Someone needs to give California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s social media team a raise.
President Donald Trump decided to illegally federalize thousands of National Guard members and send 700 active duty Marines to Los Angeles as part of his push to deport an untold number of immigrants—and Newsom has had quite a reaction to it.
On one hand, Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have responded to Trump’s aggressive use of force with legal action, but it’s Newsom’s social media accounts that have people doing a double take and hitting that share button.
On Wednesday, Newsom’s X account posted a screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social post scolding the governor—along with audio of the screed read by the voice of “Star Wars” villain Emperor Palpatine.
And while writing about it won’t give justice to the genius-level trolling contained in the post, captioning the tweet with a Trump-style, all-caps, “THE INCOMPETENT GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA” really was the cherry on top.
But Newsom’s team of social media gurus—who have to be Gen Z or millennials—didn’t stop there.
The unserious jokesters even pulled out a Taylor Swift joke and managed to bring in Trump’s all-time biggest pop star nemesis.
Newsom’s Instagram account posted a reel on Tuesday with a series of photos to the tune of Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down.”
Plastered over a photo of Newsom speaking to Trump on a tarmac in January, the lyrics begin with, “Say it in the street that’s a knock out.”
Quickly switching to a screenshot of another one of Trump’s Truth Social posts directed at Newsom, the lyrics continue: “But you say it in a tweet that’s a cop out. And I’m just like hey—Are you okay?”
Really, the video is best served hot and fresh from your own phone.
Given Trump has gone on his fair share of rampages against Swift, calling the wildly successful pop star “no longer HOT,” among other flat insults—this post was particularly petty.
Of course, Newsom has been taking his own personal swipes at Trump and other politicians as well, so we can give him some direct credit for the cattiness coming out of California.
When former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said via X that what is happening in California “would never happen in Arkansas,” the governor responded, “Your homicide rate is literally DOUBLE California’s.”
And while sharing unserious social media swipes at the president or clapping back at MAGA Republicans won’t protect Californians trying to protest the ongoing ICE raids, a little comedic relief never hurt anyone.
Keep in mind that not far beneath the surface of the social media memes there’s another message: Trump’s online berating of Newsom is absurd, detached from the reality in Los Angeles, and, oddly, fits the tone of an evil “Star Wars” villain.
And if there’s one way to get that message across to younger people, it’s through the art of a damn good social media trolling.