Are you offended by someone saying that their political opponent should be put in jail? Okay. Well, let's I'm talking about being offended.
You should never justively assume your opponent should be in jail. [laughter] Very interesting one from Abby Phillips CNN show. Abby Phillip absolutely was not letting the MAGA in the panel dodge the point.
The second Republicans tried pretending Gavin Newsome crossed some new line, Abby immediately brought up years of Donald Trump doing the exact same thing Gavin did. She even had to halt the debate to roll the tape and bring on some receipts. Briana Lyman, Charles Blow, Lance Trover, and Rep.
Jared Moscowitz were all on the Abby Phillips CNN show. Tell me what you feel in the comment section. Let me play the video.
Tonight, Gavin Newsome is lamenting the remaining years of the Trump era. In an interview with the New York Times, the California governor got emotional about Donald Trump's rhetoric. I can't even conceive of three more years of this.
It's really is that what's happening to our kids? Their brains are already being scrambled by social media and everything else we talk about. And but but this this is their role model.
A guy who calls someone a Guy calls someone a piggy. This is our role model. The president of the United States.
Over the last six months, Newsome has been emulating Trump's brash, all capsladen, and often AI generated social media persona. And it's not just Democrats. Listen to these Republicans who rejected the president's demand for a new map in Indiana.
So, you know, I think they get what they get. I wish that President Trump would change his tone. I had released a post about my displeasure over some um a slur that the president used.
Words have consequences and uh for me it was uh just added to a litany of reasons of why this was just bad policy and not good timing and wasn't deserving of my support. That uh last Indiana lawmaker that you just heard, one of the reasons that he said that he rejected this map was when he heard Trump use the the rword slur. he has a child with uh a disability.
And I I wonder if Gavin Newsome, you think, Briana, is hitting on something that is bubbling up here. When you have Republicans saying Trump is going too far, is that a sentiment that could hurt Trump and Republicans going forward? I don't think so.
Here we go. Briana Lyman, a diehard MAGA defender about to roll out another Trump defense on Abby Phillips CNN show after she confronted Republicans over their outrage toward Gavin Newsome using Trump style attacks, exposing what Democrats called years of hypocrisy after defending Donald Trump doing the same thing for nearly a decade. Now watch her do her thing.
I think to the um state senator Boachek um who just spoke, I can understand why a parent with a child with Down syndrome would be sensitive to the use of the Rword and I completely agree. Um, but I do think to his point about words mattering, words matter, but policies matter more. And if he cares about the dignity of people and children with Down syndrome, that he should want to make sure Republicans have a good, fair fighting chance in Congress because it's parties like Congressman Moscowit's party who votes against legislation that would ban abortion solely on the base of Down syndrome.
And so, if you want to focus on the dignity of those with Down syndrome, words may hurt, but policies will hurt more. So I think he should have voted with the Republicans to redistrict. Not having insurance is also going to hurt.
So you're fine. I think it's important for voting it down for you know on the abortion piece for children with Down syndrome to have a chance of life. But when they are here, you're fine with the president denigrating them with a slur.
Abby, I think everybody at this table, at least for my generation, the lexicon, unfortunately, uses the R word not to smear or malign in fifth grade. No, Abby, I'm telling you right now, that is a word that unfortunately is just thrown around as if you're calling someone an idiot or a I'm not defending it. Oh, you just did.
You just defended him. Don't act like you didn't. Trump built an entire political identity around insults, threats, lock her up, mocking people, humiliating opponents publicly, all of it.
And you could tell some people on that panel really did not want to stay on that subject too long. But I'm saying that President Trump certainly was not using it to attack someone who has a legitimate disability. I think we all know that, too.
Calling Tim Walls the Rword is not trying to say Tim Walls Down syndrome. Well, well, look, Tim Walls also has a child with disabilities, so there's that, too. But Charles, you were saying.
