California’s exquisitely coiffed governor has long been signaling that he will run in the 2028 presidential election, and he’s spent much of his final term trying to get attention, hosting podcasts, and ignoring the failures of his home state while pandering to the national Democrat crowd.

But there’s one thing — or more exactly, one person — who could prevent a campaign from ever happening, and it's another Golden State leftist Democrat who says a lot but accomplishes little.

It’s Kamala Harris, the former vice president to Joe Biden, who crashed and burned in the 2000 Democratic presidential primaries and then tasted failure again as the Dems anointed her their nominee in 2024. She promptly lost bigly to Donald Trump.

But if she runs again, Gavin’s out.

"I don't know if she runs, but we'll see," Newsom told CNN's Jake Tapper in an interview released Monday. "But I wouldn't run if she ran."

"If she runs, you will not," a surprised Tapper reacted.

"Of course not. Why would I?" Newsom responded. "I wouldn't do that to her ... I wouldn't do that to you. I wouldn't waste everyone's time. Who needs that?"

Not to be too snarky, but have you ever seen two more poser dudes? It must be part of the Democrats’ laughable effort to reach out to “masculine” men. Meanwhile, the always out-of-state governor relies on his charm to a certain degree and likes to play the nice guy, but he was kind of gruff to the point of being rude in this clip. Maybe it’s just more of this “look at me, I’m such a manly man” stuff.

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Of course, this is slippery Newsom we’re talking about here, so he instantly started to hedge when Tapper, the man who helped cover up former Joe Biden’s declining mental health but then tried to make money off the issue with a “bombshell” book, pressed him.

Tapper, who was fly-fishing with Newsom in Montana during the exchange, appeared confused by the governor's stance. Newsom suggested spectators would feast on the "mutual-assured destruction" among Democrats competing for the nomination.

"I mean, you do whatever you want. I don't care," Tapper told Newsom. "But counterargument would be, like, you know, she had her shot. And you've never run, and she's run twice."

"Yeah," Newsom responded. "I mean, that'd be the approach to the campaign, certainly. That'd be the case you'd make. Pretty good one, actually. That's objectively true."

If Kamala’s looking for friends, I don’t think Newsom is a good place to start.

Meanwhile, Gavin had a pretty funny slip-up when he presumably meant to be referring to Venn diagrams but mixed it up with something that doesn’t exist, as far as I know: “Zen diagrams.”

Kamala Harris knows all about the Venn version:

Whether we believe Newsom or not, one could argue that it’s a pretty smart move he’s making here. If he runs against a black woman, he’ll be vilified as a traitor to his race-based party, and he knows that. By claiming he’d take some sort of higher road, meanwhile, I’d bet he’s guessing that she’s not going to enter the race. Despite her leading many polls asking who will be the eventual Democrat nominee, she proved to be one of the worst candidates in modern times and has done herself no favors since.

He’s also dead-on that if they ran simultaneously and had to air attack ads against each other, it would likely undercut both campaigns to the point where neither of them would a chance. It would have been popcorn theater, though, watching the pair pointing out each other’s disastrous records and calling each other out on their exceptionally obvious weaknesses.

As a Californian, I’ve learned to take nothing Newsom says at face value. He was ready for the question, and apparently he thinks this is good strategy. Much as I hate to say it, it could end up being a pretty slick approach.