Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom hosts a podcast. Why not? He has plenty of free time.
In the last few years, California experienced a net population loss of nearly 1 million people. The average price of a home in the state is twice that of the national average. Its K-12 test scores in reading and math place California 37th of 50 states. The state’s January 2025 unemployment rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was the second highest in the nation.
As for California’s poverty rate, CalMatters, a respected, California-based nonprofit news organization, wrote: “The Public Policy Institute of California, using a methodology similar to that of the Census Bureau, calculated that in 2023, 31.1% of Californians were either at or near poverty. Deep poverty, defined as ‘families with less than half of the resources to meet basic needs,’ was at 3.4%.” (California’s homeless population, at an estimated 187,000, is the nation’s largest.)
In a separate report, CalMatters wrote, “Nearly a quarter of all unhoused Americans live in California — as well as 28% of all homeless veterans and 44% of all ‘chronically homeless’ Americans (people who have a disability and have been homeless for a significant period of time.)”
As to violent crime, the Ventura Star in October 2024 wrote: “After achieving a 50-year low of 391 incidents (per 100,000 residents) in 2014, California’s violent crime rate started to increase in 2015 and has been trending upward, with increases in seven of the past ten years. The 2023 rate is 15.4% higher than 2019, pre-pandemic. … While homicide and aggravated assaults are down since the pandemic surge, they are still higher than pre-pandemic levels.”
The state budget is a mess. In 2022, Newsom asserted, without documentation, the state had a budget surplus of $100 billion: “No other state in American history has ever experienced a surplus as large as this.”
So, the supermajority Democrat-dominated Legislature proceeded to spend accordingly. CalMatters wrote, “Two years later, buried in its fine print, the deficit-ridden 2024-25 budget acknowledged that sales taxes and personal and corporate income tax revenues would fall well short of the $200 billion a year projection, estimating a $165.1 billion shortfall over four years.”
Newsom invited to his inaugural podcast conservative Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA. They discussed the term “Latinx,” the supposedly “inclusive” term to describe Hispanics. According to Pew Research, of Hispanics familiar with the word, 75% do not think it should be used.
Newsom: “By the way, not one person ever in my office has ever used the word Latinx.”
Kirk: “So can we finally put that to bed? Yeah, what the hell? Where did that even go? No more Latinx, everybody.”
Newsom: “I just didn’t even know where it came from. I’m like, ‘What are people talking about?’”
But CNN and other outlets showed clips of Newsom repeatedly using the word, including when he implied Republicans were racist for rejecting the word.
Here’s more gaslighting. Newsom, dismissing complaints of massive job loss, signed a bill increasing the minimum wage for fast-food workers from $16 to $20 an hour, effective April 2024. Months later, his office issued the following statement: “California has added jobs in limited service restaurants (fast food) both since Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 1228 the FAST Recovery Act in September 2023 and since the law’s new $20 minimum wage for fast food workers took effect April 1, 2024.”
Don’t tell the BLS. It found that California has lost nearly 16,000 fast-food jobs since the bill was signed.
In December 2024, the California Globe wrote: “While many stores let only a few employees go, others had more drastic numbers. Pizza Hut alone laid off 1,200 delivery drivers due to the higher costs. Others, including Round Table Pizza, did the same, pushing delivery duties onto services like DoorDash and Uber Eats.” Fast-food prices increased by an average of nearly 15%.
Voters in November 2024 had a chance to vote for a hike in the minimum wage for the rest of California workers. For the first time in history, California voters nixed a measure to increase the minimum wage. Newsom ignored the massive damage his wage hike did to fast-food worker employment, but California voters did not.
Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on X @larryelder. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
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