{"id":53973,"date":"2026-05-02T13:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T13:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/53973\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T13:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T13:35:08","slug":"gavin-newsom-says-hes-putting-a-mirror-up-to-donald-trump-after-bill-maher-accuses-him-of-imitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/53973\/","title":{"rendered":"Gavin Newsom Says He\u2019s \u201cPutting a Mirror Up to Donald Trump\u201d After Bill Maher Accuses Him of Imitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Maher<\/a> thinks Gavin Newsom<\/a> might be playing a little too close to Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s playbook.<\/p>\n

Appearing on Friday\u2019s Real Time with Bill Maher<\/a>, the California governor pushed back on the idea that his recent messaging\u2014heavy on trolling, meme-ready digs, and all-caps posts\u2014is imitation for imitation\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to put a mirror up to Donald Trump,\u201d Newsom said. \u201cWe\u2019re just trying to reflect that reality and express the absurdity of all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

That \u201cmirror\u201d approach has increasingly defined Newsom\u2019s tone since Trump returned to the White House, with the governor leaning into the same kind of rapid-fire, attention-grabbing style\u2014just aimed in the opposite direction. Early polling suggests it may be working, with Newsom emerging as a frontrunner in hypothetical 2028 Democratic matchups.<\/p>\n

Maher, though, wasn\u2019t convinced the distinction matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong all the people who may or may not be running, you are the one who kind of imitates his style with the trolling\u2014you\u2019re suing Fox now, I understand,\u201d Maher said. \u201cThat sounds exactly like what he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsom\u2019s lawsuit against Fox News<\/a> is a big part of that comparison. The governor is seeking $787 million in a defamation case accusing the network of distorting his account of a phone call with Trump during Los Angeles protests and falsely claiming he lied.<\/p>\n

The case cleared an early hurdle this week when a Delaware judge ruled it was \u201creasonably conceivable\u201d that Fox acted with actual malice, allowing it to move forward. The judge also rejected the network\u2019s First Amendment-based attempt to dismiss the suit, according to Bloomberg Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking forward to discovery,\u201d Newsom wrote on X after the decision.<\/p>\n

That next phase could open the door to internal Fox News communications\u2014emails, texts, and editorial discussions tied to the segment at the center of the case. It\u2019s a process that\u2019s burned the network before, most notably in its $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, which exposed behind-the-scenes messages that conflicted with what aired.<\/p>\n

Still, Maher kept circling back to the same point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sounds exactly like what he does, suing media,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Newsom didn\u2019t blink.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going into discovery. Fox better look to settle right now or apologize for defamation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, again, but that does sound like him,\u201d Maher replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell then, don\u2019t defame, don\u2019t lie,\u201d Newsom shot back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Maher thinks Gavin Newsom might be playing a little too close to Donald Trump\u2019s playbook. Appearing on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[2184,12,3146,542,33087,51,5422,33088],"class_list":{"0":"post-53973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gavin-newsom","8":"tag-bill-maher","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-fox-news","11":"tag-gavin-newsom","12":"tag-late-night","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-talk-show","15":"tag-talk-shows"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116505249204936597","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}