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Democrats face an inflection point on trans issues after Newsom comments on sports

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1 year ago

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Gavin Newsom’s provocative new position on trans athletes on Thursday reopened a rift in the Democratic Party that could serve as one of the earliest flash points in the party’s 2028 primary.

Within hours of the California governor condemning trans athletes playing in female sports — shocking his party in his home state — some Democrats unloaded on the likely presidential contender.

“It’s disgusting,” said Lori Lightfoot, the former Chicago mayor. “There are kids waking up today in California with this news thinking that their governor hates them, and rightly so.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) urged Democrats to “not take the bait and give in to their anti trans people rhetoric,” though she hadn’t seen Newsom’s comments.

Major LGBTQ+ organizations immediately made clear they’re looking at trans athletes as a litmus test for ambitious Democrats. “Our message to Gov. Newsom and all leaders across the country is simple: The path to 2028 isn’t paved with the betrayal of vulnerable communities —it’s built on the courage to stand up for what’s right and do the hard work to actually help the American people,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson.

But to moderates, Newsom was offering a lifeline for a party plagued by the culture wars and the polarizing politics of trans women in sports. His comments were the latest from a field of potential contenders seeking to distance themselves from the identity politics of 2024. In recent weeks, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg criticized some approaches to promoting diversity as responsible for how “Trump Republicans are made,” while Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker cited a coming budget deficit for a proposal to cut a health care benefit for some noncitizen immigrants.

“We just stepped too far out of the bounds and let the far left drive the narrative,” said a Democratic strategist from a swing state, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “Our own voters don’t agree with trans athletes in youth or college sports.”

The strategist said, “To have the governor of one of the bluest states come out and say this, saying our party has gone too far left, then it’s a permission structure for other Democrats to do this, too — to start saying publicly what people have been saying privately.”

Still, Newsom was staking out controversial ground — and potentially alienating whole swaths of activists ahead of 2028. In the hours after saying in a discussion with conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Newsom’s new podcast that it’s “deeply unfair” for trans athletes to play on female sports teams, no other Democrats with 2028 presidential ambitions were willing to back him publicly.

Trans rights has been a difficult subject for Democrats since Trump turned the issue into a potent weapon in his 2024 campaign, unloading millions of dollars in attack ads on Kamala Harris, including one with the tagline, “Kamala’s For They/Them. President Trump is for you.” In the aftermath, many moderates argued the Democratic Party had shifted too far into identity politics and ideological litmus tests.

Newsom, in the same interview with Kirk, said he considered those ads — going after Harris’ support for taxpayer-funded transition-related medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners — to be Trump’s most effective political attack against the former vice president.

Some Republicans cast Newsom as craven for bucking most other Democrats. On X, Trump ally Richard Grennell said the California governor should be seen as having “Flip-Flopped on Trans Athletes in Sports after viewing the polling.”

Recent polling supports moderating on the issue. While the majority of American adults support policies protecting trans people from discrimination, 66 percent of those surveyed favor requiring trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth, and 56 percent support banning health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors, according to Pew Research.

On Capitol Hill, most Democrats said they hadn’t directly seen Newsom’s comments but greeted the revelation he had interviewing Kirk on his podcast with somewhat of an eye roll. They refrained from directly critiquing the governor even as they disagreed with the sentiment.

“I just saw the headline. I haven’t read it but I know where I stand,” said Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.). “We don’t mess with our young people, our young people, we got to bring them in, we don’t want to exclude them.”

Democrats had almost unanimously voted against legislation earlier this year that would bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s or girls sports. Although some lawmakers leading up to the vote like Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) had generally said they opposed letting transgender athletes play girls sports, they ultimately chose to vote against the legislation and said it was overbroad.

“What’s unfair is the targeting of transgender kids and politicians abandoning them for political expediency,” said Rep. Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.), vice chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

Asked Thursday about Newsom’s comments, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he hadn’t seen them but said Democrats opposed “unleashing sexual predators on girls throughout the United States of America.” Democratic leaders had dubbed the transgender sports bill the “Child Predator Empowerment Act” and argued it would lead to adults inspecting childrens’ genitals to assess their eligibility for sports.

In California, Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento described Newsom’s remarks ricocheting between their phones, trailed by incredulity and outrage at a governor who built his national political profile on recognizing same-sex marriage aligning himself with right-wing opposition to trans rights. As mayor of San Francisco, Newsom defied federal and state law by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples

“We woke up profoundly disappointed and sickened, when you have someone who has been thoughtful and has been a very unwavering ally release a statement like that,” said Assembly member Chris Ward, a gay San Diego Democrat who has sparred with conservatives over trans issues. “Look, this is playing into a lot of the conversation that Donald Trump is obsessing about in order to distract us.”

Mia McCarthy, Amanda Friedman and Jeremy White contributed to this report.

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Exclusive: Spanish soccer boss pushes for 2030 World Cup final as pressure grows from Morocco

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5 hours ago

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June 22, 2026

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ATLANTA — Spain’s soccer chief told Blue Light News he is confident that either Madrid or Barcelona will host the World Cup final in 2030, as Morocco joins the race to stage the biggest sporting event in the world.

