Gov. Gavin Newsom stopped by “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday night to promote his new book and ended up giving a mini State of the State update.
The California governor used his ABC appearance to explain to viewers just how good Californians have it, as opposed to the rest of the country, while also accusing Fox News of pushing ‘California Derangement Syndrome’ propaganda.
“Fox Derangement; it’s 24/7, the California Derangement Syndrome, through these propaganda networks focusing on what’s wrong every single day. There’s an old adage: ‘You’re nothing more than your consistent thoughts.’ Whatever you focus on, you find more of,” he said. “These networks have really honed in on California for one reason — our success runs completely contra to their entire world view. The fact that California is the fourth largest economy in the world, has more scientists, engineers, more Nobel laureates, the finest system of higher education, more venture capital than any other state in America … we got TMZ tours.”
“We have problems, but there’s an energy and daring and entrepreneurialism that defines this state. This is part of it: it’s also the most diverse state in the United States of America. Twenty-seven percent of the state is foreign-born and that offends these guys. It’s interesting,” Newsom continued. “There’s also universal healthcare, it’s $25 minimum wage for healthcare workers, $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. Yes, it has a progressive tax code, but it’s very different from the code tax systems in places like Texas and Florida that tax their lowest wage earners more than we tax our highest wage earners. The question is: ‘Who is the high tax state?’”
Kimmel made sure to poke fun when he could, but the pair also addressed the homelessness crisis that is still impacting the state.
“It’s solvable. This year we did something that we haven’t done in 15 years — that is, we saw close to double digit decline in unsheltered homeless that had not happen in the state of California. Down nine percent. That’s progress. We’re finally seeing real progress,” Newsom added. “But as a former mayor, the state of California — when I was mayor — the state was not involved in homeless policies. It completely abandoned the cities and counties, we were on our own. That’s radically changed since I’ve gotten there. We’ve taken the responsibility, accountability. We’re moving aggressively with the most significant mental health reforms and investments in U.S. history. Same with housing, focusing on encampments and we’re finally, finally all these years later seeing real progress. And at the same time, you saw this last year with the numbers nationally, it went up 18.13 percent nationally.”
The politician also teased what to expect from his memoir “Young Man in a Hurry” after growing up with a single mother and not necessarily always liking the person he became after entering politics.
“I get the whole thing. I get why people have perception about me. So this was a book to finally tell my story, it wasn’t a way of sanitizing but really scrutinizing that story as well, because I’ve played into that type. I’m not naive about it. That perception of me was aided and abetted by mistakes I made, but also, tried to be a little defensive about it as well,” Newsom admitted. “What this book allowed me to do — I call it a memoir of discovery — is let all that go. I put a lot of masks on when I grew up, I tried to be someone; strike a pose.
“Some of them that, frankly, at times I wasn’t particularly proud of and my face was growing into that mask a little bit,” he continued. “Right now, I’m sort of unmasking that and allowing the good and the bad, and reflect on that history and the past in the present to become something more and better. It’s not a typical politician’s book.”
Check out Newsom’s entire extended interview with Kimmel in the video, above.
