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.”
I’ll be shocked if AOC runs for president and not against Schumer.
If she doesn’t then just vote Michelle Obama in, as there’s really nobody else I can think of in a position to run by then. Not a leftist at least in the surface but she’d win in a landslide. Easily. And I’d prefer her over someone like Newsom or Shapiro…
She’ll go for Schumers seat. The Democrats need a dude to run against the republican. Shooting yourself in the foot by having a woman run is not worth the risk to the fate of the country. The handicap from the sexist assholes is just too great to overcome.
That’s the frank games theory we’ve proven this decade.
I think it has been debunked that a woman or person of color is why we lost. Key to note: Anyone who was a true sexist racist piece of shit was already core maga and never, ever going to vote for any Democrat.
People must remember that nobody has polled higher against Trump – ever – than Michelle Obama. IF she wants to run (and a big if), she would win. Just need a tad bit more charisma.
(If anyone has any evidence whatsoever beyond speculation or shoddy N=2 statistics, I’m all ears, but I have not found evidence).
When was that debunked? How? If you genuinely think misogyny and misogynoir weren’t part of why Hillary and Kamala lost then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
What you’re missing is that even racists and misogynists will vote for women or minorities if they say the right talking points. Just look at all the pick-mes on the fascist side. This argument is always trotted out by “centrists” against progressives, but the centrists love to run women and minorities, act like that makes them progressive, and blame racism/misogyny when they lose for being uninspiring empty suits. I’m sick of the hypocrisy.
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.
Go ahead and sell me that bridge because there is a complete and total lack of evidence to support the claim. Can’t really prove a counterfactual. Others made the claim she lost because of this; when asked for evidence, they always come up short.
Counterpoints:
Biden polled worse than Harris at the end. (White Guy polling worse than Black Woman). Hence the switch in the first place, even Biden agreed!
Michelle Obama has always polled higher than anyone against Trump (Black Woman polling better than White Guy).
Sexists bigots were already core Republican voters never voting for any D no matter who. The battle was lost elsewhere.
Oh so you’re just operating under the assumption that nobody who would otherwise vote for a democrat is sexist or racist in one of the most overtly provably sexist and racist countries on earth. But go ahead and claim that racism and misogyny aren’t incredibly relevant factors in every election. There are more undecided/moderate/non voters that are racist and misogynistic than there are republicans. It’s fucking stupid to pretend that wasn’t a factor. Don’t be fucking stupid.
Still no evidence, and an increased propensity for aggression and ad hominems substituting said total lack of evidence, I see. Lots of fingers-in-ear denial and deflection as well.
Certainly aren’t convincing me of anything, lol.
I win.
Like a pigeon playing chess you knock over the pieces, shit all over the board and think you won. Good job pigeon.
hahah buddy, I checkmated you two comments ago; you just haven’t realized it yet.
Pee-wee chess, though, I get it. Still learning.
Uh dude like more than 5% of the party didn’t show up, and a bunch of male Democrats that identify as Latin or African American didn’t vote for her because she was a woman.
Both Kamala and Clinton were two of the most qualified people to have run for president, and they were fucking beaten by the worst candidate in the history of politics.
I don’t want to risk it.
Uh, dude show me your evidence this was the reason lol.
I’m going to give you a hint: You won’t find it. This is straight up bull fucking shit and 100% speculative.
I highly advise you not to make such blatant non-sequitur fallacies devoid of any supportive data. I can think of at least a half a dozen other reasons for why people voted or didn’t vote the way they did that actually has data with infinitely less distance to connect the dots than what you’re doing right now.
We don’t know the why, but it was a big swing among men of color:
https://navigatorresearch.org/2024-post-election-survey-racial-analysis-of-2024-election-results/
Without some very careful probing via polls, getting to the why is going to be harder, most likely. Not too many people are just going to be absolutely candid about being sexist.
I have some insight as to why. As someone who canvassed, who actively spoke to Hispanic activists for Trump in person no less. Though I’ll leave that alone considering its anecdotal nature unless you’re interested.
Statistically, these groups – men across the board – are significantly less educated and thus susceptible to misinformation. They were explicitly targeted from GamerGate and onward.
If you break down exit-polling, you’ll find a key factor in predicting how someone voted was in fact their education attainment and less so their gender or skin color.
Does that mean they were less likely to vote for Harris? Yes, but it also means they’d be less likely to vote for any Democrat. More importantly, those who are actual bigots voting on pretenses of skin color or sex were core maga already.
Put it another way: An Old White Guy Joe Biden was polling worse than Harris. At the same time, Reuters polling has always shown Michelle Obama – female person of color – to poll higher against Trump than literally anyone. Ever.
I’d be curious as to how the numbers might shake out if it is for a generic male candidate and a generic female candidate…again, might be hard to determine, as people are not as likely to be honest about it.
The Navigator Research numbers here are worth scrutinizing. They claim Biden won Hispanic men by 34 points in 2020. That’s a massive outlier. AP VoteCast, which surveyed 110,000+ voters, found Biden won Hispanic men by roughly ~10-12 points. Other sources like Pew and Edison exit polls show similar single-digit to low-double-digit margins, not 34 points. A 35-point shift would be historically unprecedented.
Edison Research (official NEP exit poll provider): Biden won Latino men 59%-36% (+23) in 2020.
https://www.edisonresearch.com/latino-male-voters-shift-toward-trump-in-2024-election/
Pew Research Center (validated voter study): Biden won Hispanics overall 59%-38% (+21) in 2020.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory
AP VoteCast: “About 6 in 10 Latino men went for Biden” in 2020 (~60%, roughly +20 margin).
https://apnews.com/article/election-harris-trump-women-latinos-black-voters-0f3fbda3362f3dcfe41aa6b858f22d12
The key weakness is that Navigator uses recalled 2020 vote data from a 2024 survey and their 34-point figure is contradicted by every major contemporaneous survey of the 2020 electorate.