California Gov. Gavin Newsom finally revealed the details of his late-night June phone call with President Donald Trump.
Last summer, Newsom, 58, and Trump, 79, publicly sparred over whether their phone conversation included a discussion of the National Guard being deployed to quell the immigration riots in Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, Newsom said that the president’s thoughts had actually been on other matters during their 16-minute call.
“He goes, ‘Hey, Gavin. Gavin. What do you think of Newscum? What do you think of Newscum?’ It’s his nickname for me,” Newsom said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday.
“I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He goes, ‘It’s pretty original, right?’ I said, ‘Actually, it’s not. There was an eighth-grade bully that did that when I was a kid,” Newsom said.
Trump had told Oval Office reporters on June 10 that he called Newsom “a day ago” to disparage his handling of the riots.
“Called him up to tell him, ‘Gotta do a better job.’ He’s doing a bad job,” he said at the time. “If we didn’t send out the National Guard… Los Angeles would be burning right now.”
The next day, Newsom called the president a “stone-cold liar.” A furious Trump then leaked his phone logs of the June 7 call on Fox News—showing that the conversation had in fact been three days earlier than he claimed.
The 2028 presidential hopeful said that Trump instead called to brag about his merchandise.
“Then he goes, ‘Well, MAGA is pretty good,’” Newsom said, to which he responded, “Are we serious?”
Trump asked Newsom to guess how many of his red-and-white hats he had sold in the previous month. When Newsom didn’t have an answer, Trump boasted that he had sold “211 or something.″
“That’s impressive, sir,” Newsom sarcastically responded.
“And it was literally a conversation like that. These are the conversations with Trump. You can’t make this stuff up,” he added.
“And about 12 hours later, he said he had read me the riot act, and then moved forward with the federalization of the Guard,” Newsom concluded.
After the June dispute, Newsom sued Fox News for misrepresenting the phone calls—in addition to his lawsuit against Trump for the National Guard deployment, which Newsom won.
White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, said, “President Trump took bold action to save Los Angeles from violent rioters when local leaders like (Karen) Bass and Newscum refused to act. Newscum should be thanking President Trump for saving the city from burning down.”
Kimmel, 58, asked Newsom, who was promoting his book Young Man in a Hurry, to recall another phone call where Trump said Newsom had “hurt his feelings” during his inaugural speech.
“Trump calls me the next day and said, ‘I saw that,’” Newsom recalled, who responded, “Thank you, Mr. President.”
“I thought it was going to be a positive conversation,” Newsom added.
Trump instead said that Melania Trump, 55, was “upset” by the speech.
“He goes, ‘Well, you said some pretty harsh things about me,’” Newsom said. The governor began to explain himself before Trump cut him off.
“Oh, I get it. We’re all good,” Trump told Newsom.
“He was hurt. He was so sad, it’s just interesting,” Newsom concluded.
At the end of the interview, Kimmel presented Newsom with a trophy for “uniting the people of Cali.” Newsom drank Sauvignon Blanc from the trophy and directly addressed Trump.
“Eat your heart out, Donald,” Newsom said.
