Turning Point USA founder and chief executive Charlie Kirk issued a warning about California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom after appearing on his podcast, cautioning that the likely 2028 presidential hopeful is a political force to be reckoned with.
Kirk and Newsom spent over an hour on the inaugural episode of “This is Gavin Newsom” talking about the challenges facing the Democratic Party after a resounding election defeat.
Newsom surprised many viewers by apparently pivoting to more moderate stances on issues like men in women’s sports and illegal immigration, despite his record on those matters.
Kirk said in a Thursday opinion piece for Fox News that he indeed believes Newsom will make a bid for the White House in 2028.
“I’m under no illusions about why I was invited: Gavin Newsom wants to run for president in three years, and he thinks that talking [to] conservative figures like me increase his recognition, help him present as a centrist, and cast him as a champion of the left in a time when the left has no real leaders,” the conservative activist wrote.
Kirk described Newsom as an “ambitious man” and noted that one does not become the governor of a state with 40 million people by being void of charisma.
Newsom has a history of pivoting in alignment with the political center, according to Kirk, anticipating where the public will be on a certain issue by the time he has an opportunity to get more power.
And he’s done that before.
“In 2004, when he was mayor of San Francisco, he became nationally famous by ordering city clerks to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples,” Kirk noted.
Will Gavin Newsom be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028?
“At the time, he was violating California state law and going against a large majority of Americans. But Newsom anticipated what was coming. Within just a few years, Democrats would overwhelmingly support same-sex marriage and now Newsom had credibility for being ahead of the curve.”
Newsom surprisingly denounced men in women’s sports, and Kirk saw that as a repeat of the same tactic, just in the opposite direction.
“Do I think the man who was so far out front on gay marriage is suddenly really a moderate on women’s sports? Not even close,” Kirk continued. “But he can see the polls. He’s moving to where the puck will be in four years.”
Kirk implored fellow conservatives and the rest of the nation not to “fall for this pivot,” especially given his proven track record in California with respect to issues like crime and leftist indoctrination in schools.
“His show is a charm offensive, a calculated play, a rebrand for a man who knows the Democratic Party took a beating in 2024 and needs a new face,” Kirk said. “He hopes that by looking moderate on the perfect cocktail of issues, he can both get liberals to back him in a primary and then moderates and Republicans to back him in a general election.”
Kirk added that the tactics just might work.
“One thing I learned in my podcast experience: The governor isn’t a joke. He has a shark’s instincts and is hoping that voters will have a goldfish’s memory,” he said.
“He knows his current record can’t win him the White House, and so he’s trying to rewrite what that record is.”
In the Democratic Party, just like in the Republican Party, there are true believers, and there are also pragmatists who simply want to keep their office or win a better one.
There are some Democrats who really do believe that a man can become a woman, that basic border security is bigoted and unloving, and that America is a racist country.
Then there are those who do not have particularly strong views on those matters, but who want to attain power in blue states and districts, and thus adopt those views as needed before shedding them at a moment’s notice if they happen to become political liabilities.
Newsom is decisively in the second category.
He has no actual principles beyond the pursuit of power, and he will follow that all the way to the Oval Office.
That makes him profoundly dangerous.
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