Well, I I mean, I think, you know, we're in the wicked season and we got used to Trump defying gravity and we thought, you know, a lot of people thought that that was going to happen forever. I think that he gravity is now taking hold. I believe that there's a political gravity that's that's happening with Donald Trump because people are getting exhausted by it.
I think this is what was happening at the end of the first term. And I think this is where Newsome has to tread a little bit more lightly here because emulating Donald Trump by the end of the of his presidency people were exhausted by Donald Trump. They did not want exact replica of Donald Trump.
They wanted something completely different from that. And I think that, you know, Gavin Newsome has to figure out if he wants to continue the next three years as being the anti-Trump by being a kind of a mirror image of him. Ezra Klein has an interview with him basically saying he is the front runner for the Democratic party.
Yet what did he put out? An AI generated photo of the president of the United States in handcuffs this week. He told the Indiana governor get down on your knees today in a post on X.
So I don't know on one hand oh the president can't do it but yet Gavin Newsome is now the front runner. Honestly I think Nuome understands something Democrats are finally starting to accept. Voters want to feel like their side actually has a pulse.
People are exhausted. They're tired of watching Democrats constantly try to sound morally perfect while Republicans bulldoze every conversation with aggression and confidence whether they're right or wrong. Now, personally, I don't think Gavin Newsome is trying to become Trump.
I think he's trying to prove Democrats can fight without curling into a ball every time Republicans get nasty. There's a difference. And whether people fully agree with his style or not, Republicans are clearly bothered by it, which kind of tells you everything.
Because if this strategy didn't work politically, they wouldn't be freaking out over it this much. Wait, I don't know. This sort of a chicken and egg kind of situation.
What are you talking about? No, we're talking about verbiage. I'm saying what's chicken and egg is that you're sort of implying that uh Gavin Newsome started it and that it's fair that I didn't say Gavin Newsome started Republicans to continue it when we know we Yeah, exactly.
We all know how the president speaks. Do you remember this? This is this is a Trump post from 2024 where he reposts a a truck with uh Joe Biden hog tied on the streets and Trump flags flying.
Was it violence when Trump did it? And why are Republicans some s suddenly so offended? Look, I can't speak to those Republicans and I'm not arguing with you.
We know how Donald Trump speaks and and he's very blunt. That's one of the things that people of America like about him and we sometimes he uses words I don't always agree with. But I'm just saying for the media and others to now prop up Gavin Newsome and say he's great when he's putting out AI generated photos of our president in handcuffs on a sidewalk.
Well, then what's offended by it? I'm saying what's the difference? I'm saying what's the I'm saying what's the difference?
You guys want to you guys want to slam the president constantly? Are you offended by someone saying that their political opponent should be put in jail? Okay.
Well, let's I'm talking about being offended. You should never just assume your opponent should be in jail. He has done his entire political career.
[cheering] Tell you what, for what she's done, they should lock her up. She's disgraceful. [cheering] It's disgraceful.
Hillary Clinton has to go to jail. Okay. She has to go to jail.
You should lock them up. [cheering] Lock up the buttons. Lock up Hillary.
All right. So, a tale as old as time. Lock her up.
This was 2016. This was four years before Joe Biden. This was four years before the alleged lawfare.
Lock her up. What are we talking about here? First of all, they said he said should Did Donald Trump weaponize his Department of Justice to lock Hillary Clinton up?
No, he didn't. But did Joe Biden lock up Peter Navar? reporting is in his first term he certainly tried and he had a different government at the time, a different cabinet at the time and it didn't work.
But my listen, I'm not defending any of this. But I just think it is so interesting that memes and that threats of or not even threats, just memes about locking up your political opponent are suddenly so offensive to the other side of the aisle when it was Trump did it for the last eight years. I mean, listen, A for effort on that lock her up thing, okay?
But but here's what I would say, right? At at the end of the day, the game has changed. And what Democrats have decided is we may not like the game.
