Conservatives flip script on Newsom after he demanded 25th Amendment for Trump: ‘Propped up a vegetable’

July 21, 2026 By Leo Briceno 1 Comment

The California governor accused the president of cognitive impairment, drawing fierce pushback from Republicans online

California Gov. Gavin Newsom ignited an online firestorm on Thursday evening when, in response to President Donald Trump’s election integrity speech, he suggested that it was time to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove the president for displaying what he described as cognitive impairment.

“The only thing missing in Donald Trump’s speech was tin foil. This was a legitimate 25th Amendment moment — the rambling of a mad king,” Newsom said.

Newsom’s call to use the 25th Amendment plays into preexisting calls from Democrats to examine Trump’s cognitive performance, but also sparked controversy online about how Democrats could seriously question Trump’s mental state when they dismissed similar concerns about now-former President Joe Biden.

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The 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, allows the Cabinet to deem the president unfit for duty or allows Congress to establish an independent body to make that call.

To some critics, that case was much stronger under the last administration.

“You literally propped up a vegetable and lied to the American people about his cognitive decline for four years and never mentioned the 25th amendment once,” the official Republican National Committee X account wrote in response, referring to Republican doubts that Biden had the mental acuity to run the country at age 82.

“Given Newsom’s defense to this day of President Biden, calling him one of the greatest presidents ever, there’s a saying around sitting this one out that applies here…” Fox News contributor Joe Concha wrote on X.

“Gavin Newsome wants to remove [Trump] from office for disclosing California could have tens of thousands of aliens illegally registered to vote and that China attacked 220 million voters,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

Trump addressed the country on Thursday evening, informing the public that his administration had discovered a series of weaknesses in election integrity.

In particular, Trump said newly declassified documents would reveal foreign data theft carried out by China, that members of the U.S. government had known about election vulnerabilities for years, that Americans had been misled about those weaknesses and new evidence of “election fraud.”

Fox News Digital could not independently verify the content of the documents that were released by the White House.

Like many Democrats, Newsom cast doubt on the motives behind Trump’s speech, which came just four months ahead of the November midterms.

Click here to read the full article at FoxNews

 

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King Newsom, His Arrogance, and the Massive Devaluation of California Citizens

July 19, 2026 By Patrick Wagner, MD, 1 Comment

Connect the dots and determine the nexus of the non-profit integrated ‘healthcare’ industrial complexes

The takeover of free enterprise medicine in the state of California by Newsom and his predecessors, and then the transforming of it into communist healthcare, has come at great cost to the people of California, including physicians like me and the rest of the 100,000 plus doctors practicing here, and you.  I watched it happen during my career in Sacramento, and there is nothing I could do to prevent it and help us.  But there is something you and I can do now, and that’s what this paper is about!  

This takeover had two profound effects on me when the federal and California government thieves and killers took over.  The new method of payment for my services to patients and the amount of payment was inadequate for me to go on; and the complete takeover of my skill and judgment was unethical.  Every covenant of the Hippocratic Oath I swore was breached by Democrats, Newsom,  and the healthcare industrial complex and I refused to be one of his tools of tyranny.  This all culminated in 2004, when I dropped my operating and admitting privileges at Dignity Healthcare (then called Mercy General Hospital) and Sutter Health (then called Sutter General and Sutter Memorial Hospitals), a sad day in my life.  

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The time has come to end Newsom’s tyranny.  The evidence of his unbridled power and arbitrary destruction of the economy and medical profession in California is underway via the DOGE waste, fraud, and abuse investigation of President Trump, and soon will transform Newsom from hero to zero.

Why did Democrats, the bureaucratic structure of California government, and almost all of the elected officials (including Newsom most recently), within this wayward partisan California power peddler do all these wicked things to the people of California over time?  It is because of hostility toward the private sector, toward business, and toward the whole idea of anything or anyone who can show a profit!  Profit is an unacceptable word to them.  Simply put, Newsom, his predecessors, and the progressive bureaucratic machine has always been and remains so envious of the medical profession that they decided to conquer it, own it, control it, regulate it, and steal all our taxpayer funds for their own benefit.  This is why we must stop him and them! 

