California GOP chairwoman torches Newsom over viral Atlanta clip: 'He truly believes Black people are intellectually inferior'

Corrin Rankin, the first Black chair of the California Republican Party in history, is calling out Gov. Gavin Newsom after a clip of him telling an Atlanta audience he's "like you" before citing his poor SAT score and inability to read went viral, racking up more than 40 million views on X.

"I think he just tanked himself yesterday," Rankin told Fox News Digital.

The clip, posted Sunday by the conservative influencer account End Wokeness, showed Newsom at a book tour stop for his memoir, "Young Man in a Hurry," at Atlanta's Rialto Center for the Arts. Seated alongside Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, Newsom told the audience he's "like you" and explained that he scored a 960 on his SAT and has trouble reading. Critics across the political spectrum called the remarks "racist," viewing them as the governor of California telling a predominantly Black audience that his low test scores and reading difficulties made him relatable to them.

Rankin doesn't buy the dyslexia defense

Newsom defended himself on X Monday, making the case that he was strictly discussing his dyslexia. His spokesperson, Izzy Gardon, dismissed the backlash as "MAGA-manufactured outrage," telling Fox News Digital that the governor "has said this publicly for years, including with Charlie Kirk and dozens of other audiences."

Rankin wasn't having it.

"Trying to blame this on dyslexia is something that is completely separate from what he intended to say. He truly believes that Black people, black Americans, are intellectually inferior. That is where his comments were coming from."

The dyslexia defense has a fundamental problem: Newsom didn't mention dyslexia in the clip. He mentioned his SAT score. He mentioned not being able to read a speech. And he directed all of it at a Black mayor in front of a Black audience with the framing "I'm like you." Whatever Newsom's medical history, the rhetorical choice he made in that room was to equate low academic performance with the people sitting in front of him. Dyslexia explains the score. It does not explain the audience selection.

A pattern, not a gaffe

Rankin sees the Atlanta moment as part of something larger. Just last week, she called Newsom out on social media after he suggested on his podcast that Black people have difficulty obtaining passports, a claim he made while opposing the SAVE Act's requirement that voters prove citizenship to register.

That comment sits alongside Sen. Chuck Schumer's repeated characterization of federal voter ID legislation as "Jim Crow 2.0." Democrats have faced growing criticism in recent weeks for opposing the SAVE Act, which would require photo ID at the polls and proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Rankin connected the dots between the voter ID fight and Newsom's Atlanta remarks, and the thread she pulled is damning. The same political movement that insists Black Americans cannot obtain a passport, cannot locate a birth certificate, and cannot navigate basic identification requirements now has its leading presidential prospect telling a Black audience that his inability to read makes him one of them.

"It should start ringing hollow, especially, you know what's Jim Crow? Thinking that Black people are intellectually inferior, that's the mindset that contributed to Jim Crow."

She's right. The original Jim Crow regime was built on the premise that Black Americans were less capable, less intelligent, and less deserving of full participation in civic life. When modern Democrats argue that voter ID is too burdensome for Black citizens, or when a governor equates low test scores with Blackness, they are trafficking in the same underlying assumption. They just dress it in compassion.

The 2028 problem

Newsom is widely believed to have White House ambitions for 2028, and this book tour through states like Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina looks a lot like early primary groundwork. Rankin sees the Atlanta clip as a fatal wound to that campaign before it even launches.

"You can't go around and say that a segment of your state is intellectually inferior and think you're gonna represent Americans. It's never gonna happen. This is gonna haunt him for the rest of his career and any potential career he thinks he's going to have."

South Carolina, where nearly 60 percent of Democratic primary voters are Black, would be the first real test of a Newsom candidacy. That's the state where Bernie Sanders's campaign went to die, twice, because he could not connect with Black voters. Newsom now has to introduce himself to that electorate with 40 million views of him suggesting that being unable to read is what they have in common.

Mayor Dickens attempted damage control via Instagram, writing that Newsom's remarks were "a moment of vulnerability about his own journey." The problem with that framing is simple: nobody disputes that Newsom was being vulnerable about himself. The question is why he thought that particular vulnerability would resonate with that particular audience.

The soft bigotry with a familiar face

There is a specific kind of condescension that progressive politicians reserve for Black audiences. It involves lowering the bar, performing relatability through deficiency, and assuming that the path to connection runs through shared limitation rather than shared aspiration. Newsom walked into a room full of people who showed up on a Sunday evening to hear a governor speak about his memoir, and his instinct was to bond with them over how poorly he performed in school.

Gardon's statement included a profane dismissal of critics, telling Fox News Digital that "the same people who excused or ignored Trump's racist ape video can go f--- themselves." That's not a defense of Newsom's words. It's a deflection. The question is not what other people have said or done. The question is what Gavin Newsom said, in a room, on camera, to a Black audience, and what it reveals about how he views them.

Rankin landed her closing argument with the restraint of someone who knows the facts are doing the work for her:

"It's a lie, we all know it's lie, and the fact that anyone especially and including the governor of California to perpetuate that lie. And that false narrative, it's beyond insulting. And honestly, he should be embarrassed."

Forty million people watched Gavin Newsom tell a Black audience that not being able to read makes him just like them. His spokesperson's response was to swear at the people who noticed. The first Black chairwoman of the California GOP called it what it was. And somewhere, a 2028 campaign that hasn't officially started yet just got a lot harder to run.