'Code red': Newsom issues wake up call for Dems

Gavin Newsom speaking at a podium in Sacramento, Image via X / @CAgovernor (Creative Commons).

“It is not an overstatement. This is Code Red,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) Tuesday night in an online livestream rally Politico dubbed as a "modern-version Telethon" in which he served as the "proto-Jerry Lewis."

The three-hour event — titled FAFO (F—— Around and Find Out) — featured podcasters, Democratic influencers and politicians urging viewers to donate to the Yes on 50 redistricting campaign, a retaliation to Republican redistricting efforts in red states like Texas. The even also served as a rallying cry against the Trump administration's growing threats to punish the left.

"We’ll lose this republic, we’ll lose this democracy," Newsom warned. "It is not an overstatement. This is Code Red. We all need to wake up to what’s going on.”

Although Newsom's rebuke of Trump was blistering, Politico says, "in the wake of [slain conservative podcaster Charlie] Kirk’s death, Newsom — more than most in his party — has tried to thread an exceedingly tricky needle."

Newsom, who hosted the late Kirk on his podcast in March in which the two shocked the Democratic world when they found common ground on trans athletes in sports, posthumously commended Kirk for his "passion and commitment to debate," and, on the livestream, said that while they had “deep differences of opinion,” he appreciated the engagement.

But there was no mercy shown for Trump's White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, about whom he said, "We can sit there and say, ‘Boy, people really should have stood up and taken this guy Stephen Miller a little bit more seriously when he called the Democratic Party a terrorist organization’ … Or we can recognize the moment we’re in, and we can meet that moment, and we can push back."

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), also took aim at Miller, saying, "I promise you, one one of the first people to receive a subpoena will be Stephen Miller. That guy is one of the most evil people, not just in government but in this country.”

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