Trump attacks Newsom again for having dyslexia, says it disqualifies him from being president

WASHINGTON- President Trump once again mocked Gov. Gavin Newsom’s dyslexia as “disqualifying” for leadership, marking at least the fourth time in a week that the president has targeted the California Democrat for speaking openly about his diagnosis.

In his remarks Monday in the Oval Office, Trump said Newsom was “stupid” and should never be allowed to be president because he “admitted he had learning disabilities and dyslexia.”

“That’s how crazy it gets with a low IQ person,” Trump said. “Honestly, I’m all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president…And I know it’s very controversial to say such a horrible thing.”

But during his attacks, Trump mistakenly elevated his political rival to commander in chief – repeatedly referring to Newsom as “the president of the United States.” Newsom used the opportunity to turn the tables on the president.

“I, GAVIN C. NEWSOM, AM OFFICIALLY PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (THANK YOU DONALD!),” he wrote on Monday

The clash is the latest in a famous chest-thumping competition between Trump and Newsom, who have mockingly denigrated each other during campaign rallies, interviews and on social media.

The president has often held up Newsom as a symbol of the liberal governance he opposes, while the governor has leaned into confrontations, often using them to raise his national profile and position himself as a prominent Democratic counterweight. His fight with the president appears to be part of an aggressive strategy to amplify his own message as he eyes a possible run for president in 2028. This time, Newsom has used the spotlight to support young people with dyslexia.

“To every child with a learning disability: Don’t let anyone – not even the President of the United States – bully you,” Newsom wrote on X. “Dyslexia is not a weakness. It is your strength.”

The insults first materialized when a video went viral of Newsom speaking on a book tour with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, during which he discussed his lifelong struggle with learning disabilities. Since then, the president has repeatedly highlighted this vulnerability.

Trump brought up the governor’s dyslexia at least four times last week. He mentioned it at a political rally in Kentucky last week, where he equated dyslexia to a “lack of mental capacity,” and again during an interview with Fox News Radio on Friday, in which he reiterated that “presidents can’t have learning disabilities.” In an article on Truth Social, Trump called Newsom’s admission a “politically suicidal act,” calling it “stupid” and a “cognitive waste!”

After the Kentucky rally, Newsom responded to Trump.

“I’ve spoken about my dyslexia, I know it’s hard to understand for a brain-dead moron who bombs children and protects pedophiles,” he said.

Dyslexia affects up to 20% of the population, according to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. Despite affecting such a large part of the population, the condition is widely misunderstood, according to dyslexia researcher Dr Helen Taylor of the University of Cambridge.

“In some ways, Trump’s horrible comments are just a cruder version of assumptions that already permeate our culture,” she said. “If anything, [it’s] the opposite. There is evidence of an overrepresentation of people with dyslexia in senior corporate positions.

According to Taylor, there is a link between dyslexia and “enhanced abilities” in areas such as discovery, invention and creativity.

“The same cognitive trade-offs that can make routine tasks like reading more difficult support strengths for navigating complexity and guiding groups toward better future outcomes,” she said.

Newsom often describes his early experiences with dyslexia as a source of insecurity when he was growing up. In his memoir, the governor talks about his mother, Tessa Newsom, who tried to help him with his homework. The lessons ended with him “running out of the room screaming that I didn’t know what was wrong with my brain.”

By the time Newsom was a boy in the 1970s, dyslexia was recognized but still not fully understood. He remembers one day when his mother was so worried that she took a deep breath and told him, “It’s okay to be average, Gavin.” »

“I understood even then that it also came from his deep reservoir of love for me,” Newsom writes in his book “Young Man in a Hurry.” “But I don’t remember crueler words ever spoken about me.”

Challenges related to his learning disabilities persist in his job at the state Capitol. Newsom finds reading a teleprompter difficult. His collaborators describe days of careful preparation before major speeches in front of the public. Late changes to a speech and resulting changes in the words on the screen threaten to disrupt one’s speech.

All memos in the governor’s office are written in 12-point Century Gothic font with specific spacing between lines, a format that his aides say helps him with his disability.

The governor reads his daily briefings several times in the morning, underlining sentences and taking notes to keep the information on the yellow cards he keeps in his suit pockets.

The ritual, he said, helps him compensate for his dyslexia and communicate confidently. But it also adds to the public perception of Newsom as a soft-spoken and sometimes rehearsed politician. His over-preparation has become a trait he considers a “superpower”.

His efforts to fully absorb the readings and his desire to understand the issues before speaking about them mean that he is often well prepared. He said the learning disability brought out his courage and resilience and helped him hone other skills, like reading a crowd quickly.

It also sharpened his memory.

At a news conference revealing his 2020 budget proposal, a reporter asked the governor what he would do to address the 500,000 housing units that had been approved by developers in California but had not been built.

Without missing a beat, Newsom directed the reporter to the exact page in his 246-page budget that addressed the issue.

“Although people with dyslexia read slowly, they are often, paradoxically, very fast and creative thinkers with strong reasoning skills,” according to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity.

The governor’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, addressed the president’s attacks in a video on Tuesday in which she stressed that “learning differences do not determine someone’s potential.” She listed a number of qualities she considered disqualifying for the presidency, including being a convicted felon, having bankrupted businesses, having extensive associations with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and sending “masked extremists to terrorize black and brown communities and tear children from their families.”

“Everything that Donald Trump represents is frankly beyond disqualification,” she said. “Day after day, Trump says things that make him unfit for office. He degrades our vulnerable communities, our institutions, and even the Constitution itself.”

Two of the Newsoms’ four children were also diagnosed with dyslexia.

Quinton reported from Washington, D.C., And Luna from Sacramento.