California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) was left visibly rattled during a sit-down with ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl on Wednesday after the journalist confronted him with viral meme comparisons between himself and American Psycho villain Patrick Bateman.
The ranging one-on-one interview at San Francisco City Hall rounded off with questions about the Democrat’s potential future presidential ambitions, which Newsom downplayed but didn’t write off, when Karl suddenly produced print-outs of memes depicting Newsom as the fictional manic 1980s Wall Street killer.
“What do you make of all the Patrick Bateman talk?” Karl asked.
“I don’t know, but—” Newsom stuttered, before Karl pressed: “People say that you are like American Psycho.”
“Jesus, yeah, like I said, ‘Newscum,’ I mean—” Newsom replied, half-laughing and tagging the memes to President Donald Trump’s nickname for him.
“But even your friends, like, say that,” Karl added.
“Oh, do they?” the governor quipped. “I’m gonna re-evaluate my guest list.”
Karl then read a line from a comedian describing Newsom as “a literal comic book villain from central casting” then another – “Patrick Bateman vibes” – and a further jab for luck: “‘He definitely had someone killed or may have killed someone himself.’”
“I’m glad I still have some humor left,” Newsom said, turning serious. “This is a rough business. Particularly if you’re willing to fight. And I just hope we have more fighters… I have no problem being out there with the arrows in my back, as long as it gives some space for people to run over me and move forward.”
In a “lightning round” moments later Karl asked what the biggest misconception about him was.
Newsom sighed, pointing to the meme print outs scattered on the table: “I think some of this, you know, some of the Bateman, the looks, you know, the whole thing… All that, and so I think people then see that, believe certain things. The hair, all that, you know? All that, and so I think people then see that, believe certain things.”
Pressed by Karl on whether the take meant Newsom believed that people see him as “style over substance,” the Democrat agreed.
“Just a little more style versus the substance, and I put the substance in terms of the policy making up against it. I mean that, and that’s not braggadocious. I really believe that. I’m really proud of the work, the policy work we’ve done,” he said.
Watch above via ABC News.
The post ‘Patrick Bateman Vibes’: ABC’s Jon Karl Stuns Gavin Newsom by Revealing His Own Friends Compare Him to the ‘American Psycho’ first appeared on Mediaite.
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