How can doctors as a profession fight that? They can’t. Doctors are supposed to be gentle, kind, caring, empathetic, compassionate, and follow the laws of ethical physicians. Instead, they were cheated out of their due income and forced to do the will of Newsom! Doctors don’t fight; they heal!  But when they are forced to work for a tyrant, they become punching bags, rummy headed, hopeful for a paycheck, completely punched out of any ethical standards, devoid of economic initiative, cowardly, resentful, and inflicted with wokeness.  They need a double shot of fight!  Show me a California doctor that doesn’t agree with what I just said, and I will show you an academic physician or scientist sellout in cahoots with King Newsom!

What do you think that has done to the quality of medical and surgical care in this state?  The gold standard of medicine in California from before the tyrants made their move has eroded to the no class standard you are witnessing today.  I DO NOT TRUST THIS SYSTEM, and guess what?  I am at the age where cancer and heart disease take hold, and I need the assistance of qualified physicians and surgeons to take care of me, as do you, the way my private practice Sacramento colleagues and I took care of patients before Newsom and his predecessors came on the scene.  We need excellent medical care for every single CITIZEN, birth to death.  We need our doctors back!

How did this nonsense ever occur in the first place?  The four big players in the Sacramento area decided to jump into bed with government in about 1985, when Mercy General Hospital and Sister Bridget, the administrator of that institution, decided to disband about  half of the private practice physicians and surgeons in the Sacramento region of admitting privileges and operating privileges in Mercy General, and consolidating Mercy institutions in the area into Catholic Healthcare West and ultimately the EVIL Dignity Health.  Sutter made the same evil move. Kaiser was an HMO from the start, a one stop shopping system, and became evil as well. And of course, UC Davis, the place I trained at, and which taught me how to be an ethical surgeon, copied the other three.  

So, the collegiality and trusting and communicating nature of the private practice physician was no more.  All four of these crooked integrated healthcare industrial complexes became subjects of Democrats and eventually “King Gavin” and the patients and doctors also became “subjects” of the crown, no longer “citizens” of the state.  Note that Gavin Newsom was in high school in 1985!

Let us define Social Security, the way Ronald Reagan described it back in 1961 before he became the greatest governor of the state of California of all time.  He said, “Social security is a form of savings to keep destitution from following unemployment by reason of death, disability or old age.  And to this end Social Security was adopted, but it was never intended to supplant private savings, private insurance, or pension programs of unions and industries”.  Wow, how about that for a caveat!  

Medicare is an outright adjunct of Social Security, paid for out of your monthly Social Security check. And, it is the absolute REQUIREMENT of every citizen in America is to sign up with Medicare at age 65.  It’s the law!  Well, you might say, that’s great!  Now I’m entitled to government run healthcare for the rest of my life, especially if I didn’t live my life providentially, meaning a lifestyle of self-reliance, wise resource management, and foresight.  Providential emphasizes living joyfully within one’s means, avoiding debt, cultivating practical skills, and maintaining a general and emergency preparedness plan such that you NEVER EVER become a burden upon your fellow Californians, including your family.   

If you are old, where do you fit on that scale?  All you have to do is check your pocketbook and determine if you were gainfully employed, i.e. profiting and diligently saving throughout your life!  Did you blow it, or are you solid?  Based on President Reagan’s definition of Social Security, do you need Social Security?  If so, the only person you can blame is our oversized, oppressive, swindling government and yourself.

It was about the year 2012, when the Tea Party was strong, when a constitutional lawyer explained to me what Social Security really is.  I was shocked, but it’s true. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, plain and simple.  A Ponzi scheme is an investment swindle in which some early investors are paid off with MONEY put up by later ones in order to encourage more and bigger risks.  And Medicare?  An adjunct of Social Security!  The by-product of a Ponzi scheme.  Ponzi schemes never work.

