Newsom to head to South Carolina next week to speak to Southern voters as his flirtation with 2028 grows
The Democrat 's trip to the state, which went for Trump in 2024, will see him visit rural counties, including Pickens County, where the president won 76 percent of the vote last year.
South Carolina has the first Democratic presidential primary on the calendar, and has a large share of Black voters, a core part of the Democratic base.
'Governor Newsom leads the largest economy in America and the fourth largest in the world, and he's coming to meet folks in towns that have been hollowed out by decades of Republican control,' state Democratic party chair Christale Spain, said in a statement to The Hill on Thursday. 'This is about building partnerships, uplifting communities, and showing rural voters they aren't forgotten.'
The trip will see the governor, perhaps the country's most prominent Democrat outside of Washington, visit settings including cafes, coffee shops, churches, and the Kershaw County Council on Aging, according to an itinerary obtained by the state's Post and Courier newspaper.
He last visited the state in 2024 to campaign for Joe Biden.
California congressman Ro Khanna will visit South Carolina later this year for an event highlighting those impacted by the Trump administration's cuts to Medicaid.
Newsom has a long history of using national campaign-style tactics, even when he's not running for president, including participating in a 2023 debate with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and paying for critical TV ads in Republican states the year before.
Since Trump return to office, however, the Democrat has shifted into a new gear, embracing a role as one of the most vocal opponents of the new administration.
In June, California sued the Trump administration over its decision to send in National Guard troops in response to anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.
Newsom also gave a speech that month accusing the president of ushering in 'authoritarianism' and dared federal officials to arrest him instead of conducting immigration raids against low-level offenders.
The tactic appears to be getting attention in Washington, prompting House Speaker Mike Johnson to claim in June Newsom ought to be 'tarred and feathered.'
In January, as wildfires ravaged Los Angeles, Trump repeatedly, and often inaccurately, alleged that California leaders' environmental policies were to blame for hydrants running dry.
The following month, the president ordered officials to release billions of gallons of water from reservoirs in the state, a move largely seen as a symbolic gesture with little relation to stopping wildfires.
The fires continue to be a sticking point between Newsom and the administration, and in June President Trump threatened to withhold disaster aid to California in response to the protests.
Elsewhere, Newsom has embraced a pugnacious style and launched a podcast this year which often features conservative guests like activist Charlie Kirk.
The project comes after 2024 Democratic campaigns were criticized for not doing more to leverage the ' manosphere ' of podcasts and influencers reaching young male voters.
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28 minutes ago
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Trump says there could be a Gaza deal next week
WASHINGTON, July 4 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday it was good that Hamas said it had responded in "a positive spirit" to a U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire proposal. He told reporters aboard Air Force One there could be a deal on a Gaza ceasefire by next week but that he had not been briefed on the current state of negotiations.
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Gaza: The man in the room acting as backchannel for Hamas in negotiations with US
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I'd reported from Michigan weeks earlier and been struck by the overwhelming support for Trump. The vibe essentially was 'it can't get any worse - we may as well give Trump a shot'. Mingling among diplomats from Middle Eastern countries, wealthy business owners and even the president of FIFA, I was introduced to an unassuming man in his late 60s. We got talking and shared stories of his birthplace and my adopted home for a few years - Jerusalem. He told me that he still has the deed to his family's 68 dunum (16 acre) Palestinian orchard. With nostalgia, he explained how he still had his family's UN food card which shows their allocated monthly rations from their time living in a refugee camp and in the Jerusalem's old city. Dr Bahnah left Jerusalem in 1976. He is now a US citizen but told me Jerusalem would always be home. 1:58 He echoed the views I had heard in Michigan, where he had spent many months campaigning as the president of Arab-Americans for Trump. He dismissed my scepticism that Trump would be any better than Biden for the Palestinians. We exchanged numbers and agreed to meet for lunch a few weeks later. A connection with Trump Dr Bahbah invited two Arab-American friends to our lunch. Over burgers and coke, a block from the White House, we discussed their hopes for Gaza under Trump. The three men repeated what I had heard on the campaign trail - that things couldn't get any worse for the Palestinians than they were under Biden. 