Gavin Newsom Is Launching His Own Podcast — And Inviting Maga Favorites

Gavin Newsom will soon host his own podcast where the California governor will mix it up with MAGA personalities, open his vast Rolodex for frank conversations with Democrats about how to come back from the wilderness and break news on consequential policy decisions.

The solo venture from a likely presidential aspirant comes as Democrats writ large struggle to keep pace with the onslaught of actions from President Donald Trump and Republicans. Leaders from across the minority party are casting about for a compelling message while trying to break through in an increasingly siloed media environment. The podcast space, with its proliferation of Trump-friendly personalities, has proven especially challenging for Democrats.

The Bill Maher-inspired program, “This is Gavin Newsom,” will be produced by iHeartPodcasts, where Newsom already appears on the sports and culture show “Politickin,’” alongside friends Marshawn Lynch, the former NFL star running back, and the agent Doug Hendrickson. Newsom said his eponymous interview format would allow him to focus far more extensively on politics.

Newsom is hardly the first politician to have his own podcast platform. But in an interview with POLITICO Tuesday, he pointed to aspects he believes differentiate it from the typical gabfest: He’s an officeholder booking guests he vehemently disagrees with — occasionally to spar, but with the goal of building out a forum that illuminates their respective positions.

“We already know what our disagreements are with the MAGA movement. I want to understand what the motivations are, the legitimacy of those motivations, and just really understand where people are coming from,” Newsom said. “They are influential — they are. They explain more things in more ways on more days about what's going on and if we're not trying to understand their motivations, we will be victims of their motivations.”

Newsom, a student of the right-wing ecosystem who is both fascinated and distressed by its ability to elevate subjects into the mainstream, mentioned his regular appearances on Fox News, Newsmax and other conservative outlets. He debated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in late 2023, moderated by Fox’s Sean Hannity, who remains in regular touch with Newsom. He ran a series of TV ads in red states over the last two years calling attention to their anti-abortion laws.

But his show, premiering in the coming weeks, won’t be confined to crashing the ascendent right-wing.

“At the same time, I want Democrats to come on and sort of challenge where we are on a lot of these issues,” Newsom said. “And so I'm asking the same questions you’re asking of me: Where the hell is the Democratic Party? What are we doing? Who are we? Where are we going? What's the path back? I'm having the exact same conversations, and I just thought it'd be a hell of a lot more interesting to do it publicly and to do it as honestly as I can.”

Referring to his podcast host persona as “practitioner, not pundit,” Newsom said he wants to give conversations from the show immediate relevance by taking some from concept to action, including new policy approaches and ways he can try to better connect with Californians.

“I’m here to stress test positions, including my own, in a more transparent manner,” he added. “It's not a place everyone comes for therapy. I’m not looking to just give the orthodoxy — progressive and liberal talking points. There are so many outstanding people doing that, like our gifted professionals. I add no value in that space. I'm a redundant voice … But what I think I can offer is as a practitioner — not an ideologue, not a pundit: I'm in it as much or more than most elected officials in this country, because I'm in the largest state. I'm in a state that’s deeply on the mind of the administration. I'm in a state that is profoundly critical to the fate and future as it relates to some of the most critical industries like artificial intelligence, and obviously in this remarkable moment as it relates to geopolitical re-calibration.”

Newsom has largely resisted offering a fulsome postmortem after his party’s miserable 2024 election, though he said the notebook he’s jotted ideas in has grown from eight handwritten pages to 28 as more numerical and anecdotal data emerges. His approach on the podcast recalls the Newsom of early 2022, who grew increasingly exasperated about the lack of aggressiveness to confront resurgent Republicans in the national culture wars. Ultimately, he rallied behind the party’s leaders and became a top surrogate for former President Joe Biden.

Newsom said his goal isn’t to circumvent the news media but to take advantage of his position and deep contact list “to engage, promote and explore dialogue.” He counts comedian Bill Maher’s HBO program and podcast as creative inspiration for his new program, contending the host finds common ground with adversaries while taking frequent aim at Democratic dogma.

