No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Colorado Governor’s clemency for Tina Peters backfires

Episode Date: May 24, 2026

Colorado Governor Jared Polis’ decision to grant clemency to Tina Peters predictably blows up in his face. Brian interviews California gubernatorial candidates Matt Mahan and Xavier Becerra and North Carolina Supreme Court justice Anita Earls.Pre-order The Day After here: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/thedayafter Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis' decision to grant clemency to Tina Peters predictably blows up in his face. And I've got three interviews, California gubernatorial candidates Matt Mayhan and Javier Bacera and North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening to No Lie. So the news broke about a week ago that Colorado Governor Jared Polis granted clemency to election denier and Steve Bannon acolyteeat Tina Peters. I actually held off on saying anything about this topic because, look,

I obviously have a lot of thoughts about. that decision, but I've been trying really hard to get Jared Polis to come on for an interview to discuss, and I didn't want to speak out before he had the opportunity to come on and explain his rationale. And I emailed his team nearly every day, and almost every day I got excuses as to why he wasn't available, even though his team had granted an interview to Legacy Media with Caitlin Collins at CNN. And look, I think she's one of the best reporters on television, so I certainly have no beef with her. But obviously, the decision by Polis to go on Legacy Media and cut out independent media altogether is a pretty apt microcosm for Democrats' failures altogether. So

it wasn't really a surprise that somebody like Jared Polis has learned exactly no lessons in the last few years, whether it's about where people on the left are consuming information, or whether it's a good idea to commute the sentences of people who wanted to overturn the previous election on behalf of Donald Trump. And so now Trump has a blueprint. He knows that if he attacks someone enough. If he threatens to sick his army of supporters on someone enough, if he uses the government as a cudgel against his enemies enough, they'll relent and bend to his will. And so in the face of already so much capitulation from news networks and tech companies and CEOs and law firms, universities, we can now add Democratic governors to the list of those who Trump knows will eventually

succumb to his whims if he just pushes hard enough. This will teach him all the wrong lessons and it will literally make everybody else worse off as the result of it. As for Tina Peters, she decided to come out fresh off her commuted sentence and say that the Democratic censure of Jared Polis for granting her clemency is further evidence of an election rigging cover-up. That's apparently how much she learned her lesson. That's apparently what Polis burning his political capital was for so that an election denier could further entrench her election denialism.

Like, it's almost like, and I hope you're sitting down for this, Conferring goodwill to these people buys you nothing. I've said this before, and I'll say it a thousand times if I have to, if there's one thing I want to see change on the left, it is this impotence and fecklessness where we bend over backwards to show goodwill to the other side, while they wouldn't be caught dead doing the same for us. They game the refs by complaining about a rigged election, which is a demonstrably false lie,

and they get their goons in the media to repeat it over and over again to the point where weak-will Democrats feel this need, this need to confer concessions to the other side. And then the message that the right gets is, oh, all we have to do is lie loudly enough and we get what we want. To that end, Jared Polis is perpetuating this problem. He's entrenching this problem. He is a weak Democrat who has learned zero lessons from the past and is instead teaching the Republicans exactly how to continue to game the system by manipulating people like him. As I mentioned, it's not just him missing the mark on freeing an election denier before the courts even weighed in on what was going to be an imminent

resentencing for Tina Peters. It's also his stance on the broader fight, specifically on redistricting. You know, I interviewed him nine months ago. Here's a sampling of how that went. Republicans are trying to gerrymandered seats, not just in Texas, but also in Missouri, in Indiana, in Florida. And I'm sure there are a raft of other Republican trifecta states that are looking to, you know, curry favor with Donald Trump when he asks for something. And so we've seen a few instances where Democratic governors across the country are looking to push back against this blatant power grab by Republicans. You are in charge of one of the few states that Democrats have as a weapon at our disposal. This is a Democratic trifecta in Colorado.

And so what steps can or will be taken in your state to counteract what's happening, the blatant power grab that's happening at the hands of Trump and these Republicans? Well, look, I think, first of all, what Republicans are trying to do in Texas, perhaps other states is wrong. It's unpopular. In our state, and I supported this, the vote. voters passed a constitutional amendment that took redistricting out of the hands of politicians, out of the hands of the legislature, out of the hands of the governor, and constitutionally put it with a nonpartisan redistricting commission. And so they've done their work.

They'll convene again in 2031 to draw the districts for 2032. And so will there come a point where we're watching these Republicans rig the rules of the game in their favor that, that, you know, you would move, do what, what Gavin Newsom is doing in California? move to step away from these independent redistricting commissions so that we're not unilaterally disarming in the states where we have the power to do something? Well, I think from Colorado's perspective, I'm confident we can deliver on one to two seats

for a Democratic majority. That's what we want to do. I think all of our incumbents are safe. We're on the offense. We're going to pick up one to two seats. Is there anything that could happen in the broader political environment that would make you rethink Colorado's allegiance to the independent redistricting commission

and recognize that we don't have that many weapons to wield at our disposal. Colorado is one, and that, you know, in this broader fight to be able to protect democracy from what is a very blatant paragraph from Republicans, that you would move to support not just the Independent Redistricting Commission, but kind of view Colorado's stance in this broader fight as, okay, we have to push back against what is, what are anti-democratic moves at the hands of these Republicans. Well, again, like what, you know, this isn't the first time Texas. tried to do this. They actually did it, if you recall, they did a mid-decade redistricting,

I believe it was when President Bush was president, and they tried to squeeze a few seats. And then again, it came around to bite them in the sense that they spread themselves thinner. And by the end of the decade, into the next decade with Democratic shifts, Democrats won. Is there anything in the national environment that would make you think differently about Colorado using an independent redistricting commission? And do you understand what I'm saying, about like the the prospect of unilaterally disarming because we're showing good government, we're taking good government steps in states where we have majorities, but Republicans are just, are just flouting the rules openly in their states.

