♪ All the leaves are brown ♪
♪ And the sky is gray ♪
♪ California ♪
-Well, good evening, everybody,
and welcome to "Friday Night at The French Laundry,"
the California political show
where the cuisine's always about California politics
and the main entrée is the recall of our governor,
Gavin Newsom.
-Every Friday night,
three of the men behind the effort
to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom
host a talk show on KABC in Los Angeles.
-And it's a takeoff on the infamous blunder
that Gavin Newsom did at The French Laundry restaurant,
where he got caught dining with 22 lobbyists and his wife.
-This week's show comes after important news for the campaign.
-For those of you that were not paying attention this week,
the secretary of State announced on Monday.
I got to do this, team, whether you like it or not!
We have qualified for the ballot
with 1,626,042 ballot signatures,
so, this is going to go to ballot.
-Because an army of volunteers were able
to obtain enough signatures, voters in California
will be faced with two questions this fall:
one, should Newsom be recalled as governor;
and, two, who should replace him?
Newsom's approval rating has hovered around 50%
among likely voters since he was elected in 2018,
so, in this deeply blue state,
who are the people behind this recall?
-We ask ourselves that every day, on who we are.
I think, at the end of the day,
we're just regular, plain old Californians
who wanted to do something bigger than ourselves
and to let everybody know that it's okay
to not sit on the sidelines anymore
and to try to take government into your own hands
and to do the heavy lifting and to make a change.
-First off, I've only been active politically
about a year and a half.
My motivation for being involved in this campaign
is I want California to become a state
where all sides are heard.
It's not right; it's not left.
I want to see balance in the state.
-And then, there's the leader, Orrine Heatlie,
a former sheriff's sergeant from Northern California.
-We had valid reasons to launch this recall
far before the COVID pandemic hit,
but this governor has shown his true worth
since then and has failed policies as he goes forward.
He's just, every single day, he does something new to make
more and more Californians want to leave California.
Recently, you've had Oracle leave, Toyota, Elon Musk.
Charles Schwab packed his bags and left to Texas.
-The reasons behind the recall touch on everything,
from Newsom's handling of wildfires
to his pandemic lockdown policies,
to homelessness, tax rates, water rations, and so on.
-It's not one thing.
It's a combination of everything that Gavin Newsom has done.
-You no longer have homeless camps.
You have homeless communities.
-Oh, for sure, yeah.
-And this problem has been exacerbated by this governor.
-Democratic leaders in the state see this as an effort
to undermine California voters,
who elected Newsom with 62% of the vote in 2018.
Kevin de León is a city councilmember in Los Angeles,
who is opposing the recall.
-The state of California is clearly a blue state.
It's a Democratic state.
It openly and democratically voted and elected Gavin Newsom
to be the chief executive of the fifth-largest economy
on planet Earth and, right now, it's a bold attempt,
by national Republicans and other folks,
to undermine those elections
and to move forward an overly partisan and Republican agenda.
-But the campaign organizers say this isn't just about
getting a Republican into the governor's office.
-We don't give a crap about the Republican Party,
to be honest with you.
We care about everybody in California
who has issues with this governor.
-These three men all supported Trump and,
like Trump, have been criticized for using inflammatory rhetoric.
-When we came out and mentioned, on our official website,
about the "Chinese" virus, you know, we saw that,
we took a look at it, and we removed it.
-The campaign has received high-dollar donations
from some of the same donors that backed Trump.
-It's a national Republican effort, by Mike Huckabee,
by Newt Gingrich, by Devin Nunes,
by all these national figures,
to undermine the elections in the state of California.
-But the leaders of the recall campaign insist
they've gathered signatures from voters
across the political spectrum.
-I've been a Republican.
I've been a Democrat.
I've been a Libertarian.
I flirted with progressivism,
but I find it too authoritarianism.
I'm just kind of like in the middle
and just looking for commonsense solutions to get things done.
-So that's why I get tired of hearing,
"It's a Republican recall! It's aah"!
No, it's actually the people of California saying,
"Wait a minute. We need a change".
-The last time California recalled a governor was in 2003,
prompting a cast of candidates, like Gary Coleman, to run.
Then-Governor Gray Davis was replaced
that year by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
This time around, Caitlyn Jenner is one of several GOP candidates
already planning to run against Newsom.
-Anybody who's a legal voter, let me be perfectly clear,
we want to participate in this election.
-The date for the recall election has not been set,
but it's expected to take place in late October
or early November.
-We're changing California every day.
Stay tuned. I don't know
what this campaign's going to be like in a week.
I don't know what it's going to be like
when we have an Election Day,
but, what I do know is, right now, we're making history.
And I don't care what the polls say.
We're going to get this thing, not only on the ballot,
but we're going to change California forever.