“[Newsom] has kind of been billed as the top contender for 2028, and it’s funny, because … this was a friendly fire interview. Yes, Bill Maher was pointing out problems [with Newsom’s] track record, but he was also presenting an opportunity for Gavin Newsom to defend our rebut the criticisms that have been lobbed at him, and these are the most generic criticisms: high gas prices, the California rail trail. So you would think that Gavin Newsom after years of being in office would have an answer or a generic rebuttal to those, and he didn’t. He floundered. And part of it is because he gets all those softball questions from other left-wing legacy media outlets, so he’s not used to being grilled,” The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman said on Fox News Live. “Democrats are going to need to spend the next two years really giving [Newsom] this comms workshop, because if he can’t rebut Bill Maher, imagine putting him on stage against Vance or Rubio or DeSantis, who are going to not only going to have [Maher’s] points of criticism, but all that other opposition research. So maybe Gavin Newsom isn’t the strongest Democrat.”
Lyman: If Newsom Can’t Handle Bill Maher, He Won’t Be Able To Handle A Presidential Debate
