What Gavin Newsom said during his Fox News interview
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California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom defended President Joe Biden’s performance in office and said he wouldn’t challenge him for the nomination during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that aired Monday.
“I’m rooting for our president and I have great confidence in his leadership,” he said.
Newsom didn’t directly answer Hannity when asked whether his phone lights up with people asking to him run for president, but said he thinks Biden “is a man of decency and character.”
Newsom did say his phone lights up with people impressed with the job Biden has done on foreign policy, raising the debt ceiling and bipartisan legislation, like the CHIPS and Science Act and the infrastructure bill he signed into law.
“I don’t think he’s capable, I know he’s capable, I see results. I’ve seen a master class in results the last few years,” Newsom said of Biden’s record.
When asked whether Biden was cognitively capable of being president, Newsom said, “I have conversations with him all the time. Yes.”
“I’ve talked to him when he’s been overseas, I’ve been in Air Force One, Marine One, I’ve been in the limo with him, I’ve spent time with him privately and publicly,” he said.
When asked whether Biden is strong enough to be president, Newsom pointed to the debt ceiling negotiations with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“Strong enough? Look what he did to McCarthy,” he said. “Kevin got played by the president of the United States.”
Newsom defended California after Hannity asked about the state seeing its first population loss in history, saying, “I love this state, don’t count us out.”
“Eighteen states had declines in population,” Newsom said. “You didn’t bring up any of the red states that had decline in populations.”
Newsom also addressed the state’s homeless population. The California state auditor says that 50% of the unsheltered homeless population in the U.S. live in California.
“This state has not made progress in the last two decades as it relates to homelessness because housing costs are too high, our regulatory thickets are too problematic, localism has been too impactful — meaning people locally are pushing back against new housing starts and construction,” he said.
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Newsom said California “continues to be the tentpole of the American economy” and said, “We’re on our way to be the fourth largest economy — eat your heart out, Germany — in the world.”
“With all due respect, Florida doesn’t even come close,” he said.
Newsom called Trump’s recent indictment “sad, and I say that as an American,” and criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for sending migrants to states run by Democratic leaders, calling it a “stunt.”
Newsom said he had an “incredible relationship” with Trump while he was in office during the pandemic because he “played no politics during COVID with California.”
Newsom also said he did the wrong thing when he went to a birthday dinner at the French Laundry during lockdowns.
“It was wrong, and I own that,” he said.
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Newsom said the unusual matchup of a liberal politician being interviewed on a conservative network was needed.
“I think we need more of that cross pollination, we need more of these kinds of conversations,” he said.
He also said he would be open to doing a three-hour debate with DeSantis with one-day notice and no notes hosted by Hannity, who said he would moderate with one-word prompts, like “economy.”
“I’m all in,” Newsom said.
