MLB’s Tommy Pham slams California Gov. Newsom over SAT score remarks
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MLB free agent Tommy Pham addressed recent comments by California Gov. Gavin Newsom about SAT scores during an event in Georgia.
In a post on his Instagram story Wednesday, Pham shared a screenshot of the clip of Newsom telling a crowd, “I’m like you, I’m a 960 SAT guy. I can’t read.”
Pham accused Newsom of thinking Black people are “dumb.”
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“I can’t relate I was a straight A student and scored well on my SAT he thinks black [people] are dumb,” Pham wrote.
Newsom’s original comments prompted widespread criticism on social media, and some assumed his comments had racial undertones.
“I’m not trying to impress you,” Newsom said while chatting with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens. “I’m just trying to impress upon you, ‘I’m like you. I’m not better than you.’ I’m a 960 SAT guy.”
In another story, Pham reshared a screenshot of a clip of Newsom speaking on his podcast to journalist Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes about their 230-page book “Fight.” Newsom claimed he finished the whole book in under 2½ hours.
US News Hub Digital has reached out to Newsom’s office for a response.
“You’ve written a hell of a book, and I don’t say that lightly. And a quick hour and a half, almost two hours. And, trust me, I don’t ready very fast, but it reads at an unbelievable pace,” Newsom told the journalists, both White.
A clip of that quote has resurfaced in recent days, and many critics pointed out the contrast between Newsom’s comments about his reading skills there compared to his discussion with Dickens.
Newsom defended himself in a post on X Monday, making the case he was strictly talking about his dyslexia.
“First MAGA mocked his dyslexia, and now they’re calling him racist for talking about his low SAT scores,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon told US News Hub Digital in response to criticism of the clip.
“This is MAGA-manufactured outrage. The governor has said this publicly for years — including with Charlie Kirk and dozens of other audiences. The same people who excused or ignored Trump’s racist ape video can go f— themselves.”
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Many have defended Newsom on social media, pointing to his dyslexia, and Mayor Dickens responded to the controversy in an Instagram post, saying, “That wasn’t an attack on anyone. It was a moment of vulnerability about his own journey.”
“Trying to blame this on dyslexia is something that is completely separate from what he intended to say,” Rankin said. “He truly believes that Black people, black Americans, are intellectually inferior. That is where his comments were coming from.”
US News Hub Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
