EXCLUSIVE: After years of playing polite, California’s governor and senior senator are now taking on Donald Trump with bare knuckled barbs in his favorite forum and looking to do some damage to POTUS and his MAGA agenda — as JD Vance‘s trip to the Golden State on Friday made very clear.
“Things really changed for us on Sunday, June 8, when the president was prepping to deploy the military on American streets,” Gavin Newsom senior advisor Robert Salladay detailed to Deadline on what provoked the usually circumspect two-term Democrat to take to the digital barricades. “That broke the dam — what he was doing was so outrageous, so deranged, it needed a sustained, creative response.”
“So the governor and the whole team deployed their talents at an entirely different level, across all levels of communication, from X to his public address that went out to millions,” Salladay added in reference to Newsom’s social media presence, lawsuit against Trump, and his “the moment we have feared has arrived” speech of June 10. “That means serious posts, fact-checking, and for sure, sarcasm and humor when needed.”
Sarcasm and humor being very much the vibe in at least one “very generous” take from Newsom’s press office on Vance’s visit today:
Praised as “brilliant, exactly meeting the moment,” by one Hollywood image maker Deadline spoke to, part of Newsom’s response the past two weeks has been making it personal within the political.
Calling out Trump for being a would-be dictator, a fear monger, under the thumb of Santa Monica resident and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and disturbingly “confused again,” Newsom’s approach has been to flood the zone of the OG zone flooder.
As but one of many other examples since the federalizing of the National Guard that “creative response” Salloway spoke of was obvious on June 20.
In a one-two punch Newsom delivered to JD Vance, the governor played both sides on the street when the White House suddenly announced the VP was coming to L.A.
Vance was in town ostensibly to visit law enforcement and the military, but the VP is attending a locally held RNC summer retreat too. Revealed by the White House early Friday, Vance’s West Coast visit t came less than a day after Newsom came up short in another court bid to regain control of the National Guard from Trump via a temporary restraining order, and the two went head-to-head on social media. The seesaw continued Friday as Trump once again slagged the Governor with the nickname “Newscum” while in a scrum with reporters
That swipe and Vance’s visit also occurred as a federal judge in Newsom’s old stomping ground of San Francisco today punted on a preliminary injunction request by the Governor against Trump’s command of the troops.
Pre-empting the anticipated slags and trolling from Vance once the VP was on the ground in LA, Newsom first offered his earnest side, the same bipartisan view that has characterized his MAGA tolerant podcast launched earlier this year. Speaking directly to camera in the post with advice for Vance and, with respect to the executive branch, a plea for help with the flattery friendly Trump for victims of the wildfires from earlier this year:
Then, not long afterwards, there was a shiv of L.A. love meets GOP propaganda from the Democrat with a bit of classic Ice Cube and Terminator tossed in 1990s style:
Just today, while taking on Vance was serious fun and games, the real audience and mark for the newly aggressive Newsom, who had once again become the future of the Democrats in many circles (Hello Bill Maher), and his team is always Trump. Hitting the former Celebrity Apprentice host where it hurts the most has become the goal, even with his own pet phrases.
“The governor isn’t interested in crouching and trying to fight an asymmetrical war — there’s too much at stake, and he’s not going to cower in the corner or issue bland statements,” top aide Salladay noted of the new-ish strategy. “That’s not him.”
“This is very much coming from the governor — you have to battle on all fronts with everything you have.”
It is seems a far cry from the dominate persona of Newsom that has been at the fore for most of his political career and seemingly for his future ambitions. “I always saw Newsom as one of those politicians like Bill Clinton, you know, telling whoever he was talking to what they wanted to hear,” a deep pocket Tinseltown donor, who has given money to the governor, admitted today. “That podcast of his reinforced that, thinking now I was wrong.”
A member of Newsom’s inner circle cautions it’s not quite so black and white.
“On his podcast the governor has invited conversations with people he disagrees with but has never waivered in his belief that the views held by many in the Trump Administration, and some of his administration’s policies, pose a fundamental threat to millions of Americans and the American way of life,” Newsom spokesperson Anthony York says. “Governor Newsom has engaged with people like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon to learn how and why they are appealing to constituencies where Democrats are losing ground,” the aide adds of the This Is Gavin Newsom podcast that launched in February.
“He will continue to do so while also continuing to speak out against inhumane and unconstitutional policies perpetrated by this administration and urging people to push back, fight back and stand up.”
Another California politician who suddenly has been taking bigger social media and on-air swings on more fronts is Senator Alex Padilla, who was violently manhandled and handcuffed by federal agents inside the federal building in West L.A. on June 12 as he identified himself as the state’s senior senator.
