Claim:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he’s sending knee pads to CEOs, universities and Republicans who were “bending the knee” to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Rating:
A video of California Gov. Gavin Newsom apparently saying he would send knee pads to people and organizations like CEOs, universities and Republicans who were “bending the knee” to Trump circulated on social media in late October 2025. Social media users posted the video on sites like Instagram (archived) and Facebook (archived). One X post (archived) of the video received over 70,000 views.
Newsom: You’ll be seeing on my Patriot site new knee pads that I’ll be sending out—the signature-series knee pads—for all these CEOs and media companies… pic.twitter.com/B7XKKZQgWH
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 23, 2025
The clip of Newsom saying the quote was said to come from a press event held during the three-day “2025 California Economic Summit” that took place in Stockton from Oct. 21 to Oct. 23, 2025. The annual summit featured several speakers, including Newsom, on Oct. 22. Newsom posted the clip to his official X account (archived) with the following caption:
COMING SOON — NEW KNEE PADS FOR ALL CEO’s, UNIVERSITIES, AND GOP BENDING THE KNEE TO DONALD TRUMP. YOUR KNEES LOOK VERY SORE FROM ALL YOUR GROVELING. THEY WILL EVEN BE SIGNED BY YOUR DEAR LEADER SINCE YOU LOVE HIM SO MUCH! YOU ARE WELCOME!!!!Â
He also shared a full video of the press event on his official YouTube channel (archived). As such, we have rated the claim as a correct attribution.
The quote that circulated appeared around the 22:54 mark of the video posted on Newsom’s YouTube channel.
Put into its full context, it read as follows:
You’ll have Laura Ingraham on Fox News say, “Well done sir” [to Donald Trump]. Why is Laura going to even be more supine? Well, because she’s in business with Don Jr., with a guy who’s in business with David Sacks on a new SPAC [special-purpose acquisition company] business. Chamath [Palihapitiya], who’s a partner with David Sacks. David Sacks who runs all the AI [artificial intelligence]. Laura Ingraham now has a SPAC business. Imagine what your boss would say if you started to do business with me? That’s allowed. And she gets to be their spokesperson on the Pravda network, Fox, Prime Time. This great grift, unprecedented in modern history. Billions and billions of dollars. The great grift; state capitalism, not just crony capitalism. Ask Intel. Ask MP Materials. Ask folks at U.S. Steel. Ask the folks at AMD. Ask the folks at Nvidia. The hell is going on in this country? None of this is normal. You will be seeing on my patriot site, new knee pads that I’ll be sending out – new signature series knee pads for all these CEOs, for the University of Virginia that I’ll add to the list today, for bending their knee. For those law firms, the universities, media companies as this guy [Trump] is rolling back, you know, rewriting history, putting us back to a pre-1960s world, censoring historic facts. Wake up everybody. Wake up.
The “patriot site” Newsom mentioned seemed to refer to his online store, the “Patriot Shop.” As of this writing, the signed knee pads were not yet available for purchase on the website.
For further reading, Snopes investigated the authenticity of an image that Newsom’s press office posted of Trump with an abnormally puffy face.
