Global Courant
California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom took time out during a weekend trip to scarlet Idaho to celebrate a bookstore that claimed to be selling “banned” books.
“Book bans are at an all-time high — there have been more than 1,200 challenges in the past year, nearly double the (then-record) 2021 total,” Newsom tweeted Sunday, including a video of his visit to Rediscovered Books in Boise.
“I couldn’t leave Boise without stopping by this incredible bookstore. The owners of Rediscovered Books are doing everything they can to stop these insane bans across the country,” he added.
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The video Newsom posted included photos of him browsing the store, an image of what appeared to be a bumper sticker that read, “Keep by the ban. Read banned books,” and an image of a sign that read, “Read this forbidden books.”
According to an April report, nearly 1,500 books were “banned” nationwide in the first half of the 2022-2023 school year as conservatives resist what many consider attempts to indoctrinate children with books on the themes of race, racism, and violence. LGBTQ ideology. The book “bans” — which consist of removing sexually explicit books from public school libraries or restricting access to older students — are largely in red states.
Newsom, who has regularly criticized such “bans,” visited Idaho to campaign for President Biden. It was his last visit to a red state to share his liberal message that many Americans consider to be the source of what is driving many Californians to pack up and move.
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Governor Gavin Newsom is seen at NASA Ames Research Center’s Moffett Federal Airfield before US President Biden arrives in Mountain View, California, United States on June 19, 2023. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Despite campaigning in support of Biden, Newsom is seen as a potential rival to the president in the 2024 presidential race. Polls have shown that a majority of Americans, including Democrats, do not want Biden to run for a second term term.
It’s unclear what Newsom’s future presidential aspirations might be, but he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last month that he had “great confidence” in Biden’s leadership.
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Joshua Q. Nelson of Fox News contributed to this report.
Brandon Gillespie is an associate editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @brandon_cg.
