No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Gloves off: Newsom takes aim at Trump

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Brian interviews Gavin Newsom at the JFK Library about midterms, Trump, and even Kimberly Guilfoyle.Shop 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.

For today's episode, you're going to hear an interview that I conducted with Gavin Newsom in Boston, Massachusetts at the JFK Library. It was a wide-ranging conversation. We spoke about what Democrats need to do to fight back, brand issues, also got into some weird territory, asked some questions about his relationship with Kimberly Gilfoyle. So without further ado, here's that conversation with Governor Gavin Newsom. So I want to start off with Prop 50, California. You took decisive action, first governor in the country, to push back on the power grab that took place at the hands of this administration, which I think you deserve a ton of credit for right off the bat.

I appreciate. This was in response to Texas drawing four districts at the behest of Donald Trump, the demand of Donald Trump, five districts, sorry, five districts that he felt he was entitled to. This past Tuesday in Texas's primary elections, four of a few. of those districts had higher Democratic turnout than Republican turnout. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Did this whole effort backfire by Republicans? Was this a fools errand by Republicans to have engaged in the first place? It's still to be determined, but, you know, let's back up

a little bit on this. You use the word entitled because that's exactly the word that Donald Trump used when he called Greg Abbott. He said, I'm entitled to five seats, which is remarkable in chilling just on its. own. Then again, it's hardly surprising. This is a guy after January 6th, that day of love, tried to light democracy on fire, tried to steal the election. You know, democracy is for suckers, kind of the attitude, then went down there, you know, talking about finding 11, 12,000 votes down in Georgia. He knows, and I was with the speaker to be, Jeffreys, an hour or two ago, he knows he's going to get shellacked in this election.

He knows he's going to lose the midterm elections. So the one thing we can all agree on, if we do our job. And that's why he went out and made that phone call to Greg Abbott, to try to rig the election before one vote was cast. What typically is the case, and I say this, with love and reverence to my party, our party, Democratic Party, so often our response to something like that would be to try to win an argument. You know, to maybe go out, Brian, and we, you know, work to maybe get an op. in the New York Times.

I say, gosh, darn it. You know, just this is so wrong. Or maybe, maybe even a strongly worded letter. Or maybe a strongly worded letter. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but. And I'll be candid with you. That was kind of our inclination. I started with a tweet.

I was very satisfied with myself. They said, we had 500 likes. I said, that's amazing. But it occurred to pretty much all of us, and Ryan, you were a real vocal. leader on this, holding us to a higher level of expectation accountability, because this time last year, not many of us were sure. I mean, we were hand-wringing, you know, we were struggling in every way, shape, or form as a party to figure it out. We were still in this, are we really

going to do a forensic? What the hell just happened? And there was a sense that we're just truly weak and ineffective, and we weren't able to get anything done. And I think it was in that to do that we decided to do something a little bit differently. But of course, that required a few phone calls. And the first and most important was to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who did the impossible. She had just a matter of days. We had to do a special election in response to draw these new lines. And she went to the largest delegation in the country and remarkably got back a few hours later, said, let's do this. Of course, we didn't necessarily know how to do this. And we went through a process over a course quite literally of about 10 days in total

and put this on the ballot with a 90-day sprint, raised $118 million. And we not only drew the line, but we held the line and we pushed back and we fought fire with fire. And we punched back at what happened in Texas. And Brian, the thing for me, it just, you know, once a mind just stretched,

it never goes back to its original form. And it was, what was remarkable about it, and again, you were such a big, part of it was how, you know, in the spirit of Obama, we were just with a moment ago as well, it was all these self-organizing communities coming together. It wasn't a top-down campaign. It was prop 50 after all, 50 states. And our state of mind was losing this republic, you know, 250th anniversary, the best of the Roman Republic, best of Greek democracy, co-equal branches of government, popular sovereignty, the rule of law, not the rule of dawn.

And it's increasingly, I think, donning on all of us that for things to change, we have to change. And as a consequence of what we did, we're doing everything differently now. With a recognition how precious and profound this moment is, we can lose this republic. This guy is not screwing around. Let me highlight that. Brian, on the day we kicked off the campaign for Prop 50, it was at the Democracy Center in Little Tokyo. a sacred site in Los Angeles, where we were interning the busing the Japanese. It's a sacred site.

I underscore that because we had about a thousand people at a rally. Two U.S. senators, we had a dozen members of Congress, clergy, civil rights leaders to kick it off. And we looked outside. People were having a difficult time getting in. We're like, what's going on? They said, well, there's a bunch of masked men outside. We rolled our eyes. There's not masked men.

There was one exception. A guy I dressed up, I kid you not, as if he just came off the Burbank. Lott, Warner Brothers, in 1930s garb, including the haircut, guy named Bovino, Gregory Bovino, was out there with his private police force. Appeared to be private. No markings. No reference to who they're working for. An intimidation tactic to keep people from walking in. Poor guy selling, true story, strawberries across the street disappeared that day. We finally got to. tracked him back. He finally came back a few weeks later. Collateral damage. We said at that time,

that is a preview of things to come. What more evidence do you need than what happened in Minnesota? Those guys clearly took an oath on office to Donald Trump, not the Constitution of the United States America. On election day, again, if you think I'm overstating things, on election day, Bovino, Christy Noam, Stephen Miller, the dark heart of the operation. sent out board tact teams. These are the Border Patrol tactical units with, you know, these are the folks with the Apache helicopters. On election morning, sent them to the highest profile location you can find, particularly after the Dodgers win the World Series, to Dodger Stadium. To get all the morning news to send a message to our diverse communities already on edge

because we had 4,000 National Guard, Federalized, 700 active duty Marines, not sent over but the second largest city in the United States of America to send a message, don't bother to turn out the vote. We said at the time that is a preview of things to come. Of course, that came after Donald Trump sent out a true social, even earlier that morning, saying the election in California is rigged. He also sent out the Department of Justice. Pam Bondi sent out his teams.

