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Rep. Crockett's Unconventional Senate Campaign Tests Texas Politics; Pro-Talarico Group's Massively Outraise Crockett In TX Race; Newsom Releases New Memoir Ahead Of Possible 2028 Run. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired February 23, 2026 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:30:00]
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: -- that voter, I mean, you could literally see the struggle between heart and head.
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and she wasn't the only voter that I spoke to who was in that same position. There was another undecided voter who said Jasmine Crockett was far and away his favorite, but he was concerned about her ability to win. And that is an issue that's really come up throughout her campaign.
Whether it's fair or not to bring up this question of electability, you heard from voters who do have concerns about whether she could win, especially in a state like Texas. And, you know, Jasmine Crockett's campaign is really highlighting a lot of the debates within the Democratic Party when it comes to electability, when it comes to the type of voters that Democrats seem to be reaching out to.
She has made this case that the way to victory is by remobilizing the core base, black voters, young voters, Latino voters, instead of trying to tack towards the middle. So it's interesting to see how her dynamics have been playing, especially in a red state like Texas.
BASH: I want to play a clip of part of your conversation with Jasmine Crockett.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAENZ: Now, Texas is a very conservative state, but you also have to make it out of this Democratic primary. So what is the formula to win in both of those cases?
REP. JASMINE CROCKETT (D), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: Yes, so for me, I don't think we're a conservative state. I think we're a non-voting state, right? I think that the things that I'm fighting for are very basic things. We lead in uninsured in this country. I don't think that Texans, no matter your political affiliation, believe that you should lack access to health care. But that's where we are under the Republicans that control this state and the Republicans that control this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SAENZ: Yes. And so, Jasmine Crockett has really been trying to make this case that Democrats need to put up more of a fighting spirit when it comes to pushing back on the Republican plans on health care when it comes to the economy. But there are big questions about whether her strategies in this campaign are going to work.
You know, she had incredibly high name I.D. going into this race, which really worked to her advantage in the early stages. But in some of the traditional metrics, she's lagging behind Talarico when it comes to fundraising --
BASH: Yes.
SAENZ: -- when it comes to the number of ads. Some of the traditional things that people look at with the campaigns, it makes it hard to tell what's going to happen.
BASH: And let's look at that, Manu. On the fundraisers, money raised. Crockett had some money that she moved over from her --
SAENZ: Right.
BASH: -- congressional campaign, but just raised. I mean, it's not even close. Talarico, $21 million, Crockett, $4 million. And then on those ads, Talarico has spent $18 million on ads. Crockett, $4 million. Now, they have other ways of reaching out --
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
BASH: -- besides ads, obviously, that we know that's the whole reason Crockett became a name, because she's gone viral on a couple of issues.
RAJU: Yes. And, look, and I've -- when I was down there, I was talk -- interviewing the Republicans and a lot of Republicans last week. And the view is that Talarico among Republicans is a stronger candidate. They're more concerned about facing Talarico in a general election.
But here's my big question in this race. Will Democratic groups, outside groups, national groups, start pouring huge amounts of money to help the eventual Democratic nominee? Because it is going to be a massive money suck. It could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. And they have not won statewide in more than three decades.
Do they risk their money there when they could have a narrow path to the majority in several other states? That's going to be the big strategic decision. And the big question, of course, is going to be how messy the Republican runoff is going to be, because there will be a two-person runoff that will take two months long between March and May that could cost $200 million itself just in the runoff alone.
That's what could give Democrats an opening, because on March 3rd, the Democratic primary, we expect likely one person will get a majority of the vote. They'll be the nominee, and they'll get a head start over the Republicans.
BASH: Look forward to seeing your piece. Great story. Thank you so much for bringing it to us.
Coming up, my exclusive interview with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who's got a new memoir, he says, forced him to look inward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D), CALIFORNIA: I think I'm a better politician, because I'm more authentic. I'm more me. Love or hate me, just myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[12:38:33]
BASH: What do you do when you're seriously considering running for president? Well, generally speaking, you write a book. That is what California Governor Gavin Newsom did. His out this week is entitled, "Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery." I sat down with the governor this weekend for his first interview about his memoir. We sat down in Nashville. It was his first stop at his book tour.
