The office of Gavin Newsom, the California governor, said his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos was canceled under pressure from the Trump administration.
Newsom had been scheduled to sit down with Fortune at an event sponsored by USA House, the country’s official headquarters at the annual gathering of world and economic leaders. But before the talk was due to begin, his team says, the USA House bowed to political pressure from the Trump administration and denied the governor entry.
“Under pressure from the White House and State Department, USA House (a church acting as the official US pavilion) is now denying entry to @CAGovernor Gavin Newsom to speak with media after Fortune – the official media partner – invited him to speak,” the governor’s office said in a statement shared on its official account.
Newsom shared the statement on social media, adding: “How weak and pathetic do you have to be to be this scared of a fireside chat?”
According to Newsom’s office, the governor was invited by Fortune last week to participate in a “fireside chat” scheduled to take place following Trump’s address. On Monday, his office accepted the invitation.
Shortly before the event was due to begin, his office said, a USA House official informed Newsom’s team that they were canceling the Fortune event and that Newsom would not be allowed to speak with media at the venue. The official said an elected official speaking did not fit their afternoon programming.
USA House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, Fortune said: “Governor Newsom had been invited to participate in a Fortune conversation at USA House in Davos. Subsequently, USA House determined it would not be able to accommodate the governor’s participation and communicated that decision to Fortune.”
The global business magazine added that although it “programs all editorial conversations independently”, programming at such events “can be affected by logistical, security, and other access considerations that involve multiple stakeholders and evolve over time”.
Newsom, widely seen as a top 2028 Democratic presidential contender, has used his three-day trip to the Swiss Alps to excoriate the Trump administration – and challenge European allies who he says have failed to sufficiently stand up to the US president.
“I can’t take this complicity of people rolling over,” Newsom told reporters in Davos on Tuesday. “I should have brought a bunch of knee pads for all the world leaders. I mean handing out crowns, the Nobel prizes that are being given away. It’s just pathetic. And I hope people understand how pathetic they look on the world stage.”
He added: “There’s no diplomacy with Donald Trump: he’s a T rex. You mate with him or he devours you.”
Newsom was in attendance for Trump’s wide-ranging, invective-laden remarks to global leaders at Davos, during which the US president said he was “seeking immediate negotiations” to discuss the acquisition of Greenland and also vowed to “help the people in California”.
Name-checking the California governor, Trump said in his remarks: “I know Gavin was here. I used to get along so great with Gavin when I was president. Gavin is a good guy.” A camera panned to the governor, catching him smiling in response.
“Good seats. Bad speech,” Newsom responded on X, sharing a photo of him seated behind Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, secretary of state Marco Rubio and other top administration officials.
His office had said he had planned to use the fireside chat to present California as a counterbalance to Trump’s policies, Politico reported.
In a statement, a White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, assailed Newsom, using Trump’s derogatory nickname “Newscum”, but did not reply to a question about the administration’s involvement in the episode.
“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,” Kelly said.
Asked for comment, the state department referred to Kelly’s statement.
Newsom has raised his profile mocking Trump excessively online – and his appearance in Davos did not go unnoticed by the administration. Speaking at an earlier event, Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, called the governor “smug, self-absorbed”, and possibly the “only Californian who knows less about economics than Kamala Harris”.
Bessent also hinted at Newsom’s Davos scheduled appearance: “I was told he was asked to give a speech on his signature policies, but he’s not speaking.”
