Newsom Talks Guns, Party Future, and Criticizes Biden Border Policies in Four-Hour Podcast Appearance

The California governor accepts a gift handgun, defends his record, concedes some COVID mistakes, and said his South-Carolina trip was not a 2028 soft launch.

California Governor Gavin Newsom holds a news conference at Downey Memorial Christian Church in Downey, Calif., on July 16, 2025. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

California Gov. Gavin Newsom spent nearly four hours on an episode of the “Shawn Ryan Show” released this week, opening the conversation by accepting a boxed Sig Sauer P365 Macro pistol that host and former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan presented as a gift.

“I’m not anti-gun at all,” Newsom said after accepting the gifted pistol from the podcast host. “I’m for just some gun-safety common sense that I think the vast majority of folks to the right and the left agree on.”