Donald Trump’s nearly 500-word declaration disputing that he is mentally in decline gave Gavin Newsom plenty of material to work with.
The California governor, who takes shots at the president on a host of issues, on Wednesday continued to imitate Trump’s online posting style in an effort to expose how abnormal it would be for any other politician.
In an all-caps statement, Newsom repeated some of Trump’s lines about his health while applying the president’s attacks on The New York Times to Fox News instead.
“There has never been a governor who has worked as hard as me! My hours are the longest, and my results are among the best (actually, the best),” Newsom’s press office wrote on X, before mentioning his accomplishments in California.
“All of this has created an ‘aura’ around California that has led every other country in the world to respect us more than ever before—and certainly more than the loser president who always falls asleep at work,“ Newsom, 58, continued.
Trump, 79, has recently been seen appearing to doze off at Oval Office events, like last week, after he insisted to reporters that he was “sharper” than he was in 2000.
Additionally, questions about Trump’s health have lingered amid his diagnosis earlier this year of chronic venous insufficiency, the frequent bruising on his right hand, and his M.R.I. in October, which the White House claims was just preventative.
Newsom, who has questioned whether Trump is showing signs of dementia, bragged in his post about his “perfect marks” on cognitive tests. They were ones “which few people would be able to do very well, including those working at Fox News and any other Murdoch publication,” he quipped.
Newsom, echoing Trump, continued that he would know when he has lost a step—“but it’s not now!”
“After all of the work I have done with medical exams, cognitive exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for Fox News, and others, to consistently do fake reports in order to libel and demean me, ‘the governor of California,’” he concluded. “They are true enemies of the people, and we should do something about it.”
Trump raged at the Times in his Truth Social rant for its reporting on his health, demanding that it cease publication.
In his missive, Newsom followed suit but redirected that to Fox, which is a “horrible, biased, and untruthful ‘source’ of information,” he claimed.
A spokesperson for the Times earlier told the Daily Beast: “Americans deserve in-depth reporting and regular updates about the health of the leaders they elect. Mr. Trump welcomed our reporting on the age and fitness of his predecessors; we’re applying the same journalistic scrutiny to his vitality. Our reporting is heavily sourced, based on interviews with people close to the president and with medical experts. We won’t be deterred by false and inflammatory language that distorts the role of a free press.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
