Trolling

'A wake-up call': Newsom's Trump trolling is riling Republicans

The governor is changing his social media style after 'years of consumption of right-wing media'

By Anabel Sosa

Gov. Gavin Newsom has a few tricks up his sleeve, including one that comes in all-caps.

At first glance, it might appear that the California governor’s official press account on X was hacked — given the overflow of sporadic posts, written in capitalized letters, often mocking political rivals, and the reposting of AI-generated images showing his face on Mount Rushmore, him in a muscle tee holding the America flag and even Vice President JD Vance breakdancing. 

But if you take a closer look, those tweets are none other than a parody of President Donald Trump’s brazen social media style — and it’s upset some Republicans.

“Gavin Newsom, why am I giving him advice? You have to stop it with the Twitter thing,” said Fox News host Dana Perino, who lambasted the governor’s tweets during a news segment this week. “Do not let your staff tweet, and if you’re doing it yourself, put the phone away … he’s got a big job as governor of California, but if he wants an even bigger job, he has to be a little bit more serious.”

After that segment aired, Newsom referred to her as, “DANA ‘DING DONG’ PERINO (NEVER HEARD OF HER UNTIL TODAY!),” and in the same rambling tweet, he wrote, “FOX HATES THAT I AM AMERICA’S MOST FAVORITE GOVERNOR (‘RATINGS KING’).”

The governor has long quarreled with Trump. Most recently, Newsom has been under fire for replicating Texas’ plans to gerrymander congressional districts ahead of next year’s midterm elections, part of an effort to fight back against the president’s plan to maintain a Republican majority in Congress. During a press conference last Thursday announcing the proposed redrawing of California’s congressional districts, he was asked about his social media trolling.

Newsom said he hopes his social media presence has been “a wake-up call” to the president and that he was “following his example.”

Trump, who now exerts most of his online energy on his platform, Truth Social, has been stirring controversy on the internet since he began campaigning nearly a decade ago. Now, Newsom’s press team told SFGATE in an email that he is “holding a mirror to MAGA.”

“This is a reflection of the Governor and a small team taking cues from him. We know everyone wants to know “the person” doing this — but the truth is this [is] a reflection only of Gavin Newsom, his years of consumption of right-wing media, and now he’s using what he’s learned for good: holding a mirror to MAGA.” 

They also pointed to metrics, suggesting there has been an influx of new followers — more than 325,000 followers, specifically, since August when the governor began testing the social media waters. In another recent interview on the MeidasTouch Podcast last week, the governor was asked about the pushback.

“Where have they been not asking Donald Trump this at every press conference? He talks to people as if we’re all a bunch of idiots,” Newsom said. “We tried to raise a little awareness around that, try to take what he’s doing and push it back … now everyone’s so offended.”

It’s too early to tell whether his latest moves leading against Trump’s agenda will prove fruitful when it comes to his “bigger job” prospects. A recent Politico poll indicates that Democrats prefer a Newsom presidential bid over Kamala Harris. And according to Polymarket, a cryptocurrency market where users are betting on the 2028 presidential winner, his chances in the last few weeks have nearly doubled.