Gavin Newsom has turned the tables on Donald Trump and his MAGA minions.
The California governor is having a field day trolling Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson with AI-manipulated clips that turn them into the Despicable Me franchise’s helium-voiced yellow characters.
Newsom is following Trump’s recent turn to AI for mocking political opponents—albeit less offensively. The president posted doctored clips of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero and mustache after failing to reach a deal to avert the government shutdown this week.
Newsom posted a clip on X that was taken from Vance’s Wednesday appearance on Fox News but edited it to give the vice president a yellow face and the “Minions’” signature goggles.
“PSA from JD,” the Democratic governor captioned the clip, in which Vance, his voice raised several octaves, tells Americans travelers they may face delays due to the shutdown.
Newsom’s next target was Johnson, who was caught panning Trump’s initial AI attack against Jeffries as “not my style” in a private conversation with a Democratic colleague on Tuesday.
The House speaker received the same treatment as Vance, with Newsom using a clip from Johnson’s contentious interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News Wednesday.
In the clip, Johnson shakes his head as Stephanopoulos says Democrats’ bill to keep the government open would prevent Americans from losing their health coverage.
“No George,” an irritated Johnson replies, his voice pitched like a minion, before telling viewers to “review the facts for themselves.” In the unedited interview, Johnson also called Stephanopoulos’ statement “absurd.”
“Trump’s Minion Mike lies to the American people,” Newsom wrote alongside the trolling clip.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Democrats have refused to support GOP legislation to keep the government open unless it includes funding for health care subsidies that are expiring for millions of people under the Affordable Care Act and rollbacks to recent cuts to Medicaid under the “big, beautiful bill.”
Both sides have tried to blame the other for the shutdown, which will leave roughly 750,000 federal workers without pay. Trump has also threatened mass layoffs.
Newsom took aim at the president in an earlier post, writing, “Donald Trump just shut down the government.”
Meanwhile, Jeffries hit back at the Trump team’s AI trolling with his own clip, superimposing a fake image of Vance’s bloated face over a video of the vice president at Wednesday’s White House presser.