Gavin Newsom Tweaks Trump’s Tariffs In New Fox News Ad

Gavin Newsom is taking his anti-tariffs message to a place most likely to get President Donald Trump’s attention: Fox News.

The California governor, who delights in tweaking conservatives by appearing on their favorite cable news channel, is running a new national ad on “Fox and Friends” this weekend that simultaneously casts him as cheerleader for his state’s economy and top critic of the president’s signature policy.

The 30-second spot, obtained exclusively by POLITICO, marks a return to Newsom’s well-worn playbook of goading Republicans on their home turf. It is also a notable escalation of the governor’s antagonism toward Trump after months of striving to defuse tensions with the White House.

Speaking direct-to-camera against a backdrop of the Port of Oakland, Newsom boasts about California’s recent ascent to the world’s fourth-largest economy, crediting that achievement to “reducing trade barriers and delivering for American consumers.”

He goes on to warn that Trump’s tariff policies will lead to a slowdown of goods coming into the country, raising the specter of empty store shelves during the back-to-school or Christmas shopping season.

“These tariffs punish families and risk ending America’s run as the world’s greatest economy,” he says. “Take it from California: We’re the ones leading it.”

The ad was paid for out of Newsom’s 2022 governor campaign account. A spokesperson declined to share how much the ad buy cost.

Newsom has long been preoccupied with the best ways to reach conservatives directly — be it on Sean Hannity’s show or via billboards in red states. He is a voracious consumer of conservative media and invited some of its most notorious figures, including Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon, to his new podcast, much to the dismay of fellow Democrats.

The governor has spent most of Trump’s early months in office pulling his punches, fearing that any hostilities could imperil badly needed federal aid after wildfires devastated Los Angeles in January.

But the impact of tariffs appears to have coaxed Newsom back into the ring. Last month, he announced a lawsuit challenging Trump’s authority to unilaterally tax imports. He has criticized the president’s tariffs as an existential threat to his state’s economy.

“No state is poised to lose more than the state of California,” he said.

He has taken a slightly less combative approach to Trump’s recent call to impose 100 percent tariffs on foreign film imports, a proposal that left leaders of California’s marquee industry scratching their heads.

Instead of blasting Trump’s proposal, he challenged the president to rethink his approach and embrace a $7.5 billion federal film tax credit instead, a staggering subsidy that would complement Newsom’s efforts to expand California’s state-level incentives.

“Now it’s time for a real federal partnership to Make America Film Again,” Newsom wrote on social media. The gambit got no response from the president.