First Partner Siebel Newsom Blasts Capitol Press Corps For Enabling the "War On Women"
In a clearly unscripted moment, Jennifer Siebel Newsom lost her cool as a press conference where her husband signed a bill providing $90 million to Planned Parenthood in California...
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Jennifer Siebel Newsom Flames The Capitol Press Corps
If you aren’t constantly refreshing social media feeds about what is happening at the State Capitol, I'll tell you what happened yesterday: it is somewhere between an eye-roll moment and a question of how the Governor’s wife can be so naive. Jennifer Siebel Newsom is the First Lady of California, but she prefers to be called the First Partner. Fine. If she prefers to be identified as a partner rather than as a woman, I will respect her wishes. But there is some irony as this post is about not wanting to be called a First Lady while she is losing her cool at a press conference at which Governor Newsom signed a bill handing 90 million dollars to Planned Parenthood of California.
Siebel Newsom took the podium after Governor Newsom had spent about ten minutes fielding questions from the media that had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood, abortions, or taxpayer funding of abortions. She was not happy about this…
Here is what First Partner Siebel Newsom had to say:
"We just find it incredulous that we have Planned Parenthood here, and women are 51% of the population, and a majority of these questions — all of these questions — have really been about other issues. So it’s just fascinating. You have this incredible women’s caucus and all of these allies, and you’re not asking about it. And this happens over, and over, and over and over again. You wonder why we have such a horrific war on women in this country, and that these guys are getting away with it. Cause you don’t seem to care. So I just offer that, “with love” [chuckle, then laughter from the other women on the stage - not from the Governor/husband by the way]. You have incredible women in this room, allies. Ask about what we are here for today. Don’t you think?”
This is a good place to drop in a YouTube clip from KCRA-3, featuring reporting from their Political Director and Capitol Reporter, Ashley Zavala. The entire piece is under two minutes, so give it a watch and then read on…
It’s hard to improve on Zavala’s reporting here. But to maybe expand on what she had to say.
So, Governor Newsom does not make himself readily available to the California Capitol press corps very often. If you think you see a lot of him, it’s because of his own coverage of himself, coverage of him speaking to groups or at events, and, of course, he seems to make himself readily available to national reporters who are covering the race for the White House, or who want to do stories about his soon-to-be-released novella starring… himself.
When the Governor does make himself available, the press has a range of questions they have been waiting to ask him, so the (apparently mostly female) reporters proceeded to do so. The First Woman seemed put out that the press corps did not have a bunch of follow-up questions about the abortion funding.
I felt bad for the husband of the First Partner, as he clearly understood how this works, and obviously is in a bit of a pickle when the First Partner basically accuses the press of being enablers of this “war” on women.
If you do not really want to read my pro-life take on this, and are content just rolling your eyes at what you just read, you may be all done with this post. But if you want to hear me… expound… Read on…
In California, funding abortion is not that newsworthy. Which is really sad.
If you are wondering why the Capitol press corps didn’t have follow-up questions for a group of pro-choice Democrats, who are passionate about equating abortions to treating a stomach flu, and love spending taxpayer funds to provide them… Maybe it’s not particularly newsworthy beyond the topline story itself.
It’sworth mentioning that, invariably, the “war on women” to which the First Partner is referring is a pretty broad section of Americans who have problems with abortions.
Here are a couple of charts from Gallup’s October annual survey on the subject. I present these to show that America is clearly divided on this issue. Maybe this many Americans actually are not engaged in a “war” on women, but actually have a heartfelt belief about when life begins? Just maybe.
(Note, there are so many ways to chop up the issue of public opinion and abortion, I’m just trying to make the case that the country is clearly divided on this issue.)
They call it a war on women because they are literally unable to step back, and just for a moment, put themselves in the position of people who actually believe that life begins at conception, or perhaps very early in the pregnancy process. That people with this belief actually want to save children (lots of whom are women, fwiw).
The bill the Governor signed wasto give Planned Parenthood taxpayer funds to offset cuts that came out of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Republicans last year.
On that note, Planned Parenthood (just their Northern California Affiliate) proudly lists in their “Putting Patients First” statistics that in their 2024-2025 Annual Report, they performed 11,101 abortions, and in their “Expanding Procedural Abortions” section, they tout that their “efforts ensure more people can receive timely, compassionate abortion care without unnecessary delays.” Lord knows what the statewide, let alone nationwide, numbers of aborted lives happen to be. If you are someone, like me (and a LOT of other people), who believes that abortion is the taking of a human life, it’s macabre.