The GOP thought it was throwing a quick punch on Trump’s behalf — the kind of drive-by swing that plays well online and disappears by the next news cycle. Instead, it cracked open a door it clearly didn’t mean to, giving California Gov. Gavin Newsom an opening so sharp and so humiliating it’s now rippling back toward President Donald Trump in ways Republicans weren’t prepared for.
It started on Friday Jan. 23 when Newsom posted a photo of himself sitting at a desk working and captioned it “The man never stops working!”
The post was a poke at Trump over his White House communications team, including Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who have claimed repeatedly that Trump dozing off in public at White House meetings and events is due to the fact that “he’s always working.”
But it quickly escalated from there. The GOP’s official X account then reposted Newsom’s photo below a new meme showing the governor sitting at that desk but drawing a picture of a smiling Trump surrounded by hearts.
Not to be outdone, Newsom went in for the kill posting a meme of the back of Trump drawing the birthday letter of a naked woman linked to the President’s former close friend and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He didn’t need to say one single word to get his message across.
That post went wildly viral with 128, 000 views and counting, more than 8,300 reposts, and more than 2,000 comments.
Newsom stirring the Epstein pot resulted in just what you’d expect. Social media exploded, more than rising to the occasion to troll Trump and joke about the ongoing scandal.
“Now how tf do you recover from that,” X user Fish Flakes demanded including a half dozen skeletons with his caption above a video clip of a startled gerbil.
Another X user simply responded, “LMFAOOOOO.”
X user and award winning designer Chris Wallace probably said it best: “Damn the @GOP got absolutely SMOKED lmao.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported the existence of the letter last summer, revealing friends of the disgraced financier sent him racy cards for his 50th birthday, including an extremely vulgar one from Trump with a drawing of a naked woman on it and his signature across the genital area.
The letters were then put together in a leather-bound book by Epstein’s then-girlfriend convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, according to the Journal.
A furious Trump went ballistic and sued WSJ and its owner Rupert Murdoch for a $10 billion lawsuit, calling the letter at the time of the report “a fake thing.”
Trump has repeatedly denied he wrote or signed the letter, but Trump and Epstein were best buddies at the time and handwriting experts have verified Trump’s signature.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Less than two weeks later, Trump was back in full defensive mode following the release of millions of additional emails and documents tied to Epstein, a flood of material that has reignited scrutiny he’s been trying — and failing — to outrun.
In recent days, the president has lashed out publicly, threatening lawsuits and insisting that journalist Michael Wolff and Epstein himself conspired to “take him down,” a claim that has only amplified attention rather than smothered it.
Against that backdrop, the GOP’s decision to poke at Newsom didn’t land as a clever distraction — it cracked open a fresh line of attack, handing Newsom an opening to drag Trump right back into the Epstein narrative.
Epstein, a disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, had ties to some of the most powerful people in the world, including presidents, billionaires and even royalty. Trump hung out with him during the 1980s and 1990s but insists he never went to Epstein’s private island and that he’s not on the so-called “client list,” but his former bromance buddy tech billionaire Elon Musk claims he’s seen the list and Trump is on it.
Epstein was arrested in 2019 on charges related to sex trafficking minors and allegedly had a “client list” with the names of those who used his services. He died by suicide in a Manhattan jail not long after his arrest.
The DOJ has yet to release all the files and have stonewalled for months, even after Trump signed a law mandating the release by Dec. 19. Now a new court action is trying to force them to abide by the law and release the files in their entirety.
