Gavin Newsom just spent $20 billion making California's homeless crisis worse.
Now he wants to fix America.
At a May 19 meeting, the man who turned San Francisco into an open-air drug market told a room full of progressive insiders that Trump and Bernie Sanders were both right about the economy – and the pitchforks aren't just coming, they're already here.
The Governor Who Broke California
Read that again.
The same man who watched two decades of homelessness spending produce more homeless people stood up in front of the Center for American Progress and said the system is "broken."
He said a 30-year-old isn't doing better than her father.
He said AI is about to "detonate" the economy.
He's not wrong on the diagnosis.
The problem is that Gavin Newsom built the hospital.
California has 170,000 homeless people. Florida has 26,000. Similar weather, similar size. Newsom admitted to Sean Hannity he hadn't made progress on homelessness in years.
https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/2056785477328322569?s=20
He blamed housing costs.
He blamed regulations.
He blamed "localism."
He never once blamed himself.
That's the tell.
Populism for Me, Open Borders for Thee
Here's where Newsom's cosplay falls apart completely.
The same week he told progressives the economic system is rigged against working Americans, his own press office released a statement attacking Trump's H-1B visa restrictions – the exact program that funnels white-collar American jobs to foreign workers at lower wages.
His statement said Trump was "slashing student and H-1B visas" and causing "workforce shortages."
Read that twice.
Newsom said white-collar workers in San Francisco can't get callbacks on job interviews.
Then his office demanded the government keep importing the workers replacing them.
According to a February federal report, roughly eight million foreign workers fill 22 percent of the nation's 32 million STEM jobs – including one-third of all high-tech positions.
One-third.
https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/2057480762115641657?s=20
Newsom wants those workers gone from the conversation and wants credit for caring about the Americans they displaced.
That's not populism.
That's a con.
Democrats Have Run This Play Before
This is not Gavin Newsom's idea.
After Trump won in 2016, Democrats spent months in emergency sessions discovering that working-class voters had abandoned them.
Chuck Schumer gave speeches about Buy America provisions.
James Carville declared they needed a "wildly popular and populist economic agenda."
Then they nominated Joe Biden, spent four years calling parents domestic terrorists, pushed DEI mandates into every boardroom, and watched Trump win 31 states in 2024.
Now Newsom is proposing "universal basic capital," public equity funds, and Danish-style 90 percent wage replacement programs.
The man who couldn't solve homelessness in one of the richest states in history now wants to restructure the American economy.
He also told JD Vance – the man who actually grew up poor in Appalachia – "you don't have it."
JD Vance grew up in a broken home in Middletown, Ohio.
Gavin Newsom grew up with a trust fund and a French Laundry dinner tab.
The 2028 Audition Is Already Underway
The Center for American Progress meeting wasn't a policy forum.
It was a campaign announcement.
Newsom is term-limited in January 2027.
He's been quietly building national infrastructure for months – visiting South Carolina, mimicking Trump's all-caps social media posts, and positioning himself as the Democrat willing to "fight fire with fire."
Newsom isn't going to show up with a San Francisco agenda.
He's going to show up with Trump's diagnosis and Democrat solutions — government equity funds, wage replacement programs, and universal basic income dressed up in populist language.
And the press will cover it like it's brave.
The only way that fails is if voters remember what seven years of Gavin Newsom actually produced — 170,000 homeless people, white-collar workers replaced by H-1B visa holders, and a state where your friend needs a GoFundMe to cover his medical bills.
Remind them.
Sources:
- Neil Munro, "Gavin Newsom Admits Trump Was Right, Cosplays White-Collar Populist," Breitbart, May 21, 2026.
- "U.S. STEM Workforce: Size, Demographic Characteristics, and Labor Market Outcomes," Federal Government Report, February 2026.
- Fox News, "Newsom Admits California Made No Progress on Homeless Crisis, Pressed by Hannity," Fox News.
- James Carville, "Dems Must Go On the Offensive With Populist Agenda Under Trump," New York Times, November 2024.