You know, you should talk to more of a cartographer, a demographic specialist. Again, from the, from the Colorado perspective, are, there is no process that would allow for it. So it's not something we thought about. Our state constitution is the process. That cannot be amended in an off year. So there is no mechanism to go to the ballot this year like California is doing. It would be for at the earliest, it would be 26, which would almost be the end of the decade anyway for 28. So again, that's not something we've really looked at in Colorado because we have a constitutional process for it.

Is a 26 constitutional amendment process something that you would consider if we were in a national environment where things continue to degrade precipitously like they are now? Well, our goal here, and I mentioned this, Brian, and we have one to two seats that we are focused on picking up for the Democrats, the eighth congressional district and the third congressional district. That's a district that Lauren Bober did represent, but she would have lost and she fled across the state. Her old district is competitive. And of course, there's one that we should win. So we're going to do our part from Colorado. I won a Democratic majority in Congress. We will furnish one to two seats of that majority. And hopefully that'll be part of the total. that makes Hakeem Jeffries the next speaker. So it became clear to me that this was not someone who was willing to meet the moment, not somebody who is willing to recognize how dire this fight is, and absolutely not willing to see his own responsibility to step up as one of the few governors

of a blue trifecta state. And look, I completely understand the aversion to gerrymandering. It fucking sucks. But the sad reality is that it is happening on the right regardless of whether we like it or not, which means that we can either let it happen while we allow them to relegate Democrats to permanent minority status

forever, or we can fight back so that we at least have a shot at banning the practice nationwide, which is something they will never do. The fact that polis didn't and doesn't understand that extremely simple concept is exactly why Democrats are in this position in the first place. I'm going to read a short excerpt from my new book the day after that summarizes my thoughts on this whole thing. One of the great fallacies of the Biden, Obama, and Clinton years is the notion that if only Democrats would compromise with their Republican counterparts, their goodwill would be duly reciprocated. If only they capitulate to the GOP, this time, this time, the right will lay down its arms and a golden era of bipartisanship would emerge. I'll hold the ball, Lucy explains to

Charlie Brown, and you come running up and kick it. I wrote this book because there is very clearly an asymmetry at play between the two sides, and that if we don't confront it, if we don't rectify it, we will lose our democracy. Remember, Republicans don't care about this Democratic Republic. They care about winning at all costs, if that means the U.S. has to, devolve into an illiberal democracy, they're fine with that. They'll wield the FCC against the media. They'll suppress votes that aren't for them. They'll entrench minority rule. I wrote this book as a blueprint for how to fight back, how to actually wield power effectively when we get it, while we still have the chance to wield it. So if you'd like to support my work, I ask that you please pre-order

a copy. I'm going to put a link in the show notes of this episode. And part of fighting back is recognizing that the time for politics as usual is gone. Now is the time to use every tool at our disposal because frankly, winning is existential. If Republicans are gerrymandering Democrats out of existence in every state they control, we must fight back. That means Democrats in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, and yes, even Colorado, all have to start moving now to redraw their maps. Again, I get it, not good government. But if we lean on good government solutions, we are going to good government ourselves into obscurity. We have to be aggressive, creative, and frankly, ruthless, because that's the only way we emerge from this thing. And if any

Democrats don't have the stomach make way for those who do. Next up are my interviews with Matt Mayhan, Javier Bacera, and Anita Earls. No Lie is brought to you by Zbiotics pre-alcohol. So I have to tell you about this game-changing product that I use before a night out with drinks. It's called pre-alcohol. Zibiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. So here's how it works.

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Thanks for having me, Brian. So I want to jump into the California politics in just a moment, but a little bit of national news first. We have seen Donald Trump decide to engage this week in a $1.8 billion slush funds that would basically go toward paying out these January six insurrectionists. So can I have your reaction first and foremost to this latest move by somebody who has shown that there's not enough money for health care, not enough money for food assistance, not enough resources to bring costs down, but apparently enough money to make every single convicted and pardoned January 6th insurrectionist into a millionaire? Yeah, I think it's just, it's deeply wrong. This is like a cronyism, a, a,

an authoritarian, I mean, this is a guy who thinks that he should be able to repurpose the machinery of government to serve himself and his allies. This is the opposite of what we need from our leaders. We need leaders who are truly public servants, who are focused on making government work for people, for everyone, and for especially those who are struggling. And Donald Trump is twisting government to serve his own ends. He's enriching himself, his family members, and his rewarding allies and using government to punish opponents, it's deeply un-American. It is a direct threat to the entire founding principles and philosophy of our republic, of our democratic republic. It's a really scary next step in a very dangerous direction.

So what do you view California's role as being, especially in this era? I mean, California has the biggest economy in the United States, fourth biggest economy in the world. Obviously, it is a bastion of progressivism and democratic politics. And so, you know, as we see these overt attacks against democracy, what is California's role here? Yeah, I mean, you're right. We are the bulwark against this Trump administration. And our job is to both demonstrate through our, the way we govern ourselves, that we respect civil liberties, democratic norms, our vulnerable neighbors, that we really express the best of American values. I think we do that. There are a lot of tools in the toolkit. So, you know, one approach, of course,

which we've been doing and have to have to continue to double down on is using the court system, making the case in front of judges for our interpretation of the Constitution and American principles. We obviously have to strategically use our budget to backfill cruel cuts from this administration, the bully pulpit. I've also in this race tried to make the case that the best resistance to Donald Trump is a strong California that's delivering results. When we fix our challenges and have the best policies and the best outcomes, when we have the highest performing public schools, the safest neighborhoods, when we're building housing, making it easier for people to start business. when our research universities are driving innovation, we're really the strongest counterpoint to this MAGA movement. We're offering a different way. And I think that sadly, some of our more visible public policy failures in California, particularly homelessness, overdose deaths, untreated addiction

and mental illness have given oxygen to the MAGA movement, which is why, In addition to the legal and rhetorical battles, I also want us to be focused on holding ourselves accountable, our government, state and local, for delivering results in people's lives and being that strong counter example. Okay. So let's talk about some of those issues. You touched on the first one that's obviously especially difficult to contend with. Well, you touched on two, which are homelessness and housing.

