logo
Newsom searches for what went wrong for Democrats

Newsom searches for what went wrong for Democrats

The Hill01-05-2025

Usually, I'm the one asking the questions.
But last week I flew out to California to appear on Gov. Gavin Newsom's podcast to talk about 'FIGHT,' the new book I co-authored about the 2024 presidential election. And this time it was the governor turning the tables and asking me and my co-author Jon Allen of NBC News about how to make sense of the last presidential race.
'My next guests, they understand it better than anyone,' Newsom said about us in the intro to our episode.
It's clear that Newsom is one of the people trying to figure out what went wrong for Democrats so he can try to make it right.
The governor's name is often bandied about as one of the top Democratic presidential contenders, and he is clearly testing the waters on where Democrats should be and how they can win back the presidency.
He's also doing something many Democrats are refusing to do right now: He's having conversations with unlikely guests. Among them: Steve Bannon, the longtime Trump adviser, and Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist.
Newsom seems to think the Democratic Party needs to stop having conversations with itself and do a better job listening to the other side, based on his remarks during our podcast and an interview with The Hill. He spent some time talking about how he knows what appeals to swing state voters because people often forget that California has agricultural jobs too.
Newsom likes that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are doing big, energetic rallies. But he also says there needs to be more.
'And … not or,' he told me last week, meaning both the rallies to the base and more are needed.
It's similar to the approach Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another top 2028 contender, appears to be taking after not one but two appearances alongside President Trump in recent weeks.
First there was the infamous Oval Office visit where Whitmer tried to hide the fact that she was actually there by seemingly covering her face with a folder. But after she appeared with Trump at an event in Michigan on Tuesday, it appeared to be more intentional.
'My job is to do the right thing for the people of Michigan,' Whitmer told The Associated Press after her appearance with Trump on Tuesday. 'I'm not thinking about anything beyond that, and I know it's hard for people to get their head around [it].'
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is at odds with that line of thinking. Earlier this week, he slammed the 'do nothing' Democrats — seemingly taking issue with his counterparts in Michigan and California.
Pritzker, who up until this point hasn't been part of the fiery resistance movement, said it was 'time to fight everywhere and all at once.'
'Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now.'
'These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace,' he declared. 'The reckoning is finally here.'
It's clear that none of the governors are confident about their 'lanes' at the moment: Should Democrats be simply energizing their base by taking on Trump and Republicans? Is it too similar to what they did in 2017, during their first resistance run? Or should they be listening to the voices on the other side?
In an interview with The Hill last week, Newsom acknowledged that he was testing those questions with his podcast by inviting on a wide range of guests.
'At the same time, I'm being tested by it, because the reaction has been a little more bumpy than I even anticipated,' he said.
On his podcast, Newsom likened my co-author and I to political psychologists: 'You know more about us than we know about ourselves,' he said.
But he also acknowledged coming to his own conclusions.
'What are the lessons learned?' he asked us. 'The Democratic Party … right now, I've had strong opinions about where I think our party is right now in terms of just truth and trust, and the sense that we weren't being truthful.'
'There's a perception that we were gaslighting the American people,' he added. 'They don't trust us on issues and policies and the ability to deliver.'
2024 Election Coverage
In the final seconds of the podcast, I got to turn the tables and ask him what lessons he took away from the election.
'I think the lesson is we need to have frank and honest conversations, and there's no space for that,' he said. 'And so I have a tactical point. This is the space. This is the place.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

'When He Least Expects It': Michael Cohen Warns Elon Musk Of Trump's Revenge
'When He Least Expects It': Michael Cohen Warns Elon Musk Of Trump's Revenge

