By Jim Geraghty
Monday, January 13, 2025
Large swaths of the second-most populous city in the U.S.
have burnt to the ground, an area equivalent to 62 square miles or roughly the
size of Washington, D.C.; as of this writing, the fires have destroyed or
damaged more than 12,000 structures, killed at least 24 people and more than
150,000 people are under evacuation orders.
And California governor Gavin Newsom seems to think he’s
in a public communications crisis. On Friday, during a briefing with President
Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Newsom lamented, “I ask you, we’ve got to deal with this
misinformation. There were hurricane-force winds of mis- and disinformation,
lies. People want to divide this country, and — and we’re going to have to
address that as well. And it breaks my heart, as people are suffering and
struggling, that we’re up against those hurricane force — forces as well.”
The same day, Newsom taped a half-hour appearance on Pod
Save America, the podcast hosted by former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau,
where Newsom
again complained about Donald Trump spreading disinformation: “A lot of
people were misled, and it’s I think led to a lot of finger pointing and
consternation at a time when we’re quite literally — and I say literally
because seconds before I was here, I just got the latest briefing. We’re
bringing cadaver dogs out there, in some parts of the fire where people are
still potentially missing.”
Shortly after appearing on that podcast, Newsom unveiled
“California
Fire Facts,” which feels like a rerun of the 2011-era Obama playbook for “Attack Watch.”
On the site, Newsom’s staff accuses the usual suspects —
Fox News, Elon Musk, and random people on X — of lying. As you might expect,
the governor’s defenses play fast and loose with the facts.
For example, Fox News and Newsweek reported that the “2024-25 California state
budget, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law in June 2024, slashed
funding for wildfire and forest resilience by $101 million as part of a series
of cutbacks according to an analysis by the state’s Legislative Analyst’s
Office.”
Newsom insists that’s a lie, because “the number of
CalFIRE personnel has nearly doubled since 2019 (from 5,829 to 10,741) and
CalFIRE’s budget has nearly doubled since 2019 ($2 Billion to $3.8 Billion).”
But the accusation wasn’t that state spending on these
programs hadn’t increased from six years ago; the accusation was that the
state’s budget had reduced “$101 million from seven ‘wildfire and forest
resilience’ programs” from 2023-2024 budget cycle to the 2024-2025 budget
cycle. The fact that you’re spending more than six years ago doesn’t mean
you’re not spending less than you did a year ago.
Newsom hits Musk, insisting California did not
“decriminalize” looting. That’s technically true, but in 2014 California passed
Proposition 47, which reduced the crime of stealing items or
goods worth less than $950 from a felony to a misdemeanor. That law was
partially reversed by Proposition 36 in November; you may recall California
resident Kamala Harris refusing to say how she voted on that proposition. So, no,
the Golden State didn’t “decriminalize looting,” it merely minimized the
penalties for stealing amounts less than $950 for a decade.
Newsom also insists that “water reservoirs in Southern
California are at record levels.” Again, technically true for the reservoirs
that are in operation, but that glides over the fact that the 117-million-gallon water-storage complex in the heart of
the Palisades had been empty since February 2024 over a tear in the cover.
(How long could it possibly take to fix that tear?) And as laid out in Friday’s newsletter, in 2014, California voters
authorized $2.7
billion for new water-storage projects, and none of the projects will be
operational until 2027 at the earliest and 2035 at the latest.
Gavin Newsom Shouldn’t Be Where He Is
I don’t just mean that he shouldn’t be governor of
California, although I think the performance of the state government over the
last six years proved that point — repeatedly. I mean Newsom really shouldn’t
be one of the best-known figures in his party, a regular magazine cover boy, the subject of glowing profile after profile, and so frequently mentioned as a potential Democratic presidential candidate. He’s terrible at this “governing” thing, and
he’s been terrible at it for a long time.
Maybe the catastrophe of the Los Angeles County wildfires
will drive a stake in the heart of the “Newsom could be president someday” chatter. (I notice
nobody talked up Louisiana governor Kathleen “we are prepared”
Blanco as presidential timber in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.)
Way back in 2018, when Newsom was on his way to winning
the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Bretón marveled at
how Newsom kept proving immune to not just the usual rules of politics, but the
identity politics dynamics within the modern Democratic Party:
The 50-year-old lieutenant governor
and former mayor of San Francisco is the living embodiment of privilege, and
people seem to be okay with that. He has white male privilege. Class privilege.
Wealth privilege. The privilege of good looks.
If one of Newsom’s opponents – say,
former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa or State Treasurer John Chiang –
were bankrolled by one of the richest men in California for most of their
lives, as Newsom has been by oil heir Gordon Getty, they would be answering for
it every day on the campaign trail. A Mexican American guy or an Asian guy
having a rich, white sugar daddy greasing the skids for them at every critical
turn of their adult lives would be viewed with suspicion. But that is what
Newsom had with Getty.
Villaraigosa or Chiang would have
been described as puppets. They would be described as being in the pocket of
their patron. But for Newsom, Getty is portrayed as a “family friend.”
Meanwhile, Newsom has gotten to call himself an “entrepreneur” for years.
How much of an entrepreneur can you
really be when one rich guy pumps huge money into just about everything you do?
Somehow, Newsom emerged unscathed through the MeToo era,
despite being the guy who dated a woman too young to drink when he was 39 and who seduced the wife of his best
friend and campaign manager and destroyed their marriage. (You know who
Newsom’s wife turned to for advice during that whole scandal? Harvey Weinstein.)
