This is Gavin Newsom
1.9/5
Critic Rating
I’m Gavin Newsom. And, it’s time to have a conversation. It’s time to have honest discussions with people that agree AND disagree with us. It's time to answer the hard questions and be open to criticism, and debate without demeaning or dehumanizing one other. I will be doing just that on my new podcast – inviting people on who I deeply disagree with to talk about the most pressing issues of the day and inviting listeners from around the country to join the conversation. THIS is Gavin Newsom.
Critic Reviews
Score: 2
Jay Caspian Kang • New Yorker • Mar 21, 2025
"“This Is Gavin Newsom” was the strangest political podcast I had ever heard. And not in a good way...Newsom seems incapable of interrogating any right-wing position. Listening to Newsom get steamrolled by his right-wing guests for three hours, I wondered where his pride had gone. "
Score: 2
James Marriot • The Times UK • Mar 19, 2025
"Unfortunately, the slightly generic appearance is matched by a slightly generic charisma: a contentless, free-floating manly bonhomie that keeps revving up into campaign mode. On a podcast, charisma beats truth every time. Bannon is made for the medium. “No one in history” has been persecuted by “the system” like Trump, he says. His flat-out lie that “Trump won the 2020 election” goes uncontested by Newsom. But people, I fear, don’t want the truth. They want to be entertained. It’s a valiant idea that you could bring responsible old-style politics to new-style media. Podcasts simply aren’t made for that. The bullshit is baked in."
Score: 2.5
Mark Z. Barabak • LA Times • Mar 12, 2025
"It is quite commendable to hold a civil conversation with those who have different political viewpoints. As a deeply polarized culture and society, we could use a lot more of that dialogue. But congeniality is one thing. It’s another to sound as though you’ve been co-opted, yukking it up and nodding along...“This Is Gavin Newsom” is full-on cringe. With its forced bonhomie, the show is neither informative nor engaging. It delivers all the pleasures of a bad office party."
Score: 1
Robin Epley • Sacramento Bee • Mar 6, 2025
"This podcast of Newsom’s is platforming people who make their living off of temper tantrums and mass-produced hatred. Unless Newsom is recording these podcasts during the 90-mile drive it takes to get to Sacramento from his new, $9.1 million mansion in the tony Bay Area enclave of Kentfield, I just don’t know how he found the time to be Kirk’s lapdog and the leader California deserves."
