Gavin Newsom Gives Props to Conservatives Like Charlie Kirk for ‘Flooding the Zone,' Reveals Teen Son Is a Fan
'You are making a damn dent' in the culture wars, Newsom told Kirk, while adding that his 13-year-old son is a big fan.
Newsom's maiden voyage as a side-hustling podcaster also made some political news. The governor said he 'totally' agreed with Kirk that transwomen should not play in women's sports — breaking with Democrats on the hot-button issue.
'I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it's deeply unfair,' Newsom said. 'I am not wrestling with the fairness issue.'
He further said, at the same time, it is possible to not 'talk down to vulnerable communities' and also treat people with 'decency.'
Newsom's answer comes after 45 Democratic Senators voted against a bill this week that would ban transwomen from playing in women's sports — an issue that President Trump discussed during his speech before Congress on Tuesday night.
The 57-year-old Democrat also said he disagreed with former Bill Clinton strategist James Carville, who recently called for liberals to make a 'strategic political retreat'; Carville argued in The New York Times this would allow Democrats the chance to seize on potential miscues by President Trump that might hurt him in the American public's eyes.
Newsom said he disagreed, stating that Democrats cannot afford to 'play dead.' He said he sees Kirk 'flooding the zone' with a steady diet of clips, campus visits and other moves to win over voters, and feels that is the winning formula.
'And then I'm thinking about we're going to stand back and watch you run circles around us for six months, the next two or three years, waiting for the moment to finally strike?' Newsom said. 'It struck me as not necessarily the best advice.'
You can listen to the full 72-minute podcast on Apple or Spotify.
The post Gavin Newsom Gives Props to Conservatives Like Charlie Kirk for 'Flooding the Zone,' Reveals Teen Son Is a Fan appeared first on TheWrap.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Los Angeles Times
19 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
By scrapping bid for California governor, Harris boosts White House prospects -- if she runs
By closing one door, Kamala Harris has left another ajar. Running for California governor in 2026, which she ruled out Wednesday, would almost certainly have precluded another run for the White House in 2028 — something Harris explicitly did not rule out. There were significant hurdles to attempting both. To have any chance of being governor, Harris would have almost certainly had to have sworn off another presidential bid, convincing California voters that the state's top political job was not something she viewed, blithely, as a mere placeholder or springboard to the White House. There also would have been the practical difficulty of running the nation's most populous state, a maw of endless crises and challenges, while at the same time pursuing the presidency. No California governor has ever done so successfully, though several tried. Harris' much-anticipated decision, announced in a written statement, was not a huge surprise. Unlike others — Pete Wilson, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to name a few — Harris has never burned with a fever to be California governor. She had a clear shot at the position in 2016, but opted instead to run for the U.S. Senate, in part because the role seemed like a better launching venue for a try at the White House. Privately, several of those closest to Harris questioned whether she had much appetite to deal with the myriad aggravations of being governor — the stroking and hand-holding of recalcitrant lawmakers, the mind-numbing drafting of an annual budget, the endless march of disasters, both natural and man-made. Not least, many wondered whether Harris would be content returning to the small stage of Sacramento after traveling the world as vice president and working in the rarified air of politics at its peak. There is every possibility that Harris will retire from public life. Sean Clegg, a long-time Harris adviser, noted the Democrat has spent more than two decades in elected office. 'I think she's interested in exploring how she can have an impact from the outside for a while,' Clegg said. For her part, Harris said she looked forward 'to getting back out and listening to the American people [and] helping Democrats across the nation who will fight fearlessly.' Doesn't sound like life in a cloister. If Harris did run for president, she'd start out as a nominal front-runner, based on her universal name recognition and deep nationwide fund-raising base — advantages no other contestant could match. But she won't scare away very many opponents; the Democratic field in 2028 will most likely be a large and expansive one, as it was the first time Harris ran for president in 2020. (And notably crashed and burned.) Charlie Cook, who has spend decades as a nonpartisan political handicapper, said he would view Harris 'as a serious contender, but no more so than a handful of other people would be.' Normally, Cook went on, her status as the party's most recent vice president would give her a significant, if not overwhelming, edge. 'But I think the desire/need to turn the corner and get some separation from Biden probably strips away any advantage that she would have,' Cook said. Harris got a small taste of the Biden burden she could carry in the 2028 campaign when two of her prospective gubernatorial rivals — former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra — suggested she was complicit in covering up Biden's mental and physical frailties. 'She could say she didn't know,' Villaraigosa taunted in a May interview. 'They can't prove that she did. But last time I looked, she had lunch with him pretty regularly ... She had to have seen what the world [saw] over time and particularly in that debate. The notion that she didn't? Come on. Who's going to buy that?' A strategist for one potential presidential rival suggested Democrats were eager to turn the page on Biden and, along with him, Harris. 'There's a lot of respect for her taking on the challenge of cleaning up Biden's mess in 2024,' said the strategist, who asked to remain nameless to avoid compromising an as-yet-unannounced candidate. 'But I think it's going to be a hard sell. She lost to Donald Trump who was convicted of 34 felony counts and run out of D.C. in shame. There is some blame there for his return.' Should Harris make a third try for the White House, it raises the intriguing possibility of facing her fellow Californian, Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been effectively running for president for the past several months. The two, who came up together in the elbows-out world of San Francisco politics, have had a decades-long rivalry, sharing many of the same donors and, once upon a time, the same set of strategists. If the two ran, it would be the first time since 1968 that a pair of major Californians faced off for their party's presidential nomination. That year, Gov. Ronald Reagan made a late, failed attempt to overtake Richard Nixon, the former vice president and U.S. senator from California. At it happened, Nixon had waged an unsuccessful 1962 run for California governor after leaving the White House. While that failure didn't stop him from eventually winning the White House, it certainly didn't help. In fact, Nixon left California and moved to the East Coast, taking a job at a white-shoe law firm and using New York City as his political base of operations. Harris' announcement Wednesday promised 'more details in the months ahead about my own plans.' She said nothing about relocating or leaving California behind.


