Newsom Throws Support Behind Biden Amid Calls for California ...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was once the subject of serious chatter regarding a possible but ultimately not pursued primary challenge to President Joe Biden this year, is throwing his full support behind the president and his reelection campaign after he delivered a debate performance this week that was causing a “five-alarm freakout” among Democrats in its immediate aftermath.  

After Thursday night’s debate between Biden and Donald Trump, where the president had multiple gaffes and stumbles as the debate began, trailed off at points and mixed up and missed words, Newsom appeared during MSNBC’s post-debate coverage while online — and possibly even behind closed doors with Democrats — the chatter about him replacing Biden on the ticket returned with force — enough to make the governor a trending topic on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday. Newsom, however, quickly sought to silence talk of this sort of eleventh-hour swap, as the governor, while speaking with Alex Wagner, was unwavering in his support of the president.

“You don’t turn your back because of one performance,” Newsom said, seemingly addressing his fellow Democrats. “What kind of party does that? This president has delivered. We need to deliver for him at this moment.”

On Friday, Newsom’s X feed appeared almost akin to an official attack dog account focused solely on Trump, with numerous clips of the governor slamming Trump in the MSNBC interview and a retweet from the “Biden-Harris HQ” account that features a spry Biden after the debate slamming the former president for his numerous lies on the stage. The tweet reads, “Biden: Trump is a liar. They are going to be out there fact-checking all of the things that he said. I cannot think of one thing he said that was true. We’re going to beat this guy.”

In the clips with MSNBC’s Wagner, Newsom goes on to declare that Biden won Thursday night’s debate and zeroes in on the lack of “truthiness” in Trump’s many false claims. In one tweet with a video clip from the interview, the governor writes: “Donald Trump is a serial liar who is responsible for rape victims being forced to carry their abuser’s child to term.

“He won the debate. I’m old school, old-fashioned. That’s what matters to me,” Newsom told Wagner in the embedded clip, regarding Biden’s performance. Meanwhile, Biden himself on Friday seemed to acknowledge his poor debate performance, saying, “I don’t debate as well as I used to. … I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.”

Back on MSNBC, he coupled the praise for Biden with a barrage of shots at Trump.

“I was taking notes about all the lies. I ran out of paper. Donald Trump has no accountability on those lies, talking down the American economy, talking down our democracy. That was alarming,” he told Wagner in a clip embedded into a tweet. 

“This is a world we’re living in now that Donald Trump created, where 13-year-olds have to deliver the child of the person that impregnated them,” he added, referring to the Supreme Court majority, including three Trump-appointed justices, overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. “This is a world that Donald Trump has created. And so, for me, it was daylight and darkness, and I’m very proud of the president’s record, and I’m very proud of his vision of the future.”

Newsom’s account also tweeted a clip of the governor throwing a jab at Trump over the catalyst for the hush money trial where he was found guilty last month, making him the first former president to be convicted of a felony. Trump was convicted by a trial jury of all 34 felony counts New York with which he was charged by prosecutors. 

The Hollywood Reporter’s attempts to contact Newsom’s communications team, seeking an update on the governor’s thoughts on the debate, went unreturned.