“No one in Davos knows who third-rate governor Newscum is or why he is frolicking around Switzerland instead of fixing the many problems he created in California,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement seen by the BBC.
Just before news of the program change emerged, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sharply criticized Newsom in his speech at USA House.
A table of fine dining options for guests at the welcome reception ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty)
Bessent said the Trump administration is coming to California to “crack down on waste, fraud and abuse,” and spent roughly a minute excoriating Newsom, as Breitbart News reported.
He further focussed on Newsom’s economic record, his presence in Davos alongside Alex Soros, and his handling of issues such as homelessness, budget deficits, and pandemic-era policies echoing observations made by others including Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow.
In closing, Bessent questioned Newsom’s fitness to govern: “He is too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know anything.”
The governor’s office shot back and said on X that USA House denied his entry “under pressure from the White House and State Department.”
“How weak and pathetic do you have to be to be this scared of a fireside chat?” Newsom wrote on X.
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