Election walkers and observers, the next day tweeted out, we have the evidence. and they went to the Supreme Court. A preview of things to come. I kicked off this book tour in the South, in Tennessee. We were down in Fulton County. Met with the commissioners, head of the commission. Trump is not only, did he take him with all that team of folks, Telsie Gabbard and everything else.

He's now trying to impose to take over that commission for the election this year. A preview of things to come to nationalize the election, or at least in 15 blue states. What's the Save Act all about? It's not about voter ID. It's about who gets to vote. It's about voter registration.

This guy is not screwing around, and nor can we. And forgive the long windiness. You opened up with Prop 50. That's what it represents. We have got to fight fire. with fire, I wish it weren't the case. The idea that we were advocating for gerrymandering, the fact that we were advocating for literally politicizing and choosing voters, shows you how precious, again, and profound and consequential this moment is in our republic. So you mentioned that that was

a preview of things to come, and you repeated that line, and I think that that line is a, is important, to have repeated, do you think that that's gotten through to everybody else in the Democratic Party? Because, you know, you also mentioned at the top that it is very of the Democratic Party to write an op-ed in the New York Times, I said to write a strongly worded letter. And that feels like the Democratic Party that I've always known, this idea that, you know, as long as we just kind of expect democracy to work or, or confer some degree of goodwill to the other side, that maybe it'll be reciprocated. Do you think that the gravity, the gravity, of this moment has gotten through to the rest of the party because not every governor in this country

is going to be you or Morahili, you know? We should be so lucky, but they're not. And so do you think it's gotten through? It's getting through. Look, these guys are ruthless. We're trying again win arguments. They're consolidating power. Enough. And the asymmetry is real. These propaganda and the networks, the primetime lineup at Fox, I'll just remind you, you know this, that Laura Ingram herself is a partner in a business deal with Donald Trump Jr. I mean, it's Pravda. What's happening in Sinclair, One American News, Newsmax, the asymmetry in terms of their ability to flood the zone and communicate is extraordinary.

And so, again, for things to change, I'll keep saying it, we have to change. It's not what happens to us. It's how we respond to what happens to it. And so we need to change our tactics. And you're seeing it. We saw J.B. I mean, he did a remarkable job. We were just with him in Chicago in response to what happened.

Again, in the preview of what was to come in Chicago after what happened in D.C. And of course, you saw the same with Governor Walts. And I never thought, I'll tell you, again, never thought I'd get a call like this. Just a few months ago, I got a call from Waltz. And I'm like, how you doing, pal? He's like, hey, I thought it would be you first. he tells me. But it's me. I could use a little help. I said, whatever you need. He goes for my legal defense fund. A sitting governor calling another governor quite literally to raise money because

he's under criminal indictment by Donald Trump. He's in the mayor. We forgot about that. These guys are not screwing around. You think for a second? That's not likely to happen out on the West Coast? This is different. He's an invasive species. And And so, you know, if nothing else, Brian, it's a waking up our immune system. And it's so often the case, isn't it? I mean, it's, you know, how many extraordinary moments you've had up here with historians and authors. It's always the case. It's the people first.

You know, Justice Brandeis, and the most important office is the office of citizen. It's not president, governor, mayor. Office of active, not inert citizenship. And you're seeing that the no king's rallies. You saw it in that second one. people, what you saw it in the steel spines of the folks in Minnesota. That's why Trump's in retreat. That's why Christy Nome was just fired.

It was those folks who was you, all of you, standing up, meeting this moment. So, yes, I think we're getting the message. And there are a lot more messengers. And I think there's a lot more activity and action and passion in the spirit of Oliver Wendell Holmes that has been shared all across this country. To what extent do you think that the fact Trump and his acolytes feel so emboldened to act the way that they are, that that's born out of an unwillingness to hold them to account the first time? Look, you know, I think about, you know, Trump is Trump, but, you know, Speaker Johnson, you know, Lindsay Graham.

I thought the two most effective anti-Trump surrogates was a guy named J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio. But you know this, and we've talked about this. I've gotten so frustrated that, you know, I even put up a Patriot site. You can go online. And on my Patriot site, I sell knee pads. And the good news, Brian, is we have a new Trump signature series.

kneepads. The old ones sold out, just like our law firms are selling out, just like our universities are sold out, just like corporate leaders are sold out, just like members of the media have sold out. And they've got to be called out. I'm sorry. We'll lose this country, the complicity at this moment, trying to make a deal with Donald Trump.

Or those that are also complicitity, they're putting their head down and hoping it just all goes away. I mean, I just left Jesse Jackson's memorial. Talking about this notion, we have agency. We can shape the future. We're not bystanders the future. The future is not in front of us. It's inside of us. It's decisions, not conditions that determine our fate and future. That's the spirit of Kennedy. That's the spirit of the 60s. You know, it's how you solve for ignorance and poverty and disease. And so I think it's the spirit that defines this moment. So that complicity also needs to be called out much more aggressively because at the end of the day, my summation of Trump is it's really not complicated.

It's a corruption story. Everything connects to that, just like the tariffs. He had to come face to face with a co-equal branch of government. It was a bit of a shock, wasn't it? You saw that press conference last Friday or Friday before, and it wasn't about our country as much as it was about his personal. portfolio. And if you think again, I'm overstating to just consider the tariffs drop 26% in Vietnam right after the Vietnamese approved the $1.5 billion golf course and development.

That's what the IEPA meant to Trump. It's about his personal portfolio. And you say, well, they hold on. That's not fair. Well, let's go to the UAE. Let's talk about the $2 billion there. World Liberty Financial. Let's talk about the high-valued chips that were sent in return for the $2 billion. This is a grift, the likes of which we've never experienced in history of this country at a scale unprecedented. And all these guys want to get in on it. Every one of these foreign trips, who is the first envoys out there, members of the family,

people in business? What's this? Board of Peace. It's about getting a piece. of the middle. Come on. You got to call this out. It's not complicated.

It's in plain sight. And there's a timidity. Bobby's language. The world needs are the qualities of youth, not a time of life, a state of mind, a quality of imagination, predominance of courage over love of ease.

It's a notion of courage over love of ease at this moment. And so, again, forgive, you know, my mom, I wrote about her in this book, who passed away 20 years ago, she'd probably be washing my mouth out with soap. And forgive me, Mom.

But I just feel like this moment requires us to radically shift. Conventional politics no longer applies. To that end, I want to read an excerpt, and you and I have spoken about this particular excerpt before, and this was right in the lead-up to the first same-sex marriage that you would be responsible for. and this is what one of your campaign consultants said to you, quote, speaking, while we're talking about cleaning your mouth out with soap,

quote, what the fuck are you doing here? Why did we work so hard to win if you can't do something bold? He asked, this is a short life, Gavin. Your time as a politician to get things done is just a blip. And so while we're talking about doing something bold, what does that look like in 2026 in very much the same way that, you know, when this took place decades ago, that was the bold. old movement. Look, I mean, it's all about 2026. It's exhausting this guy or guy on the white horse

that's going to come save the day in 2028. It's all about 2026. There may not be a 2028 as we know it. There may not be. And again, I mean, there'll be an election, you know, you know, competitive authoritarian love elections. I think Putin, you may Google this. I think it was 87.3%, I think, is what he did. Yeah, as someone got 4.3 or something below him. That's the kind of election that we may have if we don't take back the House of Representatives. And, dare I say now, take back the United States Senate this November, which is in play in a big, big way. And so it's, look, the big, and it goes to the, you know, and I get the friction of what happened in 2004.

And, you know, we were barely even debating civil unions back then. And I kind of took a leap of fate. And, you know, Massachusetts were a big part of that as well. You did as well. I think we share that in so many ways in common. And it, you know, it was a didacious move. And there was a lot of critique and criticism and a lot of punditry. And it was a lot of soul searching for me.

And I talk a lot about that. It was universally condemned by members of my party. You know, my family, my dad tried to talk me out. I write about it in the book. there's a scene with he and my uncle, and they had an intervention the night before trying to talk me out of it. Old Irish Catholic family, Westside San Francisco. Dad used to go and grew up down in the Marina District, and, you know, his mom and dad every morning got all six brothers and sisters dressed up to go to church every single day. This is not even a black and white

movie days. It feels like yesterday. That was my father. And here was his son pursuing the dream, he never achieved after trying to run for county supervisor and losing, turning around in 1968, and running for state Senate and losing with the help

then of Bobby Kennedy. We have these campaign photos from that time. And he lost both races and was broke and broken and broken and took off

leaving my mom 19 when she had me two years later with two kids on her own. Came back eventually, but wasn't there in the beginning. I was pursuing his unfinished work. And so I get elected as the youngest mayor in 100 years. And, you know, he's, you know, the Jimmy Gleason thing, how sweet it is. And I'm like, Dad, we should start marrying St. St.S. Cupples.

Didn't go over very well, as you can imagine. And, you know, there's a scene where I was debating it with him and in this fierce advocate for justice, one of the nation's great trial attorneys, Joe Kachet, his best friend. And Joe was trying to debate me as he does with everybody. And I said, Joe, I give up. I don't know what else to say except, you know, I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. And that's literally when he turned to my dad and uncle, he said, boys, well, he'll be doing this tomorrow because it's the right thing to do. We moved forward and married 4,036 couples from 46 states and six countries in that winter, not summer of love in San Francisco. And it was glorious and extraordinary, but it was also extraordinary, the self-doubt that came with that afterwards.

And sort of the reflection of my own complicity in sort of the match, you know, in the mega political moment. Sort of the beginner's mind, the naivete perhaps I had of it. If I knew what I knew, I probably wouldn't have done it. There's something about the beginner's mind, the Roger Bannister theory of life, the guy who broke the four-minute mile because he didn't know he couldn't. Everyone else was an expert. They knew that the human body didn't move that fast. And so, you know, I think what it represented, though, was conviction to your question. I'm coming back to that.

Whether you agreed or disagreed. And this notion of conviction is also a strength. And I think for our party, the last year, few. Since our party back again, I said a moment ago, is weak. I was just with Bill Clinton and Hillary, and you remember what Clinton said years ago when we got slacked at one of those midterms, many moons ago. He said, given the choice, the American people always support strong and wrong

versus weak and right. And there is something about just strength and conviction. Yes, we want to be strong and right. That's the sweet spot. But having the courage of your convictions, be able to get out there and sell them, be out there selling it every day to flood the zone to make the case but to have the courage of your convictions to share that and in finding that equal weight i think is how not only we get back though i'm confident in 2026 but we get back that mojo you know i think that that sense you know and forgive me i'm just you've you guys

some of you know this and my staff certainly know this is like you don't even know what i'm serious like being here for a guy like me, you know. And I write about not, you know, I don't read speeches because I can't read speeches, but I read, but I can't deliver speeches that I read. And just, you know, how Sars Shriver and Bobby and JFK like, like I'm here, it's reflected in my father. And, you know, so the fact that I'm here having this conversation is, is extraordinary. But I sail out to make this.

What's so evocative of this is the thing that's the hardest thing. You know, and I've tried this as mayor, as a county supervisor, as lieutenant governor, governor. You can't legislate spirit. You can't legislate pride. You know, in sort of the vernacular that defines this hollow ground and this notion of going on a journey together. And I just think that's the language we need again.

It's notion of going on a journey together, their journey where everyone sees themselves and they part of it. And I think that's the spirit. That's strength. And that's not power, dominance, and aggression. That's not Trump's version of strength. That's the strength defined by the people that all the preachers we're talking about today. King and Gandhi and Mandela and Havel, you know, Cesar Chavez, that shared their moral authority.

It's about moral authority. and if we can use our moral authority, we'll gain back the formal authority. And I'm confident in not only 2026, but also 2028. So you spoke about this idea of redefining what the Democrats stand for. Right now we're in a moment where it's kind of uncertain what the Republicans stand for other than blind devotion to Trump. But I mean, this is a guy who himself had campaigned on this idea that he wanted to enter no, new wars. Here we are in a new war every week. A guy who campaigned on bringing costs down, thanks to his trade war, costs are surging. How do you think about what the Republican Party

stands for moving forward, given the fact that they've been perfectly content to shed every purported ideal they've had in the lead-up to this moment? Oh, they're supine. There's no Republican Party. Back to this invasive species construct. They don't exist. And it's remarkable. I mean, You have Ronald Reagan. I walk into Ronald Reagan's old office every day when I'm at work, Governor Ronald Reagan. I mean, he's looking down literally, not just figuratively, his painting on Donald Trump in the Oval Office. It has nothing in common with this. This is a guy Trump who said he was going to make us wealthier and healthier. We're quite literally sicker and poor. You saw the jobs numbers today down 92,000. We lost over 100,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 12 months,

1.4% GDP contract now starting to slow down. We saw one of the worst jobs growth years that we've had since recession, roughly 2013. Speaking of 13, I mean, not even 13 cents today. I saw it was 37 cents overall gas prices of increased week over week. And if you're in Indiana, it's 47 cents, West Virginia, 47 cents. In just one week, there was the energy minister in Qatar. They had their largest LNG facility that was just taken out, the second largest LNG exporter in the world, their largest LNG facility was just taken out by an Iranian drone. And he talked about his words in the FT this morning, $150 a barrel of oil. You talk about wrecking ball presidency? I mean, certainly reflected symbolically and subsequently in the imperial palace that he's trying to, the Kremlin West Wing that he's

trying to recreate. And that's all, all this has. Donald Trump is, you know, it's all about destruction and destruction is not strength. He's not a builder. You know, Sam Ryburn. What, you know, you always like, remember years ago, was like, who's this Ryburn guy? He says, well, he had a great quote. I always remember the quote when I was a kid. It goes, you know, any jackass, can, you know, knock down a barn. It takes a skilled carpenter to build one. Forgive me, but Donald Trump is a jackass. I believe that. And it's the only thing it has in common. Institutions, truth, trust. I don't even get to Kennedy. Let's go down the list. These guys are rewriting history, censoring historical facts. I want to bring us back to a pre-1960s world. America in reverse, LGBTQ rights, women's rights.

it on civil rights and now voting rights across the board. It's happening in real time. That's why states matter. And I want to just thank your state governor for, I guess she must have written a book because I think you must have learned or she could have in the time that you spent together talking about that. But more how important she is and how important governors are, states are on the front lines of all of these battles. But we all are now in this consequential moment. And so, no, I do not know what Donald Trump stands for. Right now. He stands for Donald Trump. And that's at the essence of almost everything.

And we've talked about the Epstein files, which I don't want to go down that dark hole. But that's also reflected in what that's all about as well. It's about him. Something about those files and him. You don't care about laying anybody out. So who is he protecting? We know.

He's protecting himself. There was a really interesting part of the book where you discussed your meeting with Donald Trump going on a plane with him, having phone calls with him. What struck me about that part of the book is it didn't feel like, it felt like there was two distinct personas between the public one and the private one. And so can you speak a little bit about who he pretends to be in public whether you think that there is some legitimacy behind that and who he is in private? I'll talk you about who he tried to call on Air Force One. Oh, thank God, she didn't answer. That would not have gone well. I'd have been kicked off the plane.

I got a call. This is a more contemporary call, and I'll go back briefly to what's in the book. In this book, by the way, if you were coming to get a book about 10-point plan to restore America's soul in a future, and come back, that is definitely, you're at the wrong venue. that is not this book. If you came to read a book that was some sanitized version of a political life, this is not that book either. This is the op-re-e, this is, if you don't like me, you should buy this in bulk.

