Like her husband, the governor of California, Jennifer Siebel Newsom is polished, good-looking and accomplished. But have her statements about parenting made her a political liability?
Conservative pundit Scott Jennings thinks so.
He recently aired a 2-year-old video clip in which she appeared to say that the couple had taken their children to Alabama in order to expose them to racism, misogyny and bullying.
“This lady, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, is gonna be a real problem for poor old Gavin, I’m telling you right now,” Jennings said.
The problem is not so much related to Siebel Newsom’s progressive politics or her choice of the title “First Partner” (which she acknowledged many Americans wouldn’t like), but her parenting style, which has been criticized since 2019 when the couple’s 2-year-old son crossed the stage at his father’s gubernatorial inauguration with a pacifier in his mouth and carrying a blanket.
While some people found the moment adorable, others were appalled — pacifier use is a perennial skirmish in the mommy wars. She later wrote about the backlash in a piece for Glamour magazine, complaining that “despite our partnership and despite the support I feel in our relationship, I will always bear the responsibility of our children in a way Gavin never will.”
The couple has four children: two boys and two girls.
More recently, Siebel Newsom has come under fire for a resurrected video clip in which she said she gave her young sons dolls to play with, and sometimes changes pronouns in stories when reading to her children.
“I’ve given our boys dolls, even if they tear the head off. I’ve given them dolls to learn that care and caregiving is not just an activity that’s reserved for women but that it’s also an activity that is a responsibility of men,” Siebel Newsom says in the undated clip, which was widely shared this week.
She also said, “If I’m reading a book and the protagonist is male, I just change ‘he’ to ‘she.’ I don’t do this only with girls but also for my sons because I want them to see that women can be the center of the story. That women matter. That women are interesting.”
She goes on to talk about deconstructing traditional gender roles.
The clip Jennings aired earlier this week was from an interview two years ago, and former White House press secretary Psaki was driving the conversation, in which Siebel Newsom meandered a bit.
She talked about the family’s trip to Alabama “enlivening (her children), building their curiosity, expanding their hearts, their empathy, so that they themselves can be the change they wish to see in the world and recognize that we have work to do, and that we have healing to do, so they can use their voices to stand up and speak out when they see pain and suffering and bullying and racism and misogyny around them.”
“You want them to see it, so that they know?” Psaki asked.
“I do, I’m a truth seeker. They need to know the truth,” Siebel Newsom said.
It wasn’t quite the same as saying “I took my children to red states so they could see what’s wrong with America,” but you can see why it was interpreted as such on a conservative radio show.
Another clip circulating this week has Siebel Newsom equating the work of psychologist Jordan Peterson with alt-right extremism that promotes hate, bigotry and racism.
Peterson came to fame for speaking out against gender ideology, but his most famous book, “12 Rules for Life,” contains common-sense advice such as “Make Friends With People Who Want the Best for You” and “Assume that the Person You Are Listening To Might Know Something You Don’t.”
“Why are you torturing us with these videos of this dummy?” Jennifer Sey, the founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics, asked in the comments of one post showing a Siebel Newsom clip from 2023 on X. (Sey, a former California resident, is a longtime critic of Gavin Newsom.)
(Siebel Newsom has good reason to worry about her kids listening to conservative influencers, though. When Gavin Newsom had Charlie Kirk on his podcast in 2025, he told Kirk that his then-13-year-old son was excited and wanted to skip school so he could meet him.)
It’s unclear if one particular person or group is behind these years-old clips resurfacing in recent weeks, or if it’s an organic pile-on. But Republicans clearly see Gavin Newsom’s spouse as a point of vulnerability as the governor, whose term ends in January, contemplates a presidential run.
The prediction market Kalshi recently said that the odds of Democrats winning the House, Senate and White House in 2028 are at an all-time high of 43%. A photo of Gavin Newsom accompanied the company’s social media post.