This is part of our conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: You did start a really successful business and -- PlumpJack.
NEWSOM: Yes.
BASH: And you did it with your then good friend, Billy Getty --
NEWSOM: Yes.
BASH: -- with an early investment from his billionaire father.
NEWSOM: Yes.
BASH: And your partnership eventually ended. And you write, "My deeper entry into the Getty world would rob me of my own hard-earned story, a theft that would become one of the very reasons for writing this book."
NEWSOM: Yes.
BASH: Can you explain that?
NEWSOM: You know, it's -- at 13 investors, Gordon Getty was one of them, $15,000. I raised $175,000. But the press wrote it as if it was the Getty business. And so much of that identity that was attached to that relationship, even though he put in as much money as all the other investors.
I borrowed, by the way, $15,000 from my dad. He thought he'd never see it again. And I was very proud. I'll never forget the day I paid him back to be the general -- managing general partner of my first business. And I grew that from one business, one part-time employee, Pat Kelly, to 13 plus businesses, eventually 20 businesses. We had about 1,000 employees at peak.
I'm not saying that to impress you, but to impress upon you how entrepreneurialism has defined my life. But it was also defined in the relationship to the Getty family.
[12:40:10]
And with that came this notion, well, it was handed to you. It was given to you. You inherited it, as opposed to the hard work and that grind that defined the lived experience.
BASH: Can it be both? You have the hard work and grind, and you had doors open.
NEWSOM: Yes. Oh, no, and that's --
BASH: I mean, it's not just the Gettys. Your grandfather and your father --
NEWSOM: Yes.
BASH: -- were both very connected in San Francisco.
NEWSOM: I am -- I'm here because of all of them and their shoulders, and 100 percent. And it's -- and it was those two -- so all those doors, all the privileges of those relationships, remarkable gifts. And they're deeply mined and discussed there. And then, again, with a work ethic from my mom. And so it was both hand.
And so I was comfortable and uncomfortable in so many ways in both worlds. And I just navigated back and forth. If I was on a vacation, and we've described a number of interesting vacations overseas with my father and the family, these adventures, my mom was back home.
BASH: Weren't just adventures. You went on safaris. You took pictures from helicopters.
NEWSOM: Yes, polar bears.
BASH: You are partying with Jack Nicholson.
NEWSOM: Yes, yes. That's -- I mean, we described that in there. It was extraordinary. Just this lived experience. And that's one week of 52 in the 51 weeks of live reality with a mom who would open the door and say, I hope you enjoyed your trip. And then she'd go to bed.
BASH: She made you feel guilty.
NEWSOM: She -- silent treatment wouldn't talk much for the next couple of years.
BASH: And how old were you?
NEWSOM: These are my, you know, middle and high school years and tiny bit of college. And, you know, so it just -- it was that contrast. And so it's that sort of friction, that dialectic between the two that, you know, that is part of this memoir of discovery. Because I also discovered, you know, about her father taking his own life.
Her father, my mom's father, my grandfather, putting a gun to the head of my mom saying she was going to -- he was going to shoot him. He was struggling with alcoholism. He was a prisoner of war, marched in Corregidor. I didn't know all these things. I learned about --
BASH: Your mom never told you about anything.
NEWSOM: It was she -- I learned -- my aunt described their home is a, you know, house of horrors. It was a house of secrets and -- not lies, just never discussed it. And my father never discussed it. And so, in this -- just we get FBI files. I'm learning about my grandfather, FBI. I mean, so many things reminiscent, frankly, of today.
I didn't -- someone mentioned to me when that Oppenheimer movie came out and said, hey, I saw your grandfather's in the Oppenheimer book. And I just dismissed it. I never believed it until we got the FBI files and realized that's all true. And he was in that cohort of also friends.
BASH: Your great-grandfather was very good friends with Oppenheimer.
NEWSOM: Yes.
