(Photo Credit: Karen Warren for AP)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) slammed Fox News — and gave his own party a bit of a hard time as well for not being “normal” — while speaking at The New York Times’ Dealbook Conference in New York City on Wednesday.
Host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Newsom about his social media team’s attempt to mimic President Donald Trump’s posting style in recent months. The governor said he approved it because he needed to “wake everybody up” to the “normalization of deviancy” — and he said Fox News has been a prime offender, while comparing it the Soviet Union’s go-to propaganda outlet.
“You got Pravda, the primetime lineup at Fox, just going on and on [in defense of Trump],” Newsom said. “[He] called someone the ‘R word’ or piggy, and somehow it’s just ‘Trump being Trump.’ Nothing normal about this. He’s a man-child. It’s unbecoming to the president of the United States.”
Newsom
He then said it was ridiculous that Fox News ran “11 to 15” pieces where commentators were “disgusted” with his wannabe-Trump posts, but never said a “damn word” about Trump’s social media behavior.
Newsome, earlier in the conversation, also criticized Democrats, saying they are often out-of-touch with the issues most Americans care about — and that cost them big in 2024, he said.
“I think there’s a broader narrative that we ought to address, that is we have to be more culturally normal,” Newsom said. “We have to be a little less judgmental.”
He said he could talk about why he thought ex-Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump, but he said it was worth looking at the “larger narrative” Dems whiffed on.
Newsom pointed to several issues he said Dems did a poor job on, including “Israeli politics, immigration, the border,” as well as “incumbency issues” and inflation.
He also dodged a question on whether he plans on running for president in 2028, saying he does not think about it “to the degree” that Sorkin might expect.