There is no one who said Federman did a good job last night. It was awful. However, the big question remains how much is it going to hurt him. Maybe we're in this new era of politics where nothing matters. Were so tribal. We just want to make sure that the guy, has Britt said, can sit on the Senate floor and raise his hand for your your team. That is right. That's Moralison from NPR. She was on Fox yesterday saying, we are in a new era of politics
where nothing matters. That is true. Did my team get more people than your team? Character doesn't matter according to polls, Health doesn't matter according to polls. Just do I get more people from my team? That's just the era we're in. We're gonna talk a little California politics and a lot of you don't live in California, but California is about
to be the fourth biggest economy in the world. One out of eight Americans live in California, and I think the governor is going to try to become president of the United States. There's a lot of things that happened in California spread across the country. We're gonna talk with Katie Grimes she's the editor of the California Globe, longtime investigative journalists covering the California state capital, and the co author of California's War against Donald Trump? Who Wins, Who Loses? Katie,
Welcome to the Armstrong and Getty Show. Good morning, Jack, Thank you before we get into something probably of more important. So, I was just looking at this whole drag queen pumpkin carving thing that Senator Winner's havan over the weekend. Yes, what what is that? What is the obsession with pushing drag queens into everything all the time? But anyway, so it says for for families, which I assume means kids have Also, if you want to take your kid to
a pumpkin carving judged by drag queens, go ahead. But I just don't know why drag queens have to get shoved into every event. Now, Yeah, you ask such a good question. I think, uh, millions of California parents want to know this as well. Um, every every event. Senator Wiener holds and Senator Weener for those who aren't familiar with him, he is a San Francisco UH state senator. UM. He is openly gay. He most of his legislation surrounds um the gay community in the state. Uh. So for him,
this is just normal. I think what he wants is to make it normal for everybody else. Ye, well, good luck with that. That in San Francisco is its own thing,
even in California for California as a whole. And we've been talking about this mostly using your article, but I think this is damned interesting because well, first of all, you think Gavin Newsom is gonna run for president, Yeah, I too, so um So that's why this becomes an issue for you wherever you live, because I think there's a decent chance he's the Democratic nominee running for residing it's Trump or de Santist or whoever, and he's going to tout all the amazing things he did in the
state of California, including how the test scores for California kids were better during the pandemic than all other states, including Florida. How is that dishonest, Katie Grimes? Oh, it's so dishonest. Um. First of all, we were one of the states that was locked down the longest. So our kids and you have kids, no, fully, well, uh that the kids were out of out of you in person school, so the learning loss parents could see day by day,
month by month. Um what's so interesting about the actual um UH test, the national testing that he's talking about is he is trying to compare California students to the rest of the country on learning loss when that's certainly not what the national testing was for in the first place. He should be talking about California kids and their actual test scores. And it was actually more important that is that the kids went into COVID already the worst test
scores in the country. UM. So two thousand nineteen, our kids were, you know, half the kids could barely read, a third of them weren't even competent in math, and so then you pile on top of that the lockdowns. But the and and the distance learning, I think is where I was trying to go with us. Um So the new national assessment tests, which our state did try to keep secret. They wanted to cover this up until after the midterm election, which is another story in and
of itself. UM. But these did come out, and they show that California's kids aren't doing well compared to other states kids. But we should be more concerned with our own kids test scores and they are abominable. Um. What this showed is that white students dropped from a math proficiency of only forty percent in the state to thirty
four percent proficiency. African American students dropped from only ten percent math proficiency to seven percent, Hispanic students dropped from only fiftcent math proficiency to eleven percent, and low income kids that the schools measure if they're eligible for the school lunch program, their scores dropped from an already low sixteen percent to eleven percent. So I think, yeah, it's just it was horrific to begin with, as you you know,
I said they were already low. Now they are outrageously bad, and it's going to take years to play catch up. Yeah, I'm amazed that those those numbers from before weren't a bigger headline that we were all talking about all the time. Right, that's just you can't have half your kids are more
