California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused the Trump administration of pressuring the official US pavilion at the World Economic Forum to block his entry to a scheduled speaking event, according to posts from his office.
Newsom had been invited by Fortune, the event’s official media partner, to speak to the press at the US pavilion on Wednesday afternoon, in addition to planned remarks at the World Economic Forum scheduled for Thursday. The governor’s Thursday appearance is still on the Economic Forum’s schedule.
However, his public remarks planned for Wednesday were abruptly canceled when he was not permitted to enter the USA House, the church acting as the official US pavilion for the World Economic Forum, due to “pressure from the White House and State Department,” the Governor’s office said in a post on X.
A representative for the Governor’s office told Business Insider that, around 3 p.m. local time in Davos, a representative for the USA House reached out to rescind the invitation to the event, saying that an “elected official” speaking did not “align with their afternoon programming.”
The refusal to allow Newsom to participate came after multiple Trump Administration officials spoke at the USA House throughout the day, the governor’s office said. This included remarks by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who attacked Newsom directly, calling him “economically illiterate” and “worse than Kamala.”
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In lieu of the planned public remarks, the USA House offered Newsom the option to attend a “nightcap reception” later in the evening, a representative for the Governor’s office said.
“How weak and pathetic do you have to be to be this scared of a fireside chat?” Newsom said in a separate post after his public remarks to the press had been canceled.
The incident unfolded several hours after President Donald Trump gave a speech, which Newsom publicly criticized as boring.
Business Insider’s Ben Bergman, who attended Trump’s speech, reported earlier in the day that Newsom said the audience response was muted because the president spoke down to them and mocked them.
Newsom told reporters, “Had there not been cellphones, I think a few people would have passed out from boredom.”
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, told Business Insider when reached for comment about the tension between the two lawmakers, that “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.”
