Newsom Delivers Disturbing Attack Against Trump

California Governor Gavin Newsom – attempting a political flex on the world stage in Davos – outrageously criticized European leaders for cowering to President Donald Trump. However, it looked less like diplomacy and more like an audition tape.  

As reported by Fox News:

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom slammed foreign world leaders for “rolling over” when confronted by President Donald Trump, declaring he should have brought “kneepads” for foreign dignitaries attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

“People are rolling over. I should have brought a bunch of kneepads for all the world leaders,” Newsom told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “It’s just pathetic.”

Newsom is attending the World Economic Forum and is expected to address the forum with a speech Thursday. Trump is set to depart for Switzerland Tuesday evening, which comes as the president levels threats of imposing steep tariffs on a handful of nations as he works to acquire Greenland for the United States.

Greenland is a self-governing island within the Kingdom of Denmark that is located in the Arctic. European leaders have balked at Trump as he intensified rhetoric that it is crucial for the U.S. to take control of Greenland from a national security standpoint.

Today the World Economic Forum (WEF) convened in Davos, Switzerland, the annual, invitation-only gathering of global political leaders, CEOs, activists, and academics that has become shorthand for elite globalism. It’s essentially political leaders, world leaders, CEOs, and NGO academics pontificating and bouncing around ideas about the future of the world.

It feels like globalism on display. Conservatives have criticized it for years as elitist, unaccountable, and deeply disconnected from national sovereignty – and have even reportedly considered legislation to defund the WEF.

On one side, you had President Trump and members of his Administration delivering a blunt message directly to the heart of the WEF itself: Globalization has failed working people, and nations should put their own citizens first.

On the other side was Newsom – who, by the way, was not an official speaker, but made himself very much present anyway, hurling insults at world leaders for not standing up to the United States and Trump, while openly aligning himself with the globalist elites he claims he opposes.

The Trump Administration delivered a message that would have been unthinkable in Davos just a few years ago: Globalization has hollowed out the West, outsourced jobs, and left working families behind. America First, they argued, is not isolationism – it’s a model that prioritizes workers, production, and national interests. And notably, they encouraged other countries to do the same for their own people. That message was an unveiled rebuke of everything the WEF has stood for.

Meanwhile, Newsom was doing something very different. Photos posted on Alex Soros’ own social media showed Newsom posing with Soros – the heir to billionaire George Soros’ political network – with captions that praised Newsom for “calling out world leaders” and urging them to resist President Trump. Newsom echoed that sentiment publicly, criticizing European leaders for appeasement and accusing them of lacking a backbone against America.

Let that sink in. The governor of California took it upon himself to travel overseas to scold foreign leaders for not standing up enough to the United States. The same country that he seems bound and determined to try to lead. Imagine voting for a candidate who just told other countries to challenge us.

This wasn’t a policy disagreement – it was a political posturing. Newsom, who just months ago was trying to reinvent himself as a moderate, even willing to chat with conservatives on his podcast,  suddenly reemerged as the hardline anti-Trump resistance figure – this time on the global stage.

Now contrast Newsom’s message – resist, confront, oppose – with what the Trump Administration was saying: Take care of your people, protect your workers, rebuild your economies from the inside out. When those two messages sit side-by-side, the difference is glaring. One is rooted in national sovereignty. The other is rooted in global elite approval. The irony didn’t go unnoticed.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent openly mocked Newsom’s presence, pointing out his record back home, from extreme lockdown hypocrisy – remember that time he went out to eat at the French Laundry after ordering Californians to stay home – to the out-of-control homelessness crisis in his state. Newsom now presents himself as a moral authority on economics and leadership abroad. For Californians still living with the consequences of his policies, the disconnect is hard to miss.

We were joined by Special Presidential Envoy Ric Grenell, who shared his own reaction to the WEF and the governor’s comments:

They go over and do whatever they want to undermine the U.S. foreign policy, and there’s a big collective yawn from the community that’s supposed to be watching this. I would also lump in the media. The media should be making these allegations and accusations and questioning what’s going on, but they’re not.

What Gavin is trying to do is pretend like what he’s been able to convince the California media of is true. And it’s not true. He’s never been challenged on this California story that he thinks that we’re doing so great. I think Scott Bessent’s comments are exactly right. We’ve got the worst homelessness problem in California, but we’ve spent billions, tens of billions of dollars, and it’s a total failure. Gavin’s never been held to account for that.

And as he travels, he relies on a media and a political industry that completely doesn’t understand California. They believe what the LA Times keeps telling people . . . that somehow Gavin has been successful. And so, it’s going take a little bit of time for these neocons to understand that we need to challenge Gavin Newsom’s language and spin. We need to have media that are going to do it.

It’s not gonna happen inside California. It’s gonna happen when he goes to states that are in the middle. These swing-state media operations are going to have to really hold him to account.

President Trump showed up to challenge the elitist system – openly, directly, and unapologetically – in the very place where that system gathers. Newsom showed up to network within it, posture against his own country, and position himself for what looks like a future presidential run.

Two Americans. Two messages. Two very different visions for the future. The contrast couldn’t be clearer.

Today’s Sekulow broadcast included more discussion of Newsom’s comments, and the motivation behind them, as well as the WEF itself.

Watch the full broadcast below: