Governor Gavin Newsom has lifted the lid on a 90-minute meeting with Donald Trump, revealing an unsettling conversation that ranged from cryptocurrency to an unconstitutional third presidential term. The governor’s account portrays a president with a wandering focus and a flagrant disregard for democratic norms.
The most disturbing part of the conversation, according to Newsom, was Trump’s lengthy discourse on serving a third term, sparked by a portrait of FDR in the Oval Office. This revelation is the centerpiece of Newsom’s warning that the threat to the 22nd Amendment is real.
Adding a bizarre twist, Newsom also mentioned that the conversation touched on Trump’s “crypto grift,” with the president apparently surprised that a “memecoin” was not a physical coin. Newsom shared this detail to paint a broader picture of a president he finds to be erratic and out of touch.
By revealing these details, Newsom is breaking an implicit code of silence around presidential meetings. He is doing so, he implies, because the content of the conversation was so alarming that it created a public duty to speak out against a leader he believes is a danger to the country.