Newsom ‘would not recommend’ Democrats appearing on Fox News

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in an interview suggested Democrats shouldn’t appear on Fox News, arguing it “contributes to the mental health crisis.” 

“Do you think Democrats should still be appearing on Fox, or should they not be appearing on Fox?” host Jen Psaki asked Newsom in an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”

“It contributes to the mental health crisis in the state. So on the basis of one’s own personal conditions, I would not recommend it,” Newsom said.

Newsom notably sat down with Fox News’s Sean Hannity for an interview in June. His interview with Psaki was pre-taped in April.

The California governor also said he tunes into Fox primetime “every night.” 

“My staff has quite literally tried to have interventions with me about it. They say I’m too obsessed with it. But I need to understand it,” he said.

“You want to know what the other side thinks,” Psaki said.

“I don’t want to know what they think, I want to see the patterns, and what you see are patterns that emerge,” Newsom said. 

The California governor — who generated buzz about a potential presidential bid but later said there’s no chance he’d challenge President Biden — also argued right-leaning outlets contribute to divisions in the country.

He knocked “the anger industry, the entertainment wing particularly of the Republican Party, the surround sound on Fox with these — you know, I don’t even like to say his name, Tucker Carlson.”

“They’re all the same. And One American News and Newsmax, and what they’re doing to divide this country, it’s — you know, where illusion rules, not facts,” Newsom said.

–Updated on July 10 at 1:40 p.m.