Gavin Newsom's official press office account on X responded to conservative journalist Benny Johnson's fraud allegations against the state of California not with data or a rebuttal, but with a Grindr joke. The post, from the governor's taxpayer-funded communications team, read: "We got a call from Grindr after this and said your team was their biggest users. Congrats!", a remark that weaponized a gay dating app as an insult against a critic as reported by the Daily Mail.
The exchange unfolded on X after Johnson posted that Newsom looks "terrified" because fraud investigations into California would uncover corruption tied to the governor. Newsom's press office account shot back soon after with the Grindr remark. Johnson fired back later Wednesday, accusing Newsom of smearing journalists rather than addressing the substance of their reporting.
What makes this episode worth more than a passing glance is the pattern it reveals, and the questions it raises about how a governor's office conducts itself when challenged. Newsom's team didn't dispute Johnson's claims with evidence. It reached for a sexual smear. And when pressed, a Newsom spokesperson doubled down with dripping sarcasm.
Imagine a Republican governor's press office posting a joke insinuating that a left-leaning journalist's staff were heavy users of Grindr, a gay dating app with roughly 15 million monthly active users. The outcry would be deafening. Advocacy groups would demand resignations. Cable news would run the segment on a loop for days.
But when Newsom's team did exactly that, the spokesperson offered this response:
"We love gay people and it's very woke of you to ask about this! We're sorry some conservative snowflakes had their feelings hurt. We hope they recover!"
That's the official statement from the office of a governor who has built his national brand on progressive tolerance and inclusion. Read it again. The sarcasm isn't subtle. The contempt isn't hidden. And the underlying message is unmistakable: when the target is a conservative, the rules of decency that progressives enforce on everyone else simply don't apply.
Johnson, who recently pledged to sue provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos after Yiannopoulos accused him of being gay, is married to his wife Kate, a nurse. She celebrated their wedding anniversary last month, writing: "Nine years and 4 babies later and I love you more than I thought possible." The Grindr insinuation wasn't just juvenile. It was a deliberate personal attack designed to discredit rather than engage.
Strip away the social-media theatrics and the substance of Johnson's claims is what Newsom's team clearly wanted to bury. Johnson cited a litany of alleged mismanagement: $70 billion lost in taxpayer funds, $24 billion spent on what he called "non-existent" homelessness programs, $18 billion poured into a stalled high-speed rail project, $32 billion in COVID-19 relief funds he described as "stolen," and $2.5 billion lost to SNAP fraud.
Those are big numbers. Some deserve scrutiny. But the governor's office chose a peculiar way to push back.
Newsom's press office account posted a separate response addressing the California State Auditor's "high-risk" list, stating:
"The State Auditor's 'high, risk' list does NOT cite billions in current losses. It's a report to flag programs for added oversight BEFORE potential fraud occurs. California PROSECUTES fraud, arresting 929 people and recovering $5.9 billion in unemployment fraud alone."
That rebuttal is worth parsing. The press office said the auditor's list flags programs for oversight before fraud occurs, an admission that the state's own watchdog has flagged programs as high-risk. And the boast about recovering $5.9 billion in unemployment fraud and arresting 929 people raises an obvious question: if fraud was large enough to require $5.9 billion in recoveries, how did it happen in the first place?
Johnson's claim about $24 billion spent on "non-existent" homelessness programs appeared to reference a 2023 California State Auditor report assessing the effectiveness of the state's homelessness spending. The report, covering money allocated from 2018 to 2023, found that the programs had not been "consistently tracked and evaluated." The state spent billions, and its own auditor concluded it couldn't properly account for the results.
That finding fits a broader pattern of oversight failures that have dogged Newsom's administration. The governor's $236 million mental health program that reportedly aided just 22 individuals stands as one of the more striking examples. Separately, a Lexis Nexis data analysis cited in the Daily Mail's reporting claimed roughly $32.6 billion in fraudulent money could have been paid out in California, a figure that, if even partially accurate, dwarfs the state's claimed recoveries.
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee has separately demanded answers from Newsom over $105 million in alleged Medicare hospice fraud, yet another front in the expanding accountability battle over California's books.
Johnson's SNAP fraud claims didn't originate in a vacuum. Republican Congresswoman Young Kim echoed similar concerns last month, calling on Newsom to launch a "thorough investigation into fraud" in the program. Kim's stated goal was blunt: "to ensure illegal aliens are not prioritized over Californians and that vital food services reach California's most vulnerable communities for whom the program was intended."
That framing, taxpayer-funded benefits potentially diverted from lawful recipients, is the kind of issue that should prompt a serious response from any governor's office. Instead, Newsom's team has treated the allegations as an opportunity for social-media combat, consistent with the broader scrutiny Newsom has faced over his administration's handling of politically sensitive enforcement issues.
Johnson pointed out that the Grindr insult wasn't an isolated lapse. He claimed Newsom's office called another journalist, Nick Shirley, "a pedo" the previous week, also in response to fraud-related reporting on California.
As Johnson put it on X:
"Notice how every time a journalist uncovers fraud in California, Newsom's reaction is to smear us with lies, not fix the fraud. Gavin called Nick Shirley a pedo last week for trying to end fraud in California. Stop attacking the people who are doing YOUR job. It's just sad."
The pattern Johnson describes, sexual smears aimed at critics rather than substantive engagement with their claims, is not the behavior of a confident administration. It is the behavior of an operation that has decided the best defense against accountability is character assassination.
Johnson also noted that the article says Newsom's press office account is often dedicated to trolling and even mimicking Donald Trump on the platform. The governor's communications team, in other words, has adopted the posture of an opposition-research shop masquerading as an official government channel.
Johnson announced in January that he would travel to California "next week" to visit what he called "the fraud capital of the world." His broader case against the state extends beyond social-program waste. The Daily Mail's reporting noted that the Pacific Palisades fire struck roughly 9,000 homes, and only about one-third had started rebuilding to any extent, a data point Johnson folded into his indictment of California governance.
In a follow-up post, Johnson claimed he had received more than 250 emails "from California state employees and public officials with detailed fraud evidence." Whether those tips lead anywhere remains to be seen. But the volume of the claimed response suggests a significant number of people inside California's own government believe there are problems worth exposing.
Johnson framed the stakes in populist terms:
"The American taxpayers are p***ed. We fight for them."
The Grindr post was not a staffer going rogue at 2 a.m. It came from the governor's official press office account. When challenged, the spokesperson didn't apologize or distance the office from the remark. The spokesperson mocked the question. The entire sequence, the insult, the doubling down, the sarcasm about "conservative snowflakes", was deliberate.
Newsom's office wants the story to be about Benny Johnson. About whether his numbers are precise. About whether his tone is too aggressive. That's a convenient deflection.
The real story is simpler. A governor's official communications team used a homophobic insinuation to attack a journalist, then laughed about it when asked for comment. The same office that would demand resignations if the roles were reversed treated the entire episode as a joke.
The California State Auditor's own reports flag billions in programs that lack consistent tracking. A Lexis Nexis analysis points to tens of billions in potential fraudulent payouts. A Republican congresswoman has formally requested a fraud investigation. And the governor's answer to all of it is a Grindr joke and a sneer about snowflakes.
When the people in charge spend more energy attacking the people asking questions than answering them, it tells you everything you need to know about what the answers might look like.
