Entering his final months as California’s governor, Gavin Newsom talked up his combative approach to the Trump administration in a recent interview, and tried to placate the Democratic Party’s split constituencies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Newsom has been open about the fact that he will likely run for President in 2028, and has tried to establish himself as one of the primary forces of President Donald J. Trump’s since 2025. While he briefly touched on his friendlier public relationship with Trump during the 2020 COVID response, he claimed that Trump sending the National Guard to Los Angeles represented a “darker” shift in the administration’s second-term policy.
Newsom further claimed, “Right now, we’ll lose this country if we are not aggressive.” The idea that Democrats are insufficiently combative is a theory the party has commonly embraced following electoral losses, despite the party’s increasing radicalism in the past decade, as well as their ceaseless promotion of baseless Russia and Jeffrey Epstein conspiracies against Trump.
Expanding on this theme, Newsom said, “The other side is ruthless, and with respect, my party needs to be more ruthless about winning…” in referencing the upcoming midterm elections. Proposition 50, which gerrymandered California’s congressional map in the Democrats’ favor, passed in 2025 and made good on Newsom’s expressed desire to fight fire with fire, as he attempts to become his party’s standard bearer.
Newsom’s problem comes from both ends, though: as of now, the country largely views him as a California limousine liberal, while at the same time, his party’s left edge views him as a slick sellout to tech and other wealthy interests. He is clearly aware of this dynamic, but it remains in doubt whether he will be able to convince his party’s skeptical, radicalized base.
Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Newsom took pains to claim, “I revere the state of Israel,” while going on to criticize current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also stated that he regretted using the word “apartheid” to describe Israel, weakly qualifying himself by saying that unspecified “others” may begin describing the state as such should it continue down its current path.
Ultimately, Newsom is emblematic is median so-called “Resistance” liberal opposition to Trump – heavily on stylistic confrontation, without representing a meaningful break from current Democratic leadership. Meanwhile, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates have been rising in popularity in various cities, a trend that Newsom is decidedly not a part of. If current political headwinds continue into 2028, the face of California liberalism may very well be done in by his own party’s most diehard leftists.
