Screenshots via This Is Gavin Newsom (L)/Steve Bannon’s War Room (R)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) argued Monday that the backlash to his podcast interviews with MAGA influencers like Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk is “Exhibit A” of his own party’s problems.
Newsom spoke with Amie Parnes for The Hill this week and admitted that the response to his podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom, has been “more bumpy” than he originally anticipated.
“I’m being tested by it, because the reaction has been a little more bumpy than I even anticipated,” he said.
Newsom, who will be leaving office in 2026 and is seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said backlash from fellow Democrats to his discussions with Bannon, Kirk, and others shows an “unwillingness to engage.” Newsom has argued that his podcast is an attempt to engage the other side of the political aisle to find common ground in politically and culturally divisive times.
“The reaction when I had Charlie Kirk and Bannon on was exactly to me exhibit A of what I feel is wrong right now with my party: an unwillingness to even engage and platform, to listen,” he said.
The governor added that people should be more willing to “absorb” the success people like Bannon and Kirk have had in engaging voters and winning elections.
“Maybe we should pay attention and at least express a desire to absorb and learn from what they’re doing and how successful they’ve been,” he said.
Newsom accused the Democratic Party of avoiding a “forensic” breakdown of how they lost the presidential election in 2024, admitting he doesn’t “know what the party is” today.
“We have not done a forensic of what just went wrong, period, full stop,” he said. “I don’t think it, I know it. I mean, to the extent that I’m marginally part of this party, I represent the state larger than 21 state populations combined, and I can assure you there’s not been a party discussion that I’m aware of that has included the state of California.”