Yahoo

time23 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

'When He Least Expects It': Michael Cohen Warns Elon Musk Of Trump's Revenge

Michael Cohen, former longtime personal attorney to Donald Trump, on Sunday warned Elon Musk that the president isn't done with him yet. 'They're going to really go after Elon Musk like nobody has seen, ever, in this country because they can,' he said on MSNBC on Saturday. 'And one thing Elon doesn't understand is this political guerrilla warfare that they're going to conduct against him.' Cohen warned that Trump can use the power of government to target Musk's companies and even his citizenship. Musk and Trump last week had a spectacularly public falling out, and over the weekend the president slammed his one-time pal as 'very disrespectful' and warned him of 'serious consequences' if he supported Democrats. Cohen said that while Trump has also downplayed the feud, the president is likely already plotting against the billionaire behind the scenes. 'I just wish him well,' Trump said on Friday. 'No he doesn't,' Cohen said. 'Because while Elon Musk is taking a step back thinking Trump is taking a step back, what Trump is actually doing is weaponizing the Department of Justice through his attorney general and other people, and they are gonna drop the hammer on him out of nowhere when he least expects it. That's the playbook.' See more of his conversation with MSNBC's Ali Velshi below:

Trump branded 'unlawful' over handling of LA riots
Trump branded 'unlawful' over handling of LA riots

Yahoo

time27 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Trump branded 'unlawful' over handling of LA riots

Police clashed with demonstrators after a third day of protests in Los Angeles against Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, branded the US president's deployment of the National Guard in the city as "unlawful" and "purposely inflammatory". Demonstrators have been protesting since Friday against the Trump administration's immigration raids, which last month aimed to detain as many as 3,000 people per day. Police in LA have said the downtown location is now an "unlawful assembly" area, while there have been reports of looting and vehicles have been set on fire. Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that things are "looking really bad in LA" and said: "Bring in the troops!" Read more from our media partners below or click the headlines to skip ahead > How Trump's immigration crackdown sparked LA uprising > Downtown LA is a scene of pandemonium and lawlessness > Trump orders law enforcement to 'liberate' LA from 'migrant invasion' > LA protesters, enraged by Trump, flood the streets > British photographer hit by non-lethal bullets during LA protests It began with co-ordinated raids on locations throughout Los Angeles on Friday. Immigration officials, backed by heavily armed FBI officers with assault weapons and body armour, stormed a clothing factory and at least two other locations in Latino areas of the city, trying to make good on orders to ramp-up the pace of deportations. The raids were the trigger for two days of clashes between protesters and federal officers in Los Angeles, where fires flared and fireworks exploded, prompting Donald Trump to order 2,000 National Guard troops onto the streets of the city. Read the full story from The Telegraph A shirtless man waving a Mexican flag stands atop a burning car in the heart of Los Angeles, as another man throws a traffic cone into the flames and some play drums and shout chants in opposition to immigration officials. The downtown district of one of America's biggest cities was a scene of pandemonium and lawlessness as protests, which had previously been mainly peaceful, turned ugly. Read the full story from Sky News Donald Trump has vowed to 'liberate Los Angeles from the migrant invasion,' amid violent clashes between members of the state national guard and anti-immigration enforcement protesters. The president took to Truth Social on Sunday, where he promised that 'the illegals will be expelled' and that the city would be 'set free,' as troops confronted demonstrators on the streets of downtown LA – using tear gas and 'less lethal munitions' to disperse crowds. Read the full story from The Independent Thousands of Angelenos enraged by Donald Trump's decision to commandeer their state national guard swamped the downtown streets on Sunday, bringing a major freeway to a standstill. But the national guard, hemmed in by the protesters and by dozens of Los Angeles police cruisers, played almost no role in any of it. A vocal, boisterous but largely peaceful sea of protesters engulfed the north-eastern corner of downtown Los Angeles around city hall and the federal courthouse. Read the full story from The Guardian A British news photographer has undergone emergency surgery after being hit by non-lethal rounds during protests in Los Angeles. Nick Stern was documenting a stand-off between anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) protesters and police outside a Home Depot in Paramount, a city in LA county and a location known as a hiring spot for day labourers, when a 14mm 'sponge bullet' tore into his thigh. Read the full story from PA Media

Former Biden press secretary is ready to tell Americans the truth? Give me a break.
Former Biden press secretary is ready to tell Americans the truth? Give me a break.