BASH: And J. Edgar Hoover got a file on them.
NEWSOM: He got a big file on them and, you know, and was at the house and following them and impacted his career, impacted his future, and also impacted the family and impacted their way of living and seeing the world. But --
BASH: But you never knew any of this.
NEWSOM: Didn't know any of this. I mean, it was -- there were vague hints of it, but it was never fully covered up.
BASH: I have to say there's kind of a Forrest Gump-esque notion to this because it's, you know, whether it's Oppenheimer, you learn that your grandmother went to the Soviet Union. I mean, they were --
NEWSOM: Yes.
BASH: -- communists.
NEWSOM: She was Trigger Addis, an actress.
BASH: And she studied with Stanislavski.
NEWSOM: Yes. I didn't know this.
BASH: You have a -- well, you did know that you're related to the Pelosis by marriage.
NEWSOM: Yes, that I did.
BASH: I'm so interested in you saying that, you know, you had this mask and that you were playing a role.
NEWSOM: Yes, I mean --
BASH: You are still a -- I'm just to sort of push back on that, you are still a politician. You're the governor of California.
NEWSOM: Yes.
BASH: You have ambitions for the future. That's -- can you be totally masked off --
NEWSOM: No.
BASH: -- and not playing a role in --
NEWSOM: Well, I talk about, you know, there's some scenes in there with an amazing woman, Mimi Silbert, Delancey Street. And I said, look, I know -- you know --
BASH: Therapy.
NEWSOM: Yes. I was like, just, you know, to get my act together. It was like a major reset in my life right after my mom passed when I was going through that divorce with Kimberly. And, you know, and she literally just did a pattern erupt. And she said, get your shit together. You're the mayor of San Francisco.
And I was like, no, I thought I was just a guy who happened to be mayor and I can turn that on and turn that off. And she said, no, you have a responsibility. You represent something. So I do understand your point that you do have that role and responsibility to represent.
And I take that very seriously as governor and I work hard at that. But at the same time, I'm just less judgmental about my, you know, good days and bad days. Less judgment. I'm constantly trying to improve. I'm constantly -- there's humility, there's grace, and that's reflected in the book. And there's discovery, but there's also maturity.
This is, you know, this is about a young man becoming a man, a better father, a better husband. And I've got four extraordinary kids now, a rock star wife.
[12:45:08]
I'm not going to screw these things up. They're the things that fundamentally matter. And I now understand that in so much deeper way than I did before. I thought what mattered were the resume values, as David Brooks would say. But I know it's all about the eulogy values. It's what's going to be said at the end of the day. That's all that matters.
And discover that while I'm still in the politics? Huh, how lucky am I? Literally. Just let it go. And the book gave me that gift. It's been a really -- it's -- I don't want to overstate it, but I'm not going to understate it. And I think I'm a better person because of it. I think I'm a better politician because I'm more authentic. I'm more me. Love or hate me. Just myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Stick around, much more of my exclusive interview with Governor Gavin Newsom, how he thinks Democrats should handle cultural wedge issues going forward.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:50:22]
BASH: And we're back with more of my exclusive conversation with California Governor Gavin Newsom on his new book, "Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: You write a lot about what you did as mayor of San Francisco. When it comes to gay rights, you said it was OK for same sex marriages to happen. And you got a lot of praise. You also got a lot of pushback.
NEWSOM: Yes, I did.
BASH: And you write Barack Obama, didn't want to get photographed with you. You didn't speak at the Democratic Convention that year. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was your mentor --
NEWSOM: Yes, she's tough.
BASH: -- blamed you for John Kerry losing the presidential race in 2004 because you -- what you did sparked sort of backlash.
NEWSOM: I read that the next day in the newspaper after being with her on election day. Obama was a rock star. I mean, he turned out to be one of the great leaders on marriage equality. That was a story that Willie Brown shared and I felt it needed to be included in the book, hardly laying him out. And I'm grateful to them for the leadership.
But at the time, yes, no, we were debating civil unions, not marriage equality. And then I decided to marry. Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin had been together 49 years. They're the manifestation of faith, love, devotion, constancy, what marriage is all about.
