By Ed Mazza
Copyright huffingtonpost
President Donald Trump and California Governor Gavin Newsom (Democrat) traded barbs on social media on Tuesday, with plenty of name-calling.
Trump trashed Newsom as “Newscum” ― a name he often uses for the governor ― while Newsom’s press office accused the president of suffering from dementia.
At least one other Democratic governor, Illinois’ JB Pritzker, also suggested the president may have “some” dementia during an unrelated discussion on Tuesday.
Trump lashed out at Newsom in a lengthy post on Truth Social, claiming the governor is “is in final stages of approval” for low-income housing in the “super luxury” Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles after the devastating fires earlier this year.
He also claimed Newsom “allowed their houses to burn” by “not accepting” water from the Pacific Northwest.
Neither claim is accurate; Newsom over the summer announced funding to rebuild low-income housing lost to the fires, and Trump’s water claims have been repeatedly debunked.
Newsom and his press office team, who have been trolling Trump and other right-wing figures on X, say they found five lies in Trump’s statement.
“Take your dementia meds, grandpa. You are making things up again,” they wrote, along with a fact-check:
Newsom also called Trump’s claims a “straight-up lie” in a message posted on his personal account.
When someone replied to ask Grok, the AI tool built into X, to weight in, it confirmed Newsom’s take on the issue.
Newsom’s press office crowed:
Elsewhere on Tuesday, Pritzker dropped the “d” word during a discussion of Trump’s threats to send the National Guard into Chicago, as he has done in Washington, DC, ostensibly to fight crime.
But he said Trump hasn’t been consistent in his statements about the city.
“Sometimes, he forgets,” Pritzker said. “I think he might be suffering from some dementia. The next day, he’ll wake up on the other side of the bed and stop talking about Chicago.”
He added: “It’s hard to believe anything he says.”
Trump’s health has come under the microscope in recent months.
When observers noticed swelling around the president’s feet and ankles, the White House said Trump suffers from chronic venous insufficiency, which involves poor blood flow from the legs back to the heart.
They said the bruising seen on Trump’s hands is due to frequent handshaking combined with aspirin use.
However, not everyone is satisfied with the information released so far. Earlier this month, journalist Garrett Graff, a former editor of Politico magazine, wrote a column pointing to six questions that need to be asked about the president’s health.
