California Governor Gavin Newsom is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly to make fake agreements with world leaders and pontificate about his favorite grift: climate change.
Newsom claims he won't run for president in 2028 if former VP and failed 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris chooses to. Yet another hedge by the king of hedges, because while he says one thing out of his mouth, his actions telegraph his true plans. So, what have been Newsom's actions this week? Cosplaying at being presidential while insulting the sitting one, photo ops with fellow communists and world leaders, and signing memorandums of understanding with those who are still all-in on the Green New Scam.
Thus, climate change and a renewable future comprised much of Newsom's five-minute snooze address before the assembly. Newsom's moments were already filled with maligning President Donald Trump and pontificating about how much smarter California is. His speech continued in that vein of slander and criticism.
"Thank you for being here. Thank you for not falling prey to the cynicism, the anxiety that I think all of us feel. Picking up the paper, watching the TV. Listening to the punditry. Thank you for being the antidote to that cynicism, fear, and anxiety."
Newsom then name-dropped that he had been at the U.N. General Assembly three years prior, while deeming Trump's recent warning to Iran as "not normal."
"I was here three years ago and felt very different in the United States.
"You heard that speech from my president, yesterday. All but called for genocide of 93 million people.
"Nothing normal about that. Nothing normal about this moment."
And of course, the gaslighting also continued apace, with inflated laurels bringing up the rear. Gov. Hair Gel failed to mention his state has an $18 billion deficit, instead preferring to spout his hackneyed promo that California is the fourth largest economy in the world.
"I'm proud to represent, yes, the fourth largest economy in the world, a state larger than 21 state populations combined. I'm proud to represent a state that was the founding state, San Francisco, of the United Nations, in 19 hundred and 45. I'm also proud to represent a state that's 27 percent foreign born. Where we practice pluralism. We don't tolerate our diversity, we celebrate our diversity. That is what has allowed us to become the fourth largest economy in the world."
No, what allowed California to become the fourth largest economy in the world is the corruption. From $32 billion in unemployment insurance fraud, to 1.2 million fake community college applicants, to $24 billion in homelessness funding that went up in smoke. Let's not forget the Train to Nowhere, with $6.8 billion of funds awarded from the federal government and not an inch of track laid. There was not enough time in Newsom's speech to illuminate all those contextual details. Instead, the governor who shut down California beaches during COVID and now calls it "insane" is intent on restoring checks and balances.
What. A. Crock.
"But we also have this to share: We're also the most un-Trump state in the United States of America. And that's important. Because there's probably nothing more important on this topic, that you will hear today, and the imperative of ending Trump's presidency as we know it. And that my friends will happen this November when the Democratic Party takes back the House of Representatives and we finally re-instill what our Founding Fathers lived and died for, and that's a system of checks and balances in the spirit of the Mayor of Boston's remark."
Three minutes in, after bloviating about facts not in evidence and speaking ill of the nation on which he feeds like an embedded tick, Newsom finally got to the meat of his remarks. The Trump administration's policies curtailed some of Newsom's fleecing of Californians through his climate change policies, but he still had damage to brag about.
"But my remarks are not just in the context of the invasive species, Donald Trump, but in the context of the work that we continue to do, despite the headwinds. Of the people that have their heads in the sand, soaked in oil. This is not complicated. The challenge is self-evident. And some of us are as dumb as we want to be, subsidizing and doubling down on stupid. Subsidizing the very problem we're trying to fix. It's not complicated, it's from burning coal, and gas, and oil. Of course, that's what we're doubling down in the United States. But not in the state of California."
No, in the state of California, Newsom doubles down on stupid as access to utilities and quality of service circles the drain.
"That fourth largest economy in California runs every day on two-thirds clean energy. In fact, so far this year, nine out of 10 days, the fourth largest economy in the world is run on a hundred percent renewable energy. We are past the what and the why, we're past the goal setting, we're in the great implementation. We're in the How business. And we're proving the paradigm that you are not sacrificing your economic future to change the way you produce and consume energy — quite the contrary!"