With the one exception, I wrote a book that went up to when my father, God bless him, He lasted long enough to see his son get elected governor. He was in a wheelchair, an election night passed away a few weeks later. Didn't see me get sworn in, but boy, he was there. And what a night that was for me. And that's where the book was going to end. But the fires last year, I was going to release this last year in Los Angeles, required an extension of the book because I met Donald Trump

as governor-elect after the most devastating and deadly wildfire in American history, Paradise, California, right before I got sworn in his governor when Jerry Brown was governor of California. And I described that trip in detail, and it marks our relationship, which is an interesting one, and let me highlight that. The night before he federalized 4,000 National Guard, remember, that all happened in California, So much of this is happening in California first. His efforts to try to get and purge the voting rolls happened in our state first,

even before Pambondi demanded them as an extraction payment to get the National Guard, or rather get ICE out of Minnesota. They had already demanded that of us and a number of other states many, many months ago. Donald Trump demanded my attention on a night that I'll never forget. At 10.30, 11 o'clock, I'm getting the strength,

phone call, miscall, miss call, miss call from someplace in Florida. And I, it just couldn't be, right? And it's 10.30. I'm doing the math. I'm, you know, I may have dyslexia, but I can still count, which I love to get into. Not the counting part, the dyslexia. And I texted Susie wows, and she goes, yes, call them. So I call it, and this was when there was, we had a modest incident in Southern, they colored it in. It was, it was an incident, legit, but they really covered it on, you know, Hannity and Fox in Los Angeles. And Trump called me, presumably to talk about L.A. I jump right into L.A. He cuts me off, goes, what do you think a new scum? His nickname for me? I'm like, new scum. And then I'm about to, I'm about to.

says, he says, pretty original, right? Pretty original. I said, original. I said, not original. I just wrote, I literally told him, I said, I just wrote a book. There's an eighth grade bully that called me new scum. It's in the book. And he goes, oh, no, you know, he goes, well, what about mega? What about mega? I said, what about it? I said, are we seriously having this conversation? Literally, this is how what went. He goes, pretty good, right? I said, well, no, Reagan kind of had that too, and it's not original. He goes, well, how many hats you think I sold last month? It is 1.30 in the morning. Mar-Lago time. I don't know how many true socials he was in at that hour.

But apparently he sold about 211,000 hats. I was like, well, that's actually impressive. And the whole conversation got even more curious. He said, he starts talking about how he won the debate against Kamala. I'm like, no, you didn't. And he said it was four against one. And I said, I thought there was just only two. two hosts. He goes, well, the cameraman, the cameraman. So anyway, it's 17 minutes later. And by the way,

if you think I'm making this up, there was an oversight committee that demanded my notes on this conversation. I literally am not making any of that up. About 18 hours later, the next day, there's a true social saying, I read Newsom the Riot Act. And I am federalizing, 4,000 National Guard. It was 2000, then eventually 2000. But what the hell is this? That's Donald Trump. That's the Trump in the book. That's the guy slapping me on the leg saying,

in front of Jared Kushner, Kushner, you were not my first choice. Tom Brady was. Right in front of Kushner. It gives a whole long story. I thought it was kind of a joke, and then I'm like, oh, God, do you serious? Literally, you should read it for nothing else.

You know, I know your audience. You may want to read that. But he was trying to read me and I was trying to read him, sizing each other up. You know, we're then, we land on Marine 1 and Marines are walking up like this and Trump hits me. He goes, I'm right there. Marines are about to open the door. He goes, Swordsman. Swordsman doesn't get this. Some of you know Swartzman is. The guy he's always competed with to be as wealthy as Swartzman. we get on Air Force One, he starts petting the side of the plane. He goes, this amazing.

I said, it's amazing, sir. You're amazing, sir, is what he was looking for. You know, we walk in the bedroom, and I'm like, no other president would ever do this. I don't know that I want to go in the bedroom with any other president. And it was really incredible. And then we went back and did a press conference, and I didn't know he could do a press conference. And now you see it all the time. It was amazing.

Call me the next day. You know, I describe after I took a little shot on my inaugural, and he calls me, and he honestly, it's in the book, he expressed being almost hurt. I'm like, whoa. And I was really to apologize that. I didn't, it was just an oblique, you know, yeah. And he goes, well, we're all good, we're all good.

We're good. And then he said, and then he starts talking about my family and my kids and said something, you shouldn't say about someone's wife. That's Donald Trump. And every foreign leader knows this. You can spin them on your finger. The most easily manipulated.

I mean, it's alarming. It's alarming. And so it's all about that transaction. It's all about that relationship. He's a broken man that try to break this country. It's not complicated. And that's why

again, we have to remain vigilant. Because this is a guy who's, he's been exposed, weakness masquerading as strength. You know, with respect and forgive, you know, forgive me, but, you know, between him and Bessett, it's dumb and dumber right now. These guys, I mean, this has been, this thing is collapsing all around us.

You know, I live in the Mag 7 West Coast that's kind of holding up this whole market. All the CAPEX, you know. I'm out there in a state where his state of mine is to take 10% tithing from Intel. I thought, I remember Ronald Reagan out there with, you know, Thatcher talking about, you know, free enterprise is a healthy horse pulling a sturdy wagon. Now it's state capitalism. 25% AMD, 25% Nvidia, MP materials, golden shares, or golden iPhone to a

avoid a drop in your shares by getting a tariff exemption. This is different. And so that relationship that was formed then allowed me to navigate during COVID in a way where we actually got along remarkably and allowed me to navigate up into that phone call. But when he drew that line and it felt like he declared war on an American city in Los Angeles last. last June, that's when I recognized I had to radically change. And you saw it and forgive me, back to, you know, soap in the mouth, washing it out, my social media shifted as well. And you haven't noticed, you know, yeah, not many people were apologizing, or applauding then, but I just thought I put a mirror up to this. How has this been allowed to be normalized, this

normalization of deviancy. How are we not calling this all cap out? How can he cosplay literally dress up as the Pope? Like dressed up as a Pope? Dressed up as Superman. He put his picture up there on Mount Rushmore, so I decided to start doing it as well. And so offended, so offended was the prime time lineup at Fox. So offended was the five. How could a governor do this? It's so one becoming, Jesse. What do you say? So situationally unaware of how complicit they all have been at this moment. We don't want to be in peril being judged not to have lived in this moment. And so all of us, we need to put that mirror up. We need, you know, otherwise we put a mask on and our face is going to grow into it. We won't even recognize ourselves, not just our country.

