SACRAMENTO — Gavin Newsom writes in his upcoming memoir about San Francisco’s highborn Getty family fitting him in Brioni suits “appropriate to meet a king” when he was 20 years old. Then he flew aboard their private “Jetty” to Spain for a royal princess’s debutante-style party.

Back home, real life wasn’t as grand.

In an annual performance for their single mom, Newsom and his sister would pretend to find problems with the fancy clothes his dad’s friends, the heirs of ruthless oil baron J. Paul Getty, sent for Christmas. Poor fit. Wrong color. Not my style. The ritual gave her an excuse to return the gifts and use the store credit on presents for her children she placed under the tree.

California’s 41st governor, a possible suitor for the White House, opens up about the duality of his upbringing in his new book. Newsom details the everyday struggle living with his mom after his parents divorced and occasional interludes into his father’s life charmed by the Gettys’ affluence, including that day when the Gettys outfitted him in designer clothes at a luxury department store.

“I walked out understanding that this was the split personality of my life,” Newsom writes in “Young Man in a Hurry.”

For years, Newsom asserted that his “one-dimensional” public image as a slick, privileged politician on a path to power paved with Getty oil money fails to tell the whole story.

“I’m not trying to be something I’m not,” Newsom said in a recent interview. “I’m not trying to talk about, you know, ‘I was born in a town called Hope with no running water.’ That’s not what this book is about. But it’s a very different portrayal than the one I think 9 out of 10 people believe.”

As he explores a 2028 presidential run and basks in the limelight as one of President Trump’s most vociferous critics, the book offers the Democratic politician a chance to write his own narrative and address the skeletons in his closet before opponents begin to exploit his past.

A book tour, which is set to begin Feb. 21 in Nashville, also gives Newsom a reason to travel the country, meet voters and promote his life story without officially entering the race. He’s expected to make additional stops in Georgia, South Carolina, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The governor describes the book as a “memoir of discovery” that sent him interviewing family members and friends and digging through troves of old documents about his lineage that his mother never spoke about and his father smoothed over. Learning about his family history, the good and the bad, Newsom said, helped him understand and accept himself. Mark Arax, an author and former Los Angeles Times journalist, was his ghostwriter.

“I’ve changed the opinion of myself,” Newsom said when asked if he believed the book would revise his glossy public image. “It kind of rocked so many parts of my life, and kind of cracked things open. And I started to understand where my anxieties come from and why I’m overcompensating in certain areas.”

Newsom writes that his interest in politics brought him and his father, William, closer. His mother, Tessa, on the other hand, didn’t share his father’s enthusiasm.

She warned him to get out while he still could, worried her only son would eschew his true self.

“My mother did not want that world for me: the shrewd marriage of tall husbands and tall wives that kept each year’s Cotillion Debutante Ball stocked with children of the same; the gritted teeth behind the social smiles; the spectator sport of who was in and who was out based on so-and-so’s dinner party guest list,” Newsom wrote.

At the heart of her concern was her belief that Newsom’s “obsessive drive” into business and politics was in response to his upbringing and an effort to solve “the riddle” of his identity from his learning disorder, dyslexia, and the two different worlds he inhabited.

“As I grew up trying to grasp which of these worlds, if either, suited me best, she had worried about the persona I was constructing to cover up what she considered a crack at my core,” Newsom writes. “If my remaking was skim plaster, she feared, it would crumble. It would not hold me into adulthood.”

Newsom’s mother was 19 years old when she married his father, then 32. He learned through writing the book that his mother hailed from a “family of brilliant and daring misfits who had carved new paths in botany and medicine and left-wing politics,” he writes.

There was also secret pain and struggles with mental health. His maternal grandfather, a World War II POW, turned to the bottle after returning home. One night he told his three young daughters to line up in front of the fireplace so he could shoot them, but stopped when his wife walked in the door and took the gun from his hand. He committed suicide years later.

Newsom’s father’s family was full of more traditional Democrats and Irish Catholic storytellers who worked in banking, homebuilding, law enforcement and law. Newsom describes his paternal grandfather as one of the “thinkers behind the throne” for former California Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown, but his family never held public office despite his dad’s bids for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the California Legislature.

The failed campaigns left his father in financial and emotional turmoil that crippled his marriage when Newsom was a small boy. A divorce set the stage for an unusual contrasting existence for the would-be governor, offering him brief exposures to the wealth and power of the Gettys through his dad.

Newsom said he moved casually between the rich and poor neighborhoods of San Francisco as a boy.

“It was a wonder how effortlessly I glided because the two realms of my life, the characters of my mother’s world and the characters of my father’s world, did not fit together in the least,” Newsom writes.