Once again Newsom failed to mention in this victory lap over renewable energy that the cost of all energy for California citizens is ballooning.
According to the Public Advocate’s Office at the California Public Utilities Commission, rates for the state’s three largest utilities — Pacific Gas and Electric, San Diego Gas and Electric, and Southern California Edison — have risen 121%, 88% and 80% since 2014, significantly outpacing inflation.
The PAO says energy bills are rising in the state due to a combination of “higher electricity use” and “higher electricity rates,” and found 2.3 million households, or nearly one in in five, are behind on their energy bills, owing an average of $788.
But why let facts get in the way of a good yarn? The most personally offensive part of this yarn: The man who ended the livelihoods of thousands of independent professionals through Assembly Bill 5 claims that California's "entrepreneurial spirit" and "regulatory system" created Elon Musk and Tesla. How much was he smoking when he came up with that one? Particularly since Tesla and Elon Musk are no longer in California, in part thanks to California's regulatory system!
"Why is California such a vibrant and diverse and entrepreneurial society? It's because of our rules for risk-taking not recklessness. There is no, forgive us, Elon Musk, without California's regulatory system, that created the certainty, where he could make the investments that ultimately became Tesla."
No mention of Chevron, Oracle, and thousands of other corporations which have done the CalExit and moved to other states with more business-friendly regulations. Instead, Newsom continued to bloviate about how he has embraced green growth in California, and in turn, it has created economic growth. He failed to acknowledge that he and his CARB cartel kicked out Chevron and any energy company that would bring resources and actual revenue to the once Golden State, all so that Newsom could transition the state to low carbon; despite the fact that the state's residents suffer under blackouts and insanely high gas prices.
"We're proud of the entrepreneurial spirit that is at the heart of our transition to low carbon. That's why we refer to that green growth. Forty percent GDP growth in the state of California since 2019. No jurisdiction in America and no democratic jurisdiction in the world has grown faster than the state of California as we reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by double digits at the same time. Let's disabuse ourselves that somehow gets in the way of economic growth and economic prosperity."
Newsom concluded with a mish-mash of gobbledygook nonsense, coupled with a biblical blessing, a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and philosophy pulled from whatever global seminars he likes to attend rather than actually govern his own state.
"So I want to thank the mayors. I was a mayor. Once a mayor, always a mayor. Governor, with respect and love as well, I want to thank the governors. Because if you don't like the way the world looks when you're standing up, stand on your head and go local. State vision, the national vision, are realized locally. These are not just the dreamers, these are the doers. You're the doers, and all around the globe, we're inspired. It's the power of emulation, success leaves clues."
Anyone who thinks this diatribe was a reflection of success is clueless.
Newsom concluded:
"So, I want to conclude as I began: with gratitude, respect, appreciation for every one who is here, not just for themselves. But in the spirit of the 10,000 generations that go back to our creator. That count on us to meet this moment head on. To lean in, to step up. To share not just our formal authority, but to share our moral authority at peril of being judged not to have lived. All of you, thank you for all the work you've done to get us here. And I look forward to coming back to the United Nations with the fresh air of progress versus the stale air coming out of Washington, D.C. of normalcy. Thank you all very much."
I feel stupider having had to listen to this gasbag of a speech. However, it will be useful as opposition research. The benefit: It is loaded full with fodder for anyone running against Newsom in 2028, with eight years of provably horrible governance and all the receipts to back it up. It will go a long way to dispel Newsom's manufactured accomplishments and pretense of a California as a green utopia that does not now exist, and never will.
The entire speech, if you can stand it.
WATCH:
Donald Trump is temporary, but California will endure.
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) September 23, 2026
My remarks to the @UN Special Session on Climate Action: pic.twitter.com/n4Aj7uCFJf
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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