Gov. Gavin Newsom ripped Donald Trump and his “shriveled little brain” after the president issued a chilling threat to California.
The California governor hit back Tuesday after Trump went off in an early-morning Truth Social rant, dubbing him “Newscum” and declaring a fraud investigation had begun into the state.
“HAHAHAHAHA. Donald Trump is a deranged, habitual liar whose relationship with reality ended years ago,” Newsom wrote on X Tuesday.
“He spends his days posting whatever garbage his shriveled little brain can cough up — and Fox News dutifully treats it like the Lord’s scripture," it added.
In Trump’s Truth Social post, he raged that “Newscum” was “more corrupt than Minnesota, if that’s possible???”
The swipe followed a sustained MAGA pile-on targeting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, culminating in the former vice presidential candidate announcing Monday he would not seek reelection in 2026. The attacks centered on weeks of scrutiny over the state’s troubled welfare fraud scandal.
Trump appeared to warn in the post that the California governor, a rumored 2028 Democratic hopeful, could be his next target.
Trump provided no further details about the investigation into Newsom, but the governor has regularly faced accusations of fraud from conservative influencers and politicians.
Republican California Rep. Kevin Kiley claimed last month that “fully one-third of community college applications are fake” in the state. “They’re just used for financial aid fraud,” he said. But Newsom corrected him, noting “31.4% of the potential applications were STOPPED because they were flagged as being fraudulent.
“That means the system worked — stopping and preventing potential fraud," Newsom said.
Newsom responded to Trump’s fraud accusations Tuesday by noting that his office has “blocked over $125 BILLION in fraud, arrested criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers, and protected taxpayers from the exact kind of scam artists Trump celebrates, excuses, and pardons.”
Newsom, a longtime Trump nemesis, spent 2025 needling Trump on his health, posting photos of the president’s bruised hand and mocking Trump’s habit of sleeping through meetings.
Newsom’s “shriveled little brain” insult comes amid renewed scrutiny over Trump’s mental fitness, which the Daily Beast has led the charge in covering.
In a candid interview last week with the Wall Street Journal, Trump admitted that he visited Walter Reed Military Medical Center in mid-July after suffering “mild swelling” in his lower legs. He also revealed that an ultrasound showed he has “chronic venous insufficiency,” a common ailment in older people that makes it more difficult for the blood to travel to the heart from the legs through smaller veins.
The Journal also reported that Trump was asking staff for a lighter schedule and that staff had to beg him to keep his eyes open during public appearances.
“Newscum sounds very defensive if you ask me. Stay tuned!” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson. Governor Newsom’s office declined to comment for this story.
Trump has brazenly attempted to enact revenge on his political rivals by indicting them on fraud charges.
The president installed his former personal attorney, 36-year-old former beauty queen Lindsey Halligan, to pursue a dubious fraud case against New York Attorney General Letitia James in the Eastern District of Virginia. The previous attorney on the case, Trump appointee Erik Siebert, resigned amid pressure to pursue the case despite what he felt was a lack of legal justification.
A federal judge threw out the case against James on the basis that Halligan was illegally appointed to her position.
James was the prosecutor who pursued a fraud case against Trump in New York in 2022. She secured a conviction in the case, as the judge found Trump and his companies had committed fraud for years.
