Joe Biden spoke in California: “You can have Gavin Newsom as governor or you will have Donald Trump”

The president of the United States, Joe biden, gave the California governor a boost on Monday, and warned state voters they risk having a Donald Trump-style president if they don’t defend Gavin Newsom at the polls.

California, which is the world’s fifth-largest economy, ends the vote on Tuesday on whether it wants to keep the Democratic governor, or whether she should be removed from office and replaced by another candidate, in a referendum costing $ 280 million to public funds and being promoted by the Republican Party, which tries to capitalize on the discontent with the restrictive measures due to COVID-19.

“You can either have Gavin Newsom as your governor or you can have a Donald Trump,” fellow Democrat Biden told an audience in Long Beach, Calif.

Newsom’s main rival is Larry Elder, a right-wing radio host who has openly supported Republican Donald Trump, who is not popular in California.

The lawyer leads the polls among 46 opponents who hope to challenge the votes in case Newsom is removed in Tuesday’s referendum, who asks on the same ballot whether the governor should be removed and who should succeed him.

Newsom needs simple majority to keep office, thus leaving the question of succession aside. But if he is dismissed by more than half, the one who obtains the most votes automatically becomes governor of California until the end of the mandate, in January 2023.

This is the second time in the history of the state that Californians have gone to the polls for a referendum to remove the governor. The first time resulted in the choice of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who took over in 2003.

Republicans, who no longer control the state since Schwarzenegger, were enraged by Newsom’s orders to control the pandemic, deemed the lockdowns and paralysis of face-to-face classrooms unnecessary, and held him responsible for the economic problems of small entrepreneurs.

The petition to remove it gained traction after the governor was seen dining at a fancy California restaurant in November, amid a pandemic, without a mask and with other people., in what has been read as a contradiction to its own recommendations.

After an uncertain start at the end of the campaign, Newsom seems to have turned things in his favor.

Fire and climate change

Biden’s stop in California concludes a day of a nationwide tour of the western United States, focused on highlighting the dangers of climate change.

Thousands of square kilometers of forest have been charred during the fire season.

Biden, who met firefighters in Idaho before flying over blaze-ravaged parts of northern California, is promoting multi-million dollar legislation for investment projects that target infrastructure and better prepare the country for the ravages of climate change by human action.

“Every dollar we invest in resilience saves up to $ 6 down the road, when that investment keeps a fire from spreading so widely. These investments save lives, ”Biden said Monday in Sacramento.

“When I think of climate change, I don’t think of the costs, I think of the high paying jobs we create. But also in the jobs that we are losing due to the impact on the supply chain and in industries, because we have not acted with sufficient sagacityHe commented.

President Biden focuses on a familiar theme: remembering the urgency to act to address global warming and associated disasters, such as wildfires and storms.

“The reality is we have a global warming problem,” Biden said earlier in Boise, Idaho. “Things will never go back to the way they were before. Return is not an option and the situation is not improving“He added.

Wildfires have increased this summer, particularly in the west of the country, including in states Biden will visit.

Biden, who broke with his Republican predecessor Donald Trump’s skepticism on climate change, said last week the world faces a “red alert” to the danger of climate change, and called for union, transcending partisan divisions.

The president recently said the world faces a “code red” on climate change and called on parties to put aside their political differences and work on it. “We have to think big,” he told an audience near Sacramento, the capital of California on Monday. “Thinking small is a formula for disaster. We will fight against this climate change“, He added.

(With information from AFP)

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