Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) on Tuesday said critics have “appropriately” described Israel as an “apartheid state” and argued that the current leadership under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given the U.S. no choice but to reconsider its military support.

His comments came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that President Donald Trump “preemptively” bombed Iran on Saturday because the administration “knew” impending Israeli strikes on Iran would trigger “an attack against American forces.”

Newsom was speaking at an event in Los Angeles to promote his new memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry,” when moderator and “Pod Save America” podcast co-host Jon Favreau asked whether the U.S. should rethink militarily assisting Israel at some point “down the road.”

“It breaks my heart, because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path where I don’t think you have a choice about that consideration,” said Newsom, according to multiple major news outlets and footage from the event published on social media.

Fellow moderator and “Pod Save” co-host Tommy Vietor had asked about sentiment recently shifting against “the Netanyahu regime” — noting that “a lot of Democrats” are starting to feel “it’s time to rethink the U.S. relationship with Israel.”

“Well, Bibi’s making that easy right now, let’s talk about that,” said Newsom about Netanyahu. “But the issue of Bibi’s interesting, because he’s got his own domestic issues: he’s trying to stay out of jail, he’s got an election coming up, he’s potentially on the ropes.”

The California Democrat continued, “He’s got folks, the hardline, they want to annex the West Bank. I mean, [political commentator and Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas] Friedman and others are talking about it appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.”

Friedman wrote in his column Monday for The New York Times that the Iran war could help Netanyahu win the upcoming election, arguing this would expedite his plans to annex the West Bank, destroy Israel’s Supreme Court and “make Israel an apartheid state.”

Newsom decried that Israel and the U.S. have been discussing regime change in Iran, arguing they haven’t been able to resolve “the Hamas question” in Gaza despite having had several years to do so. The U.S. military death toll in Iran on Tuesday rose to six.

Newsom went on to lament “that we are in this now-regional war” while the apparent “grift and corruption” emanating from the Trump administration continues to grow, adding Trump and his newly formed Board of Peace are part of another “conversation we need to have.”

Chaired by Trump himself, the board was purportedly formed for a small group of world leaders to oversee his plans for Gaza’s future. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner last month said “people are not personally profiting from this.” A permanent seat costs $1 billion.

Newsom went on to slam this board of “peace” with a play on words that prompted cheers, arguing a conversation about it must involve “the piece” that members such as Kushner and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff are “getting” as part of the group.

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