In a Thursday appearance on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee reacted to California Gov. Gavin Newsom being caught violating his own social distancing and mask rules to attend a crowded dinner party amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The party was said to have been outdoors, although photos shared by FOX LA’s Bill Melugin reportedly show the governor seated at a table indoors surrounded by other people.

Host Trace Gallagher asked Huckabee about Newsom and other elected officials providing strict rules but doing something different.

“This thing broke every rule you can have,” Gallagher said of the party Newsom attended.

EXCLUSIVE: We've obtained photos of Governor Gavin Newsom at the Napa dinner party he's in hot water over. The photos call into question just how outdoors the dinner was. A witness who took photos tells us his group was so loud, the sliding doors had to be closed. 10pm on @FOXLA pic.twitter.com/gtOVEwa864

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) November 18, 2020

 

Huckabee said Newsom breaking his own rules shows he is “phonier than a vegan at a steakhouse.”

“I think you are being a little harsh on him, Trace,” Huckabee joked,” because, I mean, he didn’t sing, he didn’t chant, and he didn’t worship. Those things would have been dangerous, but simply going and not wearing a mask and yelling with his friends, that’s OK.”

“Look, he is phonier than a vegan at a steakhouse, and he just proved it,” he added. “And that video just undid him. But there is a fix to all this — whether it’s Lori Lightfoot or Newsom or the mayor of D.C. — a simple fix: If you are a government official and you shut other people’s businesses down, you don’t get paid. Because if they lose their paycheck, and you are the one responsible, you don’t get your paycheck. Let’s see how that goes. And I’m not being facetious about it. There is no skin in the game of these government officials. They are making big decisions about the peasants like us who have to live by the rules. But they don’t live by them, and they have no consequence. They don’t lose a dime of their salary. They get taxpayer money, and it never goes away. Let that go away. Let them suffer consequences financially; you’re going to see this change.”