Gavin Newsom Defies Own Travel Ban, Stumps for Biden in Idaho

Newsom, who hit the road during the Fourth of July holiday weekend, told a group of roughly 50 Democrats gathered in the backyard of a mansion overlooking the Boise foothills Saturday to make the “powerful case for why we should be passionate, enthusiastic about Biden’s reelection.”

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Many of the Democrats who flocked to hear Newsom speak in Idaho and at a separate fundraising event earlier that day in Bend, Ore., said they thought the 55-year-old liberal governor offered a glimpse into the future of their party, a bolder, more charismatic and younger potential heir of Biden’s legacy in the post-Trump years.

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Newsom says he has no interest in the White House and that his cross-country travels are to promote his party and president before the 2024 election.

The Times failed to note that Newsom violated his own state’s travel ban on Idaho, imposed in 2020 in response to Idaho laws barring transgender athletes from women’s sports, and preventing retroactive changes to gender on birth certificates.

A year ago, when Newsom violated the ban on a family vacation to Montana, his office admitted the state paid for security for his travel. California is rethinking the bans, which have been ineffective.

Newsom is notorious for violating his own rules. In November 2020, he infamously to dined at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant, maskless, with political cronies and lobbyists, came just after he issued guidelines urging restaurants to close during the  coronavirus pandemic.

Newsom also tends to travel despite his local duties: he vacationed in Mexico earlier this year as dozens of Californians were trapped in deadly mountain blizzards.

Ironically, one of the reasons that he can meet wealthy Democratic donors in red states is that some have been leaving California for Republican-governed states like Idaho that have lower taxes and fewer regulations.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.