(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) How the tables have turned.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused President Donald Trump on Friday of trying to “steal” the 2026 midterm elections, echoing rhetoric he once condemned as dangerous and anti-democratic.
“Donald Trump is trying to steal the 2026 election. We cannot sit back and watch this happen,” Newsom wrote on X, alongside a clip of his press conference attacking Republican-led redistricting efforts in Texas.
At the event, Newsom stood with Texas Democrats and framed redistricting as an existential threat, part of a broader effort to get Trump re-elected in 2028.
Donald Trump is trying to steal the 2026 election.
We cannot sit back and watch this happen.pic.twitter.com/qFIoLbfNej
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 25, 2025
“If we don’t put a stake into the heart of this administration, there may not be an election in 2028,” he claimed, citing no evidence. “That’s how strongly I feel about this moment. And I think millions, hundreds of millions of Americans feel the same.
Newsom added: “We take Donald Trump seriously when he talks about the 2028 election. … They’re not screwing around. We cannot afford to screw around either.”
He concluded by escalating his rhetoric: “We have got to fight fire with fire.”
Newsom’s language is especially jarring given his years-long campaign against Republicans for questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election, often accusing them of undermining democracy.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Newsom issued a scathing statement aimed at Trump, demanding he “acknowledge the will of the people” in electing Joe Biden to the White House. In the same statement, he described the January 6th protest as an unprecedented attack on American democracy.
He didn’t stop there.
In 2023, Newsom launched his second term by calling the Jan. 6 protest an “insurrection,” even though not a single Jan. 6 defendant has been charged with insurrection.
“There are still forces in America that want to take the nation backward,” Newsom said at a Democratic Party march. “We saw that two years ago, on this day, when the unthinkable happened at a place most Americans assumed was invincible, an insurrectionist mob ransacking a sacred pillar of our democracy, violently clashing with sworn officers upholding the rule of law.”
