California Gov. Gavin Newsom shifts blame on Republican critics for amplifying homeless crisis plaguing San Francisco and claims 'they have to focus on our failures for them to be right' - despite the city facing an exodus over crime

Gavin Newsom told Seth Meyers he was 'defensive' of crime-ridden San Francisco and insisted that the problems plaguing the struggling city were exaggerated by Republicans.

The California governor, who was mayor of San Francisco from 2004-11, was asked by Meyers on Wednesday night about the city, which has seen an exodus of businesses and residents amid rampant crime - particularly burglary - homelessness and companies staying remote.

A quarter of a million people have fled the Bay Area since the beginning of 2020, Newsweek reported in June.

San Francisco is battling a homeless crisis and epidemic of drug overdoses, and Meyers asked Newsom how he responds to these 'very real problems.'

Newsom replied: 'You own the issues, and then you start to address them.

'Look, they've been on a doom loop about San Francisco ever since Nancy Pelosi became Speaker.'

Having said he 'owned' the issues, Newsom then pivoted to talking about how successful his state was - without addressing the problems.

He pointed out the city was closely linked to Pelosi and Kamala Harris, who was born in Oakland and launched her law career in the city, becoming district attorney.

He said California was 'the temple of the American recovery,' pointing out the high  job growth rate.

'It's values are a stark contrast - the difference is daylight and darkness - to the Republican party,' Newsom continued.

'So for Fox, One American News, Newsmax, they have to focus on our failures in order for them to be right.

'So we're used to it out there, and we still maintain our resiliency.'

He said San Francisco was 'a special place', and he was 'defensive about it - like you guys in New York, during the holidays: there isn't anything like it in the world. It's beautiful.'

Meyers steered him back to San Francisco's problems, and how they could be combatted.

'You said you own the issue,' Meyers said, recounting how grim the city could be.

Meyers said the problem was a lack of housing, and local residents not wanting new housing in their neighborhood.

'You can't blame it on conservatives, this is often your own liberal support base,' said Meyers.

Newsom nodded, and said he was suing cities to force them to build more affordable housing. 

He said an audit had been carried out, and more housing was being built - describing affordability as 'the original sin in California.'

Newsom finally returned to homelessness, saying it was a state and city problem, and had been overwhelming. He said they were investing in behavioral problems and mental health reform, saying they had got 68,000 people off the streets since he became governor and 6,000 encampments removed.

Many of those encampments were removed for the APEC summit last month, which saw Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, among other world leaders and thousands of delegates, descend on the city.

Newsom and San Francisco's mayor, London Breed, were condemned for only cleaning up the city when visitors came, asking why they hadn't done it sooner.

Before the summit, Newsom said: 'I know folks are saying, 'Oh, they're just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming to town.

'That's true, because it's true - but it's also true for months and months and months prior to APEC, we've been having conversations.'

He added: 'By definition, you have people over to your house, you're going to clean up the house.

'We have 21 world leaders; tens of thousands of people coming from all around the globe.

'What an opportunity to showcase the world's most extraordinary place: San Francisco.'

Megyn Kelly said his admission was 'unbelievable.'

'Gavin Newsom and San Francisco (mayor) London Breed clean up the city just in time for the Chinese leader to show up there with Joe Biden,' Kelly said on her podcast.

'They're important, but the actual residents of San Francisco can pound sand.'

Kelly said the Democrat governor, widely considered to be a presidential candidate-in-waiting, had left locals to live in a 'pigsty', and only took action when the world leaders arrived.

'It's so offensive,' she said.

'But - 'yeah, when somebody comes over the house, you clean up the house.'

'Yes, but most of us don't live in a pigsty day-to-day.

'We have some small clutter to clean up. It's not a complete overhaul of where we choose to raise our children.

'That's what's needed in San Francisco.

'He doesn't give two s**** about the children there.'

A Czech television crew covering the summit were held up at gunpoint on the eve of the summit, and robbed of their equipment.

Bohumil Vostal and his colleagues were filming at 5pm outside the well-known City Lights bookstore when three masked men attacked them.

'They were heading at my camera man, aiming a gun at his stomach, and one at my head,' said Vostal, speaking to The San Francisco Chronicle.

Vostal said the equipment was worth $18,000 - and they also lost an entire day's footage.

The crime has driven an exodus of businesses.

 A recent report showed 95 retailers in downtown San Francisco have closed since the start of the COVID pandemic - a decline of more than 50 percent from 2019.

Office vacancy rates hit a record high of 34 per cent in September as shops were driven out of the downtown area by heightened crime and economists warn the city is spiraling into an 'urban doom loop'.

Looting specifically became a huge problem for the city while rampant theft caused the downfall of San Francisco's main shopping area - Union Square - and forced many major chains and local businesses to permanently shut their doors.

Starbucks, Whole Foods, IKEA, Nordstrom and the Disney store have all shut some of their San Francisco locations down as a result of the city's drastic issues with crime. 

In October, LinkedIn put up the top five floors of its 63,000 square feet, 26-story building for rental till December 2027 and laid off 668 employees.

A few months prior, Meta announced it was ready to abandon its 435,000 square feet San Francisco building once its lease expired in 2031. 

Companies such as Airbnb, Paypal, Slack, Lyft and Salesforce have also left tens of thousands of square footage buildings in the city in the past year. 

San Francisco plans to ramp up their police presence this holiday season to crack down on shoplifters - despite defunding the police just two years ago amidst BLM protests.

The downturn comes as San Francisco is facing its deadliest year ever for drug overdose deaths - with 692 people dying so far this year: more than in the whole of 2022. 

The city is on track for over 800 deaths this year - which would top its highest year on record, 2020, when 726 people died. 

The rise in drug deaths goes hand in hand with a crime wave that has forced businesses to shut down and emptied the city center.

August was the deadliest month, with someone dying from an overdose every nine hours on average - while in October, an average of two people died each day. 

So far this year, 572 of the deaths - 80 percent - have been caused by a fentanyl overdose - as the city tries a raft of policies to end the deaths as experts say 'clearly the city has not done well enough'.