Though William Alfred Newsom III went on to become an appellate court justice, Newsom’s father was best known for his role delivering ransom money to the kidnappers of J. Paul Getty’s grandson. He served as an adviser to the family without pay and a paid administrator of the $4 billion family trust.

The governor wrote in the book that the ties between the two families go back three generations. His father was close friends with Getty’s sons John Paul Jr. and Gordon since childhood when they became like his sixth and seventh siblings at Newsom’s grandparents’ house.

Gordon Getty in particular considered Newsom’s father his “best-best friend.” Newsom’s dad helped connect the eccentric music composer “to the outside world,” the governor wrote.

“My father had this way of creating a safe space for Gordon to open up,” Newsom writes. “He became Gordon’s whisperer, his interpreter and translator, a bridge to their friends, a bridge to Gordon’s own children.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his sister, Hilary Newsom, in a promotional portrait for the Search for the Cause campaign, which raises funds for cancer research, on Nov. 21, 2025.

(Caroline Schiff/Getty Images)

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His father’s friendship with Gordon Getty exposed Newsom and his younger sister, Hillary, to a world far beyond their family’s own means. Gordon’s wife, Ann, and Newsom’s father organized elaborate adventures for the Gettys’ four sons and the Newsom children.

Newsom describes fishing on the Rogue River and riding in a helicopter while studying polar bears on the shores of the Hudson Bay in Canada. He recalled donning tuxedos and carrying toy guns pretending to be James Bond on a European yacht vacation and soaring over the Serengeti in a hot air balloon during an East African safari.

Throughout his travels, Newsom often blended in with the Gettys’ brown-haired sons. He wrote that the actor Jack Nicholson once mistakenly called him one of the “Getty boys” at a party in a 16th-century palazzo in Venice where guests arrived via gondola. Newsom didn’t correct him.

“Had I shared this encounter with my mother, she likely would have asked me if deception was something I practiced whenever I hobnobbed with the Gettys,” Newsom said in the book. “Fact is, I was always aware of the line that separated us from the Gettys. Not because they went out of their way to make us aware of it but because we, as good Newsoms, paid constant mind to the distinction.”

Newsom wrote that his mother seemed to begrudge the excursions when her children returned home. She raised them in a much more ordinary existence. Newsom describes his father’s presence as “episodic.”

“For a day or two, she’d give us the silent treatment, and then we’d all fall back into the form of a life trying to make ends meet,” he wrote. “After enough vacations came and went, a cone of silence took hold.”

Newsom’s mother worked as an assistant retail buyer, a bookkeeper, a waitress at a Mexican restaurant, a development director for a nonprofit and a real estate agent — holding as many as three jobs at once — to provide for her children. His mother’s sister and brother-in-law helped care for them when they could, but he likened himself to a latchkey kid because of the amount of time he and his sister spent alone.

They moved five times in 10 years in search of a “better house in a better neighborhood” with good schools, taking the family from San Francisco to the Marin County suburbs. Though his mother owned a home, she often rented out rooms to bring in extra money.

Tired of his mother complaining about finances and his father not coming through, Newsom wrote that he took on a paper route.

In the book, Newsom describes his struggles with dyslexia and how the learning disorder undercut his self-esteem when he was an emotionally vulnerable child.

Eager to make himself something more than an awkward kid with sweaty palms and a bowl haircut who couldn’t read, Newsom mimicked Remington Steele, the suave character on the popular 1980s detective show. He chugged down glassfuls of raw eggs like Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky” and ran across town and back like a prizefighter in training.

He found confidence in high school sports, but his struggle to find himself continued into young adulthood. Newsom wrote that he watched tapes of motivational guru Tony Robbins and heeded his advice to remake yourself in the image of someone you admire. For Newsom, that became Robbins himself.

“Find a person who embodies all of the outward traits of personality, bearing, charisma, language, and power lacking in yourself,” Newsom described the philosophy in the book. “Study that person. Copy that person. The borrowed traits may fit awkwardly at first, but don’t fret. You’ll be surprised by how fast the pose becomes you, and you the pose.”

His father scoffed at the self-help gurus and nurtured his interest in business.

More than a half-dozen friends and family members, including Gordon Getty, invested equal shares to help him launch a wine shop in San Francisco. Newsom named the business, which expanded to include restaurants, hotels and wineries, “PlumpJack,” the nickname of Shakespeare’s fictional character Sir John Falstaff and the title of Gordon Getty’s opera.

“Gordon’s really inspired me to be bolder and more audacious. He’s inspired me to be more authentic,” Newsom said. “The risks I take in business … just trying to march to the beat of a different drummer and to be a little bolder. That’s my politics. But I also think he played a huge role in that, in terms of shaping me in that respect as well.”

Newsom described Gordon and Ann Getty as like family. The Gettys also became the biggest investors in his wineries and among his largest political donors.

