President Donald Trump reportedly took time out of his trainwreck appearance at the World Economic Forum to share a warm and friendly moment with one of his fiercest political foes.
The MAGA leader and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was also present for the summit, “engaged in affable talk backstage in a wide hallway area before the president’s speech” Wednesday, journalist Mark Halperin posted on X.
“No one who knows Donald Trump will be surprised to hear that he laid it on thick, deploying that super charming, winking manner that he uses in such cases,” the reporter went on. “There was friendly banter all around, and mutual laughter when the president announced ‘Gavin, we’re all good’.”
Halperin went on to say that Newsom, “no stranger to faux towel snapping, gave Trump a little s–t in a jovial and jokey manner,” and that the pair was eventually joined in their “bonhomie” by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair.
Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, “on the other hand, appeared to be less enthusiastic about engaging,” Halperin added.
The tenor of Trump and Newsom’s reported private exchange could not have been further from the kind of vitriol they’ve shared online throughout the MAGA president’s first year back in office, or indeed the sort of barbs they swapped during the remainder of the summit.
“Gavin Newscum, as a ‘Lame Duck’ Governor of a Failing State, should not be at Davos running around screaming for the attention of Foreign Leaders, and embarrassing our country,” Trump posted on Thursday evening.
“He made a mockery of himself, and everybody, including his staff, knows it,” the MAGA leader went on. “With a record like he’s got, the ruination of one of the most beautiful places on Earth, where people are leaving in droves, it is unimaginable that he could run for President but, who knows, it’s a very strange World!”
Newsom, meanwhile, had pre-emptively shot back in kind earlier in the day after his speaking engagement at USA House, the event space used by the official U.S. delegation, was cancelled at the last minute.
Speaking at another event during the conference, the California governor called Trump an “invasive species” who is only “cosplaying on the world stage” for the purpose of gross personal enrichment.
Newsom also took aim at world leaders he believes have been lining up to indulge Trump amid the president’s pivot toward authoritarianism and interventionism.
“I should have brought a bunch of knee pads for all the world leaders,” he said earlier this week, in reference to his trolling campaign of mailing knee pads to lawmakers he believes are kowtowing to the MAGA leader’s whims.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and Newsom’s representatives for comment on this story.
