Scott Bessent slaps down Newsom at Davos: 'He's here with his billionaire sugar daddy, Alex Soros'

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a rhetorical beatdown against Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Newsom is trying to expand his national and global profile for the sake of a possible presidential campaign in 2028 and used the forum to criticize President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Bessent issued a strong rebuke of the Democrat.

'Shame on him. He is too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know anything.'

"I think it's very, very ironic that Governor Newsom — who strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken — may be the only Californian who knows less about economics than Kamala Harris," said Bessent.

"He's here this week with his billionaire sugar daddy, Alex Soros. And Davos is the perfect place for a man who, when everyone else was on lockdown, when he was having people arrested for going to church, he was having thousand-dollar-a-night meals at the French Laundry [restaurant]," he added.

"My message to Governor Newsom," Bessent said, "is the Trump administration is coming to California, we are going to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse."

He went on to list California's problems, including homelessness, the mass exodus of residents, a massive budget deficit, and continued fallout from the devastating Palisades fire a year ago.

"Shame on him. He is too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know anything," he concluded.

"Let me know if you need any further clarification!" he added.

RELATED: Scott Bessent has joined the effort to uncover funders of Antifa violence, White House says

President Donald Trump also spoke at Davos and defended his campaign to annex Greenland while touting the state of the economy under his leadership.

"Greenland is a vast, almost entirely uninhabited and undeveloped territory. It is sitting undefended in a key strategic location between the U.S., Russia, and China," said the president.

"It is a core national security interest of the U.S. — and in fact, has been our policy for hundreds of years to prevent outside threats from entering our hemisphere," Trump added.

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