And we can do it with a little sense of humor. And I think we're, with Trump, going to your point, and again, forgive the long-windiness, there is a, there's a sort of, you know, back and forth. He's got a sense of humor, remarkably personable. I spent 90 minutes with him in the Oval Office after I, uninvited, though I finally got invited, it kind of pushed myself onto the tarmac in L.A., where he was very gracious, and I invited myself to the Oval Office a month later, and it was 90 minutes of sort of banter back and forth. But I realize, and we all do, you don't work with Donald Trump. You can only work for him.

And I have no interest in working for Donald Trump. That's the red line that will never be crossed. While we're on the subject of weird relationships, Kimberly Gilfoyle. Look, y'all seem to know a lot more about that than most things. That's interesting. I have spent the last week trying to figure out what the question would be here. I know that I wanted to ask a question. You must have had something to drink.

That took some courage to bring this up. Well, I didn't see Jen. So I figured my wife's not here. By the way, just on that so I can try to distract him. And he may forget the question he was about to ask. So we're on Air Force One. I get the Royal Tour. It was amazing.

He was incredibly gracious. He really was. And he was treating everyone rather, graciously as well. It was sort of a mark of interesting character trait that I never seen and haven't seen since in terms of how he treated, you know, the pilots and everybody and how gracious he seemed to be with the staff. But he really wanted me to call my wife. And I don't know that. You know, some of you maybe had the privilege I had never been on Air Force One. And I figured you just pick up the phone and dial. That doesn't work. There's some operator, like some old day movies. And he's like,

And I'm like, oh gosh, not Jen, not my wife. She was not happy I was with Trump. And he's standing right above me, waiting for the operators to say, sir, we have Jen Siebel Newsom on the phone. And we waited, and I'm like, okay, we're watching Fox News. And I'm like, sir, she's not available. I'm like, oh, that's really too bad. And luckily, I ended up having a call.

He said, call someone else. I ended up calling my sister, and he got bored with me and walked away. I said, Hillary, thank you. You're good? Good. Thanks. Bye. Forgive me.

But you were saying about Kimberly. So on the topic of unfortunate relationships, like, was she always, is this an act? How did this happen? I mean, the gulf between. you and her. Well, you know, I'm a young man in a hurry. She was a young woman in a hurry.

She, pretty fierce prosecutor. Was in L.A. made her way to San Francisco. A lot of cross-currents with Kamala and DA's office. I mean, it's interesting. And, you know, I was sworn in as mayor the same day Kamala was sworn in the DA. We walked across the street for her swearing in. And, you know, we were all in this sort of friends group. And a frenemies group, not with Kamala, but with Kimberly in Kamala.

And she was a very effective prosecutor. And there's a famous dog-malling case where court TV was starred in assert itself. And she was on there a number of times because she was prosecuting that case with a co-prosecutor, a deputy DA, and it was a very high-profile case. It was getting a lot of national attention. And she started getting a lot of national attention. And she seemed quite gifted on TV. so much so that Roger Ailes eventually called her after she went to work part-time for court TV and then part-time full-time at Fox.

We just got elected mayor. She just gets the job from Ailes. That's not a relationship that's going to last. But she always had that prosecutorial energy. She had an amazing father. Mom died very young in Puerto Rico, dad from Ireland, and he was a He was just this, you know, just blue collar, worked for PG&E, just hard work contractor part-time and just raised his two kids after his wife died very young to be tough. That's who she is. But talking about a mask, you don't get to go on Fox for very long without putting that mask and that face grows into it pretty quickly. And that's what happened from my perspective.

And then she, you know, presumably I guess they must have fallen love Donald Trump, where they were engaged and you just can't make that up. You know, for the first lady of San Francisco engaged, you know, and as we're going back and forth. So it's been a hell of a, you know, it's not easy to talk about these things. And it was a hell of a thing trying to edit what I wanted to say about this in the book, knowing that my wife was likely to read it. So it's, but it's, you know, but I write about it.

try to be honest about it. And I also, you know, I've, you know, I'm married in the church, you know, you feel like a failure. And this book is about failure. It's about setbacks. It's not about triumphs. It's about mistakes. It's about, you know, it's hardly about, you know, perfection. I think if there's anything, maybe it's about perseverance. It's about discovery. Young Man in a Hurry, you know, became a memoir of discovery, the sub-hubline. Because I wrote a book that I couldn't go back and talk about my life to my mom and dad because they were no longer here. And so I had to go back and I had to start to learn about things I never knew about them. Secrets. They never shared, including why they got divorced.

I found out about that in the process of writing the book. They never told me why they got divorced. I never understood why my father left. I never understood my mom's relationship to her father who took his life, was a prisoner ward, Corrigador, who put a gun to her head when she was very young, threatening to kill her in a fit of rage of alcoholism. Again, eventually taking his own life. I never understood that connection.

