Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is lambasting his California counterpart, Gavin Newsom, for hosting MAGA activist and former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon on Newsom’s podcast this week.
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“I think that Governor Newsom bringing on different voices is great,” Beshear told reporters Thursday in Leesburg, Va., where he was attending a Democratic retreat, multiple media outlets report. “We shouldn’t be afraid to talk and to debate just about anyone. But Steve Bannon espouses hatred and anger and even at some points violence, and I don’t think we should give him oxygen on any platform — ever, anywhere.”
Both Beshear and Newsom have been mentioned as potential contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. Beshear was going to speak to U.S. House Democrats at the retreat, along with two other Dem governors and possible presidential contenders, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, ran Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and then was his senior counselor and chief White House strategist in the first year of Trump’s presidency. But Bannon left that same year after reported clashes with Trump. Bannon has remained a Trump supporter, however, and pushed the baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. On January 5, 2021, he predicted, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” and it did, as Trump allies stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the electoral vote for Joe Biden. Bannon served prison time for refusing to testify before the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack.
Adam Kinzinger, a Republican who was on that committee and has since left Congress, likewise denounced Newsom for hosting Bannon and another far-right activist, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, on his This Is Gavin Newsom podcast.
“Many of us on the right sacrificed our careers taking these people on, and Newsom is trying to make a career with them,” Kinzinger said in a video posted on social media.
On the first episode of his podcast, Newsom agreed with Kirk’s position that transgender women and girls shouldn’t compete in female sports. Many LGBTQ+ activists criticized Newsom, who has been seen largely as an LGBTQ+ ally, for those comments.
Beshear, who vetoed a trans-exclusionary sports bill in Kentucky — his veto was overridden by legislators — took issue with Newsom’s position on that as well.
“I think that sports need to be fair, but I believe that our different leagues have more than the ability to make that happen,” Beshear said Thursday, noting that Kentucky’s high school athletic association has its own rules on trans athletes.
“But our legislature decided they needed to pass something anyways,” he added. “And you know what they did? They took away an opportunity for the only trans athlete we had in our state, who’s a middle schooler, who started a field hockey team at her school that had never had one to make friends. I mean, surely, we can see some humanity and some different perspectives in this overall debate’s that going on right now.”
Beshear said he hadn’t listened to full episodes of Newsom’s podcast.
Newsom explained his decision to host Bannon in an email sent to his supporters Wednesday. “I think it’s critically important for us to understand how the MAGA-right organized itself during the last election and what they are thinking about in the weeks, months and years ahead,” he wrote. “I also don’t think there’s anywhere else someone like Steve Bannon — a self-proclaimed populist — is going to be asked to defend the harmful impact of Trump’s tariffs.”
“Mr. Newsom has long been fascinated with the conservative media ecosystem and has said Republicans are beating Democrats in using mass communication tools to spread their message,” The New York Times reports. “Now in his final two years as governor, and widely seen as a potential contender in the 2028 presidential race, Mr. Newsom is experimenting with new channels.”
“The tenor with Mr. Bannon was set early on, when Mr. Newsom did not push back on his guest’s repeated false claims that President Trump won the 2020 election,” according to the Times. “The governor does not appear to view the discussions as fact-checking sessions: He interjected only intermittently, including when Mr. Bannon referred to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as ‘Pocahontas.’”
Newsom hosted another far-right, virulently anti-LGBTQ+ commentator, Michael Savage, on his show recently. Savage claimed that trans issues lost the presidential election for Kamala Harris. “The whole trans issue triggered the women who were normally liberal,” Savage said, as reported by The San Francisco Standard.“When you have kids being brainwashed in school to accept that stuff in kindergarten … when you start crossing that line into the schools, you’re going to see what happened.”
Newsom did not push back, even though women were more likely than men to vote for Harris over Trump, and no, children are not being “brainwashed” into accept trans people.
Actress and activist Jane Fonda also critiqued Newsom for hosting Bannon, likening him to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who appeased Adolf Hitler before World War II, whereas Chamberlain's successor, Winston Churchill, guided the U.K., the U.S., and their allies to victory over the Nazis. "Is he Chamberlain or is he Churchill?" she said in an interview with Elex Michaelson of the Fox Los Angeles affiliate. "Right now he's Chamberlain ... he's been Churchill."
