Responses on social media were scathing:
Newsom has claimed, in his defense, that he did, in fact, pre-deploy resources to the fire-stricken areas of the state in January — but that is not entirely true. Although he deployed some resources ahead of the extreme wind event in Southern California, both state and local authorities failed to pre-deploy firefighting resources in the Pacific Palisades, including on state land where there had been a fire just a few days before.
Newsom has a habit of ignoring disasters in his own state, sometimes leaving the state altogether. As Breitbart News noted in March 2023:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) reportedly left the state during the blizzard emergency for a personal trip to Baja California, according to a spokesperson …
Newsom belatedly declared a state of emergency last Wednesday, as Breitbart News reported — a week after the storms swept the state, trapping thousands of residents and visitors in California’s mountain communities.
He then left California, apparently on Thursday, before returning around midday on Sunday. He later claimed to have been working “today” on Sunday, though a photo of his watch showed him working during the evening.
While Newsom was away, communities continued to struggle with shortages of food, fuel, and medicine. The California National Guard troops that Newsom had mobilized failed to reach several mountain communities.
Newsom has drawn criticism for previous vacations. In 2022, Newsom vacationed in Montana despite a state ban on travel to socially conservative jurisdictions; he used state-provided security in defiance of the state ban.
In 2021, Newsom extended California’s state of emergency for coronavirus, then spent Thanksgiving at a villa in Cabo San Lucas that he had rented from a Russian oligarch who had previously pleaded guilty to tax fraud.
In 2020, Newsom dined with lobbyists at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley after telling Californians not to go to restaurants during the coronavirus pandemic. That triggered a failed recall effort.
More recently, Newsom left California despite ongoing wildfires to explore a presidential run in South Carolina.
California has no expertise with hurricanes; however, Puerto Rico plays an important role in the presidential nominating process, and there are also Puerto Rican voters in other states Newsom hopes to win as he plans his certain campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2028.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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