Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) podcast debuted Thursday, and he made numerous statements in contrast to the Democratic Party and its stances on various issues.
The first episode of This is Gavin Newsom featured Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk in a discussion on how the Democratic Party can win back voters following the 2024 election cycle. The governor addressed numerous topics that his party has tied itself to and the continued rumblings that he is seeking a presidential run in the future.
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Here are five major moments in Newsom’s podcast in which he distanced himself from the Democratic Party.
1. ‘Deeply unfair’ for transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports
One of the biggest takeaways from the podcast was when the California governor spoke out against transgender athletes in women’s sports, describing this as “a matter of fairness.” Newsom said Republicans have been able to “highlight” this issue in recent years and that Democrats need to take a stand with “decency.”
Newsom’s revelation on this topic drew the attention of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, who wrote that the Democratic Party has become “so out of touch” that it has now lost the liberal governor.
2. Trump’s campaign ad on Harris being ‘for they/them’ was tactically smart
President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign aired an ad against Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris ahead of the election in which Harris says she supports providing transgender surgeries to prisoners in California. The ad concluded that Harris “is for they/them,” whereas Trump “is for you.”
Newsom said the ad was “devastating” to Harris’s presidential bid. He added that it was “great” but clarified he was saying this “in political analysis.”
3. Confused about how the term Latinx even originated
The governor also sought to distance himself from the term “Latinx,” saying that “no one person in my office” has used the term. He added that he never knew how the term became popular, asking, “Was it the pronouns?”
4. The defund-the-police movement was ‘lunacy’
The defund-the-police movement gained massive traction in 2020 following the death of George Floyd. However, Newsom rebuked this ideology in his discussion with Kirk, claiming that he never supported the move to defund the police. He specifically called a special election in Minneapolis to no longer have a police department “lunacy.”
5. There should be ‘on principle’ a place for anti-abortion Democratic lawmakers
The topic of abortion was also raised on Newsom’s podcast. The governor said he felt “on principle” that the party should be accepting of lawmakers opposed to abortion access, clarifying that he is still “one of the biggest champions for reproductive freedom.” Kirk said abortion access is widely a “one-stop purity test” for lawmakers within the Democratic Party, as opposed to the Republican Party, which he said is a combination of “modern politics” and “ideological diversity.”
Toward the end of their discussion, Newsom joked that Republicans seem to be obsessed over the possibility of him running for president, comparing it to how some Democrats are accused of having “Trump derangement syndrome.” It comes shortly after Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) has expressed openness to running for president in 2028. Walz was Harris’s running mate in the 2024 election after former President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid.