Democratic governor sharply critical of Donald Trump for not passing comprehensive federal AI regulations Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws Wednesday aimed at protecting California workers from the threats of artificial intelligence , including potential job losses and workplace surveillance. The laws ban employers from using the…
Page A2From§Eachthe milkman edition — 1 October 2026
Newsom declares he hates AI, climbs a bridge tower eight days later to outlaw it.
As it ran on the front
Seventeen days before he climbed anything, Gavin Newsom told reporters he would not run for president in 2028 if Kamala Harris does. The New York Post called the announcement brilliant stagecraft. It was also, on its face, a governor telling the country he was thinking about running for president.
Eleven days before the bridge, he signed "Jay Leno's Law," letting high-emission classic cars back onto California streets for short trips. CBS sent a crew. The bill got its own segment the day it was signed.…
…(cont) Eight days before the bridge, the same governor who spent 2025 vetoing a data-center water-disclosure rule to keep California competitive in AI announced he had changed his mind. He had loved it; now he hated it. The reversal took twelve months, the New York Post's clock, to cover an entire industry's worth of position.
One bill restricted ICE tactics in California, banning shock gloves and building a public list of agents who use them. The other was a phone call: Newsom told reporters Bill Clinton calls him at night to help build "Project 2029," a framework for the thing he had just said, seventeen days earlier, he was not building.
Workers facing a new kind of employer surveillance got real protections, the same protections a governor could sign at a desk in Sacramento. This governor signed them on top of a bridge tower. The climb was the only part of the day that required a cable.
None of the individual bills is the story. The story is the order: deny the run, sign the easy law for the cameras, discover a new enemy in an industry he spent a year courting, sign the real law from the top of a bridge built for traffic, and tell reporters a former president calls at night to help plan what comes after California. The workers get the protections, on paper. The tower was about the climb, not the bridge.
“He climbed a bridge to sign a law he could've signed at a desk — that's not theater, that's a campaign ad shot on government time. He's already said he won't run if Harris does, and Clinton's on the phone every night building "Project 2029" — that's not loyalty, that's clearing a lane. Watch where he climbs next, because the tower was not the point, the office is.”
“A governor engaging directly with constituents at elevation — that's leadership, that's visibility, that's whatever you want to call it. And the AI thing, he's not flip-flopping, he's evolving with the science — did I just say "evolving with the science"? That's not a phrase I use. Next question.”
The receipts
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California scrambled up a bridge cable before signing a bill at the top of the south tower.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said former President Bill Clinton calls him late at night to discuss policy and strategy as the California governor builds his Project 2029 framework.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed multiple bills that his office said would expand oversight of federal immigration enforcement in California.
· Gavin Newsom’s deference to Kamala Harris is a masterstroke from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
· Gavin Newsom loved AI, then discovered he hated it from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
· Newsom signs "Jay Leno's Law," allowing classic cars to hit the streets for short trips from the morgue, 20 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.