Due to taping Friday’s show earlier in the week, the hosts of The View today didn’t get to talk about the violence in Minneapolis and all over the country, on today’s show. Instead, they spent most of the show talking with California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom, offering only one really critical question about how he is handling his state’s COVID-19 response. He was however, invited to bash President Trump and Republicans in Congress, multiple times during the lengthy interview.
Whoopi welcomed Newsom to the show by showering praise on the Democrat and offering him sympathy for having to deal with conflicts with the Trump administration:
“California Governor Gavin Newsom was way ahead of the curve by being the first official to lock down his state as if he doesn't have enough to worry about or handle right now, he's also dealing with accusations from the White House, and lawsuits from the GOP and warnings from the Department of Justice, Oh, my,” Whoopi gushed before adding, “You’ve done an amazing job in California.”
While heaping praise on Newsom, the co-hosts gave him ample opportunities to trash Trump.
Behar asked Newsom to comment on Trump getting “fact-checked” by Twitter about the CA governor sending mail-in-ballots to illegal immigrants this election: "How are you going to fight back and make sure that Americans can vote safely in November? It's crucial!” she urged.
Later Behar again pitted Newsom against Republicans in getting more federal aid:
So unemployment in California according to your own numbers, is at a staggering 20% which is even higher than the national. which is your estimate which is even higher than the national rate. You warned our first responders will be the first ones laid off if you can't get federal aid from the government. Now congress is at a standstill over yet another stimulus package, and Mitch McConnell is in no rush. He says he'll get to the bill next month or so. Where does that leave you?
Sunny Hostin also egged him to complain with her about Trump ordering governors to reopen churches:
Governor, you know, houses of worship are among places you did allow to reopen this week, but just days after -- just days after that, the president threatened to override any governor who kept them closed. But there has been at least two recent outbreaks tied to in-person church services in your state. One exposed up to 180 people. So why now? Did the mounting pressure from the president affect your decision and the Department of Justice also?
Yes, governor. So I don't think anyone in this country wants to see our first responders laid off, but many conservatives are taking issue with the fact that you're threatening to cut funding for them while giving $75 million in aid to undocumented immigrants. What would you say to your critics?
Newsom lamely justified this decision by saying that the "undocumented" were “on the front lines” and didn’t get federal stimulus aid, so he had to step in to give them aid. Which begs the question, if that was the concern, then why would you not just put money directly into aid for first responders?
The only other semi-critical question came from Sunny Hostin who asked what Newsom was doing to address the “troubling” downturn of calls to domestic violence hotlines in his state.
While the hosts didn’t veer into fawning territory too much, the mostly neutral questions from the hosts and opportunities to bash President Trump is a pattern Democrat politicians can expect if they go on The View.
The View5/29/20WHOOPI: California governor Gavin Newsom was way ahead of the curve by being the first official to lock down his state as if he doesn't have enough to worry about or handle right now, he's also dealing with accusations from the white house, and lawsuits from the GOP and warnings from the Department of justice. Oh, my, you know, it just goes on and on, but please welcome back Governor Gavin Newsom. It's so insane. It's just so insane. All you can do is laugh, and we have had so much grimness this week. 100,000 deaths in the country. We know the virus isn't going away any time soon. I want -- I would love to know what you think we can do to take solace right now in where we are at. Things have gotten a bit better. You've done an amazing job in California. My family lives there. So what are you taking solace in?
NEWSOM: I think just a deeper understanding of a novel virus, but also we're deeply humbled by what we don't know, and I think that's a frame of reference all of us have to bring in to this next phase as we start to reopen our economy to recognize that we are walking in, venturing in to the unknown, the untested, and we have to be open to argument, interested in evidence. We can't be ideological about how we conduct ourselves, but fundamentally as a nation, certainly as a state, California, we are more prepared than we were certainly eight weeks ago, more capable and more confident in our capacity to get through this and recover and thrive once again.
JOY BEHAR: Governor, Trump is in a feud with Twitter because they finally fact-checked a couple of his tweets where he made false claims about voter fraud and attacked you specifically for your plan to send mail-in ballots to California voters, but Trump's not the only one pushing this. The Republican party is suing you over your plan and called it illegal, and an illegal power grab. How are you going to fight back and make sure that Americans can vote safely in November? It's crucial.
NEWSOM: Yeah. Let me contextualize because it goes to Whoopi's point as well. We're involved with over 70 lawsuits with the Trump administration including filing a lawsuit yesterday on a foundational issue related to low carbon green growth in our climate policies here in the state of California and their efforts to roll them back, the administration's. As it relates to voting, clearly this is a golden oldie, we believe we should not substitute people's public health and safety as it relates to their right -- to exercise their constitutional right to exercise a vote. We believe you can do that in a thoughtful safe manner by providing more opportunity to vote by mail.Five states do this. Utah hardly a liberal-leaning state has done it for years. Colorado, other states, quite safely and appropriately, and the state of California under these circumstances where we, again, will likely enter into the Fall season, flu season and the possibility that COVID begins to flare back up, we want to provide the opportunity, the alternative for people to safely vote by mail, particularly those seniors, Meghan was talking about a moment ago that were vulnerable to this virus. We want to encourage them in a safe manner. We think that's just foundational and fundamental to any great democracy.
