Democratic California governor Gavin Newsom revealed he obsessively watches Fox News, but told former White House press secretary Jen Psaki that Democrats should not appear on the network.
In an interview with Psaki, Newsom joked that his staff has “literally tried to have interventions” with him over his penchant for watching the Fox News Network, telling the “Inside” host he tunes in every night in a quest to “understand.” Newsom clarified he wasn’t tuning in to understand how the other side thinks, but to look for patterns.
“I don’t want to know what they think, I want to see the patterns, and what you see are patterns that emerge,” Newsom stated. (RELATED: Psaki Urges MSNBC Viewers To ‘Think Of The Danger’ Posed By Free Speech)
WATCH: California Gov. Gavin Newsom says Fox News “contributes to the mental health crisis” but he watches every night and is “obsessed with it” pic.twitter.com/WwkqtbHMjw
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 9, 2023
He explained Democrats are upset with being on the “defensive” on issues like abortion and gun control, blaming “the anger industry, the entertainment wing particularly of the Republican Party” for dividing the country. “They’re all the same. And One American News and Newsmax, and what they’re doing to divide this country, it’s — you know, where illusion rules, not facts,” Newsom told Psaki, adding his particular disdain for Tucker Carlson — a name, he says, he doesn’t even like to say.
Newsom further slammed the right-wing news network, arguing that “it contributes to the mental health crisis in the state.” As such, Newsom posited Democrats should not appear on the network, based on his own personal convictions.
Though Newsom has denied any plans to challenge Biden for the 2024 Democratic Presidential nomination, Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant in California, observed that as the governor recently stumped for Biden in red states across the country, he seemed like a “candidate in waiting.”
“He’s putting in time and effort that no one else outside the White House appears to be,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
While meeting with local Democrats while on the campaign trail for Biden, Newsom slammed what he called “rights-regression” within the red states and made promises to use his political organization to invest money into states “where freedom is most under attack,” Forbes reported.