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“It’s time for the president of the United State to act like the president of the United States, all the United States,” proclaimed Gavin Newsom bluntly today in his last State of the State speech as California’s Governor.
As he has frequently over the past months, Newsom Thursday was lambasting the grudge baring and partisan Donald Trump for holding back millions and millions on much needed wildfire relief funding a year after thousands in LA. lost their homes and businesses, and over 30 people lost their lives.
“It’s time for the president of the United State to do his job, not turn his back on Americans that happen to live in the great state of California,” the Governor added with a raised voice and tone near the end of his one-hour speech in Sacramento.
In that, hitting a topic that he hopes resonates in the Golden State and elsewhere, the Democrat contrasted California’s efforts in wildfire relief to that of Trump and “his complete failure to act.” Having already admitted the open secret that he is weighing a 2028 White House bid that many consider underway, Newsom declared that Trump believes in a very bleak and harsh America. I
In Thursday’s speech,, the Governor distinctly portrayed a Project 2025 fueled federal government where “courts are simply speed bumps, not stop signs, that democracy is a nuisance to be circumvented, secret police, businesses being raided, windows smashed, citizens detained, citizens shot masked men snatching people in broad daylight, people disappearing, using American cities as training grounds for the United States military.”
“In Washington, the President believes that might makes right,” Newsom said in words that hang heavier than usual this week.
Before Newsom’s final State of the State speech of his two-term stint running the world’s fourth largest economy, the Legislature took a moment of silent for the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis on January 7. The poet and widowed mother of a young child was fatally shot in the face yesterday in her car, which appeared to be trying to leave the scene of an immigration round-up by masked men. The moment before Newsom spoke today was also dedicated to the thousands of immigrants, and some US citizens, who have been apprehended, abducted, detained and deported by the Trump administration over the past year.
If there was any ambiguity on a day when Trump and his MAGA administration continued to blame the dead victim not the shooter, pulled funding from vital programs and healthcare, as well as exiting international bodies, the POTUS trolling and mocking Newsom sternly characterized Trump’s second term as “purposeful chaos emulating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Of course, it wasn’t all crowd pleasing Trump bashing for Newsom Thursday. With little mention of his strongly approved and now lawsuit fighting Prop 50 redistricting move to counter the GOP in other states for this year’s midterms, here was some other showbiz on offer as well.
Citing the state’s “first round draft choices” from “writers in Hollywood” to inventiveness and blue-collar workers, Newsom covered a laundry list of ambitions and achievements, as such speeches often do. “California’s success is not by chance — it’s by design.”
However, specific to Tinseltown, where he has a legion of deep pocket donors primeds for a 2028 race, Newsom praised legislators for voting last year to “double down on our Film and TV tax credit programs” from $330 million a year to $750 million with increased eligibility and applications. “It’s a point of pride and that program is working and producing real results because of your leadership,” the Governor noted on the eve of submitting his final state budget, spotlighting “unionized camera operators, stunt performers, wardrobe and set designers.”
Later, in an aside of sorts about the crisis among men, there was an Oprah name check too. The talk show legend and consistent Democratic supporter bought a documentary decades ago from now First Partner Jennifer Newsom’s documentary on the subject
Speaking in the State Capitol and using the phrase “point of pride” over and over with the occasionally folksy “y’all,” Newsom addressed education, crime, affordability, the manosphere and rising suicide rates, homelessness and the tragedy and aftermath of last year’s horrific wildfires. Expressing “gratitude,” to friends and political foes alike, the ex-San Francisco Mayor and presumed 2028 POTUS candidate was at times introspective and open about the challenges his dyslexia bring in such formal settings as today.
As he has frequently in the last year on big occasions, Newsom’s SoS speech sounded a lot like a successful candidate making either a stump speech or a primetime nomination acceptance speech. Scripted for a national and even international audience, today’s rhetoric also played directly to getting under the skin of an audience of one presently in the White House.
Characterizing Trump, and likely also his cruel Santa Monica-raised Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, as pitching “some twisted nostalgia about restoring the dynamics of a of a bygone era,” Newsom stated that “none of this is normal, and it’s important to remember it moments like this.”
Emotionally, the polished Newsom came to the last part of his remarks looking at the mass destruction of the Palisade and Eaton Fires a year ago this week, and more “It’s always difficult sometimes to talk about this,” he said of the insurance and clean up measures the state has introduced and how more needs to be done with “a new rebuilding fund.” Newsom, along with California’s two Senators, had spent most of Wednesday in LA with fire survivors and first responders on the anniversary of the raging storm that destroyed so much for so many.
“The greatest tragedy is not, as (Martin Luther) King said, the clamor of bad people, but it’s the appalling silence of so many good people,” Newsom insisted.
Sounds a lot like a how a candidate launching a bid for higher office would speak, not a term-limited politician getting anywhere near ready to exit the spotlight.
English (US) ·