Members of the media should take note: when even a Democrat politician from one of the most liberal states in the country won’t take your bait to bash the president, maybe you should just throw in the towel now. On The View today, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom called in to discuss how his state is responding to COVID-19. Of course the anti-Trump hosts attempted to get the liberal Democrat to attack President Trump, but surprisingly, Newsom praised the president instead.
After egging the California governor to criticize congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) for saying California kids should be back in school in two weeks, co-host Joy Behar moved on to prompt Newsom to attack Trump with her next question. After Newsom praised Trump a few weeks ago, she sneered it must be because he had to “kiss his ring” and “feed this guy’s ego” to get necessary medical supplies for hospitals:
Yes, governor. You know it's no secret that you have had a combative relationship with Trump in the past, but lately you have been praising him for the help he's giving or of course, you have to because look how he treats governors who don't, you know, kiss his ring. The governor of Washington, the governor of Michigan, he said they were not appreciative and told Mike Pence don't call them back. You know, do you feel like you have to feed this guy's ego to get the respirators and to get the PPEs? Is that what's going on?
While Newsom acknowledged the state’s frequent “differences of opinion” with the administration, he refused to take Behar’s bait in bashing President Trump. In fact, he praised the President for building a “strong relationship” with the state and following through on his promises.
The Democrat governor also rejected Behar’s premise that state leaders had to win Trump’s favor to get virus supplies:
Let me just acknowledge the frame of your question. We're involved in over 68 lawsuits with the trump administration, and so there's no question we have had our differences of opinion on many issues but I just want to remind you that you and many others that maybe are not aware of this. We have been at this since late January. California got a head start in many respects where no one was really paying much attention. We started working with the administration directly to get these repatriated flights from mainland China into the state of California. Many states turned their back on those flights and those repatriation missions. California embraced them. We also had that "Grand Princess," that large cruise ship where we worked very collaboratively with the federal government developed strong relationships of trust with emergency planning and how we can bring those passengers back into our diverse communities and all across the rest of the country. As a consequence of that, our relationship began earlier than most, and so from that perspective, all I can say is from my perspective, the relationship has been strong and I'm not doing it to kiss the ring. I'm not doing it in a way, you know -- I'm just being forthright with the president. He returns calls. He reaches out. He's been proactive. We got that "Mercy" ship down here in Los Angeles. That was directly because he sent it down here. 2,000 medical units came to the state of California, these fms, these field medical stations, and that's been very, very helpful and to the extent we're going to need more, and I'll let you know in a few weeks if that relationship continues.
Undeterred, co-host Sunny Hostin tag-teamed with Behar in another pathetic attempt to blame Trump for this pandemic. She fretted that only governors nice to Trump get supplies, and local leaders would be left to fend for themselves:
Well, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a staunch Trump supporter received 100% of his first request from the federal government despite being widely criticized for his very slow response in that state. Some are saying that some states are getting preferential treatment from the president. If that is the case, do you foresee governors basically having to work together and just sort of bypass the administration?
Surprisingly, Newsom again tried to stay positive and avoid “pointing fingers.” He agreed that governors were taking it upon themselves and already working together to help their states but didn’t want to rely on the Trump administration for not giving their state as many supplies as they could provide for their own residents:
Well, the good news is governors are already doing that in a collaborative way…. Here's the stubborn fact. I have handed out some -- well, specifically 35.9 million n95 masks. We received from the national stockpile so far, 1,89,000. I'll repeat that. Almost 36 million masks we've distributed in the state of California. We've received just over 1 million from the federal government. That's not a cheap shot. That’s not fingerpointing. It's just reality. So when you ask, are we going to rely on the federal government or are we going to rely on ourselves? We’re going to rely disproportionately on ourselves.
