'You-Know-Who': Gavin Newsom Says He Got 'Permission' From Obama — This is Wild

There was once a time, a long time ago, when insinuating that Barack Obama would dare still be heavily involved in Democrat Party politics after his "retirement" from the White House would get you pilloried.

Now, it's just a matter of common knowledge. Gavin Newsom, once again, just confirmed it.

The California governor was schmoozing Democrats in Lexington, South Carolina, on Friday when he decided to tell the crowd about the moment he sought permission to launch one of the most aggressive Democratic redistricting gambits in the country.

“The only way I could feel that I had real permission was I called you-know-who… Barack Obama,” Newsom said while recounting his decision to pursue Proposition 50.

Gavin Newsom says Obama gave him the greenlight last year to gerrymander California even further:

"The only way I could feel that I had real permission was I called you-know-who… Barack Obama." pic.twitter.com/7Ke1pAy9Xj

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 4, 2026

Newsom then described his trepidation about approaching the former president, given Obama's political brand and longtime support for independent redistricting.

“I called you know who — Barack Obama. Because I’m like, come on, ‘we go high…’” Newsom said. “I wish I can tell you exactly what he said. Let’s just say, green light. And I’m like let’s go, we’re gonna win this thing.”

Newsom has told this story before, but the latest version is amusingly blunt. He didn't merely call Obama to shoot the breeze. By his own telling, Obama was the person whose blessing made him feel he had “real permission” to proceed.

And what exactly was he seeking "permission" to do?

Proposition 50 was California Democrats' answer to a Republican-backed mid-decade redistricting effort in Texas. California voters approved the measure with nearly 65 percent of the vote in November 2025. 

The independent commission is scheduled to resume congressional mapmaking after the 2030 census.

The new lines shifted five Republican-held districts toward Democrats, giving the party a potential path to pick up additional House seats.

Forget about Gerry. Maybe they should call it an "Obamamander"?

Newsom himself has hardly been coy about the purpose behind it.

But apparently even Newsom wanted some political absolution before taking the plunge. And for that, he went to the man who left the White House nearly a decade ago.

The fuller story Newsom told Axios in March makes Obama's role even clearer. Newsom said he called the former president in the summer of 2025 because he was “very nervous” about what he was contemplating.

“I remember calling him very nervous when I was seeking his advice. It wasn’t even approval or support, it was just advice,” Newsom recalled.

He didn't even get through the pitch.

“I didn’t even get into the conversation and he says, ‘I just want to let you know I like what you’re saying and I hope you do this,’” Newsom said.

That apparently settled it. Newsom later said Obama “gave us the cover and the moral authority despite all of his work that he did around independent redistricting,” because Proposition 50 was about “fighting fire with fire.”

After the pow-wow, Barack Obama went full on election-denier to sell the dubious measure.

“Democracy is on the ballot Nov. 4,” Obama warned and accused Republicans of trying to “steal enough seats in Congress to rig the election.”

Talk about accusing your enemies of what you are doing.

This provides yet another case of just how involved the former president remains in Democratic politics — not merely cutting the occasional campaign commercial, but advising one of the party's most prominent governors on a congressional redistricting strategy.

It's also ironic in light of Obama's 2020 riff about what his ideal “third term” might look like.

During an appearance with Stephen Colbert, Obama joshed that he would happily make an arrangement in which there was a “stand-in” wearing an earpiece while he sat “in my basement in my sweats” and supplied the lines, because he still found the actual work of governing fascinating.

Then we got the Biden presidency. And the joke stopped being funny.

The truth is that Obama never disappeared from Democratic politics after January 2017.

He remained a campaigner, adviser and powerbroker. During the Biden presidency, Democrats sought his counsel. As the party looks toward 2028, politicians continue talking to him. And when one of its most prominent governors contemplated overriding California's normal congressional redistricting process, he called Obama because, in Newsom's own words, he needed “real permission.”

Nearly ten years after Obama's presidency ended, the question isn't whether he's still involved in Democratic politics. It's why anyone ever pretended that he wasn't.

Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.

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