New York Post
19 minutes ago
- New York Post
NYC primary that included dead voters' ballots is finally decided, but criminal probe swirls
A winner was finally certified in a hotly Brooklyn City Council primary marred by the revelation that ballots had been cast for dead voters — but a criminal investigation will continue. The city Board of Elections certified George Sarantopoulos as the winner of a Republican Party primary over GOP chairman Richie Barsamian on Tuesday after an expose by The Post that showed accusations of voter fraud that included the revelation absentee ballots were cast for at least two dead voters. A third voter said he hadn't voted but received a 'cure notice' that is sent to voters when their ballots contain errors such as a missing signature. Advertisement 4 George Sarantopoulos, Republican candidate for city council. George Sarantopoulos / Facebook The Brooklyn District Attorney's office is now probing the claims, according to sources. Elections officials uncovered two alleged incidents of voter fraud — the dead voters as well as 22 ballots that were discovered during the manual recount that could not be attributed to specific voters. Advertisement 'In a small Republican primary, unlike a mayoral contest, there were multiple ballot irregularities — including two absentee ballots who were casting for people who are deceased, and obviously the one person who was a living voter who did not vote at all,' Sarantopoulous said. 4 Voters feed their ballots into scanners during the first day of early voting at the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday, June 14, 2025 in New York City. Michael Nagle 'We can't let this stand,' he added. 'Democrats, Republicans and independents. We all need to know that we have a system we can trust. Period full stop.' Barsamian, who has the power to appoint BOE workers as chair of borough's Republican Party, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Advertisement Sarantopoulous ultimately beat Barsamian by a mere 16 votes to challenge Democratic nominee Kayla Santosuosso in November. 4 The Brooklyn District Attorney's office is now probing the claims, according to sources. George Sarantopoulos / Facebook 'Hot take: we shouldn't count ballots cast by dead people and shouldn't certify election results until we know the scale of the fraud involved. Voters deserve nothing less,' Santosuosso said in a statement. The winner of the general election will replace Councilman Justin Brannan, who will reach the end of his term limit at the end of this year. Advertisement The BOE maintains it has been thoroughly transparent throughout the recount process. 4 Brooklyn Republican Party Chairman Richie Barsamian attends a small protest outside a vacant lot at 2481 McDonald Avenue on Sunday, April 6, 2025. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post 'We have completed a comprehensive and transparent review of all valid ballots, including a full hand count,' BOE Deputy Executive Director Vincent Ignizio said in a statement. 'The outcome of the race has remained consistent at every stage,' Ignizio said. 'In accordance with New York State Election Law, all valid votes have been properly counted. 'Our responsibility now is to certify the results and proceed with preparations for the general election in November. Any specific allegations of fraud will be handled appropriately by the District Attorney's office.'


The Hill
19 minutes ago
- The Hill
Brown University signs deal with Trump administration to restore funding
Brown University on Wednesday announced a deal with the Trump administration that ends three investigations into the institution and restores research funding that was withheld from it. The administration halted more than $500 million to Brown back in April and had opened probes assessing the university's compliance with antidiscrimination laws. The deal restores that money, ends the investigations and restores the university's ability to apply for new federal grants and contracts. In return, Brown did not have to pay a direct fine to the government like Columbia University, but agreed to pay $50 million over 10 years to workforce development organizations in Rhode Island. It will also separate men and women's sports facilities on the basis of sex, and its health system will not prescribe puberty blockers or conduct gender reassignment surgeries on minors. Brown also committed to ban programs that contain 'unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes' and have 'merit-based admissions policies.' The university agreed to provide data and information to the Trump administration showing its compliance with the agreement. 'By voluntarily entering this agreement, we meet those dual obligations. We stand solidly behind commitments we repeatedly have affirmed to protect all members of our community from harassment and discrimination, and we protect the ability of our faculty and students to study and learn academic subjects of their choosing, free from censorship,' said Brown President Christina Paxson in a letter to the community. Education Secretary Linda McMahon celebrated this deal on the back of an agreement with Columbia, which paid a $200 million fine to the Trump administration and agreed to more reforms. 'The Trump Administration is successfully reversing the decades-long woke-capture of our nation's higher education institutions. Because of the Trump Administration's resolution agreement with Brown University, aspiring students will be judged solely on their merits, not their race or sex. Brown has committed to proactive measures to protect Jewish students and combat Antisemitism on campus. Women's sports and intimate facilities will be protected for women and Title IX will be enforced as it was intended,' McMahon said. 'Restoring our nation's higher education institutions to places dedicated to truth-seeking, academic merit, and civil debate — where all students can learn free from discrimination and harassment — will be a lasting legacy of the Trump administration, one that will benefit students and American society for generations to come,' she added.