Fools Gold: Newsom’s Bailouts, Beijing, and Broken California Dream | 3.16.25
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What are Governor Gavin Newsom's controversial political dealings?
Governor Gavin Newsom has made his way into the headlines in recent weeks, not just for the devastating California fires, but also his attempts to tack right on several of his left-wing stances. Now, a new investigative book peels back the curtain on Newsom's problematic political dealings, as well as other figures who the authors say killed the California dream.
In this episode, we sit down with the authors of the expose to discuss Newsom and the state of progressive California. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Sunday, March 16th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now are the authors of a new investigative book, Fool's Gold, Susan Crabtree and Jed McFatter. The book breaks several new details about some key political figures in California. Susan and Jed, thank you so much for joining us.
Yeah, it's my pleasure.
Thanks for having me, John. There's a lot of pretty remarkable findings that you've detailed here that are causing a stir, but we wanted to zoom in here on perhaps the most significant figure right now in terms of the news cycle. That's Gavin Newsom. Let's start with the most immediate issue. Susan, you've highlighted what you've called the wildfire cash windfall.
How is Newsom connected to the California wildfires and PG&E?
This involves Newsom and the energy company Pacific Gas and Electric, PG&E. What have you uncovered on this?
Well, it's interesting because everything that Gavin Newsom does is performative, not performance-based. He's been given everything on a silver platter, whether it's his admissions to college, his wine dynasty that was fueled by Getty money, or his rise in politics. It's all been given through his family connections with the Gettys and other political connections like Willie Brown and others. But when it comes to these wildfires... It's really startling because PG&E, it's not like other states. In California, they cozy up to the Democrats. They spread money throughout the state. And in fact, they've given Gavin Newsom and his wife $700,000 in contributions, both to his gubernatorial campaign and her gender justice films. That's her big project as the first partner of California.
And I can tell you more about that. It is pretty eye-opening, the gender justice films funded by the wildfire. What I need to stress here is that PG&E is responsible for the deadliest wildfire in California history up in Paradise. They're responsible for 84 counts of manslaughter, 84 deaths. Oh, my gosh. In Paradise. They didn't give it as much publicity because it wasn't a wealthy area as the Palisades, but it was much deadlier. The court determined that. They were actually told to go and maintain it years ago, and they never did. just like they don't clean up the vegetation that can catch fire underneath their transmissions lines either. And it just sparked this huge deadly fire. And we're seeing the same kind of thing with the Eaton fire. So Cal Edison is now being investigated for causing that one. It sparked a transmission line as well. And they just become these big, huge infernos. And Gavin Newsom has no problem taking money from the utilities that really are the main culprits on these fires. The Wall Street Journal found that PG&E was responsible for 1,500 fires.
That's one every two days in just six years. And they like to talk about climate change. They care so much about climate change, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi and others. But guess what? These wildfires, they have rolled back all of the progress that these EV mandates and clean air policies have had over the course of two decades because they just spew pollution into the air.
What role did Gavin Newsom play in bailing out PG&E?
And so we have this pattern of Newsom letting these energy companies off the hook.
Yes. In fact, after that big wildfire in Paradise, PG&E was going to go bankrupt because they owed so much to the victims, billions and billions of dollars. And so guess what? It was Gavin Newsom to the rescue. He did a big bailout for PG&E and he orchestrated through the governor's office using taxpayer dollars to pay for the lawyers. O'Melveny and Myers were the lawyers.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What are Governor Gavin Newsom's controversial political dealings?
0:03–1:15
2
How is Newsom connected to the California wildfires and PG&E?
1:15–3:49
3
What role did Gavin Newsom play in bailing out PG&E?
3:49–6:13
4
How did Gavin Newsom's ties to China begin during his tenure as San Francisco's mayor?
6:13–8:23
5
How was China SF used to facilitate Chinese influence in California?
8:23–17:13
Speakers
6 identifiedMore from Morning Wire
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