And so I want to jump into housing first. what is your priority in terms of making housing more affordable and plentiful and easier to build here in California? Yeah, right. It is the core issue. California is losing people, young people are losing hope because they don't see a path to homeownership. They're strongly just to pay the rent because it's going up faster than income. That's true for so many people. People in the kinds of neighborhoods like the one I grew up in. I grew up in a family, working class community. My mom was a teacher. My dad was a union letter carrier, mailman. We were paycheck to paycheck growing up. Whether or not we were going to be able to pay the mortgage was a

source of stress. And I now realize in retrospect, we were privileged to have a mortgage. I mean, so many people are, you know, one medical bill away from losing their apartment or their home. So look, I think fundamentally, what we have to do is make it easier, faster, and less expensive to build. It is fundamentally supply and demand issue. We are blessed with a state that has seen a lot of job growth, a lot of innovation. We're very entrepreneurial. These things are not accidents. I think part of why California has the fourth largest economy and is so entrepreneurial is because we're open and welcoming. We embrace people from all over the world. We celebrate our difference in diversity. We create room and upward mobility for people. And that's led to a lot of job growth. Sadly,

our own policies have gotten in the way of building the housing we need. So I put out a very comprehensive plan that's based on what I've done in San Jose to remove barriers and get thousands of homes under construction. We cut our permitting timelines in half. We dropped our one-time fees. Cities have a lot of fees and process and red tape. And we can learn from other states. We may be the best state in the country, but it doesn't mean we've got everything right. And, you know, in Colorado, they're building the exact same home at half the cost, a lot of that is fees, permitting timelines, and regulatory burden that we've created. They're our own policies. So we have to fix that. You know, if that process seems obviously so intuitive, why do you presume that current

leadership in California at the state and local level hasn't done enough to basically counteract it, to rectify these issues, that everybody seems to be able to diagnose right now? Well, we're moving in that direction. And I think Governor Newsom has done and the legislature has done some important work around making it easier to build from a zoning perspective. We have, you know, there was this movement that the shorthand was legalized housing. We shouldn't have restrictive zoning and height limits. And so that movement, what you might call the YMB movement, has scored really impressive and important wins in recent years. But we still have this cost issue. And the cost issue was harder because it is, counterintuitive for Californians for many of us in the sense that it it creates tension with our deeply held environmental inclinations, labor rules, and and you know, there are tradeoffs. We have impact fees that sound great on paper and have real constituencies behind them. I talked about fees. So let me just break this down.

Cities across the state add one-time development fees that often add 10 to 20 percent to the cost of housing. It is much lower in Colorado or Texas or other places. But those fees represent things people really care about, the inclusionary requirement to basically affordable housing fees, park fees, traffic impact fees, other environmental mitigation. And so you have a constituency around each of these fees. And historically, that was the solution. It was actually business and you had unbridled capitalism. And it was, well, we need more fees. We We need more pathways to sue if developers do bad things, but we've swung the pendulum to a point where even though it all sounds good and it all started from a well-intended place, we've made it so expensive to build that it's hard to finance a project these days. So we just have to right-size it.

All right. So on the other issue that I brought up, which is homelessness, what sets you apart from the other candidates who are running? Obviously, you know, you can't have a gubernatorial race in California without discussing the issue of homelessness. That's one of the issues that you alluded to were being seized upon by the right. And every year, every election, we have state and local officials come out and say that they're going to do X, Y, Z to solve homelessness. Why are you in a position where you're able to do it? Yeah, because I'm the only candidate who has done it. And as a mayor of a big city, I'm proud of my track record.

I challenged us to treat homelessness and particularly unshelped. homelessness. People living outside in tents and cars with no services, no infrastructure, no hope in so many cases, to really treat it like a crisis. Politicians love to run for office calling homelessness a crisis and then they get into office and they don't act like it's a crisis. If you have a fire or an earthquake, you scramble to set up safe places for people to go. You bring in aid. You immediately start helping people rebuild and triage what people people need. We've come to, so many of our political leaders have come to see street homeless, unsheltered homelessness as an inevitability. And I said, no, that's wrong. We can't leave

human beings outside to live and die, literally die on our streets. We've had, we have thousands of people a year who die on our streets. It's totally unacceptable, morally, also socially. And the impact on the broader community is huge. We have kids who are scared to walk to school because they don't want to walk through an encampment. And I don't blame them. So what we've done in Jose is really challenge the status quo on this. We shifted our budgets to much more pragmatic solutions. We're investing in prevention, keeping people housed and reducing the inflow so we have a more stable population so we can really help the folks who are out there and not just have this continuous flow of folks in. So that's short-term rental assistance and case management and various

strategies around prevention. And then for those who are currently in unsheltered tent encampment, we have built interim housing, 2,200 units of converted motels, tiny homes, and modular units, and really built fast, cost-effective alternatives to the streets. And then number three, and this is the part where, you know, by own party, Democrats sometimes are hesitant, but I've seen the results. We have held people accountable for coming indoors when private interim housing that meets people where they are that's low barrier, does not have a strict sobriety requirement, allows you to bring your pets, your partner, your possessions, really designed with the input of

people who have the experience of being homeless. When it's available, we let people know in our city, camping can't just be a choice. We've got to get you indoors into a safe place. And that balance of compassion and real alternatives combined with some accountability has led us to lead California in reducing homelessness. We're down one third. We have one third. We have one third, fewer human beings living outside in tenting encampments than when I started as mayor. And I think we've really started to build a model for how we solve this crisis in California. So if you were to put a number on what a reduction in homelessness or homeless encampments would look like that you would consider a success by the end of your first term as governor of California,

what would you put that number at? Yeah, it's a great question. I would say something on the order. one-third as we've done in San Jose. I'm in my fourth year in San Jose, and what we did in the third largest city in the state is what I was just describing and built. We scaled up cost-effective alternatives. We invested in prevention. We saw the number of people living outside come down by about a third. So it would be on that order. I mean, I will say, I am always skeptical of politicians who come in with these big headline numbers. We're going to build three million homes. And then we, you know, we build 500,000 or something. So I just, you know, but yes, we, we, we, we, we

