Pod Save America - Gavin Newsom Is Finally Comfortable with Himself

Episode Date: March 8, 2026

California Governor Gavin Newsom sits down with Jon and Tommy before a live audience in Los Angeles to discuss Trump's war on Iran, the crowded California gubernatorial primary, and his new book Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery. The governor talks about his close childhood friendship with the Getty family, issuing the first same-sex marriage licenses nationwide as San Francisco Mayor, and his surprising childhood pet, Potter the otter.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

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There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro. Last week, Tommy and I sat down with California Governor Gavin Newsom in front of a live audience here in Los Angeles to discuss his new book, Young man in a hurry, a memoir of discovery. We also talked to him about Trump's war in Iran, the race for Newsom's successor in the governor's office,

and lots more. Enjoy, and if you like supporting pro-democracy media, consider subscribing to Friends of the Pod. Subscribers get all of our subscriber-only pods, like Pod Save America-only friends. You get access to our growing list of substack newsletters, like Open tabs, which is behind-the-scenes, look at Pod Save America,

and you also get ad-free episodes of all your favorite cricket pods. So the Ellisons may get CBS and CNN, but they'll never get crooked. So please subscribe to Friends of the Pod. Cricket.com slash friends. Check it out. What's so surprising about the book

is it stops at your election as governor. It's all about your actual life before politics. Yeah, you may want to leave right now. Yeah. And the whole idea was, you know, it's interesting, a little bit of the origin story I was talking backstage.

age. I had the privilege of working with Anne Godoff, a legend in publishing, and she was the editor of the book at Penguin Press. And she interestingly and tragically passed away last week on the day of the publication of this book. And anyone that knows Anne, she's fierce. She's tough. And about seven years ago, she asked me if I was interested in writing a book. And it was marked that book by the relationship with Trump 1.0 and a little bit of the transition to the new administration under Biden. And it was a lot of storytelling about those first four years, chaotic years around social unrest issues related to COVID. And I submitted the book. And I'll never forget going on Zoom. And just there was something off. And I tried to stop her before we went into arguing the case and

the merits for the book, which I was really proud of. And I said, if you want me, I know you may have some concerns. There's one chapter about my childhood and my family, and I totally get if you want that out. And she goes, that's the only part I want in. So this was not the book I set out to write. It was the book that I had to write in response to that. And it's a book that I mentioned. It was a memoir, ultimately, of discovery because it was a book that forced me to learn about my child or learn about my past. And that's why it ended with the passing of my father to the question you asked. It went through Election Day where he literally survived to see his son get election.

governor of California. And so I thought that was an appropriate way to end the book. There's an epilogue that has some interesting stories that may fast track to the president a little bit. But it really is a love letter to my mom and dad and my family. Yeah. Yeah, that election night's scene is really remarkable

given, you know, his story and trajectory and attempts to get into politics. And we're going to get into all of that and more stories from the book in a second. but there's a lot of big breaking news happening in the world. I think a lot of folks would like to get your opinion on it. President Trump took us to war in Iran on Saturday. It feels like a little scary out there right now.

The attacks seem to be growing in the Middle East. There's not really a clear plan coming out of the White House. What's your sense of whether it was necessary to go to war now? And do you think Democrats should be taking steps to try to block Trump via war powers vote or something in Congress? Yeah, I'm a little old-fashioned. I believe in co-equal branches of government. Yeah. We are celebrating. It is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration Independence, after all.

And, you know, this historic project, the best of Roman Republic, Greek democracy, the notion of popular sovereignty, the rule of law, not the rule of Don, which we'll get into perhaps later. But I hope it's Donning and everybody. He had no plan, no strategy. He had no interest or desire to engage. you, me, all of us in understanding the why, why now? What's the imminent threat? What are the intended and unintended consequences?

The prospect of this becoming a regional war was that thought through. Who was going to take over for the Supreme Leader, particularly after you went through 49 others? And now today, Trump says, well, maybe it doesn't work out. Maybe we get someone who's worse. You know, but nothing was more damning, I think, of the moment and this administration and who Donald Trump is. It goes to the heart of who he is. Then his press conference yesterday were his remarks, where he was lamenting alive now at six, but four Americans that died.

And he mentioned them in passing, and then went on to mention in great detail, the drapes and the imperial palace on the east wing that he's building in you know and went on to talk about the pile drive with with real passion and conviction it says everything about Donald Trump the uncertainty in the world to the fact that we have allies under threat in UAE we've got proxy war against once again in with Hezbollah in Lebanon we've got all the anxiety as relates to 20% of the world's oil flow and issues related to oil and prices and shocks and energy concerns and your 401K and the zig and the zag. And it begs so many questions. Why? He's got a passion for design. He's got a passion. Loves renovations. Yeah.

But it's just it's so yeah, you asked me about the War Powers Act. You asked me about invoking some consideration. I mean, it takes a cursory look at the constitution to determine. the requirement, Declaration of War, for the President to get congressional approval. And so I appreciate Congress now getting back, not the leadership, but the minority, getting back into the game in this respect. But this is a hell of a thing. And this is, remember, you guys all know this. He has done more airstrikes in his first year than the last administration did in four years. This is the seventh incursion, twice now into Iran. At a time when he's cutting taxes for billionaires, he's cutting food stamps.

He's cutting Medicaid, he's cutting Medicare. And here he is spending tens of billions of dollars, not for recovery here in Los Angeles. He has no interest in that, but overseas. This is a broken president. He's historic because he's historically unpopular, and we all have to recognize the moment we're living in and how perilous this moment truly is.

You mentioned the shifting explanations and rationales that are coming out of the White House. yesterday, Marco Rubio pretty explicitly said that the timing of the operation was based on planning by Israel. He basically said, we knew that the Israelis were going to strike Iran, which meant Iran would strike back against our bases in the region, which means the U.S. had to preempt the response, I guess, and bomb the Iranians first. What did you make of that explanation? And then a lot of Democrats have looked at the Netanyahu regime. and felt like, you know what, we don't like the trajectory he's on.

It's time to rethink the U.S. relationship with Israel, especially military support. Well, he's making that easy right now. Let's talk about that. So the first rationale was we've got to make sure that they're not armed a nuclear arm. But we, of course, that rationale, I thought, was resolved, meaning we had completely obliterated their sights. And so that was the first rationale. Then, okay, so, well, maybe that wasn't the case, but now it's about their missiles. and they can perhaps hit the United States.

And then you realize, wait, that's a decade plus away, if that. So that's BS. Okay, then it's about their militias. It's about their proxy. Then it's no, it's about their Navy. And then it's no, it's in response to the likelihood that Israel was going to. So we had to go in ourselves. And then you hear Hexit, God help us.

His rationale or non-rational. So this is keystone cops. But playing with real lives with our reputation. They've already, I mean, they, so. You see what's having our allies. You've seen what's happening in the NATO alliance in the context of truth and trust and the conversations that all of our allies are having now with India and with China as they're strengthening those relationships because they're starting to decouple or de-risk

their relationship with the United States. But the issue of BB is interesting because he's got his own domestic issues. He's trying to stay out of jail. He's got an election coming up. He's potentially on the ropes. he's got folks the hard line that want to annex the West Bank. I mean, Freeman and others are talking about it appropriately. They're sort of an apartheid state.

They couldn't even, I mean, we're talking about regime change. For two years, they haven't even been able to solve the Hamas question in Israel. So this is, I mean, you know, I want to be careful here, but, you know, in so many ways that influence in the context of the conversation of where Trump ultimately landed on this is pretty damn self-evident. And so Rubio may have been saying something else in the context of what he ultimately said in terms of being sort of pulled into some of these things. But I will say this, didn't surprise me in this context. I don't know if it was Napoleon or whoever said about a sword.

The only thing you can't use a sword for is sitting on it. And when you bring two aircraft carriers out there and you assemble the kind of military force that Trump did over the last few weeks, it didn't surprise me. ultimately they move that direction. Do you think, looking down the road, that the United States should consider maybe, you know, rethinking our military support for Israel? It breaks my heart because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path,

where I don't think you have a choice but that consideration. I mean, to say this is an America's interest at a time when affordability, at crisis levels, where you had administration literally got elected saying, this is exactly the opposite of what they would ever consider doing. The fact that we are in this now regional war, all these proxies, the fact that we, you know, and all the grift and the corruption that's also marks a huge part of this, and that's a real conversation we need to have, this board of peace,

and the peace that the Whitkoff family is getting, and the peace that Kushner is getting, and the piece that Trump Jr. is getting. You just got to reconsider the whole thing. You just have to. And, you know, that's a stubborn, I didn't expect to be in that place. You know, a few years ago, let alone, you know, where we are today. And it's accelerating in real time in a deeply, deeply alarming way.

And, you know, it's just one of many alarm bells that are ringing. And we can get to democracy, our republic. We can get into what's happening with, you know, secret police. You know, the bovino vacation of our, you know, of our, you know, of our, of our, and what's happening in this country with democracy. You know, it's a precious and perilous time, but it also has parallels. And some of those are reflected in some of the storytelling in the book

and some of the revelations about my own family's relationship to the Red Scare, to Oppenheimer, to McCarthy and McCarthyism. And some of those currents, some of those tenants echo today in many respects. One more newsy question. I'll connect it to the book. How about that?

In the book, you talk about your first race for governor, and you talk about one of the strategies you guys pursued was that you sort of directed your advertising campaign against a Republican candidate that was running because if the top two vote getters in California and the primary go on to the general, and if it was you and a Republican, in this case, John Cox, who supported Trump,

than you were to have a much easier general. And if it was Antonio Villaragosa, it would have been a little trickier. So you elevated John Cox, and it worked. And I know people hate that, but yes. Well, it worked, you know. And now, even though you are, of course, irreplaceable, there is a race to replace you for governor. Did you hear that? It started there.

Irreplaceable. Here's the third terms. There's a very... Don't worry, don't worry. Do you get the hats? Though I do have a hat on my Patriot's site, you can check. it out. With our knee pads and Newsom was always right hats, but I digress. You were asking me a question. Very crowded field of Democrats. A couple polls have actually showed that it's so crowded

and they're splitting the vote so much that, you know, has the two Republican candidates in the one-two spot, which would mean a Republican governor of California. Today, the chair of the California Democratic Party said, look, if you're not making meaningful progress towards winning the primary and you're a candidate by April 15th, you should drop out. I saw the Speaker of the Assembly agreed as well. Do you agree with that as well? Russie Hicks, his head of the party, sent me his statement. I read it a few hours ago, and I confess I agree.

And I don't really protested it because there's just, I mean, at this moment in history, with all the peril and promise that marks this moment for California, the most un-Trump state in America, to have a Republican Trumper running, there is no margin for error. And so look, but I do confess, it is the hardest thing.

I used to, when I was running for governor and it was, you know, all about me. And, you know, I'm like, what is this Jerry Brown? Why doesn't you, you know, and I was his lieutenant governor. I said, just go out of the state governor.

Go out. Why are you still talking like you matter? Oh, now I feel his pain. And I'm like, I'm sorry, Jerry. You know, it's hard when you're like, I'm a milk carton. I got a sell by date. And it's, you know, it's a countdown.

By the way, my daughter is 16. She's like, oh, she can't wait until I'm no longer governor. Circleing the date. Yeah, she's like, it's freedom. It's liberation day. The real liberation day for her. But it's, you know, look, this thing's around the corner. I think it's been hard.

Just a brief reflection. You know, this race hasn't, I don't think is getting the kind of attention it deserves. And it's hard at a time of Trump and Trumpism where so much of our politics is so nationalized and the ability to dominate the narrative and the shock and awe that is Trump. And, of course, last year, so much it was marked by a lot of the work we did around the, you know, Prop 50, et cetera. And so I appreciate that. You all did on that. So it's been a little more difficult.

And you got an election in a few weeks, early voting. It's not even that many months. this is a moment for real self-reflection. Is it about you? Is it about me or is it about all of us? And the stakes couldn't be higher. And so all I'll say is choose wisely. Podza of America is brought to by ORA frames.