We may find it morally reprehensible, but what Gavin has decided is he's going to play the game cuz if you don't play, you automatically lose. Properly wrapped up. And and Republicans tried acting morally outraged over Gavin Newsome posting AI images and aggressive memes while Abby Phillip just kept calmly dragging the conversation back to reality.
The entire argument completely falls apart once you remember who they going to spent the last 10 years defending. That was the whole tension of this segment. The second Abby brought up Trump reposting imagery of Joe Biden hog tied on the back of a truck, you could feel the energy shift immediately.
Like almost immediately. We're talking about actual behavior Republicans normalized for years. And honestly, I think that's why they kept trying to move the conversation away from Trump's history and focus only on Gavin Newsome specifically.
But Gavin's whole point, got to be whether people like his style or not, is basically this. Why are Democrats expected to operate under rules Republicans openly abandoned forever ago? And nobody really answered that.
You had Republicans on the panel saying Gavin Newsome posting an AI image of Trump in handcuffs was dangerous rhetoric, while Abby Phillip is literally sitting there reminding them Donald Trump spent years screaming, "Lock her up! " at rallies. Not once, not twice, for years.
entire crowds chanting it, merchandising it, building a political culture around humiliation and public punishment. So now when Gavin starts speaking in a more aggressive political language, suddenly conservatives are offended by escalation. Come on.
Come on. I think Gavin Newsome understands something Democrats are finally starting to understand, too. People don't just want policy anymore.
They want somebody who looks willing to fight. That's why when one of the panelists said, "The reason Gavin is rising is because people see him as a fighter. " That probably ended up being the most honest thing said during the entire discussion.
The most revealing part of the debate, honestly, might have been when Republicans basically admitted Trump talks this way because people like that about him. Think about what that means. They know the rhetoric is harsh.
They know it's offensive sometimes, but they defend it because politically it projects strength and dominance. Okay, then why is Gavin Newsome suddenly unacceptable for responding in a way that also projects political aggression? That's where the hypocrisy becomes impossible to ignore.
And Abby Phillip did a really good job refusing to let the conversation become one-sided moral panic over Democrats finally fighting back rhetorically. Every time Republicans tried isolating Gavin's behavior, she immediately widened the frame again. What about Trump?
What about lock her up? What about the rhetoric Republicans defended for years? That context matters because without context, Republicans get to pretend Gavin Newsome invented toxic politics out of nowhere.
He didn't. He's reacting to a political environment Republicans themselves helped create and reward. That doesn't automatically make every tactic good or healthy long term.
But let's at least be honest about where this climate came from. And honestly, Charles Cook's point about escalation politics wasn't wrong either. That was probably the one genuinely uncomfortable truth Democrats should still take seriously.
Once both parties fully commit to outrage politics and humiliation politics and constant escalation, eventually it poisons everything. It absolutely can. You can already feel that happening.
But here's the thing Democrats are struggling with now. Refusing to fight back didn't stop any of this from escalating in the first place. That's the trap.
Democrats spent years trying to be the adults in the room. And Republicans still called them communists, groomers, enemies of America, weak, corrupt, anti-Christian, anti- police, anti-f family, all of it. So now a lot of Democratic voters are looking around going, "Wait, we followed the rules and still got treated like villains anyway.
that changes people politically. And I think Gavin Newsome understands the emotional side of politics better than a lot of Democrats used to. Politics is not just about who has the better white paper or the calmer tone.
A huge part of it is emotional confidence, energy, presence, the feeling that somebody will actually fight for your side instead of permanently apologizing for existing. That's why this debate hit such a nerve online. Because underneath all the CNN cross talk and interruptions, the real argument was bigger than Gavin Newsome himself.
It was Democrats arguing internally over whether the old rules of civility politics even still exist anymore after the Trump era changed the entire culture of political communication. And honestly, I think a lot of Democrats already made up their minds on that question. I got to go now and tell me what you feel in the comment section.
