California Governor Gavin Newsom fired back after MAGA figures accused him of racism.
“You didn’t give a s--t about the President of the United States of America posting an ape video of President Obama or calling African nations s--tholes,” Newsom wrote on Monday in response to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who implied that the governor had made a racist comment during a conversation with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.
Newsom’s remarks circulated on conservative media after a video of his conversation was shared by the X account “End Wokeness,” with many MAGA figures claiming the comments were racist.
“I’m not trying to impress you, I’m just trying to impress upon you: I’m like you. I’m not better than you. I’m a 960 SAT guy,” Newsom told the assembled audience on Sunday.
Hannity shared the remark on his X account, suggesting that Newsom was invoking a racist stereotype by comparing his low SAT score to that of Black Americans.
“@GavinNewsom Thinks a 960 SAT Makes Him ‘Like’ Black Americans. Let That Sink In,” the Fox News host wrote.
The video Hannity shared also featured Newsom discussing his low SAT score in an earlier interview with Robert Costa on CBS’s Sunday Morning in October.
“You’re going to call me racist for talking about my lifelong struggle with dyslexia? Spare me your fake f---ing outrage, Sean,” Newsom replied to Hannity.
The California governor, who has become one of President Donald Trump’s biggest online critics, was quick to respond to the backlash by citing examples of the president acting publicly racist—and receiving no pushback from his MAGA supporters.
Trump, 79, who has described himself as the "least racist president,” has a long history of bigoted behavior, with the most recent incident occurring earlier this month when he posted a video depicting former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.
“It wasn’t a video that was racist. It was a video that ended with a racist thing,” said Trump’s former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, one of the people defending the president at the time.
Going back decades, in 1973, the Justice Department sued one of Trump’s companies for allegedly refusing to rent to Black tenants, and in the 1990s, former employees accused Trump-owned casinos of discriminating against Black workers, including removing them when high-profile clients visited.
Trump also ran newspaper ads in 1989, urging the death penalty for five Black and Latino teenagers accused of assaulting a white female jogger in Central Park, a stance he defended even after they were exonerated.
In January 2018, during an Oval Office meeting on immigration, Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and several African nations as “s--thole countries,” a remark that Hannity’s network defended.
The Daily Beast has contacted Newsom’s office for comment.
