Raw Facts: The Gavin Newsome Podcast with Charlie Kirk

Did the media accurately hit on the main themes from this broadcast?

I am starting a new regular series called “Raw Facts”, based on my previous article called “Raw Facts, and the Art of the Non-Deal”. In that article I watched the whole Zelensky press conference with Trump and Vance to see if the popular media narratives were accurate. I came away realizing that things were portrayed differently than popularly suggested. So I thought it would be a good idea to do this more often, where I watch and/or listen to the raw broadcast of the actual event and see if the main media hit points are on target or not.

Here is my take on the recent Gavin Newsome Podcast, where he talked with Charlie Kirk.

California’s popular Govenor Gavin Newsome started a podcast last week. Surprisingly, his debut guest was right-wing firebrand and activist Charlie Kirk. Kirk is the founder of Turning Point USA, a highly conservative political activist group that gets credited to some degree with the shift of the youth vote towards Donald Trump and Republicans.

Initial reactions that I read and heard throughout the media were very mixed. There were two main camps:

1. It’s a mistake to platform such a divisive figure such as Kirk

2. It’s desirable to get into uncomfortable spaces with people such as Kirk and battle them out in public in the marketplace of ideas

I don’t know exactly how I feel about this type of thing yet, but I’m leaning towards more of the latter. Doing public debate battles seems like a great way to publicize the hypocrisy and malicious nature of many of MAGA’s policies. But it has to be done with talented debaters, who are forceful and quick on their feet.

Newsome fits the bill on this. Even if he’s got liabilities that could hamper him in a presidential run, he’s a very capable and talented politician, and was one of the more vocal and effective surrogates for Biden and Harris in the 2024 election.

Given this, his podcast launch episode was highly disappointing.

The popular media takes were skewed, but it was still highly frustrating

There were two main points that were discussed in media analysis of this episode. One of them was that Kirk insulted the Democrats by calling them the “Democrat Party”.

While I did notice him say that a few times, it didn’t seem like quite the issue it’s been made out to be. And even if it was, it’s not really worth harping on in my opinion. Sure, Kirk—and MAGA in general—don’t treat Democrats with high levels of respect. And he’s sure to get his digs in there when he can. If calling them the “Democrat Party” is really what you want to be offended by, then so be it. But there were other much more important takeaways from this.

The most common things that came out of the interview was that Newsome said he did not support trans female athletes in women’s sports. I don’t think his statement was quite that straightforward. But he was annoyingly mealymouthed about the issue and seemed like he was trying to find common ground with Kirk rather than actually debate him on the merits.

My takeaway with what he said was that he acknowledged there is a “fairness” factor to be concerned about in these situations, but that one had to balance that with the humane treatment of trans people.

So not exactly a ringing endorsement of trans athletes, but also not exactly a condemnation either. And yes, he was a bit too agreeable for comfort with Kirk on the “fairness” factor. So, it’s understandable that it would be deflating for many people and perhaps disqualifying for his presidential ambitions.

But Newsome’s problems in this podcast went beyond this or any singular issue. Anyone, like me, that was hoping to get some debate fireworks out of this conversation was highly disappointed. Newsome just seemed way too eager to be overly polite to Kirk. I started counting the number of times he said “I appreciate that” in response to an argument that Kirk made on a subject, but I found that I couldn’t keep up, so I gave up counting.

If I was going to put Newsome’s performance in this episode with Kirk into a visual, I would use the promotional picture of the podcast, which I included here at the top of my post. The way he looks in that picture was the way he came off in this audio podcast.

This was essentially Newsome conceding to Kirk the show’s soapbox. There was very little debate; it came off like a conversation between two buds who just happened to disagree on some things. But Kirk came to play, and his arguments got amplified as a result of Newsome’s ultra-kindness and lack of push-back.

And there were moments for him to push back. Kirk made several hypocritical statements in his criticisms of Democrats. One was that Democrats were obsessed with the “oppressor vs oppressed” paradigm and the “elevation of the victim”, which were damaging their brand. This is extremely rich coming from the grievance-obsessed MAGA world where victimhood reigns and white men supposedly suffer suffocating oppression every day.

Kirk also criticized Democrats’ cancel culture. Which is highly amusing given that Republicans are led by a one-man walking cancel culture. Also, at one point, Kirk touted Republicans’ diversity, mentioning that Susan Collins was pro-choice—while ignoring that fact that she’s frequently threatened with primary challenges by many activists such as Kirk himself. But Newsome didn’t challenge these ridiculous assertions at all, he just laughed them off.

In fact, he laughed a bit too hard several times, which seemed more disingenuous than engaging.

Is Gavin Newsome a politically naive idiot?

And Newsome also came off as politically unskilled and ignorant. I’m not saying that he is these things, but simply that he came off this way.

He constantly was picking Kirk’s brain about his political success, showering him with flattery and conceding Democrats’ weaknesses on just about every issue that Kirk said they were weak on.

I got the sense that Newsome was trying to steer this podcast into purely conversational rather than confrontational. He just wanted to hang with Kirk and get to know him and learn his secrets.

The question I have is: How intentional was this?

Gavin Newsome is too sharp and political for me to buy in too much to the idea that he wants to “learn what makes Charlie Kirk tick” or “pick his brain”, or whatever other flattering metaphor one wants to use.

This is a guy that’s won the California governorship easily, including comfortably surviving an ill-fated recall attempt in 2021, and has been arguably running for president ever since. He knows what he’s doing.

So, what was the point of having Charlie Kirk on his debut podcast?

Well, if it wasn’t to debate and successfully tear down MAGA tropes, I’m not sure.

Perhaps it was a good faith attempt to reach across the aisle and have meaningful discussions. But it’s hard to accept that with a shameless propaganda artist like Charlie Kirk.

The problem is that this show went a long way in humanizing Kirk and his extreme MAGA positions. In general, I wouldn’t mind this, but Kirk posts some of the most disgusting MAGA propaganda out there. But if all you knew about him was from this show, you’d just think he was a rather generic social conservative.

But he’s not just a generic social conservative, he’s a skilled showman for MAGA causes, and uses his social media account and podcast to hyperbolize and aggrandize single events into urgent apocalyptic rage-inducing issues.

The final verdict

There were a few moments where it seemed like Newsome would engage in a fiery debate and win, but any momentum he gained sputtered out amid Kirk’s interruptions and Newsome’s contrived niceties.

If you’re looking for a winner in this podcast, it was Charlie Kirk.

If you’re looking for a compelling debate, look elsewhere.

If you’re looking for an informational conversation, then, sure, listen to this episode. If I didn’t know who either of these two were, I would have just listened and taken away some interesting tidbits.

And if you’re looking for leadership from the Democrats and a reason to hope, definitely do not listen to this podcast.