In a current interview, California Gov. Gavin Newsom took a swing at President Donald Trump, claiming that he’s slipping—not simply within the polls, but additionally mentally.
“He’s misplaced it,” Newsom advised Fox 11 Los Angeles. “He’s not the identical individual that I handled simply 4 years in the past, and he’s incapable of even a prepare of thought.”
A possible 2028 presidential contender, Newsom didn’t maintain again, calling out Trump—who plans to have fun his 79th birthday on Saturday with a flashy navy parade—for exhibiting indicators that he’s not up for the job.
The jabs mark a pointy escalation of their ongoing feud, which has intensified over the previous week amid Trump’s deployment of Nationwide Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles in response to protests in opposition to ICE. Newsom has brazenly mocked Trump’s verbal flubs and obvious confusion over fundamental information, casting him as unfit and out of contact.
“Trump doesn’t even know what day it’s,” Newsom wrote on X after Trump claimed that they spoke on Monday when their name had truly occurred two days earlier.
At one other level, Newsom identified Trump’s stumbling up the steps of Air Pressure One over the weekend.
“He’s misplaced it. He hasn’t misplaced a step. And I noticed him journey on the steps right this moment,” he mentioned.
In interview after interview, Newsom has been working extra time to color Trump as mentally unwell. On The New York Occasions’ podcast “The Day by day,” Newsom mentioned that Trump began making up issues he supposedly advised him on that decision—after which appeared to imagine them.
“[He] begins making up all this stuff he claimed he advised me about, which actually begins to disturb me on a distinct degree,” Newsom mentioned. “Possibly he truly believed he mentioned these issues, and he’s not all there. I imply that.”
Some have questioned whether or not Newsom is being petty or simply taking part in to the second. His feedback land as Republicans hammer former President Joe Biden for allegedly missing the capability to manipulate late in his presidency, claiming that a few of his remaining selections have been unconstitutional. Retailers like Axios have urged that it’s hypocritical for Newsom to lift alarms about Trump’s psychological state with out making use of the identical scrutiny to Biden.
Nonetheless, Trump’s current gaffes haven’t gone unnoticed.
He’s confused Nissan with Nippon Metal. He’s additionally repeatedly combined up names, as soon as referencing GOP rival Nikki Haley when speaking about former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi. However Democrats have largely did not make these missteps stick.
Whereas Biden’s stumbles have dominated headlines, Trump has largely evaded sustained criticism over his psychological sharpness, regardless of speeches that generally veer into the surreal.
Newsom, nevertheless, could also be testing a brand new playbook. His current media blitz, full of swipes at Trump and his thinly veiled 2028 positioning, provides Democrats a glimpse at how one can go on offense because the get together tries to chart a path ahead.
Take Tuesday night time. Throughout a primetime speech, Newsom zeroed in on what he known as Trump’s newest authoritarian overreach. And he warned that what occurred in Los Angeles could possibly be a preview of what’s to come back for your complete nation.
“This isn’t nearly protests right here in Los Angeles,” Newsom mentioned. “When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the Nationwide Guard, he made that order apply to each state on this nation. That is about all of us. That is about you.”
However together with his newest assaults, Newsom is exhibiting that he can go private and strategic on the identical time. By hammering Trump’s psychological misfires and authoritarian overreach in the identical breath, he’s testing a line of assault that Democrats have largely tiptoed round: Trump isn’t just harmful, however he’s additionally slipping.
If it is a preview of Newsom’s future presidential ambitions, it’s additionally a blueprint for a way Democrats may go toe-to-toe with Trump. We are able to’t simply reality verify the lies; we should name out the incoherence behind them.
