California Gov. Gavin Newsom must have thought it would be a crime to ignore Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders after she condemned the protests in Los Angeles.
On Thursday he issued a blistering correction to the former White House press secretary for President Donald Trump.
Sanders was one of several Republicans piling on to Newsom’s resistance to Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in LA despite mostly peaceful demonstrations against the immigration raids. Newsom is also trying to block the maneuver in court, saying it’s illegal and exacerbating tensions.
Sharing video of her interview with Fox News, Sanders wrote: “What’s happening in California would never happen here in Arkansas because we value order over chaos. President @RealDonaldTrump does too, which is why he is doing what Governor Newsom won’t.”
Newsom waited a day before reminding Sanders that governors who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
“Your homicide rate is literally DOUBLE California’s,” he wrote.
BuzzFeed found that Newsom was pretty much on the nose. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, Arkansas has a homicide rate of 11.8 per 100,000 people while California’s is 5.9 per 100,000.
Newsom delivered a similar clapback to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a former Auburn coach who said Newsom should be locked up and that the “rule of law is nonexistent” in Los Angeles.
“Alabama has 3X the homicide rate of California,” Newsom wrote back on X. (Alabama’s rate is indeed almost three times that of California.)
“Its murder rate is ranked third in the entire country,” he continued. “Stick to football, bro.”
In terms of comebacks, that would be a touchdown.