have been heading in the wrong direction. We've been spending tens of billions of dollars and we've seen the number of people outside either grow for many years or now kind of level off, totally unacceptable. We need to scale up a lot of shelter. We need to build more housing. We need to invest in prevention. And when alternatives to the streets are available, including treatment centers, we need to require people come indoors. Finally, a topic that's near and dear to my heart as I live in Los Angeles, moved here for the entertainment industry, and have watched the industry get decimated over the course of the last decade or so. We're at the point where we have the fewest number of people who work in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles or in California more broadly that

we've had, you know, I think since they've been tracking this. And like anecdotally, I've seen my own friends and my own circles of people leave this state and in some cases leave the country to follow the jobs, whether it, you know, whether it be. in the UK or Canada. And of course, there's a bustling film industry in plenty of other countries around the world, Australia, New Zealand, Bulgaria. And so in terms of kind of resuscitating this industry, what would be your plan for Hollywood? Yeah, thanks, Brian. And you know, all three of the issues you've raised here, housing costs, homelessness, Hollywood, our three Hs is are all real crises for the state and they need to be treated as such. I'm running because I've seen a

complacency in our government around these issues and a few others. I would say our third grade reading levels would be another that for me would rise to that level where a majority of our kids are not on grade level for reading just to give you another example. But on Hollywood specifically, you're right. In an iconic industry, a core part of California's identity, a source of well over 100,000 middle-class jobs, a driver of so much other economic activity, the heart of our most important largest city, is at risk here. And we have been way too slow to react. I put out the first plan for bringing production back to California of any of the candidates in this race. I took a lot of time early on when I first got in the race to talk to everyone, a really diverse set of people

in the industry. You know, the unionized workforce, SAG AFTRA and IOTC and the Teamsters and other and their members, you know, talent, producers and directors, financiers and really get a well-rounded view of it. The first and most important thing we have to do is put a stake in the ground, recognize that production is not coming back if we aren't bold and create a tax credit that makes the cost of production feasible in California. And my proposal is dead simple. It was the first plan. It's the simplest plan. I think it's the best of any of the candidates in this race. It is matching what you're seeing in other very competitive states and countries. It's a 40% tax credit. It's above and below the line. So you're capturing the full production cost. And it's uncapped.

So we just say this is the new rate. And you don't have to go through a bunch of rigourable. of all this paperwork and then waiting and hoping and am I going to get it and is it tapped out or not? And that uncertainty kills investment, as you know. So I think we keep it dead simple, very aggressive. Now, we know there are other things. We've got to solve the housing crisis so that people can afford to live here who work in the industry, right? We've got to improve permitting so that the friction around actually shooting in California is more straightforward. I mean, there are other things that have to be AI is a threat to the industry. We've got to strike that balance between two of our leading industries, our creative industry, Hollywood,

and tech, and say, look, your image, your likeness, your voice is part of your IP. It's something, it's you, and you need to be compensated when it's being used by a third party. And so I think there's a lot to work on here, but I would start with just making it possible to finance production in the state again, because I think that's really at the heart of where we started to get our lunch eaten by a lot of other places. Yeah. And I'm glad you said on-cap tax credit, because oftentimes it comes down to that. Is the tax credit better here or in Atlanta or in New Orleans or in New Jersey or in New York? I mean, all of these different states and, of course, different countries

saw what we were able to build in California and how lucrative and sexy this industry is and did what they needed to do to take it away. And a lot of times, you know, these producers are just looking for where is it going to be the most financially viable, financially advantageous for me to do this project. and if there's better tax credits in Atlanta, they'll go to Atlanta like Marvel did. And then Marvel saw that there were better tax credits in the UK. And so they left Atlanta and went to the UK. And so oftentimes it's just that's the bottom line is who's going to have the best tax credit.

We know that as far as tax credits are concerned for the entertainment industry, it's a net positive ROI. And so the more money that you put toward these tax credits, the more you make on the other side of this thing. So I'm glad to hear your position. be that you want to see an uncap tax credit? I think it's critical and it's a huge risk to not do it. We are already paying the price. And again, it's not about the workforce. This is about people having careers and opportunity.

And it's about our identity as a state. Yeah, I take it very seriously. So I appreciate you asking. And it's solvable. And as governor, I'm going to make it a priority. And finally, last question here. I've been especially focused on redistricting on the national level, and I was very supportive of Prop 50 and using the tools that we have at our disposal to fight fire with fire and

neutralize this power grab by Trump that he was taking part in in Texas. But since then, since we've neutralized those five seats in Texas, we've seen Republicans redraw their maps in Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina. Alabama, Louisiana, and this redistricting war is just going to continue. Even in the event that other blue states are able to jump in into this process, which, you know, look, at its core, I do think is a scourge. And I do want to see national legislation banning partisan gerrymandering nationwide. But what I want to see first, and more importantly, is no unilateral disarmament on the left.

And so even if we're able to wield some weapons that we have, you know, for an extra seat in Maryland, in New Jersey, a few more seats in New York, a few options for seats in Illinois and Colorado. We still have no bigger weapon than California. And so in the event that this continues to go in this direction, would you be a proponent of a map that's basically a 52 to nothing map in the event that, you know, we have these Republican states who view this process as them being entitled to engineer themselves.

permanent majority in the House. And if California is one of the only weapons that we have to counteract that, until we have some nationwide legislation banning partisan gerrymandering nationwide, would you be in favor of a more aggressive approach to neutralize what we're seeing happen at the hands of the GOP? Well, Brian, I look, I support Prop 50, and I hear your argument. And I fully agree with, I think you made the key point, which is you can't unilaterally disarm. And so I get where you're coming from with this. What I said, though, when I endorsed Prop 50 was, I fear this is a race to the bottom that has no end. And that in the long run, it's not clear to me that our party's going to win this.

