California Governor Gavin Newsom has recently faced intense criticism after an interview in which he appeared to deflect the blame for ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles that have devastated the region. Newsom seemingly blamed local leaders under him for not giving him clear answers. However, some online have argued that a leader must accept responsibility for everything that occurs under his watch.
During his appearance on the Pod Save American podcast, the host pointed out that Newsom is the highest authority in the state, noting, “What happens in LA isn’t always going to come across your desk, but also the ultimate…you know you’re ultimately responsible. ” The governor responded, maintaining, “I want to know the answers.”
Emphasizing this, he added, “So I’m the governor of California and I want to know the answer.” From there Newsom acknowledged that people are constantly coming to his team and asking questions to get to the bottom of the crisis. However, he complained that the information he has received has been inconsistent. “I’ll be candid with you, I wasn’t getting straight answers,” he said.
Newsom continued, “I watched the press conference. I met with some of those leaders. We had my team start talking to local leaders.” However, the governor claimed that local leaders were not providing straight answers to his team. “I was getting different answers,” he said. “And so for me .. when you start getting different answers, and I’m not getting the actual story.”
“They’re assessing and then I get that as well, you have to have a little bit of grace, back to the point when this emergency environment,” he added. Newsom then criticized the hostility that has been directed at him, as many have called out the governor’s leadership for being a contributing factor to the fires. Directly calling out Trump, Newsom maintained that they had to first determine the facts before conclusions could be drawn.
“I just want to determine the facts, but no one has any patience anymore in this weaponized … back to the grievance of Trump, everyone else. There’s immediacy and lies travel the proverbial world and it’s hard to get the facts out there unless you have the back backing of those facts and you can communicate them soberly and so that’s what we’re trying to achieve,” he added.
However, many on social media have called out Newsom, claiming he refuses to take ownership of the fires. “That podcast appearance by Gavin Newsom will go down as one of the worst political decisions of his career. Sort of like Biden agreeing to the June 27 debate and ending his candidacy. Gavin seemed smug and glib, deflecting blame and taking no accountability for his failures,” political commentator Link Lauren posted on X.
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Conservative X account Western Lensman similarly wrote, “Nero Newsom is spending his time doing podcasts to spin his culpability for the LA fires — throws LA authorities under the bus, then attacks Trump.” He added, “Newsom is much more focused on desperate attempts to avoid blame, salvage his political career and attacking Trump than he is the lives of the citizens of his state.”
Watch Newsom below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.