“Shark Tank” star, entrepreneur, and investor Kevin O’Leary pulled no punches when sounding off on the state of California in a recent interview, noting that a series of horrible policies led to the demise of San Francisco, a once-great and formerly bustling city that now is much more reminiscent of a “wasteland” than a successful city.
Particularly, he commented, when speaking during a Monday, June 24, interview on “Cavuto: Coast to Coast.” on how the absolutely awful leadership of the California government, headed as it is by Gavin Newsom, led to this point. This isn’t the first time O’Leary has spoken on the matter. He recently made similar comments on how Newsom’s policies are destroying the state.
Speaking about the state of San Francisco in the interview with Cavuto, O’Leary argued that it’s so bad that now it doesn’t even seem like America. He said, “Walk around San Francisco. It is not America anymore. It just isn’t.” Continuing, he explained how a mix of terrible taxes, an insane legal system, and generally bad policies have led to this point.
“What a wasteland. All of these places shutting down. It is not a partisan argument. When a Walgreens shuts down and a drug store shuts down and a convenience store shuts down, a bodega shuts down, that’s nothing to do with whether you’re blue or red,” O’Leary explained, noting that the city is shutting down and falling apart.
Continuing, he stressed that because the city has gotten so bad and unliveable, namely with out-of-control crime, that now normal people won’t want to travel to or live there, further leading got its decline. He said, “Don’t listen to me. Go try it out. You wouldn’t run a convention in San Francisco. You have to take an Uber one block to your hotel, or you get executed.”
He then explained how the new minimum wage law is a disaster, saying, “It’s a mistake, it’s a Gavin Newsom mistake.” “It’s not just fast food and convenient dining that’s shutting down because they’re unprofitable at $20 a minimum wage. Lots of other businesses are leaving that state,” he continued, noting that businesses are shutting down or leaving rather than deal with the various bad policies of the state.
Watch him here:
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Speaking recently about the terrible policies of Gavin Newsom, O’Leary said, “It’s a triple whammy. You have people’s preferences and how they dine after the pandemic has changed dramatically. They don’t go out as much… Then you have inflation itself.” Continuing, he said, “But also you’ve got policy mistakes. I’m here in California shooting season 16 of ‘Shark Tank.’ The casual dining sector in this state has been decimated by a policy mistake on minimum wage. They’re shutting down left and right.”
He added, “Gavin Newsom made a huge mistake. I think he knows that now, he’s turning this state into a sort of version of Venezuela.” He then explained, “And it’s just killing business, not only in restaurants, but in everything. There’s all kinds of capital leaving here for more competitive states.” And, commenting again on Newsom, he said, “Listen, I’ve met him. He’s a nice guy, but I can’t be more critical of his policies. He’s a bad manager. He’s decimated this place. I’ve been coming here for 15 years, this is a shell of what it used to be.”
Watch that here: