Stepped up their game

Democrats have stepped up their game, Newsom says

But he said Democrats need to continue working to dominate the political narrative.

By DAVID COHEN

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday that the Biden administration has done a much better job of selling itself in recent months.

“That was a year and a half ago, now I don’t feel that way anymore. Absolutely not,” he said of past criticisms of the president and his political party on ABC’s “This Week,” commending both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

But he added: “I would hope that Democrats learn a little bit about communications strategy by flooding the zone and starting to get back on our feet in terms of dominating the narrative.”

The governor, who said that Democrats “have the receipts” from three years of work by the Biden administration, said that former President Donald Trump is always pushing his narrative, regardless of the setting.

“One thing we’ve learned with this anger industry on the right wing side is illusion dominates facts,” he told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “It’s narrative trumping facts. That’s why Trump himself uses the courtroom as a campaign stop. It’s to dominate the narrative.”

Newsom has sometimes expressed concern about the way Biden and others have sold what they are doing and what they have done, leaving Democrats perpetually playing defense.

“We have been on the receiving end — on the defensive — over and over on their agenda and their culture wars,” he said when launching a group called Campaign for Democracy in March 2023.

Newsom told Karl that that he does consider Trump — whom he said was “lighting democracy on fire” — a major threat.

“I take the threat of Trump and Trumpism very seriously. I’ve never been on the other side of that argument. That said, this is the weakest candidate to run a major party in my lifetime. He’s coming in deeply damaged,” he said. “Democrats, we win.”