No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Gavin Newsom on what's at stake in California's recall election

Episode Date: August 29, 2021

Pfizer’s COVID vaccine gets full approval by the FDA and Republicans pull a shameless stunt in response to that, and a fight is brewing among Democrats for September as far as the $1 trillion infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill are concerned. Brian interviews California Governor Gavin Newsom about the recall election and what’s at stake if a Republican wins the race. And Pod Save America and Pod Save the World co-host Tommy Vietor joins to discuss Afghanistan and the media’s coverage of it, and the significance of Tucker Carlson’s recent visit with Hungary’s Viktor Orban.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten 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.

Today we're going to talk about Pfizer's COVID vaccine getting full approval by the FDA and Republicans' shameless stunt in response to that, and the fight brewing among Democrats for September as far as the $1 trillion infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill are concerned. I interview California Governor Gavin Newsom about the recall election and what's at stake if a Republican were to win the race. And finally, Pod Save America and Pod Save the World co-host Tommy Vitor joins to discuss Afghanistan and the media's coverage of it and the significance of Tucker Carlson's

recent visit with Hungary's Victor Orban. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Some welcome news for a change. The Pfizer vaccine was given full approval by the FDA, which means it could hopefully boost public confidence in the vaccine and also give way to vaccine mandates. And we're seeing that almost immediately. The U.S. military, for one, is going to begin mandating the COVID vaccine, an avalanche of colleges and universities.

We've got the entire University of California system. Quintapiac, Yale, Udell, Georgetown, Howard, Emory, Northwestern, Chicago, Notre Dame, LSU, Tulane, Amherst, Emerson, Harvard, MIT. I mean, literally hundreds of colleges and universities. A number of schools already mandated vaccines, and this approval will just solidify the already firm legal ground that they're on as far as vaccine mandates are concerned. Public schools across the U.S., with California becoming the first state in the nation to require all teachers and staff in K-12 public and private schools to either get vaccinated or undergo weekly testing. And so, especially where local and state governments have

failed to take the necessary steps to protect people, it is promising to see schools and businesses and other agencies take these comments and steps to help get this pandemic under control. And of course, this must also mean that all those Republicans who use the lack of full approval as an excuse to continue pushing back against the vaccine are clearly going to change their tunes, right? FDA just giving full approval to Pfizer's COVID vaccine. It's the first vaccine to get that full approval and in record time too. That has critics asking if the process was rushed.

Ah, well, apparently not. Because now, instead of the vaccine process being too slow, just like that, we've pivoted to the vaccine process being too fast. And look, I'm not going to waste my time or yours humoring these people in their whiplashy takes on the FDA approval process. But I will say this. This is all the proof you need that their complaints were never being made in good faith. It was never about the vaccine. It was about perpetuating the same culture war that

landed us in such a dire position in the first place. And it's not even because they actually believe what they're saying about the vaccine. Like, let's be real here. All of these people have gotten it themselves. Rupert Murdoch got it in December of 2020, five minutes after it was available. They say these things because they're too afraid of their base not to. It's the tail wagging the dog. Right-wing media and Republican officials are now controlled by this lunatic faction of their base because those people are loud. And so now, the people effectively running the GOP are the same people who think that vaccines are some communist plot for the government to track your movements or who think that masks

mean you're inhaling lethal levels of carbon dioxide, or that getting the shot means you get magnetized. I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but when you have doctors and nurses and the people who actually went to medical school saying one thing, and then the loony tune showing up to school board meetings because they did their own research, saying the opposite, and right-wing media siding with those people, then yeah, that's who's leading the show on the right. The fact is that this should be an absolute no-brainer. Again, FDA approval or not, 0.004% of those being hospitalized are vaccinated. That's it. And 0.001% of those dying

from COVID right now are vaccinated. That right there should be the first, second, and third thing that we're looking at. That's all you need. Those numbers don't lie. These right-wing pundits do, but the numbers don't. So look, if you're listening to this podcast, there is a very, very good chance that you've already been vaccinated. But there's also a good chance that someone in your family,

someone you love, isn't. Just this week, I was able to help convince one of my family members to get it. And if you think that because of what I do for a living, that my entire family takes my advice as gospel, then you do not know Jewish women. All of that's to say, it's not too late and people are still open to it.

So do your part and reach out to someone because it could be the difference between a trip to the ICU or not? Next up, I want to talk about the intra-party feud happening within the Democratic Party over the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill. Now, a group of nine moderates led by Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, decided that they wanted an immediate vote

on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Of course, progressives and Democratic leadership had always intended for the infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, which would include the rest of Biden's agenda, the so-called soft infrastructure priorities, to move forward in tandem. This way we could be sure that one wouldn't pass without the other

and the entirety of the agenda would get enacted, as opposed to voting for the infrastructure bill passing and then all of a sudden, moderate's balk when it comes time to pass the reconciliation bill. Also complicating things is that while the bipartisan infrastructure bill is done and ready to vote on, the reconciliation bill hasn't even been written yet. And if you think the struggle to get that hard infrastructure bill passed was a lot, just imagine how much harder it'll be to hammer out a bill three and a half times the size.

But now, this faction of conservative Democrats wanted to vote on the first bill immediately and threatened not to vote for the reconciliation package if they don't get their way. And with only a few votes margin in the House, we can't afford to lose nine Democrats and expect anything to pass. So what ultimately happened was that Pelosi and those moderates settled on the date of September 27th to consider the bipartisan infrastructure package. And yet because progressives likely won't touch the bipartisan bill without the reconciliation bill also ready to go, that means the clock's now ticking to get the reconciliation bill going.

But at the end of the day, I'm not sure what these moderates were trying to accomplish here, like to show that they have the power to sink the Democratic Party's entire legislative agenda. Great. Yeah, there is a three-vote margin. Any three people have that power. It doesn't make you special. It makes you a massive pain in the ass. And beyond that, all of this is to pass the infrastructure bill, what, a month or two before the reconciliation bill? That's what the rush is for? They can't wait a few weeks so that these two bills can move in tandem, unless, of course, their intention is to sink the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package,

in which case they're in for a rude awakening if this random group thinks they're going to, like, outsmart Pelosi. Because, you know, say what you will about her, whether you like her or not, there is no one more effective on the left than Pelosi. You don't have a caucus that spans from AOC to Josh Gottheimer and hold them together with zero defections if you don't know what you're doing.

So if she says these two bills are going to pass together, I would bet you my last dollar that that's what's going to happen. I do want to make one more point here, and that's that there may actually be a silver lining to this timeline, which is that, you know, things are clearly going to move faster for the reconciliation package than we'd thought. And that is that we can pass these bills as soon as possible so that, A, we can celebrate what will be the biggest, most transformative legislative achievement since the New Deal, and B, we can move on to voting rights, which is next on the docket in Congress. And if you've listened to this podcast before, you know there is nothing

more important right now than ensuring that we pass the Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act. How we do that, I don't know yet. But what I do know is that focusing all of our energy on that issue will only increase the pressure to ensure it gets done. What's certain, though, is that failure isn't an option here. Next up is my interview with California Governor Gavin Newsom. Today we have the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom. Thanks so much for coming on. It's great to be with you. So I want to start with this because I think it's the most important question right now. What is at stake with this recall election?

What would it mean if a Republican governor took over? I think it's pretty profound. I think particularly on the issue that defines so many other issues right now, and that's our need to focus on the delta variant and the mutation and the challenges associated with get our kids safely back into school and continue in our economic recovery. And that's around masking and vaccine verifications. And I think on just those two issues, I hope people realize the consequential nature of who's sitting in the proverbial, what we call horseshoe in the governor's office, the ability with simple signature, pen to paper, an executive order to overturn the mask mandates in the public schools, to overturn the health care worker vaccine mandates.

It will have profound consequences to the health, and I would argue the economy of the state. And that's a pledge from the leading candidates on the other side. It is not hyperbole to suggest that the consequences of a yes, not a no on this recall can be profound and pronounced on the issue that defines, again, so much of our consciousness as a nation, not just as a state. Well, you know, health care implications aside, what about the political implications, you know, beyond just this pandemic in and of itself? I mean, if you're Kevin McCarthy, you'd be celebrating it, probably be there sitting there swearing in and the next governor and the impact of momentum that would have in the 22 midterms. I mean, if you're Chuck Schumer, I mean, just think about who Kamala Harris would have been replaced with if Larry Elder were governor of California.

It wouldn't have been Alex Biddea, wouldn't be a 50-50 Senate. If you're Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, look at the entire Biden-Harris agenda. Just consider the $3.5 trillion package everybody's debating. right now, particularly over the course last 24 hours. What are the top lines in there? It's around the care economy. It's around child care. It's around preschool for all free community college. Check, check, check. California's done all those things. In many ways, it replicates the California agenda. That quite literally is on the ballot September 14th as well. I think it'd have tectonic. I mean this. Tectonic implications. We're so focused and I get it

on the mayor's race and whether what does that mean in terms of defund police and so focused on Georgia and the next iteration of the Georgia race, Herschel Walker, who's up or down as it relates to gubernatorial aspirants. But California is a fifth large economy in the world, a big blue state where Nancy Pelosi lives, where Kamala Harris lived before she became vice president, where Kevin McCarthy live. And you consider all of that, I think the national implications are pretty profound. Now, in your experience, what's been the one thing that's made people,

recognize the most how important it is to keep California in Democratic hands. Maybe something that they didn't recognize prior to this election, you know, progressing forward. I mean, I think honestly what's been sharpened, the edges of focus have been sharpened in the last five or six months with this delta variant. I mean, I think you see quite very, I mean, quite vividly the consequential nature of these decisions when you compare and contrast large states. It's hard to compare every state. California is the size of 21 states population combined. I mean, it's just a whole other thing. That said, the states that often we get compared with, states like Florida and Texas, just look at their policies on this pandemic. And look at what's happening out there. I mean, when you have water systems saying,

don't use water so we can save oxygen, so we have a capacity in our hospitals and ICUs to address this new COVID search. Look at the positivity rate in those states. Look at the hospitalizations and the ICUs in those states. Look at their mask mandates. Look what the governor's doing to overrun those local decision makers and decisions that may be made by health professionals with respect a lot of political reasons. I'm being generous by saying with respect for a lot of political considerations.

