California Gov. Gavin Newsom resurfaced Tuesday after two weeks out of the public eye, saying he skipped the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Scotland to go trick-or-treating with his family — and work on pressing state issues.
The last time Newsom communicated with the public was Oct. 27, when he flexed his muscles after receiving a COVID vaccine booster shot. His absence led to speculation by some he possibly suffered an adverse reaction to the vaccine.
Get your booster. pic.twitter.com/xuvX5X6HZu
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) October 27, 2021
But he reemerged Tuesday to talk about the phenomenal economic recovery of California following a year of lockdowns and subsequent exodus so massive the state lost a House seat.
WHERE IS NEWSOM? CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR MIA FOR TWO WEEKS
“I’ve been on this damn treadmill … crisis to crisis. Wildfires, COVID, the recall,” Newsom said. “I signed up to go to Europe, I was ready to go, and I had this dinner, and the kids had an intervention. They couldn’t believe I was going to miss Halloween.”
Newsom said Halloween is more significant for his children than Christmas, and he woke up the next morning “with a knot in my stomach.” That’s when he canceled the trip and went trick-or-treating dressed up as a pirate instead. He also took his children to his office for a week at the Capitol.
“We would all do well taking some time away from social media,” Newsom said.
Newsom’s remarks were part of the California Economic Summit produced by California Forward, a group aiming to “improve government and create inclusive, sustainable growth.”
During the 45-minute question and answer session, Newsom promoted California’s economic recovery numbers and frequently criticized red states, such as Texas and Florida, for coming up short.
“Eat your heart out Texas, and especially Florida,” he said.
He said people who try to “trip California up and identify areas of weakness” don’t realize the state dominates the nation in household income, the number of factory jobs, and imports and exports. At one point, he made a dig at Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk for taking the car company to Texas while bemoaning the unaffordability of California.
“There’s some company that left California,” Newsom said without naming Musk. “He didn’t take one job, in fact, but doubled down on investing in more jobs … They opened a new factory down in Southern California, about 1,000 new jobs, new R&D investments.”
Newsom also touched on the environment, blaming the massive wildfires that decimated the towns of Paradise and Greenville on climate change.
“We’re heating up, we’re choking up, we’re burning up as a state,” he said.
However, climate change has little to do with the wildfires caused by millions of dead trees littering the forests. A 2017 U.S. Forest Service press release warned that California forest mismanagement has left 129 million dead trees, posing “a hazard to people and critical infrastructure.”
Newsom closed his talk on a personal note, addressing the booster shot many speculated had felled the Golden State’s controversial governor.
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“Get that booster shot. It’s safe, it will save your life,” he said. “Literally, the flu shot is what I’m a little sore [from in my arm], not the booster shot.”