RELATED: On Senate Floor, Alex Padilla Recounts Forcible Removal From Kristi Noem Press Conference: “I Pray You Never Have A Moment Like This”
The typically mild-mannered Padilla posted immediately after he was forcibly removed from Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s press conference last week in front of dozens of cameras, including that of his own staff. That post topped out so far at 3.2 million X views. “If that’s what they do to a United States Senator with a question, imagine what they can do to any American that dares to speak up. We will hold this administration accountable,” Padilla, a California secretary of state who was appointed in 2021 to fill Kamala Harris‘ seat when she became VP and elected in a landslide himself in 2022, wrote.
A video of the incident posted to his personal X account drew 2.2 million views.
X counts anyone who views a post as a view, regardless of whether they follow him or if it is merely a passing glance. But less important than the views may be what happened in the days afterward, as Padilla did a wave of media and podcast appearances, talking about what happened, followed by a speech on the floor of the Senate earlier this week. His accounts were populated with clips, including criticism of the ICE policy from figures like Joe Rogan, countering criticism Padilla has gotten from the right that he should have not interrupted Noem.
A spokesperson for Padilla, the son of Mexican immigrants, said, “Senator Padilla has continued to actively engage on his platforms, consistently speaking directly to Californians, against the militarization of Los Angeles and the harmful overreach of Trump’s mass deportation machine. This includes California’s Latino and Spanish speaking communities, who are directly impacted by the President’s actions.”
Since the June 12 attack, Sen. Padilla has been hitting hard and at the volume of Trump, aide Miller and other MAGA diehards.
Responding to a Trump post that enforcement raids would be expanded to other large cities, Padilla wrote, “As I’ve been saying, California is just the test case. Trump is now saying the quiet part out loud: blue cities and states are being specifically targeted to stoke fear, violence, and chaos — all to punish the people that didn’t vote for him.”
Still, Newsom’s strategy now toward “flooding the zone,” a term popularized by former Trump campaign manager and White House insider Steve Bannon, contrasts with what has been a dominant communications approach among many Democrats for a generation: stay on message.
In what may be a telling generational reality, there have been only a few exceptions like Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). However, in the era of Trump, who has exploited the attention of the presidential bully pulpit like no other leader, so little of the counter-messaging from the Democrats’ leaders has broken through. The exception may be Trump’s signature piece of legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill, which has had dismal polling as Democrats label it a Project2025 wishlist and giveaway to the rich at the expense of the middle and lower income classes.
Poll aggregators, including G. Elliott Morris and Nate Silver, show that Trump’s support on immigration has fallen this month, since the ICE raids began in Los Angeles and became a national media issue.
Aiming as always for his audience of one, Vance today took a hard stance of his own on Newsom and other SoCal Democrats over the response to the ICE raids and the troop deployment. “You had people who were doing the simple job of enforcing the law and they had rioters, egged on by the governor and the mayor, making it harder for them to do their job,” Vance said in a blatant mischaracterization. “That is disgraceful and it’s why the President has responded so forecefully.”
Then, pulling an old page out of the Trump trolling playbook, the former Ohio Senator took a racially tinged swing at the senior Senator from California and his roughing up by federal agents last week in LA.
A swing that saw Newsom punch back in near real time.
In the real world, José Padilla was designated as an “enemy combatant” by the George W. Bush White House over 20 years ago.
No relation at all to Senator Padilla, this Padilla a.k.a. Abdullah al-Muhajir, is currently under lock and key in a maximum security prison after being arrested in 2002 and later convicted for planning plotting a radiological bomb a.k.a. dirty bomb attack on U.S. soil. Originally sentenced to 17 years for the crime, Padilla was resentenced in 2014 “to serve 21 years in prison for his 2007 conviction for conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim individuals in a foreign country; conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists; and providing material support to terrorists,” according to the DOJ.
Also the subject Friday of Vance’s “lies and utter nonsense,” as Karen Bass termed them, the suddenly politically resurrected LA Mayor jumped into the VP’s so-called slip of the tongue fray this evening. “How dare you disrespect him and call him Jose,” the ex-long time Congresswoman and Fox News foil exclaimed at a end of week presser. “But I guess he just looked like anybody to you. Well, he’s not just anybody to us. He is our senator.”
With Vance on the way Friday evening to that RNC retreat, his press secretary Taylor Van Kirk offered a reply to Newsom’s digital slap, according to the VP pool report. “He must have mixed up two people who have broken the law,” she said.
Point of fact: Taylor Zvan Kirk may be a bit mixed up as Sen. Padilla has not been charged with breaking any laws in regards to the attack on him at Noem’s press conference.
Intentionally or not proving Newsom’s point even more in this war of words and more by the time Van Kirk’s red meat words were out there, all the white gloves were off.
