Washington Examiner columnist Joe Concha mocked Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) for claiming that former President Joe Biden was “one of the most successful presidents in the last century.”
Newsom sat down for an interview with ABC News’s Jonathan Karl to defend Biden on Wednesday. As Newsom reaches the end of his term as California’s governor next year, he is widely speculated to be a Democratic candidate for president in 2028.
“I would argue, of our former president, who I think was one of the most successful presidents in the last century, and that is Joe Biden, and I will defend that to my grave,” Newsom said. “The fact that he had a worker-centered industrial policy and the fact that those are the right policies for this country.”
Concha responded to the clip on Thursday by laughing on Fox and Friends First.
“If you want to read a political obituary, Gavin Newsom just wrote his if he decides to run for president in terms of Republican ad after Republican ad,” Concha said. “There’s no one on the planet outside of Karine Jean-Pierre, Jill and Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden himself, if he’s not coherent, who believes that Joseph R. Biden was one of the most successful presidents of the past 100 years.”
“You can make the argument that Joe Biden was the worst president of the last 100 years,” Concha said. “So it’s so profoundly odd for Gavin Newsom to say, but it’s totally within character, because this is someone who will say anything to any audience that he feels will get a wink and a nod. This is a lizard person you’re seeing on your screen, a shape shifter.”
Newsom endorsed Biden before he was elected president in 2020 and again in 2024. When then-Vice President Kamala Harris took over as the Democratic nominee last year, Newsom also supported her.
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During Newsom’s second gubernatorial term, he survived two recall attempts.
Earlier this year, Newsom began touring the country. During a stop in South Carolina, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) accidentally introduced Newsom as one of “these candidates that are running for president.”
