Gavin Newsom Shocks Tim Walz With Steve Bannon Praise: ‘Reminds Me a Lot of What Democrats Were Saying 20, 30 Years Ago’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) shocked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) by offering some positive words about Steve Bannon during a discussion the state of the Democratic Party.

Walz joined Newsom on his This Is Gavin Newsom podcast, and the pair agreed that Democrats need to be on the “offense” in their “fight” against President Donald Trump and Republicans. Where the pair appeared to disagree in how to think about right-wing figures like Bannon, a former advisor to Trump who now hosts his War Room podcast.

Newsom argued that Republicans like Bannon “weaponize complicated issues” like DEI, but they are also hugely influential because they’re also speaking about the middle class. The governor even admitted some of Bannon’s talk about the country’s losing its “industrial core” sound similar to what Democrats were saying “20,30 years ago.

“When you talk to a guy like Steve Bannon, he talks about working folks, and he talks about about how we hollowed out the industrial core of this country,” Newsom said of Bannon, a past guest on his podcast.

“But he denies the election!” Walz said.

“I understand that. So we can dismiss the notion of election denialism. We could completely dismiss what he did on January 6th, but I don’t think you can dismiss what he’s saying reminds me a lot of what Bernie Sanders was saying, Reminds me a lot of what Democrats said 20, 30 years ago,” Newsom responded.

Walz earlier in the discussion said he’d love to “push” some MAGA figures “back under a rock.”

Check out the exchange below:

TIM WALZ: How do you fight it? I do think I could kick most of their ass. I do think that. I know I can outrun them. But I don’t know if we’re going to fall into that place where we want to — okay, we challenge you to a WWE fight deal type of thing.

GAVIN NEWSOM: It’s a natural reaction. I think it’s one of the reasons we’re losing so many men. And again, it’s multi-ethnic. It’s not just white men. We’re losing them. We’re losing them to these guys online. We’re losing them to people that I’m bringing on this podcast as well. That’s why I brought-

WALZ: These are bad guys though. These are bad guys.

NEWSOM: But they exist and we could deny they exist. They exist, not only they exist, they persist. And they’re actually influencing young kids every single day.

WALZ: How do we put some of those guys back under a rock?

NEWSOM: I think we have to first understand what their motivations are. I think we have to understand what they’re actually doing.

WALZ: You don’t think it’s racism and misogyny?

NEWSOM: I think there’s a lot of that, but I don’t think it’s exclusively that. When you talk to a guy like Steve Bannon, he talks about working folks and he talks about how we hollowed out the industrial core of this country.

WALZ: But he denies the election!

NEWSOM: I understand that. So we can dismiss the notion of election denialism. We could completely dismiss what he did on January 6th, but I don’t think you can dismiss what he’s saying reminds me a lot of what Bernie Sanders was saying reminds me a lot of what Democrats said 20, 30 years ago.

Watch above via This Is Gavin Newsom.