‘Living Rent-Free’: Gavin Newsom Claps Back at Scott Bessent’s ‘American Psycho-Ken Doll’ Jab

Newsom: The Treasury Secretary talked about a Barbie doll. It was if he was reading a diary and had just broken up with someone. We’re deeply in their head. I think the affordability agenda is that I’m living rent free in the Trump administration’s head. pic.twitter.com/nFtkpDky6t

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 22, 2026

California Governor Gavin Newsom returned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s Davos mockery of him by comparing him to a juvenile obsessed with an ex, joking he was “living rent-free” inside the heads of President Donald Trump and his top cabinet officials.

The clapback came a day after Bessent used his own appearance at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday to joke that Newsom reminded him of a cross between American Psycho Patrick Bateman and “Sparkle Beach Ken.”

The governor hit back with relish, in conversation with Semafor’s Ben Smith, portraying the attack as evidence of political insecurity at the heart of the Trump administration.

“The Treasury Secretary talked about a Barbie doll,” Newsom said. “It was as if he was reading a diary and had just broken up with someone. I mean, that was the Secretary of the Treasury using valuable time yesterday on the world stage.”

“We’re deeply in their head. I think the affordability agenda appears to be… I’m living rent-free in Trump’s head, Trump administration’s head,” he said.

After Smith presented Newsom with his own tweets about the president and his administration, the governor defended the aggressive social media offensive, remarking, “Fight fire with fire.”

When asked whether the rhetoric was “unbecoming” of lawmakers, he agreed, adding: “This is not normal, it’s a deviation of normalcy. We’ve got to call it out. So I put a mirror up to Trump and Trumpism – in all caps.”

The governor ridiculed conservative media outlets like Fox News for criticizing his posts, contrasting it with the silence that greeted Trump’s own online theatrics: “You’ve never said a word about Trump dressing up as the Pope, tweeting out and cosplaying on the world stage.”

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