SACRAMENTO — Gavin Newsom’s office said the California governor was blocked by the Trump administration from speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
Newsom had been asked to speak at an event at USA House, an American pavilion at the annual gathering of world leaders. Newsom’s office staff said they were told that a “venue-level decision” was made to “not include an elected U.S. official” in the programming. The fireside chat was scheduled for Wednesday evening in Davos, which is nine hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time, with media outlet Fortune.
“How weak and pathetic do you have to be to be this scared of a fireside chat?” Newsom wrote on the social media site X.
Newsom’s office said the governor had planned to respond to the speech President Trump had made in Davos just hours before. During that address, Trump said he wanted to “get Greenland, including right, title and ownership,” while insisting he would not use force to do so. Trump used his remarks at the World Economic Forum to repeatedly criticize European allies and to suggest that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should not interfere with U.S. expansionist ambitions.
After Newsom was disinvited to the speaking event hosted by USA House, his office said the governor was offered a consolation, to attend a “VIP nightcap” reception to have a drink and speak off the record instead, the governor’s office said. Newsom declined.
A White House spokesperson declined to say whether Newsom was blocked by the Trump administration from speaking at the event, instead providing a statement attacking Newsom and using a derogatory name for the governor.
“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.
The latest squabble between the two leaders came to light after Trump called out Newsom during his speech at the World Economic Forum, whose stated mission is to encourage “forward-looking discussions to address global issues and set priorities.”
The California governor was listening to the president’s remarks, and at one point a camera showed him smiling and appearing to chuckle when Trump mentioned him by name.
“We’re going to help the people in California. We want to have no crime,” Trump said. “I know Gavin was here. I used to get along so great with Gavin when I was president. Gavin is a good guy. And if you needed it, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
Trump quipped, “if I were a Democrat governor, or whatever, I would call up Trump, I’d say, ‘Come on in. Make us look good.’”
Following Trump’s remarks, Newsom told a CNN reporter that he thought the president’s speech was “remarkably boring.”
“There wasn’t anything new about that speech for the American audience,” the governor said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also took a shot at Newsom while speaking in Davos, criticizing his economic policies and saying the Trump administration would be coming to California to “crack down on waste, fraud and abuse.” Bessent appeared to acknowledge that he knew Newsom’s speech scheduled afterward had been canceled.
“I was told he was asked to give a speech on his signature policies, but he’s not speaking because what have his economic policies brought? Outward migration from California, a gigantic budget deficit, the largest homeless population in America, and the poor folks in the Palisades who had their homes burned down,” Bessent said. “He is too smug, too self-absorbed and too economically illiterate to know anything.”
The incident comes as Newsom, who is weighing a 2028 presidential run, has increasingly positioned California as a counterweight to Washington. This week in Davos, the Democratic governor publicly rebuked world leaders for their “complicity” for failing to confront Trump’s aggressive posture on issues such as trade and a potential takeover of Greenland.
Speaking to reporters there, Newsom urged European and other global leaders to “stand tall and firm” and to “have a backbone,” bemoaning that too many have been “rolling over” in the face of Trump’s actions and rhetoric.
“It’s just pathetic,” Newsom told reporters.
Trump declined to comment on the substance of Newsom’s foreign policy remarks during a rare appearance at a White House press briefing on Tuesday. He instead said that he does not think Newsom “is going to be the nominee” for the Democratic Party in 2028.
“I just hate how California is being run,” Trump told reporters. “We actually have people leaving, it’s never happened before, but I hate the way it’s being run. He and I had a very good relationship, really close to the word exceptional, but now we seem not to.”
Newsom has accused the Trump administration of slow-walking billions of dollars in requested recovery funding for Los Angeles County wildfire victims, which has left communities in prolonged limbo.
While in Washington, D.C., in December, Newsom told The Times that the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied his request for a meeting regarding California’s $33.9-billion appeal for long-term disaster funding nearly a year after the devastating fires ignited.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
