Jake Tapper hammers away at Gov. Newsom over his COVID hypocrisy: 'What on Earth were you thinking?!'

CNN host Jake Tapper hammered away at Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) during a contentious interview on his show Tuesday where he confronted him with his own hypocritical lockdown failures.

Newsom is facing a recall effort that got a jumpstart by the massive backlash to Newsom attending a swanky dinner party without observing social distancing guidelines.

"It's been observed that the recall petition had only around 50,000 signatures until you infamously attended that dinner with multiple other households at that fancy restaurant French Laundry or whatever it's called, a birthday party for a lobbyist no less, all while you were telling Californians that they should be staying at home," said Tapper.

"So about 55,000 signatures before you had that dinner, then a month later, that 50,000 signatures had become something like 500,000," he added.

"Now I know governor, you have apologized for that dinner, you have called it a mistake to go," Tapper continued. "But I was wondering at the time, and I don't think you've answered: What on Earth were you thinking?!"

"Well, it was a friend of over a quarter of a century, he was having his 50th birthday, restaurants were open in the state, I wasn't suggesting people should not eat. Where I was wrong, and I've owned this, and I've held myself to a higher level of accountability even my worst critics, is that there were too many people at the table and that was a mistake," Newsom explained.

"At the end of the day though, this recall petition was aided not just by that, was aided by a judge who also ultimately doubled the amount of time that they could get this recall supported and ultimately on the ballot," he added.

Newsom didn't explain, nor did Tapper add, that the judge had ruled to extend the recall deadline because coronavirus lockdown orders by the governor had hampered the recall effort by organizers.

He also complained that the recall effort received $3 million of support, some of which came from other parts of the country aside from California.

"So at the end of the day, it's complicated as to why this is on, but that's not determinative," Newsom concluded.

Tapper also forced Newsom to respond to criticism of his strict coronavirus lockdown orders that has led to massive economic losses for many Californians.

Here's the video of the contentious interview:

Governor Newsom responds to recall effort against himwww.youtube.com