Gavin Newsom left 175,000 homeless Californians sleeping on the streets to go fly-fishing with Jake Tapper in Montana.
Now CNN wants you to take his 2028 presidential campaign seriously.
The staged video just dropped – and social media called it fake to their faces.
The French Laundry of Fishing
The pre-recorded segment shows Newsom and Tapper standing in the Bitterroot River in business casual attire, repeatedly casting fly reels while a full camera and sound crew surrounds them in the water.
Tapper pitched the concept as an "organic" format designed to catch politicians off-guard.
It caught Newsom off-guard, alright.
Midway through discussing his 2028 presidential ambitions, Newsom mangled basic English – saying "Zen diagram" when he meant "Venn diagram," confusing a Buddhist meditation practice with a visual tool taught in third grade.
https://twitter.com/politics_watch1/status/2099590015500083527?s=20
The social media reaction was instant and brutal.
"How lucky are we that a camera crew just happened to be standing in a Montana river while two guys who can't cast pretended to fly fish," wrote an X user with 55,000 followers. "Totally organic. Not staged at all."
"This is the most Gavin Newsom-ish fishing video ever – the French Laundry of fishing," said politico Kenneth Baer, invoking the upscale California restaurant where Newsom dined maskless with lobbyists during his own COVID lockdowns.
That comparison hits harder than anything a Republican could write.
California Is on Fire and He Is in Montana
While Newsom was wading through a pristine Montana river talking about his political future, California was drowning in the consequences of his actual governance.
His own state has the highest poverty rate in America.
California spent $24 billion – that's billion with a B – supposedly fighting homelessness under his leadership. Homelessness went up.
Fellow Democrat and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said it plainly during a California gubernatorial debate: "We have the highest poverty rate in the United States of America. In our cities, we've had too much crime."
https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/2099700590267769002?s=20
Those weren't Republicans attacking Newsom. Those were Democrats.
Two in three California voters rate Newsom's performance on homelessness as "poor" or "very poor."
Fifty-one percent say the same about his handling of crime and public safety.
This is the man CNN wants to install in the White House.
This Movie Has a Bad Ending for Democrats
What Newsom is doing has a name in American politics, and it has a documented failure rate.
In 1988, Michael Dukakis – the Democrat presidential nominee and another coastal liberal with an image problem – orchestrated a photo op riding an M1 Abrams tank to prove he was tough on defense.
The public laughed him out of the race.
George H.W. Bush ran the tank footage in campaign ads.
Dukakis lost in a landslide.
Democrats have been making the same mistake ever since – staging elaborate photo ops designed to make pampered coastal elites look like ordinary Americans, and watching voters see straight through it.
Chuck Schumer got mocked for claiming a backyard barbecue was his first time grilling.
Kamala Harris posed awkwardly at an Iowa steak fry before claiming she'd worked at McDonald's – a claim nobody could verify.
Now Newsom is standing in a Montana river in business casual, surrounded by a full production crew, asking America to believe he's a regular guy who loves the outdoors.
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/2099615993714626825?s=20
The Bitterroot River has never been less organic.
Voters don't just see through the stagecraft – they get actively angry at the condescension of it.
You can't oversee 175,000 people living on California's streets and then fly to Montana for a CNN fishing audition, confuse "Zen diagram" with "Venn diagram" on camera, and ask the country to trust you with nuclear codes.
The internet already gave its verdict.
The rest of the country will give its verdict in 2028.
Sources:
- Peter D'Abrosca, "Newsom roasted online for 'staged' fly-fishing interview with CNN anchor where he dropped major 2028 hint," Fox News, September 15, 2026.
- Jake Tapper, "Out of Office: Fishing with Gavin Newsom as he contemplates 2028 presidential run," CNN, September 2026.
- Washington Free Beacon, "Newsom's Failures Exposed in California Gubernatorial Debate," Free Beacon, 2026.
- California Senate Republican Caucus, "Top 10 Failures of Governor Newsom as His Second Term Begins," California Senate Republican Caucus, January 2023.