I was open to the idea behind Gavin Newsom’s new podcast, in which the California governor has been breaking out of his political bubble to talk at length with right-wing media stars such as Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. Democrats need to get better at speaking to people who don’t share their assumptions and at long-form conversations requiring improvisation and spontaneity. They need to be willing to take risks and to use conflict to generate attention.
Newsom himself did just that in 2023 when he debated Ron DeSantis on Fox News, drawing almost five million live viewers, plus 700,000 more for the replay. Trying to leverage Kirk and Bannon’s notoriety to reach new audiences could have been an interesting experiment.
Instead, it’s a protracted exercise in self-harm for both Newsom and any liberal who decides to listen to him. That’s because the governor frequently seems less interested in arguing than in finding common ground, assuming the good faith of people who have next to none. He leaves wild right-wing claims unchallenged and repeatedly concedes Republican premises. When Bannon described rebuilding his movement after what he claimed was the stolen 2020 election, Newsom’s response was, “Well, I appreciate the notion of agency.”
What could have been a show of intellectual confidence on Newsom’s part has turned out to be a demeaning display of submission.
Listening to the first three episodes of the podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” I got the sense that Newsom had learned exactly the wrong lesson from Donald Trump’s 2024 election. Part of the reason Trump won, it’s true, is that he was able to appeal to increasingly alienated, right-wing young men through podcasts and new media. As Newsom told Kirk, the governor’s own 13-year-old son is one of his fans. “We’re getting clobbered,” Newsom said at one point, and “you’ve figured something out.”
But while there is, in fact, a lot that Democrats can learn from Kirk and Bannon about building alternative media channels, there is nothing to be gained by flattering them or seeking mutual understanding.
Speaking to Kirk in his podcast’s debut episode, Newsom asked him to describe his professional trajectory. The story that Kirk told contained some important omissions. Yes, Kirk built a following in part by charging onto left-leaning college campuses and challenging his opponents to debate, thrilling conservative students who felt ostracized by their progressive peers. But Kirk was misleading in presenting Turning Point USA, the organization of young conservatives he founded, as the “ultimate start-up,” created without money or connections.
As a teenager, Kirk was mentored by the Tea Party activist Bill Montgomery, who described himself as Turning Point’s co-founder, and the group got seed money from the evangelical megadonor Foster Friess. There’s obviously a genuine audience for what Kirk is selling, but he wouldn’t have become such a political powerhouse without wealthy and influential figures cultivating him over many years.
That’s the lesson for Democrats. Their donors should be making long-term investments in their own influencers, and Democratic politicians should be helping them grow their audiences by appearing on their platforms. Somehow, this is something Democrats never quite learn.
More than two decades ago, the Democratic strategist Rob Stein put together an enormously influential PowerPoint presentation called “The Conservative Message Machine’s Money Matrix,” laying out how right-wing donors supported an interlocking network of think tanks, policy institutes, nonprofits and media ventures. But while Democratic donors have tried, at times, to create a similar infrastructure on the left, they tend to be more fickle and less willing to nurture and sustain a pipeline of young talent.
Outlets like Air America and ThinkProgress that helped launch the careers of important figures in the liberal firmament — Rachel Maddow among them — have been allowed to wither and die, and then Democrats wonder where all their young voices are. Rather than trying to ingratiate himself with Kirk, Newsom might try to elevate the progressives who could someday compete with him.
It was especially ill advised for Newsom to roll out his pivot on trans women in sports in a conversation with Kirk, a man who once described trans people as “disgusting, mentally ill, neurotic, predatory freaks.” As a matter of both political expediency and simple honesty, Democrats should be able to acknowledge that it’s unfair to expect elite female athletes to compete against trans women who’ve gone through male puberty. But at a time when the Trump administration has singled trans people out for persecution, Democrats need to couple their recognition of physical difference with a broader defense of trans rights.
Instead, Newsom emphasized how much he and Kirk agreed about. “The issue of fairness is completely legit,” he said. “So I completely align with you. And we’ve got to own that.”
If the governor was aware of the things Kirk has said about trans people, he should have called him on it. If he wasn’t, perhaps it’s because it takes work to prepare to engage a demagogue, and Newsom already has a full-time job.
Future guests on “This Is Gavin Newsom” will include liberals; an episode with Tim Walz has already been recorded. But I suspect that by starting his show the way he did, Newsom has done lasting damage to his standing among Democrats, who are desperate for leaders who will fight on their behalf, not seek communion with their enemies.
Last week, I got an email from Michael Green, a history professor who ended up on a McCarthyite Turning Point “watch list” because he’d said mean things about Trump. “I had thought of Newsom as a possibility if we have a presidential election in 2028,” wrote Green. “He just lost me. Completely.” I doubt Green’s alone.
