Calif. Gov. Newsom Proposes 100% Tax on Trump ‘Anti-Weaponization’ Payouts California’s latest clash with Washington pits a blue-state governor’s moral stand against a red-tinged federal payout scheme, with both sides accusing the other of abusing power.

Gavin Newsom’s proposal to impose a 100% state tax on any Californian receiving money from Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” is framed by liberals as a defensive move against a politicized slush fund. The Guardian describes the fund, created via a settlement in Trump’s lawsuit over leaked tax returns, as a “boondoggle” critics say is “designed to divert money to Trump’s allies,” potentially including January 6 rioters. Newsom argues that “people who assault cops and overthrow democracy don’t deserve a taxpayer-funded payday,” positioning the tax as a way to neutralize what he casts as federal impunity payments.

Conservative outlets flip the script, portraying the fund as redress for “Americans targeted by politically motivated government abuse and weaponized prosecutions,” and Newsom as the real abuser of power. The Gateway Pundit calls his plan an “outrageous” scheme by a “far-left governor” to “claw back every penny” that Californians might receive from Trump’s effort to compensate alleged victims of the “weaponized deep state and lawfare machine.”

At the center is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose five-word put-down — “There’s no cure for STUPID” — aimed at Newsom’s tax proposal has been cast by conservative media as a “NUKE” that “destroyed” the governor’s argument. The more traditional conservative Washington Examiner similarly highlights Bessent’s rebuke while noting bipartisan discomfort with the fund itself, including legislation from both a Republican and a Democrat to kill it.

The result is an unusual alignment: critics on both left and right mistrust Trump’s fund, but they split sharply over whether Newsom’s 100% tax is a principled firewall against extremism—or a punitive, performative overreach that weaponizes state tax power in the name of fighting “weaponization.”