California Gov. Gavin Newsom tried to pin soaring housing costs on President Trump this week, but the chart he posted to make his case actually shows the sharpest run-up happened under President Biden.
Newsom, seen as a likely 2028 Democratic contender, shared a post on X reporting that U.S. homes are “now the most unaffordable in history,” attaching a graph tracking the income needed to qualify for a median-priced home from 2005 through 2026. His caption: “Great work, @realDonaldTrump!”
The problem for Newsom is what the chart itself shows. While affordability did reach its worst point during Trump’s current term, the graph reveals a substantial jump in the income needed to buy a home between 2021 and 2024 — the years Biden was in the White House.
The backlash on X was immediate. The Libs of TikTok account asked directly: “Hey @GavinNewsom, who was president during the biggest uptick in home unaffordability?”
Meteorologist Chris Martz put it more bluntly: “Evidently, @GavinNewsom doesn’t know how to read graphs. Housing prices skyrocketed under Joe Biden’s presidency.”
OutKick writer Ian Miller turned the criticism back on Newsom’s own record, noting that “California is the most unaffordable state in the country to buy a house, and it’s only gotten worse since Gavin Newsom took over. And no one in the media will call him out for saying this.”
California Post opinion editor Joel Pollak added that Newsom “would be ashamed if they broke it down by state.” Actor Doug Davidson wrote, “Gavin, I guess you can’t read a graph. The biggest spike was before DJT took office.” Author Jens Heycke went further, calling it “a level of numeric and economic illiteracy” he described as “disqualifying” for a presidential aspirant.
The episode drew comparisons to a since-deleted post from the official Democratic Party account, which had claimed U.S. grocery prices hit record highs in 2025. That chart, too, was found to show prices actually spiking in 2021 under Biden and only leveling off after Trump’s re-election.
Fox News Digital said it reached out to Newsom’s office for comment but had not received a response.
The post came as Newsom has pushed his own housing agenda in California. In 2025 he signed a housing package exempting certain projects from the California Environmental Quality Act and streamlining environmental review for qualifying housing and infrastructure. In July, he signed additional reforms aimed at speeding up affordable-housing financing and project reviews.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle used the moment to contrast Trump’s record with Newsom’s. “Unlike incompetent Governor Gavin Newscum, President Trump has been laser-focused on making housing more affordable,” Ingle told Fox News Digital, pointing to an executive order barring large Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes, a directive for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds, and deregulatory moves he said were speeding up construction and cutting costs.
“The president will not stop fighting until the American dream of homeownership is within reach for every American,” Ingle said, adding that Trump “continues to sign bold new executive orders and calls on Congress to pass further legislation.”
