California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s social media account mimicking Donald Trump’s all-caps online posts is getting under the skin of prominent conservatives on the right.
The reaction to Newsom’s pitch-perfect parody of Trump — including his wild rants, name-calling, and use of AI-generated images — is shining a light on the absurd behavior of the president of the United States, who has largely gotten a pass from his party for doing the same thing.
“You have to stop it with the Twitter thing,” Fox News host Dana Perino said Monday of the potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender. “If I were his wife, I would say: You are making a fool of yourself, stop it. … 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.”
“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?” added Fox News host Trace Gallagher.
For years, and often in the middle of the night, Trump has posted screeds against his perceived enemies on his social media website Truth Social, hurling invectives and sharing conspiracies once considered unthinkable for an American president. His critics have repeatedly accused the media of normalizing the bizarre posts and “sanewashing” his language online.
Newsom’s team is trying a different approach — one that’s earned the governor praise from the Democratic base and lots of eyeballs. According to Newsom’s office, the aggressive new strategy has resulted in the @GovPressOffice account on X gaining more than 250,000 followers, more than 225 million impressions, and more than 1.5 million profile visits since Aug. 1.
“If you’ve got issues with what I’m putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns about what he’s putting out as president,” the governor said of Trump at a press conference in Los Angeles last week. “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 over the course of the last many years to go without similar scrutiny and notice?”
“Now everyone’s so offended, ‘Oh, it’s so unbecoming of your position.’ But not the president of the United States?” he added.