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Newsom calls Dana Perino a ‘ding dong’ while identifying as Trump

August 20, 2025 | | Print Article

The feud between Fox News host Dana Perino and California Gov. Gavin Newsom escalated Tuesday, with the governor taking a direct shot at her.

In a tweet posted early Tuesday afternoon, Newsom’s office emulated President Donald Trump’s style of tweeting to accuse “Ding Dong” Perino of “melting down” over his outlandish tweets.

“DANA ‘DING DONG’ PERINO (NEVER HEARD OF HER UNTIL TODAY!) IS MELTING DOWN BECAUSE OF ME, GAVIN C. NEWSOM!” the governor tweeted through his office’s account.

“FOX HATES THAT I AM AMERICA’S MOST FAVORITE GOVERNOR (‘RATINGS KING’) SAVING AMERICA — WHILE TRUMP CAN’T EVEN CONQUER THE ‘BIG’ STAIRS ON AIR FORCE ONE ANYMORE!!!” Newsom continued, near-perfectly emulating Trump.

“TRUMP HAS ‘LOST HIS STEP’ AND FOX IS LOSING IT BECAUSE WHEN I TYPE, AMERICA NOW WINS!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. — GCN,” he concluded.

Newsom has been emulating Trump’s style of tweeting for reasons that remain unclear. Leftists love it and claim he’s doing so to mock the president. But conservatives see things quite differently.

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In remarks made later Tuesday on Fox News’ “The Five,” Perino accused Newsom of having hired someone “to help him look more like Trump” but argued that the “joke” is “just not funny.”

(Video Credit: Fox News)

“I mean, I thought they hated Trump, but they’re trying to be more like him, and they have to pay people to do it,” she said. “The thing is, what I was saying yesterday is that I believe that everybody needs to find their own way. You don’t see Governor Andy Beshear doing things like this.”

“He’s running his state. Governor Josh Shapiro, running his state. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, running her state. All of them got big problems. They all have things that they want to accomplish. They all might want to run in 2028. And they are actually involved in being able to show what they show their work, right? They’ll be able to say, these are the things that we did,” she added.

“California’s got a huge amount of problems. And if you think about Mamdani, his authenticity is what rocketed him to the top. And now you have Cuomo trying to copy him, and it’s just cringe. And that was my point. Is that if you’re doing this and it’s not authentic and you’re trying to do somebody else who you say is Hitler and you think that we don’t get the joke, oh no, we get the joke, it’s just not funny,” she concluded.

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The feud between her and Newsom started Monday on “The Five” when she accused Newsom of acting like “a fool.”

“You are making a fool of yourself. Stop it!” she said. “Do not let your staff tweet. And if you’re doing it yourself, put the phone away and start over. … He’s got a big job as governor of California. But, if he wants an even bigger job, he has to be a little bit more serious.”

Her latter remark referenced Newsom’s presidential ambitions.

Newsom responded that evening by writing in a tweet that conservatives like Perino, among others, “still don’t get it,” with “it” being the joke.

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What exactly is the joke? The governor’s communications director, Izzy Gardon, retweeted a post that reportedly explained it.

View the original post below:

Trump-supporting critics were quick to push back.

“You guys are so desperate for a win you refuse to accept we’re making fun of Gavin straight copying Trump in the most unoriginal way,” one critic tweeted. “Not the contents of his tweets lmao.”

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“Considering the source and the FACT they have no original thoughts or plans it’s not surprising,” another critic wrote. “Y’all should turn that mirror around.‍♀️”

Vivek Saxena
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