Gavin Newsom’s Podcast Hosts Steve Bannon, Covering Musk, Trump and Taxes

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is one of the most powerful Democrats in America, but this week he used his perch not to push back on the Trump administration but to instead podcast with an intellectual architect of the MAGA movement: Stephen K. Bannon.

Their fast-paced, hourlong discussion was both good-natured and peppered with predictable disagreements. But the conversation revealed some curious policy overlap and potentially exposed each man’s views to supporters of the other.

“This is part of the process to unwind you from being a globalist to make you a populist nationalist,” Mr. Bannon said. “It’s a long journey.”

Mr. Newsom seemed amused: “This is part of the deprogramming, is it?”

But Mr. Bannon didn’t so much use the opportunity to press Mr. Newsom on his positions as he did to advance his own perspective during their cursory coverage of some of the most complex issues facing the nation and the world.

The podcast was the latest episode of “This Is Gavin Newsom,” a new show in which he has hosted several prominent conservatives. The Bannon conversation focused on economic issues, avoiding culture-war topics that dominated an earlier episode in which he broke with other leaders of his party in speaking out on transgender athletes.

The tenor with Mr. Bannon was set early on, when Mr. Newsom did not push back on his guest’s repeated false claims that President Trump won the 2020 election. The governor does not appear to view the discussions as fact-checking sessions: He interjected only intermittently, including when Mr. Bannon referred to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as “Pocahontas.”