Governor expects AOC 2028 presidential run, won’t rule out own candidacy
Newsom’s comments came Wednesday in an interview with The Guardian and the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now, conducted on the margins of New York Climate Week and the United Nations General Assembly’s annual gathering in New York. The California governor criticized how members of his own party have handled the climate issue since Trump returned to the White House in 2025.
“It’s a mistake for Democratic politicians not to talk about climate change, and the reason they don’t is because they don’t know how to talk about it,” Newsom said. He pointed to polling reported by Covering Climate Now and The Guardian showing that 80% to 89% of the world’s people and 74% of Americans want their governments to take stronger climate action, and condemned what he described as the “climate hushing” practiced by most Democrats since Trump returned to office. “I talk about [climate change] all the time,” he said.
Newsom acknowledged that Democrats must be “laser-focused” on voters’ affordability concerns but argued that climate connects directly to those concerns. “People say, ‘Why are you talking about climate change? You should be talking about kitchen table [issues],’” Newsom said. “I say, ‘I am. You haven’t connected the droughts to the cost of beef, to the cost of coffee? You have to connect climate risk with financial risk, with our trade policy. These are kitchen table issues.’”
Turning to November’s midterm elections, Newsom predicted the vote would bring “the end of Donald Trump’s presidency as we know it.” Voters, he argued, must turn out in such overwhelming numbers that Trump “couldn’t possibly contest” the outcome. If Trump nevertheless declares a national emergency or otherwise attempts to invalidate the results, Newsom said, then “we the people have to step up. The courts have to intervene. Congress has to do its job and stand up for the rule of law.”
On the 2028 presidential race, Newsom said he expected Ocasio-Cortez to seek the Democratic nomination. “She absolutely could be the nominee,” he said, calling her “a generational talent,” “an outstanding communicator” and “outstanding motivator.” “She’s the real damn deal,” Newsom said. He rejected the assertion that a woman, or someone who is Jewish, or young, or from California cannot be elected president. “It’s insulting,” he said. “Our politics is completely scrambled post-Trump, the old rules do not apply.”
Newsom reiterated a position he took in an interview with CNN the previous week, saying he would not run against former Vice President Kamala Harris if she enters the race. He cited “a relationship with her that goes back to before we both were in politics” and an overlap in their voting bases “in ways that I don’t think people have absorbed or fully appreciate.” That dynamic, he said, is not present with Ocasio-Cortez, whom he fully expects to seek the presidency.
Asked about his own 2028 plans, Newsom said he would run only if he determined he had “a voice, experience, perspective, capacity that is distinctive and adds value” — and only if he could “look you in the eye and say, ‘I’ll tell you exactly why I’m running for president of the United States,’ and do it authentically, not just give you a talking point.” He predicted Ocasio-Cortez would be one of dozens of Democrats seeking the nomination, saying “each one of them would be better [as president] than the one we have now, and I would enthusiastically support them.” He predicted the Democratic nominee will win. “The [2028] nominee of the Democratic party is going to be the next president of the United States,” he said. He added that a candidate must demonstrate “authenticity, purpose, passion, meaning, and mission. And if you don’t have all those things, then you don’t belong on the stage.”
The governor said his biggest frustration during the Biden years was that the Biden administration passed strong climate policies, including the Inflation Reduction Act, but then didn’t communicate them to the public. “Democrats fall prey to the Enlightenment Fallacy, that somehow good ideas sell themselves,” Newsom said. “We have to deliver not just good policy, we’ve also got to connect that policy to people’s lived experience and sell the hell out of it … Don’t just talk about extreme heat, talk about that farmworker in the warehouse [experiencing] that heat.”
He pointed to California’s energy mix as evidence that emissions reductions and economic growth can move together. “Here’s the thing that keeps me optimistic: the markets are moving in our direction,” Newsom said. “Wind, solar and large-scale batteries [are] abundant and cheap,” while the war in Iran has pushed the price of gasoline, diesel and fertilizer to record highs, he added. “And that’s not only happening in the United States, but globally people are realizing [that clean energy] is the better option.” Thanks to large-scale batteries, which he called “a game changer,” California ran on 100% clean electricity nine out of every 10 days so far in 2026, Newsom said. “For the fourth largest economy in the world, that’s incredible,” he said.
Last week Newsom declared a state of emergency in California “so we can pre-position assets” to protect the state’s inhabitants, infrastructure and economy from the impacts of a super-El Niño that scientists say has been supercharged by the hotter climate. “That costs money,” he said. “Anyone who suggests that doing nothing [about the climate crisis] is the cheaper bet? Nonsense … The cost of inaction is incalculable. It’s not just the cost of emergency preparedness, but also the economic impacts of not being able to get insurance and not being able to build housing because you can’t insure the construction.”
Newsom also defended his administration’s decision to lower net metering payments to homeowners with rooftop solar, a policy that drew criticism from climate activist Bill McKibben and others. He “totally rejected” those criticisms, arguing the previous payments “were subsidizing Wall Street hedge funds” and boosting electricity costs for Californians who “can least afford it.” The solar industry, he added, is now “a mature industry that needs to start to stand on its own” without subsidies.
Republicans, Newsom said, are politically vulnerable on climate because “they’ve sold their souls to the fossil fuel industry … which lied” about the immense damage their products would do. “That’s why California is suing them, and other jurisdictions are suing them, on behalf of our kids and grandkids, and [industry executives’] kids and grandkids, who I love, even if they don’t,” he said.