….
SUNNY HOSTIN: Governor, you know, houses of worship are among places you did allow to reopen this week, but just days after -- just days after that, the president threatened to override any governor who kept them closed. There has been at least two recent outbreaks tied to in-person church services in your state. One exposed up to 180 people. So why now? Did the mounting pressure from the president affect your decision and the department of justice also?
NEWSOM: No. Quite the contrary. We were working with faith leaders across the state over the course of the last many, many weeks to put out guidelines to safely begin to reopen with deep modifications. Those modifications include caps in terms of attendance, 25% or 100 people or less. You're right. In Butte county, California, on Mother’s Day, regardless of health guidelines and directives, they opened up a church, 180 individuals and one immediately tested positive because they flagrantly went forward without any consideration of any people's public health safety or guidelines. We now have guidelines and we hope people will do this in a thoughtful and methodical way, and not surprisingly we're getting blowback from the other side and saying 25% just doesn't accommodate us, particularly for the megachurches. Again, all of this is imperfect. Perfect is not on the menu. We're trying our best to accommodate people's faiths, needs, businesses' needs to reopen, and people's desire to get back out, but to do so safely. I'm sobered and humbled by all of this because it is a daunting challenge for governors all across the political spectrum all across the country.
BEHAR: So unemployment in California according to your own numbers, is at a staggering 20% which is your estimate which is even higher than the national rate. You’ve warned that our first responders will be the first ones laid off if you can't get federal aid from the government. Now congress is at a standstill over yet another stimulus package, and Mitch McConnell is in no rush. He says he'll get to the bill next month or so. Where does that leave you?
NEWSOM: Well, it's one thing -- forget me. As you say, it's about our heroes, and we can't just play claim to embracing our heros in an abstract or rhetorical flair. We've got to deliver what we're preaching which means have their backs. They have had ours. It's not just police and fire, but those frontline health care workers that finally we're looking in the eyes and giving thanks to. They are vulnerable. Cities and counties are vulnerable to the economic downturn with massive budget deficits that have occurred directly because of covid-19. This is why you need a federal government not for charity, but social responsibility to help support the states and these municipalities during this difficult time, and if we do that, the economy will rebound. The GDP of this country will grow, and we'll be able to work ourselves through the biggest mistake we can make is not recognizing the magnitude of those numbers. And this magnitude. Again, these are depression-era unemployment numbers. This is what a federal government must do, is meet the moment. Mitch Mcconnell and congress has that opportunity.
MEGHAN MCCAIN: Yes, governor. So I don't think anyone in this country wants to see our first responders laid off, but many conservatives are taking issue with the fact that you're threatening to cut funding for them while giving $75 million in aid to undocumented immigrants. What would you say to your critics?
NEWSOM: Well, no one's threatening anybody. The reality of budgets as a former mayor, I know this intimately. Not just as a governor of a state as large as ours. 70, 70+% of county local and city budgets are payroll, and at the end of the day you're going to have to make tough decisions when you are dealing with historic budget deficits. In the state of California, you're right, recognizes that we have 2 million people we deemed essential that were on the front lines of taking care of the most vulnerable Californians. Our food workers, our farm workers and folks on the front lines making sure that our essential needs were met. They were not supported in any way, shape or form through the CARES act, and their families, particularly mixed status families are being torn asunder because of economic conditions and we wanted to do a little bit to support them. 75 million on a 2.5+billion budget, I'll defend that as the right thing to do. We also got philanthropy to support that effort with an additional $50 million, and we did that because these are members of our community. You deal with the cards that are dealt. You deal with reality. It's not a zero sum game. We're trying to do more for everybody, but at the end of the day, the magnitude of the deficits is such that there will be layoffs, substantial layoffs and unfortunately, some of those heroes, people we identify as heroes will be impacted unless we get support from the federal government.
...
BEHAR: The president is threatening to move the Republican national convention to North Carolina, but Governor Roy Cooper won't allow him to have a packed arena in August for good reason. Other states though like Florida and Georgia have already offered to host the RNC's 50,000 attendees this summer. Oh, yeah. I'm wondering, you're a little too level-headed to do that I think. Would you welcome that in California?
NEWSOM:No. I mean, come on. Absolutely not. Why put people at risk to quite literally to lose their lives? It's beyond me that we would allow tens of thousands of people from every conceivable walk of life and background coming together and mixing when there's no immunity to this virus. There's no vaccine for this virus. There won't be by August, and to do that, why would you do that to people that you claim to care about and support? It's just -- I believe respectfully, irresponsible. So we won't be doing anything like that in the state of California.
