An animated Gavin Newsom on Wednesday shared his pitch for how to turn around the Democrats’ brand and better oppose President Donald Trump’s administration, identifying the party’s ailments with a one-word diagnosis.
“At the end of the day, to me, the essence of the challenges of the party is weakness,” the California governor told Politico reporter Christopher Cadelago during an hour-long interview on stage in Sacramento.
Dressed in the plain, dark shirt and denim jeans he wears on his podcast, Newsom offered insight into how he thinks Trump is planning to stay in office after the 2028 election.
Newsom said Democrats need to abandon the notion of their party being “held to a higher level of accountability.” He said Democrats need to be able to attack Republicans and advocate for their political priorities without fearing criticism from every faction of their party.
“Wake up. We’re losing this country in real time,” Newsom said, after listing examples of what he called Trump’s “authoritarian actions,” including multiple probes into Sen. Adam Schiff.
“We have got to fight fire with fire,” Newsom said. “I’m sick and tired of Democrats being on the losing end in this country,”
During the interview, Newsom also characterized Trump’s attempts to obtain settlements from universities, his federalization of law enforcement in D.C. and his pitch to deploy the National Guard in Democratic-led cities across the country as “authoritarian tendencies” and “dictatorial constructs.”
Newsom added that he was convinced Trump would try to intimidate voters with National Guard deployments in future elections and attempt to run for a third term in 2028.
“I have two-dozen Trump 2028 hats that these guys keep sending me,” Newsom said.
“People actually think this guy’s serious about having another election? You think he’s joking about 2028?” Newsom asked the audience. “I mean, he tried to light democracy on fire. He dialed for 11, almost 12,000 votes. Now he’s doing it in plain sight. And people say, ‘Oh, just Trump being Trump.’”
Newsom’s fiery characterization of Trump’s attempts to expand executive power stand in stark contrast with the governor’s attempts earlier this year to position himself as a moderate. In February, Newsom met with Trump during a spate of devastating wildfires in his state, signaling that he was open to collaborating with the president. He later invited right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon onto his podcast, sparking criticism from parts of the Democratic Party.
However, after Trump deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles following a series of protests against the administration’s immigration policies, Newsom has radically changed from his tone and adopted a more aggressive approach than many other leaders in his party.
“There’s no working with Donald Trump, there’s only working for him,” Newsom said, before suggesting that institutions like the University of California should not settle with Trump after the administration threatened to issue fines over alleged antisemitism.
Newsom said that more Democrats, including governors, should be more willing to oppose Trump and his policies. He suggested that they should be open to redrawing their states’ congressional maps, like California is trying to, if more Republican states follow Texas into mid-cycle redistricting.
“We have got to stand tall, authentic, but we have to stand tall and we have to affirm our position,” Newsom said.
Newsom, who is already positioning himself as a front-runner for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, also addressed his recent decision to adopt a bombastic persona on the social media platform X — a not-so-subtle reference to Trump’s own distinctive posting style.
He said that he personally approves the posts on this press office’s X account and said they attempt to show the “absurdity” of Trump’s communication style.
“Somehow that’s offending their senses,” Newsom said of Trump supporters. “So they said it’s not gubernatorial, but apparently it’s presidential.”
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This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and San José Spotlight.