California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reportedly continued their long-running rivalry this week, with the Democratic leader of California resorting to a crude insult on social media.
“Dude keeps poop and porn in his pocket. Won’t be taking advice from him,” Gov. Newsom wrote Wednesday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The barb was in response to comments Gov. DeSantis made during an interview criticizing Newsom’s policies.
Newsom’s remark appeared to allude to a nationally televised debate in 2023, when Gov. DeSantis produced visual evidence of what he described as California’s most glaring failures.
During the debate, the Florida governor displayed a map highlighting the prevalence of human feces on San Francisco’s streets, along with images of sexually explicit material he said was available in California schools.
At the time, Newsom dismissed the props as “nonsense.” He insisted that the book DeSantis had referenced was not part of California curricula, calling the issue “a ginned up, made-up issue to divide this country.” According to Newsom, “We don’t teach that. We have sex education in middle schools and high schools where it’s appropriate. This is part of the culture war, the weaponization of grievance.”
The exchange underscored the stark divide between the two governors, who have since repeatedly sparred over crime, immigration, public health, and education.
On Wednesday, DeSantis again pushed back, telling Fox News host Jesse Watters that Gov. Newsom believes he holds “ultimate power.” He pointed to what he described as hypocrisy in California’s pandemic policies.
“This is a governor, Jesse, who is saying that he does not want ICE agents to put masks on – and they’re doing that for their safety, because there’s a threat to them and their family out there, as we saw with the shooting today and the threats that come in daily to them – but this is the same governor who forced two-year-olds to wear masks during COVID, and he wielded executive power to muzzle people,” DeSantis said.
California’s Department of Health recommended that children as young as two wear masks during the pandemic, a policy Newsom embraced even as his state weathered criticism for imposing some of the most aggressive restrictions in the country. Newsom, by contrast, has touted his state’s approach as a model of science-driven governance, drawing a sharp contrast with the Trump administration.
“In California, we’re requiring health plans, we’re requiring those insurance companies to provide access [to vaccines and treatments],” Newsom said Tuesday during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “And we’re making sure that our own independent analysis provides a list of recommendations based on facts, based on science, not based on bulls**t and fear.”
The rivalry between the two governors has long been seen as a proxy fight for competing visions of America’s future.
Yet in his latest comment, Newsom chose to reduce the debate to a personal insult—dismissing the very evidence DeSantis had once offered to highlight California’s urban disorder and controversial curriculum choices.
For conservatives, the episode highlighted a broader pattern: where DeSantis presses substantive critiques on crime, immigration, and education, Newsom too often defaults to mockery and denial.
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