On a sun-baked afternoon in Atlanta outside La Casa de España, Rafael Louzán — who has been in charge of the Royal Spanish Football Federation since late 2024 — said that Spain has a storied history of hosting major events and would do so again when the World Cup returns to the Iberian peninsula for the first time since 1982.

Spain and Portugal will jointly host the 2030 World Cup with Morocco, and some matches will be played in South America to celebrate the centenary edition of the tournament. The first World Cup took place in Uruguay in 1930.

“We have a deep respect for our co-host nations, and not only Morocco, also Portugal and also Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. But Spain is the nation who leads the World Cup,” Louzán said.

“We are really confident because we have 55 percent of all matches organized for the World Cup and we have 11 cities. Morocco has six and Portugal has two or three. We have plenty of confidence that we can organize the final in Madrid or Barcelona. We have two great stadiums and we know that the world of football doesn’t hesitate about who’s going to organize the World Cup final,” he added.

“We have one of the greatest leagues in the world. We are one of [the] top nations in terms of championships, not only in the national team, but also in the clubs. So, we are confident,” said Louzán, speaking after being mobbed for pictures by ecstatic Spanish supporters.

A senior Moroccan soccer official confirmed to Blue Light News in Boston that his federation was keen to host the 2030 final, and that the country had the infrastructure to do so. Morocco has spent billions of dollars on new arenas, highlighted by the Hassan II Stadium that is under construction near Casablanca and designed to hold 115,000 spectators.

Soccer officials expect a decision on the showpiece match from FIFA within the next few months and a political lobbying battle to intensify ahead of the governing body’s verdict.

“Spain has a great capacity to host major events, not only sporting events. We recently hosted the pope’s visit, [and the 2022] NATO congress in Spain,” Louzán said. “I think that Spain has achieved a great capacity for organizing major events and we are confident that we can organize the best World Cup ever in Spain.”

Louzán sat next to FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Sunday, as Spain thrashed Saudi Arabia in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz stadium. He told Blue Light News that he didn’t discuss 2030 with the global soccer chief, just the success — so far — of the 2026 edition.

“We’re having a great time here in the U.S. and Mexico,” Louzán said. “I spoke with Gianni Infantino and congratulated him for the organization of this World Cup. We are really thankful for the hospitality here in Atlanta and in Chattanooga, which is our base camp.”

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Poll: Americans draw a new line in the betting bonanza sweeping over Wall Street — politics.

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5 hours ago

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June 22, 2026

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Americans have shown little hesitancy about betting on the World Cup, the weather in Dallas and the next James Bond through the prediction markets.

Yet, for many, politics is a step too far.

Results from The POLITICO Poll show that a large group of U.S. adults doesn’t believe wagering on political events like what President Donald Trump will say, who he will pardon, and the outcome of the 2028 presidential election should be legal.

The prediction markets are still new to much of the public, even after their meteoric rise in mainstream media, finance and politics. But as Kalshi, Polymarket and other such companies have opened the door to a world of betting on just about everything and anything, the poll’s results suggest a disquiet among many Americans about the flood of wagers — and especially when they relate to Washington.

Conducted by Public First, an independent U.K.-based polling firm, the survey found that a plurality of U.S. adults — 44 percent — said they believe that betting on election outcomes should be illegal. A similar share of respondents voiced concern about betting on what the president or other newsmakers will say, as well as who will receive a presidential pardon.

“These markets are not for everybody,” said John Aristotle Phillips, who leads the election-centric prediction market platform PredictIt. “People are going to object to certain areas, and they’re going to be somewhat sanguine about others.”

Prediction market proponents have argued that politically focused bets serve as a valuable source of information by offering a wisdom-of-the-crowds lens on the news of the day. The markets, they say, can also help consumers, corporations and small businesses offset the financial risk of a change in administration or the law.

And yet, the results could provide new fodder for those critics who fear that the wagering of millions of dollars on U.S. elections risks staining American democracy. Nearly $700 million has already traded hands on the 2028 presidential election markets from Kalshi and Polymarket’s international platform.

“It’s a bad bet for democracy,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, told Blue Light News. “If you allow election betting, you now have very affluent folks who can bet millions of dollars and simultaneously affect the outcome of an election through dark money. … That type of corruption in our elections is deadly.”

Kalshi declined to comment for this report. In a statement, Polymarket Deputy Chief Legal Officer Olivia Chalos said prediction markets “have become a foundational source of real-time information and forecasting, providing real-time probability signals across politics, sports, culture, economics, and current events to anyone seeking market information about future outcomes.” Chalos added that the company operates a U.S.-regulated venue that is subject to the same rules as other major financial exchanges.

The prediction markets are nothing new in the U.S. But for years, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a small but powerful financial regulator, blocked them from expanding in areas like elections over concerns about unleashing a torrent of betting in the U.S. financial markets.