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That's wild alaskan.com slash crooked for 35 bucks off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. Let's talk about the book. You've been saying that, writing this book made you realize that for most of your life you were trying to be someone you're not. Who are you trying

to be? I don't know. Oscar Wilde says, you know, the first duty in life is to strike a pose. The second duty, no one knows. And I feel like I'm in that second phase. You know, the first phase, I struck a pose. I put a mask on and my face was growing into it in some respects. You know, quite literally

As a kid, I write about putting on a suit. You know, I try to put on this armor. You know, as a kid that struggled in school, a pretty severe learning disability that still marks who I am today. A lot of my anxieties, my insecurities. But I was also marked by those moments that I never fully understood

until I wrote the book and learned about them in a way that I never understood. Give you a point of that. My mom was 19 when she was, you know, pregnant. with me. And a few years later, she was on her own with two kids. My father, for reasons, neither of them explained, left just a few years after the birth of my sister who's here in a night. And I didn't understand it until I learned about it, an oral history that he had done that none of us knew about at the Bankroft Library. And someone said, when I was asking about my father, and do you guys

know why they got divorced? They never talked about it. They said, well, did you know, did you hear the he did in the Bankroft Library. So he said it to a stranger. He never told us. And he said that he, and there's a reason that I'm telling this story. He lost an election for county supervisor, turned around the next year, ran for state senate, lost both races. And in the interview, he said he was broke and broken. And he had a breakdown and just had to get the hell out of there. And he left. And he went up to Lake Tahoe region. And for years and years and years, not only did I not understand that, I also never understood why my mom was so insistent that I never get into politics.

And up until her nine days, she's like, you need to run, get out of this. And by the way, when that recall against me, you know, qualified, she spoke very loud to me, even if she passed away in that moment. But it makes sense now. Here she was coming from no wealth, no money, no privilege, got married to a guy who was 32 years old scandal at 19 looking for that mentorship looking for that stability and support and here he is he takes off not because he was a bad guy but he didn't know how to be a good husband and he didn't know how to be a good father in those early years and here's my mom just hard work

grit single mom and by the way single moms I mean just mad respect for all those single moms out there honestly like I didn't and I didn't know I my mom died 20 years ago I'd never told her thank you I didn't that young man in a hurry with that mask on was just me me me you know I'm just running running just hustling just trying to you know I'm grinding away and here she was working two three jobs and by the way when I say two three jobs I describe every single damn one of them part time bookkeeper part you know working part time in a department store working for aid to adoption of special kids kids with intellectual and physical disabilities, working as a waitress at Ramona's restaurant, and just grinding, grit, we had roommates, we had people literally, people I walk in, my mom's living in the

living room, because she left her bedroom because she's renting out. She's just trying to pay the damn rent. And so what this book is, I'm paying homage to her, to thank her for her sacrifice. And teaching me resilience, man, teaching me grit. And in the process of doing this, also teaching me to let go. That it's okay. You know, take the mask off. Just be yourself. And so this book was cathartic. It's not a sanitized politician's book, man. It's not. I hope that's not. I've read plenty of those. I appreciate. And I try to scrutinize and I kick the tires and I went deeper and I questioned my own relationship to, you know, my own participation and my own image of that slick guy and all the whole thing.

I mean, I get it. I get it. I'm not naive about that. And so this was my opportunity to, you know, tell a different story and also tell the story that my mom and dad deserved. So, look, as you were saying, you clearly have a complicated relationship with your father.

I can tell reading the book and in this conversation that you revere your mother and all that she did for you and all the sacrifice. But I was struck by a comment made to you, I believe by your aunt's sin. Cindy, who said, by the way, here tonight, so let's be careful. She's a star in this book. Fascinating person. I'd love to be a Cindy.

But no, I think she said to you that your parents' in attention to your dyslexia as a boy was abuse. And that was sort of a jarring thing to read, and I was wondering how it felt to you to hear that and whether you agreed. You know, I was, and some of you may know this, most of you probably, don't or won't believe it, I can't read speeches. You'll never see me, if someone hands me a speech and I start to read it, I can do a teleprompter and it just takes dozens and dozens of hours for dozens of minutes. And it's hard just sort of focusing on that written word, but allow spatially, I'm able to just, you know, stare at the screen and I'm able to do it. And that's, you know, my entire life I've felt dumb. You know, in the back of the classroom, you're struggling through

school. And by the way, you know, wasn't just me struggling. And this again, part of the process of writing the book, I can't even imagine what it's like to be a mother, a single mom, trying to read your kids, trying to explain it's okay. I mean, my mom said something that I'll never forget. I really was angry about it. And I wrote about it in the book. She said, in a fit of frustration with me, she said, it's okay to be average. And it's like, damn. And I honestly, for years and years, I held a lot of resentment around that until again in the process of writing this over the last five years, I realized she was struck, she just was saying it's okay to just be you. You don't have to be someone you're not. You don't have to put that mask on. And so, you know, my aunt saw it up

close. She saw the struggle that my mom had. She saw me running out of classrooms, running away from, you know, just constantly running and searching and struggling. And, you know, I just, I can't sugarcoat it. And anyone that's got a learning disability, I think you can appreciate this. But at the same time, you also start developing these superpowers because you start overcompensating for the things you can't do as well as everybody else. And that has been the gift and the ability to sort of absorb and create and look outside the lines and paint outside the lines.

