California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom committed the unforgivable sin of talking to those on the other side of the aisle.
Speaking with figures like Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and MAGA political operative Steve Bannon on his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” the likely Democratic presidential hopeful appeared to pivot on a number of more radical points of leftist orthodoxy.
For instance, he has signaled on his podcast against men in women’s sports, denounced illegal immigration, and claimed he hates the term “Latinx,” despite his clear record of woke progressivism on those issues.
Plenty of Republicans, including his own podcast guests, called him out on that.
But their annoyance at his drive to the center before a likely run in 2028 was nothing compared to the leftist rage provoked by the mere act of speaking with conservatives and pragmatically trying to moderate his positions.
KFile, a project of CNN, made the highly unusual move of criticizing him in a lengthy article and debunking his claims on his show.
On the women’s sports issue, it noted that “as lieutenant governor in 2014, Newsom celebrated California’s new law allowing trans student athletes to compete in sports that align with their gender.”
“He then applauded the failure of a Republican-led campaign to repeal the law,” the outlet observed. “As governor in 2020, Newsom signed a landmark bill expanding rights for transgender prisoners, allowing inmates to be housed based on their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth and acknowledging their need for gender transition care.”
KFile also debunked the claim that neither he nor anyone in his office has ever used the term “Latinx.”
Will Gavin Newsom run for president in 2028?
“As governor, Newsom invoked ‘Latinx’ in press briefings in 2020, and social media posts from his personal and official X accounts when highlighting issues affecting Latino communities,” the article continued.
“In 2023, he attacked Republicans for ‘banning the word ‘Latinx’’ instead of focusing on gun control. In 2020, he warned that COVID-19 was disproportionately impacting the ‘Latinx community’ and announced $52 million in state funds to combat rising cases,” it added.
CNN also welcomed KFile senior editor Andrew Kaczynski onto the network to discuss the project’s findings, as noted by Mediaite.
“We did find someone who used it repeatedly in his office. Let’s take a listen to this,” Kaczynski told host Erin Burnett, rolling four clips of Newsom saying “the Latinx community.”
Anyone who has been paying attention to Newsom and his behavior will not find his pivots that surprising.
Like so many others in both the Democratic and Republican camps, he has a long record of being a self-interested politician.
That means he will always to some extent pivot his positions to appeal more to the electorate.
He knows that he will be running in a more conservative climate in 2028 that is sick of the most extreme elements of leftism, so he is putting in the work to be seen as more reasonable.
It’s also not too surprising to see many die-hard leftists annoyed at the shift from Newsom.
The surprising element in all of this has been the backlash from the establishment media.
Usually outlets like CNN train their guns on conservatives and Republicans, not those within their own political coalitions.
Even they recognize what Newsom is doing, and incredibly they are siding with the hard-core leftists against any efforts for the Democratic coalition to moderate, or to treat anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders as something other than subhuman.
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