Gavin Newsom broke his silence on whether he’ll run for president.
By that, I mean that the California governor has yet again concocted a unique sequence of words which neither deny nor confirm what his future holds, even as he continues to present himself as more moderate yet combative than he’s ever been.
“I’m looking forward to who presents themselves in 2028, and who meets that moment,” Newsom said on (opens in new tab)CBS Sunday Morning (opens in new tab).
The former San Francisco mayor, when pushed, said his decision will likely not come until after the midterms — a battle that has already started with Proposition 50. If passed next month, the law would match the redrawing of Texas’s congressional districts, and, in Newsom’s words, save “the future of the republic.”
“If you have a Speaker [Mike] Johnson, we may have a third term of President Trump,” he said.
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Newsom also, as he is wont to do, took the opportunity in Sunday’s interview to roast Trump.
“He’s an invasive species for the country — for the world,” he said.
The comments track with Newsom’s rebranding since Trump took office.
In that time, the governor has started his own podcast, where he’s hosted conservative figures including Newt Gingrich and Sean Spicer, all while consistently mocking MAGA on social media, deploying memes, AI art, all-caps text, old Ronald Reagan clips, and fake advertisements for kneepads for CEOs that have groveled to Trump.
In so doing, the governor has positioned himself as a more confrontational adversary than the last three Democratic candidates to run against Trump.
He’s also placed himself in the center of America … which is the kind of thing you would do if you wanted to win Arizona and North Carolina in a national election. (In July, Newsom visited South Carolina for two days just to show Democrats could “spend time (opens in new tab)” in red states).
Newsom’s middle-of-the-road approach has included not just holding conversations across the aisle, but tiptoeing to the other side of the culture war in an attempt to make up for shortcomings in the Democratic coalition.
For example, it’s clear Newsom is aware that 12% more (opens in new tab)young men ages 18 to 29 voted for (opens in new tab) Trump in 2024 compared to 2020. He made a point to tell CBS that a “masculinity crisis” is among the country’s most concerning trends months after (opens in new tab)admitting to Charlie Kirk (opens in new tab) that Democrats were losing voters on trans issues at the start of the year.
Other potential Democratic presidential candidates, like former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker or former Vice President Kamala Harris, haven’t confirmed or denied their aspirations for the oval office. After all, we are three years out.
Still, in a book talk earlier this month in SF, Harris reiterated her devotion to politics, and all but said she wasn’t given a fair shot due to the brevity of her campaign.
“We needed more time,” she said of the 107 days between the election and when Joe Biden withdrew from the race.
Sunday’s CBS interview was just Newsom’s latest stop on his media tour, which has taken him to every brand of podcast, including “All The Smoke,” hosted by Golden State Warriors legends Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes.
Wherever he goes, the California man is sure to appeal to the masses.
“It’s not about Democrats or Republicans,” Newsom said on “All the Smoke,” which was released Saturday. “It’s about who we are.”