Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that he abruptly dropped plans to attend a U.N. climate conference in Scotland so that he could spend Halloween with his children.
The Democrat governor, speaking Tuesday at the 2021 California Economic Summit in Monterey, California, said that his four kids, aged 5 to 12, staged "an intervention" and begged him to stay home instead of attending the climate conference.
The governor said that, at first, he explained to the kids that he and his wife had to go to the U.N. conference.
He then woke up the next morning with "that knot in your stomach," Newsom said. "I had to cancel that trip."
He added that he bought a pirate costume, took his children trick-or-treating, and brought them to the state Capitol.
Newsom said he had been "on this damn treadmill" that had him going from "crisis to crisis" — i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires, droughts, recall election — before deciding to stay home for Halloween.
Initially, the governor had said "family obligations" kept him from attending the conference. He then disappeared from public view for nearly two weeks, with little word on where he was or what he had been doing.
Speculation about Newsom began growing after he dropped out of view following his highly publicized COVID-19 booster shot on Oct. 27.
"A governor's absence is always a matter of public concern. That's especially true for a governor claiming sole authority to control people's lives through a 'State of Emergency,'" Republican Assemblyman Kevin Kiley tweeted Monday.
Newson’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, tweeted Sunday and told people questioning Newsom’s absence to "please stop hating and get a life," Politico reported.
After having not been seen in public for more than a week, Newsom emerged this past weekend when he attended the star-studded wedding of oil heiress Ivy Love Getty, which was officiated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
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