Gavin Newsom & Donald Trump's Brutal Feud Is Getting Messier And Messier

On the off chance you haven't got the memo: Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom are not friends. Just days after his last social media war of words, Trump took to Truth Social to threaten the Governor of California with deploying soldiers in response to the protests in Los Angeles. Newsom responded by calling him out in an interview — and he didn't hold back. 

Trump kicked things off by taunting Newsom with the brutal nickname he bestowed upon him 2024. "If Governor Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can't do their jobs, which everyone knows they can't, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!" he wrote (emphasis original — obvs). Newsom originally responded with a post to X (previously known as Twitter, until Trump's other social media sparring partner bought the platform). "That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions ... This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust," Newsom wrote. 

Newsom might not have added a bunch of caps and exclamation points, but he wasn't finished yet. The governor then spoke to MSNBC (via @Acyn) and called the president out as duplicitous. "We talked for almost 20 minutes, and ... this issue never came up. I kept trying to talk about L.A.; he wanted to talk about all these other issues. We had a very decent conversation. ... He never once brought up the National Guard. He's a stone cold liar; he said he did. Stone. Cold. Liar," he said. Trump didn't respond right away, but that checks out. He was at a UFC championship. And yes, he did post a video of him and Dana White entering the arena on Truth Social.

Calling Donald Trump a liar wasn't the only thing Gavin Newsom did in his MSNBC interview. He also made it clear that the tension between him and the president didn't come down to his own shady side, but rather Trump's. 

"I've always wanted to approach engagement with the president of the United States in a respectful and responsible way," he said — and TBH, even if Newsom is now more hated on the internet than his ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle, no one can deny that he actually has said that for years. In fact, he told KQED in 2018 that even if they disagreed on a lot of things, in order to serve the people of California, "You've got to have at least some semblance of a friendship." He also emphasized, "It's not my intention to wake up every day trying to pick a fight. Quite the contrary." Likewise, in a 2023 interview with Sean Hannity for Fox News, Newsom went as far as saying he and Trump "actually had an incredible relationship during Covid" (via Mediaite). 

So, what's changed? According to what Newsom told MSNBC, "There's no working with the president. There's only working for him." As for where Newsom stood with a dynamic like that, he spelled it out clearly: "I will never work for Donald Trump." Yikes. To paraphrase Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, "The girls are fighting, aren't they?" Sure, AOC was talking about Trump and Elon Musk (who's also had beef with Newsom in the past, JSYK), but if the shoe fits, right? Time will tell who Trump gets into a public spat with next. Something tells us it's just a matter of time.