Let’s connect the dots and determine the nexus of the non-profit integrated “healthcare” industrial complexes defined above.  It is Medicare!  In 1951, an organization called the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH), was established by Washington, DC.  The name changed to Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) in 1987 and is now known as simply The Joint Commission.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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Trump accuses California of registering thousands of noncitizen voters; Newsom scoffs

July 18, 2026 By Joe Garofoli 2 Comments

Shortly after making an address to the nation alleging widespread voter security breaches and election interference by China Thursday, President Donald Trump said his administration has notified California that it is one of four states with more than 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote collectively between them.

“State election officials in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada have been notified of this serious threat to national security and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) stands ready to support their efforts to identify and remove ineligible registrants,” according to a Department of Homeland Security document released Thursday night after Trump’s speech.

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded on X that “We have no idea where this latest claim comes from. The Federal Government sued (and lost) to get access to the state’s voter rolls. And if they already had them, why sue in the first place?”

Newsom was referring to a Department of Justice lawsuit against California and five other states seeking sensitive voter information. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in January.

Newsom continued: “California law is clear: You MUST be a U.S. citizen to vote in state and federal elections. Voter fraud is EXTREMELY RARE — and almost always committed by U.S. citizens. Donald Trump’s Administration has repeatedly pushed false and misleading claims about elections. They have provided NO evidence to support these new ‘claims.’ Why should anyone believe them now?”

Congress passed a law in 1996 prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections, but California, Maryland, Vermont and Washington, DC allow noncitizens to cast ballots in some local elections.

In 2016, San Francisco voters authorized noncitizen parents or guardians of students who live in the San Francisco Unified School District to vote in school board elections. Oakland voters followed suit in 2022. A Superior Court judge initially overturned San Francisco’s law, but the state’s First District Court of Appeal rejected the determination that it was unconstitutional and reinstated the measure, allowing Oakland’s law to continue also. The conservative group that had challenged the law said it would not further challenge the law.

Click here to read the full article in the SF Chronicle

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California to offer $3,500 EV rebates to first-time buyers

July 15, 2026 By Rob Nikolewski 2 Comments

Financial incentives of $3,500 for new electric vehicles is set to roll out, in an effort to boost sales

California rebates for electric vehicles are coming back.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Monday that offers $3,500 for first-time buyers of EVs that cost $50,000 or less. There’s also a rebate of $1,750 for first-time buyers who purchase a used electric vehicle with an MSRP of up to $25,000.

The governor’s office said Californians can take advantage of the rebates “later this summer,” but did not give a specific date.

The new Golden State initiative, called the MyFirstEV program, comes in reaction to last year’s 940-page federal budget legislation dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Republicans on Capitol Hill and signed into law by President Donald Trump. It included provisions that eliminated the federal tax credit of up to $7,500 on the purchase or lease of a new EV and $4,000 for a used one.

“Donald Trump is doing everything in his power to pollute our air and surrender the clean car industry to China on a silver platter,” Newsom said in a statement. “California is putting its foot on the accelerator. With our new instant rebate program for electric vehicles, we’re making it easier for families to drive clean, breathe clean, and keep more money in their pockets.”

When asked for a reaction, a White House spokeswoman fired back, calling the governor “Newscum.”

Taylor Rogers in an email to the Union-Tribune said Newsom “is carrying on with the Biden administration’s failed energy policies by wasting Californians’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars to subsidize electric vehicles. President Trump rolled back the left’s very unpopular and costly nationwide EV mandate and restored consumer choice.”

While visiting the headquarters of Rivian Automotive, Newsom signed Senate Bill 168 that earmarks $135.5 million for the rebate program that will be matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis by automakers who choose to participate in the program, meaning MyFirstEV could deliver $270 million in total.

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There’s also an interesting clause within SB 168 that benefits zero-emissions carmakers Rivian and Lucid.

The legislation says “incentives under the (rebate) program shall be provided to California-headquartered zero-emission vehicle companies regardless of the vehicle manufacturer’s suggested retail price or sales price.”

That means that all vehicles from Rivian and Lucid qualify for the $3,500 rebates, even though Rivian’s least expensive model costs about $58,000 and Lucid’s cheapest offering runs around $71,000. Rivian is based in Irvine, and Lucid is headquartered in the Bay Area city of Newark.

Tesla, meanwhile, moved its production headquarters from California to Texas in December 2021. That means Tesla will not receive the MSRP exemption — although it can take part in the rebate program with $50,000 limits for new EVs and $25,000 for used vehicles, if it chooses to do so.

The California Air Resources Board will administer the MyFirstEV program. CARB expects to announce next month which car companies will take part and provide more details on how the initiative will work.

The one-time funding is tied to the state’s 2026-27 budget. A spokesperson for CARB told the Union-Tribune the dollars allocated to the new program will “be available until funds are exhausted.”

That would mean that upon its launch, it would be wise for potential buyers to move relatively quickly to take advantage of the rebates before the money for the program runs out.

“We expect strong demand,” the CARB spokesperson said in an email.

Brian Maas, president of the California New Car Dealers Association, said his members welcome the rebate program’s rollout.

“Anytime we’re talking about an incentive program for EVs or vehicles in general, that’s a good thing,” Maas said. “You’d much rather have the carrot than the stick, and that encourages consumers to think about (buying) these vehicles.”

Click here to read the full article in the SD Tribune

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It’s been three weeks since Gov. Newsom said he’s under investigation. Here’s what we know

July 8, 2026 By Ashley Zavala Leave a Comment

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife have yet to be subpoenaed by federal investigators, the governor’s office confirmed Monday.

Exactly three weeks after the governor announced he and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, neither have been contacted for interviews with federal investigators.

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In a fact sheet the governor’s office provided to reporters last month, the office said it was “sure” the subpoenas are coming. “The governor looks forward to it,” the fact sheet stated.

KCRA 3 has repeatedly asked over the last few weeks if the governor has hired his own attorney. It was still unclear as of Monday.

“In recent days, federal agents have knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees, not because they found a crime, because they’re simply trying to find one,” the governor said in the June 15th video announcement.

While the governor has portrayed himself as another U.S. DOJ target at the direction of President Donald Trump, sources within the Trump administration have said the investigations stem from complaints received by authorities in Sacramento.

A source close to the situation who spoke on the condition they remain anonymous told KCRA 3 there are multiple federal investigations involving people related to Gov. Newsom that began a year ago through the U.S. Attorney’s office in Sacramento.

One is related to tax activity involving Siebel Newsom’s nonprofit organizations, the source said. Another is related to staff in the governor’s office including his former chief of staff, Williamson, who was indicted in November for wire fraud, false taxes and several other alleged crimes. Williamson took a plea deal in May and had all but three of the charges dropped against her.

Those who may be involved are tight-lipped

Over the last three weeks, KCRA 3 has repeatedly reached out to non-profits overseen by Siebel Newsom to see if they had been contacted by federal investigators. That includes The Representation Project and the California Partner’s Project. Neither responded.

Click here to read the full article at KCRA

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President Trump Celebrates America’s 250th While Gavin Newsom Whines

July 6, 2026 By Katy Grimes Leave a Comment

No one will remember Gavin Newsom in 100 years, but Donald Trump will go down in history as one of America’s greatest presidents

While you were celebrating the Fourth of July semiquincentennial celebrations, America’s 250th birthday, grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, and smoking try-tip, while the kids and grandkids were splashing in swimming pools, and while families joined in parades, California Governor Gavin Newsom could only think of one thing – himself.

As President Donald J. Trump was putting on the greatest fireworks show in American history, and thousands of Americans visited the Great American State Fair in Washington D.C., California’s whiny governor posted a video carping about Donald Trump, and projecting his own corruption onto America’s President.

“250 years ago, our founders gave voice to one of the most radical sentences ever written: ‘We the People.’ Today, that idea is under attack,” Gavin Newsom said. 

Tell that to the thousands upon thousands of Americans at the Great American State Fair, and the thousands who stayed for the 850,000-shell fireworks show.

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Newsom claimed that Trump:

  • He’s embraced gerrymandering to entrench minority rule
  • Donald Trump and his allies are pushing voter suppression laws across the country
  • Donald Trump and his allies are trying to end birthright citizenship
  • Donald Trump is threatening to use the military and law enforcement against his political opponents

Notably, Newsom just redistricted California to gerrymander and eliminate the votes of specific Republican-leaning areas, something the Founding Fathers fought against.