Pretty obvious what those are for those folks. I think the consequences in that respect are pronounced, but also on the issue of climate. I mean, think about this. The smash-mouth realities of climate change are here. if you don't believe in science, believe your own eyes, not just with wildfires, but these heat domes, record-breaking July in terms of temperature, record-breaking drought conditions in the entire west coast of the United States. Just think about these folks on the other side of this recall,

the leading candidate who thinks it's a myth, a hoax, a crock to be exact climate change. It wants more offshore oil drilling. And I know people say, well, you've got a Democratic legislature, not all that can be advanced, but a lot of damage can be done with the line on veto, the judges you can appoint as governor, the fact you can file amicus briefs, just think about choice. This is an issue we're not talking enough about in this country. It's 25, six, don't quote me, states governors that are leading the charge to deny women's reproductive freedoms and rights with the U.S. Supreme Court. You can have a 27th. The state of California is governor joining an amicus brief because he doesn't believe in women's rights to choose. So this is, this is consequential.

existential from my humble perspective as a Democrat that loves the state and so much of the progress we've made. And really, at the end of the day, I hope people really take to heart the importance of at least turning in their ballot. We make it as easy as possible. It's not even showing up to the ballot box. It's turning in your ballot, which is an all-mail-in now. And, you know, just building on that, of course, we all wish are the best of health. But the fact remains, too, that we have an 88-year-old senator from California. Can you speak on that? Yeah, look, one of my oldest, I got out of politics. I'm a San Francisco native. My kids, fifth generation San Franciscans. You don't grow up in San Francisco, former supervisor,

former mayor, Diane Feinstein, so much of the history, Harvey Milk and assassination of our old family friend, George Moscone. His kids are still very close to me and my family today. So much of our history is wrapped up in that history. That is, Diane. Ann Feinstein, now Senator Feinstein, but you're absolutely right in terms of the consequential nature. If she decides, for example, to step down, and that is an appointee of the next governor of California or the current governor of California. And again, the national implications are overwhelming. And I know there's, again, this sort of false sense. Well, it's California, big blue state. Why are you worried about it? I had some friends. I'm not making this up. Literally, it was a couple

months ago, it was a Sunday and it was an extended family member. I said, why are you at the birthday party with everyone? I said, because I'm campaigning down south. And they said, what are you worried about? I said, what am I worried about? Democrats, including family members, are not even focused on us. Republicans, they're all focused on it. And that gap that, I don't even call it an enthusiasm gap, it's really an awareness gap of the consequences. We've got to close that between now and September 14. Yeah. Now, we spend a lot of time, focus. on how bad the Republican Party would be for California. And rightfully so, I think,

because that party has proven just how dangerous it is. But I still think it's important to give people something to vote for. So why should people vote for you? Well, I'm really proud of this state. Not only we have better health outcomes in the United States as a whole through this pandemic, as well as better outcomes in states like Indiana, Florida, and Texas in terms of health outcomes related.

We had better economic outcomes. California's economy over the last five years, This is something the GOP loves to celebrate, and that's GDP. And over the last five years, California's growth rate is faster than any Western democracy on the planet. We've outperformed the United States. We've outperformed the UK, Germany, and Japan. We've significantly outperformed places like Texas and Florida, where the tent pole of the American economy. As we speak, almost 700,000 jobs have come out of the state of California in the last six months.

100 plus IPOs. We're leading the nation in household income growth. We're seeing tremendous investment here, unprecedented investment in innovation, venture capital, record breaking last year. We have the fastest growing state of the last five years in factory jobs, 13% GDP growth and just factory jobs, number one, in two-way trade. I mean, this state's innovation entrepreneurialism is alive and well. I know there's some anxiety around a few companies leaving, but there's hundreds of companies that are startups that are breaking through, changing the world that we know. And I'm also proud of the fact where America's come in attraction, the most diverse state and the world's most diverse democracy. And we expanded health care, we expanded child care,

we've expanded policies that have been exported all across the country. And the state's lead in terms of low carbon green growth and the work we're doing to detoxify our air and water. The present United States had a big press conference just a few, it seems like a year ago, It was just a few weeks ago with the automobile manufacturers. That wasn't possible without the deal we made with the five largest automobile companies led by Ford a year ago as we pushed back against Trump in his efforts to curtail our emissions standards. That's one of the most significant environmental achievements in the last decade that the president advanced, but it wouldn't happen without California. So I go across the spectrum, health care, social justice, economic justice, racial justice, we're shutting down two prisons. We ended the death penalty in the state of California.

We're leading the nation in terms of transforming our public education system. Brand new grade we created, TK, for all, 200,000 new child care slots this year. We're doing college savings accounts, $2 billion. Every child that enters into kindergarten is going to own savings account for a state in American history to do it. We tripled our own income tax credit, $12 billion tax rebate that we're giving out quite literally in the next couple weeks, $12 billion, the highest reserves in state's history, more engineering. scientists, more researchers, more Nobel laureates in the state, the United States of America, the finance university system.

Free community college did that two years ago. Really proud of this state. There's so much to look forward to. And we've got to address the issue of homelessness. That's my top priority, $12 billion investment into mental health housing and converting hotels and motels. I've been out there cleaning up encampments myself. I see what you see.

The affordability crisis in the state, unprecedented commitment and plan on housing affordability. And we're just getting started. It's been two and a half years. I mean, I know it feels like two decades. I've been going. It's only two and a half years in this last 18 months has been consequential. But we're just getting going. And so I really feel confident and incredibly proud of the resiliency of the state. But I know the recovery is uneven and I know we're struggling to do everything in our power to help communities that have been ravaged by this pandemic. And And that's the responsibility. I, you know, as governor, I feel deeply.

And I want folks to know. I see and I hear people. And I want them to know that we have work to do, but I have your back. You touched upon this with, you know, figuring out the homeless situation. But what are your priorities, at least for the next year? Oh, we're hitting the ground running. We just put out this $12 billion plan, $3 billion plan just for conservatorship housing, for mental health, for Laura's law placements.

An actual strategy, $5.8 billion for something called Homekey. It's now a national model. We're able to get 6,000 new homeless housing, the unprecedented American history. We're able to do that in five and a half months with $846 million last year. Think about what we can do with $6 billion in the next year. Actual strategies, actual plans, an encampment plan, first in state history. Strategy to clean up the streets, a billion dollars called Clean California. That's why I'm out there. You'll see me out there. Trust me. It hasn't even been a campaign thing. It's like I'm just going back to my mayoral roots, clean up the damn streets. And we're doing that at a scale in the state. The health care work. I mean, no other state's doing what we're doing on health care, expanding, including regardless of your existing conditions, Billy Pay and your immigration status. And don't think for a second, that's not why this recall is on the ballot. Remember the guy behind this recall, the guy who's in the voting pamphlet, the CEO of this recall, said he was in The sixth recall effort since I started was inspired because I stood up against Trump in the deportation policy.

He was inspired because he was offended that we expanded health care to undocumented children 0 to 26 or at least 19 to 26 year olds. I was proud of that. And we just doubled down by doing it for 50 year olds and older and also giving them long-term care. There are 2.2 million undocumented residents in the state. 68% have been here for over 10 years. These are the folks that had our backs during this pandemic. They give $3 billion a year in taxes. And I'm just sick of these people demagoguing, the Latino community, demagoguing

and looking down and talking down to our diverse communities. This is a very consequential race. And this guy, Healy, who is that CEO, wants to microchip 27% of Californians because he wants to microchip all immigrants. 27% of the state is foreign board. And he says he wants to microchip immigrants because it works for animal control. I mean, this is serious stuff.

Trumpism is still alive and well in this country. We defeated Trump, but we haven't defeated Trumpism. And I want folks to know that's what's really behind this recall. And that's why we have to reject it and vote no. Now, your campaign's been saying to vote no for the first question and to leave the second question blank. But hypothetically speaking, in the event that the recall were to go forward, wouldn't leaving that second question blank basically forfeit the selection

of governor to just the most far-right Republicans, you know, who would vote for someone like Larry Elder, for example? I don't know what other brand there is except far-right. Every single one of these Republicans voted for Trump. Every single one of these Republicans wants to eliminate the mask mandate and verification on vaccines. I mean, by definition. So, you know, you mean, Larry Elder, of course, he's a guy who wants to also eliminate the corporate. tax, eliminate the minimum wage. He wants to eliminate Social Security by privatizing. He wants to increase offshore oil drilling. He doesn't believe in the FDA. He wants to eliminate federal funding for housing and education. Doesn't believe women are as smart as men. He actually wrote an op-ed

on that. Doesn't believe women have the right to choose. I mean, this guy's to the right of Trump. He wants to cut Medicare, wants to cut Medicaid, doesn't believe in Obamacare. Let the market decide. You can't make this stuff up. In addition to obviously, climate change is a myth. So look, we've got to defeat this recall. It's a simple message. No, and go. Go to the mailbox. Turn in. Don't even turn out on election day. Election day is today. Every day between now it ends election day, ends on September 14th. But if we turn in the votes, the ballots, we don't have to ever worry about that second question. We don't have to ever worry about Larry Elder getting sworn in with Donald Trump zooming in or Kevin McCarthy standing by him

We're sitting people like Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, who's one of the most enthusiastic backers of this effort or their Nunes or any of these guys. This is serious. They're coming. They're coming after our voting rights. This is all part of the big lie. I mean, this is a serious moment in American history. We're debating democracy. We have guys out there on one of those damn networks in Hungary with, you know, authoritarians. I mean, this is a serious moment. And I never thought I'd be this intense about this because I thought, all right, well, this shall pass. I'm married in a Republican family. It's not about my distaste or disdain for people disagree with, but there's something that's happened to the Republican Party. And they're captured by this extremism that is totally present in this recall campaign.

And I hope people really, really do pay attention to what's at stake. And next year, we'll have a normal election. Next year, we can debate the merits and demerits of our approach on homelessness and housing and compare and contrast with all the other candidates. But right now, we've got to start. stop this, I think, profound train wreck by voting no on this recall. Now, the last year has shown, you know, just how important the position of governor is, you know, as we navigate our way through this pandemic, for example.

And you spoke about this before when you were talking earlier about Texas and Florida. But with those states in particular, you know, how would you compare your performance to that of people like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott as far as, you know, these last few weeks have been concerned. I mean, facts speak for themselves. Yesterday, we had a 5.2% positivity rate, Florida, and in Texas, I think Texas was north of 20%. Their record breaking hospitalizations, they were bringing in, you saw the national headlines, they were bringing in mobile morgue units down to Texas. They were helping with ventilators in Florida. I mean, look at, we had an $80 billion dollar operating surplus this year. I mean, they don't even know what, they don't even understand

that in Florida and Texas, 80 billion dollar operating surplus, record reserves. You've seen the economic growth. You've seen the energy, the vibrancy that's starting to return, again, not equally. And we've got to own that. It's growth and inclusion. But the fact that we have a strategy of equity and inclusion, that's part of our DNA, something that makes me proud of California and this state. So we better health outcomes throughout this. pandemic, better economic outcomes. And our policies lead the nation. They lead the world. Future happens here first across the spectrum. Think of social justice, racial justice, economic justice. Look at where the policy emanates. Look where it comes from. It comes from

the great state of California. And so I don't, with respect, I don't even like being in the same breath as their approach to policy making. And finally just this. We're open argument, interest in evidence. I'm not an ideologue. And there's humility here, man. This has been hard this last year and a half. And I have great respect for governors of all political stripes. None of us were given a playbook on this. And it's one thing to go back to Clipson, 1918, 1990. And all of us were iterating. And everybody's doing our best. And I'm not here to take cheap shots. But I am here to try to save lives and to deny the efficacy of wearing face covering when every emergency emergency room doctor's been doing it for decades. It offends me to deny the efficacy of vaccines

when, you know, I think the first vaccine mandate came from our founding father, George Washington. And they had no problem with all those mandates that they were requiring and thrusting on our kids to get into schools. All of a sudden, this vaccine. Right. Is it offends them? I mean, this is pure political hogwash. It's pure ideology and a party that's been taken over, increasing them by conspiracy theories and extremists. I mean, I don't know what happened. I mean, I'm, I sit every day in Ronald Reagan's old desk and old office. I don't know what happened to the good old days. I mean, Reagan's starting to look like the good old days to me, even though we're reinvesting in the cuts he made on mental health half century ago and finally making historic investments this

year to make up for them. And what's especially ironic about, you know, these, the health outcomes that we're seeing is like in places like Florida and Texas, we're seeing worst health outcomes now with a vaccine free and readily available than we did even before there was a vaccine that even existed. And that's just a testament to like the leader, well, the lack thereof in terms of leadership that we're seeing out of these certain states where, you know, they focus more on culture war issues and, you know, getting their cable news hits. I mean, it's just if it's not bad, it's something else, these guys, you know, all this nonsense. And it's really nonsense. We got to blow back. Look, we stood tall against Trump and

Trump is. No state. We had over 100 lawsuits. We won them. We were firm. We had conviction. There's been a lot of headwins in California last couple of years. I mean, we're dealing with record drought. We're doing record fires. We got social justice issues in the most diverse state in America. But we're also, you know, we're resilient. We're tough. We're gritty. We're leading. And, you know, including on vaccines. We're top 10 across the spectrum and eligible people getting vaccinated, adults getting vaccinated. Now it's over 80%, at least one dose. I'm really proud of that. Among the lowest positivity rates in the country, despite the Delta variant, because we're open argument, interested in evidence science and iterative, right? I mean, something doesn't work.

We'll own it, but you know what? We're not willing to take a back seat to lead. We led with the first stay-at-home order. That, you know, trust me, that wasn't popular back then. You know, people were angry, but it allowed other states a little bit of room. New York, others started to move in that direction. I think that saved lives. We led as the first state to require all state workers to get vaccinated. First state to require all health care workers mandating them to get vaccinated. First state to require all school staff to do the same. That's all just in the last few weeks. So we're not backing off our responsibility to save lives and to lean in this pandemic. But again, you ask that compare a cut task. There are these red states that are just in a different

planet as it comes to the issue of this pandemic. And it's driven purely by increasingly presidential and primary politics. Yeah. Now, I want to finish off with this. How have you held up during this time? Because every governor, like you had just mentioned, had to deal with COVID. Every governor had to iterate and figure out like what works best for his or her state. But, you know, for every other governor didn't have to deal with a recall election on top of that. So, you know, I can't imagine that this has been a walk in the park for you. over these last several months. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you know,

I feel like that old line Bill Clinton said, no one cares about my yesterdays, they only care about their tomorrow's. And that honestly is my response. You know, I get it. I mean, God, I get it. Politicians, right? We love to hate.

And they're just things. They're not even human beings. Thank you for asking. Honestly, thanks for asking the question about as a human being, not just as a governor, because I mean, I wasn't born a government. He was born a human being, a single mom, who was a teenage mom, who raised me on her own just a couple years later. We had a foster brother.

Man, we, I mean, I was working Jeffick's construction. I was a janitor. I mean, look, you know, that's who I am. That's essence. I'm a dad. I got four kids. Oldest is about to turn 12. And you know what?

