Overlooking the Pacific Ocean from his own golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, former president Donald Trump praised his California property as one of the most beautiful in the world.
The rest of the state, however, is being destroyed by rampant crime, sweeping homelessness and unauthorized immigrants — and it’s spurring a mass exodus, Trump said at a press conference today.
“The state of California is a mess,” said Trump.
“We cannot allow Comrade Kamala Harris and the communist left to do to America what they did to California,” said the former president, who had held a fundraiser in Los Angeles on Thursday night and plans one later today in the Bay Area community of Woodside to cash in on California’s lucrative trove of donors.
Attacking California is something Trump didn’t even do once in his first — and he says only — presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday night in Philadelphia. Political experts perceived it as a missed opportunity: After all, his allies have for decades decried California as too liberal for the rest of the nation — partly why there has never been a California Democrat elected president.
The jury is still out on how much Harris’ California ties could hurt her chance among undecided voters. For most Michigan and Arizona voters who spoke to CalMatters last month, Harris’ record in the White House mattered more than her California brand.
Trump, who repeatedly mispronounced Harris’s first name, also blamed Harris for federal economic and border policies and insisted he outperformed her during the debate.
The Harris campaign’s rapid response team posted about some of Trump’s statements, but has not directly responded to what he said about her record or her home state.
How much of the many, many things Trump said about California and Harris’ record is accurate? Here’s our fact check on some notable claims:
State of the state
What Trump said:
“California has the highest inflation, highest taxes, the highest gas prices, the most illegal aliens, the most regulations, the most expensive utilities, and it ranks as the third worst state to start a business.”
Facts:
- Inflation: Inflation rates fluctuate month to month. Florida had the highest inflation at 4% as of March, while California had the seventh highest, at 3.6%, according to an analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Moody’s Analytics. Even according to U.S. Senate Republicans’ own inflation tracker, as of August, California ranked 5th for increased monthly inflation costs since January 2021 and had a cumulative inflation rate lower than Florida and other states in the West region.
- Taxes: California does have the highest state sales tax at 7.25%, but ranks 8th in total state and local sales tax rates this year, according to the Tax Foundation. California’s property tax rate is at 0.75%, the 34th highest of all 50 states. The state also has a progressive income tax rate while other states have a flat rate for all.
- Gas prices: It is true. California does have the highest gas price of all states, at $4.76 a gallon as of today, according to the AAA. The national average is $3.23.
- Unauthorized immigrants: California is estimated to have the largest population of undocumented immigrants, at 1.8 million, based on a Pew Research Center estimate of 2022 Census figures. But California is also the only state where that population decreased from 2019 to 2022, while the populations in Republican-led Florida and Texas grew the most.
- Utility rates: As of June, Hawaii — not California — had the highest electricity rates, averaging 42.4 cents per kilowatt hour for residential customers, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In California, residential customers paid an average of 33.0 cents per kilowatt hour. A Forbes analysis of monthly utility bills by state ranked Alaska the most expensive, followed by Hawaii, Connecticut, West Virginia and Georgia.
- Worst state to start a business: It depends which ranking you look at, but according to Forbes, California is the 37th best state to start a business this year.
Crime in California
What Trump said: Trump blamed the “destruction” of San Francisco on Gov. Gavin Newsom and Harris. He said murders rose “significantly” and car thefts “went through the roof” while Harris was state attorney general. He argued that Harris was lenient in prosecuting several cases, that she had endorsed defunding the police and that “the police don’t endorse her.”
Facts:
- Crime stats: When Harris was California attorney general between 2011 and 2017, homicide rates fluctuated, with an average of 1,819 homicides — or 4.7 per 100,000 people — each year, according to the state Department of Justice. Vehicle thefts ebbed and flowed, averaging an annual 164,000, or 424.9 per 100,000 people. Both rates were far lower than during the 1990s.
- Leniency: Despite claims she’s soft on crime, Harris has a mixed record. As a local prosecutor, Harris did not pursue the death penalty against a cop killer — a case Trump used during the press conference to justify his claim. But years later, Harris prosecuted a woman with mental illness for assaulting police officers. As California’s attorney general, Harris defended the state’s death penalty even though she personally opposed it. Harris remained neutral on various ballot measures about reducing penalties for low-level offenses and allowing earlier release for more offenders.
- Defund the police: It is true that Harris expressed support for redirecting some money and “reimagining” public safety during her 2020 presidential campaign, weeks after George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, sparking waves of protests against law enforcement. “This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” she said at the time. After President Joe Biden tapped her as his running mate, however, she denounced the “defund” movement.
- Police endorsements: More than 100 law enforcement officials — including sheriffs, former and current police chiefs and FBI agents — endorsed Harris last week.
Immigration and the border
What Trump said: He lambasted Harris for supporting “sanctuary cities” for undocumented immigrants while she was San Francisco’s district attorney, claiming she shielded “illegal aliens” who committed murders and refused to deport them.
Facts:
- Sanctuary city policy: The San Francisco city ordinance — which prevented officials from handing over unauthorized migrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement even if they committed a felony — dates to 1985. It was originally aimed at protecting asylum seekers from El Salvador and Guatemala, but was extended in 1989 to cover all immigrants. Harris — who was district attorney from 2004 to 2011 — supported changing the policy to report undocumented immigrants arrested on suspicion of a felony in 2008.
- Prosecuting unauthorized immigrants: Trump said Harris offered sanctuary in 2008 to Edwin Ramos, a Salvadoran migrant who was charged with three counts of murder and who had prior convictions for assault and attempted robbery. Similarly, Trump mentioned the case of Rony Aguilera, a Honduran immigrant who murdered a 14-year-old boy in 2008. It is true city officials did not turn him over to federal agents at the time — under the sanctuary city policy that Harris helped change that year. Ramos was sentenced to life in prison in 2014, and Aguilera was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison in 2013.
Homelessness
What Trump said: “After Kamala Harris and Gavin Newscum took charge of San Francisco, homelessness increased by over 200%.”
Facts: Homelessness has grown in California, but not by that much. From 2007 to 2023, the number of people experiencing homelessness grew by 30.5%, according to a report to Congress. In San Francisco, the point-in-time count of homeless people this year reached the lowest level since 2015, according to the city. Nearly 186,000 Californians live on the streets or homeless shelters, up 8% from 2022, according to a new CalMatters analysis. As of last year, California accounted for nearly 30% of the nation’s homeless population and roughly half of the unsheltered population.
California exodus
What Trump said: He claimed the state has the most number of people leaving.
Facts: It is true that California shed the most people last year — 75,423, according to the Census Bureau. But it’s not just a California problem: New York lost the most population between 2020 and 2022, losing 2.6% of its population, according to Census data. The reasons for California’s shrinking population are complicated: Some died, some moved to other states due to the high cost of living, and some left the country altogether.
California is trash. These pages and the Spotlight bear witness to that fact every day. Garbage schools, garbage on the streets, garbage in the parks, homeless feces everywhere, two-million-dollar starter homes, $3000+ rents, nanny-state regulations, a HSR to nowhere, anarcho-tyrannical DAs, mind-boggling inane BART projects, parking lot traffic on roads maintained worse than ones on Indian Reservations, sales and gas tax through the roof, environmentalism-induced wildfires, no middle class and a 95.5 median IQ.
Absolute trash, no hope, no future, and it is 100% the fault of politicians like Kamala, if not her directly, because let’s face it, she is not effective even at destroying the state.
When is San Jose Inside going to fact check the “safe and effective” claims regarding the experimental Covid jabs?
Or fact check that the jabs approved by the FDA were the ones available to the American public?
Or fact check the efficacy of face masks to halt respiratory viruses?
Or fact check the premise of the emergency use authorization that there were not available over-the-counter remedies for Covid that justified experimental mRNA jabs?
When?
I don’t believe it’s possible to defend California Today™, never mind against what or with an election, against whom. The Kamala Kiddie Kandy (NewK3), appealing as it may seem to so many making it California Today™, isn’t a solution to California’s many problems, going well, well, well beyond and beneath the state’s being overcrowded and loved to death as in a much earlier, less degraded time.
Best way to counter fact checking… tell the truth. Countering with more rhetoric does nothing constructive, which appears to be the point. Here’s a thought, go ahead and move to another state, stop reading about California and raise the IQ of both states all at the same time.
Bonely –
So, there aren’t $2m starter homes in the bay area – I seem to remember an article in this rag about one in Sunnyvale – or $3000+ rent – which is all I ever hear about – or widespread idiocy running and living in the state – I didn’t pull 95.5 out of the air and have you heard Arenas or Jimenez speak? HSR isn’t a boondoggle? There aren’t piles of human feces all over the cities in the bay area? And goodness knows what’s getting into the water ways that require HazMat suits to clean.
These are facts laid out every day in the papers and on the news.
I also thought it was racist to tell someone to move if they don’t like it?
And by the way genius, this is a story about Kamala and Trump running the President of the United States, not the Duchess of CA, so moving won’t help. It seems Californians, even if they didn’t vote for Kamala in the primary – you know with democracy being on the ballot and all – want the rest of the country to be run like California.
So, here’s a thought – how about you get all your progressive friends to vote for Trump and cost Kamala the CA electoral votes and ultimately the election and the rest of America won’t give an F about how fast you turn California into a third world country. Or better yet, you grow up and take responsibility for your support of the clown show politicians running the most beautiful state in the US into the ground.
Jonly Bonly, that’s an odd, and not really interesting, way to reveal at least some your feelings matter, while avoiding the truth being told again about the state. California is run on increasingly disturbed feelings, in case you weren’t aware. (Governor Harris in the state’s possible future, and all) As a native, I’m particularly ashamed of the state’s downward and (keeping it very kind) sullied trajectory.
Face facts already, children of various ages.
California government, full of the dominant politics in the state, is Lawn Dart Airlines.
ABC already did their own biased fact checking during the debate. What a pathetic sh*t show!