Out of Office: Fishing with Gavin Newsom as he contemplates 2028 presidential run
CNN
By Jake Tapper, CNN
Stevensville, Montana (CNN) — We stood waist-deep in a cold Montana river, cursing at the elusive trout, and talking about whether he was going to run for president.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom had invited me and my crew to his in-laws’ spread on Bitterroot Springs Ranch in Big Sky Country. I had pitched an idea to him, one I’ve been eager to experiment with for some time: a longform interview, not tied to news of the day, talking to people about their childhoods, their parents, some of their tougher moments and biggest successes of their lives.
I didn’t want to do the interview in a chair, or a studio, or with makeup, or ties. I wanted to go where the interviewee felt comfortable. In addition to Newsom, a Democrat, I pitched the idea to a few others including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina has agreed to participate.
My horrible fly-fishing form notwithstanding, our fishing trek proved fruitful — if not for fish (though we caught a couple) — for conversation. Spending hours with someone driving around a ranch and standing in the frigid Bitterroot River has a way of loosening up even the most polished politician.
Top of mind for Newsom is whether he runs for president in 2028. One of the key parts of that is who else is running, including his fellow San Francisco Democrat, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I don’t know if she runs, but we’ll see,” Newsom told me. “I wouldn’t run if she ran.”
Frankly, I was stunned to hear that.
“Why would I?” he said. “I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t do it to me. … I won’t waste everyone’s time. Who needs that?”
It didn’t make sense to me.
“First of all, electorally it’s a gift from God for everybody else,” he explained. “They’d enjoy the hell out of it. Mutual assured destruction. It services no greater good. Why would I do this if I wasn’t trying to serve some greater good? There would be no upside whatsoever.”
But what of the counterargument that she ran in 2019 and didn’t even make it to 2020, then she ran again in 2024 and lost, I asked him.
“That would be the case you’d make,” he acknowledged. “Pretty good one, actually. That’s objectively true. But I know what that means. I know her base of supporters, I know her friends, the (Venn) diagram on that is just pure crossover … I wouldn’t do that to people. I wouldn’t put them in that position … Every other Democrat is praying for that, and every other Republican is gonna pray for that. And that’s just not gonna happen.”
How do you even decide if you’re going to run for president?
“I have no experience in this process, so I’m going through it,” Newsom said. I noted some folks wished he had challenged President Joe Biden in 2024.
“I wasn’t ready,” he said. “First of all, I wouldn’t do that. And second, if I did, I would have gotten crushed because I didn’t have a why. You don’t have big enough why, then you don’t belong there.”
“It’s shocking how many presidential candidates can’t answer their why. Like, shocking,” he continued. He said he’d seen “leading candidates over the last few cycles that are there for the wrong reasons. Or no reason at all, which is the worst. So, you’ve got to have a big enough why.”
After decades in public life — and we talked about it all, his dyslexia, his failed first marriage, his ignominious affair with the wife of a mayoral aide, his mother’s assisted suicide, a close friend telling him he needed to get his shit together, his governor’s race, the challenges of Covid-19, his confrontations with President Donald Trump, and much more — he said, “I am not screwing anything up anymore, man. I know what matters in life. I got four kids, it’s the only thing that matters to me.”
His wife and school-aged children, he said, would have to agree to a White House run. “If they’re not on board, that’s a non-starter.”
In the flowing water, Newsom checked his hook and then cast his line again, looking upstream at the signs of the fish refusing to bite and telling me the signs that might make him run.
“You just have to meet the moment. You got to be honest with yourself. Do you represent the zeitgeist in the moment, or are you wasting everybody’s time?” he said.
“I’m not here to make a point. I want to make the difference, and you can make a difference in a lot of ways in life.”
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