She's so excited for one thing. Not for some new iPod, but to get vaccinated. Yeah, I got a five-year-old. That's the cutest damn thing in the world. And, you know, only wants to do is get a crew cut and I just love his long hair. Man, I mean, that's, and, you know, it's, yeah, it's hard. That part is the hardest part. Being a good dad and, you know, and showing up and being there and a dread, look, man, I get it. The homeless issues, the affordability. I get why people are frustrated. I get why people that supported me are frustrated. I get why, you know, And we're at this point, not just with this recall, but in this country, been hard the last 18 months

on all of us. And if you think it hasn't been hard on you, whoever you are, it has been in a way seen and unseen. And I just think we need to be there for each other. And you get past the partisan recall and start focusing on how we can knit this state back together. I have 40 million people I'm responsible. I feel deep responsibility for it. I don't care of you a Democrat or Republican. I don't care if you live in urban or rural parts of the state, man. We have your back, care about you because you care about your family, you care about your community. We're all in this damn thing together. But this partisan recall, you know, this is existential and we got to beat it back and we got to just raise awareness just 20 days to go. Well, well said, we'll leave it there. I've got

my ballot right here that I just filled out. So I'll be heading to the drop box in the next day or so and good luck. And, you know, we'll just make sure everybody votes know. I love it. I appreciate you and I appreciate this opportunity. Thanks so much. Thanks again to Gavin Newsom. Now I'm joined by the co-host of Pod Save America and Pod Save the World, Tommy Vitor. Tommy, thanks for coming back on. It's great to be back. Good to see it.

You too. So let's start with this situation unfolding in Afghanistan. When Kabul fell to the Taliban, the media was practically tripping over itself to declare Biden's performance a failure. So do you think that was justified? I think that there were a lot of ways to avoid this outcome. And all of them are easy to identify and describe in hindsight. It's a lot harder in the moment.

And so I think whenever you have a situation where, you know, you have an organization like the Taliban that was literally an enemy five minutes ago. Yeah. Going through the capital city where there's potentially 5,000, 10,000, we don't even know how many 1,000 Americans where there's all these translators who work to the U.S. haven't gotten out yet. I think it's fair and appropriate to criticize that evacuation effort or the lack thereof in that moment.

I worry that that might obscure the broader need to end this war and the context, which is that the U.S. staying in Afghanistan for another year, two years, five years would undoubtedly mean thousands more Afghan people dying, the U.S. taking casualties, billions of dollars spent. And so I think that's a broader context that needs to be brought into these debates. Well, building on that, you know, a lot of the criticism here centers around the evacuation itself. And I know it's easy to criticize in hindsight. But is there something that Biden should or could have done differently that was to be expected? Yeah. And well, so, yes, good question. And I think the context is President Trump negotiated a U.S. exit from Afghanistan in February of

2020. President Biden came in and, you know, essentially pushed the date of the withdrawal. all out, but kept the other terms. And I think what had to happen in that period between when President Trump negotiated the U.S. departure from Afghanistan and today is the U.S. government as a whole needed to drastically ramp up the processing of special immigrant visas. These are the visas for people in Afghanistan and Iraq who were interpreters for the U.S. military and helped us and the so-called P2 visas, other visas for people that worked with USAID or media organizations, etc. Now the problem there is Donald Trump didn't want refugees. He didn't want immigrants. There's lots of reporting about how Stephen Miller would try to, you know, basically squash those programs

or kill them with bureaucracy. And that was the challenge Biden faced. In fact, like the SIV visa program was created in 2008 and the delays in processing those visas have been well known for years to the point where there was a lawsuit against the Trump administration. So I think the fair criticism of the Biden administration is to say, look, I know the intel community told you that we had six to 12 months before Kabul fell, but if there was any risk of there being significantly less time, you needed to figure out a way to either speed up visa processing or you need to push that departure date further out maybe into the winter after the fighting season ends. Because in Afghanistan, there's literally something called the fighting season, which is basically when it's warm enough for people to move around the country and fight. And maybe if the departure had been in February, then the Taliban wouldn't have been able to roll across the country. There's a lot more broader context about the way, you know, the U.S. military trained the Afghan security forces over two decades. That's part of this. But these are sort of like the options in the reality that was laid at Biden's feet when he got there.

Okay, going back to the media coverage for a moment, you know, we're effectively seeing Biden shoulder all of the blame for this. And yet someone like George W. Bush is basically being absolved. of any and all responsibility, even despite the fact that he got us into the situation in the first place. So what's your response to the fact that a good amount of the Afghanistan coverage is from Bush administration officials

who themselves are complicit in getting us into this war and how their commentary is really driving the coverage here? I woke up this morning, and I saw a tweet of an op-ed from Henry Kissinger criticizing the end of the Afghan war, and I almost threw my phone through a wall. I think it's important to separate out the criticisms of the withdrawal over the last week and some of the chaos we've seen with a conversation about the broader war effort and the value of basically massive nation building efforts like we saw in Afghanistan or Vietnam. I think the lesson has to be that we never should have started a war like the war in Iraq, that we never should have tried to undertake this massive nation building enterprise in Afghanistan.

And I say that as someone who worked for Barack Obama, who sent tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan in an effort to do this counterinsurgency plan to do nation building. And in hindsight, I believe that was a mistake. I think that the 2009 and 2010 troop surge got us back to the status quo and that we never should have done it and that we should have shifted the mission in that moment to just a counterterrorism effort. Now, ultimately, we got bin Laden, you know, the U.S. government, the U.S. military, the CIA were able to do great. al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which that threat had grown significantly from essentially 2002 when the war started, or 2001, when the war started until 2009. But this nation-building effort, this massive troop buildup was a mistake, and we need to admit that and not ever do that again. Yeah, I mean, I think something missing in all of our endeavors is taking into account

what the people of these countries actually want. I think we go in there to like bestow Western democracy onto the people of Afghanistan, but whether they even wanted that was never taken into account. Yeah, I mean, listen, the United States went to Afghanistan to, like, get bin Laden, to get al-Qaeda, and then very quickly this mission shifted under the Bush administration to nation building, where we tried to build them a modern military, where we tried to build a modern government, where we help them build a constitution. And, you know, ultimately, like, you can't force these solutions onto a people into a place. It just didn't work. It didn't fit. And, you know, what's hard, I think, for me about some of the discussion you're seeing right now is some of the same, like Bush era critics that you mentioned earlier are saying, you know what, if the U.S. had just kept a couple thousand troops stayed for a few more years, things would have been fine. We would have kept the lid on. They never mentioned the fact that the Afghan security forces, the army and the police were taking thousands of casualties each year. Their casualties had drastically ramped up as ours ramped down. And the civilians were often living in hell. They were living in the midst of the

the Civil War and like that context matters you know the the options were as what we're seeing now life under the Taliban or the option was life in a permanent war and I think both have downsides and we have to be honest about both of those downsides yeah and you know ultimately like even even if we were able to stave off the Taliban by keeping troops there for what so then we can end up 25 years in and it still be a house of cards like it was 20 years in you know to fall immediately upon deciding to leave? There were some really foundational problems with the entire undertaking. One of them was the fact that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is pretty porous,

and the Taliban could just escape over the border and have a safe haven in Pakistan. And the U.S. government never found a way to solve that problem. The other was corruption. And the fact that the Afghan government was not viewed as legitimate by a large subset of the population. viewed them as people who were stealing from them. They were not providing services. They did not feel secure in a lot of places and villages because of the anti-Talban efforts. And so you're right. There's something called the sunk cost fallacy that governments often make, which is basically we put so much time and effort and money into this thing. We can't stop now. And then you end up

putting more, you know, spending way more money than... Yeah. Yeah. Well, in your opinion, what What will the legacy of this 20-year war be and will it be the narrative of a botched evacuation by Biden? What I hope the lesson is and the takeaway is, is that the U.S. military can do discreet things incredibly well. They can find bad guys. They can kill them. They can take out terrorists.

The Central Intelligence Agency, the NSA, the Intel folks can track them and find people like bin Laden or ISIS leaders. U.S. military cannot solve political problems. They cannot build a government. They cannot, you know, help a build a Western-style military for a country where a lot of the people they're trying to recruit to the army or the police never had a high school education. You know, and what I think we need to come away understanding is we have to get past the hubris that came after 9-11. We have to get past allowing ourselves to be constantly led by fear of terrorist organizations and just be a little more rational about the limits of American power and the actual risks that we face in the world.

Because listen, there may be al-Qaeda or ISIS or other bad guys in Afghanistan in the future. But if you look at what's killing Americans in America right now, it's COVID-19. And we need to do a hell of a lot more to prevent the next pandemic, in my opinion, than we do to manage al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. I think we have the infrastructure and agencies in place to monitor and keep an eye on terrorist threats in ways we did not have in 2001. So now Fox and Republicans, you know, are slamming Biden for not having been able to get people out. And yet, at the same time, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham are already warning about the impacts of having gotten these people out. You know, they called the impending

arrival of Afghan refugees and invasion. How do you reconcile these right-wing talking points where in the same breath they're condemning the administration for both not being able to get these people out and then what will happen now that we are getting them out? Yeah, look, it's racist, it's incoherent, and it's something we need to watch. I mean, I think this is going to be the next big fight. You are going to see people like Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingram or J.D. Vance, the asshole running for Senate in Ohio who once criticized Donald Trump for being an Islamophobe for being anti-immigrant and now is parroting his talking points because he thinks it'll help him win a primary in Ohio. This is the next big fight. And I think

Democrats need to make the case that these are men and women who stood side by side with the United States in Afghanistan, interpreters who are on the battlefield with U.S. soldiers. These are people who bled for the United States who gave far more than most of us back home did. And we should welcome them to the United States. And we should help them build a life. And ultimately, their presence in this country will be good for America in the same way that Vietnamese immigrants after the Vietnam war have built entire communities across America who have given back so much to this country. And so this is something I think Democrats need to take head on and really fight for bringing people to the U.S. and helping them build a life. Yeah. And I think that what you said kind of goes more,

lends itself more broadly to the idea of not shying away from these cultural wars, but fighting them and winning them because so many of these cultural war topics are winnable. They're there are topics that the vast majority of Americans actually agree with Democrats on. Yeah. And yet we shy away from them because, God forbid, we push back against something that Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity said on Fox prime time. Seventy-six percent of Republicans in the CBS poll think that we should welcome Afghan interpreters to the U.S. You know, this is this, this is a winnable fight. We just cannot let them demagogue it. We cannot make Republicans make this all about vetting or individual fears of terrorism.

This is about values. This is about like our word. What's especially ironic about this too is almost the same day that they were fear-mongering about the possibility of Afghans coming here and being terrorists, even though these people were on the battlefield with our troops for two decades. We had a right-wing domestic terrorist park his car in front of the U.S. Capitol and threatened to blow up two and a half city blocks. And that went away, you know, like a fart in the wind.

