Gavin Newsom says ‘I don’t’ want to be president as he insists Democrats can no longer play by Michelle Obama rules

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday backed away from speculation that he plans to run for president.

Newsom, one of the Democratic Party’s most vocal leaders in the second Trump term, previously told CBS News that he “would be lying” if he said he wasn’t considering running for president in 2028 in an interview aired a week ago today.

But it appeared Sunday that the governor had little intention of pulling the trigger on this particular initiative.

Asked by Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker asks “why do you want to be president?” Newsom’s answer to the question was simple.

“I don’t,” he said.

Trying to answer a question honestly from CBS’s Robert Costa, he explained that his focus is squarely on California’s redistricting process and what that will be. The upcoming 2026 midterm elections have meaning for his party. By taking back one or both houses of Congress, Democrats hope to give them the tools of power to directly challenge the president’s agenda.

“I don’t claim to be [running for president]“This was in response to someone,” Newsom told NBC. [who] we talked about this.

He added that “there’s nothing I dislike more than a politician sitting there and lying to you.”

“I’m focused on Proposition 50. I’m focused on fair and free elections. And to the extent that there is destiny, future, alignment, you have a big enough why, you have your what and your how, you come across a moment and that moment presents itself in a year, a year and a half, we’ll see what happens,” the governor said, referring to the redistricting amendment that will be presented to California voters.

Newsom tussled with a skeptical Welker on several points during his interview.

For a moment, the two were at odds over whether the U.S. Department of Justice could still be trusted to handle cases fairly; The governor expressed surprise at Welker’s suggestion that such a possibility was even possible, given that the White House and the Justice Department have launched a campaign to target a growing list of the president’s political enemies with lawsuits that many experts describe as flimsy and clearly motivated by a desire to punish Democrats.

The two also clashed over whether Newsom was “normalizing” Donald Trump’s behavior by mocking the “Governor Newsom Press Office” account on X that parodied Trump’s insulting social media statements.

“This reminds me of something Michelle Obama once said: ‘As they go down, we go up.’ Is there still room for this mentality for Democrats?” asked Welker.

“I would love to go back to that, but politics has changed. The world has changed,” Newsom responded.

Despite Newsom’s hesitancy to run for president, the governor did something in his interview with Welker that political observers see as taking another step toward that possibility.

Welker asked the governor about an issue that most journalists and Democratic officials believe will be a major issue in the 2028 presidential primaries: Joe Biden. The party’s trust and popularity among voters are at historical lows, and the incompetence of the 2024 election campaign is mainly responsible for this. Democrats refused to hold a primary after Biden announced he planned to run for re-election in 2023, and a single congressman, Dean Phillips, made a desperate public plea for his party to change course.

Then, Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June revealed a president who appeared lost, confused, and physically weak on stage, unable to effectively respond to his opponent’s points or coherently round out his own. By then, it was too late for a full primary, and party figures like Rep. Jim Clyburn opposed efforts by the likes of Barack Obama to let the party’s voters decide the issue.

Newsom told Welker that he “never” had concerns about Biden’s ability to do his job, but that he had “privately” expressed concerns about the president’s demeanor after a fundraiser in Southern California. At this event in May 2024, the incumbent US president reportedly failed to recognize megastar Hollywood icon George Clooney, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest supporters in the film industry.

Newsom explained to Welker, “The one exception that gave me pause about my interaction with him was the fundraiser in Southern California. And we were all a little bit taken aback.” The governor added that during the debate with Trump in June, “that person went back to that debate night, and that certainly gave all of us pause.”

Claiming that he had voiced his concerns about the campaign “privately, with grace and humility,” he echoed what former vice president Kamala Harris said about his refusal to further pressure his running mate to drop out: “He was going to make the right decision. And so for me, it wasn’t my job to go there.”

This move to assuage concerns about Biden’s age puts the governor ahead of many potential rivals for the 2028 nomination; That includes Harris, who has struggled to explain why she refused to separate herself from the president and didn’t say so until it was too late during the media tour for her recently released memoir. 107 Days.

Harris, in particular, is likely to face these questions (along with others in the former administration) because the party’s voters largely blame the leadership for bungling what many believe should have been a winnable election for the Democratic Party and pushing the GOP to twin majorities in the House and Senate.

Harris, who has refused to say for four years that she would do anything differently than Biden if she were president, will shoulder the burden of the Biden-Harris administration’s entire record if she enters the field in 2028. He declined to run for governor in California this year.