Gavin Newsom Under Fire: Nicki Minaj Claims Governor Treated Black Audience 'Like Children'

The moment wasn't dramatic in the way political moments usually are—no heckler, no walkout, no thrown microphone. It was just a line, delivered in an Atlanta room, that landed with a thud online: Gavin Newsom, trying to sound relatable, telling people he's 'like you' because he got a '960 SAT' score and struggles to read.

And once a clip like that escapes into the algorithm, it doesn't behave like a normal quote anymore. It becomes a Rorschach test—especially when the person interpreting it is Nicki Minaj, who has turned political antagonism into a kind of performance art, equal parts grievance and theatre.​

Here's the gist, without the shouting: Newsom made the remark during a stop on his national book tour; Nicki Minaj said it was insulting and condescending; Newsom's team called the backlash 'fake MAGA-manufactured outrage'; Atlanta's mayor, who was onstage with him, told critics to stop flattening context into headlines.​

Gavin Newsom Under Fire In Atlanta

Newsom's comments came Sunday during a conversation with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, as the California governor promoted his memoir, Young Man in a Hurry. Asked what he wanted the audience and readers to know about him, Newsom said he wasn't trying to impress anyone, but 'press upon you I'm like you,' adding, 'I'm no better than you... I'm a 960 SAT guy,' before talking about dyslexia and reading struggles.

The SAT is a standardised exam widely used in US college admissions, and the numbers become shorthand for academic 'smartness' in a way that can be both simplistic and cruel. But Newsom didn't just mention a score—he paired it with the phrase 'like you,' and in Atlanta (a city with enormous symbolic weight in Black American politics and culture), that phrasing was always going to be combustible.

Minaj, 43, posted a response on X alongside the clip: 'His way of bonding with black ppl is to tell them how stupid he is & that he can't read. This means my first read on him was correct.' She didn't stop there, accusing Newsom of talking down to the crowd: 'He's literally slowing his speech down... As if they're children!!!!' In Minaj's telling, the scandal wasn't merely the line—it was the tone, the cadence, the assumption she believes sat underneath it.​

Gavin Newsom Answers Back

Newsom and his allies didn't treat the criticism as good-faith outrage; they treated it as a hit job with a MAGA signature. Izzy Gardon, a Newsom spokesperson, said in a statement: 'First MAGA mocked his dyslexia and now they're calling him racist for talking about his low SAT scores... The governor has said this publicly for years.' Gardon also noted Newsom was speaking to a mixed-race audience during the conversation with Dickens.

Dickens, for his part, defended Newsom on Instagram in language that sounded less like spin than irritation at being used as a prop by people who weren't in the room. 'Take it from someone who was actually in the chair asking the questions: context matters more than a headline,' he wrote, calling it 'a moment of vulnerability' about Newsom's own academic journey. Then, with the kind of civic swagger Atlanta is known for, Dickens added: 'This is Atlanta. We don't need anyone to tell us when to be offended.'

Newsom also went directly at Fox News host Sean Hannity on X, accusing him of selective outrage and ending with: 'Spare me your fake fucking outrage, Sean.' That sort of bluntness is now practically a requirement for American political survival—yet it's also exactly the style Minaj mocked Newsom for chasing.​

Because this clash didn't start in Atlanta. Earlier this month, Minaj went after Newsom on Katie Miller's podcast, calling him 'Newscum' and claiming he was 'obsessed with Trump, trying to be Trump,' while predicting 'no one is going to vote for you.' Now, with one awkward attempt at self-deprecation, Newsom has handed her a cleaner, sharper weapon: a clip that—context or not—sounds like the 'bigotry of low expectations' dressed up as charm.