The campaign to recall Governor Newsom has just five days left to gather signatures for its petition but says it's extremely confident the issue will make the ballot.
The petition has now logged more than two million names, half a million more than needed.
Gov. Newsom joined KNX In-Depth Friday to talk about the recall efforts but also about the vaccine rollout in California, which counties will be reopening and resuming operations in different sectors Sunday, and the virus.
RECALL
Is Newsom concerned about the recall? In response, Newsom says “I am focused every day on getting more doses administered in people's arms.”
“We will deal with it head-on. I can assure you this, we are not going to be timid in terms of taking it on. This recall will come into crystal clear focus when it’s actually about and when it started, which happened before the pandemic. That said, I am dead serious when I say 99.9 percent of my day is focused on getting vaccines in peoples’ arms, getting our small businesses opened and dealing with getting our kids back in in-person instruction. It’s been a mantra for months now and it is a mantra because it is where my energy is going and where my focus is,” Newsom says.
“This is not where my focus is,” Newsom said adding right now “I’m focused on what I can control which is getting this economy moving again...”
Los Angeles lawyer Eric Early is a consulting attorney for the campaign and tells KNX the next issue will be the timing of the election. He says support for the campaign includes many Democrats.
On Friday, state leaders in the LGBTQ community held a Zoom news conference opposing the recall. They included Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia.
Although Newsom’s performance with respect to the pandemic has been the primary push for his recall, Orrin Heatlie, who’s leading the campaign told CBS13 in Sacramento, “There are a lot of things that have driven the recall forward.”
Heatlie adds that business owners and senior citizens are two of the biggest groups supporting the campaign.
A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies survey found that Newsom slumped to just 46% of voter approval.
COVID-19, VACCINATIONS IN CALIFORNIA
He talked about where California will be by July 4th - as President Biden has indicated he wants to have independence from the virus by the annual holiday.
Biden has said he will direct all states to make all adults eligible for COVID-19 vaccination doses by May 1.
Newsom says the state has five variants that are being tracked in California including “a homegrown variant with close to 6,000 mutations that we have sequenced in California called the West Coast variant. We have to be mindful of that, but also optimistic.”
“There’s not a dose that’s left behind,” Newsom says.
Newsom says the state is receiving 1.7 million doses this week and designed a system that can administer 2.7 million today.
“We are advancing an effort, very specific and on time, that will be done coincidental with that May 1 deadline to be able to administer 4 million doses a week,” Newsom says adding the only constraint to administer more vaccines is manufactured supply.
Newsom addressed vaccine equity saying the Black and Latino communities have been disproportionately affected. He says no other state has come close in advancing a commitment to equity than California with 40 percent of all the doses that are required to go to communities with the highest disease burden.
“This state is administering every single dose it receives every single week,” he says.
Newsom talked about the threshold reached Friday of 2 million doses that have been administered in hard hit areas of the state that will allow 13 other counties to reopen with modifications this Sunday. LA, Orange and San Bernardino counties are dropping into the red tier on Sunday. San Diego, Riverside, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties are expected to move to red on Tuesday.
LA County will lift restrictions on Monday.
“We are seeing a bright light at the end of the tunnel,” he says.