USA Today

time32 minutes ago

  • USA Today

Former Biden press secretary is ready to tell Americans the truth? Give me a break.

Former Biden press secretary is ready to tell Americans the truth? Give me a break. | Opinion The knives are now out inside the Democratic Party. And the party is bleeding, not only Americans' support and trust but also its last remaining drops of honesty and truth. Show Caption Hide Caption Karine Jean-Pierre talks exit from Democratic party in new book Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre talks about leaving the Democratic party in her upcoming book slated for release in October. The Democratic Party continues to self-destruct, and I am here for it. Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has teased a tell-all memoir about former President Joe Biden and the administration she served for nearly three years. 'Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines' is stoking claims that Jean-Pierre is a grifter, profiting off her time in the administration by trashing the former president and the political party that gave her prominence. Knives are out among Democrats for one of their own who has now betrayed them. Like other books that have recently exposed details about Biden's poor health, Jean-Pierre's book raises questions about the White House cover-up that attempted to hide the president's mental and physical decline from voters. It also calls into question Jean-Pierre's honesty: Why did she wait until now, when she can profit from it, to tell the truth about the former commander in chief? Former White House colleagues turn on former Biden press secretary Democrats are now a minority party in America. The GOP controls the White House, the Senate and the U.S. House along with a majority of governor's offices and state legislatures. The Democratic Party has lost Americans' trust because of its leaders' penchant for gaslighting, not just about Biden's health but also on issues like immigration, border security and the economy. Jean-Pierre, who now claims to be an independent, certainly isn't helping her former colleagues rebuild that lost trust. Details from the book are still sketchy, but Jean-Pierre should provide readers with an inside look at what happened after Biden's disastrous debate with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump a year ago this month. Jean-Pierre's coworkers have already reacted to the book with contempt. "Former colleagues expressed confusion at how Jean-Pierre seemingly intends to paint Biden as a victim while pinning her own decision to leave the party on his 'broken' White House," Politico reported, citing multiple former Biden administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Opinion: Biden's cancer diagnosis raises the question: Was he ever in good enough health? Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist who worked on the Commerce Department's communications team during Biden's presidency, took umbrage with Jean-Pierre's assertion that the Democratic Party betrayed Biden. 'Kamala Harris and the entire Biden/Harris campaign did hero's work to avoid losing 400 electoral votes and giving Republicans a supermajority in Congress, which is what would have happened if he stayed on the ticket,' Legacki told Politico. 'It's more productive to focus on that, and thank Biden for doing the responsible thing by stepping aside, than it is to pretend this was an unwarranted act of betrayal.' But party insiders continuing to squabble over whether a now former president was or was not betrayed by fellow Democrats entirely misses the larger point. Opinion: Guess who Americans want to run the economy? Hint − it's not Democrats. Far too many Democrats, Jean-Pierre included, worked hard to deceive Americans. Their willful lack of self-awareness about their gaslighting and dishonesty is why the party has shown no signs of recovering from the last disastrous election cycle. Karine Jean-Pierre's book about Biden isn't the first Jean-Pierre's book will be far from the first to address the deception at the heart of the Biden White House. On May 20, journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson released "Original Sin," which describes in detail Biden's cognitive decline and the mind-boggling efforts with which his inner circle and the Democratic Party tried to hide the truth from Americans. Opinion: Texas woman's death would have been prevented if Biden had secured the border Conservatives had long been suspicious about Biden's health, but journalists with White House access failed to ask tough questions then. Now that it's too late to make a real difference, those who were silent when it mattered most are more than ready to profit from belated exposés about the former president's failing health. The knives are now out inside the Democratic Party. And the party is bleeding, not only Americans' support and trust but also its last remaining drops of honesty and truth. Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store