President Donald Trump was certain he had finally landed the punch that could quiet one of his most persistent political headaches.
After months of trading barbs with a rival who has repeatedly needled and outmaneuvered him online, Trump seemed to believe he had found the message that would stick.
And just hours before one of the biggest nights of his presidency, the first State of the Union address of his second term, it looked, at least briefly, like the timing couldn’t have been better.
The night before the speech, Trump fired off what he clearly intended to be a knockout Truth Social post aimed squarely at California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a jab designed to dominate the conversation heading into “BIG SPEECH DAY.”
But the victory lap didn’t last.
Instead of ending the feud, the post handed Newsom an opening — and even as he was fending off backlash, Trump gave him the perfect chance to flip the heat and send the pressure roaring back.
“Wow! Gavin Newscum just dropped out of the Presidential Race!!!” Trump wrote at 9:30 Monday night in a post that went viral with more than 26,000 views, using a derogatory nickname he gave his nemesis over a year ago.
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And of course, social media erupted, piling on Trump in a way the president may not have expected because it seems Trump is the one launching Newsom’s bid for president and ending it at the same time.
“I never in the history of ever said “wtf” to myself so many times a day…” this Threads user fumed.
“What? Was there a presidential race going on? Or is it just in his imagination?” asked another.
The jokes started rolling in, too. “I think he called with tears in his eyes and said ‘sir, I’m dropping out of something that I haven’t entered yet!’” another Threads user responded with a laughing emoji.
User Gina Wired hilariously chimed in, “…and then he thanked him and told him that he was awarding him a shiny object.”
Newsom couldn’t resist and hit back, but he waited until the next day, when Trump was scheduled to deliver the State of the Union address, writing a scathing post that went viral many, many times over Trump’s post with 504,000 views and counting.
“WOW!!! JUST GOT A CALL FROM A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE (TOP LEVEL) THAT DONALD TRUMP IS FURIOUS RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I, GAVIN C. NEWSOM (GOVERNOR OF THE FREE WORLD) HAVE COMPLETELY ‘HIJACKED’ THE NEWS ON HIS ‘BIG SPEECH DAY’ WITHOUT EVEN TRYING,” Newsom mockingly wrote in Trumpian style using the President’s preferred all caps manner.
“FOX NEWS IS WALL-TO-WALL COVERAGE OF ME AND MY ‘ROAD SHOW.’ MY RATINGS ARE THROUGH THE ROOF! MUCH BETTER THAN DOZY’S. PEOPLE ARE NOW SAYING THAT I SHOULD DELIVER THE SPEECH INSTEAD OF TRUMP’S ‘STATE OF THE SNOOZE,’” Newsom hilariously continued, but he wasn’t finished.
“I WOULD CRUSH IT. EVEN WITH DYSLEXIA. ESPECIALLY WITH DYSLEXIA! UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE, I DON’T NEED THE TELEPROMPTER (VERY ADVANCED SKILL, VERY RARE). I MEMORIZE. IT’S CALLED PREPARATION. LOOK IT UP, DON! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! —GOVERNOR GCN,” Newsome concluded using Trump’s regular social media sign-off.
Plenty of people agreed with Newsom.
“NEWSOM IS AWESOME. Let’s keep the spotlight on him. He talks great. Everything can be verified. He’s everything trump isn’t. That alone is something to be proud of,” X user Barb Bengela proclaimed.
Another X user suggested a way to really drive Trump “crazy.” “ Go live on @instagram, @facebook and @X during the [State of the Union address] address tonight. It would get so much press and drive ‘Dozy’ crazy!!! Please and thank you in advance.”
“Yeah he did a bang up job memorizing insults for black people the other night,” The San Francisco Ambassador said cuttingly in reference to the backlash Newsom is facing over comments he made in Atlanta.
And Trump’s apparent inadvertent misstep in giving Newsom an opportunity to “HIJACK” his “BIG SPEECH DAY” follows the governor’s new book tour, where he made a stop in Atlanta Saturday night, Feb. 21, for a live discussion about the book, “Young Man in a Hurry” with Mayor Andre Dickens.
Comments Newsom made at the event about SAT scores went viral after conservative opponents clipped part of his discussion, trying to whip up racist fury at Newsom.
Talking with Dickens about his dyslexia before a mixed-race audience, Newsom said, “You’ve never seen me read a speech, because I cannot read a speech.”
“I’m not trying to impress you, I’m just trying to impress upon you, I’m like you. I’m no better than you,” Newsom said before adding, “You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy.”
If you didn’t hear the context around the comment, it’s easy to misinterpret what Newsom was saying, and that’s exactly what MAGA trolls tried to do. They circulated part of that clip, making it sound like Newsom was implying Black people have lower SAT scores, except that’s not what he said, and the audience was filled with both Black and white people.
A Newsom spokesperson, Izzy Gordon, responded to a request for comment by Newsweek.
Godon saying the uproar is “MAGA-manufactured outrage” and that Newsom “has said this publicly for years — including with Charlie Kirk and dozens of other audiences.”
Even Dickens addressed the MAGA misinformation.
“Take it from someone who was actually in the chair asking the questions: context matters more than a headline. The conversation around his new book included him speaking about his own academic struggles, including not doing well on the SAT. That wasn’t an attack on anyone. It was a moment of vulnerability about his own journey.”
Newsom’s book was released on Tuesday, Feb. 24.
