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Gavin Newsom was caught telling two very different stories about his own son’s reaction to Charlie Kirk, and the split reveals everything voters need to know about political theater in Sacramento. On Newsom’s podcast earlier this year he proudly told Kirk that his 13-year-old son was so excited he wanted to skip school to see him, a charming anecdote that made Newsom look like a bridge-builder with crossover appeal.
That March podcast moment wasn’t small talk — Newsom used his son’s supposed fandom to underline a point about Kirk’s influence on young men and to explain why Democrats are getting battered on campus and online. The governor even praised Kirk’s reach on platforms like TikTok and admitted conservatives were “making a damn dent,” a striking concession from a man who normally writes off grassroots conservative energy.
But after the tragic slaying of Charlie Kirk this fall, Newsom quietly rewrote the anecdote, telling CNN that his son was not a fan so much as “familiar” with Kirk. That backtrack came across as a politically convenient redefinition designed to placate the left and avoid any association with a slain conservative voice. Conservatives and independents smelled the cover-up immediately and called it out as a cowardly pivot.
This is the kind of craven flip-flop that defines modern career liberalism: embrace a talking point when it helps you look bipartisan, then disown the same moment when politics turns ugly. Commentators who normally take pains to be polite publicly hammered Newsom for changing his tune, and rightly so—this is performative moderation, not courage.
Let’s be clear about the context: Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, a national tragedy that shocked Americans across the political spectrum and led to criminal charges against the accused shooter. The enormity of that loss should have invited honesty and unity from public officials, not political recalibration to dodge backlash.
Hardworking Americans aren’t impressed by cheap optics and political self-preservation. If Newsom truly meant what he said about youth outreach and the crisis among boys and young men, he wouldn’t be rewriting the record the moment it becomes inconvenient. Voters should remember who seizes moments for genuine leadership and who seizes them for headline-grabbing and, when the headlines turn ugly, who runs for cover.
