Does Gavin Newsom Have Dyslexia? Trump's Jab At The Governor Backfires Against His Own Cognitive Concerns

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On March 16, 2026, President Donald Trump's nasty jabs at California Governor Gavin Newsom backfired miserably. "We have a low-IQ person, you know, because Gavin Newscum has admitted that he is, uh, that he has learning disabilities," Trump told a gaggle of reporters from the Oval Office, while referencing the governor's candid conversation about his diagnosis in his new book, "Young Man in a Hurry." 

"Honestly, I'm all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president," he said. (Um, president? Did he say president?!) "I don't want... I think the president should not have learning disabilities, okay, and I know it's highly controversial to say such a horrible thing," Trump quickly added. "Everything about him is dumb," he declared. 

Trump:

"The President of the United States Gavin Newscum admitted that he has learning disabilities."

Yes, he actually called @GavinNewsom the "President of the United States" while trying to insult his cognition. pic.twitter.com/osEohVmupQ

— Adam Schwarz (@AdamJSchwarz) March 16, 2026

While making fun of someone for a learning disability is never a good look, this makes Trump look especially bad, as this marks the fourth time the president has gone on the record discussing Newsom's dyslexia. Not to mention the fact that Trump — the actual sitting prez — flubbed the entire insult as he referred to Newsom as "the president." (Sure, there's been plenty of talk that Newsom might run one day, but that's still all purely hypothetical.) 

"Calling Gavin Newsom 'President of the United States' while trying to insult him... political comedy gold, or just a Freudian slip?" one X user pondered. Meanwhile, another tweeted, "Where's the one brave reporter, 'Sir, do you think it helps or hurts your insult when you refer to Governor Newsom as President of the United States?'" Suffice it to say, this all-new Trump blunder does nothing to help all the speculation surrounding his own cognitive health, including those pesky pooped pants rumors and his tendency to fall asleep in public. 

President Donald Trump's apparent fixation with Gavin Newsom's learning disability seems to coincide with the governor's release of his new memoir, "Young Man in a Hurry," wherein Newsom openly discussed his struggles with dyslexia. "I couldn't read; I couldn't spell; I couldn't write. I'd run out of the room screaming that I didn't know what was wrong with my brain," he confessed in the book (via The New York Times). 

Later, during an interview with CNN's Dana Bash to promote the book, Newsom revealed that he was actually thankful for his learning disability. "It's the greatest thing in hindsight to happen to me," Newsom said. "I mean, I have the freedom of not having to be stuck on the written text, and the freedom of having to work harder, more reps behind the scenes. I'm doing — if you think you're working hard, trust me, I'm two to three X in terms of the work," he explained (via CNN).

But if Trump thought Newsom was going to take those insults lying down, all because he copped to a learning disability in his new book and an interview — think again. Shortly after learning of the president's Oval Office remarks, Newsom fired off a series of tweets, including one poking fun at Trump's presidential blunder. "AMERICA IS NOW 'HOT' BECAUSE YOU HAVE A DYSLEXIC PRESIDENT INSTEAD OF A BRAIN-DEAD ONE. BIG UPGRADE!!!" he declared in his best all-caps Trump impression.

All of Governor Gavin Newsom's clever comebacks aside, it's important to note that President Donald Trump's remarks weren't even accurate. According to the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), dyslexia "refers to a cluster of symptoms" that can include difficulties with spelling, writing, reading, and pronunciation. That said, there is absolutely no correlation between dyslexia and intelligence. "We found that children who are poor readers have the same brain difficulty in processing the sounds of language whether they have a high or low IQ," John D. E. Gabrieli, MIT's Grover Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Cognitive Neuroscience, said in a press release about what he and other colleagues found after conducting a 2011 brain-imaging study that was later published in Psychological Science.

Following Trump's remarks, the National Center for Learning Disabilities issued a statement that read, "We believe the statement to be both factually and morally incorrect. We are deeply troubled by these negative and stigmatizing remarks" (via The New York Times). Meanwhile, attorney and neurodiversity advocate Haley Moss also weighed in on Trump's diatribe. "Learning disabilities do not preclude anyone from running for or assuming elected office," she told Alternet. "Neurodivergent people are competent and can hold office or any job they'd like as long as they have the right supports and qualifications. In fact, we have also had other politicians and elected officials who also had dyslexia or were otherwise neurodivergent."