And we thought we would do one marriage and then file a lawsuit, but using their story to animate the lawsuit. Courts open up, we thought they would shut us down. And the court said there's no irreparable harm. And then I was faced with the question, well, there were a few other couples that wanted to get married.
4,036 couples, 46 states, six countries in the winter, not summer of love in California. But, yes, there was not a lot from the leadership of the Democratic Party. They said my political career was toast or -- I comment some articles, headlines that democratic insiders say this. Hey, democratic insiders have been saying that about me forever. I'm used to it.
I thought it was the right thing to do. And I also understand the critique. I do.
BASH: Can we fast forward to where we are now? It's a related topic. You said that after the last election, 2024, that it's deeply unfair for transgender athletes to participate in girls' sports, which many in your party, including some potential 2028 rivals disagreed with.
NEWSOM: Yes.
BASH: In 2020, it was a litmus test for Democrats. In 2024, it was a wedge issue that you call devastating. Is this one of those things that you're trying to lead your party on?
NEWSOM: No, it's just, I got a direct question from Charlie Kirk and I'm on my podcast, wanted to understand why he and Turning Point USA were so successful turning out the vote of young men for Donald Trump. And I think successfully his clues. And so we had a direct engagement and he asked me about a specific incident in California that occurred two years prior and one that was happening in real time in terms of the state track championship.
And he described the conditions and I said, no, that's deeply unfair because it took away the opportunity for another athlete to succeed. And I said that, and I believe that. And it's not out of an indictment to the trans community, quite the contrary. And a record that can back that up a record that is, you know, that I'm attacked for my advocacy for the community. But I do think it's a very different issue, the sports.
BASH: But -- it's a different issue. And what lesson do you take from that as somebody who's trying to make sure that Democrats, maybe even you, win?
NEWSOM: Yes. I mean, I think there's -- from a technical perspective --
BASH: Yes.
NEWSOM: -- from the prism of purely politics, there's no doubt that the Democratic Party needs to be, dare I say more culturally normal. I believe that. Less prone to spending disproportionate amount of time on pronouns, identity, politics, more focused on tabletop things that really matter.
The stacking of stress in terms of electricity bills and child care costs and health care and obviously housing costs, and how easily we get trapped in that, how I've fallen prey to that. I mean, here I was way out front on marriage equality. So I understand this from both in the receiving end of this and on the front end of this leading the pack. So I think there has to be some consideration of that. But I think if you can't hold the line on competitive sports, again, sports, it's a -- so there's some nuance in this larger conversation, but competitive metal sports, if we can't find that nuance, I think we're going to lose a lot of people that aren't -- we're not going to get invited to larger conversation. So I do think we have to be more sensitive in that respect.
[12:55:00]
BASH: I do want to ask you about President Trump, because you talk in this book about meeting him for the first time in person. You were governor elect. He came to be in California for a wildfire. You said, "I was no different from anyone else in Trump's presence, which is to say, I wasn't immune to the power of his office or his eloquence for bullshit and flattery."
How did that dictate how you -- or dealing with him now that he's back in office? Obviously, you're --
NEWSOM: I saw him a few weeks ago in Switzerland and was the same. You know, every time I say -- I had 90 minutes with him at the Oval Office. That was out there on the tarmac in Los Angeles, greeted him when he came to L.A., trying to focus on fire recovery, wildfire recovery. Always an open hand, not a close fist. It's just difficult with Trump.
And, but, you know, and I, you know, I'll call him out and, you know, aggressively or more than so than most. And he's just a very -- you know this, he's a different person when he's one-on-one. He's a different person when he's not performing. He's a different person behind closed doors. Interesting.
And there's some fun stories in there. I hope people like, he takes me around Air Force One. There's a really interesting story about that in there. And that's -- anyone who knows Trump knows there's that Trump as well, not just the guy that was on full display on Friday of this week, the sort of mad King petulantly lashing out against his own appointees at the Supreme Court, acting as the imperial president. He is both and.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.
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