Gavin Newsom Defends His Trump Mockery

Gavin Newsom has been making headlines this week with plans to redraw California's congressional maps in favor of Democrats, a counter to what Republicans are doing in Texas. But in going about his strategy, the California governor also has been "trolling Trump like it's his new hobby," writes Lindsey Granger at the Hill. Specifically, Newsom has been parroting the president's tone and all-caps social media style:

• An example from Thursday: "DONALD IS FINISHED — HE IS NO LONGER "HOT." FIRST THE HANDS (SO TINY) AND NOW ME — GAVIN C. NEWSOM — HAVE TAKEN AWAY HIS "STEP." MANY ARE SAYING HE CAN'T EVEN DO THE "BIG STAIRS" ON AIR FORCE ONE ANYMORE — USES THE LITTLE BABY STAIRS NOW. SAD! ... "
• Newsom also did what Trump loves to do to his political rivals and bestowed a nickname upon him, in this case "Donald (Taco) Trump." He also has referred to himself as "America's favorite governor" and borrowed Trump's phrase of "Liberation Day!" to describe his own map strategy. The "taco" nickname is an acronym for "Trump always chickens out," notes USA Today.

When asked about the satire this week, Newsom said it's designed to raise a bigger issue, per Axios:

• "To the extent it's gotten some attention, I'm pleased," he said, "but I think the deeper question is how have we allowed the normalization of his tweets, Truth Social posts over the course of the last many years, to go without similar scrutiny and notice?"