“I watch him because I appreciate how he calls balls and strikes — takes shots at both parties,” said Newsom, a regular guest of Maher’s “Real Time.” “He has a broader value set that is more aligned with mine, but he doesn’t have a problem in suffering fools on either side of the aisle.”

Sam Griffel, who has worked closely with Newsom as a producer on the iHeart podcasts, said his latest effort has an underlying imperative: make sure it’s digestible and authentic, not inaccessible and canned.

“We as a society are good at sniffing out that type of BS,” he said. “So for me, the more we’re willing to be pushing into areas of discomfort for our guests and hosts the more real it will be.”

Asked if guests — particularly Democrats who see the world similarly to him — will be as candid on the podcast as they are in private texts and calls with him, Newsom conceded, “that ultimately will be determinative if this is interesting or not.”

Newsom declined to name the half-dozen guests he said have privately agreed to come on with him. “I don't want to lose these folks by letting their names out there,” he said. But he gave a big hint: ”Look at the lineup at CPAC.”

“It's that crew. These are the guys right now who are enjoying their status, they're enjoying their moment, and they're having not just a moment here, but around the world. And we want to explore that,” he said.

The Conservative Political Action Conference’s recent straw poll identified Newsom and Sen. Adam Schiff as the two Democrats who pose the greatest threat to the U.S. and the GOP.

Newsom is no stranger to his own broadcasts. As lieutenant governor, he hosted the weekly “Gavin Newsom Show,” which briefly ran on San Francisco-based Current TV and featured interviews with guests from Hollywood and Silicon Valley including the then lesser-known tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. A literary memoir he wrote was scheduled for release on May 13, but has been delayed until at least the fall.

Newsom starts his new venture at the top of a crowded two years in his final term. He’s facing state budget pressures, a hostile federal government and an immense rebuilding effort after the most expensive disaster in U.S. history.

While he didn’t spend time focusing his remarks about the new podcast on specific challenges he faces in his last months in office, it will broaden his platform to push back on misinformation he encountered during the wildfires that tore through Los Angeles last month.

The governor, a natural political pugilist, has largely been reluctant of late to take shots at Trump as he works to appeal to the president for federal disaster aid. Newsom believes that Democrats like himself can have more of an impact by zeroing in on key actions he finds especially detestable like deep cuts to Medicaid.

“Those become the dominant moments, from my perspective, where we need to align and be more aggressive,” he said. “People are pushing back. Republicans are now starting to wake up. I think we've moved from resignation to now more and more resistance. I think that's very positive. The question then becomes, how do you strategically do that?”

His word of the year to describe the Trump administration, as he put it, is “betrayal.”

“Fire and fury. What does it signify? Something or nothing?” Newsom asked about the early actions from Washington, allowing that the Musk-led government cuts have added to peoples’ anxiety. “If it signifies something, you got to call that out. And that's the ‘betrayal.’”

But equally on his radar is Democrats not being overly reactive and instead taking matters into their own hands.

“How do we break through? Are we just reacting to noise with more noise? Are we more strategic this time, and are we going to pierce the consciousness, not just of our base, they're already with us, but those that we need to bring back?” he asked, describing those and the other questions he posed in the interview as central themes of the podcast project.

Despite constant criticism from the right, Newsom said he’s not overly worried about giving certain MAGA personalities a platform, though when asked about the conspiracist Alex Jones, he said some characters were likely a bridge too far.

Instead, if anything, he said Democrats have avoided or outright ignored the right at their own peril, and praised former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s “go-everywhere, talk-to-everyone” strategy that calls for calmly confronting opponents on their own turf.

“I think the biggest mistake we've made is staying in the warm embrace of our ideological lane. And it didn't work out for us. We are sitting here on the sidelines right now trying to figure out how to get back in the game,” Newsom said.