California Governor Gavin Newsom has found an unlikely source of praise for his latest political maneuver: Steve Bannon, the hard-nosed former strategist for President Donald Trump. In a political climate where cross-party compliments are as rare as a cool day in the Mojave, Bannon’s words carry weight. He recently told Politico, "People in the MAGA movement and the America First movement should start paying attention to this, because it's not going to go away. They're only going to get more intense." Bannon’s remarks came as Newsom’s official X (formerly Twitter) account, @GovPressOffice, ramped up its campaign of parody posts, directly trolling Trump and his signature online bravado.
Since the beginning of August 2025, Newsom’s team—just four or five aides, according to Politico—has turned the governor’s press office account into a digital stage for lampooning Trump. The account has amassed more than 250,000 followers and racked up over 225 million impressions in just a few weeks. The posts are unmistakably Trumpian: all-caps rants, AI-generated images, and a relentless barrage of inside jokes and nicknames. One viral image showed Newsom’s face added to Mount Rushmore, echoing memes Trump himself has shared. Another featured Newsom being prayed over by the late Hulk Hogan, Tucker Carlson, and Kid Rock, complete with a halo and angel wings—an image as surreal as it is tongue-in-cheek. The caption? A simple, “so nice!”
The campaign’s tone is unmistakable: brash, irreverent, and unafraid to poke fun at both its target and itself. When a user named Conservative Mike called the Mount Rushmore post “very disrespectful and blasphemy,” @GovPressOffice cheekily replied by sharing a White House repost of Trump’s own AI-generated image—Trump dressed as the Pope. “oops our bad, sorry. meant to post this,” Newsom’s office quipped. The posts don’t hold back, often borrowing Trump’s signature all-caps style. One post blared, “HAS ANYONE NOTICED THAT SINCE I SAID 'I HATE KID ROCK' HE'S NO LONGER 'HOT?'”—a near-verbatim riff on a Trump post about Taylor Swift from earlier in the year.
Fox News, a frequent target of both Trump and Newsom’s barbs, hasn’t escaped unscathed. When Fox’s Dana Perino criticized the California governor’s antics, Newsom’s account fired back: “DANA 'DING DONG' PERINO (NEVER HEARD OF HER UNTIL TODAY!) IS MELTING DOWN BECAUSE OF ME, GAVIN C. NEWSOM! FOX HATES THAT I AM AMERICA'S MOST FAVORITE GOVERNOR ('RATINGS KING') SAVING AMERICA - WHILE TRUMP CAN'T EVEN CONQUER THE 'BIG' STAIRS ON AIR FORCE ONE ANYMORE!!!” The post continued, “TRUMP HAS 'LOST HIS STEP' AND FOX IS LOSING IT BECAUSE WHEN I TYPE, AMERICA NOW WINS!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.” The sign-off, “thank you for your attention to this matter,” is itself a parody of Trump’s own viral catchphrase.
Newsom’s social media blitz isn’t just about scoring laughs—it’s also a strategic response to recent political events. In an interview with Fox 11 Los Angeles, Newsom explained the shift: his approach changed after Trump “completely misrepresented the facts” about the Los Angeles fires and then federalized the National Guard to quell anti-ICE protests in downtown LA. “Yes, I've changed. The facts have changed. We need to change,” Newsom said. He went further, labeling Trump “an invasive species,” and added, “I respect the Republican Party, I married into a Republican family, I have deep love and respect for people I disagree with. He is something altogether different, and he is unmoored; there are no constraints.”
While Newsom’s posts have drawn ire from conservative circles—Fox News hosts, Kid Rock, and Vice President JD Vance have all weighed in with criticism—they’ve also earned applause from some unexpected quarters. Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, praised Newsom’s approach in an interview with MSNBC. Dowd argued that Democrats often “take themselves too seriously” and miss the fact that “if you’re laughing at a politician, you’re winning.” He added, “And that’s, I think, the cultural moment that we’re in is how do you relate to where people are?” Dowd described the Newsom campaign as “a complete parody,” noting its clever mimicry of Trump’s digital persona—right down to the name-calling and AI-generated images.
Not everyone is amused. Dana Perino, speaking on Fox’s The Five, suggested Newsom’s antics might hurt his political prospects: “If I were his wife, I would say you are making a fool of yourself.” But Newsom, widely seen as a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, appears undeterred. His team’s posts have garnered tens of thousands of likes, and the campaign has become a bright spot for Democrats searching for a way to counter Trump’s digital dominance. Andrew Bates, a former spokesperson for President Joe Biden, told the Daily Mail, “It's an example of the guts and experimentation that needs to replace the timidity and over-testing.”
The trolling campaign has also intersected with serious policy debates. As lawmakers in California push forward on a mid-decade redistricting plan, Newsom’s social media jabs have kept the spotlight firmly on the state’s political battles. The governor’s team has even linked the trolling to the redistricting fight, mocking Trump’s push for Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps. When Trump broke a days-long silence to post on Truth Social—“Gavin Newscum is way down in the polls. He is viewed as the man who is destroying the once Great State of California. I will save California!!! President DJT.”—Newsom wasted no time. He shared a screenshot of Trump’s post on X and simply wrote, “Triggered?”
Trump’s response marked a shift. For days, he had ignored Newsom’s jabs, focusing instead on other political adversaries. But as the trolling campaign gained traction, Trump was compelled to weigh in. Newsom’s press team, meanwhile, kept up the pressure, posting, “WHEN SPEAKER ‘LITTLE MAN’ JOHNSON IS STANDING IN ‘THE UNEMPLOYMENT LINE,’ HE CAN THANK DONALD ‘TACO’ J. TRUMP. TRUMP MISSED A SIMPLE DEADLINE — SOMETHING HE HAS OFTEN DONE WITH HIS MANY FAILED BUSINESSES — NOW CALIFORNIA WILL ‘FIRE’ HIM WITH NEW, ‘MORE BEAUTIFUL MAPS.’ HIGHLY ANTICIPATED, HISTORIC’ PRESS CONFERENCE WITH YOUR FAVORITE GOVERNOR GAVIN CHRISTOPHER NEWSOM!!!! THANK YOU FOR YOU ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. — GCN.”
Polls suggest that Newsom’s tactics are resonating in his home state. According to David Binder, Newsom’s pollster, 57 percent of California voters and 84 percent of Democrats support changes to congressional maps. Yet, a Politico-Citrin Center poll found that 64 percent of voters and 72 percent of Democrats want to keep the independent commission in charge of redistricting, rather than returning the authority to the legislature. The trolling might be fun and games on the surface, but it’s wrapped around real political stakes.
Through parody, provocation, and a heavy dose of online humor, Gavin Newsom is testing whether Democrats can beat Trump at his own game. Whether this strategy will pay off in the long run remains to be seen, but for now, it’s clear that the California governor’s social media offensive has captured the nation’s attention—and forced even his fiercest critics to take notice.
