California Gov. Gavin Newsom backed away from speculation that he plans to run for president on Sunday.
Newsom, one of the Democratic Party’s most vocal leaders in the second Trump era, previously told CBS News that he would be “lying” if he said he wasn’t considering running for president in 2028 in an interview that aired a week ago today.
But on Sunday, the governor seemed much less inclined to pull the trigger on that specific venture.
Asked about Meet the press moderator Kristen Welker, “why do you want to be president?” Newsom’s response was simple.
“I don’t,” he said.
He went on to explain that while he attempted to honestly answer a question from CBS’ Robert Costa, his focus was entirely on California’s redistricting process and what it would mean for his party in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. Democrats hope to take back one or both chambers of Congress, allowing them to have the levers of power to directly challenge the president’s agenda.
“I’m not suggesting that I run for president,” Newsom told NBC. “It was in response to someone who talked about it.”
He added that “there is nothing I dislike more than a politician who sits there and lies to you.”
“I’m focused on Proposition 50. I’m focused on fair and free elections. And to the extent that destiny, the future, there’s an alignment, you have a big enough why, you have a what and a how, you meet a moment and that moment presents itself in a year, a year and a half, we’ll see what happens,” the governor said, referring to the redistricting amendment that will be presented to California voters.
During his interview, Newsom fought a skeptical Welker at several points.
There came a time when the two clashed over whether the U.S. Department of Justice could still be trusted to handle cases fairly; The governor expressed surprise at Welker’s suggestion that such a prospect was even possible, given that the White House and Justice Department have launched a campaign to attack a growing list of the president’s political enemies with cases that many experts describe as flimsy and obviously motivated by a desire to punish Democrats.
The two also clashed over whether Newsom was “normalizing” Donald Trump’s behavior by mocking him with his “Governor Newsom Press Office” account on
“It reminds me of something Michelle Obama once said: ‘When they go down, we go up.’ Is there still room for that mentality among Democrats?” Welker asked.
“I would love to get back to that, but politics has changed. The world has changed,” Newsom responded.
Despite Newsom’s stated hesitation to run for president, the governor did one thing in his interview with Welker that, to political observers, could be seen as another step toward that eventuality.
Welker asked the governor about an issue that most Democratic journalists and officials believe will be a major issue in the 2028 presidential primary: Joe Biden. The party’s trust and popularity ratings among voters are at historic lows, and the botched 2024 election campaign is largely to blame. Democrats refused to hold a primary after Biden announced he planned to run for re-election in 2023, and a lone congressman, Dean Phillips, desperately pleaded publicly for his party to change course.
Then, Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June revealed a president who appeared lost, confused and physically frail on stage, unable to respond effectively to his opponent’s points or finish his own coherently. By then, it was too late for a full primary contest, and party figures like Rep. Jim Clyburn opposed efforts by people like Barack Obama to let party voters decide the issue.
Joe Biden seemed whispery and unable to finish his points during a June debate with Donald Trump in 2024 that preceded the collapse of his campaign (AFP/Getty)
Newsom told Welker that while he was “never” concerned about Biden’s ability to do his job, he had “privately” expressed concern about the president’s behavior after a fundraiser in Southern California. At that event, in May 2024, the sitting US president allegedly failed to recognize Hollywood megastar icon George Clooney, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest supporters in the film industry.
“The one exception, as far as the interaction I had with him that was thought-provoking, was the fundraiser in Southern California. And we were all a little taken aback,” Newsom explained to Welker. The governor added that during the June debate with Trump, “that person came back that night of the debate and that certainly gave us all pause.”
He went on to say that he raised his concerns with the campaign “privately, with grace and humility,” while echoing what former Vice President Kamala Harris said about her refusal to put more pressure on her running mate to drop out of the race: “He was going to make the right decision. So for me it wasn’t my job to go out there.”
That move to address concerns about Biden’s age puts the governor ahead of many of his potential rivals for the 2028 nomination, including Harris, who struggled to articulate why she herself refused to part ways with the president and didn’t speak out before it was too late during the press tour for her recently released memoir. 107 days.
Harris in particular (along with other members of the previous administration) is likely to face those questions in the future, as party voters largely blame leaders for torpedoing what many believe should have been a winnable election for the Democratic Party and pushing the Republican Party to twin majorities in the House and Senate.
After refusing to say she would do anything differently than Biden if she had been president for four years, Harris will take on the burden of the Biden-Harris administration’s entire record if she enters the field in 2028. This year, she declined to run for governor of California.