California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) faced criticism for his “unforgivable and insane” decision to have Steve Bannon, chief architect of the MAGA movement, on his podcast.
Bannon, an influential White House aide during Donald Trump’s first term as president, appeared on the fourth episode of “This Is Gavin Newsom,” which was released Wednesday.
During the 72-minute podcast, Bannon opined on a series of largely economic issues with good-natured disagreement from Newsom, who is seen as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028.
At one point, Newsom, while critical of Trump’s scattershot tariffs policy, made a defense of targeted import taxes, pointing out former President Joe Biden’s hiked tariffs on aluminum and steel during his time in office.
“Democrats weren’t screaming and yelling about that,” Newsom said, adding he was not a tariffs “absolutist.”
But it was less the discourse, and more the choice of guest, that caused controversy, with Bannon’s appearance coming soon after Newsom had right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk as his first guest.
Newsom raised eyebrows after agreeing with Kirk on transgender girls and women in sports, saying that their participation is “deeply unfair.”
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said he was “in shock at the stupidity of Newsom hosting Bannon.”
“Many of us on the right sacrificed careers to fight Bannon, and Newsom is trying to make a career and a presidential run by building him up,” he wrote on Bluesky. “Unforgivable and insane.”
Just last month, Bannon was accused of giving a Nazi salute at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Bannon defended the gesture as merely a “wave.”
As for the podcast, the pair avoided culture war flashpoints in favor of economic takes, with Bannon joking the conversation was the start of trying to “unwind you from being a globalist to make you a populist nationalist.”
“This is part of the deprogramming, is it?” Newsom quipped.
Newsom had no pushback as Bannon, when explaining how the MAGA movement had to reboot when Trump was booted out of the White House, stated erroneously that Trump beat Biden in 2020.
Bannon said, “We disagree on this, but President Trump won the 2020 election, and we were kind of shattered as a movement when he left Washington, D.C., and we had to go back to basics.”
Newsom did offer a correction when Bannon referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as “Pocahontas,” a well-worn racist Trump insult.
Toward the end of the episode, Newsom raised the fallout between Bannon and Elon Musk, now Trump’s White House right-hand man, after Bannon called the billionaire a “parasitic illegal immigrant.”
“We may share some commonality in terms of concern about what he’s doing,” Newsom noted of the Musk-led federal cutbacks, before Bannon interjected that “you loved all the oligarchs, and particularly Elon, until they flip” to the Republicans.
Newsom went on to press Bannon on whether Musk is “a little scared of you.”
“No,” Bannon replied. “I’m just a Mick [questionable nickname for an Irishman] that yells into a microphone.”
Newsom wrapped up the episode by saying he “really enjoyed this conversation.”
“I think it’s incredibly valuable, and I appreciate the spirit to which we were able to engage,” he continued, before praising Bannon for calling “balls and strikes” on the Trump administration.
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Newsom’s podcast launch comes as Democrats wrestle with how to communicate to voters in a rapidly changing media landscape.
Received wisdom now holds that Trump swept back to power with help from young men who heard his message through podcasts hosted by Joe Rogan, Theo Von and other content producers.