KFile: Gavin Newsom spent years fighting for progressive positions he now bashes on his new podcast
By Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, CNN
Since launching his new podcast two weeks ago, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken aim at a number of causes popular among progressives: He’s rejected the term “Latinx,” said he doesn’t back trans women competing in women’s sports, and suggested he opposes taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for prisoners and detained immigrants.
His more than 20-year political record in California tells a much different story.
Newsom has repeatedly used the term “Latinx,” a gender-neutral term referring to people of Latin American descent. He’s also supported a number of policies over the years expanding transgender rights, including those for undocumented immigrants and even signing into law a bill acknowledging prisoners’ need for gender transition medical care.
Now, in the aftermath of the 2024 election, with the Democratic Party facing record low favorability numbers, Newsom appears to be disavowing some of these positions as he wrangles with conservatives on his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.”
The first few episodes have featured guests Newsom explicitly disagrees with. So far, they include former Trump campaign chair Steve Bannon, conservative activist Charlie Kirk and syndicated radio host Michael Savage, all of whom have large followings in conservative media.
Newsom has a track record of engaging with conservatives, including in a 2023 Fox News debate with Florida Governor and then-Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis. Newsom’s podcast is among the most overt attempts to acknowledge what’s broken in the Democratic Party.
The problem for Newsom is that he’s spent his career staking out progressive positions on a host of issues that are seen by some as part of his party’s weakness. In 2004 as the mayor of San Francisco, Newsom notably defied court orders by issuing same-sex marriage licenses establishing him as a progressive standard-bearer.
As lieutenant governor in 2014, Newsom celebrated California’s new law allowing trans student athletes to compete in sports that align with their gender. He then applauded the failure of a Republican-led campaign to repeal the law.
As governor in 2020, Newsom signed a landmark bill expanding rights for transgender prisoners, allowing inmates to be housed based on their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth and acknowledging their need for gender transition care.
“Your governor said it right when he said, ‘Never has so much fear and anger been focused on so few people,’” Newsom said of Cox’s statement vetoing the bill.
Now, facing a shifting political landscape, Newsom is distancing himself from those progressive policies he once recently championed — though not acknowledging his own role in supporting and advancing them.
In response to questions from CNN, a Newsom spokesperson declined to comment on the record but defended the governor’s record on transgender youth, citing his past efforts to expand protections for transgender individuals.
‘Out-of-touch fixation’
On the first episode of his podcast Newsom proclaimed, “Not one person ever in my office has ever used the word Latinx,” he said, dismissing the term as an “out-of-touch fixation.”
“Where did that even – I just didn’t even know where it came from,” he added.
In fact, someone in his office repeatedly used the term: Newsom himself.
As governor, Newsom invoked “Latinx” in press briefings in 2020, and social media posts from his personal and official X accounts when highlighting issues affecting Latino communities.
“I hope we can really paint a picture in terms of our consciousness of how impactful this has been on the Latinx community,” Newsom said at one Covid-19 briefing.
A 2024 poll by the Pew Research Center found the term Latinx to be broadly unpopular among Latino adults in the US. Only 4% say they use the term to describe themselves, and 75% of Latinos who have heard of the term say it should not be used to describe the Hispanic or Latino population.
A spokesperson for Newsom told CNN that Latinx is “not a term that is regularly used by the Administration.
Just as Newsom has tried to distance himself from “Latinx,” he is now trying to cast taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for prisoners as a political loser.
Also on the first episode of his podcast, Newsom dismissed the issue as a “90/10” debate—suggesting it was overwhelmingly unpopular.
Newsom was discussing former Vice President Kamala Harris’ past support for a federal law protecting access to taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained migrants and prisoners, which CNN’s KFile first reported. Harris pledged her support for the policy in a 2019 questionnaire from the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Trump campaign later highlighted Harris’ support in its widely distributed “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” political advertisement.
“‘Trump’s for you, she’s for they/them,’” Newsom said, paraphrasing the message. “Devastating. And she didn’t even react to it, which was more devastating … people that are incarcerated and illegal and illegal incarcerated individuals getting taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery. That is a 90/10 not an 80/20.”
“And then you had the video, that was a validator. Brutal,” he continued.
Yet the policies Newsom is condemning are currently the law in California. Legal challenges and a court order made California in 2017 the first state to provide a state-funded transition surgery for an inmate, when Newsom was the state’s lieutenant governor.
Later in 2020, Newsom signed the landmark Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, which further cemented those rights – requiring that transgender prisoners be housed according to their gender and acknowledged their need for access to transition-related healthcare.
“Some transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people experience gender dysphoria that requires medical treatment, while others do not experience gender dysphoria,” the law states. “Due to safety concerns, inconsistent medical and mental health care, insufficient education and resources, and other factors, incarceration often serves as a barrier to gender transition.”
Newsom’s spokesperson declined to comment on the state’s transgender policies, saying, “The Governor’s comments speak for themselves.”
On his first podcast episode, which featured Kirk, Newsom suggested that California’s transgender policies had gone too far.
“It turns out in 2014, years before I was governor, there was a law established that established the legal principles that allow trans athletes in women’s sports. But the issue of fairness is completely legit,” Newsom told Kirk. “So I completely align with you, and we’ve got to own that. And we’ve gotta acknowledge it.”
“It is an issue of fairness. And I think Democrats have lost that,” Newsom added.
Newsom was lieutenant governor when the School Success and Opportunity Act was signed into law by then-Gov. Brown in August 2013. Several months later, at Brown’s State of the State address, Newsom introduced Brown by praising him and the state legislature for their leadership in signing the bill into law.
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