California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom during a Newsmax appearance, accusing the Democrat of relying on rehearsed talking points to obscure what Hilton said is the state's worsening condition.
Speaking with "Rob Schmitt Tonight" on Friday, Hilton said Newsom's speeches collapse under scrutiny.
"When you literally give it one moment's attention, it all falls apart," Hilton said.
He referenced the governor's final State of the State address on Jan. 8.
"He did this State of the State speech a couple of weeks ago," Hilton said. "It was the day after the one-year anniversary — the wildfires disaster, which was basically caused by his policies.
"And he's totally done nothing to rebuild or respond to it in an appropriate manner, because he's completely useless at being governor."
But Newsom portrayed California as thriving, Hilton said.
"Then he stands up and does an hourlong speech about how everything's great in California. It was lie after lie after lie," he said.
Hilton said Newsom cherry-picks statistics to give a misleading impression, citing claims about manufacturing.
"Just one tiny example he brags about: We're the biggest manufacturing state, No. 1 for manufacturing," he said.
"Yeah, because we're the No. 1 state in most things, because we're the biggest and we have the biggest population."
Hilton said California now leads the nation in all the wrong categories.
"If you look at the real numbers, we are No. 1 in everything you don't want to be: No. 1 for poverty; the highest unemployment rate; the worst business climate; the highest cost for gas, electric, water, insurance, rent, everything; the highest taxes," he said.
Hilton also criticized Newsom for attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, casting the appearance as an attempt to raise his national profile as he is widely reported to be considering a 2028 presidential run.
"It's just unbelievable how badly he's messed everything up," he said. "And then he's running around the world stage pretending that he can be president when he can't even run his own state properly.
"He's a total joke."
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