Gavin Newsom addresses closure of San Francisco Whole Foods in Hannity interview
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California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California on May 2, 2023.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was an unexpected Fox News guest on Monday, sitting down with Sean Hannity for a lengthy pre-recorded interview.
Calling the interview “substantive” would not be accurate; it involved lots of boisterous cross-chatter about California versus Florida, and of Hannity trying to get Newsom to admit that he’s secretly thinking about running for president (no dice, Newsom kept a straight face that he’s all-in for Joe Biden).
Roughly halfway through the interview, the topic turned to California’s homelessness crisis. Hannity played a 2008 clip showing Newsom — then the mayor of San Francisco — outlining his citywide homelessness plan. Hannity pressed Newsom on how that plan failed, and how the state isn’t doing any better well into Newsom’s governorship.
Newsom was willing to admit that California has “not made progress” on its homelessness crisis, but he and Hannity soon got into a tiff about the city where he launched his political career. Apropos of very little, Newsom brought up the Whole Foods in downtown San Francisco that closed earlier this year; the store cited safety concerns for the closure, which District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey has since tried to parlay into calls for more police officers.
But despite Newsom and Dorsey sharing a fondness for police (Newsom reiterated to Hannity that he’s “never been a part” of any “defund” movements), he actually seemed to push back on the often-cited reasoning for why the downtown Whole Foods didn’t work out.
“I don’t like the bashing of my old city, San Francisco,” he said. “Whole Foods did shut down one business, but it was a bad location to begin with, and they’re opening a new one.”
It’s unclear what the “new one” is — perhaps the long-rumored possible location in the Western Addition? Newsom didn’t get to elaborate, because Hannity launched into a complaint about his sister’s last San Francisco visit.
“My sister was out there recently with a team, and I said don’t go to the wharf,” Hannity countered. He, too, didn’t get to elaborate on what he meant, because Newsom jumped back in.
“Certain parts are bad, and we own that,” he said. “I just put the National Guard and [California Highway Patrol] there,” he added, alluding to his plan to ostensibly use “law enforcement resources and personnel to crack down on crime linked to the fentanyl crisis.”
Somehow, this was only part one of the Hannity-Newsom conversation. The Fox News host teased a part two for later this week, including a snippet in which he asked Newsom how he would’ve reacted to the Chinese spy balloon if he, rather than Biden, were president.