Gavin Newsom has been positioning himself as the voice of the Democrat Party’s future. Stephen A. Smith just put a serious dent in that plan.
The ESPN star unloaded on the California Governor during a recent episode of his SiriusXM show, Straight Shooter, tearing into Newsom’s support for allowing children to pursue gender transition procedures without parental consent.
And what Smith said next is the kind of thing Democrat strategists really don’t want going viral before 2028.
Smith Didn’t Mince Words About Newsom or His Party
Smith lambasted California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) for his support of transgender kids as he practically begged Democrats to quit their “spineless” ways and unite to win the White House in 2028.
On a recent episode of Straight Shooter, Smith’s SiriusXM show, the ESPN host blasted Newsom’s apparent support for gender-affirming care. “One minute he’s a Democrat, another minute he sounds like a damn socialist,” Smith said in a video posted on YouTube.
Smith took direct aim at Newsom’s habit of bragging about running “the fourth largest economy in the world in the state of California,” noting that “in the same breath, he talking about transgender folks that don’t even make up 1% of the population.”
That’s a fair point. Newsom wants credit for California’s economy while pushing positions that most American parents find deeply troubling. You can’t have it both ways.
Smith criticized the idea that a minor could pursue a gender transition without the involvement or approval of a parent. He framed the argument around a scenario in which a child identifies as female despite being born male, but he objected to any suggestion that such a significant decision could move forward without parental consent.
Smith put it plainly. “You can’t tell my child to go across the damn street without my permission. What the hell you doing signing off verbally or otherwise on the notion that a kid can do something like that? Act like a sex change without the parental consent. The hell is wrong with people?”
Hard to argue with that. A parent who can’t authorize a field trip is somehow supposed to have no say in whether their child undergoes a life-altering medical procedure? That’s not a policy position. That’s an abdication of basic parental rights dressed up in political language.
Smith made clear what needs to happen next: “That kind of verbiage has to get out of the mouths of Democrats.”
The Bigger Problem Swallowing the Democrat Party Whole
The Newsom criticism was sharp, but it was part of a broader alarm Smith has been sounding about where the Democrat Party is actually headed.
The party needs to heal its divisions and rein in socialists, the ESPN star said, pointing to the rise of socialist candidates: “And the Democrats with their spineless, weak, feckled selves are allowing it to happen.”
Zohran Mamdani is the mayor of New York. The candidates he endorsed won over the candidates endorsed by minority House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. Rumor has it that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, assuming she doesn’t run for the presidency, will run for the Senate of New York State, unseating longtime Senator Chuck Schumer.
That’s a remarkable thing to sit with for a moment. The socialist wing of the Democrat Party isn’t just growing. It’s winning primaries against the establishment’s own picks. And the establishment is doing precious little about it.
Smith was direct about where he stands: “I am not a socialist, nor do I aspire to see socialism in the United States of America.”
Smith also pressed the case that socialism’s track record is the real story nobody on the Left wants to discuss. “If he’s coming, what does that mean for the rest of America? Because I got questions. Where has socialism ever succeeded? If so, tell us where that is. How is it going to succeed in New York? How are you going to sell that in a capitalistic society?”
It’s a question that deserves a real answer. Socialism has produced shortages, economic ruin, and authoritarian drift everywhere it has been tried at scale. Mamdani and his allies have no response to that history because there isn’t one.
“If it resonates within the Democratic Party, but it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of resonating in a general election, then you’re basically handing the presidency to the GOP as well. That’s what you’re doing because the party, the Democratic Party, will have been perceived as being fragmented,” Smith warned.
What This Tells You About 2028 and the Left’s Growing Identity Crisis
Stephen A. Smith is not a conservative. He’s not a Trump voter. He’s a Democrat who genuinely wants his party to win. And that’s exactly what makes his warnings so devastating for Newsom and the party’s left flank.
When someone inside the tent is screaming that the house is on fire, it’s worth listening. Smith sees what the activist base refuses to acknowledge: that positions like Newsom’s on parental rights and children’s medical decisions are electoral poison outside of deep-blue enclaves.
Parental rights are not a fringe issue. Across party lines, across demographics, the idea that a child can undergo an irreversible medical procedure without a parent’s knowledge or approval strikes most Americans as fundamentally wrong. It’s not a close call. Newsom apparently thinks it is.
Newsom has voiced support for policies that protect minors’ access to gender-affirming care and limit the mandatory disclosure of LGBTQ identity by schools. And Newsom himself has said, “There’s no governor that’s done more pro trans legislation than I have.”
He wears it like a badge of honor. Voters in swing states are likely to see it differently.
The Democrat Party now faces a choice it has been avoiding for years. Keep chasing the activist base with positions the majority of Americans reject, or find its way back to candidates who can actually win a general election. The socialist primary victories in New York City show which direction the party’s energy is pulling.
But energy doesn’t win elections. Persuasion does. And right now, the Democrat Party is struggling to persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with it.
Smith is trying to give his party a lifeline. Whether they take it is another question entirely. And if Newsom is the face of the Democrat Party’s 2028 pitch to the country, the answer to that question may already be written.
Sources: Mediaite, Fox News, Washington Examiner, Yahoo Entertainment, SiriusXM Straight Shooter