California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said he knew “within seconds” of the start of the consequential debate between President Trump and former President Biden that trouble was ahead for Democrats.
Newsom said during an episode of his podcast with The Hill’s Amie Parnes and NBC News’s Jonathan Allen released Wednesday that he quickly looked around the room on the night of the debate in June and could see others recognizing that something was wrong.
Newsom, who was a strong supporter of Biden, was acting as a surrogate for the then-president that night, set to argue his successes in the debate after it was over.
“I remember standing up, I looked around and everyone looked, and we all went, ‘Something’s off,’ within seconds,” he said. “And then we were just 20, 30 minutes in, and the texts were just lighting up, and you could see that with all of us that were supposed to be doing the spin.”
During the episode, Newsom discussed Parnes and Allen’s recent book reviewing the 2024 election campaign, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.”
The book detailed the signs of Biden’s cognitive struggles leading up to and following his disastrous debate performance, which eventually led to him dropping out of the race in July and being replaced by then-Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate.
Newsom said the Biden campaign wanted to stay in the race after the debate and demanded “loyalty.”
Allen noted their reporting that Biden’s team dug in, though he was already on track to lose before the debate.
Newsom recalled a meeting Biden held with Democratic governors, some in-person and some virtually, in which some told Biden that Democrats could lose the House and Senate, given the circumstances.
He said he told Biden he wasn’t comfortable giving the president advice but shared what he heard on the campaign trail. Biden, after listening to some concerns, said “I am all in,” Newsom added.
“I can be accused of a lot of things, but I don’t think I can be accused of not being a loyalist to Biden,” he said.
Newsom said he asked Biden for permission to applaud to “have his back at that meeting,” recognizing a “vulnerability” for the president at the meeting.
“I’m one of those guys, you go home with whoever brought you to the dance,” he said. “That’s how my father raised me.”
“I felt compelled, and that’s why I went out campaigning for him the next day after doing the spin room and being out there,” he said.
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