Gavin Newsom touts knee pads for leaders who've caved to Trump

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is touting knee pads for business, political, and academic leaders who he says have caved to Donald Trump.

Newsom has done so before, but he did again at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The last round of knee pads sold out, just as our law firms are selling out,” he said Thursday in an interview with Ben Smith, editor in chief of the news site Semafor. “Many American universities are selling out, and yes, many corporate leaders are selling out to this administration.”

He then held up a knee pad printed with Trump’s signature. “They’re the new Trump signature series knee pads,” he said.

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Newsom, a contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination and a frequent troller of Trump, was scheduled to speak Wednesday at USA House, a private venue at Davos sponsored by major corporations, including Microsoft and Pfizer, but endorsed by the U.S. government. But his appearance was canceled at the last minute, and he blamed the Trump administration, specifically the State Department. But an organizer at USA House told Politico that a decision had been made to focus on business leaders and not include U.S. elected officials.

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The governor had denounced powerful people’s subservience to Trump — as well as Trump himself — earlier in the four-day forum.

“I can’t take this complicity of people rolling over,” he told U.K. outlet Sky News Tuesday. “I should have brought a bunch of knee pads for all the world leaders. I mean, handing out crowns, the Nobel prizes that are being given away. It’s just pathetic. And I hope people understand how pathetic they look on the world stage.”

In the interview with Smith, Newsom said the Trump administration has been marked by “corruption and graft at a scale we’ve never seen in American history.” He also denounced the administration’s “authoritarian tendencies.”

Related: Trump is pulling America under authoritarian rule, international human rights groups warn

He emphasized that nothing is permanent, however. Trump “will be remembered in years, not decades,” he said.

Newsom’s interview came a day after Trump spoke at the forum, giving a bizarre speech in which he backed off from threats to seize Greenland by military force, claimed the U.S. gained the rights to Greenland after World War II (it didn’t) but "gave it back" to Denmark, and frequently confused Greenland and Iceland. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. Iceland, which is much smaller, is an independent nation.