2:54 Trump, they said, would use his pragmatism and transactional nature to create opportunities. Dr Bahbah displayed to me his own initiative too. He revealed that he got a message to the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to suggest he ought to write a personal letter of congratulations to President Trump. A letter from Ramallah was on the Oval Office desk on 6 November, a day after the election. It's the sort of gesture Trump notices. It was clear to me that the campaigning efforts and continued support of these three wealthy men had been recognised by the Trump administration. They had become close to key figures in Trump's team - connections that would, in time, pay off. There were tensions along the way. When Trump announced he would "own Gaza", Dr Bahbah was disillusioned. And then came the AI video of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunning themselves in a Gazan wonderland. 0:35 "It is provocative and unacceptable," he told me just after the president posted the video in February. Trump must have thought it was funny, so he posted it. He loves anything with his name on it." Then came the Trump plan to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza. To this, he released a public statement titled Urgent Press Release. "Arab-Americans for Trump firmly rejects President Donald J Trump's suggestion to remove - voluntarily or forcibly - Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan," he said. He then changed the name of his alliance, dropping Trump. It became Arab-Americans for Peace. I wondered if the wheels were coming off this unlikely alliance. Was he realising Trump couldn't or wouldn't solve the Palestinian issue? But Dr Bahbah maintained faith in the new president. "I am worried, but at the same time, Trump might be testing the waters to determine what is acceptable…," he told me in late February as the war dragged on. "There is no alternative to the two-state solution." He told me that he expected the president and his team to work on the rebuilding of Gaza and work to launch a process that would culminate in the establishment of a Palestinian state, side by side in peace with Israel. It was, and remains, an expectation at odds with the Trump administration's official policy. The phone call In late April, Dr Bahbah's phone rang. The man at the other end of the line was Dr Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas. Dr Bahbah and Dr Hamad had never met - they did not know each other. But Hamas had identified Dr Bahbah as the Palestinian-American with the most influence in Trump's administration. Dr Hamad suggested that they could work together - to secure the release of all the hostages in return for a permanent ceasefire. Hamas was already using the Qatari government as a conduit to the Americans but Dr Bahbah represented a second channel through which they hoped they could convince President Trump to increase pressure on Israel. There is a thread of history which runs through this story. It was the widow of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who passed Dr Bahbah's number to Dr Hamad. In the 1990s, Dr Bahbah was part of a Palestinian delegation to the multilateral peace talks. He became close to Arafat but he had no experience of a negotiation as delicate and intractable as this. The first step was to build trust. Dr Bahbah contacted Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy. Witkoff and Bahbah had something in common - one a real-estate mogul, the other an academic, neither had any experience in diplomacy. It represented the perfect manifestation of Trump's 'outside the box' methods. But Witkoff was sceptical of Dr Bahbah's proposal at first. Could he really have any success at securing agreement between Israel and Hamas? A gesture to build trust was necessary. Bahbah claims he told his new Hamas contact that they needed to prove to the Trump administration that they were serious about negotiating. Within weeks a remarkable moment more than convinced Dr Bahbah and Witkoff that this new Hamas back-channel could be vitally important. On 12 May, after 584 days in Hamas captivity, Israeli-American Edan Alexander was released. We were told at the time that his release was a result of a direct deal between Hamas and the US. Israel was not involved and the deal was described by Hamas as a "good faith" gesture. Dr Bahbah sees it as his deal. 27:55 Direct talks took place between Dr Bahbah and five Hamas officials in Doha who would then convey messages back to at least 17 other Hamas leadership figures in both Gaza and Cairo. Dr Bahbah in turn conveyed Hamas messages back to Witkoff who was not directly involved in the Hamas talks. A Qatari source told me that Dr Bahbah was "very involved" in the negotiations. But publicly, the White House has sought to downplay his role, with an official telling Axios in May that "he was involved but tangentially". The Israeli government was unaware of his involvement until their own spies discovered the backchannel discussion about the release of Alexander. Since that April phone call, Dr Bahbah has remained in the Qatari capital, with trips to Cairo, trying to help secure a final agreement. He is taking no payment from anyone for his work.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Baby you're a firework! Dancing Donald and Melania in rare PDA at 4th July display... as even music mishap can't dampen spirits
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