Kamala Harris & Gavin Newsom Have A More Complicated Relationship Than People Realize

Kamala Harris' tell-all book "107 Days" had all her former allies turning against her as, to put it plainly, the former vice president didn't hesitate to speak her truth. In the memoir, Harris claimed, among other things, that Democratic politicians had mixed reactions to her replacing Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential elections. While North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and Former President Bill Clinton immediately jumped onboard to support her, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi wanted to proceed with caution. Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom didn't answer the call she made to ask him for an endorsement. Instead, he offered a strange reply: "Hiking. Will Call Back." And, according to Harris, her fellow Dem didn't stand by his word. The SF Gate reported that Newsom later clarified he didn't answer Harris' call because she had dialed him from an unfamiliar number. 

The former San Francisco mayor also insisted that he had been trying to contact the Biden administration in the meantime. However, when Newsom realized that Harris was the one reaching out to him through the mystery phone number, he immediately texted back. He didn't call because the politician was busy putting his head together with his team to come up with a strong endorsement that he put out just hours later. Notably, in a chat with the Daily Mail, an insider labeled Newsom and Harris as "frenemies," while a political strategist posited that they had been engaged in a healthy competition throughout their careers as California-based Democrats. However, they also cautioned that their dynamic may swiftly change if both choose to run for office in 2028.

While appearing on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in September 2025, Gavin Newsom added salt to Kamala Harris' wounds from her 2024 defeat. Without name-dropping the presidential hopeful, the California governor opined, "As the Democratic Party, we have a lot of work to do to make up for our failures in the past. We got crushed in this last election." Notably, Newsom also threw shade at his fellow liberal politician by making an odd joke during his August 2024 interview on the "Pod Save America" podcast. While discussing how Harris had taken over Joe Biden's nomination without a primary, Newsom quipped, "We went through a very open process, a very inclusive process. It was bottom-up, I don't know if you know that. That's what I've been told to say." Although the former San Francisco mayor was clearly joking, it was still an odd remark to make about a presidential candidate he should have been wholeheartedly backing amid all the chaos.

Elsewhere in the chat, Newsom revealed that his friendship with Harris went back 25 years. Notably, in a 2003 interview with the SF Gate, his then-wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle, shared that she had some personal drama with Harris because the former prosecutor had supposedly gone to drastic lengths to shatter her dreams of getting a job in the district attorney's office in the early 2000s. However, Harris, who also worked there at the time, strongly denied her claims. Despite all the drama, Harris still spent Thanksgiving 2004 volunteering with both Guilfoyle and Newsom. Given all this, it certainly seems the two politicians are frenemies.