Gavin Newsom stood behind Joe Biden longer than almost anyone in American politics.
Now every other Democrat is running from Biden's record – and Newsom is going in a different direction.
And he just made one bet that no other Democrat was willing to make – and it could define the primary.
Newsom Goes All-In While Democrats Flee Biden Cognitive Decline Cover-Up
California Governor Gavin Newsom has spent the last 18 months doing something no other serious 2028 Democratic presidential contender is willing to do.
He is embracing Joe Biden – and not with careful statements about Biden's "important legacy" while keeping his distance.
Newsom told a South Carolina crowd he would "never turn my back on Joe Biden."
The Biden years were a "masterclass of policymaking," Newsom told Axios in March.
Last week, Newsom hosted Hunter Biden on his own podcast, and Biden's son openly hinted Newsom would be the next president.
Kamala Harris blasted Biden in her book 107 Days, calling his decision to run at 81 "recklessness."
Jill Biden's response was ice cold: "That is her point of view and if she felt that way, she should have said it."
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro publicly torched the Biden administration's failure to deliver on its own infrastructure promises.
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told Semafor directly: "I want us to admit that the Biden administration made some pretty big mistakes."
Senator after senator, governor after governor – the entire Democrat bench is sprinting away from Biden as fast as their legs will carry them.
Except Newsom.
Judge Hands Heritage Foundation the Biden Ghostwriter Tapes That Could Rewrite 2028
Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich denied Biden's emergency request to block the release of more than 70 hours of audio recordings – conversations Biden made with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer while working on his 2017 memoir Promise Me, Dad.
Special Counsel Robert Hur's team already described those sessions as "painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries."
The Heritage Foundation won those tapes under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee gets them too.
Biden filed an emergency appeal asking for more time, but Judge Friedrich already ruled he had no case.
She wrote that Biden had "not identified any public harm that would arise absent an injunction in this case" and that the public interest in the material far outweighed his privacy claims.
Those tapes are coming out.
When they do, every Democrat who spent two years calling conservatives liars for raising Biden's cognitive decline – every one who went on television and swore he was sharp, focused, and fully capable – is going to look like a fool or a liar.
Probably both.
Newsom was one of Biden's most vocal defenders after the disastrous June 2024 debate.
He is already on the record as a cover-up participant.
Running away from Biden now wouldn't clean that slate – it would just make him look spineless on top of dishonest.
So Newsom made a different calculation.
The Democrats who distanced themselves from Biden face the worst of both worlds: they covered up the decline and then abandoned the man.
Newsom covered up the decline and stayed loyal – and in Democrat primary politics, loyalty beats betrayal every time.
The Biden Dementia Cover-Up Has a New Problem and It Has Newsom's Name On It
Newsom cannot escape the central question, no matter how cleverly he plays the Biden loyalty card.
The tapes won't just damage Democrats who ran from Biden.
They will confirm what conservatives have argued for years – that a sitting president of the United States could not remember when his own son died, didn’t remember what years he served as Vice President, and that the entire Democrat Party ran a coordinated operation to hide it from the American people.
Speaker Mike Johnson called it "the largest political cover-up in U.S. history."
Former Democrat fundraiser Lindy Li is writing a book exposing which senior Democrats privately knew Biden was failing while publicly defending him – and she says she has the texts to prove it.
Newsom himself admitted to Axios in March that Biden's "health issues have obviously accelerated" since the cancer diagnosis – but he refused to answer directly whether Biden could have served another term.
He knew – and kept quiet.
The ghostwriter tapes arrive right as Newsom is positioning himself as heir to Biden's coalition.
Every hour of those recordings is a reminder that the Democrat Party put its own political survival above the national interest – and Gavin Newsom was standing there with them the entire time.
His bet is that loyalty will be rewarded.
The tapes may prove him right about the primary.
They will prove him guilty on everything else.
Sources:
- Alex Thompson, "Newsom Embraces Biden in Run-Up to 2028 Primary," Axios, June 21, 2026.
- Ward Clark, "Major New Transparency Win: Biden Ghostwriter Audio Tapes Coming Out," RedState, June 19, 2026.
- Jeff Charles, "Federal Judges Just Ruled on Biden's Request to Conceal Ghostwriter Tapes," Townhall, June 19, 2026.
- Jeff Charles, "Biden Just Got More Time to Conceal Tapes of Interview With Ghostwriter," Townhall, June 20, 2026.
- Ben Smith, "Judge Clears Release of Biden-Hur Ghostwriter Tapes," Legal Insurrection, June 21, 2026.
- "Speaker Johnson Video: 14 Minutes of Democrats Defending Biden's Failing Mental Acuity," mikejohnson.house.gov, July 21, 2025.