Gavin Newsom mocked President Donald Trump for lacking self-awareness while talking about “career criminals” roaming around Washington, D.C.
Trump, who pardoned more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters on his first day back in office, boasted about his administration’s efforts to reduce crime in the capital at a Rose Garden Club lunch on Monday afternoon.
“They used to go in and rob the restaurants... It was like the old Wild West. They’d say, ‘Stick ‘em up, give me your money.’ The whole restaurant is handing them money. And now, if that ever happened, those people would be in deep trouble... We hit them very hard,” Trump, 80, said.
The president then claimed that “91 percent of the crime in Washington, D.C.... was caused by 2.1 percent of the population. These are... many career criminals, sick people, mental problems.”
Newsom, 58, pounced on that comment.
“Wow, the self-awareness here is off the charts,” his press office wrote sarcastically on X.
When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said, “Gavin Newscum is the worst governor in America, and he also may be the dumbest.”
Trump was the first felon to be elected president. In 2024, he was unanimously convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Trump had tried to conceal hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels through his lawyer, Michael Cohen, with the intent of unlawfully influencing the election by skirting state tax and election laws. Trump avoided prison time after winning the 2024 election and is appealing the verdict.
Trump’s three other indictments—over the Jan. 6 insurrection, the alleged mishandling of classified documents, and trying to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia—were dismissed without a trial.
Also, while out of office, Trump and his company were found civilly liable for repeatedly engaging in financial fraud. In a 2022 criminal case, the Trump Organization was also found guilty on 17 tax fraud charges.
Another notable legal ordeal the president unsuccessfully tried to fight was a civil sexual abuse and defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. In early 2024, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and for defaming Carroll in his denial.
Last week, the president’s desperate effort to have the Supreme Court overturn the ruling failed, and he has since been stalling about paying Caroll, 82, the more than $5 million he owes her.
In his second term, several of the Trump administration’s actions have been found to be illegal. For instance, courts have ruled against the administration on tariffs, birthright citizenship, and putting the president’s name on the Kennedy Center.
As for Newsom’s implication that Trump’s comments about “sick people” with “mental problems” commiting crime in Washington apply to himself as well, the president has certainly been accused of being unwell.
The White House has insisted that Trump is “the sharpest, most accessible, and energetic president in American history.”
