Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger left the governor’s mansion more than 12 years ago… but that didn’t stop current Gov. Gavin Newsom from blaming homelessness on his predecessor.
“I’ve been here four years,” Newsom said on a video clip released by Fox News on Monday. “I can’t make up for the fact, in 2005, we had a historic number of homeless under a Republican administration.”
Newsom took office in 2019. Before that, Democrat Gov. Jerry Brown was running the state from 2011 to 2019, with Newsom as his lieutenant governor.
On June 13 of 2005, Schwarzenegger had been governor for only 18 months.
Newsom blamed local leaders, after blaming Schwarzenegger.
“The state has not made progress in the last two decades as it relates to homelessness,” Newsom said. “Because housing costs are too high. Our regulatory thickets are too problematic. Localism has been too impactful, meaning people locally are pushing back against new housing starts and construction.”
At the time, Newsom was speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Monday’s interview had plenty of confrontation, with Hannity and Newsom often talking over each other. Hannity noted California lost population for the first time in its history as a state while Newsom was in office, offering that as evidence that the policies of Newsom and his fellow Democrats have failed. That includes California’s income taxes, with a top rate of 13.3% that is the highest in the nation.
Newsom pushed back that only the wealthy pay that 13.3% income tax rate. He said that top tax rate was established before he was governor, emphasizing that he has opposed new tax increases on the wealthy, including campaigning against a proposal on the 2022 ballot.
The governor also attributed the California exodus tends to come from quality-of-life issues like housing costs, not tax policy.
GOP strategists pointed out that this doesn’t excuse the Newsom administration.
Take a look —
Leave it to Gavin Newsom to declare "we own this" about a 10x increase in homelessness over the past 15 years by blaming…Arnold Schwarzenegger?
"I've been here four years. I can't make up for the fact that in 2005 we had a historic number of homeless under a Republican" https://t.co/uCS7YcChEr
— Corey Uhden (@CACoreyU) June 12, 2023
Fox News said Monday was Newsom’s first interview on the network since 2010, back when Newsom was the mayor of San Francisco.
Since then, Newsom has often joined the chorus of criticism against the conservative news outlet from Democrats who object to its coverage of gun control and how some of the network’s hosts have embraced former President Donald Trump.
Last year, Newsom conceded that Republicans were “winning right now” in part because he said Democrats were too timid, giving conservatives the most compelling narrative over the airwaves. He has since opted for a more confrontational style — which includes Fox News. Newsom has said he is a regular viewer of the network. Last year, his campaign paid for an ad on Fox News in Florida and urging residents there to “join us in California.”
“We need more of these kinds of conversations, and we need to not just accuse each other of misleading the American people, but I think confront each other in the context of providing opportunities to address some of the facts that are often omitted in terms of the conversations and topics we choose to pick up,” Newsom said.
While the interview took up the full hour of Hannity’s show on Monday, the two men still had more to talk about. Hannity said the rest of the interview will air later this week.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.