Larry Elder rips media, Democrats' silence on egg assault: 'If I were a Democrat, it would be a hate crime'

California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder reacted Thursday to an encounter while campaigning in Los Angeles with a woman wearing a gorilla mask who threw an egg at his head and later slapped the Republican's security personnel in the face.

On "Tucker Carlson Tonight," host Jesse Watters noted the woman, who is White, attacked Elder, who is Black, and asked the candidate and South Los Angeles native about the incident.

"She might be one of the 20,000 people that were released early from our prisons; felons, many of whom were violent offenders under this governor, I don't know. We have two soft-on-crime DA's," Elder said.

Elder called the scene "angry and ugly," and noted that if he were a Democrat, the incident would "be called systematic racism," or a "hate crime." 

The California candidate added that he doesn't like to delve into identity politics in that way, but was simply pointing out what he called the hypocrisy of the left on the matter.

He added that the media has tried to avoid even identifying him as Black or as the potentially-first-Black-governor of California; should Newsom lose his recall and Elder win the replacement vote.

He pointed to a New York Times profile of new New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, remarking that it noted she is the first woman to lead the Empire State – but chose also to write a "negative" piece about him while avoiding talk of his similarly commemorative occasion.

Elder reiterated he doesn't want people to vote for him based on race, but noted that the Times appeared to inordinately celebrate Hochul, given the fact she was not elected and simply ascended to the top spot in Albany because of the resignation of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

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"So they cared about ‘the first’ when it was a female Democrat but didn’t give a rip about when it was a first Black Republican," he said.

Watters later remarked he believes the gorilla-masked assailant committed a hate crime, and that his producers reached out to Newsom, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Los Angeles' Rep. Maxine Waters asking for condemnation or comment but had not received a response.

Elder lamented the disparate treatment, noting his campaign strongly condemned the criticism of Newsom's children when they were seen maskless at a summer camp.

"But the governor has not put out a statement about this White woman, apparently White woman, wearing a gorilla mask throwing an egg at me. I don’t expect this because all these people coming in, Joe Biden has made a statement, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama has got a commercial and nobody has uttered the following words: ‘Gavin Newsom has done a good job for the people of California’. You won’t hear that because he hasn’t."

Elder noted that he has however gotten support from a top California Democrat, Gloria Romero.

Romero, a former State Senate majority leader from Barstow, crossed party lines to endorse his bid. Elder said his school choice platform resonated with the once-powerful Democratic ex-lawmaker.