CHUCK DEVORE: When Newsom’s Lips Move On California Crime And Homelessness, You Know He’s Lying

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has perfected the art of political theater — all slick hair, smooth talking points, and statistics deployed like confetti to distract from the mess on the ground. On crime and homelessness, he’s turned spin into a full-time job. In part two of our look at Shawn Ryan’s marathon mid-July podcast with Newsom, we break down how the governor’s blizzard of half-truths left Ryan snowed under and the real story buried.  

In the second installment breaking apart Shawn Ryan’s massive mid-July podcast interview of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, we’ll look at Newsom’s claims on crime and homelessness in California.

Newsom deployed facts like a smokescreen, void of context, leaving Ryan unable to challenge him.

Newsom began by boasting that California’s $950 felony theft threshold is the 10th-toughest in the nation, while Texas’s felony theft threshold for crimes like shoplifting is $2,500, “the weakest in the country” Newsom crowed.

But Newsom’s claim wasn’t the own he tried to say it was.

Why? Simply this: Texas prosecutes shoplifters. A person shoplifting $100 to less than $750 in goods in Texas will be charged with a Class B Misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail and $2,000 in fines as well as restitution. Stealing $750 to $2,500 of goods in Texas will get you a Class A Misdemeanor, up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

In California, almost no one was charged for lifting less than $950 through 2024.

In fact, things got so bad that a ballot initiative, backed by large retailers, was put on the ballot. Prop. 36 was opposed by leftwing criminal justice advocates who fretted that cracking down on crime would harm minority communities.

Because the voting public was fed up with crime, and polling indicated they were inclined to approve the tough-on-crime initiative, Democrats were moved to action and drafted a series of bills to head off the tough-on-crime ballot initiative. But negotiations broke down, and Californians