CNN anchor Erin Burnett tore into California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attempts to paint a more MAGA-friendly image — playing clip after clip of the Democrat voicing support for “woke” issues like transgender rights and the use of the term Latinx.
Newsom has espoused left-wing politics for years, but he has recently drawn the ire of his base by seemingly trying to spin his image to curry favor with President Trump’s supporters, even hosting conservative pundit Charlie Kirk on his new podcast.
Burnett shredded Newsom’s new MAGA-friendly image by playing a montage of him using the term Latinx and advocating for trans rights. CNN“The country is trying to figure out how he [Newsom] went from progressive hero and governor of the most liberal state in the country to interviewing and spending time with MAGA favorites like Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk,” Burnett said Thursday.
“Newsom, well, he’s really completely changed his tune on some of the most hot-button issues for Democrats.”
Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Burnett, joined by reporter Andrew Kaczynski from CNN’s investigative team, took issue with Newsom’s recent claim that he doesn’t know where the term Latinx came from.
“Not one person ever in my office has ever used the word Latinx,” Newsom told Kirk on a recent episode of the governor’s podcast. “I just didn’t even know where it came from. What are people talking about?”
After playing the podcast clip, Kaczynski said: “We did find somebody who used it repeatedly in his office. Let’s take a listen to this.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom (left) has come under fire for hosting right-leaning figures Charlie Kirk (right) and Steve Bannon on his new podcast. x/theblazeCNN then aired four clips in a row of Newsom using the term Latinx over the years, including a snippet of him blasting politicians who wanted to ban the politically correct word.
“Those aren’t the only times that we found that use, and he also used it a lot on social media,” Kaczynski told Burnett. “That is a lot of use of Latinx by him for somebody who said that nobody in that office ever used that phrase.”
The CNN journalists also took issue with Newsom’s flip-flopping stance on transgender issues, including the right of trans athletes to compete in women’s sports and free gender-affirming care in prisons.
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski pointed out that Newsom has used the word Latinx and shared it in social media posts many times. CNN“It turns out in 2014, years before I was governor, there was a law established that established the legal principles that allow trans athletes in women’s sports,” Newsom told Kirk in a clip aired on CNN. “It is an issue of fairness, and I think Democrats have lost that.”
But Kaczynski pointed out that Newsom certainly hasn’t always found trans rights to be “an issue of fairness.”
“In that statement, he’s kind of making it sound like he wasn’t involved in this at all. He’s like, oh it was in 2014, years before I was governor — you mean when you were the lieutenant governor,” Kaczynski said.
And at the time, Newsom praised the California Legislature for putting that same exact trans rights law into place, the CNN reporter claimed.
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Erin Burnett fact-checked some of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest claims about his political views. CNNCNN aired a clip of Newsom speaking soon after that trans rights law was established: “Thank you for what you did on civil rights, for students in our schools, transgender rights in this state.”
As Kaczynski pointed out, California has funded gender-affirming care and sex reassignment surgeries for prisoners since 2017 — making it the first state to back such procedures.
“Gavin Newsom didn’t speak out or say anything about it until now, five years later, when it became a political liability,” the reporter continued.
As governor, Newsom also signed a bill expanding rights for transgender prisoners, and approved a Medicaid expansion in California that extended gender-affirming care to migrants, Kaczynski added.
