(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday gave his strongest indication yet that he could support expanding the Supreme Court if elected president in 2028.
Newsom, widely viewed as a viable contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, appeared to embrace the idea during an interview with left-wing influencer Brian Tyler Cohen.
“Look, you’re getting me closer to your point of view and you challenged me,” Newsom told Cohen, who has long advocated expanding the high court, during their interview on the This Is Gavin Newsom podcast.
The California governor added that he and Cohen had discussed the idea of increasing the number of justices to 13. This number, Newsom claimed, reflects the number of judges in lower courts.
“I’m done winning arguments. We got to win, and we got to consolidate power,” Newsom continued.
Newsom’s press office later reacted to a clip of the exchange with a single eye emoji.
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) June 25, 2026
Cohen appeared on Newsom’s show to promote his new book, The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World. It is Cohen’s second book, following Shameless.
Newsom has previously stopped short of endorsing court expansion, one of the Democratic Party’s most radical proposals following Republican victories in the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections.
In an earlier interview on Cohen’s podcast, Newsom said one of his concerns about packing the court was about Republicans regaining power and responding by adding even more justices.
During his first term, President Donald Trump appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, giving conservatives a 6-3 majority.
The three other conservative justices are John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The three liberal justices are Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Some Democrats urged Sotomayor to retire during the Biden administration to avoid the possibility of a Trump filling her seat. Her health is a persistent concern among some Democrats.
