Gavin Newsom, working the spin room for Joe Biden, calls Republican debate ‘a clown show’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t wait for the start of Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate before trashing the field of contenders, writing them off as “the JV team.”

“Donald Trump is running away with this,” the governor said in an interview with CBS. “This is the XFL, and it’s entertainment I guess.”

Newsom, once thought to be a potential challenger to President Joe Biden in 2024, served as his principal surrogate following the two-hour affair at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in southern California.

“What a clown show,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter, before making his rounds on the cable channels, where he fact-checked and ridiculed the candidates while declaring Biden the night’s winner.

Newsom criticized the Republicans’ stances on immigration, abortion and climate change. He pushed back against claims of high crime rates in San Francisco and the nation’s level of energy independence. He rattled off data points to back up his arguments, including that eight of the top ten states for homicide in the country are red states.

“We dominate on the facts but not the narrative,” Newsom said on CNN about the Democratic party. “We’ve got to shapeshift that narrative and be more forceful on the facts.”

Noticeably missing from the debate stage at the Simi Valley library, where Reagan’s old blue-and-white Air Force One hung suspended from the ceiling, was frontrunner Donald Trump. The former president skipped the debate and instead spent his evening speaking at a non-union auto supplier in Clinton Township, Michigan.

In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Newsom called Mike Pence “pathetic” for wanting to ensure all school shooters face an “expedited” death penalty. He said the anti-labor rhetoric used by South Carolina Senator Tim Scott in discussing the autoworkers’ strike was “reprehensible.” And, he called out Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for lying and trying to hide that he pushed to end fracking and offshore wind farms in his state.

On Fox, host Sean Hannity pressed Newsom on California’s high gas prices and multi-million-dollar wildlife crossings — and on whether there were circumstances in which Newsom would ever accept the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024.

The governor laughed, calling the notion “ridiculous” and then answered no.

“Joe Biden’s our president. Joe Biden is going to win this election,” he said. “Joe Biden won the debate tonight.”