Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is blowing past warnings about dialing down the rhetoric following the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk and is back to casting President Donald Trump and his allies as threats to the future of the country.
Newsom, who is in the middle of a high-profile redistricting fight with national consequences, said Tuesday if he didn’t win, “we’ll lose this republic, we’ll lose this democracy.”
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“It is not an overstatement,” he said during a livestream that included Democratic Party leaders and online influencers. “This is Code Red. We all need to wake up to what’s going on.”
The lineup of liberal luminaries included hosts from the Pod Save America and MediasTouch podcasts and YouTuber Brian Taylor Cohen. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) were also in attendance. Actors Martin Sheen, who played President Josiah Bartlet, and Dule Hill, who played Bartlet’s personal aide on “The West Wing,” were also in attendance.
Newsom has redefined the Democratic resistance to Trump.
He’s made national headlines over the past few months for taking on the Trump administration and framing the president and his policies as a threat to democracy. Newsom has slammed Trump on the environment, education, crime, and immigration. He’s also called out Trump’s demand to get red states to redraw their congressional maps so Republicans can maintain control of the House following next year’s midterm elections. He’s vowed to “fight fire with fire” by redrawing California’s congressional districts, possibly creating five more seats for Democrats.
Newsom had the Turning Point USA founder on his podcast in March and admitted his 13-year-old son wanted to meet him. But since Kirk’s death last week, he has been careful to walk a delicate line in his resistance messaging. Tuesday’s three-hour campaign event in favor of Proposition 50 was originally called FAFO (F*** Around and Find Out) 50. The name was changed after Kirk’s death and rebranded to align with National Voter Registration Day.
Newsom also released a lengthy statement expressing admiration for Kirk’s “passion and commitment to debate” and called the shooting “disgusting, vile, and reprehensible.” Newsom also condemned all political violence.
During another event Tuesday at Florin High School in south Sacramento, Newsom unveiled the California Men’s Service Challenge, a new program that calls on 10,000 men to volunteer as mentors, coaches, and tutors. Newsom noted an “alarming rise in suicides and disconnection among California’s young men and boys” and praised Kirk and other conservative podcasters for their ability to connect and convey the GOP message to young men.
Kirk was fatally shot at an event at a college campus in Utah on Sept. 10.
Newsom was asked at the Florin High School event if he would change his rhetoric, and he said he did not know. Overall, the shooting heightened partisan tensions, with Trump and members of his administration blaming the “radical left” for fueling the attack and vowing to go after them.
If Newsom was holding back for the past week, he seems to be over it.
On Wednesday, his press office’s social media account called Trump a “pathological liar” and sent out “thoughts and prayers for the low IQ President.”
He also took a jab at Trump’s trip to England, writing, “Trump gets a warm Epstein welcome in the U.K.,” referring to protesters projecting an image of Trump with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein onto Windsor Castle, the place where the Trumps will be hosted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
One person not amused by Newsom’s tactics regarding Proposition 50 is former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger, who faulted Newsom for using phrases like “fight fire with fire” to stoke partisan anger.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me that because we have to fight Trump, we have to become Trump,” Schwarzenneger said during a fireside chat at the University of Southern California this week.
Newsom’s over-the-top antics could ultimately backfire, Ryan White, vice president at Think Big, told the Washington Examiner.
“It’s somewhat ironic that Governor Newsom seems to be taking a page straight out of President Trump’s playbook,” White said. “The ‘loud and obnoxious’ style, operating on the premise that all press is good press, certainly got Trump plenty of attention and dominated the political conversation for years. Newsom appears to be borrowing that same fire-fights-fire approach: generating headlines through sheer volume and provocation.”
EDITORIAL: WHAT THE MURDER OF CHARLIE KIRK MEANS
White cautioned that the challenge with that type of “political theater” is that it “feels increasingly tired.”
“What once worked for Trump, capturing eyeballs and shaping the narrative through spectacle, may now read more as noise than novelty,” he said. “Audiences are quicker to tune out the outrage cycle, and the risk for Newsom is that he ends up amplifying the fatigue rather than commanding the stage.”