Fox News reports,”California Gov. Gavin Newsom commended President Donald Trump for the way he has handled the coronavirus pandemic in his state, saying he’d be ‘lying’ if he said otherwise.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Newsom if he felt pressured to compliment the Trump administration in order to prevent him from “punishing” his state.
“I’ve talked to officials around the country who have said that they have to temper their remarks in what they say about the federal government’s response for fear that President Trump will punish the citizens of their state if he considers them to be a complainer,” Tapper said. “You and President Trump seemed to have been working collaboratively. He praised you yesterday. Do you find yourself, by necessity, tempering what you say in terms of any issue you might have with the federal response?”
Newsom pointed to Trump’s assistance in the wildfires and droughts California has previously faced.
“This is not the time to bicker. I don’t care who’s up and down, whose polls are looking better than someone else’s or who wants to run for president or who doesn’t. When it comes to times of crisis, we need to [rise] above the partisanship and I’ve always extended an open hand, not a closed fist, in those circumstances. And this is no different,” Newsom told Tapper.
“But let me just be candid with you. I’d be lying to you to say that he hasn’t been responsive to our needs. He has,” the governor continued. “And so, as a question, as a sort of an offer of objectivity, I have to acknowledge that publicly.”
“The fact is that every time I have called the president, he has quickly gotten on the line. When we asked to get support for that mercy ship in southern California, he was able to direct that in real-time. We’ve got 2,000 of these field medical sites, that are up, almost all operational now in the state, because of his support, and those are the facts,” Newsom told Tapper.
“We always want more, I can criticize this or that, at the end of the day, we’re just trying to focus on developing a relationship of trust as a matter of course because there [are] just too many Americans, 40 million that live in this state that deserve us to get together and get along,” he added.