Take risks. You have to take risks. Learn from mistakes. Have a resiliency. All those things are also part of the journey of having a learning disability and having a learning difference. And so I'm here because of it, despite some of those early scars that mark those moments in the book.

I was going to ask one thought I had when you were talking about, when you were writing about dyslexia is how does it affect you writing? Like how did that do it? Was it a challenge writing the book? Well, the worst part was doing the audio of the book. I mean, whoever did the editor, they deserve a pay raise and hugs. You can't pay them enough, Penguin. that did it. It took like, I don't know, 20, 30 hours to do the audio,

reading the book and reading about your own dyslexia as you're saying, you can't read. Going through 25 times that same sentence. So, no, it's, you know, it's just an interesting, you know, the writing process is difficult, but the opportunity to work with a writer Mark Erick's was how I was able to. That's why this was a five-year process of writing this.

book and constantly editing and iterating and stress testing and I was we were joking backstage when writing about your family when most your family's alive that not so easy you got to get it right because you got to go to Thanksgiving dinner and explain you know why the story is this not the what you're all saying this story was here's the real story and so this was uh yeah it's an imprecise art uh writing uh particularly a memory So you didn't grow up wealthy, but your family's close relationship with the Gettys put you in proximity, as you write about, to obscene wealth. How did that shape your view of wealth, extreme wealth, as you got into politics and

sort of how you look at the world right now? Well, it certainly shapes the way I look at the world right now. I'm with the single moms in terms of where that, where that, where the world, the fundamental decision points are in that respect. But it was really interesting. I, you know, my father grew up one of his best, best friend is my dad described and his best best friend describes Gordon Getty. They grew up together in high school and became just best friends and so much of their lives cross paths. My dad, Godfather of a number of the Getty kids and their traviles, their triumphs. One of, you know, my dad's god's son was tragically kidnapped in a very famous kidnapping

where his ear was cut off. And my father, you know, marks so much of my early memories. In fact, a little cute story, Paul Jr. was his name. He came back from the kidnapping. And his godfather, my dad wanted to drive him and his two kids, we were visiting, down to Chestnut Street in the Marina District. And there's a story that I tell my sister and I in the back of the car, a relatively young age, and my dad just pleaded with us. Whatever you do, don't talk about Paul's ear. Just whatever you do. And within a few minutes of Paul getting in the front seat, and we're driving along, my dad's driving, and I'm looking at my sister Hillary. I'm like, you know, shh. And my sister just couldn't help herself. She's staring, and she goes, Paul, how many ears do you have?

I'm like, oh, God. And luckily, Paul had a great sense of humor. But it really marks my first memories of the family. And, again, some of the tragedy, not just the triath. And these are still my days. Some of my closest friends are members of that family. But I never was a member of the family. And there's a scene in the book, this crazy,

and there's some wonderful stories in here. And it's really, honestly, worth taking a look, some that are, you know, just rather ridiculous, including a trip to Spain that I took. And, you know, King Wong, Carr, it was one of those trips. And I'll never forget, all these fancy people. It was a king. You were the, yeah, I was a kid. I was in high school.

