California Governor Gavin Newsom mocked President Donald Trump in a series of TikToks comparing him to a Star Wars villain.
Newsom’s press office took to X on Tuesday to share two TikToks of what appeared to be the AI-generated voice of Star Wars antagonist Emperor Palpatine, who was played by Ian McDiarmid, reading two of Trump’s Truth Social posts.
Both posts denounced the Los Angeles protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with the president calling them “lawless riots.”
The first video showcased one of the president’s Truth Social posts from Sunday with clips of Stormtroopers and music from the film franchise playing in the background.
The caption read: “A ONCE GREAT AMERICAN CITY HAS BEEN OCCUPIED!”
“Order will be restored, the illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free,” said the AI Emperor, dictating the president’s post.
Another video with the caption “LOS ANGELES WOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY OBLITERATED!” had a similar structure, this time with one of Trump’s Truth Social posts from Monday.
“The very incompetent ‘Governor,’ Gavin Newscum, and ‘Mayor,’ Karen Bass, should be saying, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR,’” said Palpatine’s voice, as Star Wars music blared in the background.
Newsom and Trump have been locked in this back-and-forth trading of insults since Saturday, when the president announced that he would be deploying the National Guard to L.A. to quash anti-ICE protests.
The California governor wrote on X that “the federal government is sowing chaos so they can have an excuse to escalate. That is not the way any civilized country behaves.”
Trump and the Governor continued to go at it both online and in interviews, with the president even suggesting on Monday that his border czar, Tom Homan, should arrest Newsom.
“I like Gavin, he’s a nice guy, but he’s grossly incompetent. Everyone knows that,” Trump said.
Trump is known for posting AI-generated photos and videos on his own social media accounts, as well as the White House’s accounts.
A notable example was a Studio Ghibli-style AI cartoon of a crying woman being handcuffed by an ICE officer, which was posted on the White House’s official X account back in March.
Trump also sparked outrage when he posted an AI-edited photo of him as the Pope on Truth Social days before the papal conclave convened to deliberate on who to name the new pope following Pope Francis’ death in April.
