People took to X, the website formerly known as Twitter, to superimpose his photo on different backgrounds: homeless encampments, workers in a mine, the oval office. “The new Ann Getty’s rug,” cracked one commentator, referencing the infamous 2004 Harper’s Bazaar spread where Newsom and then-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle — dubbed “The New Kennedys” — lay together on the floor of an ornate room in Ann Getty’s mansion. (“One of the most glamorous political unions since Jack and Jackie,” the article gushed of the then-San Francisco mayor and his spouse.)

In politics, a photo tells a story more so than anything else. The Great Wall photo elicited a lot of eye rolls, but it was far from the most important image to come out of Newsom’s one-week trip to China. That would be the photo of him shaking hands with Xi — a political feat at a time of geopolitical tension that would be nearly impossible for any other governor, and hard for even national leaders, to land.

Newsom’s trip was billed primarily as an opportunity to advance international cooperation on climate change. But as he met with Xi and other high ranking Chinese officials, it was also an opportunity for the Democrat to burnish his presidential bonafides, as well as California’s place as a leader on the global stage. The governor dances around his presidential ambitions, but the carefully curated images on this trip were as clear a sign as any that he’s eyeing a run at the White House in ‘28. In China, he was photographed in plenty of dry meetings, including the one with Xi, looking the picture of a statesman.

[DIS guy and his ego – holy smokes. ~ Beege]