California governor defends progressive values, says they’re an ‘antidote’ to populism on the right

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom used his State of the State address on Tuesday to boost President Joe Biden ahead of Thursday’s pivotal presidential debate, comparing Donald Trump’s version of the Republican Party to the rise of fascism prior to World War II and offering Democrats’ ideals as “an antidote to the poisonous populism of the right.”

Nowhere in Newsom’s speech — which was prerecorded and posted online to his social media channels in a departure from decades of tradition — did he mention Trump or Biden by name. But he used some of Trump’s most incendiary statements to offer a dark contrast of the choice facing Americans in November, comparing it to the eve of World War II when “fascism spread its hate and destruction throughout Europe.”

“When they speak of immigrants poisoning American blood, and of mass deportations and detention camps, this is the language of destruction — of 1939,” Newsom said.

Trump made those comments about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” during a campaign rally in Iowa last year, later saying he did not know that Adolf Hitler had once said something similar. Still, the comments have become a key talking point for the left as they paint Trump’s candidacy as a warning for a dark future.

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