California Gov. Gavin Newsom was not in the mood to play nice this week — not with President Donald Trump, not with anyone trying to defend him, and certainly not with people attempting to twist his own words into some kind of “gotcha.”
With Trump fanning outrage over a racist video targeting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, Newsom made it clear he had zero interest in tiptoeing around anyone’s feelings.
An angry MAGA supporter thought she had found her moment to silence him, but the Internet, along with Newsom, taught her a lesson the hard way.
So, the back story is Trump has called female journalists “piggy” on multiple occasions and he did it again last November when a Bloomberg reporter aboard Air Force One asked him a question about the Epstein files. A furious Trump lashed out, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”
Newsom, the president’s archrival, then posted a meme showing two pictures of Trump’s head on a pig’s body. It was meant as a dig at Trump over calling journalists he doesn’t like, mostly women, vulgar names but has since grown into an ongoing joke.
Fast-forward to Thursday night, Feb. 5, when Trump reposted an incendiary racist video on his Truth Social platform showing the faces of the Obamas on the bodies of apes, a bigoted trope that dates back for centuries.
The furious backlash was instantaneous and overwhelming, prompting even MAGA Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, to lash out saying it’s “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.”
The video largely recycled Trump’s ongoing false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen,” but ended with the brief animation of the Obamas as apes set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” After the uproar, Trump deleted it.
He then shifted explanations in rapid succession — first claiming he hadn’t seen the ending, then blaming a staffer, and ultimately refusing to apologize.
Two days later, on Saturday, Feb. 7, X user Sadie NC First resurfaced one of Newsom’s many pig memes, attempting to equate it with Trump’s racist post.
“Obama as a monkey = bad, but this is a-OK,” Sadie declared above Newsom’s post showing Trump as a pig.
She expected applause. Instead, Newsom answered with a single word: “Correct” and the internet did the rest.
X user Minou Noire also pointed out, “Hahahahahahaha. Newsom OWNED the pedophile protecters with this one!!!
But it was very apparent that an ignorant Sadie really didn’t understand the difference between Newsom and Trump’s posts.
“One is political satire based on a sexist comment he made. The other is overt racism. How you don’t get that is beyond me,” an X user explained.
“If she can’t tell the difference between overt racism and character assessment, that’s dumb from her side,” It’s Politics wrote.
Indignant X user Traverse was more explicit: “Comparing and/or depicting White people as pigs isn’t a racial trope. Comparing and/or depicting Black people as apes/monkeys (etc) is a racial trope that has a deep seated history from colonialism/slavery through to the present day. You KNOW this. Stop being disingenuous.”
Beyond the one-word dismissal, Newsom made it clear he wasn’t interested in smoothing anything over.
At a Tuesday, Feb. 10 press conference, when asked about Trump’s post, Newsom unloaded.
“Disgraceful, racist, it’s abhorrent,” he said.
“Any other circumstance that person would be fired, board of directors would ask him to be fired. He’s be ashamed and humiliated and would have apologized. He did none of the above. The President of the United States sending out a racist trope should disgust every human being in this room, everyone. I don’t care if you’re Democrat, Republican, Independent,” an infuriated Newsom spit out.
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He continued uninterrupted, “Leader of the free world — I don’t care who the hell you are. That was sick. It was sick. Sickens me to my core … and I can’t believe that was washed away just with another news cycle. How the hell is he allowed to get away with that?”
Newsom’s supporters certainly weren’t letting Sadie get away with it either. The backlash toward her was relentless.
“Obama didn’t post this. The Pres of the US posted a racist post of a former President,” this X user declared.
“You know this stems from Trump making fun of a woman right? Telling her quiet piggy.. this wasn’t made to just depict Trump as a pig.. maybe we should stop the whataboutism and address the root cause of all of this,” another poster stated.
Social media poster Uzair was able to joke about it, “THIS IS ACTUALLY OKAY. TRUMP DESERVES ALL THIS LOVE LOL”
And so was poster Susan Hunter who happens to like pigs, but not Trump:
“Hey, pigs are intelligent and can be trained to sniff out mines and bombs. This is an insult to pigs. Trump is a parasite, he has none of the redeeming qualities of a pig. I am offended. Apologize to the pigs of the world Newsom!”
