Donald Trump made it clear he was not a fan of Gavin Newsom, blasting the California politician as a “horrible governor” in a new interview.
The president laid into California’s governor during Monday’s Fox News sit-down with Laura Ingraham, where he was asked to respond to Newsom’s criticism of the recent government shutdown compromise.
After showing a clip of the governor accusing Democrat senators of rolling over and playing by the “old set of rules” to bring the government shut down to an end, Trump accused Newsom of going “radical left” with his beliefs.
“I knew Gavin for four years. I got along great with him. But he’s gone radical left,” Trump said. “You know, he’s building a train system from San Francisco to L.A. that’s got about a 2,000 or 3,000% cost overrun. It’s the worst thing I’ve [ever seen]. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
As Trump went on, he criticized Newsom’s response to the wildfires that ravaged Southern California earlier this year.
“They lost 25,000 houses. Do you know they haven’t issued one building permit yet? These people are trying to rebuild their houses,” Trump claimed. However, per the Rebuilding LA website run by the California government, more 984 permits have been issued in the City of Los Angeles and 780 permits have been issued in the greater County of Los Angeles.
He continued: “He did something even worse than that. He’s now taking a big section of [Pacific] Palisades or some area and he’s going to build low-income housing where they used to have luxury housing … his fire stuff is out of control.”
While Trump noted that he “always liked [Newsom],” he slammed the California Democrat as “a horrible governor.”
“If he ran the country like that, we would have an absolutely gonezo country,” Trump added. “This country would be gone. The fact is, if I weren’t president, if Kamala [Harris] got in, you wouldn’t have $20 trillion coming in, you’d have money leaving.”
At this point, Trump transitioned away from his criticism of Newsom and focused on the country’s welfare system, including SNAP benefits.
“SNAP is supposed to be if you are down and out,” he lamented. “That’s what the purpose of it — people walk in and they get it automatically now. So, the number is many times what it should be.”
Watch more from Trump’s interview with Ingraham above.
