Newsome Plays Nice
California’s Gavin Newsom asks Charlie Kirk how to win.
California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to be president. That fact was never made clearer than during the debut of his podcast This Is Gavin Newsom this week, which featured as its first guest the MAGA-whisperer Charlie Kirk. In that conversation, of which short viral clips have been released to the internet Thursday morning, Newsom marvels at his son’s fondness for Kirk, going as far to credit the 31-year old TPUSA founder with “making a damn dent” among the youth. And then Newsom took things a step further.
“Charlie Kirk, give us some advice,” he asked.
Kirk grinned from ear to ear: “Get better ideas, governor.”
It was an odd pairing considering the first result you receive on YouTube when searching Newsom and Kirk’s name together is a nine-minute video from Kirk published only a month ago titled “Newsom Hates Trump so Much, He Let California Burn.” Though Kirk framed this week’s the interview as his opportunity to challenge the governor ideologically and Newsom framed the interview as an opportunity to understand the “other,” the unusual meeting of two men deeply at odds with one another screamed of a ratings coup for Kirk and raw political ambition for the man many believe has his eyes squarely on the White House.
On 𝕏, core MAGA were gobsmacked, accusing Kirk of “helping the enemy.”
The left hated it too, with its own social media army wondering why Newsom had spent “a workday on a Tuesday afternoon” talking with a man many regard as the ultimate foe. The tabloid printers loved it. Across the pond, Kirk’s talk with Newsom led headlines at the Daily Mail, which characterized the discussion as Newsom splitting with the California left. And to be fair to the Mail, there was a kicker quote amid the friendly chat worth highlighting—Newsom’s surprising admittance that transgender men in women’s sports is a “deeply unfair” issue, although I doubt Newsom’s office would agree with the headline suggesting he “condemns” transgender athletes.
When Kirk challenged Newsom to directly call out A.B. Hernandez, a transgender athlete winning top prizes in the women’s long jump and triple jump in California, Newsom tried to find a middle ground.
“I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that,” Newsom said before pivoting back to liberal humanism. “There’s also a humility and a grace, that these poor people are more likely to commit suicide, to have anxiety and depression. And the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with as well. So, both things I can hold in my hand. How can we address this issue with the kind of decency that is inherent in you but not always expressed.”
Referring to a transgender athlete that is dominating women’s sports as “poor people” and “vulnerable communities” isn’t the sort of outright condemnation the Mail suggested with its clickbait headline. It was surprising, too, to see POLITICO claim Newsom had “broke” with Democrats on trans athletes in sports. After all, Gallup polling has noted a marked shift among Democrat voters, who are essentially split on the subject. In 2021, 55 percent of Democrat voters believed transgender athletes should be permitted to “play on teams that match their identity.” Only two years later, that number had fallen steeply to 47 percent. Who knows how much further that number has fallen as story after story highlighting the unlevel playing field between transgender women and biological women are printed into the mainstream.
There was a deeper nuance to Newsom’s answer: his eyes are fixed firmly on the golden Oval Office ticket in 2028. This will be the message that sparks his campaign, a different sort of Democratic campaign—an admittance that transgender athletes dominating women’s sports isn’t fair but that Americans should also show a proper amount of grace when admitting such things.
Grace has never been at the forefront of the MAGA right. Bullish, tectonic, aggressive, and aggrieved are the key characteristics that launched figures such as Trump and Kirk into the stratosphere and ignited a political earthquake the likes of which are rarely seen in the American experiment. Newsom is unlikely to ever win the support of those voters, but there are likely millions of Trump-adjacent, common-sense voters in the Heartland who will be ready to do away with the political chaos permitting from Washington and into their own social lives at the ground level by the near-end of the decade.
Though Newsom has governed over multiple scandals during his time as California’s top man, he is sharp enough to recognize the headwinds on this touchstone cultural issue. If he plays his cards right, Newsom could be the one to walk such a tightrope. Following the Kirk interview, POLITICO reported Friday morning that “senior officials in Newsom’s administration discouraged Democrats from introducing transgender rights legislation weeks before the governor publicly split with his party on trans athletes.” The track is being laid.
Although he is despised by the MAGA right wing and his 2028 numbers lag behind the frontrunner Kamala Harris, the Democrat roster is woefully thin heading into the next presidential election. And for all of Newsom’s faults, and there are many, he is one of the few Democrats displaying a willingness to mix it up with the “deplorables,” as evidenced by his Kirk stunt. Early polling finds Harris, who is “seriously considering” a run for California governor, miles ahead of the presidential field with the former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and the former Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz far, far behind. Things look so desperate at this early stage in the next cycle that the ESPN shouter Stephen A. Smith is appearing on The View to tamp down expectations he will float his name for the nomination.
All of it lines up well for a man who has made clear his intentions to seek the highest office in the land. Whether voters will believe the sincerity of arguably the greatest snake oil salesman in the Democrat party is another question altogether.
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