I don’t think the Founding Fathers would care much for Gavin.

What actually was under attack was California – “Fourth of July descended into mayhem across Southern California as unruly crowds overwhelmed packed-out fireworks displays, looted stores, ignited fires and saw cops charge on horseback,” the California Post reported. “Officers were swarmed by hundreds of people who hurled bottles and other debris at them before the crowd turned on one another and began fighting.”

Compare Newsom’s ridiculous speech, tearing down what he himself is incapable of building, to President Trump’s at the Salute to America Celebration July 4, 2026, praising America, our flags that flew at Saratoga and Yorktown, the founders, American explorers, our military Medal of Honor recipients, and our armed forces: Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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Did Newsom’s $3.8 billion hotels-to-housing program pay off? We filed 100 records requests to find out

July 5, 2026 By Lauren Hepler and Marisa Kendall Leave a Comment
The records provide a first-of-its-kind look into how a historic investment in homeless housing played out.

As COVID-19 tore through California, Jennifer Hark Dietz had a decision to make. The state was making perhaps its biggest push ever to get people off the street, offering up billions of dollars for cities and organizations like hers to turn old motels into new homes.

It was risky. The Homekey program came with up-front cash and a promise to move fast and cut red tape. But it also meant taking on old buildings with little vetting, which had the potential to put a developer in a deep financial hole.

At first the gamble paid off. In just a few months, Hark Dietz’s nonprofit, People Assisting The Homeless, was housing people in the old 40-room Hollywood Orchid Suites in Los Angeles. She called it a “shining light” for what seemed possible with the radical new program.

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But then came a pale pink Travelodge in the suburb of Gardena. The city of LA had already bought the motel for $9 million, and Hark Dietz said her team didn’t have a chance to vet or tour the site. They’d only seen online photos and basic inspection reports before they took it over in December 2020. A city consultant estimated that it would take about $50,000 to start moving people into the roadside motel.

“Of course,” she said, “we know now that’s not the case.”

More than five years and nearly $3 million later, the motel — which turned out to need all new windows, plumbing and electrical, among other issues — was still vacant earlier this year. There was plywood over some of the windows, and someone graffitied a ghost on one side.

The boom-or-bust results in Los Angeles underscore how little is known publicly about a generational project with a high price tag and even higher stakes. Some projects were huge successes. Others were total failures. Dozens remain stuck in limbo. CalMatters found there’s been little public accountability for any of it.

Launched by Gov. Gavin Newsom in the summer of 2020, Homekey awarded more than $3.8 billion to local governments to convert motels and other buildings into homeless housing, thrusting many local governments into a new role running multimillion-dollar real estate projects. Cities and counties could hire outside contractors to help or do the work themselves, skipping some of the usual building process for the sake of speed.

It was unlike anything the state had ever done, largely because it sprang from desperation. Homekey launched during peak COVID, five months before vaccines were available, and after cities had already moved thousands of unhoused people into motels through Project Roomkey, another Newsom program. But those rooms were temporary, and officials were scrambling to prevent a mass exodus back to the streets.

With Homekey, local officials across the state bought and gutted Motel 6s, Best Westerns and roadside inns. They got more creative as the program evolved: Tiny homes sprouted in Silicon Valley, and Santa Cruz retrofitted an old dentist’s office. In Southern California, housing took shape in a former Tri-Delt sorority house, an earthquake-stricken church and a hostel that once served as a refuge for Japanese Americans returning from World War II internment.

“What we’re doing here today is multiples of what any state in American history has committed to address this crisis of homelessness,” Newsom said at a 2021 press conference announcing a major Homekey expansion.

The program came with little built-in oversight. Earlier this year, state lawmakers killed a bill to audit Homekey. No state agency has publicly analyzed the program in detail to find out what’s working and what’s not.

The challenge now: A new and more complex phase is already underway with up to $2 billion from the voter-approved Prop. 1 mental health bond. But no one has publicly accounted for how many of the program’s original projects stalled out and how many succeeded.