And so am I open to continuing to fight fire with fire? Yes. And I need to look at your proposed maps. But look, I think that at some point, this doesn't serve anyone. And my fight more than anything is, number one, I guess I'd say two things on it. Number one, we have to make a stronger case nationally to ban partisan gerrymandering in all 50 states. And I know you're acknowledging that. I know we're not disagreeing on that.

I think we sort of say it in passing and then move back to our entrenched partisan battles. And I want to find a way, and it's a priority for me, to build a more diverse coalition and really change public opinion on this nationally because I think it really undermines the long-term health of our democracy and I'm worried about it. And so, I mean, frankly, I kind of held my nose in endorsing pro or supporting Prop 50 because it just, it felt like we're in this race to the bottom. It's really dangerous. Now, I get it. The other side, the other team isn't playing fair. And so I wouldn't expect, you know, we shouldn't unilaterally disarmed. But here's the other thing I'd say. those games are only going to get Republicans so far.

At the end of the day, voters are pretty smart in aggregate over time. And we don't always get it right in every election, but in the long run, I believe that the arc of history does bend toward justice. And I think my number one job as governor is to make this state shine, to make it work, to get, to improve our public schools, to build housing, to bring Hollywood back, to get every child on grade level. and every homeless individual indoors, and really make a national case that democratic policies are more fair. They're more life-affirming. They're more productive. They create greater opportunity.

And that our values are right because they work in practice. And that is my primary focus because we could sort of fight the political games forever and end up losing our democracy. So I guess I'm a little torn on it, to be honest, but I'm happy to continue the conversation with you and let's see how things are playing out. Matt, for folks who are looking to help your campaign, where can they go? Thanks. Well, first of all, Brian, I appreciate the opportunity. It's been great to chat with you.

You've asked some great questions on really important topics. My website's probably the best starting place. Mayhan, M-A-H-A-N for California.com. Pretty easy to find online. And then I'm all over social media. You can find me on any platform where we're constantly talking with folks about the issues and how we're going to get California on a better track and really make sure it is that beacon of inclusivity and hope and upward mobility and really a strong counterpoint to this MAGA movement.

So, Brian, thank you for the opportunity. Of course. Well, I'm going to put that link to your website. right here on the screen and also in the post description. For those who are listening on the podcast, I'll put it in the show notes. Thank you so much for taking the time. Best luck in the campaign trail. Thanks. Likewise. Appreciate it.

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So a lot to discuss here as it relates to California, but just want to cover some national news for the moment. There has been a lot of talk about the fact that Trump has put forward this $1.776 billion slush fund to pay insurrectionists who participated in the January 6th riot. Can you give your reaction right now to the idea that even when Americans don't have enough money to pay for health care, food assistance, gas, groceries, you name it, that we apparently have enough money to turn each one of the 1500 pardoned insurrectionists into millionaires. Yeah, money, taxpayer money for lawbreakers. Make sense of it, Brian. I can't.

We're paying in California six, seven bucks a gallon for gasoline because of Trump's reckless war with Iran. And now he's talking about giving more than a billion dollars away to his cronies, to those that he pardoned who were convicted. of committing crimes. In some cases, committing crimes against the law enforcement officers.

So I don't get it. And it's not so much Donald Trump because it's no longer about what Donald Trump says and does. It's really what Republicans in Congress say and do. Will they support this? And so then they are accomplices to this, not only illegality, but the recklessness in using taxpayer dollars.

All right. So I want to look into the California race for a moment now. there are obviously a lot of Democrats who are vying for this spot in the jungle primary runoff. What differentiates you from the other candidates right now, you know, polling just beneath you, depending on the poll, is Tom Steyer, and then Katie Porter and Matt Mayhan. I'd say that I won't need training wheels when I get into the governor's office. This is a time of crisis, whether it's the crisis of the cost of living for someone. many Californians as it is for the rest of the country, or whether it's the man-made crises coming

from Washington, D.C., like this latest one of giving away over a billion dollars in taxpayer funds so you can help lawbreakers feel more gleeful that Donald Trump got elected. It's kind of crazy, but you need someone who actually knows how to deal with this, and it helps to have someone who's actually balanced the budget the size of the state of California. I'm the only candidate who's actually balanced the budget larger than the budget of the state of California. I'm the only candidate who knows what it means to declare a state of emergency and have to deploy resources and personnel to respond as I did when I was Secretary of HHS. And I'm the only one as everyone talks about being able to take on Donald Trump. I'm the only one that really did it.

I took him on toe to toe when I was Attorney General. I had not just once, not just twice, but over 120 times. And we beat him in court all the way to the Supreme Court. I defended the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court, beat Donald Trump. I defended the DACA program for dreamers all the way to Supreme Court and beat him. And so I think people are finally saying that as they look at the candidates, it helps to have someone who won't need training rules once they enter the governor's office. All right. So let's talk a little bit about three issues that I've been especially focused on are housing homelessness and Hollywood. And I've been speaking with both California gubernatorial candidates, but also L.A. mayoral candidates. I live

here in Los Angeles. But as it relates to some housing reforms that you would like to see, Can you speak about what would change under your administration? We move faster to implement the reforms that we're finally seeing take place in the legislature, where we're going to streamline the process of permitting the zoning requirements that local governments impose, the fees, the impact fees, and the costs that are saddled on a developer in order to get a project going. We're going to try to streamline all of that, make it so that you can actually, get your permits and your sign off faster than it actually takes to build the property because today it takes longer to get through the bureaucracy than it does to actually build the units.

And so we have to flip that around. So it becomes a prospect where you can actually see not just the light of day, but you can see how you'll be green, not in the red after you do the construction. And so that could take any number of forms. There are some 40,000 affordable housing units that are actually ready to go, shovel ready. They just don't have the adequate financing so they're on hold. I would do everything I can in my first 100 days. I will declare a state of emergency in our housing crisis.