I never understood how that shaped her and how that shaped me and who I am today. Single mom working two, three, sometimes four jobs. And by the way, I described them in detail that none of that is exaggerated. Who we had in our house, our entire life, there was always a stranger there. because we were renting out rooms. We were a foster family growing up. Just hard work. Single moms.

Just single moms. Oh, my. Single moms. Not all the single moms out of you. And so in many ways, this became a love letter to her. The things I can never say to her because she's not around, she never met my kids. You know, I talk about the day Trump called me.

There was a moment, oh, God, you think about your mom. those moments, the inaugural, as a kid that struggled and still does with dyslexia, and again, back to my inability to look down and read speeches, and how I felt like I was dumb, and there was plenty of evidence to back that up, and how my mom struggled with a son who's struggling. And she told me some piercing words that I write about in the book where she said, it's okay to be average. And that did not say well with that. with me. And in the process of writing, I realized she was just saying it's okay. And in the process of writing this, I forgave her. And I keep forgiving. And so it's a journey, but it came to

just intense terms, the day of the inaugural, and I'm reading the only thing I can read, which is a teleprompter speech. And it's, you know, they're not, these are not memorable speeches, my teleprompter speeches. I'm sure. of fixed on the words. But I noticed the audience was not fixated on anything I was saying, because in the corner I'm seeing this shadow running around. My three-year-old, who was sitting in the front row with his pacifier and his blanket, Dutch, Dutchie, and the crowd is kind of laughing a little bit, and he's running away from my wife. My wife's in a panic. People all paying attention, and he runs right up on stage as I'm speaking.

and bolts right to my leg. And I'm looking at the teleprompter, and with our first hundred days, we will. And people are like, and I look down, I'm like, and I, of course, pick him up. And then what does he do? He puts his head. Right, I mean, you can look this up.

And I have to give the speech with my son. And I swear to you to this day, there's never been a speech. People like, I want that speech again. Because they don't remember a damn thing that I said. It was just the way everyone felt. And the way I felt at that moment, I was thinking, oh, if mom could see this. That's all she wanted for her son.

That connection, you know. And so this book is about opportunity to make up for that. You know, my dad never had that. My dad was amazing. I love my diet. And I've never, ever doubted he loved me. Came back to my life much later. It was a huge part of my life.

But he never had that. Was here maybe, but is never here, the baritone of your life. And that kind of love is to me the most important. That's what this book is about. All the mistakes I made and how I'm trying to make up for them. I'm trying to be a better person. This young man in a hurry was too focused on himself. It was all about me, me, me.

And one of the most profound moments where that just came crashing was when my mom and I write about this in the book where I get a voice message and it's my mother. Hi, it's your mother. You may want to see me before next Thursday because that will be my last day. Of course, I immediately then call my sister, what's going on?

And she says, well, what's going on is you're not paying attention to anything. You're out there running around, you've got this little small business, you think you're all that as a county supervisor. And you haven't been paying attention to mom. Breast cancer's come back. I said, I know that.

She goes, no, it's come back. I said, but she's going to be fine. She got this past a year ago. She came over it. She goes, no, she's doing an assisted suicide next Thursday. And by the way, it was illegal in California at the time. And I know this is an issue. Trust me, I know the audience.

I get it. And I didn't understand it. And so I had to come to grips with kind of jerk I've been running around all about me, me, me, me, me. And to spend those last precious days with her. But I had to spend the last precious minutes and seconds with her, courageous doctors willing to lose his license. And everybody said their goodbyes. They're in the living room.

My sister and I are just with our mom. And she's looking through all the old photos, those sort of 70s patina photos. And the medicine's starting to, doctor left, medicine's starting to think. And my sister's crying, I'm crying, and my sister looks at me, I'm like, go. It's okay. And she bolts out. And I'm stuck there. I'm like, I don't know that I can do this much longer, but she's still with us.

And I'm holding her hand in those last breath, nothing romantic about this. I mean, talk about scars, like scars, that last breath. And then I just put my head. down on her stump, about 20 minutes, and I said all the things I didn't even have the courage to say 20 minutes before. Just feeling the shame of that. And it was just this wake up. Like, who the hell am I becoming? This is not why she lived and died for this, this guy. And so this is what this book's about. I'm scrutinizing my life. All the mistakes, all the insecurities, all the anxieties I have sitting up here with you today. that mark who I am.

And I'm just trying to be a better person throughout all this. And by the way, just something that may or may not resonate with you, what a gift it was. You know, my first year as governor to sign a bill in her memory, allowing it to be legal in the state of California, to at least allow the grace of that journey that is unique for everybody. And I, trust me, grew up in the church. I get it.

how raw that is. So that's a little bit of the journey I've been on. And Kimberly was part of that journey, sincerely. Donald Trump's a big part of that journey. You know, trials and triumphs. It's just, you know, it's who we are. It's being human. Let it go.

Let it go. You know, I think so much of the book was about those fits and starts and there was so much awkwardness. You were really awkward for a lot of it. But I think the one part of the book that felt different was when you were describing your relationship with Jen. And in that part, it was the only part I noticed. And I sat up while I was reading this part because that part flowed so effortlessly in a way that the rest of the book didn't. And I think that's inherently because that part is the part that worked.

And so I think that stuck out. And I think it's worth saying that because I love that. Because I did like both. Because when you see Jen, she's going to, you know, yeah. That's why. So let the record show. Blind date. When you give up, you're like, no, I'm never.

