Bessent Torches Newsom: ‘Patrick Bateman Meets Sparkle Beach Ken’ at Davos

Paul Riverbank, 1/24/2026Barbs fly at Davos as Newsom, Bessent, and Trump spar over politics, rivalry, and 2028 ambitions.

The spark, though, wasn’t spontaneous. A day prior, Newsom—eager to carve out his role as one of President Trump’s loudest naysayers—mused, perhaps a little too colorfully, about world leaders “needing kneepads” around Trump. Bessent’s retort? “If you brought the kneepads, maybe that was for his meeting with Alex Soros.” The exchange might have felt like a high school roast had it not been punctuated by Bessent labeling Soros as Newsom’s “billionaire sugar daddy.” Harsh words, but so too was the comparison to a bleached Ken doll with the temperament of Patrick Bateman—another of the Secretary’s more barbed quips.

All the same, Newsom was not content to fade quietly backstage. Far from it. Catching the glow of the international cameras, he leaned into his carefully crafted combative mode. Roaming the hallways crowded with CEOs and statesmen, Newsom seized every opportunity to criticize Trump, calling him a “tyrannosaurus rex” with the social graces to match, and tossing a dare at European leaders to “grow a spine” rather than acquiesce to the White House on transatlantic matters. Social media, naturally, lapped it up. To Trump’s latest sneer—he’d derisively dubbed Newsom “Gavin Newscum, as a ‘Lame Duck’ Governor of a Failing State” for his Davos antics—Newsom simply shot back, “Rent free.” His message to fellow Democrats read more like a call to battle than a policy paper: “The only way to address Trump is to fight fire with fire. He’s consolidating power in real time. We must punch back.”

For all the sniping, there’s a colder calculus at work beneath the gossamer of insults. Over at Polymarket, a digital prediction bourse where real money trades on political futures, Newsom’s odds for 2028 are quietly ticking upward. By the time the week drew to a close, bets showed Newsom as the only Democrat with numbers that even approached viability: his 20 percent trailed only J.D. Vance's 27 percent, while Kamala Harris languished at 3 percent—a statistic that would’ve seemed improbable only two years ago. In the background, $200 million in political wagers suggested these public slugfests are being tallied by more than just pundits.

It’s tempting to see all this as a sideshow—a spectacle designed for the ultra-wired age of meme warfare and rival timelines. But the positioning is real, and the lines are hardening. On the world stage, Newsom adopts the defiant stance of a man certain that his political future depends on distancing himself from Trump’s orbit, even as Bessent eagerly accuses him of basking in elite company, “partying with the same people who were locking down Californians for visiting church.” The text of the argument is about policy and pandemic, the subtext about class and authenticity.

Meanwhile, the Trump camp pounced on the optics. “Gavin Newscum” may have been mean-spirited, but it fit snugly with the ex-president’s penchant for the grotesque nickname. Newsom, for his part, replied with brevity but no shortage of bravado.

Looking ahead, analysts like Columbia’s Robert Y. Shapiro are quick to tamp down the fever of early prognostication: “It is much too early to be comparing Democratic versus Republican candidates in the 2028 general election,” he insisted, as if to remind everyone that headlines are rarely reliable so far out from voting day. Still, prediction markets tell their own story—and right now, the money, the traders, and the sharp elbows on the conference stage suggest that Newsom’s star is, for the moment, climbing.

Will next year’s Davos bring more fireworks, or will the race shift to new fronts? For now, the substance gets buried beneath the posturing, but it’s clear that this skirmish is less a distraction and more the first movement in a much longer campaign overture.

If tempers were running high in the snowy Swiss rarities of Davos last week, the zingers between Scott Bessent and Governor Gavin Newsom suggested the altitude might not have been the only thing making heads spin. Bessent, who now occupies the Treasury Secretary’s chair, dispensed with any vestige of diplomatic restraint when Politico caught up to him near the famed Congress Centre. Tossing off lines that danced between playful and pointed, Bessent quipped, “Gavin Newsom may be cracking up—some of these things he’s saying. I think he may be in over his hairdo.” It was a throwaway line, but one that seemed tailor-made for cable news chyrons and late-night monologues.The spark, though, wasn’t spontaneous. A day prior, Newsom—eager to carve out his role as one of President Trump’s loudest naysayers—mused, perhaps a little too colorfully, about world leaders “needing kneepads” around Trump. Bessent’s retort? “If you brought the kneepads, maybe that was for his meeting with Alex Soros.” The exchange might have felt like a high school roast had it not been punctuated by Bessent labeling Soros as Newsom’s “billionaire sugar daddy.” Harsh words, but so too was the comparison to a bleached Ken doll with the temperament of Patrick Bateman—another of the Secretary’s more barbed quips.All the same, Newsom was not content to fade quietly backstage. Far from it. Catching the glow of the international cameras, he leaned into his carefully crafted combative mode. Roaming the hallways crowded with CEOs and statesmen, Newsom seized every opportunity to criticize Trump, calling him a “tyrannosaurus rex” with the social graces to match, and tossing a dare at European leaders to “grow a spine” rather than acquiesce to the White House on transatlantic matters. Social media, naturally, lapped it up. To Trump’s latest sneer—he’d derisively dubbed Newsom “Gavin Newscum, as a ‘Lame Duck’ Governor of a Failing State” for his Davos antics—Newsom simply shot back, “Rent free.” His message to fellow Democrats read more like a call to battle than a policy paper: “The only way to address Trump is to fight fire with fire. He’s consolidating power in real time. We must punch back.”For all the sniping, there’s a colder calculus at work beneath the gossamer of insults. Over at Polymarket, a digital prediction bourse where real money trades on political futures, Newsom’s odds for 2028 are quietly ticking upward. By the time the week drew to a close, bets showed Newsom as the only Democrat with numbers that even approached viability: his 20 percent trailed only J.D. Vance's 27 percent, while Kamala Harris languished at 3 percent—a statistic that would’ve seemed improbable only two years ago. In the background, $200 million in political wagers suggested these public slugfests are being tallied by more than just pundits.It’s tempting to see all this as a sideshow—a spectacle designed for the ultra-wired age of meme warfare and rival timelines. But the positioning is real, and the lines are hardening. On the world stage, Newsom adopts the defiant stance of a man certain that his political future depends on distancing himself from Trump’s orbit, even as Bessent eagerly accuses him of basking in elite company, “partying with the same people who were locking down Californians for visiting church.” The text of the argument is about policy and pandemic, the subtext about class and authenticity.Meanwhile, the Trump camp pounced on the optics. “Gavin Newscum” may have been mean-spirited, but it fit snugly with the ex-president’s penchant for the grotesque nickname. Newsom, for his part, replied with brevity but no shortage of bravado.Looking ahead, analysts like Columbia’s Robert Y. Shapiro are quick to tamp down the fever of early prognostication: “It is much too early to be comparing Democratic versus Republican candidates in the 2028 general election,” he insisted, as if to remind everyone that headlines are rarely reliable so far out from voting day. Still, prediction markets tell their own story—and right now, the money, the traders, and the sharp elbows on the conference stage suggest that Newsom’s star is, for the moment, climbing.Will next year’s Davos bring more fireworks, or will the race shift to new fronts? For now, the substance gets buried beneath the posturing, but it’s clear that this skirmish is less a distraction and more the first movement in a much longer campaign overture.