times, a spokesperson for Vance, William Martin, said Newsom misled the public about the safety risk. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Gavin Newsom wants to oppose the training exercises that ensure our Armed Forces are the deadliest and most lethal fighting force in the world, then he can go right ahead,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

Rocco said the I-5 closure could cost up to another two hours of trip time for those commuting between San Diego and Los Angeles. The freeway carries 80,000 travelers and $94 million in freight through the corridor daily, according to the governor\u2019s office. Passenger rail services running parallel to the I-5 have also been canceled for the afternoon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A plan to fire live artillery shells over a major Southern California highway as part of a military…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":314727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[276,7330,4216,1854,57,158354,2066,224,158355,50,6986,80,11750,3549,314,89,10760,61,67,370,132,68,158353],"class_list":{"0":"post-314726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-darrell-issa","11":"tag-fires","12":"tag-gavin-newsom","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-gregory-dreibelbis","15":"tag-jd-vance","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-matt-rocco","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-pete-hegseth","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-road-safety","22":"tag-san-diego","23":"tag-traffic","24":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","25":"tag-u-s-marine-corps","26":"tag-u-s-news","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-united-states-government","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-william-martin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}