And I will do everything I can to find the money to unstick those. So people can see that we're actually building. I think that starts to give people confidence that we're serious about what we say. And how do you do that? Do you hire more people for permitting? Do you have a mandatory cap on the number of days that a permit could be languishing before it's automatically approved? Like, what does this look like in practice?

Because, you know, I know from friends who are contractors, I know from listening to God knows how many interviews from people, oftentimes, and you alluded to this as well, oftentimes you spend more time just waiting for permits and shouldering those costs than you do actually putting a shovel on the ground and building, those carrying costs. And so what would be your specific plan to make sure that the whole permitting process can move quickly.

Yeah, administrative time limits. The agencies would have shot clocks. They would have a limited amount of time to get the work done. They can't come up with an excuse. Secondly, you make sure that you limit the types of activities that a developer has to jump through the hoops. So if you jump through one hoop once, you don't have to jump at a second time,

but with a different agency. Once you've done it once, you're clear. And once you've gone through all those checking all those boxes, then by right you should be able to build. And so you don't have to go back to square one. And you can accelerate this. By the way, you don't need more people to do that work. What I will do is I will have within my office essentially a SWAT team that will manage this for the state government to make sure that our agencies are not the hurdle, the obstacle to getting these permits taken care of and moving forward.

So we'll do all we can on our end to move the process. We'll work with local governments who also have an interest, of course, and how this is done to make sure that they don't delay. And what will then do is make it clear. You go through that process, you check your boxes, you start building. Now, another issue is homelessness. I'm curious what your reaction to, to the most recent interview that Spencer Pratt did with CNN's Alex Michelson, where he basically said, you know, he was talking about Los Angeles specifically, but this idea of taking people and putting them into some,

finding some space to like round up homeless people within the city limits and putting them there and mandating some type of treatment. I don't know if you've had the opportunity to see that interview or what I'm speaking about, but can I have your general reaction to that? Yeah, and I haven't seen it, but based on how you've described it,

I'd say it's a course description of the type of work that ultimately we need to head towards something that shows progress. That sounds a little rough, probably sounds a little illegal, but what I would say is this, you have to have outcomes. You can't, accountability is the operative word when it comes to homelessness. If we are going to give billions of dollars, and it's been tens of billions of dollars over the last five to eight years that we've given to cities and counties, we're entitled to see results.

And that means outcomes. And what I would say is this. If a program that a city employs is not producing results, getting people off the streets, then shut it down. If a program is producing results, then scale it up. Get the money from the program that isn't working and give it to the program that is. But ultimately, to the degree that Spencer is talking about moving people off the streets, everyone says the same thing. It's just how you do it so you don't confront the law having done it the wrong way. We all know that the homelessness crisis is just not a home.

homelessness crisis, not a sheltered crisis by itself, right? It's a mental health crisis. And if we don't tackle that mental health element, along with the drug addiction crisis, then we're never going to resolve it. So I would make sure we're doing that. And quite honestly, as governor, since I don't control the streets of a county or a city, my biggest role will be to make sure people don't become homeless. I will work to improve the programs that we have to prevent people from losing their shelter because it costs so much more to pick someone off the street, get them stood up, get them cleaned up, get them ready for a job, then it does to help someone who's already working,

but had a medical emergency that took all their money, or lost their job and they're right now temporarily without work and they're looking for a job. I'll stand you up to keep you housed versus wait until you get, become homeless, and then try to pick you up. You know, in speaking with Mayor Bass in Los Angeles, she had mentioned that she, that the city had spent roughly $700 million and had gotten a few homeless people off the streets and into facilities,

but like a few thousand people on $700 million seems kind of egregious. Would you say that that program, would you consider that program a failure? I certainly don't see anything that spends hundreds of millions to get only a few thousand off the streets. I don't see that as a success. I have to go into the details, obviously, to find out what's going on. But I would want to make sure that we're getting real results for the money. If you think about how many units you can actually build for $700 million,

I mean, I hate to think of it that way, but if you can't move people off the street when you're spending more money than it takes to build the unit, something's wrong. And as I said, I would scrap those programs that aren't really succeeding and then scale up those that are. And there are some that are successful. So I want to move over to the issue of Hollywood. I moved to Los Angeles 15 years ago to be a part of the entertainment industry.

I remember what it was like to be in this city when it was bustling and working. And I see what it's like now where we have lost people out of this industry for years and years and years and years, not only to other states, but other countries who recognize what a lucrative and successful business it is. And so I'm curious what your plan to revitalize the entertainment industry in Southern California would be. Yeah, and Brian here, I had to start off by reminding folks that I was the congressman who initiated the production tax credit for the entertainment industry back in the early 2000s, because being the congressman for Los Angeles and being the only L.A.-based member of Congress who sat on the Ways and Means Committee, which is the tax writing committee where you do credit tax credit work. I was approached by the industry early on, and they said, we're getting ravaged. We can't compete with the types of incentives that are being provided throughout the world and throughout the country. And so they were saying we need help.

And so the first couple of years was tough because everyone thought, well, why do you need to give Tom Cruise or George Clooney a tax credit to produce? And I said, it's not them. It's the grips. It's the construction workers who build the sets. It's the caterers who feed everyone. The ripple is so vast. Finally, we were able to get it through. I mean, it's beyond that.

I mean, it's transportation. It's local hotels, it's local restaurants. The entire industry is downstream of these productions going. And so, yeah, you're right to say that it's not just Tom Cruise and George Clooney. There are hundreds of thousands of people who rely on this industry thriving to survive. Well, we've got it through. And since then, we've now seen the state jump in and do something. And last year they improved it.

You're even seeing the localities now, Los Angeles trying to do more. And so here's what I would say. Hollywood is iconic. It's not just an industry. It's an icon. People come visit Southern California just so they could take a photograph in front of the Hollywood sign. We will lose so much if we lose the industry. It won't just be the production.

