‘Don’t You Lie To Me’ Gavin Newsom

There are many songs about lies, liars, cheaters, deceivers, and fibbers – “Don’t You Lie To Me” by Chuck Berry,  “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis Presley, “Take It On The Run” by REO Speedwagon, “Lyin’ Eyes” by the Eagles, “The Policy of Truth” by Depeche Mode – all express how rotten it is when someone lies to you.

A pathological liar is a liar who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little awareness. Pathological lying is often a warning sign of antisocial personality disorder (commonly known as a psychopath). A pathological liar is usually considered manipulative, selfish, and cunning.

A compulsive liar is a habitual liar. Compulsive liars bend the truth about everything, large or small. For a compulsive liar, telling the truth is very awkward and uncomfortable, while lying feels right.

We too frequently see pathological and compulsive liars in politics – lying about military service, lying about about participation in sports, lying about loving rock or country music, lying about their education, lying about their employment history, lying about wealth sources, lying about extramarital affairs, and other lies involving gold bars and money hidden in freezer compartments…

Politicians lie. Not all politicians lie, but many politicians lie.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is no stranger to lies, whether covering up an extramarital affair, lying about going into alcohol rehab, lying about the severity of covid after getting busted several times flaunting his own lockdown, masking and vaccine orders, lying about the fast food minimum wage law after carving out an exemption for childhood friend and political donor Greg Flynn, Panera Bread owner, embellishing his college sports history, lying about his policy record and policy positions, which shift more frequently than a reptilian shape-shifter, now that he is running for President.

Newsom even lies about his position(s) on biological men in girls sports – he panders to whoever asks the question as he did with Charlie Kirk on his own podcast, and again with Shawn Ryan on Ryan’s podcast last week. He never really answers the question, and instead tries to make it about him and how he is trying to figure out the “whole LGBTQ and trans thing,” as if they are one-in-the-same. Newsom has issued no policy or executive order to get biological boys out of women’s sports in California, even though he says it is “deeply unfair.”

Knowing that a politician lies affects the credibility of everything else they say.

Newsom’s old tale about needing alcohol rehabilitation served as the crutch for his behavior as Mayor when an affair he had with his campaign manager’s wife, who also worked as his secretary, we revealed. But he lied about that too. In 2007, Gavin Newsom said he quit drinking and would seek professional help for “problems with alcohol” after the affair was exposed.

The Daily Mail reported in January 2025 in “Gavin Newsom’s shocking lies about going to rehab after he was caught in affair with best friend’s wife“:

Gavin Newsom admitted he never attended a formal rehabilitation program for alcohol abuse after his affair with his best friend’s wife was exposed, despite previous reports suggesting he had.

“‘There’s no rehab. I just stopped,’ he told the Sacramento Bee during his 2018 run for office. ‘There was no treatment, no nothing related to any of that stuff. I stopped because I thought it was a good thing to stop.

‘There is no 12-step (program) here,’ Newsom added of his time with Delancey Street (rehab). ‘There are no issues with that. There never was. This was a need to reset.’”

Of notable interest is Gavin Newsom’s embellishments that he played varsity baseball in college at the University of Santa Clara and was drafted into major league baseball.

CalMatters’ Alexei Koseff reported on Gov. Newsom last year while he was touring the country “as a leading surrogate for President Biden’s re-election campaign:”

“Newsom told the story himself again in January on the podcast Pod Save America: Because of poor test scores, he was headed to community college until he got a call from the Santa Clara University baseball coaches. “It was literally the ticket to a four-year university. It changed my life, my trajectory,” he said

For their 2004 home opener, the San Francisco Giants invited a special guest to throw the ceremonial first pitch: Gavin Newsom, then just a few months into his first term as mayor of San Francisco.

As Newsom took the pitcher’s mound, wearing dress shoes and a button-down shirt underneath his custom Giants jersey, the announcer informed the crowd that “he played first base for the University of Santa Clara and was drafted by the Texas Rangers.”

The money quote by Koseff on Newsom’s baseball career:

“…his baseball career has provided Newsom a triumphant narrative to push back on the perception that his upbringing was privileged and easy: The high school standout scouted by the major leagues, who overcame his dyslexia and academic shortcomings to earn a partial scholarship to Santa Clara University before an injury forced him to find a new purpose.”

ISideWith adds to the story:

Newsom told the story himself again in January on the podcast Pod Save America: Because of poor test scores, he was headed to community college until he got a call from the Santa Clara University baseball coaches. “It was literally the ticket to a four-year university. It changed my life, my trajectory,” he said.

But former coaches and teammates said that biography, repeated again and again through interviews and glossy magazine profiles and coverage of his 2021 baseball-themed children’s book on overcoming dyslexia, has inflated Newsom’s baseball credentials, giving the impression that he was a more accomplished player than he was.

Most notably: Newsom never played an official game for Santa Clara University; he was a junior varsity recruit who played only during the fall tryouts his freshman and sophomore years, then left the baseball program before the regular season began. He does not appear on the Broncos’ all-time roster or in media guides published by the athletic department to preview the upcoming season.

Mike Cummins, the assistant coach at Santa Clara while Newsom was there, said the governor has “embellished his baseball career a little bit at times.”

“He never played in a varsity game. He may have played in some scrimmages,” said Cummins, who is now the head baseball coach at California State University, East Bay. “He’s embellished it. It’s half-truths. He was recruited to Santa Clara, he was there in the fall, but he never played. He didn’t have a varsity career there.”

… also meaning that Gavin Newsom was never drafted by the Texas Rangers out of college.

So, is Gavin Newsom a pathological liar or a compulsive habitual liar? The bigger question is why do so many politicians tell untrue stories about their lives?