President Donald Trump has hit back at California Gov. Gavin Newsom for brutally mimicking his social media style, dusting off a familiar nickname to deride his West Coast imitator in the process.
“Gavin Newscum is way down in the polls,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late on Wednesday night. “He is viewed as the man who is destroying the once Great State of California. I will save California!!!”
The president repeatedly clashed with Trump in recent months, notably in January when devastating wildfires hit Southern California and again in June when Trump sent in the National Guard to suppress anti-ICE demonstrations in downtown L.A.
This month, the governor has begun savagely parodying the commander-in-chief’s idiosyncratic posting style through his GovPressOffice X account, blustering about his greatness in all-caps and inventing infantile slurs with which to attack hostile media personalities, just as Trump has done for years.
Newsom’s team took just nine minutes to respond to the president’s “Newscum” message, replying with three snowflake emojis.
They have since reposted another highly characteristic Trump post, in which the president accuses MSNBC of experiencing poor ratings, with the outraged comment: “TRUMP IS IMITATING ME! – GCN.”
Newsom’s new approach has seen Kid Rock and several Fox News presenters react angrily, with Dana Perino, Tomi Lahren, Raymond Arroyo, and Trace Gallagher, all taking the bait and engaging with the governor’s arch-trolling.
Perino hit out at the governor on Fox’s The Five by urging him to stop for the sake of his assumed presidential ambitions and asking why his wife had not stepped in to prevent him from pursuing the pranks.
“DANA ‘DING DONG’ PERINO (NEVER HEARD OF HER UNTIL TODAY!) IS MELTING DOWN BECAUSE OF ME, GAVIN C. NEWSOM!” came the inevitable reply.
“FOX HATES THAT I AM AMERICA’S MOST FAVORITE GOVERNOR (‘RATINGS KING’) SAVING AMERICA – WHILE TRUMP CAN’T EVEN CONQUER THE ‘BIG’ STAIRS ON AIR FORCE ONE ANYMORE!!! TRUMP HAS ‘LOST HIS STEP’ AND FOX IS LOSING IT BECAUSE WHEN I TYPE, AMERICA NOW WINS!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”
Lahren, meanwhile, berated Newsom and his “team of losers” after they jokingly claimed to have confused MAGA activist Scott Presler with South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, notorious for her anti-trans agenda.
The broadcaster was accused of being “woke” when she complained about the offense caused.
Gallagher was also dispatched in ruthlessly faux-Trumpian style: “BIRD-BRAIN TREY GALLAGHER (A SO-CALLED FOX ‘NEWS’ HOST THAT NOBODY HAS EVER HEARD OF) SAYS MY POSTS ARE ‘CHILDISH’ AND ‘UNBECOMING’ OF A LEADER – CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? MANY ARE SAYING FOX (‘EDIT THE TAPES’) NEWS SHOULD CANCEL HIS PATHETIC LITTLE ‘BEDTIME SHOW’ IMMEDIATELY.
“THEY ARE CALLING IT THE MOST BORING PROGRAM IN CABLE HISTORY. TOTAL SNOOZE FEST! SAD!!!”
Mediaite’s Colby Hall has said that Newsom is “shooting fish in a barrel,” describing his feed as “an X-ray of Trumpian excess” and praising him by saying he has not merely entered “the arena of schoolyard retorts” but “grabbed the microphone, turned it upside down, and made the absurd impossible to ignore.”
Speaking for himself last week, the governor said: “I’m just following [Trump’s] example. If you have issues with what I’m putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns with what he’s putting out as president.”
