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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
A well-known Democratic political leader has once again drawn the ire of the Biden administration as well as others following an international trip this week that led some to level accusations of undermining the White House.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom traveled earlier in the week to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, “leading many to wonder, including a congressman from his own state, whether he is running a ‘shadow’ campaign for president in case Democrats ultimately look for an alternative to President Biden as crises pile up on his watch at home and abroad,” Fox News reported Friday.
Newsom met with Xi and other Chinese Communist Party officials as part of a week-long trip he claimed was focused on climate change and “renewing our friendship and reengaging (on) foundational and fundamental issues that will determine our collective faith in the future.”
Fox News added:
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Newsom faced criticism as a result of his trip from people who said that homelessness, crime, and fentanyl are more pressing problems in the Golden State and one GOP congressman spoke both to Fox News Digital and through a social media post to suggest Newsom has the presidency on his mind via a “shadow campaign.”
“The track record is not good for him to be gallivanting around the world doing basically a shadow campaign for president, just waiting for the moment when they finally decide to throw Biden under the bus,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., said, going on to call Newsom the “backup quarterback” and Biden as the “starter.”
The Republican congressman told Fox that his California constituents are much more concerned about water storage, wildfires, high taxes, crumbling highways, and businesses fleeing the state than they are about “climate change.”
“I remind folks that carbon dioxide is only 0.04 percent of our atmosphere and that the contribution by the US is a tiny percentage of that,” LaMalfa said. “And the transportation sector and others is a tiny percentage of that. So chasing this carbon thing is just a means with which the government can further take over our economy and our choices.”
He also said that he recently spoke to a moderate California Democratic colleague who seemed “not very excited” about Newsom, calling the governor “slick” with several “rehearsed talking points” that easily could “dupe” voters.
“This trip here, he’s trying to build a base,” LaMalfa said. “He’s running the back channels until Biden takes himself out, and the party says, man we’re going to get killed on this.”
“With Trump looking more and more like a likely nominee pulling ahead in most places from what I’ve seen then the Dems are, I think I saw in our notes here, that they would need to break the glass and reach in for the Newsom fire extinguisher,” he added.
The GOP lawmaker was among several other California Republicans who riffed on Newsom earlier in the week for touting a $160,000 Chinese-made electric vehicle.
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“Newsom’s recent trips abroad and focus on policy over the last couple months comes as Biden continues to see crises piling up on his watch, including the border crisis, inflation, skyrocketing crime in major cities, and major foreign policy failures, including the botched Afghanistan withdrawal,” Fox News reported.
“Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced this past weekend that migrant numbers at the southern border for the month of September had reached new levels with the highest monthly encounters on record as well as the highest fiscal year total on record, in a significant blow to the administration’s border strategy,” the outlet said, adding that Newsom’s high-profile actions of late include a trip to Israel following the brutal, deadly terrorist attack on the country by Hamas earlier this month.
