When Gavin Newsom stepped in front of a camera on Tuesday evening, he was a governor in California who appealed to his voters as a crisis of the civil disorder, the bags of Los Angeles grabbed.
But by the time Mr. Newsom was ready, it was clear that the governor not only spoke to his state, but also with his country and his besieged party.
For Democrats looking for direction and leadership, Mr. Newsom used one of the most profile moments of his political career to explain the threat he claimed that President Trump set for the nation, and how Americans should resist it. And he suggested that he was the man who led that fight.
“Democracy is attacked just before our eyes,” said Mr. Newsom. “The moment we feared has arrived.”
The following presidential elections have been removed for more than three years. But it was difficult to view the speech, delivered as anti-Trump protests spread from Los Angeles to other cities, and not to wonder if the 2028 campaign had already started. This can very well be a turning point, both for Mr. Newsom and for the Democratic Party.
Mr. Newsom has made little secret of his interest in run for presidentAnd the speech, posted on his social media channels, was filled with the attributes of a national television address of a candidate from the White House. He was flanked by an American and a flag in California, dressed in a suit and tie, and he read from a prepared speech that is unusual for the governor who has dyslexia. A copy of his prepared text was released to the media prior to delivery, from a television studio in Los Angeles.
“He kicked off his campaign in 2028,” said Steve Bannon, a former top employee to Mr. Trump and a critic of Mr. Newsom.
The speech was the peak of a few days of fighting between Mr. Newson and Mr. Trump who fascinated a large part of the nation. The immigration raids of federal agents left on Friday demonstrations in Los Angeles. Mr. Trump sent the National Guard and the Marines despite the objections of Mr. Newsom, which produced days of corrosive fairs.
It was also a reminder of how quickly the status of Mr. Newsom has changed.
A month ago Mr. Newsom sometimes fades the danger on the sidelines. At the age of 57 he played his last years as a governor, because he is excluded from deadlines to look for a third term.
He was confronted with the thankless burden of managing a huge shortage of the state budget, to supervise the reconstruction of Los Angeles after the forest fires in January and struggled with Mr Trump while the president moved to undermined California programs, of High-Speed Rail Unpleasant Clean air measures. More than 2024, Mr. Newsom was closely connected to Joe Biden, as one of the surrogates of the former president and defenders Before Mr Biden was forced from the race.
In the first days of the Trump government, Mr. Newsom had searched to increase his profile and to influence the direction of the Democratic Party. He organized a podcast – “This is Gavin Newsom” – in which he gave a platform to some of the leading figures in the Trump movement, including Mr Bannon. He met Mr. Trump with a handshake at Lax when the president came to visit the damage through the fires. And he broke into with many Democrats proverb That he thought that the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports was ‘deep unfair’.
Mr. Newsom made those actions a unpopular figure with parts of the Democratic Party. It is unclear whether his abrupt change, by saying that Democrats had to work with Mr Trump on Tuesday on his burning attacks on the president, will feed the fear among some Democrats that Mr. Newsom is not -authentic or an opportunist.
But the status of Mr. Newsom, at least in his party, was probably elevated by a barrage of attacks by Mr Trump, speaker Mike Johnson and other Gop leaders in the aftermath of the demonstrations against the Trump government’s immigration policy. Mr. Trump suggested that Mr. Newsom would be arrested; Mr. Johnson said that he had to be ‘gave and feathered’. As a result, the Lamme-Duck governor of California has emerged as perhaps the most prominent democratic foil for Mr Trump.
For his part Mr. Newsom to enjoy parlores with republicans on social media and responded to their comments with acid retorts who won him from Democrats who had been skeptical not so long ago against the friendly podcast-chattering of Mr. Newsom with right -wing figures.
“It gives Gavin the ability to be a leader of a resistance that is not artificial,” said Rob Stutzman, a political strategist and a senior consultant from former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from California, a Republican. “It’s real, because Trump attacked him and his state.”
For all the compliments he might win from Democrats, Mr. Newsom can be confronted if he decided to run. He comes from California, the symbol of Blue America and the home of Kamala Harris, the former vice president who lost in the elections of Mr Trump. And these coming weeks are becoming increasingly difficult, because Mr. Newsom is fortunes, both to what happens in the streets of Los Angeles and the actions of the man in the White House.
David Axelrod, the former most important political assistant of Barack Obama, said that “Mr. Newsom’s message was very powerful.” But he warned that it is difficult to “immediately admonish the president for his provocative, escalatory actions”, while at the same time he encouraged “demonstrators to show restraint”.
Still, with his brushing attacks on Mr. Trump, Mr. Newsom may be positioned this week as the leader of the resistance he once shunned. The question is whether he can now do what so many other Democrats have not done during these chaotic five months: unite the party behind a strategy to weaken a president who seemed invincible.
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