Fox News host Dana Perino was mocked on Monday for griping about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s social media presence while seeming to give President Donald Trump a pass for the same type of thing.
The California governor’s social media team has been going on the offensive against Trump and his MAGA followers via the @GovPressOffice accounts, using fiery rhetoric, insults and an all-cap approach reminiscent of the president.
The posts are getting praise for taking a page from Trump’s playbook, but, for some reason, Trump supporters and members of Trump-friendly media are having a MAGA tizzy over them.
Case in point: Perino, former White House press secretary for George W. Bush, got all pearl-clutchy over Newsom’s approach during a segment on “The Five,” while also blaming the governor’s wife for the posts.
“You have to stop it with the Twitter thing,” Perino said, before adding: “I don’t know where his wife is.”
“If I were [Newsom’s] wife, I would say, ‘You are making a fool of yourself, stop it’ … 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.”
Perino seemed to have forgotten about Trump’s own activity on social media, in which he completely ignores the conventions of the English language, regularly insults opponents and concludes with “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
In a very benign comment in 2018 to Politico, she admitted that Trump’s “style does rub a lot of people the wrong way,” but claimed she has “just learned to not let it affect me so much.”
Perino’s apparent double standard made her a snark target on social media.
Perino did respond to a comment made by podcaster and former Barack Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau after he called her out on X.
“Absolutely, Gavin should take a lesson from Donald Trump on this,” he began before asking her directly, “What do you think of the President’s social media habits?”
Perino tried to minimize the hole she dug for herself by claiming that Newsom’s new methods of trolling MAGA were simply “copying,” and suggested the governor “come up with his own original content” instead of utilizing Trump’s style.
Favreau then pointed out that Newsom’s new posts are “pretty clearly a parody of Trump’s absolutely insane all caps, often non-sensical posts” and are reaching people who “aren’t political junkies.”
He added: “Humor and mockery can be quite effective!”
Perino decided to end the exchange by telling Favreau, “Cool if it works and he’s your 2028 nom, I will buy you dinner.”
The Newsom account that inspired Perino’s pearl-clutching also weighed in with its own take on her so-called concern for the governor, saying, in all-caps of course, “ALMOST A WEEK IN AND THEY STILL DON’T GET IT.”
Perino wasn’t the only conservative media personality to get in a snit over the @NewsomPressOffice account on Monday.
Tomi Lahren blasted the Newsom press office account after it mockingly replied to a clip from MAGA activist Scott Presler by writing, “thank you, Nancy Mace.”
Pointing out that Presler is openly gay, Lahren said the post represented “new lows unlocked by Gavin Newsom and his team of losers.”
Newsom’s account responded with three words sure to freak out any member of MAGA: “You sound woke.”