To find out what happened, CalMatters filed more than 100 public records requests with cities and counties that were awarded Homekey funds. We asked for key details on 250 projects announced through the end of 2024, covering all but a handful of projects for which less public data was available. Those state and local records — along with dozens of visits to Homekey sites, plus interviews with people who built and lived in them — create a first-of-its-kind window into how it all played out.

Among our findings:

  • Homekey made producing housing simpler. But it came at a cost. Homekey provided billions of dollars in housing funding up front, allowing some developers to sidestep the usual webs of investors and lenders and finish much faster than normal. But fewer funders also means less oversight. With rushed vetting, some projects got bogged down in delays, blown budgets or worse. At least one Homekey developer was forced out of business by an unwieldy project. Another is facing fraud charges.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

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Gavin Newsom Ally Wore FBI Wire in Corruption Probe Targeting Former Chief of Staff

July 4, 2026 By Megan Barth 1 Comment

Alexis Podesta secretly wore a FBI wire ‘casting a pretty broad net across the Capitol community’

A longtime Gavin Newsom appointee and Democratic power broker secretly wore an FBI wire and recorded conversations as part of a federal public corruption investigation that began with the governor’s inner circle and has since expanded Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

According to an exclusive report in the New York Post, Alexis Podesta, 45, a Newsom appointee to the State Compensation Insurance Fund board since January 2020, cooperated with federal investigators by wearing a wire starting as early as June 2024. The recordings captured discussions during the probe into then-Newsom Chief of Staff Dana Williamson. Podesta remains on the State Compensation Insurance Fund board, earning nearly $61,000 annually.

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Williamson’s attorney McGregor Scott, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, confirmed: “Alexis wore a wire, and Dana did not.”

The California Globe has covered this federal investigation extensively. On November 12, 2025, we reported that the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment and FBI arrest of political consultant Dana Williamson, 53, of Carmichael, on charges including conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, filing a false tax return, and making false statements to the FBI. 

The following day, November 13, 2025, the Globe confirmed that Alexis Podesta had been identified in court documents as “Co-Conspirator 2” in the case against Williamson. 

Williamson pleaded guilty in May 2026 in federal court in Sacramento to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, subscribing to a false tax return, and making false statements to the FBI. Her sentencing remains pending.

Court filings detail how Williamson, while serving as Newsom’s chief of staff from late 2022, allegedly orchestrated a scheme involving a dormant campaign account tied to former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. Approximately $225,000 was siphoned from the account and disguised as legitimate consulting fees intended to benefit Sean McCluskie, Becerra’s former chief of staff.

Podesta, who inherited oversight of aspects of the account, received payments through her company from Becerra’s committee, often in $10,000 monthly installments in 2023 and 2024. Podesta has stated she was unaware the payments were improper. Her attorney, Bill Portanova, confirmed her cooperation with investigators. Podesta has not been charged.

One specific example captured in the investigation: Williamson and Podesta exchanged text messages and participated in a recorded call strategizing how to respond to a Public Records Act request concerning California’s litigation against Activision Blizzard, a corporate client. Williamson allegedly shared confidential state government information with Podesta about the matter.

The California Globe previously reported on Williamson’s role as Newsom’s “enforcer” and key liaison to labor unions and business interests before her replacement in December 2024 by Nathan Barankin, a former top aide to then-Vice President Kamala Harris. 

The investigation, which sources indicate has been active for years (with roots traced back as early as 2022 in some reporting), has broadened significantly. 

FBI letters sent last fall notified numerous Sacramento insiders and lobbyists, including Republican Assemblyman Josh Hoover, that their phone calls had been intercepted during the probe. Hoover, who had no connection to Williamson or Podesta, described it as casting “a pretty broad net across the Capitol community.”

On June 15, Governor Newsom announced he and his wife (First Partner) Jennifer Siebel Newsom were under federal investigation, framing the probe as as political retaliation orchestrated by President Trump ahead of Newsom’s anticipated 2028 presidential run, citing Trump’s past comments calling for his arrest. 

