California Gov. Gavin Newsom backed off from speculation that he is planning to run for president on Sunday.
One of the Democratic Party’s most vocal leaders in the second Trump era, Newsom previously told CBS News that he would be “lying” if he said he wasn’t considering running for president in 2028 in an interview that aired one week ago today.
But on Sunday, the governor sounded much less inclined towards pulling the trigger on that specific venture.
Asked by Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, “why do you want to be president?”, Newsom’s answer was simple.
“I don’t,” he said.
Gavin Newsom backed away from presidential ambitions after telling CBS he’d be ‘lying’ if he said he wasn’t considering running in 2028 (NBC – Meet the Press)
He went on to explain that while he tried to answer a question from CBS’s Robert Costa honestly, his focus was entirely centered on California’s redistricting process and what it would mean for his party in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. Democrats are hoping to take back one or both chambers of Congress, allowing them the levers of power to challenge the president’s agenda directly.
“I’m not suggesting I am [running for president],” Newsom told NBC. “It was in response to someone [who] talked about it.”
He added that there was “nothing I dislike more than a politician that sits there and lies to you”.
“I’m focused on Prop 50. I’m focusing on fair and free elections. And to the extent, fate, the future, there’s an alignment, you have a big enough why, you have a what and a how, you meet a moment and that moment presents itself in a year, year and a half, we’ll see what happens,” said the governor, referring to the redistricting amendment set to be presented to California voters.
During his interview, Newsom battled a skeptical Welker on several points.
One moment came as the two clashed over whether the U.S. Department of Justice could still be trusted to handle cases fairly; the governor expressed surprise at Welker’s suggestion that such a prospect was even possible, given how the White House and DOJ have launched a campaign to target a growing list of the president’s political enemies with cases that many experts describe as flimsy and obviously motivated by a desire to punish Democrats.
The two also clashed over whether Newsom was “normalizing” Donald Trump’s behaviour by mocking it with his “Governor Newsom Press Office” account on X, which has taken to mimicking Trump’s all-caps insult-throwing social media statements.
“It reminds me of something Michelle Obama said once, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ Is there still room for that mindset for Democrats?” asked Welker.
“I would love to go back to that, but politics has changed. The world has changed,” Newsom responded.
Despite Newsom’s stated hesitance towards running for president, the governor did one thing in his interview with Welker that could, to political observers, be seen as taking another step towards that eventuallity.
The governor was asked by Welker about an issue that most journalists and Democratic officials believe will be a major issue in the 2028 presidential primary: Joe Biden. The party’s trust and popularity ratings with voters are at historic lows, and the bungling of the 2024 election campaign is chiefly to blame. Democrats refused to hold a primary after Biden announced that he planned to run for re-election in 2023, with one lone congressman, Dean Phillips, desperately pleading publicly for his party to change course.
Then, the disastrous debate performance by Joe Biden in June revealed a president who appeared lost, confused and physically frail onstage, unable to effectively respond to his opponent’s points or finish his own coherently. By then, it was too late for a full primary contest and party figures like Rep. Jim Clyburn opposed efforts by the likes of Barack Obama to allow the party’s voters to decide the issue.
Joe Biden appeared whispery and unable to finish his points during a June debate with Donald Trump in 2024 that preceded the downfall of his campaign (AFP/Getty)
Newsom told Welker that while he “never” had concerns about Biden’s ability to do his job, he had “privately” raised concerns about the president’s demeanor after a fundraiser in Southern California. At that event, in May of 2024, the sitting U.S. president reportedly failed to recognize megastar Hollywood icon George Clooney, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest supporters in the film industry.
“The one exception, as it relates to the interaction I had with him, that gave me pause, one, was the fundraiser in Southern California. And all of us were a little taken aback,” Newsom explained to Welker. The governor added that during the June debate with Trump, “that person came back on that debate night and that certainly gave all of us pause.”
He went on to assert that he raised his concerns to the campaign “privately, with grace and humility,” while echoing what former vice president Kamala Harris said about her refusal to put more pressure on her running mate to drop out: “He was going to make the right decision. And so for me it wasn’t my job to go out there.”
That move to address the concerns about Biden’s age puts the governor ahead of many of his potential rivals for the 2028 nomination, including Harris who struggled to enunciate why she herself refused to separate herself from the president and hadn’t spoken out before it was too late during the media tour for her recently-published memoir, 107 Days.
Harris, in particular, is likely (along with others in the former administration) to face those questions going forward as the party’s voters largely blame leadership for fumbling what many believe should have been a winnable election for the Democratic Party and pushing the GOP into twin majorities in the House and Senate.
Having refused to say that she would do anything different than Biden had she been president for four years, Harris will shoulder the burden of the entire Biden-Harris administration’s record should she enter the field in 2028. This year, she declined to run for governor in California.
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