This is one of those videos that is not going to go away. It is going to pop up if he actually launches a presidential bid instead of running a stealth shadow campaign. And, the worst thing, is it comes out of Gov. Newsom’s own mouth.

He decided to actually say this.

Newsom told the story moments before a Wednesday press conference involving the mayors of California’s big cities.

He said he had the encounter with the Target employee after seeing a shoplifter.

“He picks it up and keeps walking out as we’re checking out,” Newsom said of the shoplifter he said he witnessed, he then went on to what the employee said, “The woman says, ‘Oh, he’s just walking out,’ ‘He didn’t pay for that’ I said, ‘Well, why don’t you stop him?’ She goes, ‘Oh, the governor,'”

Newsom said that worker did not recognize him at first.

“The governor lowered the threshold,” Newsom said the worker told him, “‘There’s – there’s no accountability,’ I said that’s just not true.”

…

“She looks at me twice and then she freaks out,” Newsom said of the moment the worker finally recognized him, “She calls everyone over, ‘Who wants to take photos?’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not taking a photo. We’re having a conversation. Where’s your manager? How are you blaming the governor?’ And it was, you know, $380 later, and I was like, ‘Why am I spending $380, everyone (else) can walk the hell right out.'”

Why can they walk right out?

Gov. Newsom seems to want to argue that it’s because Target employees aren’t stopping shoplifters. Blaming a low-level employee and then calling her manager for blaming him for it is something truly special.

Newsom tells this story to falsely claim that California has tough shoplifting laws and that it’s not his fault.

Prop 47 essentially decriminalized shoplifting below $950. Newsom laughably calls this the “tenth toughest in the nation”. While California voters get some of the blame for voting for the Safe Schools and Streets Act without checking what’s in it, Gov. Newsom defended Prop 47 and blamed everyone else, local prosecutors, stores and now a Target employee for the shoplifting epidemic.

Worst of all, Gov. Newsom blamed this nameless Target employee and got her in trouble, and used her story to suggest that employees are the problem, when the state specifically tried to crack down on employees stopping shoplifters.

The California state Senate has passed a controversial bill that would establish new workplace violence prevention standards — but not everyone is on board.

Senate Bill 553, which was introduced by State Sen. Dave Cortese, would prohibit employers from “maintaining policies that require employees to confront active shooters or suspected shoplifters.”

Gov. Newsom is blaming retail employees for not stopping shoplifting even as his own party is trying to stop retail employees from intercepting shoplifters.

Guess who signed SB 553 into law? Gov. Gavin Newsom.