Newsom’s Blame Game: California Governor Dodges Responsibility as CARE Court Collapses and Presidential Ambitions Loom
Governor Gavin Newsom just threw California counties under the bus for his $300 million homelessness failure — and Republicans aren’t letting him get away with it.
The Democratic governor lashed out at San Francisco and Santa Clara counties Monday, accusing them of sabotaging his signature CARE Court program. He threatened to strip funding from ten counties placed on an “Improvement list” while showering praise on compliant localities like Alameda.
“I’m happy to redirect every damn penny in these programs to the counties that are getting things done, period, full stop,” Newsom declared during a combative news conference. “Unless they stop doing what they’ve done. Don’t make any more excuses.”
The irony was lost on no one.
A Pattern of Passing the Buck
“Governor Newsom keeps passing the buck,” state Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach) fired back. “When his CARE Court initiative falters, homelessness worsens, or gas prices rise, he blames counties or external factors instead of providing real leadership.”
“California has real challenges and needs a real leader who can deliver with real solutions, not excuses.”
The numbers tell a damning story. Newsom’s CARE Court has consumed $300 million in taxpayer funds while helping far fewer Californians than promised. The governor initially projected between 7,000 and 12,000 people statewide would qualify for the program. Reality delivered just 3,800 CARE petitions — with most dismissed in counties like San Francisco and Los Angeles.
That’s not leadership. That’s a catastrophic failure dressed up in political theater.
The Accountability Crisis
State Sen. Roger Niello (R-Sacramento) exposed Newsom’s hypocrisy head-on. While supporting CARE Court’s goal of compelling mentally ill or substance-addicted individuals into treatment, Niello pointed to the governor’s refusal to fund similar objectives through Proposition 36 — which voters approved overwhelmingly in 2024.
“Now he compounds that questionable logic by blaming the failure on local governments,” Niello told reporters. “He has a repeated practice of blaming his own shortcomings on others.”
The pattern extends far beyond CARE Court.
When the Trump administration launched military strikes on Iran over the weekend, Newsom absurdly attempted to blame California’s nation-leading gas prices on foreign conflict rather than his own destructive energy policies.
“Everyone knows it’s Newsom’s insane climate policies that have given us the highest gas prices in the country, not ‘Trump’s war on Iran,'” Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton declared. “Newsom’s ridiculous spin is a preemptive strike on the truth: that when gas prices spike even higher in the next few months in California it will be because of Newsom’s war on California oil production, hurting the working class the most.”
Following the Money
The fiscal carnage under Newsom’s governorship speaks for itself. State spending exploded, fueling chronic budget deficits — yet the governor consistently deflects blame to federal actions rather than accepting responsibility for Sacramento’s spending addiction.
“Gavin Newsom is exclusively focused on running for president of the United States at this point,” said Jon Fleischman, a veteran Republican political strategist. “There are lots of problems taking place with state government that he is anxious to blame on someone else — because he doesn’t want to be blamed during his campaign for national office.”
The homelessness crisis exemplifies Newsom’s leadership vacuum. California’s homeless population surged from 129,972 in 2018 to more than 187,000 in 2024 — despite the state pouring approximately $20 billion into programs that clearly aren’t working.
When a state audit exposed Newsom’s homeless agency for failing to track how taxpayer money was spent, the governor pivoted to a new narrative: blame local government.
Counties Fight Back
Not everyone is accepting Newsom’s finger-pointing quietly.
Santa Clara County Executive James R. Williams pushed back hard, insisting the county’s approach focused on “what works” rather than “defaulting to lengthy, costly, and often inadequate court-based processes.”
Orange County officials told reporters they’re “utilizing the CARE intervention fully” — directly contradicting Newsom’s accusations.
The reality is clear: Newsom designed a program that doesn’t work, spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on it anyway, and now demands counties clean up his mess while he prepares his presidential launch.
Presidential Ambitions, California Consequences
This isn’t governance. It’s political maneuvering at the expense of California’s most vulnerable residents.
The governor who promised to solve homelessness instead presided over its explosive growth. The leader who championed CARE Court as a transformative solution now blames everyone else for its failure. The executive who touts California as a progressive model runs from accountability when his policies collapse.
California deserves better than a governor treating the state as a stepping stone to higher office. The homeless Californians sleeping on streets deserve better than expensive programs that fail to deliver. Taxpayers deserve better than watching $300 million vanish into bureaucratic black holes while being told it’s someone else’s fault.
Newsom’s blame game might play well in Democratic primary circles, but it won’t solve California’s very real problems. Those require actual leadership, genuine accountability, and the political courage to admit when expensive progressive experiments fail.
That kind of leadership appears nowhere on Newsom’s resume — just a growing list of excuses and scapegoats as he eyes the White House while California burns.
