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When Gov. Gavin Newsom launched his new podcast last month, he touted it as an opportunity to understand the MAGA movement’s motivations and figure out a path forward for Democrats after the party’s bruising losses in the 2024 election.

But the early response has predominantly been bewilderment — from supporters, critics and the public alike — as listeners struggle to make sense of Newsom’s intentions, his political evolution and what the show signals for his leadership of California.

The governor’s about-face from leading critic of President Donald Trump to MAGA-curious pundit comes at a critical moment for the state, as California launches legal battles against Trump administration policies and faces potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding cuts.

Republicans have dismissed Newsom’s concerted shift to the center on some issues as disingenuous and roasted him for diverting his attention away from solving the state’s problems. Even many allies who applaud Newsom for reaching across the ideological aisle were troubled by his early guests and how the governor boosted their ultraconservative views.

And in Sacramento, legislators and advocates are scratching their heads. If the podcast is, as insiders widely suspect, Newsom’s attempt to redefine himself ahead of a long-anticipated presidential bid, then what does a renewed focus on the national stage mean for the remaining two years of his governorship?

“Quite frankly, we’re all asking those questions,” said state Sen. Ben Allen, a Santa Monica Democrat.

Allen pushed for a limit on single-use plastics in California that Newsom signed into law in 2022 — before scrapping rules to put the law into effect right before the final deadline this month, citing cost concerns, and telling regulators to start over. Environmentalists fumed that the governor was bowing to industry pressure after an election in which affordability was at the forefront of voters’ minds.

“I think people are trying to figure out what’s going on,” Allen said.

The governor’s mixed messages

Newsom gave nearly all his attention in the first part of the year to the response and recovery from the devastating wildfires that burned through Los Angeles County in early January. Despite initially proclaiming last fall that he would again lead the resistance to Trump, national politics took a backseat as the governor navigated their complex relationship to lobby for federal disaster aid, which California has not yet secured.

But Newsom seemed to flip a switch in late February with the podcast launch. Since then, the governor has not held any public events or press conferences, allowing the four episodes of his show released so far to drive his messaging almost completely, though he has also waded back into denouncing federal Republicans on social media.

That has created a conundrum for those trying to understand how what Newsom says in these casual conversations may translate to his day job running the biggest state in the country. When his remarks generate headlines — as they did during the controversial first episode featuring the Trump-aligned activist Charlie Kirk, where Newsom called it “deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports — his office refuses to clarify his positions.

Speaking to far-right former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on the third episode last week about the president’s foreign trade strategy, Newsom said he was “not an absolutist as it relates to being against tariffs,” just days after the governor put out a statement that “tariffs are nothing more than a tax on hardworking American families.” Spokesperson Izzy Gardon would not explain when Newsom supported the use of tariffs, directing CalMatters back to his comments on the podcast.

Cornered by reporters at the Capitol this week, Newsom dodged questions about whether he supported Republican-led legislation that would ban transgender women and girls from competitive sports in California. “I haven’t seen any bills,” he repeatedly said.

The shifting tone and positions without explanation has undermined Democrats’ trust, said Anthony Rendon, who was Assembly speaker when Newsom took office during Trump’s first term promising to make California a bulwark against the president.

Rendon, who termed out of the Legislature last year, said he talks to former colleagues who now wonder whether they should strategically shift their priorities so that they don’t waste time on measures that Newsom will simply veto.

“They’re mystified,” he said. “‘WTF’ is the most common text message I get.”

Uncertainty in Sacramento

Many lawmakers, not wanting to damage their relationships with the man who ultimately decides the fate of their agendas, are loath to speak publicly about the governor’s podcast. Those who will can be painstakingly diplomatic, emphasizing that they remain committed to their own work.

“We just have to remain focused. The outside noise to me is neither here nor there,” said Sen. Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach Democrat who serves as the Senate majority leader. “Sometimes words are just words, and I’m hoping that that’s where it stays.”

Some of the most progressive lawmakers at the Capitol have spoken out against Newsom’s choice of guests and his comments about transgender athletes, but they have largely separated those complaints from the governor himself, whom they characterize as an ally.

Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat, said there is too much focus on what the governor is doing as the Trump administration challenges democracy itself. He said it was not helpful for Democrats to go after each other when they should be fighting the Republicans in Washington, D.C.

