Fox News has been suffering dwindling ratings, not helped by the dwindling appeal of the Republican Party. Sean Hannity, hoping to score some points as a heavy hitter, decided to bring on California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
For the interview, Newsom stipulated that he would be allowed to answer questions without being interrupted. Big mistake for Hannity, who has spent such a long time inside of his MAGA bubble his brain believes the weak-sauce arguments he makes every night.
I’ve cut the interview down to about five minutes of highlights that, to be honest, mostly cut out Hannity’s repetitive responses to data and questions he cannot answer. It is important to understand, regardless of your feelings about Newsom regarding progressive politics, that he’s intellectually so far beyond people like Hannity and so much more articulate than your run-of-the-mill monosyllabic Fox hosts that this policy discussion was a reminder that Democrats have policies and Republicans have nothing.
Hannity began by trying to cast Newsom as weak on border security and immigration, and California as a liberal state overrun by undocumented immigrants. Newsom responded that the Democratic Party believes governance doesn’t mean unsecure borders, it means comprehensive immigration policy ideas that must be done “in a rational way and not just bastardize the conversation as exclusively about the border.” Hannity added the tax and spend conservative talking point that California projects to spend $2.7 billion to expand health coverage for people who “don’t have satisfactory immigration status.” Newsom pointed out the money spent on “uncompensated care when people end up in the emergency room” is far more than the investment being made now to insure people have health care.
Hannity relentlessly asked Newsom if he thought Joe Biden was “competent” to be president. Conservatives say Joe Biden is both senile and also the mastermind communist revolutionary grooming your children to become drag queen storytellers. Newsom said he’s a fan of Biden and rooting for Biden to continue to accomplish progressive things for the country.
Hannity pivoted, saying Biden was a failure, bringing up inflation and a million Republican talking points framed as assertions with zero supporting facts. Newsom stopped Hannity and broke down Biden’s record job growth, saying, “Your president, Donald Trump, lost 2.6 million jobs during his four years. We've created 13.1.” Newsom shoos away Hannity’s attempts to argue that all of these jobs are “COVID jobs,” reminding Hannity of the data: “How about the fact that Joe Biden's created more jobs, six times more jobs, than the previous three Republican presidents?”
It’s a wild ride with Hannity making a retreat to inflation, which Newsom reminds him is a “global” phenomenon, not helped by the COVID pandemic Hannity was just arguing created all of the jobs. Newsom then tied it all into a beautiful bow when Hannity retreated even further, asking whether “Biden is strong enough” to be president. Newsom responded, “Look what he just did to McCarthy? He ran circles around him.”
Yeeeeeeeowch.
Hannity’s sad finale is an attempt to tie in the small percentage of people who left California and the big businesses like Tesla who moved their headquarters out of the Golden State by comparing Florida and Texas’ low tax rates versus California’s higher tax rate. Newsom is annoyed because Hannity is dishing out the most oversimplified, undercooked argument Newsom has heard since forever, and he takes Hannity to pieces:
“Here's what you're promoting. You're promoting regressive tax policy. We don't believe in regressive tax policy. You're promoting one component of an entire tax system—the 1%. With all due respect, you and I may pay the 1%. The vast majority of people watching don’t. You pay more taxes in states like Texas for the middle class than you do in states like California, right now. The American people don't know this. We have the highest tax rate for the 1%. But middle class families actually pay less than the majority of states in America, in California. So who are you for? So who are you fighting for?
You're omitting the fact that the vast majority of people do not live in the 1%. You're talking about the 1% tax. But I'm talking about the American people who don't live there.”
Newsom finishes Hannity off by breaking down the myth of the big business headquarters.
“This state economy has outperformed the nation 3.1% in the last decade, 2.1% nationwide. I've been hearing this nonsense for half a century. Literally half a century. But they've always enlightened us in recent years. Create how many have we created? How many new IPOs, how many new opportunities, how many jobs were taken out of the state of California when Tesla moved its headquarters? You don't know that because it was insignificant.”
Enjoy.
Donald Trump is facing even more legal jeopardy and the sharks in the Republican Party seem to sense there is some blood in the water. Chris Christie has made his campaign all about going directly at Trump, and Ron DeSantis seems to be closer and closer to becoming completely isolated from the field.
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