Fox News published the taxpayer-funded salary of Gov. Gavin Newsom's communications director, Isaac "Izzy" Gardon, after he told a national correspondent to "fuck off" on social media for asking a routine verification question about the governor's dyslexia diagnosis.
Gardon earned $212,154.02 in 2024 as a senior assistant and communications director in Newsom's office. In 2019, he was making around $30,000 per year as an administrative assistant.
California taxpayers might reasonably wonder what kind of professionalism that seven-fold raise purchased.
Susan Crabtree, the Real Clear Politics national correspondent and White House beat reporter, asked Gardon earlier this week for verification on Newsom's childhood disability diagnosis. She asked for paperwork on the dyslexia diagnosis. A standard journalistic request. The kind reporters make every day.
Gardon's response, posted publicly on X:
"Hey Susan — thanks for reaching out. Respectfully, fuck off."
When pressed, Gardon escalated. He told the outlet that "Susan (Crabtree) is not a journalist" and called her "a MAGA blogger who writes about conspiracy theories."
Crabtree is a longtime Washington reporter. About a year ago, Breitbart News reported that she co-authored a book with fellow investigative reporter Jedd McFatter from the Government Accountability Institute. The book, according to that reporting, "exposes the corruption of California's leading Democratic lights," including Newsom, Sen. Adam Schiff, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
So the real offense wasn't the question. It was who was asking it, and what she'd written before.
This wasn't Gardon's first public outburst. Earlier this month, he referred to rapper and MAGA activist Nicki Minaj as a "stupid hoe" on X. He defended the post by claiming he was echoing her 2012 tune called "Stupid Hoe."
The response appeared to be in line with the office's broader approach. According to Fox Digital, Newsom's press office has matched the White House's pointed social media posts targeting Democrats with similarly hostile posts targeting Trump and Republicans. The combative tone isn't accidental. It's strategy.
But strategy has limits. When your $212,000-a-year communications director is publicly telling credentialed reporters to "fuck off" and calling female public figures slurs, you're not running a comms shop. You're running a troll farm on the public dime.
Garry Tan, the Silicon Valley Y Combinator CEO described as a moderate Democrat, publicly disagreed with those who praised Gardon's combative style. His assessment on X was blunt:
"Most unprofessional person to ever work in politics."
"Izzy Gardon brings shame to the Newsom campaign."
Tan is no conservative provocateur. He has reportedly spent nearly half a million dollars on local San Francisco politics and has pumped the allowable maximum of $78,400 into San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan's run for governor. When a well-funded California Democrat calls your communications director the most unprofessional person in politics, the problem isn't partisan framing. The problem is your communications director.
The exchange traces back to Newsom's book tour this month. When Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens asked what Newsom hoped readers would take away from his dyslexia diagnosis, Newsom said:
"I'm like you. I'm no better than you. You know, I'm a 960 SAT guy."
Newsom was criticized online and by Fox evening hosts, with some arguing he was implying Black Americans could not read well and was pandering to the Black community. Whether or not that criticism was fair, the underlying dynamic is familiar: Newsom presents himself as an everyman while governing like a coastal aristocrat, and his staff responds to any scrutiny by torching the questioner.
Crabtree's request for documentation on the diagnosis was journalism. Verify a claim. Ask for records. That is what reporters do. Gardon treated it like an attack because, in the Newsom operation, scrutiny from the wrong people is always treated as an attack.
Consider the trajectory. In 2019, Gardon was an administrative assistant earning $30,000. Five years later, he pulled in over $212,000 in total compensation. His public conduct during that time includes:
In the private sector, any one of those would trigger a meeting with HR. In Newsom's California, it earns you a raise and a title upgrade.
This is what happens when political operations stop distinguishing between communications and combat. The job of a governor's communications director is to communicate, to represent the office to the press and the public with some baseline of professionalism. Gardon's approach isn't just unprofessional. It reveals how Newsom's operation views accountability itself: as a threat to be neutralized, not a function to be served.
California taxpayers are funding every dollar of it.