Over the past week, Gavin Newsom’s press office has been deliberately aping Donald Trump’s over-the-top social media posting style in an obvious attempt to not only troll the president’s most ardent defenders but also force them to come to grips with Trump’s bullying and bombastic tone.
The pitch-perfect parody, which comes as the California governor goes on the attack against Trump while clearly eying a run for president, has also resulted in a number of Fox News stars taking the bait – and seemingly making Newsom’s point for him.
“DANA ‘DING DONG’ PERINO (NEVER HEARD OF HER UNTIL TODAY!) IS MELTING DOWN BECAUSE OF ME, GAVIN C. NEWSOM!” the governor’s press office account tweeted on Tuesday. “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.”
The all-caps screed, complete with a juvenile nickname and satirically signed “GCN” to mimic Trump adding “DJT” to his Truth Social posts, came after Fox News host Dana Perino groused Monday afternoon about Newsom’s tweets while urging him to cut it out if he wanted to be taken seriously.
“You have to stop it with the Twitter thing,” Perino complained on The Five. “I don’t know where his wife is? If I were his wife I would say, ‘You are making a fool of yourself, stop it!’”
Noting that Newsom has presidential ambitions, she added: “Do not let your staff tweet—and if you are doing it yourself, put the phone away and start over. He’s got a big job as governor of California, but if he wants an even bigger job he has to be a little more serious.”
Perino, however, wasn’t the only one to fall into the trap set by Newsom and his social media team.
Earlier this week, Tomi Lahren – a Fox News contributor who first shot to fame for her take-no-prisoners liberal-bashing monologues – objected to Newsom’s press office mockingly referring to MAGA activist Scott Presler – who is openly gay – as GOP Rep. Nancy Mace.
“New lows unlocked by @GavinNewsom and his team of losers,” Lahren fumed on X, only for the governor’s social team to throw back MAGA’s favorite attack line back in her face.
“You sound woke,” the press office fired back.
The governor’s office used a similar tactic last week when Fox News host Raymond Arroyo expressed indignation that Newsom said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — who is confined to a wheelchair — had “rolled over” after Trump called for Texas to redraw its congressional maps.
“We asked for a statement, and Newsom's office gave us something flippant like, ‘You're so woke, he'll get over it,’” Arroyo grumbled before airing the press office’s comment, which read: “No. But how woke of you to ask! I'm sorry Greg's feelings were hurt. Poor guy — we hope he recovers.”
Meanwhile, Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher was also apoplectic about Newsom’s new approach, which has ramped up as he’s taken the fight to Trump and Republicans over their mid-decade redistricting efforts ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
“I don't know what he's trying to do, but it comes across as childish and – you are the governor of the biggest state in the union – what are you doing?!” Gallagher complained on Friday night.
“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,” Newsom’s team tweeted in response the following day. “THEY ARE CALLING IT THE MOST BORING PROGRAM IN CABLE HISTORY. TOTAL SNOOZE FEST! SAD!!! — GCN.”
Gallgher followed suit on Monday night by criticizing Newsom’s “new Trumpian style” of posting, claiming his tweet mocking the Fox News host was an attempt to be “clever” before calling for the governor to stop obsessing about Trump. He then went on to name-check The Mamas and the Papas and The Beverly Hillbillies while urging Newsom to pay more attention to his state than his social media activity.
Perino also couldn’t help herself, jumping online to double and triple down on her on-air commentary about the governor’s Trump mimicry – all while seeming blissfully unaware of the point of Newsom’s parody of the president.
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Responding to Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau sarcastically stating that Newsom “should take a lesson from Donald Trump on this” before asking her what she thought about the president’s social media habits, Perino tweeted that “copying isn’t a good look and it isn’t working” while suggesting the governor come up with original content.
“I mean, it's pretty clearly a parody of Trump's absolutely insane all caps, often non-sensical posts. Probably why all the people in my life who aren't political junkies keep reaching out to say they don't know much about Newsom but think the tweets are hilarious,” Favreau replied. “Humor and mockery can be quite effective!”
“Cool if it works and he’s your 2028 nom, I will buy you dinner,” Perino reacted.
As if to hammer home the point to Perino, Newsom’s office responded to Perino’s comments by gleefully posting: “ALMOST A WEEK IN AND THEY STILL DON'T GET IT.”
Indeed, the governor himself hasn’t exactly been coy about what his intentions are in adopting the online persona of a full-time Trumpian troll. While the social media operation – which is operated by a multi-aide staff – has generated over a billion impressions across a variety of platforms, Newsom has said outright that anyone upset with his account’s online insults and trollish behavior should turn their attention towards the White House.
“I'm just following his example,” Newsom said last week. “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.”
He continued: “To the extent it's gotten some attention, I'm pleased, but I think the deeper question is how have we allowed the normalization of his tweets, Truth Social posts over the course of the last many years, to go without similar scrutiny and notice?”
As CNN’s Andrew Kirell noted in Tuesday’s edition of the Reliable Sources newsletter, Newsom is essentially punking the right-wing media ecosystem right now with this tactic.
“The effort, clearly designed to hold a mirror up to MAGA and ‘bully the bullies,’ so to speak, has evidently gone over the heads of many conservative media personalities, baiting them into making Newsom's point about Trump’s behavior on their own,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Perino once again revisited the subject during Tuesday’s broadcast of The Five by insisting that “we get the joke” but that “it’s just not funny,” adding: “It’s just cringe. And that was my point. Is that if you’re doing this and it’s not authentic and you’re trying to do somebody else who you say is Hitler, and you think that we don’t get the joke.”
Kirell reacted on Tuesday night by asserting that this was precisely what the governor’s social media operation was meant to expose. “I’m fascinated by how they don’t seem to understand that saying ‘it’s just not funny’ is exactly the reaction his team is aiming for,” he posted on X. “It’s the whole point.”
Pointing out that Gallagher and Perino seemed “oblivious they were criticizing a parody of Trump himself,” Mediaite’s Colby Hall explained that Newsom was “shooting fish in a barrel” at this point.
“Newsom’s feed isn’t Trumpian—it’s an X-ray of Trumpian excess, but as if it were delivered by the king of ironically detached comedy himself, Steve Martin,” Hall stated. “Newsom didn’t just enter the arena of schoolyard retorts; he grabbed the microphone, turned it upside down, and made the absurd impossible to ignore.”
While others, such as The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell, have spelled out that Newsom is making MAGA “uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship,” Democrats are increasingly embracing the governor’s approach because it shows his willingness to fight.
“That allows Newsom to step out in front and say he is the first one to stand against Texas’s actions,” The Independent’s Eric Garcia wrote last week, referencing the Texas redistricting battle. “Specifically, the Texas Democrats who decamped to blue states said they would return to Texas because California would respond in kind if Texas passed their new maps.”
He concluded: “2028 is a long way off and plenty could change. Other candidates might be able to prove Newsom is a paper tiger. But then again, plenty of Republicans waited for Trump to implode and he laid waste to them.”
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