“They have not found a crime — they are simply trying to find one,” Newsom stated. “We have nothing to hide. Mr. President, come after me. I am not going anywhere. The country is watching.”

In his formal statement, Newsom elaborated: “In recent days, federal agents have knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees. Not because they found a crime. Because they are simply trying to find one. They are demanding records. They are abusing the grand jury process. Digging through years and years of random documents.”

Newsom continued, “Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets. He’s coming after me because I am considering running for President. Because he hates that I’ve consistently called him out – over and over again – for his lies and deceit. Donald Trump is simply the most corrupt President in American history. He has turned the levers of government into his own personal power ministries to reward cronies and to try to jail his opponents… One by one, anyone who has challenged Donald Trump has ended up on his hit list. And today, I proudly join that list… If they can’t intimidate me, they’ll go after the mother of our children.”

Siebel Newsom has similarly accused Trump of having “no boundaries.”

Our reporting has consistently highlighted how vendors and donors connected to the Newsom orbit have profited handsomely while the First Partner’s nonprofit extracted millions through salaries and licensing fees from an organization she controls.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

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Newsom and Wiener test a newly emboldened left

June 30, 2026 By MELANIE MASON, BLAKE JONES and DUSTIN GARDINER 3 Comments

PROGRESSIVE SQUEEZE — Two different San Francisco Democrats — Gavin Newsom and Scott Wiener — have found themselves in a similar bind in recent days: Running afoul of newly-potent progressive litmus tests.

For Wiener, the clash played out in volatile public fashion, with activists accusing him of not sufficiently condemning Israel’s war in Gaza.

Newsom, meanwhile, has been trying to execute a high-wire act — opposing a California ballot initiative to impose a one-time wealth tax, while promoting his own plan for a national tax on billionaires. As Melanie and Jeremy B. White reported, the staunchest pro-wealth tax progressives aren’t buying it, dismissing his counteroffer as running cover for the rich.

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Casting Newsom and Wiener as crypto-Republicans may seem bizarre to most people who see the governor and state senator regularly portrayed in conservative media as the personification of California radicalism. In truth, both men are — by San Francisco standards — moderates and have long been eyed suspiciously by those further to the left.

“I’m a guy, remember, who ran against the Green Party as mayor,” Newsom told Playbook, namechecking his frequent foes on the left flank of San Francisco politics. “Former Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, Supervisor Chris Daly — all of this is so familiar to me.”

But the reasons for these latest ruptures reveal a lot about the new battle lines being drawn in the Democratic Party. In Wiener’s case, it’s the debate over U.S. support for Israel which, in a few short years, has become a purity test for much of the party’s base — so much so that, in Weiner’s case, his stance on Gaza was enough to make the ardently pro-transgender rights legislator unwelcome at the Trans March.

Wiener, who is running against SF Supervisor Connie Chan in the race to succeed Nancy Pelosi, is used to being pummeled with incoming from both the left and the right. He has said that San Francisco’s sharp-elbowed political world requires a thick skin, whether that’s taking on a dedicated local band of public nudists or withstanding online invective from the right calling him a pedophile.

The weekend fracas hit a particular nerve; a video of activists surrounding and screaming at Wiener until the lawmaker left the event went mega-viral, with the clip getting at least 11 million views. A number of politicians — including state Senate leader Monique Limón, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and even newly-minted Republican Rep. James Gallagher — all came to Wiener’s defense and condemned the activists.

For Newsom, the issue of taxing billionaires has become a symbol of the left’s growing demands for aggressive economic populism.

“What you’re seeing across the country is a grassroots uprising by Democrats against leaders who for too long have stood with the interests of wealthy and powerful people over the needs of wealthy people,” said Jeff Weaver, a former top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders. “On this one, Gavin Newsom is just on the wrong side.”

The intra-party battle is especially potent after progressives romped to victory in three New York House Democratic primaries last week, fueling fresh questions of whether the party’s agenda is now being set by the Democratic Socialists of America and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. At times throughout Newsom’s tenure, the governor tried to shore up his centrist credentials. But now, with a likely 2028 Democratic presidential primary ahead of him, he is keen to point out the ways he was an early adopter of the progressive policies now championed by the left.

