Recall candidate Larry Elder wins over Fresno rally with call to end mask mandate and more

Larry Elder, the conservative talk radio host and leading challenger in the state’s race to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom, hit all of his talking points at a packed rally Sunday at the Paul Shaghoian Performing Arts Center in Fresno.

While few alternatives or answers were offered in his speech, Elder hit on water, public education reform, the high cost of living and housing in California, homelessness, policing and other topics as well as COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates while the state, nation and the world grapple with the coronavirus pandemic and delta variant fueling a surge in cases.

“I don’t drink coffee, I drink tea, and when I become governor, assuming there are still mandates for vaccines and mandates for face masks, they will be repealed before I have my first cup of tea,” Elder said to raucous applause from a capacity crowd of about 750, most not wearing masks.

One supporter shouted, “Larry for king.”

Elder, 69, did say that he has been vaccinated.

“I was in Palm Desert a little while ago, go into a coffee shop and I was waited on by a very delightful young lady who told me she was a senior in college,” Elder said. “I looked around and I noticed that half of the wait staff had masks and half of them didn’t. I said, ‘What’s the policy here?’ She said, ‘My boss allows us to wear a mask if we want or to not wear one and she was not wearing one. I said,’ Have you been vaccinated?’ She said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘May I ask why?’ She said very pleasantly, ‘You can ask, but I don’t have to tell you.’

“I have been vaccinated. I am almost 70. I am in a high risk category – I have a rare blood disease. My doctor strongly advised me to get vaccinated. But a lot of people feel very differently. Isn’t this America?”

Elder did not take any questions or take on any of the issues that seemingly could threaten his campaign, which include a long list of misogynistic and controversial statements.

After a story in Politico last week detailed how he had, while high on marijuana, allegedly pulled out a .45-caliber pistol during an argument with former fiancee Alexandra Datig in 2015, some prominent figures in the recall campaign started to distance themselves from Elder.

Orrin Heatlie, head of the recall campaign, posted on Twitter on Thursday that he felt Politico reporter Carla Marinucci’s reporting was credible.

“Carla is a trusted and respected reporter. If she reports on a topic, you better believe her sources are credible and the information is substantiated,” he tweeted.

Elder simply plowed through about 40 minutes on stage at the Shaghoian Center, entering and exiting to standing ovations.

“You know they’re scared when I get called the Black face of white supremacy,” Elder said. “Do I look like a white supremacist?

“I was talked into this race by a lot of my friends who said, ‘You know, Larry, we talk about these issues of crime, of the outrageous cost of living, you know the average price of a home in California just hit $800,000, 150% more than the national average, largely because of the environmental extremists that have stopped homes from being built …

“For the first time in our state’s nearly 170-year history people are leaving, middle class people are leaving, not just billionaires and millionaires, as Bernie Sanders says, people making between 50 and 100k are leaving and the No. 1 reason they give is the price of a home.”

Elder closed with a personal story, but before it, a shot and making his case for a run at Newsom.

“So we have a rise in crime, a rise in homelessness, outrageous cost of living. The man slammed down this state in the most draconian way compared to all of the other 49 states,” he said. “I used to run a small business, by small I’m talking about a maximum of 12 people. I didn’t go bankrupt. I sold it when I came back to California to get into TV and radio. My point is, I know how difficult it is to run a business. It is hard.

“Nobody works 9 to 5. That’s called bankruptcy. You work 60, you work 70, you work 80 hours a week. One-third of all small businesses have now been closed forever. Hopes and dreams of men and women who mortgaged their homes, mortgaged their lives, gone forever while he allowed his own winery to remain open.

“It’s the hypocrisy that caused 1.7 million people to sign that recall petition, one-third of them were the independents and Democrats who just voted for this man just two years earlier. He’s got to go. It’s not an anti-independent thing. It’s not an anti-Democrat thing. It’s an anti-Gavin Newsom thing. He has got to go.”

This story was originally published August 22, 2021 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Recall candidate Larry Elder wins over Fresno rally with call to end mask mandate and more."