The California governor described White House reporters as ‘sycophants’
California Governor Gavin Newsom criticized the media for what he described as overly deferential coverage of Donald Trump, characterizing reporters in Oval Office press briefings as “sycophants.”
The Democratic governor — widely seen as a potential contender for the 2028 presidential race — made the remarks during a Sunday interview with progressive commentator Jack Cocchiarella.
Cocchiarella pressed Newsom on what he framed as “hesitancy” within the White House press corps to scrutinize certain subjects: namely, the 80-year-old president’s health.
“You see these press conferences in the Oval Office,” the governor replied. “You maybe have one or two reasonable reporters. They ask a question; there’s no chance for a follow-up. And then it’s seven sycophants from news outlets.”
That’s not what I’m missing. That’s not what I’m saying. You’re also ignoring that racists and sexists who otherwise agree with the talking points will refuse to vote for women or minorities, but that’s neither here nor there. Bro said definitively that racism and sexism had nothing whatsoever to do with Hillary and Kamala losing. Considering the wildly racist and sexist history and culture of the US, I’m saying that’s fuckin nonsense. Is it the only or even the main reason they lost? No probably not. Did it have an influence? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Saying anything else is naive or disingenuous.
I get where you’re coming from. I just think people are sick of hearing the argument that we shouldn’t run woman or minority candidates because racism/misogyny will harm their chance of success, myself included. I believe that the number of people who will absolutely refuse to ever vote for a woman or minority is often greatly exaggerated, and the number of people harboring racist/misogynist views who would still vote for a woman or minority in the right circumstances is vastly underestimated. When we talk about why a candidate won or lost an election it’s disingenuous to attribute it to something that had only a minor impact when compared to something that has proven to have had a massive (and election swinging) impact. In the case of the 2024 presidential election that something was Harris’s support for Israel’s genocide, and so it isn’t wrong to say that was the deciding factor in the election and racism/misogyny wasn’t.
Oh yeah no, I’m not arguing we shouldnt; we should. I’m not even saying it was a particularly significant factor, but it’s naive at best to think there was no impact. I’m arguing US Americans are largely racist and sexist because of all the overwhelming historical cultural racism and sexism more or less built into the foundations of this country. We should strive to be better, but we should be realistic about what and who we are. It’s not a pretty picture. We elected Donald Trump twice. And it wasn’t republicans that got him elected, it was the rest of us letting them. And all that aside I’m sure we could all find dozens of examples of more qualified women and POC losing out to less qualified white men. We had to make laws because of that shit. Racism and misogyny absolutely without doubt affected Hillary and Kamala’s chances. It’s incredibly naive to think otherwise. Three administration has spent the last year and a half rolling back protections for women and minorities pretty much entirely due to sexism and racism; I’m not off base here. Also if everyone here can actually read you’ll all realize I never said it was the most important or primary deciding factor. OP said it had no effect whatsoever and this is America so that is bullshit, so I called that out. I never said how significant a factor it was, just that it’s stupid to discount how racist and sexist the average American is because of our generally racist and sexist society.
The genocide thing wasn’t a significant reason though, that just kept the group that mostly doesn’t vote anyway from voting. Also anyone that didn’t vote for that reason is fucking dumb because they defacto chose more genocide with Trump.