By John Wagner | The Washington Post

President Donald Trump and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, traded insults Thursday night, with both calling the other a clown.

Amid a raucous rally in Las Vegas, the Republican president referred to Newsom, who’s running for governor, during a rant about Democrats and illegal immigration.

“Democrats want to give welfare and free health care to illegal aliens,” Trump said. “How about this clown in California who’s running for governor? He wants open borders and then he wants to give them health care, education, everything.”

Newsom shot back in a tweet that began, “lol, hi @realDonaldTrump.”

“Interesting description coming from the guy who is literally locking up kids like Pennywise,” he wrote, referring to Trump’s zero-tolerance policy at the border that led to migrant family separations.

lol, hi @realDonaldTrump. 🤡 Interesting description coming from the guy who is literally locking up kids like Pennywise. pic.twitter.com/bt49kyGk9Z — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 21, 2018

Pennywise is the terrifying clown in Stephen King’s “It,” who preys upon the children of Derry, Maine, roughly every 27 years.

Newsom attached a video clip of Trump calling him a clown to his tweet.

He is the not the first California politician insulted by Trump.

In March, during his first trip to the state as president, Trump said Brown is a “nice guy” but doing a “terrible job.”

“I think Governor Brown does a very poor job running California,” Trump said as he toured eight prototypes for his long-promised border wall at a site southeast of downtown San Diego. “They have the highest taxes in the United States. The place is totally out of control. You have sanctuary cities where you have criminals living in the sanctuary cities.”