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Take a look at the screencap, and try to guess what California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom was smiling so broadly about in an interview aired on today's CNN This Morning:
- The recent rains filling many of the state's reservoirs?
- Perhaps the presence of the San Francisco 49ers in this weekend's NFC championship game?
Nope. Bizarrely, Newsom unleashed this—and several other—megawatt smiles while discussing the recent mass shootings in his state that have claimed 18 lives.
Newsom weirdly sustained his smiley look throughout his comments. Had some Hollywood guy on his staff advised him that smiling sells, no matter how tragic the subject matter?
It was less surprising that the CNN anchors heartily endorsed his view that repeated mass shootings in his state should be blamed on Congress for not passing enough gun-control legislation, not on politicians in California. "The complete, abject failure of our immigration policies was exposed yesterday and today. Complete, utter, abject failure of common sense on gun safety and immigration policy."
At the end of his spiel, CNN's anchors heartily agreed:
POPPY HARLOW: Wow. Later this hour, we'll take a closer look at the mass violence taking place across America in our streets and our communities, as Gavin Newsom said, in a way that just doesn't happen to this level elsewhere in the world.
DON LEMON: You cannot argue with the man, especially the frustration that he has, and rightly so --
HARLOW: Yeah!
LEMON: -- because of what happened. And he's right: the lawmakers in Washington should take action. Freedom for what? Where does your freedom to own a gun trump other people's freedom to be safe. I think we need to figure that out.
HARLOW: And many of California's gun laws that exist now are very vulnerable to being overturned because of the Supreme Court decision last term. Which means, that if they do want more to be done, it has to be federally.
Note that Newsom worked some unsubtle shots at Biden into his spiel, saying that the "the complete, abject failure of our immigration policies was exposed yesterday and today," and "we need the federal government to do its job. This is on everybody." Gee, you don't suppose that Gavin might just be planning a 2024 run, do you?
On CNN This Morning, Gavin Newsom bizarrely smiling throughout his comments on recent mass shootings in California, and Don Lemon agreeing with him that more gun control legislation is needed, was sponsored in part by Subway, and Johnson & Johnson, maker of Aveeno and Neutrogena.
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
1/25/23
6:16 am ETPOPPY HARLOW: Deputies say the semiautomatic handgun used in the shootings was legally registered to the suspect. CNN has also learned that Zhao was previously accused of trying to suffocate a former coworker.
The shooting was one of three, if you can believe it, in California in three days. Eighteen people murdered in those. California Governor Gavin Newsom sounded incredibly frustrated as he spoke with CNN, saying something needs to be done federally. Watch this.
GAVIN NEWSOM: The stories are devastating. They're devastating. Because the stories are not just about, you know, a bullet wound or a loved one's life lost. it's a myriad of issues. It's the person on the hospital bed whose leg is shattered, they just put a rod in the leg, who says I need to get out of here because I can't afford the health care bills. Or I need to get out of here because I can't lose my job tomorrow. The farm workers here have literally said, I have no paycheck today, I have no cash. I can't even buy food tonight.
The complete, abject failure of our immigration policies was exposed yesterday and today. Complete, utter, abject failure of commonsense on gun safety and immigration policy.
So, for me, I guess maybe after 22 days and 32 trillion gallons of water falling on the state and being in a crisis of droughts and floods, and now two mass shootings in three days, I guess I'm prone to express myself about my frustrations with what I'm not seeing nationally, and particularly in Congress right now.
We need the federal government to do its job. This is on everybody. We've chosen this. This is our decision, to live in these conditions. It doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. So we've chosen it. We've accepted this. We can sit there and say thoughts and prayers, or we can look in the mirror and say, this is the price, I guess, of whatever, fill in the blank, freedom? Freedom? Freedom from what? To have your kid do only six or seven drills to hide under the desk every year, as opposed to two or three? Freedom from what? Having complete vulnerability being anywhere in a crowd, dancing with a loved one on New Year's Eve? Lunar New Year.
HARLOW: Wow. Later this hour, we'll take a closer look at the mass violence taking place across America in our streets and our communities, as Gavin Newsom said, in a way that just doesn't happen to this level elsewhere in the world.
DON LEMON: You cannot argue with the man, especially the frustration that he has, and rightly so --
HARLOW: Yeah!
LEMON: -- because of what happened. And he's right: the lawmakers in Washington should take action. Freedom for what? Where does your freedom to own a gun trump other people's freedom to be safe. I think We need to figure that out.
HARLOW: And many of California's gun laws that exist now are very vulnerable to being overturned because of the Supreme Court decision last term. Which means, that if they do want more to be done, it has to be federally.
