California Gov. Gavin Newsom has shifted his tough political talk to Democrats and President Joe Biden, saying the party has a “messaging problem” and the president is “hardwired for a different world.”
The governor was gentle in describing Biden, 79, who came to the Senate in 1973, as someone whose “world is gone.”
“He’s acknowledged that very publicly on multiple occasions,” Newsom said in an interview with Alex Wagner of MSNBC. Newsom made his comments in Texas, where he was participating in the Texas Tribune Festival last weekend.
Before becoming president in 2021, Biden spent 36 years as a U.S. senator, frequently crafting major legislation, and eight years as vice president.
“It’s very hard for him. His decency, his honor, his character, his moral persuasion ... those are tools in his toolkit.”
Newsom said that Biden “wants to compromise, he wants to find our better angels, and he wants to find that sweet spot in terms of answering our collective vision and values but that’s not how the system is designed.”
The 2022 political world is very different, the governor said. Republicans are vicious, he contended, “They’re bullies, nothing more than rank bullies,” Newsom said.
Newsom has won praise from Democratic insiders recently for aggressively challenging Republican governors on abortion and other issues. He’s run ads and placed billboards in Florida, Texas and other states.
Newsom has repeatedly denied, and did so again in Texas, that he’s interested in running for president in 2024. But at 54, positioned to win a second term governing the nation’s largest state, he could be setting himself up to be in the presidential conversation for years to come.
“Why aren’t we calling this out?” he asked of his party’s strategy for criticizing Republicans, adding, “We have a messaging problem. I really believe it.”
Newsom said he understood that issues such as immigration reform and other issues are “tough and vexing issues.”
But this messaging issue is hardly new; he noted it’s “persisted for years and years. We’re constantly on the defense. We allow these culture wars to take shape and we are consistently on the back end.”
For instance, he cited data showing that eight of 10 states with the nation’s highest murder rates have Republican governors. “How did Democrats not know that?” he asked. “We’re losing that message?”
“Why don’t we push back?” he asked. “I don’t know.”
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