Gavin Newsom
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Gavin Newsom is the governor of California whom John Kiriakou assessed in July 2023 as the Democratic Party's understudy rather than its insurgent.

The Idaho trip

Kiriakou treated a recent Newsom appearance in Idaho as the tell. Joe Biden, he noted, was only going to get twenty-four or twenty-five per cent in Idaho, "So why he would go to Idaho is a mystery. But the fact that he went to Idaho is what's newsworthy."

His reading: "He went because he was asked to. He is doing everything that the Biden people want him to do."

The calculation behind it

Kiriakou believed the motive was positional. Newsom "thinks that there's a chance that Joe Biden simply is not going to be the nominee because he's not going to make it all the way to the nominating convention." In that event, he argued, the vice president would not fill the gap, Kamala Harris being, in his phrase, "the most unpopular vice president since Spiro Agnew", leaving an opening for Newsom around the following August or September.

He named the pressures making a change necessary: a poll that day showing thirty per cent of registered Democrats did not want Biden to run, Biden trailing Donald Trump in every swing state, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. beginning to poll well after entering the race.

The insider, not the outsider

Kiriakou's characterisation of the man himself is the substance of his assessment. Newsom, he said, is "a Pelosi relative" who "married into Jerry Brown's family with his first marriage", and the appearance of independence is a surface. "He may come across to those of us not in California as this kind of slightly rogue left of center liberal savior. He's very much a DNC insider, but he looks like he's a young wave maker from the outside. He's, he's not, and, and politically he's playing this very well. He's waiting his turn and hoping that things turn out for him sooner rather than later."

On the qualifications required: "Gavin Newsom, arguably as handsome, full head of dark hair, not gray hair, and he can wear a pullover and talk in a soft reassuring voice. And I think that that's good enough for the Democratic Party because he's a team player."

The debate, and the handshake declined

Kiriakou's dislike is stated without hedging, "as a human being, I loathe Gavin Newsom", and he reports acting on it, having crossed paths with Newsom at a White House Correspondents' dinner party and "elected to not shake his hand."

The reason he gives dates to Newsom's time as mayor of San Francisco, while running for lieutenant governor of California. His campaign was being run by his best friend. Newsom said he was too busy to appear at a debate and asked the friend to stand in for him; the friend agreed. "Newsom wasn't busy. Newsom was sleeping with his best friend's wife. And they got caught."

What Kiriakou fixes on is the shape of the apology: Newsom apologised to the people of California, "Not to his best friend for banging his wife and just upending a lifelong friendship." The wife, who also worked for Newsom, resigned, and the couple divorced. The grade is a D, on a summary judgement: "the guy just has scumbag written all over him."

See also

- Kamala Harris
- 2028 presidential field
- Democratic Party 2025 Political Snapshot