And then, just weeks before Election Day 2024, a federal judge knocked down the CFTC’s arguments opposing a bid by Kalshi to offer the chance to wager thousands if not millions of dollars on the election. That opened the floodgates on regulated political betting in the U.S. — and the frenzy has only intensified since.

Day traders, political junkies and Wall Street giants are now taking to the prediction markets to wager on a seemingly ever-expanding slate of bets that covers sports, politics and pop culture. Kalshi and Polymarket have partnership agreements with the likes of BLN, The Wall Street Journal’s publisher and Major League Baseball, and boast valuations measured in the tens of billions of dollars. And the CFTC has adopted a far-friendlier posture to the industry’s growth under Trump and its new chair, Michael Selig.

The prediction markets still have a long way to go in winning over most Americans. More than 50 percent of Americans said they would not consider placing a bet on a prediction market, according to The Blue Light News Poll.

Younger Americans, however, do find the markets to be of interest. Of those who were between 18 and 24 years old, 12 percent of respondents said they had placed a prediction-market wager —an identical finding for those who were between 25 and 34 years old. By comparison, just 6 percent of the broader group said they had done so. What’s more, 30 percent of those 18- to 24-year-olds said they’d consider placing a bet on a prediction market, compared to 17 percent of the total group.

Sports account for most of the trading activity on prediction markets today — and a major part of the fight swirling around them. States across the country, tribal organizations and entrenched interests in the gambling industry have argued that the companies are skirting existing sports-betting regulations, a charge that the prediction markets and the CFTC have firmly rejected. (The Blue Light News Poll found that, when asked who should regulate the prediction markets, 28 percent of respondents said the federal government, versus 15 percent who said the states.)

But the markets have also swiftly expanded their political wagers, which now go well beyond the outcome of a presidential election and include down-ballot races, the fate of Cabinet secretaries and the passage of legislation. And those markets could become major drivers of the prediction market industry’s long-term growth, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence wrote in a report this month.

The analysts called markets on politics, elections and public policy “the greatest opportunity” for Kalshi and Polymarket, estimating that those products could grow to see $266 billion in trading volume by 2030. That would represent 27 percent of the platforms’ volume, compared to 10 percent in early 2025, according to the report.

For Caleb Davies, a long-time prediction market trader who lives in Minnesota, political markets are critical. Polls, analyses and pundits, of course, offer some insight into what will happen in an election or with a pending bill, but Davies said, “it’s not the same as getting a whole bunch of smart people betting money.” He added that wagering on the passage of a major bill with sweeping economic implications, such as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, can be critical as well.

“It’s a unique product,” he said.

Some offshore markets like Polymarket’s international platform even offer trading tied to the Iran war, though the CFTC outlaws U.S.-regulated prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket’s U.S. venue from such topics. A majority of those surveyed said that wagers on the outcomes of war and on terrorist acts should be illegal.

The poll was conducted just weeks after the Justice Department and CFTC charged a U.S. soldier with allegedly using confidential information to trade on the capture of then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro through Polymarket, a landmark case that has fanned concerns on Capitol Hill about insider trading in the prediction markets.

That war and terrorism bets would be unpopular was no surprise to PredictIt’s Phillips. But politics more generally, he said, does have a place in the prediction market landscape. And for Phillips, it’s not just about the traders — it’s also about the newsrooms, campaign strategists and broader public who are turning to the markets for clues as to the president’s agenda, whether a bill is going to pass and, of course, who is going to win an election.

“We’re in the early innings,” he said. “There are going to be hundreds or thousands of prediction markets around the globe — some of them are going to be very, very specific to a particular industry or human activity and others are going to be much broader. And there is a place for political prediction markets.”

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Support for Iran’s team – but not for regime

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13 hours ago

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June 22, 2026

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LOS ANGELES — The political tensions surrounding Iran’s national soccer team were on full display Sunday at SoFi Stadium, where Iranian American fans loudly booed during the playing of Iran’s national anthem before the team’s World Cup match against Belgium.

Among the crowd were several supporters displaying Iran’s pre-revolution Lion and Sun flag, a symbol associated with opposition to the current regime. FIFA prohibits the flag inside tournament venues, but some fans carried it anyway — and at least one supporter waved it during the anthem in an act of defiance.

Conversations with Iranian American fans at the stadium in Inglewood revealed a consistent message: Their protests were directed at Iran’s government, not at the players representing the country on the field. An Iranian American man from Seattle who gave his name as Majid said that he appreciated the opportunity to “confront the tyrannies that are happening.”

“Iran is hostage for the past 47 years or so to a regime that is promoting terrorism and chaos in the region,” he said. “For the team, we support them. But the anthem, the flag — we don’t support it.”

That distinction was evident throughout the match, which ended in a scoreless draw. While the anthem drew intense jeers, Iranian players received loud cheers on corner kicks and takeaways.

The game, held amid U.S.-Iran talks to end the monthslong war between the two countries, was the second of two matches Iran played in Los Angeles, home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. Both ended in draws.

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