not meeting the already not very high standards. Exactly. What was also bad is before COVID in two thousand, nineteen, UM, white students reading proficiency was only at forty five percent in the state, African Americans ten percent, Hispanic nineteen percent, Low income students were only reading proficiency at eighteen percent. So these were really really bad numbers to begin with us. Uh and then obviously locking them down, we're seeing the
devastating effects. I know there's a long road between here and presidential election and a lot of twists and turns and and uh and and people's names we've never even heard of that are going to decide to run, that could become rock stars, all that sort of stuff. But one thing that would be great about a Gavin Newsome Rhonda Santis race is I think it would really end up being a national debate over two very different views of how to run your politics, your schools, your businesses,
your your culture, war, your everything. And uh, it would be fun to have that torn apart at a very uh, you know, intricate level all those different topics. Yeah, certainly would. Um. What's interesting is, I think my next book needs to be California's War against Rhonda Santism, because that's certainly where our governor has his laser focus these days. So I think you know that shows us he's truly running for president. Um,
but you are right, uh. And and as you and Joe talk about um our our politics, in the United States kind of almost being tribal. Were the Republican tribe or were the Democrat tribe? And that's all we care about? Yeah, well, let me. I gotta do the the statistic of the day today that I keep repeating because it's just so freaking amazing. Um uh NBC News poll percentage of Americans who say the opposite party's agenda poses a threat that,
if not stopped, will quote destroy America as we know it. Yeah, it's it's eight for Democrats and eight for Republicans. So four out of five of everybody thinks the other party is out to destroy America. Well, if that's what you believe. Obviously, politics get pretty, first of all, the front and center in our lives, and secondly pretty vicious. Yeah they do. I think that's what would make a DeSantis Newsome race in in being observed in such a granular fashion as
we would do. Certainly, I don't the mainstream media would certainly root for Newsome, um, but I think it would really show the country what's at stake, um, without being you know, my guys good, your guys bad. I think I think these things that we're talking about right now, you know, our our students test scores. Um. You know, homelessness, Florida versus California, crime Florida versity of California. It would really be a fascinating UM breakdown. Here's my guests. You
tell me whether you think this is right. And I just think that Gavin Newsom has been surrounded by people. Who is the mayor of San Francisco. He's been surrounded by people so far his direction for so long. He really is out of touch with mainstream America. There aren't near as many people in the country that want to uh pay for flying somebody in front of abortion or give healthcare to illegals as he thinks you are absolutely right, Um,
and yeah, I've been covering him a long time. He has been groomed by the San Francisco political cabal now for years for this. He thinks he's the heir apparent. Um. He is not well liked in the state capitol. I will tell you that the Democrats don't like him and Republicans don't like him. He's very imperious and I'm gonna ask you why don't the Democrats in California like Gavin Newsom? He won't work with them. He issues edicts and orders and sends his staff to deal with them instead of,
I mean, give the devil his due. Jerry Brown would sit down and hash out a budget with the Democrats and Republicans when the Republicans were allowed in the room. Um, but he would he would meet with um, you know, the leaders of both parties, of both houses. He was extremely accessible and so this legislature was used to that. And yeah, Gavin Newsom is kind of ruling from the Ivory tower. Well, you mentioned Willie Brown, which reminded me
of Kamala Harris, for better or worse. And so what is what is their relationship between Gavin and Kamala Because I've had a couple of reporters on today we're talking about how like two days after the election, because we'll have a day of results and then races on with the expectation that Biden won't run again, and Kamala Harris is a vice president but nobody so does Gavin run
against her? What's their relationship? You know, I think their relationship is certainly in the media, it's like, you know, just friendly, you know, local rivals. I don't think any of these folks from San Francisco have a good relationship with anybody else. They all want power and control and that's always their primary motive. Obviously, Kamala Harris showed us
she would get there by any means necessary. Yeah, that that'll be something if you end up having the California government governor in a former California senator really vying for the Tom top spot there and how the go at each other. Um uh, Katie Grimes, we appreciate your time. We really love your columns. We read you all the time, we quote you all the time. Thanks for coming on the show today. Appreciate it. Thanks very much. Jeff Armstrong and Jetty