And, as my colleague Jeff Blehar has tactfully put it, with his slicked back
hair, perfect suits, and predatory eyes, Newsom always looks like he’s unveiling
his foolproof new plan to destroy Robocop once and for all. Gordon Gekko
would tell him to take it down a notch. Patrick
Bateman would say there’s something a little off-putting about him. It’s as
if he chose
every 1990s movie villain as his personal stylist.
In November 2020, Newsom attended a fancy dinner party at the French Laundry restaurant
honoring a top political adviser, during California’s coronavirus surge and
when the governor and his administration were discouraging households from
gathering for the holidays. At the time, state government prohibited gatherings
of more than three households. Two months later, when a statewide mandate for
universal indoor masking was in place, he was seen bare faced while indoors at SoFi Stadium at the NFC
Championship game. Newsom insisted he only removed his mask for a few minutes.
Newsom wasn’t even one of the better Democratic governors when it
came to the pandemic, but somehow everyone’s forgotten his longstanding stay-at-home orders,
He’s never been good at this governing thing. Way back in 2018, I looked at Newsom’s record as mayor of
San Francisco and lieutenant governor:
In 2004, Newsom audaciously pledged
to end chronic homelessness in his city within ten years. A decade later, the San
Francisco Chronicle completed a thorough analysis and concluded that
despite $1.5 billion spent on moving 19,500 homeless people off city streets,
“the homeless population hasn’t budged.” New homeless appeared as fast as the
city could remove the previous ones.
“Plenty of San Franciscans didn’t
see their daily lives improved. The streets are still dirty and potholed,
panhandlers are still out in force, and Muni frustrations still abound,” the Chronicle
concluded in 2010, as Newsom prepared to move to the
lieutenant governor’s office.
U.S. News and World Report ranks
each state on a wide variety of categories. In the most recent assessment,
California ranked dead last in opportunity, dead last in affordability, 47th in
employment, 47th in energy infrastructure, 46th in air and water quality, 45th
in growth, 42nd in public safety, 42nd in short-term fiscal stability, and 37th
in K–12 education. The Tax Foundation ranks California 48th in its most recent
State Tax Competitiveness Index. For five straight years, California has ranked
highest in people moving out of the state, according to U-Haul’s data. BankRate found California was the 47th-best state for retirement.
California ranks fifth-worst in roads and third-worst in drivers, second-highest in accident rate, and
second-worst in drunk driving.
Why do California Democrats love this guy? As Representative Bobby Rush once said in a debate with then-state
legislator Barack Obama in 2000, “Just what’s he done? I mean, what’s he
done?”
People used to say Ronald Reagan was Teflon because
nothing stuck to him. In 2008, scientists discovered a new alloy that was even slicker and slipperier than Teflon and
shockingly, they didn’t call it “Newsomium.”
Bass Notes
Sometimes, you say a lot with what you don’t say.
Yesterday, on NBC News’s Meet the Press:
JACOB SOBOROFF: Do you have
faith in Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass?
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: I have
absolute faith in our community. I have faith in our leaders. I have the faith
of our capacity to work together.
Moments later:
KRISTEN WELKER: As
Jacob was just discussing with the Governor, there is a lot of frustration with
state and local officials. Let me ask you bluntly, Senator, do you have faith
in Governor Gavin Newsom? Do you have faith in Mayor Karen Bass?
SEN. ALEX PADILLA: Look,
I do have faith in our leaders. And not just as individuals, but especially
because we after disaster, after disaster, after disaster have gotten really
good at working together. And that’s not just the elected officials. Let me
give even more credit to the first responders, to the emergency response
personnel, police officers, firefighters. When you have federal agencies, state
agencies, county and city agencies all collaborating to work very effectively,
very efficiently, that’s how we’re able to protect lives, and save lives, and
protect properties, and respond to whether it’s fires in this particular case,
it could be atmospheric rivers and floods, and other disasters we’ve had here
in California.
That’s a yes or no question, and neither top state
official said “yes.”
This morning, the New York Times reminds readers that Bass, as a mayoral candidate, promised
that if she was elected mayor, “Not only would I of course live here, but I
also would not travel internationally — the only places I would go would be
D.C., Sacramento, San Francisco and New York, in relation to L.A.”
The Times writes:
That pledge has been spectacularly
broken.
When a cascade of deadly and
destructive wildfires erupted across the Los Angeles region on Tuesday, the
mayor was on her way home from Ghana in West Africa, where she had attended the
inauguration of a new president.
It was not her first trip abroad as
mayor. A review of her public daily schedule for the past year shows that Ms.
Bass has traveled out of the country at city expense at least four other times
in recent months before the Ghana visit — once to Mexico for the inauguration
of President Claudia Sheinbaum and three times to France for the 2024 Olympic
Games in Paris.
Just think: We came quite close to Vice President Karen
Bass. CNN, July 31, 2020:
In more than two dozen interviews
with CNN in recent days, members of Congress, top Democratic donors, Biden
allies and others close to the vice-presidential vetting process said
California Rep. Karen Bass, the 66-year-old chair of the Congressional Black
Caucus, has gained real traction in the late stage of the search.
Finally, someone desperately needs to tell Bass that when
she’s
taping messages to the city during the largest disaster in Los Angeles history,
she needs to stop smiling.
ADDENDUM: As noted last week, Mayor Bass departed Los Angeles on
Saturday and returned noon Wednesday.
How many days is that? How would you describe the length
of that trip? Four days? Four and a half days?
Here’s how the Associated Press described it: “Bass eventually made it
back to Los Angeles by military transport, but only after a more than 24-hour
absence.”
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