California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused President Donald Trump on Friday of trying to “grift” the nation’s public lands, firing off a pointed statement on X after a New York Times report revealed the Trump administration is negotiating a land swap that would give a private real-estate developer expanded access to Yosemite National Park. The governor’s post, published at 5:43 p.m. on August 28, 2026, cast the proposed deal as part of a broader pattern of destruction the president has inflicted on the country’s most treasured places.
Newsom’s post read in full:
“Trump is hellbent on destroying everything that is sacred and beautiful about this country.
California won’t stand by while he grifts our public lands.”
The governor’s statement was a direct response to reporting that the National Park Service has spent more than a year working toward transferring a small parcel of land just inside Yosemite’s western boundary to a company controlled by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a real-estate private equity firm. According to documents submitted to Congress and reviewed by The New York Times, Kingsbarn wants to build a connector road and develop two 40-acre parcels it owns near the park, and in exchange would purchase land of equivalent value elsewhere to hand over to the Park Service.
The deal was first detailed by the outlet NOTUS, which reported that Park Service staff in California and Washington have been trying to arrange the exchange with a Nevada-based company operated, through a web of limited-liability entities, by Kingsbarn. NOTUS reported the developers own an 83-acre plot roughly five miles from one of Yosemite’s ancient sequoia groves, and that Kingsbarn’s chief executive, Jeff Pori, wants to build a road connecting that property to one of the park’s central thoroughfares — access that is otherwise almost entirely blocked by surrounding national forest land.
Records show Kingsbarn purchased its parcels near Yosemite in early 2024 for $4 million through a limited liability corporation called Sanctuary at Yosemite. Campaign finance records reviewed by The Times show that Pori made more than $4,000 in small-dollar donations to Trump’s 2024 campaign. The Interior Department also notified Congress this year that it was considering paying for costs tied to the exchange through the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program Democrats say is intended for conservation acquisitions rather than facilitating development deals.
California’s two Democratic U.S. senators condemned the proposal on Friday. Sen. Alex Padilla called the administration’s handling of the fund an abuse, saying it exists to protect natural areas and provide recreation opportunities for Americans, not to grease private land deals. Sen. Adam Schiff described Yosemite as one of California’s natural wonders and said the administration appeared determined to push the deal through over the objections of the public, Congress and the courts.
The dispute over this stretch of land near Yosemite’s Big Oak Flat entrance is not new. A prior owner, Solvang developer Lewis Geyser, spent years in the late 1990s and 2000s trying to build a resort called Hazel Green Ranch on the same ground and later sued the Park Service for an easement through park property. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups joined the federal government in fighting the case, and a federal appeals court in San Francisco rejected the developer’s claim in 2012. Former Yosemite superintendent Don Neubacher, who oversaw the park from 2010 to 2016, said the current proposal echoes that fight almost exactly, calling it disturbing that it has resurfaced.
Cicely Muldoon, who served as Yosemite’s superintendent from 2020 until her retirement in February 2025, said land exchanges are supposed to deliver a clear public benefit, such as new wildlife habitat, and that the benefit of this particular swap is unclear. She also warned that the deal could set a precedent affecting the more than 400 other national parks and historic sites nationwide, since what happens at Yosemite is often treated as a bellwether for the rest of the system.
Muldoon also invoked the park’s founding history in comments to NOTUS, noting that the national park idea itself traces back to Abraham Lincoln’s 1864 decision to preserve Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias — a legacy she suggested the current proposal undercuts.
Kingsbarn’s representative, longtime Washington lobbyist Lanny Davis, defended the project, telling The Times the developers want to build an “upscale” development of cabins, homes and commercial space. Davis argued the plan would be environmentally superior because a shorter connector road would reduce pollution from residents and visitors entering the park. He said Yosemite officials had told the developers a land swap was their only legal path forward after they initially sought to buy the land outright, and that after two months of weekly meetings with park staff, the proposal was in its final stages.
An Interior Department spokesperson pushed back on characterizations of a secret, predetermined deal, telling the outlet Outside that any land exchange would be subject to federal law, environmental review and public notice, and that no final decision had been made. The department has repeatedly maintained that any advancing proposal would go through established procedures ensuring transparency and public involvement.
The Sierra Club joined the criticism Friday, with executive director Loren Blackford accusing the administration of betraying the legacy of the nation’s parks by trying to hand part of Yosemite to a private developer, and arguing the park belongs to the public rather than to any single administration.
Rep. Jared Huffman, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, also spoke out, arguing that national parks belong to everyone and should be protected for future generations rather than turned over to developers connected to the president’s political network.
Friday’s clash is the latest chapter in a running conflict between Newsom and the Trump administration over public lands access. In January 2026, Newsom directed California State Parks to offer free admission at more than 200 state parks on Martin Luther King Jr. Day after the Trump administration removed the holiday, along with Juneteenth and National Public Lands Day, from the federal calendar of free national park entry days, replacing them with dates tied to the president’s own birthday and other historical observances.
The Yosemite dispute also lands against the backdrop of a broader legal standoff between the two men, including Newsom’s 2025 lawsuit challenging the federal government’s deployment of the California National Guard to Los Angeles, part of a pattern of confrontations between the governor’s office and the administration over the limits of federal authority in the state.
As of Friday, no final decision on the Yosemite land exchange had been announced. Davis said the developers had completed a land survey and were in the final stages of assessing its value, with the overall proposal “almost done,” while Interior officials maintained that any deal would still need to clear the legal and public review process before it could move forward.