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Gavin Newsom’s Circle of Corruption

June 27, 2026 By Christopher F. Rufo, Jedd McFatter, Susan Crabtree Leave a Comment

Across nearly three decades in politics, the governor has assembled a roster of criminal connections.

Gavin Newsom is reportedly under federal investigation. Last week, the California governor released a recorded statement claiming that federal agents are combing through records as part of an inquiry targeting him and his wife. “In recent days,” Newsom said, “federal agents have knocked on the doors of friends and former employees—not because they found a crime, [but] because they’re simply trying to find one.”

As federal agents examine Newsom’s connections, we decided to do the same. We reviewed records dating back to his tenure as mayor of San Francisco. They reveal that, over nearly three decades in politics, Newsom has amassed a network of appointees, employees, and associates implicated in a range of ethical violations and criminal offenses—including, in some cases, serious felonies.

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Newsom has suggested he wants to improve California’s culture of self-dealing. Last year, his spokesperson said that “the governor expects all public servants to uphold the highest standards of integrity.” Our review reveals that, in fact, Newsom has surrounded himself with corruption and criminals.

This is Gavin Newsom’s circle of corruption.

Dana Williamson

Governor Newsom appointed Dana Williamson, a “bareknuckle political brawler,” as chief of staff in January 2023. Less than two years later, she left the governor’s office after becoming the subject of a federal corruption probe. Last month, she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, among other charges.

Williamson was involved in multiple corrupt schemes that began before she joined Newsom’s office. In one, prosecutors say, she and two others conspired to drain $225,000 from a dormant campaign account belonging to Xavier Becerra. In another, Williamson claimed bogus business expenses worth $1.7 million, which she used to purchase luxury vacations and “private jet travel.”

She also faced a charge stemming from the investigation itself. Last month, Williamson pleaded guilty to having made false statements to federal agents. The DOJ reported that Williamson had hoped to distract the FBI from her criminal conduct by, among other things, concealing her “involvement in passing information to former clients . . . to give them an advantage in litigation against the state.”

According to one Democratic consultant, Williamson operated “like a mafia boss.”

London Breed

Newsom served as San Francisco mayor from 2004 to 2011. One of his most enduring “accomplishments” was boosting the political career of London Breed, the future city mayor who proceeded to commit multiple ethics violations and is reportedly under federal scrutiny for alleged corruption.

Newsom repeatedly promoted Breed. In 2005, he appointed her to the city’s Redevelopment Agency Commission. In 2010, he named her to a post at San Francisco’s Fire Commission. These appointments likely helped Breed win San Francisco’s 2018 mayoral election.

As mayor, Breed presided over the creation of the city’s racialist “Dream Keeper Initiative” and a range of scandals. In 2021, she was ensnared in a scandal of her own after San Francisco’s Ethics Commission fined her nearly $23,000 for “Violating Campaign Finance, Ethics, and Gift Laws.”

The commission published a press release detailing some of the violations. In one case, from 2018, Breed had referenced her title as “Mayor” when asking Governor Jerry Brown to commute her brother’s prison sentence. In another, from 2019, she accepted gifts from a subordinate, Mohammed Nuru, who was later convicted of fraud.

Breed’s troubles may not be over. Last month, the San Francisco Standard reported that the FBI is “looking into” whether she appointed billionaire Stephen Sherrill to a Board of Supervisors seat in hopes of securing employment from Sherrill’s former boss, Michael Bloomberg. She has denied the allegations.

Mohammed Nuru

Mohammed Nuru was a public works official under Mayor Newsom. For years, Nuru was a major figure in city politics, exercising “substantial power and influence over” San Francisco’s “business and policy, including its public contracts, permits, and construction projects.”

In 2020, Nuru was arrested for his role in a massive bribery and corruption scandal. For more than a decade, he had orchestrated a bribe-and-kickback racket, exercising his political power in exchange for cash and gifts. In 2022, Nuru pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Click here to read the full article in the California Journal

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