An actual terrorist. And yet it was way more important to fearmonger that a brown person may be a terrorist at some point in the future, you know, as opposed to the fact that we had one sitting right here in his car calling on Joe Biden to resign. It's a really important point. I think we've seen this over and over and over again in the United States from Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber to the January 6th, you know, terrorists of the Capitol. So the right wing is more than happy to defend, spin, explain away right-wing terrorism is somehow about freedom or liberty or some made-up nonsense. And they are thrilled to demagogue threats from people who are brown or black or Muslim. And it is cynical and hypocritical and mean to call them out on it.

I think that's a good segue into Tucker Carlson specifically. A couple weeks ago, he went to Hungary to kind of go on this image. rehab tour with Victor Orban. What do we need to know about Victor Orban to give some context to that visit? Sure. So a great quote about Victor Orban came from Steve Bannon, Trump's former Sengali, who once called Orban Trump before Trump. He is someone who believes in a brand of white Christian nationalism. He is incredibly hostile to immigrants. He is openly racist. He gave a speech in 2018, I believe, where he said, we do not want to be diverse. We do not want our own color traditions and national culture to be mixed with those of others.

He built a border fence in 2015 during the big flow of refugees across Europe in an effort to keep them out. And he has demagogued these issues to gain political control and to reshape the Constitution, to take control of the media, and really undermine the electoral process. in Hungary to really take it from a democracy to something closer to autocracy. So he is someone we should really worry about. Super weird. I can't imagine why Tucker Carlson would have any vested interest in helping that guy. Yeah, right. Can't figure out the link there. I know. Yeah, same. I don't know this for sure, but I think he probably got a big old paycheck to give a speech there

as well. So, you know, good old Tucker. He's always in it for himself too. So what is the benefit for both Victor and Tucker individually for working with each other? because these aren't, you know, this, you don't usually see the link between the US and Hungary and what the benefit would be between, you know, propping up people in these two countries. It's a really good question. I mean, we have seen this sort of alliance

of right-wing nationalist figures across different countries. Steve Bannon tried to create an institute, I believe somewhere in Italy, where he would bring all these people together, like, we really need that. And so I think for Tucker, you know, he wants to point to Orban and say, look, He built a border fence.

He locked down on the media. He was anti-immigrant. Look how great it's turned out for him. I would argue that's not really the case. And then for Orban, I mean, Orban wants legitimacy in the United States. Trump met with him in 2019 in the Oval Office. That was his first Oval Office visit since 1998 when he was viewed very different by the international community.

Orban wants international legitimacy and to be welcomed into the global community and not to be viewed as a pariah, which is what I think he should be viewed as. Yeah, and Tucker handed that right to him on a silver platter. On a silver platter. What does it say about the American right that Republicans are now carrying water for people like Victor Orban for these far right nationalist figures? I think it shows that at the end of the day, they are willing to give up democracy if it allows them to be, you know, a white state, a white Christian ethno state.

I mean, that is the priority for them. It's keeping out brown people. It's keeping out Muslims. The parliament in Hungary passed a law banning gay people from being in high school educational materials or shows for kids under 18. I mean, they are thrilled to use bigotry as a political tool, even if it makes a country undemocratic. And I think that's the kind of effort we've seen since the election and Trump's efforts

to undermine it. And that's something we need to be very mindful of. Yeah. I do want to finish up with this. And this is a bit of a non sequitur, but I want to get your thoughts on it anyway. What do you think about the idea that independent redistricting commissions, which are largely found in blue states anyway, are basically acting as, you know, a means of unilateral disarmament right now by Democrats?

Listen, I'm going to go ahead and just be a giant fucking hypocrite. I think that if Republicans are going to redistrict us out of all these seats, we're We need to fight fire with fire. And so I was really excited to see the new governor of New York suggests that she might be willing to ditch some of these nonpartisan redistricting efforts and implement a partisan gerrymender because we just can't allow the House of Representatives to be taken away from the Democratic Party through redistricting and not push back. I don't want to win a purity test.

I want to win a political fight that ultimately gives people voting rights. I think that's what matters. And I think at the end of the day, all you have to say if Republicans push back against it is make it illegal. Pass legislation banning partisan gerrymandering. The ball is in your court. 100%. Yes.

I am 100% in favor of nationwide nonpartisan redistricting. Let's do it. We just can't do it state by state where you have states like Ohio or North Carolina or Texas where the Democratic Party has only a couple congressional. seats, but won 49% of the vote or 45% of the vote. It's just not fair. It's not how a democracy should work. Right. Well, Tommy, thank you so much for coming back to talk. And again, for anybody listening, check out Pod Save America and Pod Save the World. Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun. I really appreciate it. Thanks again to Tommy. Just one last

reminder. If you live in California, your ballot should have already arrived in the mail. Do not assume that Democrats are assured victory. We're dealing with a complacent left and a really fired up right. Please, make sure you fill out your ballot. Vote no on question one. And if you want to fill out question two, you can or you don't have to. But the important thing is no on the first question. Fill in the bubble, sign the envelope, date it, and you're done. I'm bringing mine to a drop box right down the street this week, and I hope you will too.

Okay, that's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.