Newsom's Portsmouth Podcaster Was Dumped By Dartmouth Democrats Over Sex Abuse Claims

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

There is nothing unusual about a potential presidential candidate like Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) making an appearance in First-in-the-Nation New Hampshire.

But his stop in Portsmouth Thursday night is a bit unusual.

Instead of inviting the public to a rally or a speech, Newsom is charging attendees $48 each to watch him being interviewed about his new book at The Music Hall. (A copy of the book, A Young Man in a Hurry, is included.)

And the person interviewing Newsom, Gen Z progressive political commentator Jack Cocchiarella, also has an unusual background.

As NHJournal first reported at the time, Cocchiarella was kicked out of the Dartmouth College Democrats after serious accusations of abusive behavior toward women began circulating.

Today, Cocchiarella hosts a successful YouTube podcast with more than 1.4 million subscribers. But in 2022, the Washington Free Beacon reported on a string of Reddit posts that accused Cocchiarella of using “his Twitter notoriety and left-wing credentials to position himself as an ally. Then, once people let their guards down, he rapes them.”

NHJournal was able to verify that Dartmouth College disciplined Cocchiarella for at least one instance of allegedly abusive behavior. NHJournal spoke to an alleged victim who provided documents about the incident, including a letter warning Cocchiarella that he could be suspended for violating the school’s Gender-based Misconduct Policy.

NHJournal has not reported the alleged victim’s name to protect her identity. She told NHJournal that Cocchiarella groped her on one occasion and attempted to touch her on several other occasions before she reported him to the school’s office.

She said Cocchiarella was friendly at first, but his behavior turned into stalking over a few weeks. His actions became progressively more inappropriate. She started to feel unsafe around Cocchiarella and decided to go to the Title IX office.

“What was scary is he said a lot of really misogynistic things,” she said.

The woman is still shocked by Cocchiarella’s persona as a feminist ally and progressive fighter when in reality she was scared of him.

“How does he have this platform as a feminist?” she said.

College officials declined to comment for this story. Cocchiarella did not respond to several requests for comment at the time.

Soon after, the Dartmouth College Democrats Twitter account published a tweet claiming the social media star had been kicked out of the club in response to the allegations. The club later deleted that tweet, but a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NHJournal that Cocchiarella had been kicked out.

Cocchiarella’s controversy also comes from his comments about Israel, describing it as an “apartheid state” and calling Israel “a terrorist state that threatens and kill (sic) Americans.”

Newsom agrees, at least on the “apartheid state” part.

Cocchiarella has said he intends to talk to Newsom about Israel, and would-be book buyers have gotten a preview. On the progressive podcast Pod Save America, Newsom said some people “are talking about it (Israel) appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.