President Donald J. Trump has now entered a new political skirmish, this time directing his ire toward Gov. Gavin Newsom of California in a late-night post that underscored both the president’s combative instincts and the governor’s mounting challenges at home.
Just after midnight Thursday, Mr. Trump took to Truth Social, delivering his first remarks about Mr. Newsom since the Democrat’s press office began what many critics have described as a trolling campaign against the White House.
❄️❄️❄️ https://t.co/7nj92lopvp
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) August 21, 2025
“Gavin Newscum is way down in the polls,” Mr. Trump wrote, reviving the derisive nickname he has long attached to the California governor. “He is viewed as the man who is destroying the once Great State of California. I will save California!!! President DJT.”
The message was both a personal jab and a broader indictment of Mr. Newsom’s record as leader of the nation’s most populous state, which has wrestled with housing shortages, rampant homelessness, and declining business investment in recent years.
It marked the president’s first direct response to the governor’s press office, which in recent weeks has flooded social media with posts that mimic Mr. Trump’s distinctive style of capital letters, nicknames, and taunts.
The GovPressOffice account has zeroed in on right-leaning figures with a tone designed to provoke, but one that has also drawn criticism for reducing political debate to little more than sneers.
Within minutes of Mr. Trump’s post, Mr. Newsom’s team replied with a row of snowflake emojis, a dismissive flourish that captured the strategy his staff has employed: mocking opponents with brevity rather than engaging on substance.
The approach has not been confined to Mr. Trump. In recent weeks, the GovPressOffice account has targeted Fox News anchor Dana Perino, the Department of Homeland Security, and other figures and institutions viewed as adversarial to Mr. Newsom’s politics. Supporters of the governor describe the tactic as sharp-edged humor. To detractors, it reflects an unserious response to serious problems.
For Mr. Trump, however, the online theatrics were an opportunity to redirect the conversation toward California’s woes and to cast Mr. Newsom as emblematic of failed Democratic governance.
By declaring himself the man who could “save California,” the president suggested that the state’s decline — long a theme in conservative circles — was not only real but also reversible under his leadership.
The speed with which Mr. Newsom’s office responded — nine minutes — highlighted the governor’s eagerness to stay in the digital ring with Mr. Trump. Yet the reliance on emojis and capitalized taunts underscored a strategy that appears more invested in online sparring than in addressing the governor’s lagging approval ratings.
The late-night exchange revealed how Mr. Trump intends to frame California not only as a failing state under Democratic control, but also as a cautionary tale for the nation.
For conservatives, his attack was less a personal feud than a warning: that the “once Great State of California,” as he put it, stands as proof of what happens when progressive politics go unchecked.
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