A former strategist to George W. Bush's presidential campaign led an MSNBC panel into laughter over Fox News hosts who are bewildered by Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D-CA) trolling of President Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters.

For the past week, Newsom's staff has adopted the Trump style of social media, with all-caps posts, finger-pointing, nicknames, and more. Supporters have responded to it with their own trolling, posting scores of AI images of Newsom as a superhero and even in bed with first lady Melania Trump.

"Hey MAGA, am I doing this right?" the posts read, referencing the Trump supporters who helped promote Trump trading cards showing their leader as a war hero, muscled superhero or mythic god.

According to one top Trump ally, the mockery is starting to sting the president.

I have to say," Dowd began, "I love what Gavin Newsom is doing for many different reasons. In the course of this, first of all, the Fox News and the Republicans don't understand what's going on. They can't get a handle on it."

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace cracked up laughing, exclaming, "That's my favorite part of the story! They're like, 'This isn't classy!' Do ya think? It isn't classy? Where have you been for nine years? Under a rock?"

Dowd agreed, noting that Fox simultaneously claims, "This isn't classy. This is horrible. He's a governor. He should be more respectful."

But they then turn around and support it when Trump does it.

"They say those two things simultaneously and they don't understand — it's a complete parody!" laughed Dowd. "It's a complete parody of that and of them and of Donald Trump in this."

He recalled the 2004 campaign with Wallace for Bush and the press asking who would win. Dowd told them at the time to look at each campaign and see who was having the most fun.

He said that Democrats take policy very seriously, "but sometimes they take themselves too seriously. They don't understand that voters want to laugh at this. And if you're laughing at a politician, you're winning. If you can get voters to laugh at somebody else, you're winning in the course of this. And that's, I think, the cultural moment that we're in is how do you relate to where people are?"

Amid the fear, anxiety, and economic turmoil, Newsom led Democrats to point and laugh again.

See the clip below or at the link here.

- YouTube youtu.be