February 24, 2026

Presidential candidates

Headline USA -  California Gov. Gavin Newsom drew ridicule Monday after making condescending comments to a crowd at an Atlanta forum with Mayor Andre Dickens.

Newsom was in Atlanta promoting his book, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery, reflecting on his upbringing, during which he compared himself to attendees in a way critics called tone-deaf and even racist. 

“I’m not trying to impress you, I’m just trying to impress upon you, ‘I’m like you. I’m not better than you.’ I’m a 960 SAT guy,” Newsom told Dickens, who is black. 

“And I’m not trying to offend anyone. I’m not trying to act all there if you got 940 … You’ve never seen me read a speech because I cannot read a speech,” he added, as quoted by the New York Post.

Critics pounced on Newsom’s below-average 960 SAT score, noting that his analogy felt especially patronizing coming in Atlanta, a predominantly black city. 

Among the critics was rapper and Trump supporter Nicki Minaj, who wrote on X: 

“His way of bonding with black ppl is to tell them how stupid he is & that he can’t read,” Minaj wrote on X. “This means my first read on him was correct. He’s been handed so many things & put in high positions he never earned or deserved.” 

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