In an interview, Newsom said there are many days when he feels his mother “absolutely” was right to worry about the facade of politics and the mold her son stuffed himself into.

Gavin Newsom heads for his home neighborhood on Nov. 3, 2003, to cast hisvote for San Francisco mayor.

(Mike Kepka / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

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He described the day the recall against him qualified for the ballot amid the COVID-19 pandemic as humbling and humiliating, though it later failed by a wide margin. Still today, he said, there’s a voice in his head constantly questioning why he’s in politics, what he’s exposing his wife and children to and doing with his life.

By choosing a career as an elected official despite his mother’s warnings, Newsom ultimately picked his father’s world and accomplished his father’s dream of taking office. But he said the book taught him that so much of his own more gutsy positions, such as his early support for gay marriage, and his hustle were from his mother.

Newsom said he’s accepted that he can’t control which version of himself people choose to see. Writing the book felt cathartic, he said, and left him more comfortable taking off his mask.

“It allowed me to understand better my motivations, my purpose, my meaning, my mission… who my mom and dad were and who I am as a consequence of them and what truly motivates me,” Newsom said. “There’s a freedom. There’s a real freedom. And it’s nice. It’s just so much nicer than the plaster of the past.”

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., is continuing his streak of breaking with his party — this time on voter ID legislation gaining momentum in the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats have near-unanimously rejected the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, election integrity legislation that made its way through the House earlier this week.

Schumer has dubbed the legislation “Jim Crow 2.0,” arguing it would suppress voters rather than encourage more secure elections.

COLLINS BOOSTS REPUBLICAN VOTER ID EFFORT, BUT WON’T SCRAP FILIBUSTER

But Fetterman, who has repeatedly rejected his party’s messaging and positions, pushed back on Schumer’s framing of the bill.

“I would never refer to the SAVE Act as like Jim Crow 2.0 or some kind of mass conspiracy,” Fetterman told Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany on “Saturday in America.”

“But that’s part of the debate that we were having here in the Senate right now,” he continued. “And I don’t call people names or imply that it’s something gross about the terrible history of Jim Crow.”

The bill would require voters to present photo identification before casting ballots, require proof of citizenship in person when registering to vote and mandate states remove non-citizens from voter rolls.

MURKOWSKI BREAKS WITH GOP ON VOTER ID, SAYS PUSH ‘IS NOT HOW WE BUILD TRUST’

Momentum is building among Republicans. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, became the 50th member of the conference to back the legislation. But Senate Democrats have all but guaranteed its demise in the upper chamber, via the filibuster.

Fetterman would not say whether he supports the bill outright. However, he noted that “84% of Americans have no problem with presenting IDs to vote.”

“So it’s not like a radical idea,” Fetterman said. “It’s not something — and there already are many states that show basic IDs. So that’s where we are in the Senate.”

HARDLINE CONSERVATIVES DOUBLE DOWN TO SAVE THE SAVE ACT

Even if Fetterman were to support the bill on the floor, it is unlikely to pass without more significant procedural changes.

There are currently not enough votes to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.

Fetterman is also not keen on eliminating the filibuster — a position shared by most Senate Republicans.

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He noted that Senate Democrats once favored scrapping the filibuster but now want to preserve it while in the minority in a Republican-controlled government.

“I campaigned on it, too,” Fetterman said. “I mean we were very wrong about that to nuke the filibuster. And we should really humble ourselves and remind people that we wanted to eliminate it — and now we love it.”

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom sat onstage at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday and described one of the primary ways he is responding as the Trump administration shifts federal climate priorities.

“I’m showing up,” he said.

In recent months, that has meant trips to Brazil, Switzerland and now Germany, where he has repeatedly positioned California as a global climate partner. The travel has also revived a recurring question from critics and watchdog groups: Who pays for those trips?

In many cases, the costs are not borne by taxpayers. The governor’s office said his international travel is paid for by the California State Protocol Foundation, a nonprofit that is funded primarily by corporate donations and run by a board Newsom appoints.

For decades, California governors have relied on nonprofits to pick up the tab for official travel, diplomatic events and other costs that would otherwise be paid with taxpayer funds.

“The Foundation’s mission is to lessen the burden on California taxpayers by reimbursing appropriate expenses associated with advancing the state’s economic and diplomatic interests,” said Jason Elliott, a former high-ranking advisor to Newsom whom the governor added to the foundation’s board.

While the arrangement helps the state’s pocketbook, critics say it is another avenue for corporate interests to gain influence. Among the donors to the foundation are healthcare giants like Centene and CVS Pharmacy, while the bulk of revenue stems from separate nonprofits affiliated with the governor made up of power players with business before the state.

