Jennifer Siebel Newsom—the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom—criticized President Donald Trump after he claimed her husband's dyslexia should disqualify him from being president, calling Trump's comments "extremely ignorant and offensive."
Newsom has frequently spoken about living with dyslexia, a common learning disability that can make reading more difficult and affect spelling and speech. He has said he prefers not to rely on teleprompters because of the condition, and wrote in a recent memoir that, when he was younger, he overcompensated by memorizing “pretentious words.”
Newsom has described himself as a “960 SAT guy” who struggles with reading. According to the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, roughly one in five people has dyslexia.
Just days ago, Trump said that Newsom isn't fit for the presidency because he has a "cognitive deficiency." Trump claimed Newsom "admitted he has mental problems, that he’s not a smart person, that he has a mental lack of ability, he’s unable to read a speech." Trump, with no sense of irony, said, "I'm for everybody, but when it comes to president, you've gotta be sharp."
Later, in a post on Truth Social, he said Newsom "said, in a speech, he was dumb, had low Boards, can’t read, has dyslexia, and has a mental disorder — A Cognitive Mess!" He claimed Newsom is "no longer a viable Presidential Candidate!"
In an Instagram post emphasizing that "Learning differences do not determine someone’s potential, but making fun of those with them certainly does," Siebel Newsom called out the president:
"I just witnessed Donald Trump's comments about learning disabilities and my husband, Gavin Newsom, and I honestly had to take a beat. Suggesting that someone with dyslexia or any learning difference for that matter is somehow less capable of leading or achieving is extremely ignorant and offensive."
"Dyslexia is not a measure of intelligence—in fact, quite the contrary—and learning differences do not determine someone's potential. On the contrary, some of the most successful leaders in business and the world have dyslexia. Day in and day out, Trump says things that make him unfit for office."
"He degrades our vulnerable communities, our institutions, even the Constitution itself, and somehow we're told to ignore it, turn a blind eye, pretend everything is normal. Guess what? It's not and we're fed up. As someone who grew up in a Republican household, shame on the Republican Party for normalizing this vile specimen of a human being stationed at the top of their party."
"There are millions of kids in this country with learning differences who are already working twice as hard to keep up: kids who are trying to believe in themselves. I know this personally. A few of my children learn differently; I see the emotions, the toll, the coping mechanisms, the extra hours, the grit it takes them every single day, and I know they're going to be fabulous."
"Learning differences don't make you less intelligent, they don't make you less capable, and they certainly don't make you less worthy of leadership. They make you special."
She went further, taking Trump to task for his record of criminality and unpresidential behavior:
"And honestly, if we're going to talk about what's disqualifying in a leader, let's talk about that."
"A convicted felon, a man found liable for sexual abuse, a man notorious for degrading female journalists, a man with a track record for bankrupting businesses, a man whose name has shown up thousands of times in the Epstein files, a man who sends masked extremists to terrorize black and brown communities and rip kids away from their families."
"The most corrupt president in our nation's history. Everything that Donald Trump represents is, frankly, beyond disqualifying."
You can hear what she said in the video below.
Siebel Newsom's message resonated.
In a separate post, Newsom made a poignant statement addressed "to every kid with a learning disability":
"To every kid with a learning disability: don’t let anyone — not even the President of the United States — bully you. Dyslexia isn’t a weakness. It’s your strength."
You can see his post below.
Class acts.
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