Gov. Gavin Newsom engages with a considerable amount of conservative media daily and has called for Democrats to “infect” it in order to persuade voters.
“The California governor consumes more right-wing media than most people who aren’t either retired or named Donald J. Trump,” said reporter Max Tani in a piece for the news website Semafor.
The Daily Wire, The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, other conservative websites, and conservative commentators on Fox News are all content Newsom follows regularly despite his staff asking him to stop.
The governor said Fox News is a “24/7 doom loop” of “misinformation” and said he believes Democrats should go after the conservative ecosystem with “reality checks” to change public opinion.
Newsom said he “woke up” to conservative media after his recall election in 2021 when he noticed that right-leaning media had a lot of power. Ever since, Democrats have used him to advocate for the Biden administration on conservative platforms.
He has even continued posting on Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social despite very few Democrats on the app. Newsom noted that he talks to independents and Democrats who listen to conservative media because many of them are still “persuadable” with their opinions.
Showing his eagerness to reach conservatives, the governor agreed to a faceoff with Gov. Ron DeSantis in November moderated by Sean Hannity. He said Republican presidential candidates were getting all the airtime and “polluting the airwaves” and he wanted to counteract that. Newsom said his strategy is to tell Democrats, “Let’s go to war,” telling Tani, “This is serious. Trump can win.”
The Daily Signal sought comment from Newsom’s office and will update this report when it responds.
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