Newsom punched back at California critics in his final State of the State speech
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state must stand up to Republican President Donald Trump ‘s “assault on our values,” warning democracy is at stake in his final State of the State address Thursday.
The Democratic is eyeing a presidential run in 2028 and is conscious of his legacy as he nears the end of eight years governing the nation’s most populous state. In his speech, he highlighted California’s work fighting homelessness and high health care costs. He pointed out the state has sued the Trump administration more than 50 times.
“The federal government, respectfully, it’s unrecognizable, protecting the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable,” the Democrat said to lawmakers at the state Capitol in Sacramento. “Their credo seems to be about fear — fear of the future, fear of the stranger, fear of change.”
He chided the Trump administration’s “carnival of chaos on the national stage,” and its efforts over the past year to withhold food aid from states, send the National Guard into Democratic-led cities, and cut funding for medical research.
California, by contrast, should be seen as a blueprint for the rest of the nation as it defends the state’s progressive policies against federal government overreach, Newsom said.
Over the years, Newsom has used the annual address to tout California’s economic growth and technological innovation and push back against critiques of its high cost of living and having the largest homeless population in the country. This year, he derided critics as suffering from “California Derangement Syndrome,” a reference to Trump’s use of the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome” to call out his political opponents.
Newsom’s speech comes a day after the state marked a year since the devastating Los Angeles-area fires erupted, ripping through neighborhoods and killing 31 people.
In the months since, Newsom has asked Congress and Trump for billions of dollars in funding to help the region recover from the blazes, some of the most destructive in state history. Trump has not answered that call — one of the many disputes between him and the governor during his first year back in the presidency.
The two have sparred over everything from Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in L.A. to the federal government’s blocking of California’s first-in-the-nation ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.
The speech comes a day before he’s set to unveil his proposed budget for the next fiscal year after years facing budget shortfalls.
Newsom touts the state’s work on key issues
Newsom has spent the past seven years trying to solve some of California’s most relentless issues, including the impacts of climate change, the state’s homelessness crisis, and its high gas and utility prices.
The governor will announce that unsheltered homelessness in California dropped 9% last year, according to a preview from his office, which didn’t immediately provide the data to back up the decrease.
He will highlight the state’s cleanup work from the L.A.-area fires and its push to provide mortgage relief to survivors, while noting “we need to turbo-charge our efforts” to rebuild communities.
He previously requested that Trump send the state nearly $34 billion in disaster aid to recover from the fires. He’ll criticize Trump for refusing to meet that ask.
In the speech, the governor called on on the state to go after large investors buying up affordable homes, saying the practice is “putting pressure on rents and crushing dreams of homeownership.”
Newsom plans to celebrate homicide rates being at their lowest in decades in Oakland and San Francisco. He’ll cite the $267 million in funding the state sent to law enforcement agencies across the state in 2023 to help them fight retail and property crime. He’ll tout the California Highway Patrol’s work to curb crime in Bakersfield, San Bernardino, Stockton and other cities.
His first in-person speech in years
This is the first time Newsom has delivered the State of the State to lawmakers in person since 2022. He has said he does not like formal speeches because his dyslexia makes it difficult to read from a teleprompter live.
Instead he has submitted a written address to lawmakers in the years since, fulfilling a constitutional requirement that he report to the Legislature in some form.
He also tried other approaches that have departed from tradition, including posting a prerecorded speech online and touring the state to announce policies aimed at tackling homelessness and mental health crises.
Under the state constitution, Newsom is barred from seeking a third term.