President Donald Trump said that something is wrong with Gavin Newsom’s hands on Tuesday, as speculation swirls about the bruises and makeup frequently seen on his own hands.
During an Oval Office meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, Trump received a question about whether the California governor should be investigated for his handling of wildfires.
“I watched him with the hands, I’m saying, ‘What’s going on with the hands?‘” Trump said. “There’s something wrong with him. You watch him, there’s something wrong with this guy.”
Online commenters were quick to point out the irony of Trump’s statement, with one user on X calling it “a perfect example of projection.”
The president has been observed with bruising on his hands and heavy makeup to cover up the bruising, including during his Oval Office press conference on Tuesday—which was his first public appearance in a week.
“He’s the last person that should be talking about hands,” wrote another user who included a picture of the president’s bruising.
The White House has claimed that the bruising, seen on both hands, is due to frequent handshaking and the use of daily aspirin, despite the fact that the president shakes hands with his right hand.
Observers have also been quick to notice Trump’s swollen ankles, which are likely a result of chronic venous insufficiency, the circulation issue he was diagnosed with in July.
A memo from the White House doctor stated that Trump was “in excellent health.” Since then, however, he has struggled to walk in a straight line multiple times and appeared dishevelled in pictures taken over the Labor Day weekend.
Apart from criticizing Newsom’s hand movements, the president also repeated debunked claims about the military bailing out California with water during wildfires earlier this year.
“Newsom didn’t allow the water to come from the Pacific Northwest,” Trump said. “If that were open during the fire, you wouldn’t have had the fire because all the sprinklers would have worked in the houses.“
“I had to send the military to have the water opened after the fires.”
Newsom responded by posting a video compilation showing several of the president’s physical gaffes, such as him tripping on his way up the stairs of Air Force One. He captioned the video, “We talking hands?”
He also re-posted a video of the president’s comments about California’s water and hammered the president’s cognitive fitness.
He responded to a clip of Trump’s claims about California’s water with a screenshot of an AI chatbot’s response to the question, “Do people with dementia repeat the same falsehoods and crazy conspiracies over and over again?”
“People with dementia often repeat the same statements, questions, and sometimes false or mistaken beliefs,” the screenshot read in part.
Newsom’s office also called Trump a “bumbling idiot” in a separate post denying Trump’s claims.
The feud between the two politicians followed a similar progression last week, when Trump said that he “sent hundreds of millions of gallons of water per day to the Pacific Ocean” and Newsom responded with a Grok question-and-answer similar to the one he posted on Wednesday.
Trump’s hand commentary against Newsom was also a repeat hit, as he said last week that the California governor is a “nice guy, good-looking” who “has some hand action going on.”
Newsom responded to that first attack by writing, “You really want to have the conversation about hands?”
In 2016, his then-rival Marco Rubio attacked Trump at a campaign debate by asking the audience, “Have you seen his hands? And you know what they say about men with small hands.”
“You can’t trust them.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and Newsom’s office for comment.
