Gavin Newsom lashes out at ‘California delusions’ as he brags about a ‘weird, wild, free-spirited’ state that produced Metallica, Kendrick Lamar, blue jeans and Barbie – but there’s a big problem with his speech

Gavin Newsom tried to stand up for debt-ridden but still “weird, wild, free-spirited” California in his State of the State address.

Newsom – who will head straight to Atlanta for the first debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump to act as a media surrogate for the 81-year-old president – used the speech to boost Biden.

He denounced the “deceptive California bashers” and compared Donald Trump’s version of the Republican Party to the rise of fascism before World War II, offering the Democrats’ ideals as “an antidote to the right’s toxic populism.”

Newsom defended the Golden State as a place where anyone from Ronald Reagan to Jerry Brown can be elected, where musicians like Metallica and Kendrick Lamar come from and where even hit movies like Barbie are inspired.

However, the speech was seen as a departure for some because it was not live, as Newsom filmed it before sending it to people via social media.

Newsom chose to deliver a speech about the smartphone age, rather than giving a formal address to a packed room of state lawmakers.

The Democratic governor, now in his second term, has never been a big fan of formal speeches, given the difficulty with his dyslexia gives him while reading from a teleprompter in live time.

Last year, Nieuwsom skipped the speech entirelyinstead, he embarked on a statewide tour to announce a series of major policy proposals in a more informal setting that allowed questions from reporters.

Republicans criticized Newsom for not making a public speech, and held their own personal rebuttal on the Capitol steps about an hour after Newsom’s speech began on social media.

James Gallagher, the Republican leader of the state Assembly, called Newsom “defensive” and “unhinged.”

“Sitting here and talking about venture capitalists when the majority of Californians are struggling is tone deaf to me,” Gallagher said. “It didn’t really address the issues facing Californians.”

The California Constitution requires the governor to update the legislature each year “as the state may require.”

Before World War II, California governors did this by sending a letter to the legislature.

That changed when Governor Earl Warren – the future Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court – decided to make a formal address to the legislature.

Nowhere in Newsom’s speech – which was pre-recorded and posted online on his social media channels, in a departure from decades of tradition — he mentioned Trump or Biden by name.

But he used some of Trump’s most incendiary statements to provide a dark contrast between the choice Americans faced in November, comparing it to the eve of World War II, when “fascism unleashed its hatred and destruction.” spread throughout Europe’.

“When they talk about immigrants poisoning the American blood, and about mass deportations and detention camps, that is the language of destruction – of 1939,” Newsom said.

Trump later made these comments about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” at a campaign rally in Iowa last year say he didn’t know that Adolf Hitler had once said something similar.

Still, the comments have become a major talking point for the left as they portray Trump’s candidacy as a warning of a dark future.

The political tone of Newsom’s speech was not surprising given his role as one of the Biden campaign’s top surrogates, which has made him a target of Republicans who have repeatedly cited California as an example of Democrats’ mismanagement.

They have pointed to the state’s $46.8 billion budget deficit, high tax rates, large homeless populations and the proliferation of property crimes in its largest cities — acts captured in viral clips on social media.

Much of Newsom’s speech was devoted to pushing back against that narrative, referring to “deceitful California bashers” whose “success depends on our failure.”

He noted that California’s violent crime rate is about half of what it was at its peak in 1992.

Newsom said property crime has dropped in San Francisco, as has the overall crime rate across the Bay from Oakland, where Newsom recently deployed 120 California Highway Patrol officers.

“This is because in California we take public safety seriously. We look at it as a problem that needs to be solved, not just to distribute cable news,” he said.

“While it’s true that California has one of the toughest thresholds for felony theft in the country, we will do more to crack down on professional theft.”

On homelessness, Newsom pointed to the more active role the state has taken under his administration, including spending billions of dollars to create programs that provided 15,300 homes and housed more than 71,000 people.

But one state control who was released earlier this year, chided his government for failing to track how effective state spending on homelessness – more than $24 billion over five years – has been.

He’s also still reeling from Californians leaving the state in droves, citing high costs of living and poor quality of life as driving factors.

The reasons behind California’s population decline are largely due to the decline in migration due to international travel restrictions and a large number of people taking advantage of the pandemic to move to a state with more affordable housing.

But others have cited more personal reasons for leaving, including their politics, safety concerns and what California is notorious for: traffic.

Newsom defended his decision to sign a bill raising the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 an hour, an increase that companies blame for rising customer costs.

And he boasted about California’s economy, which, if it were an independent country, would be the fifth largest in the world. He said California has added 63,000 new millionaires since 2019.

“Here’s a simple question for Republicans: If California is a failed state, why are four of the seven most valuable companies in the world based here?” he said, referring to Apple, Nvidiaand the parent companies of Google and Facebook.

“The best minds in the world call California home because they are freed from the constraints of conformity and tradition. This is true freedom: inventing the world and making it a better place.”

Newsom’s speech comes a few weeks after a national poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found that 59% of likely voters think California is heading in the wrong direction, while 52% disagree with the way Newsom is doing his job as governor performs.

The survey was based on responses from 1,098 likely voters with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.