California Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent years cultivating an image of the progressive West Coast alternative to Donald Trump. But beyond his glitzy hair, smug smirks, and polished soundbites, Newsom is starting to look less like Trump’s resistance rival and more like his political impersonator.
On Friday, the California governor “[took] a page right out of Donald Trump’s media playbook,” according to Politico. Newsom announced that he will be suing Fox News for $787 million over primetime host Jesse Watters’s coverage of his Los Angeles anti-ICE riots phone call with Trump. The lawsuit argues that Fox’s program deceptively edited video of Trump to support the claim that “Gavin Lied About Trump’s Call,” which was written on-screen as the chyron.
Not only did Newsom raise the stakes by asking for the same amount Fox once paid Dominion Voting Systems in their 2023 defamation settlement, but he also mimicked Trump’s strategy of wielding legal battles to fight the fake news.
In several cases, Trump has successfully sued mainstream media outlets. In December 2024, ABC agreed to pay Trump $15 million to settle a defamation case over George Stephanopoulos’s false claim that Trump had been found liable for rape. The president is also still dealing with a lawsuit against CBS, which allegedly misleadingly edited their pre-election 60 Minutes interview with failed 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. (RELATED: The Brilliance of Trump’s New Campaign Suing Fake News)
The California governor may kick sand at Trump in MSNBC interviews, but he’s closely following in his footsteps.
Now, it appears Newsom has taken notes.
Despite branding himself as Trump’s cultural and moral opposite, Newsom has shown a deep admiration for the president’s political tactics — especially when it comes to the media.
The core of Newsom’s case is that Trump said on June 10 that he called him “a day ago.” Immediately in an X post and preceding his complaint, Newsom claimed there was “no call” between himself and the present — “Not even a voicemail.”
According to call logs shared by Trump, Newsom was technically correct that there was “no call” exactly one day ago, which would have been June 9. Trump called Newsom for 16 minutes on June 7, according to the call log. But out of context, the calculated Californian spun the narrative that Trump was the dishonest one in the exchange.
If Trump could have been clearer in his remarks rather than speaking so casually, perhaps Newsom would have trouble parceling words the slick way he did. The lawsuit alleges that Fox’s claim that Newsom lied was “calculated to provoke outrage and cause Governor Newsom significant harm,” but perhaps Newsom’s careful verbiage was a similar attempt to mislead the public and damage an American president.
Much like how White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt demanded CNN retract its false reporting that Trump did not brief Democrats on his Iran nuclear facility strikes — another phone call hoax where Trump actually did call both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — Newsom said he would drop his lawsuit if Fox News issue a retraction of Watters’s commentary.
But beyond lawsuits and media theatrics, Newsom has gone further, publicly daring the Trump administration to arrest him. In a spectacle clearly designed for the cameras, Newsom hopped on the Democratic Party trend of attempting to engineer one’s own martyrdom. “Arrest me. Let’s go,” he dared border czar Tom Homan on MSNBC, competing with the likes of California Senator Alex Padilla, who nearly pounced on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a press conference days later.
Democrats desperately want to make their own mugshot moment, imitating one of the pivotal factors that got Trump elected to a second term. But the difference is, it was the left who weaponized the judicial branch to try to force Trump out of the 2024 race — a move widely seen as an overreach that fueled his populist appeal. And ironically, the Supreme Court’s Friday ruling against activist judges thwarting Trump’s agenda overshadowed any chance that Newsom’s theatrics would capture the national spotlight.
Gavin Newsom’s desperate attempt to mimic Trump’s combative style reveals a troubling truth: he’s less a bold, progressive leader and more a political copycat chasing headlines and courtroom battles. Instead of focusing on California’s real problems, of which there are many, he’s too busy plotting his 2028 presidential campaign. And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Newsom isn’t resisting Trump — he’s rehearsing to replace him.
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Julianna Frieman is a writer based in North Carolina. She received her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is pursuing her master’s degree in Communications (Digital Strategy) at the University of Florida. Her work has been published by the Daily Caller, The American Spectator, and The Federalist. Follow her on X at @juliannafrieman.