“The problem with the protocol foundation and others like it is that donors to these foundations receive access to the politicians whose travel they fund,” said Carmen Balber, executive director of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.

When did nonprofits start paying for gubernatorial travel?

The protocol foundation was created as a tax-exempt charity during Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration in 2004.

Similar nonprofits have existed since Gov. George Deukmejian created one in the 1980s. In the early 2000s, Gov. Gray Davis dramatically increased the use of nonprofits to cover travel, housing and political events.

When Schwarzenegger left office, his supporters turned the protocol foundation over to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s backers, who in turn handed it over to Newsom’s camp. The foundation describes its mission in federal tax filings as “relieving the State of California of its obligations to fund certain expenditures of the Governor’s Office.”

Newsom appoints members to the foundation board, which then is responsible for determining what expenses to cover in the governor’s office. In its most recent tax filing covering 2024, the foundation lists its board chair as Steve Kawa, who served as Newsom’s chief of staff when he was mayor of San Francisco. The foundation’s secretary in those filings is Jim DeBoo, who was Newsom’s chief of staff in the governor’s office until 2022.

The foundation reported total revenue of $1.3 million in 2024 and, after expenses, had a balance of less than $8,000.

What is the foundation paying for?

The foundation covers the cost of Newsom’s international travel and certain domestic trips, including Climate Week in New York, when he is acting in his role as governor. His staff’s travel is also covered by the foundation. The governor’s office declined to say whether the foundation also pays for Newsom’s security detail.

Publicly available records are vague, but Newsom’s annual financial disclosure forms show the foundation paid more than $13,000 for the governor’s 2024 trip to Italy, where he delivered a speech on climate change at the Vatican.

That same year, the foundation paid nearly $4,000 for his trip to Mexico City to attend the inauguration of Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum. The cost of both trips included flights, hotel and meals for his “official travel,” according to the disclosure records, which are filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission and known as Form 700s.

Newsom has reported receiving $72,000 in travel, staff picnics and holiday events from the protocol foundation since he took office in 2019, according to the disclosures.

The foundation paid $15,200 for the governor’s 2023 trip to China, where he visited five cities in seven days during an agenda packed with meetings, sightseeing and celebrations, including a private tour of the Forbidden City.

In 2020, the foundation paid $8,800 for Newsom to travel to Miami for Super Bowl LIV — where he said he was representing the state as the San Francisco 49ers faced the Kansas City Chiefs.

The governor’s office said it did not yet have the amount picked up by the foundation for Newsom’s travel to Brazil to attend the United Nations climate summit known as COP30 or to Switzerland for the World Economic Summit.

Who are the donors behind the foundation?

In some cases, the well-heeled funders behind the foundation’s cash flow are easy to identify on state websites.

Donations to the foundation that are solicited directly or indirectly by Newsom are recorded with the Fair Political Practices Commission as behested payments. A behested payment occurs when an elected official solicits or suggests that a person or organization give to another person or organization for a legislative, governmental or charitable purpose.

The environmental grantmaker Resources Legacy Fund contributed $100,000 to the protocol foundation last year, a donation which records show came shortly after the organization announced that it had hired Newsom’s former mayoral chief of staff Phil Ginsburg.

Last year, the clean-energy nonprofit U.S. Energy Foundation donated $150,000 for the California delegation to attend COP30 in Belém, Brazil. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $300,000 in a 2023 behested payment earmarked for the California delegation traveling to China for the meetings on climate change. UC Berkeley gave $220,000 for the governor’s office’s trip to the Vatican in 2024.

Most donations simply indicate that they are directed for “general operating support” of the foundation. That includes two donations from the Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company Zoox Inc. cumulatively worth $80,000.

Two charities set up to pay for Newsom’s inaugurations in 2019 and 2023 moved more than $5 million to the protocol foundation since 2019. The financial backers behind those inaugural charities include powerful unions, corporations, tribal casino interests, trade associations and healthcare giants — organizations with significant financial stakes in state policy decisions.

Past spending by the foundation has been criticized

During Schwarzenegger’s administration, his office avoided fully disclosing $1.7 million in travel costs paid for by the foundation, instead relying on vague internal memos and, in some cases, oral accounting, according to a 2007 Los Angeles Times investigation.

Schwarzenegger’s expenses picked up by the foundation included leased Gulfstream jets costing up to $10,000 per hour and suites going for thousands of dollars a night. The Times’ investigation found among the costs was $353,000 for a single round trip to China on a private jet in 2005.

The foundation also paid for Schwarzenegger’s travels to Japan, Europe, Canada and Mexico.

At the time, Schwarzenegger’s representatives told The Times the governor did not have to report the travel costs on his annual disclosure forms because the payments for the jets and suites were gifts to his office, not to him.

Newsom’s office said the governor travels commercially, not on private jets.