For the debut episode of his “This is Gavin Newsom” podcast, which premiered this week, California Governor Gavin Newsom sat down with Turning Point USA co-founder and far-right conspiracy theorist Charlie Kirk for what the show’s official description called a “debate without demeaning or dehumanizing one other.” But the convivial conversation has nevertheless angered many on the left, who consider Newsom’s support for Kirk’s stance against transgender athletes — and his friendly embrace of the controversial culture warrior in general — a red flag for any future political ambitions.
For some time now, Newsom has been discussed among certain wings of the Democratic party as a potential and potentially potent national candidate in some future presidential race. Having worked his way up California’s local and statewide political ladders, Newsom is financially well-connected, comparatively young and offers — at least on paper — a compelling profile to a party struggling to find its footing in the face of President Donald Trump’s ongoing deconstruction of the federal government. Still, a compelling profile does not a successful candidate make. While Newsom may still have the attention, if not the outright support, of many in the party, his latest project has begun to garner enough scrutiny and criticism to call into question his prospects as a national figure.
An ‘exceedingly’ friendly conversation
The podcast episode presented Newsom in an “opposite light” compared to his “stumping as a surrogate” for Democrats in the last presidential election and “sparring with ideological foes” like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sean Hannity, said Politico. Newsom’s “stunning remarks” suggesting Democrats “were in the wrong” on the issue of transgender athletes were made during a conversation in which the governor also “distanced himself from the use of pronouns,” lamented cancel culture and criticized leadership of the Black Lives Matter movement. Newsom ultimately veered into “exceedingly” friendly territory with Kirk, a “campus culture warrior” and “close ally” of the president and Donald Trump Jr. At one point during the “frank” and “wide-ranging” episode, Newsom even appealed to Kirk to “give us some advice,” Fox News said.
By suggesting that the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports was “deeply unfair,” Newsom — despite having “backed LGBTQ causes for decades” — showcased a “newly defensive position on transgender rights among many in his party,” The New York Times said. While “hardly the first” Democrat to “lament” his party’s stance on transgender athletes, Newsom has become “the most prominent official” to do so.
An effort to ‘court the right’?
That Newsom would embrace Kirk’s position on barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports “seems to be part of his effort to court the right,” said Orion Rummler, a reporter for the gender-focused publication The 19th, on Bluesky. Newsom’s “chasing” what he thinks is “public opinion” only means that he “will have made a bunch of statements and taken a bunch of stances” he will eventually have to disavow should public sentiment move elsewhere, said the Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie on Bluesky. Newsom did not “debate” Kirk, or “challenge his far right views,” journalist Kat Tenbarge added on Bluesky.
Given Kirk’s documented anti-transgender rhetoric — including having once described trans people as a “throbbing middle finger to god” — Newsom’s decision to platform him is not “fostering a ‘discussion’ on transgender people in sports,” said journalist Erin Reed on Substack. Instead, the governor is “handing a known hate monger a microphone to denigrate an already vulnerable community” and “recalibrating his political stance to make targeting transgender people seem palatable” for his base.