Gavin Newsom Uses Effie Trinket Meme to Take Swipe at Karoline Leavitt

California Governor Gavin Newsom marked Labor Day in his own signature style by firing off another mocking meme, this time targeting White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The 28-year-old former Trump aide was depicted as Effie Trinket, the gaudy and obedient mouthpiece of President Snow in the Hunger Games films.

The post, shared by Newsom’s press office on X, showed Leavitt clutching a sign reading “Happy Labor Day,” with the caption “KAROLYIN’ LEAVITT says Happy Labor Day!” The comparison was clear. Effie Trinket is a servant of the Hunger Games’ despotic regime, and the meme seemed to draw a line between the Biden administration and the dystopian Capitol of Suzanne Collins’s hit novels.

For those less familiar with the franchise, Effie is portrayed by Elizabeth Banks in the films. Her role is to keep up appearances while young people are forced to fight to the death for food and survival.

The games themselves act as both spectacle for the pampered elite and a reminder of violent control over the wider population. By casting Leavitt in this role, Newsom’s office painted a stark picture of how they see the current White House.

This latest jab is part of Newsom’s wider social media offensive. Over the past month, his posts from both his personal and press accounts have leaned heavily into parody, adopting the all-caps bluster of Donald Trump’s online style.

He has said the strategy is designed to “hold a mirror to MAGA” by using their own language against them, often tongue-in-cheek referring to himself as “America’s favourite governor.”

Fox News has accused him of cheap trolling, though even some critics admit the tactic is working. On The Five, co-host Jessica Tarlov conceded that the memes are effective in exposing what Newsom calls hypocrisy inside the Trump orbit.

The Hunger Games dig was not the only pop culture reference Newsom’s team rolled out this Labor Day. They also posted an image of Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series, with the caption likening Trump adviser Stephen Miller to the dark wizard played by Ralph Fiennes. It is not the first time Newsom’s press office has used Voldemort as a punchline aimed at Miller.

Newsom’s tone was even harsher in an earlier post that day, writing: “HAPPY LABOR DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT IS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY WITH A SICK WARPED RADICAL MIND.” It was another direct imitation of Trump’s online rants, pushed deliberately over the top to hammer home the parody.

Leavitt herself has been rising in Trump’s camp. She joined his 2024 campaign and quickly became one of his most visible defenders. Trump himself has praised her in characteristically flamboyant fashion. “It’s that face. It’s that brain. It’s those lips, the way they move. They move like she’s a machine gun,” he said last month when asked what he liked most about her work.

Whether people see it as clever satire or juvenile trolling, Newsom’s meme war shows no signs of slowing down. With each reference, from Hogwarts to Panem, the governor seems determined to keep drawing attention by ridiculing Trump-world figures on the internet stage.