It'll be everything that comes with it, the tourism, the things that make Southern California a destination point. So we've got to fight. Someone who pulls out a knife and says, we're going to give you a tax credit. If you come do your production in Sydney, then we pull out a knife too. If somebody in Toronto says, we've got to pull out a gun to make it attractive for you to come. We pull out the gun. Fight fire with fire. We do everything we can.

because so long as this industry creates more wealth and revenue for the state of California than it costs a due to the tax credit, then that's where we're going. Would you be in favor of uncapping the tax credit, recognizing that based on the studies they've done for previous tax credits, there is a net positive result. I think you spend a dollar, you get $1.14 back. So for every dollar that you invest, we make more money, not to mention all of the intangibles that we just discussed. And so to that end, recognizing that this is a profitable venture, would you be in favor of uncapping the tax credit?

Yeah, let me put it this way. That's my default where I would want to go, Brian. But here's where I hail you 20 years of doing tax policy comes into play. You get a lot of promises, a lot of promises for what you do on policy. And sometimes those who make the promises don't deliver. So here's what I say. I'm willing to go wherever we need to, whether it's uncapping, whether it's increasing the, the percentage of the credit that can go for particular types of production, what I want to know is I want to see results.

I want to see that that caterer is still in business. I want to find that that construction worker is still building the sets. I don't want the money just to go to the George Clooney's and the Tom Cruise's and the profitable directors and all the folks through the studio. I want to see it going. I want to see it rippling out to the entire economy. And so show me. And that's where I say, I want to get data. The one thing I will really push is to get the data that shows us what's going on.

So we can then say with evidence to the legislators and to our people who are going to say, what gives you giving tax credits to the movie industry? And say, this is why. And because these jobs depend on it. Your economy, your local economy depends on it. But I want the data. And so I want to see where the real numbers are so we can make sure that it's reaching everybody who's supposed to be in the industry benefiting from these tax credits.

For those who are looking to help your campaign, where can they go? Javier Becerra, 26.com, or just watch the news. You'll see some commercials. You'll know how to get a hold of us. Great. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen and also in the post description. Secretary Becerra, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it.

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get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscriptions only while supplies last until September 22nd, 2026. See website for more details. I'm joined now by North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls. Thank you so much for joining me. As we see right now the results from the Georgia state Supreme Court election, which obviously did. go the way of both liberal candidates. How does that inform the urgency of this moment as it relates to your race in North Carolina? Well, I can promise you. So I first ran in 2018. And that was also two years after President Trump was elected. And so I certainly understand that I don't take a single vote for granted. We're going to work as hard. I've been campaigning really since

January of last year. And, you know, it's a big state, but my goal is to get across the state so that people know who I am, what I stand for, what our court does. I just don't think they've had that same experience in Georgia. So I, I've not for a minute have ever said that I'm going to rely on the wind at our back as Democrats in the state. I know that even in 24, there was huge drop-off between top of the ticket. Some almost 200,000 voters voted for Governor Josh Stein and did not vote for Democrat Justice Allison Riggs. So we know that at my campaign, we know we have to do everything we possibly can to reach voters across the state. You had mentioned Justice Riggs race, and I was heavily involved in promoting that race.

as much as I could. I think I had Justice Riggs-on no fewer than half a dozen times while she was campaigning. Are you expecting any similar interference given the fact that obviously North Carolina Republicans have a proclivity to interfere in these elections? And this isn't even new. I mean, North Carolina Republicans have been an especially anti-democratic breed of that party for a long time from early efforts to gerrymander that state with, I think the judge in that case said that it was done with surgical precision all the way to the Jefferson Griffin example where, you know, there was a concerted effort to try and just undermine Justice Riggs win by trying to invalidate votes that benefited her from jurisdictions that benefited her. So are you

expecting any similar nefarious behavior from those on the right? Well, what I can tell you, Prior to being on the court, I was a civil rights attorney for 30 years and litigated voting rights cases. It is absolutely clear that the fight to protect our democracy in this state has always been a very difficult, challenging one. What we are seeing already, and one important difference this year from 2024 is that now our state board of elections is controlled by the state auditor, a Republican. All of the county boards of elections are now under the majority control of Republicans. And we have already seen efforts that to my mind, to my eye, mirror vote suppression going back 20, 30 years. So the State Board of Elections sent letters to 241,000 voters in this state this year, saying there's some discrepancy between your voter registration and our other records. Would you please contact us?

But then at the bottom of the letter, in big black, bold letters, it says furnishing false information. response to this notice is a felony. So, you know, I've heard from folks who are afraid that they risk a felony conviction if they go to vote. Now, they don't. And anyone receiving this letter, I want to be clear, they absolutely can vote. There was nothing wrong with their voter registration. But that, to my mind, mirrors what happened in 1990 in North Carolina when the prominent African-American mayor of Charlotte at the time, Harvey Gant, challenged Jesse Helms for the U.S. Senate. Again, you know, very hotly contested race. And in that race, the North Carolina Republican Party sent postcards to black voters across the state saying, if you've moved, it's a felony to try to vote.

Now, that, again, is not true as a matter of state law. And at that time, the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, sued the North Carolina Republican Party and resulted in a consent order in which the Republican Party said, you know what, we won't do this again. Yeah. So again, putting that history on full display. Now, you had spoken a little bit about what we can expect as far as you being on, continuing to be on the state Supreme Court. What are some of the cases we can expect to go before the court to kind of underscore how important it is to continue having liberal voices be present there?

