California Governor Gavin Newsom has said that President Trump called him directly to get his thoughts on the “Newscum” nickname.
Newsom claimed that the president asked about the nickname on the eve of sending the National Guard into Los Angeles in June 2025.
Recounting the event on last night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Newsom said that Trump would later claim that he read “the riot act” to the California governor.
“It was about 10.30 my time, 1.30 his time,” Newsom said. “And he goes: ‘Hey, Gav, Gav, what do you think of Newscum?” The former San Francisco mayor didn’t say if the call happened at night or during the day.
Newsom claimed that Trump asked, “It’s pretty original, right?”
However, the Democrat replied by saying that he had heard the nickname before.
“Actually, it’s not,” he told Trump. “There was an eighth-grade bully that did that when I was a kid.”
“Well, MAGA’s pretty good,” Trump responded, according to Newsom.
Then, the president allegedly asked the governor to guess how many of his distinctive hats had been sold during the previous week.
Newsom said that the answer was “211 or something.”
"And about 12 hours later, he said that he had read me the riot act and moved forward with the federalization of the guard," he concluded.
Newsom was appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote his new book, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery.
During his appearance on the show, he opened up about another event, detailed in the book, after Kimmel asked the governor how he “hurt” Trump’s “feelings.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Newsom began, breaking out into a grin.
Then the Democrat recounted the moment his son ran onstage during his inaugural address. During the speech, Newsom picked up his son and held him as he continued to address the crowd.
“Trump calls me the next day and said, ‘I saw that,’” Newsom continued. “I said, ‘Thank you Mr President.’
“I thought it was going to be a positive conversation. And, he talks about my wife, said something interesting about her.”
Then the president pivoted to speak about his own wife.
“Melania’s upset,” Trump said, according to Newsom. “You said some pretty harsh things about me.”
Newsom claimed that Trump dismissed his attempt to explain the speech, saying, “Oh, I get it, oh, we’re all good.”
“He was hurt, he was so sad,” Newsom added.
As the story came to a close, Jimmy Kimmel took a brief swipe at Melania Trump.
“There’s no way Melania was upset. She probably wrote that stuff,” Kimmel quipped.
Before the show ended, Kimmel handed Newsom a fake-award for “uniting the people of Cali.”
He was joined on stage by Josh Meyers, the brother of late-night host Seth Meyers, who skateboarded onto the set to the sound of airhorns.
The pair awarded Newsom with a trophy entitled The Fifa-Skydance-Paramount-Netflix-Warner Bros-Lipton Big A** Cup o’ Peace.
Joining in on the joke, Newsom shot back, “This is long overdue.”
In a statement given to The Independent, a spokesperson for the White House hit back at Newsom’s claims.
“President Trump’s took bold action to save Los Angeles from violent rioters when local leaders like Bass and Newscum refused to act,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. “Newscum should be thanking President Trump for saving the city from burning down.”
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