“I do think that every Democrat right now should be ringing the alarm as to the constitutional crisis that we’re having, and anything that detracts from that I think minimizes the dangerous place we’re in as a nation,” Kalra said.

Like many Democrats, Allen complimented Newsom for “talking to people from different perspectives in different parts of the country” as the party tries to make sense of Trump’s victory in November. But Allen said he didn’t want Democrats to take the wrong lessons from the 2024 election and be afraid to assert their values.

“I do think that some of the people who have been on his show have been a little fringe,” Allen said. “I worry that they may be anchoring the conversation in a way that’s counterproductive.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom addresses media after signing legislation in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, 2023. Photo by Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters

Listeners confused and distraught

Listeners have been equally perplexed. Voter data expert Paul Mitchell surveyed 1,000 Californians before and after the first episode of the podcast dropped and found a tangle of conflicting responses.

Asked to watch three snippets of Newsom’s conversation with Kirk, nearly a quarter of respondents said they viewed the governor as more moderate, but twice as many people said the podcast harmed their perception of Newsom as improved it.

“In the short-term, wow, Republicans are not convinced and Democrats are not pleased,” Mitchell said, pointing to hundreds of open-ended comments from the survey in which conservatives largely expressed suspicion of Newsom’s intentions and liberals felt betrayed.

Mitchell also tracked a drop in the governor’s approval rating, from 52% to 47%. But since the launch, positive and negative sentiments about the podcast have dropped while neutral sentiment has nearly doubled — with political independents seeming more receptive.

“That could be voters kind of cracking the door open,” Mitchell said. “If he’s trying to get away from the Gavin Newsom caricature, then that might be something he’s doing.”

Yet a true political reinvention, one that could reshape the arc of his career, is a long-term project, for better or worse.

Liberal donors and activists who backed Newsom in the past were shaken by the early episodes, which also saw the governor brush past comments that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump without any debate as he cozied up to figures who have been accused of antisemitism and doing a Nazi salute. Movie star Jane Fonda compared Newsom to the former UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, known for appeasing Adolf Hilter’s early territorial annexations to avoid war.

Ludovic Blain, executive director of the progressive donor network California Donor Table, slammed Newsom for “capitulating to authoritarians,” even as he expressed hope that the governor would grow a stronger backbone and defend civil rights as the podcast continues.

“He’s turning the Democratic Party into one that stands for nothing,” Blain said. “We do expect Gavin to be better.”

‘I don’t think this podcast is gonna help him’

And if Newsom is going to persuade the public that he’s got bipartisan appeal and is electable in purple states, that day still looked far away at the recent California Republican Party convention in Sacramento. Attendees — even the young men whose drift to Trump in 2024 has convinced Democrats that podcasts are the future — were not buying the governor’s transformation.

“He hasn’t done anything to build any trust. And I don’t think this podcast is gonna help him,” said Topher Hall, a 25-year-old college student from El Dorado County wearing a Make America Great Again Again sweatshirt.

Hall said he had watched clips from the podcast on Kirk’s social media and felt that Newsom was merely trying to use the large established audiences of his conservative guests to build his own platform.

After growing up apolitical in the liberal Bay Area, Hall said he was drawn to the Republican Party in recent years by its stances in favor of gun rights and against transgender athletes. But Newsom’s comments about the latter had struck him as opportunistic flip-flopping.

“He’s kind of a slick politician. I think he’s like the used car salesman of politics. I think he’s just Hollywood,” Hall said. “He’s just a sellout.”

Jessica Rutan, a 60-year-old retired educator from Fullerton, said Newsom lost her completely with his dictatorial lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic. But she listened to his conversations with Kirk and Bannon, curious what they would say to him — and whether the governor would actually take their advice.

She was frustrated that he had not, calling Newsom’s engagement with the conservative activists “so disingenuous” and the “wrong priority” following the Los Angeles fires.

“Your place is the governor. You have a job to do and now you just want to sit on a chair and act like you’re buddies with people?” said Rutan, who sported a bedazzled red-white-and-blue elephant pin. “You have people in the state you need to take care of. Why aren’t you doing your job? And that’s what I’m most annoyed with.”