You know, it's like, it's like such a cliche. There's a reason cliches are cliches. And it was a blind date. She's two hours late. I'm like, it's like what was tonight? And I'm like, it's not going to work. And I was like, okay, hold on. And we spend blue time.

time together. And everything's perfect. See her a couple days later. And then she says, I'm a Republican. I'm like, oh, come on. Everything about you is perfect. And she goes, well, it's just because my father is a Republican. And he still is.

And she starts talking about her life and her story and her journey and how she lost her older sister to an accident, and how it shaped her and, you know, her journey, which I write about, and she was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. And then assaulted again by a lawyer defending him. Disgraceful lawyer. Try to intimidate and shame her. Disgraceful.

No amount of money. The devil's advocate. I'll never forgive him for that. The courage of young women that do that. And she's a fierce warrior for women and girls. She's a feminist, and she's been out there. She did a documentary called Miss Representation that Oprah Bond about the Miss and underrepresentation of women and girls decades ago. I'm so proud of her. But there's a spirit in her because of what she went through. And I describe it. I love that you bring this up.

I describe watching your dance the first time I saw our dance. Oh, and this freedom. I mean, you see something that's like we talk about love and all my West Coast friends, you know, love and light. And you're like, I don't understand that. And then I see it. I'm like, oh, love and light. And she's just a bright light. And, you know, she set me straight. She didn't know. She's like, I love your dad.

She got to know my dad. But she's like, are you going to be like your father was as a husband? She had to go through the Kimberly stuff. She had to deal with a lot of that afterwards. And we established that. Then she wondered, well, are you going to be your father again when it comes to our children? And so she took a leap of faith with me. And so if I didn't describe her well, that's an injustice.

And she is the rock, and she's the constant. And I'm so in love, and I'm so lucky. and she gave me the most precious things in the world that are the four that I dedicate this to. Brooklyn Dutch, Hunter, and Montana, and as I dedicate to, may they continue this story. I want to finish off with the question I get asked the most when I see people, and I'm sure a question that you have to face a lot when you talk to people, and that is, are we going to be okay? And so I want to take this opportunity, while I'm sure there's a lot of people in this audience,

a lot of people who are going to be watching online, who watch what we're contending with right now, see the ways in which our democracy is failing, our justice system is failing us, and, you know, obviously the apathy that we contend with among our voter base as well. And what do you say to folks who ask, are we going to be okay?

What a perfect question, because it was expressed all day to day at the memorial. We were talking about Ayrs, we're talking about Malcolm X, we were talking about King, we're talking about Ken. about Kennedy, we're talking about the 60s. We were torn asunder in so many ways, shapes, or form, even the early 70s. And, you know, I come from a city, San Francisco, 1906 earthquake and fire, and our flag is the phoenix, the phoenix rising from the ashes.

Ah, that's the resilience we have as a nation, our capacity for renewal, rebirth. it's alive in all of us. I mean, it's alive in all of you. You haven't gotten the memo that you shouldn't be here for yourself or each other. You haven't dialed into the cynicism, the fear and the anxiety. You've had all this stacking of stress, that grace you haven't even given yourself. This original book, by the way, this was not supposed to be a memoir. I submitted this to Penguin Press and the great Anne Godoff. And she rejected my book. And I thought she was going to reject it because I had one chapter about my childhood, and the rest of it was about COVID and social unrest, supply chain issues. And my first two years with Trump and two years with Biden, she goes,

she goes, I want the memoir. And so I had to rewrite a brand new book. But in the old book, I talk about our resiliency. And I talk about how we haven't. giving ourselves the grace to really reflect on everything you guys have been through and gotten through just in the last five or six years. I would say since the escalator with Trump. But what many of you have lived through going back decades and decades, what our grandparents lived through. My grandfather lived through as a prisoner of war. You know, but my great-great-grandfather lived through, you know, during the Red Scare. And I write about his relationship to Oppenheimer and Linus Pauline and his,

He was doctor and all of that and all the FBI files. It's so it echoes today. And we're here. We've had triumphs, not just tragedies, you know, since then. And so I'm, you know, I'm deeply optimistic. But again, it's in that spirit of, you know, the spirit of today that move me. It's, you know, as we pray, move our feet, right? It's faith and works.

You know, we just can't, I love the candlelight visuals, but not right now. You know, I'm sorry, we got to fight fire with fire. We've got to be as ruthless, but lovingly as they are. They're not screwing around. They're trying to break this country. They're trying to break us. Shock and awe, flooding the zone, dominating the nerve. That's Trump's great strength, is sussing up your weakness and exploiting it.

24-7. He loves our indignation. He loves our outrage. All sort of folks on the dictatorial spectrum love that. But they don't like the mockery. They don't do well with humor. Trump struggled a little bit with our social media. It's gotten under their skin as we put that mirror.

up to their face. And so I, you know, you've all inspired us. You know, this imperial presidency that's having a birthday party with a military parade that's putting this beautiful photograph on the side of the DOJ, Bobby's building, you know, putting his name and gold everywhere. Again, that's weakness masquerading as strength. And you are showing up. And you keep showing up over and over and over and over again. And we're going to show up just like they did in Texas in record numbers this week. We're going to show up in record numbers this November. And we're going to celebrate Speaker Jeffries with the gavel.

And we're going to celebrate the beginning of the renewal and rebirth of our country. Governor Gavin Newsom, thank you guys so much. Thank you for taking the time and still being here this late evening. Thanks again to Gavin Newsom. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Sunday. 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.