California Gov. Gavin Newsom called President Trump a “liar” during an interview over the weekend, after accusing him of weaving a web of lies to hinder the release of the Epstein files.
“He’s lying to cover up his prior lies and then lying again. Now he doesn’t even know truth from fiction, and so look, he’s caught red-handed,” Newsom told podcaster and political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen during a podcast episode that aired Saturday.
“He’s in the files. We know it, period, full stop,” he continued.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference with Texas lawmakers at the Governor’s Mansion on July 25, 2025, in Sacramento, California.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Trump and Newsom have come to blows before. The day before his interview aired, the California governor shut down claims that his government had mishandled funds meant for victims of the Los Angeles wildfires.
“100 MILLION DOLLARS IS MISSING,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
“GOVERNOR NEWSCUM REFUSED TO RELEASE BILLIONS OF GALLONS OF WATER FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, AND THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT WOULD HAVE MADE! I HAVE SINCE OVERRULED HIM, AND IT IS NOW RELEASED,” the president continued.
Newsom responded, first by clarifying that FireAid, the organization responsible for dispersing funds to victims, is not a government-run organization and that so far it has awarded $75 million to 188 non-profits, with the remaining $25 million set to go out in August, before adding, “Nice try. Release the Epstein files.”
Nice try.
Release the Epstein files!!!! pic.twitter.com/zMJPJC2eth
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 26, 2025
President Trump has come under fire in recent weeks over his treatment of the Epstein files, notably from his allies, who have expressed discontent over his decision to withhold the documents he had previously promised to share.
On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) released a report claiming that Trump was informed during a routine briefing in May that his name appeared, among hundreds of others, in the Epstein files and that he chose to follow the Department of Justice’s advice to refrain from releasing the documents.
In the days before the WSJ report, when probed by reporters, Trump said that he had not been informed his name was in the files.
On Saturday, Newsom said Trump had created the problem at hand, and that “you reap what you sow.”
“He’s lying, he’s part of this cover-up, and he has confused even the most ardent observers here…this guy’s a pretzel on this issue,” Newsom continued.
“Every hour he contradicts a statement,” he added.
On Monday at a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer sitting quietly by his side, Trump repeatedly denied ever going to Epstein’s notorious island.
“By the way, I never went to the island and Bill Clinton went there, supposedly, 28 times,” Trump told a group of reporters. “I never went to the island, but Larry Summers, I hear, went there. He was the head of Harvard and many other people that are very big people.
Nobody ever talks about that. I never had the privilege of going to his island. And I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn’t want to go to this island.”
Trump has attempted to swat away mounting claims that he appears in the files by deflecting blame onto the Democratic Party and accusing his political foes, including Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, of creating a hoax-style narrative meant to undermine him.
Similarly, last week, the government ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the former Obama administration over claims it planted false information tying Trump to Russian interference efforts during his 2016 election bid, an allegation which Obama says is “outrageous” and “a ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”
President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama walk out before Obama’s departure during the 2017 presidential inauguration at the U.S. Capitol, January 20, 201,7, in Washington, DC.
Jack Gruber-Pool/Getty Images
“They tried to steal the election, they tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody’s ever imagined, even in other countries,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday, adding that Obama committed a “treasonous conspiracy.”
Trump was also accused last week by the surviving children of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr, of attempting to divert attention from himself when he released hundreds of thousands of sealed FBI documents about their late father.
In a statement released last Monday, the Kings said they “support transparency and historical accountability” but “object to any attacks on our father’s legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods.”
Meanwhile, photographs and other supposed evidence linking Trump to Epstein continued to surface, including a sexually suggestive note the president allegedly penned to the former financier and child sex trafficker on his 50th birthday.
Obtained by the WSJ, the letter appeared to be signed by Trump and included a hand-drawn sketch of a naked woman.
Trump denied the note was of his creation and, according to the WSJ, said the letter was “a fake thing.”
“I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he added. “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.” He later sued the publication for $10 billion.
Trump says he ‘never had the privilege of going’ to Epstein Island, claims Bill Clinton went 28 times
The WSJ said the note bore Trump’s signature and contained “several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker.”
“A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts,” it says, with the president’s signature written in a “squiggly” font below her waist and a final line that reads: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Last week, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Epstein’s former aide, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her involvement in Epstein’s scheme, to discuss any additional information she may have about his case.
Epstein was scheduled to stand trial in 2019 on sex trafficking charges, but died by suicide in a New York City prison before it took place.