The governor, who said that Democrats “have the receipts” from three years of work by the Biden administration, said that former President Donald Trump is always pushing his narrative, regardless of the setting.

“One thing we’ve learned with this anger industry on the right wing side is illusion dominates facts,” he told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “It’s narrative trumping facts. That’s why Trump himself uses the courtroom as a campaign stop. It’s to dominate the narrative.”

Newsom has sometimes expressed concern about the way Biden and others have sold what they are doing and what they have done, leaving Democrats perpetually playing defense.

“We have been on the receiving end — on the defensive — over and over on their agenda and their culture wars,” he said when launching a group called Campaign for Democracy in March 2023.

Newsom told Karl that that he does consider Trump — whom he said was “lighting democracy on fire” — a major threat.

“I take the threat of Trump and Trumpism very seriously. I’ve never been on the other side of that argument. That said, this is the weakest candidate to run a major party in my lifetime. He’s coming in deeply damaged,” he said. “Democrats, we win.”