[ad_1]
California Gov. Gavin Newsom told Bill Maher that he decided to go against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a debate—and a concurrent advertising blitz—because he felt Democrats weren’t “doing enough” to push back against him and the GOP’s cancel culture crusade.
Newsom debated DeSantis with a national TV audience on Dec. 1, just as DeSantis’ once-promising presidential campaign and Super PAC began bleeding staff as he ceded ground in polls to Nikki Haley.
It was fiery debate, hosted by Fox News, which saw the governors butt heads on their coronavirus responses, abortion, education, and taxes, with no shortage of personal shots being taken by both governors. There was also no clear objective for the debate, which reportedly irked Joe Biden’s advisers in the months that preceded it.
Reflecting on the debate in an interview on Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday, Newsom claimed he had to take on DeSantis and call him out for regularly bashing liberal causes because no other Democrat was doing it.
“The reason I started doing ads in those red states, is I didn’t feel my party was doing enough,” Newsom said. “It was CRT one year, and then it is ESG, and then it’s DEI. Anything with three letters, and these guys keep coming. I just thought there was a little timidity in our party and I thought we needed to call this stuff out.”
Newsom said he was peeved by Republican’s antics in the latest culture wars—like attempts to cancel Bud Light, Target, and Disney—that DeSantis played a major role in. He added that Republicans need to be challenged as they allegedly take away free speech in classrooms and “in the boardroom” of private companies.
The governor said he was tired of Democrats always being “on our heels” and wanted to put a top Republican on the defensive.
“Look what they have done—3,362 books just last year they are banning,” Newsom said. “This is a serious and consequential moment, the cultural purge that is going on in this country. So I just felt like we needed to call that out as Democrats.”
Newsom has long been linked as a Democratic presidential prospect, and Maher mentioned the possibility of him one day running in Friday’s interview.
But Maher also pushed back on Newsom a bit, telling the governor he doesn’t want to “live in a civil war,” citing that his debate with DeSantis was marketed as “The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate.” Maher said he likes Florida, and that he doesn’t want politicians like Newsom to add to the political “dichotomy” the U.S. faces.
Newsom told Maher that he feels the same, including a shared love for Florida, but said he refused to “sit back and watch” as Republicans try “to bring us back to a pre-1960s world—America in reverse.”
“You can sit by and say, ‘Well, I really want to get along,’ as these guys are rolling back the clock, or you can stand tall and assert yourself,” Newsom said.
[ad_2]