Well, let me answer that in two ways. People should appreciate that our court decides all sorts of things that impact their daily lives. So we issue decisions that impact how much they pay for electricity, whether or not the state government can protect our environment. We decided a case implicating whether Duke power could pass on to consumers, the cost of cleaning up coal ash. We decide issues about whether workers who are injured on the job are fairly compensated, whether people who go to the emergency room and are charged more than uninsured and charge more than insured patients, whether they can sue hospitals over that, all sorts of ways in which people's pocketbooks are impacted by decisions that we make,

but we also make those decisions that impact fundamental rights. And in 2022, our court was four Democrats, three Republicans, and that court decided that extreme partisan gerrymandering violates the state constitution. We required that districts be drawn fairly, and this was a very non-partisan decision. We set out neutral criteria to measure the part of whether a map is a partisan gerrymander or not. And so it wouldn't matter who which party did it. If it was unfair, it would be unfair to the voters of the state and violate their state constitutional rights under that opinion. So in districts redrawn, North Carolina said seven Democrats and seven Republicans to Congress. But then the court flipped. After the elections in

November of 2022, the court became five Republicans to Democrats. And the new court did something that courts never do, should not happen, hasn't happened in the over 200-year history of our court. They said, we're going to rehear that same case. And they concluded that they don't have the power to constrain the legislature. So the state legislature withdrew our congressional districts, and in 2024, North Carolina sends 10 Republicans and four Democrats to Congress. So this really impacts the entire country. If North Carolina still had that 7-7 delegation, today, Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives would be in control of Democrats. There would be an entirely different environment in Washington in terms of checks and balances on the power of the president.

And we, you know, need to have state courts that understand the importance of protecting people's rights. This idea of that the judicial branch has no power to constrain the legislature. I presume that's an offshoot of the independent state legislature theory. But isn't that counter to the very foundation of our government where we have checks and balances and the courts are there to serve as a check on a judicial or on a legislative branch that's not following the law, for example? Exactly. My judicial philosophy would say that it's the role of the state Supreme Court to hold the other two branches of government accountable to the state constitution. And in fact, our court recently failed to do that with regard to another fundamental. state constitutional right, that's the right to a sound basic education. And we eliminated, we ended a piece of litigation that had been going on where trial courts found that our schools were not

offering a sound basic education to all the students. A prior court, the 22 court, ordered that the state fund public education. New court, 23, puts a halt to that order. And then just a couple months ago, our court ended that litigation. But I will just want to point out to folks that other rights, our court is fully ready to order the state to do the right thing. So when it comes to property rights, if the Department of Transportation wants to build a road over your private property and you don't think they're paying you the money that they should for your property rights, you go to court and the court will order the state to pay you money for taking your property rights. So my point is, certain rights, our court believes in enforcing, they have stepped

away and, in my view, abdicated their right to, or their responsibility to enforce the rights of our children to have a sound basic education and the rights of our voters to cast a ballot and have that ballot counted equally. And I just have to remind people that my court is the one for Republicans on my court ordered that the ballots of military and overseas voters be thrown out in a 2024 election. So think about what that means. People who put on a uniform to serve our country, our state court said their ballots would not count. And it was only because a federal court stepped in and said that that order violated due process and equal protection under the federal constitution that those votes were counted and Justice Riggs was sworn in as the justice.

What do you presume will be the most significant case that you'll have to contend with in this upcoming term? We will be hearing a lot of cases about separation of powers. Does the legislature have the power to weaken our governor? They've passed a number of measures that have taken power away from the governor, and those will be pending in front of us. We will continue to be hearing cases about electricity rates. And on the criminal side, North Carolina has the death penalty. There are numerous death penalty cases that will be coming before us.

And I think that public safety is vitally important. I think that our justice system needs to understand what it takes to provide public safety. So there's just a lot of important issues that will be continuing to come before us. On more of a national scene, and I know that this is not going to be an issue that you contend with personally, but I'm curious what your take on it is, you know, as it relates to this $1.8 billion slush fund, from a legal vantage, do you presume that this, that's something like this would hold up in court where you have Donald Trump make a deal basically with himself that instead of a $10 billion self-deal payout from the IRS to

the president of the United States, he's going to settle for a $1.776 billion slush fund where he has virtually unilateral authority, even though it's via handpicked commission members, to dole out money to convicted insurrectionists to the tune of making each one, each of those 1,500 pardoned insurrectionists millionaires. Can you speak on the legality of that move? Well, what I can say is that I fundamentally believe in the importance that no one is above the law. And that goes for people who attack police officers. That goes for public officials, that whether rich or poor, whatever your background, whatever your station in life, in this country, I believe we fundamentally rest our government on the notion that no one is above the law.

And so that means that these issues now call upon the courage of state, sometimes state court judges, sometimes federal court judges. But I continue to hold faith in the proposition that we have enough judges across our judicial systems who understand the importance of the rule of law and who have the courage and the backbone to stand up. and rule the right way without fear or favor, without unfairly bending the law to fit a particular political ideology. So that's, you know, my philosophy has always been the importance of equal justice under the law. I am not beholden to any particular political philosophy.

I just want to make sure that we live up to that guarantee of equal justice. Justice Earle's, who are watching and listening right now, how can they help your campaign? And when does voting start and end? Right. So in North Carolina, my election will be in the general election on November 3rd. People can learn more about me and support my campaign by going to my website, Earlsforjustice.com. I'm on seven different social media platforms that you can link to all of them through my website. But please follow me. Please share my social media information and help me get the word out because, you know, I have less than six months now before November 3rd.

And I want to make sure that people across North Carolina understand how important their vote is. And I want to kind of emphasize for folks who are watching and listening right now that if you saw what happened in Georgia where I think a lot of people took the national environment for granted and those two state Senate seats didn't go. in the Democrats' direction, this is an opportunity to make sure that we focus on this race and focus on this race early. You know, obviously in trying to get a majority back on the North Carolina Supreme Court, it starts with winning this race right here. Your money, your contributions go a long way, especially in these races where there's not got, you know, endless sums of money pouring into them like major Senate races.

So I'm going to put the link to Justice Ear. Earl's website right here on the screen. And also in the post description of this video, if you're listening on the podcast, I'm going to put it in the show notes. Take the opportunity, elevate her voice, make sure that people know that this race is happening. And that's going to be the biggest step forward in terms of making sure that people get out there and vote. So Justice Earls, with that said, I appreciate you taking the time today. Best luck in the campaign trail. Thank you so much for caring about our courts.

Thanks again to Matt Mayhan, Javier Bicera and Anita Earls. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Wednesday. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating in a review.

And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com to learn more.