{"id":49250,"date":"2026-01-21T18:24:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/21\/bessent-mocks-newsom-at-davos-as-patrick-bateman-meets-sparkle-beach-ken\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T18:24:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:24:03","slug":"bessent-mocks-newsom-at-davos-as-patrick-bateman-meets-sparkle-beach-ken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/21\/bessent-mocks-newsom-at-davos-as-patrick-bateman-meets-sparkle-beach-ken\/","title":{"rendered":"Bessent mocks Newsom at Davos as \u2018Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"speakable\">Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent lashed out at California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, calling him &#8216;economically illiterate&#8217; and accusing him of prioritizing elite global gatherings over the state\u2019s mounting fiscal, housing, and homelessness crises.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bessent used the high-profile meeting to deliver a blistering critique of Newsom\u2019s economic record and leadership.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I was told he was asked to give a speech on his signature policies, but he&#8217;s not speaking because what have his economic policies brought? Outward migration from California, a gigantic budget deficit, the largest homeless population in America, and the poor folks in the Palisades who had their homes burned down,&#8217; the Treasury secretary said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He is here hobnobbing with the global elite while his California citizens are still homeless. Shame on him. He&#8217;s too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know anything.&#8217;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Bessent also responded to Newsom&#8217;s characterization of him as a &#8216;smug man,&#8217; saying the governor &#8216;strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken,&#8217; referring to the fictional serial killer from &#8216;American Psycho&#8217; and the flamboyant doll character from &#8216;Barbie.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;[He] may be the only Californian who knows less about economics than Kamala Harris. He&#8217;s here this week with his billionaire sugar daddy, Alex Soros, and Davos is the perfect place for a man who, when everyone else was on lockdown, when he was having people arrested for going to church, he was having $1,000 a night meals at the French Laundry,&#8217; he added. &#8216;And I&#8217;m sure the California people won&#8217;t forget that.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The Cabinet official said the administration would also move to address what he called &#8216;waste, fraud and abuse&#8217; in the state.<\/p>\n<p>Newsom, who is in Switzerland attending the Davos summit, struck back at the White House on Tuesday by directing his criticism at President Donald Trump and his remarks about acquiring Greenland.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;America\u2019s allies and business leaders need to understand this: There\u2019s no diplomacy with Donald Trump. Get off your knees and grow a spine,&#8217; he wrote on X.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-media fn-video\">\n<div class=\"video-container\">\n<div data-video-tags=\"primary_politics,politics|person|donald_trump,web_exclusives,3play_sameday\" data-video-title=\"Trump claims that Europe is \" data-video-id=\"6388040888112\" data-video-domain=\"foxnews\" data-video-type=\"CLIP\" data-widget-type=\"embed\" class=\"m video-player\" style=\"width: 100%;height: 100%\"> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>He told reporters on the sidelines of the annual meeting later that Trump is a &#8216;T. rex.&#8217; &#8216;You mate with him or he devours you. One or the other,&#8217; Newsom said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It\u2019s time to stand tall and firm. Have a backbone. I can\u2019t take this complicity \u2014 people rolling over,&#8217; he added. &#8216;From an American perspective, it\u2019s embarrassing.&#8217;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div>This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent lashed out at California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, calling him &#8216;economically illiterate&#8217; and accusing him of prioritizing elite global gatherings over the state\u2019s mounting fiscal, housing, and homelessness crises. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bessent used the high-profile meeting to deliver a blistering critique of Newsom\u2019s <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-49250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/principleisapromise.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}