Quite a party. I'm thinking I'm all that, you know, again, young man are hurrying his little suit, thinking he's, you know, Pierce Brosnan from Remington Steel. Like, actually, literally. and just discovered hair gel. That's a whole other chapter in the book. Forgive me. And I'm with, you know, I'm with Ann and Gordon's four kids on this trip,

and, you know, relative to the same age, and the Getty Boys, you know, people are, you know, oh, it's wonderful to meet all these. Which one are you? I'll never forget, which one are you with such pride? And I said, well, my name's Gavin. Newsome. She goes, which one is that? I said, Newsome. And she literally immediately turns. Go away, young man. And it was such an imposter moment. Like you knew your status. You knew your standing. And so that was my relationship to that. You know, I walked into those doors, but I walked back home into my mom's arms.

and I'll never forget all those trips once a year we would go on these amazing trips with my father and the family but I'd always come back home and when my mom opened the door she was not on those trips she would go invariably she'd go well come back I hope you had a wonderful time good night

and literally never talk about it again and that was the reality and so it you know it just it shapes you know it shapes a consciousness of wealth, but in different layers, in a different understanding, the proximity to it, the relationship to it, but never absorbing it. My father, when he passed away, he gave us a second mortgage and a lot of beautiful books in a small town in Dutch Flagg, California, in Placer County. So even his relationship, he never created the abundance that so many people,

I think believe in terms of my life and the perception of remarkable privilege, plenty of doors that were open. I'm not naive about that. But again, a very different reality than those many believe. Pot Save America is brought you by Helix. How are you preparing for springtime cleaning season? I don't know that was something that you could prepare for. But one thing you could do is upgrade your home with a Helix mattress. Helix is the most awarded mattress brand tested and reviewed by experts like Forbes and Wired. Helix makes buying a mattress easy. Take the Helix Sleep Quiz and it will match you with the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences and sleep needs.

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This offer is exclusive to our listeners. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you Helixleep.com slash crooked. Speaking of extreme wealth, I mean, you knew a lot of the big luminaries in tech when they were broke. Right? I mean, you write about. Steve Jobs showing you the first iPhone at a party with like we wow Sir Daybrain was there I think you said Elon Musk gave you a ride into the set of current TV and the first Tesla first sir right first Tesla so I know I've heard you say and I agree that like tech

writ large there hasn't been as big of a metamorphosis as people might think given where some of the CEOs are but it does seem like there was an inflection point maybe around COVID maybe around Trump's election or re-election that radicalized change some of them or made them speak out. Elon Musk, obviously, being the number one example. Do you have a theory? No, not only a theory. Actually, interestingly, that's part of the book that we're not publishing. And I write about it in detail, particularly Elon's relationship to me and the state.

And stories around how he got us ventilators. She never did. And how that breakdown started occurring. and I started seeing, there was libertarian tendencies, but we saw something that came out the other side, very, very different. And for a lot of people, not just some of these more well-known tech luminaries. And it's been hard to see in every way, shape, or form.

Because I write about those early days. Kara Swisher, she wrote an amazing book in this space. And Kara, I were talking about it the other day in San Francisco and comparing notes to the old days. And it was, do no harm back then. There was a sense of idealism. were connecting the world. And San Francisco was in the center of that entire universe. I remember doing Uber Day and Yelp Day and Twitter Day. And it was like a big deal and the CEOs would show up and

I got a T-shirt. And I was like the first guy on Twitter. And I was like, you could go back to my first tweet. I'm jogging in the marina. You know, I didn't know what does this even mean? It's flat here. I'm getting a coffee. Wow. This is amazing. I have 10 followers. And, you know, and it was when Larry and Sergey were talking about we need to do free Wi-Fi in San Francisco. And so it's just so radically different and it feels so much darker because it is today. And that darkness came on an inaugural. You know, when I saw all those guys up there. And it wasn't just those guys. You know, I joke about that Patriot site and the knee pads. You know, the good news is we have new ones in because the last, They're the new Trump signature series knee pads because the last ones sold out just like many of the tech CEOs, just like the lawyers, just like the universities, just like the law firms, just like so many members of the media have been selling out this country, our republic.

And so, you know, we got to call that out and we got to call them out. And that's why And that's why Okay, yeah Anyway, all right, we're going to continue the conversation. Let's please let the governor talk. This is, we're going to have a conversation up here about the book. That's what we're here for.

So, Governor, continue, please. I appreciate it. So, look, I think it goes to the zeitgeist of this moment. And in the moment all of us are feeling, the anxiety, the stress, you know, and I think so much without, you know, getting in the last few years, I mean, I think, you know, it's been the last 10 years since Trump came down the escalator. And just, you know, this stacking of stress that's reflected in, you know, I signed the first bill banning private prisons, including Core Civic in California. So that was legislation I advanced. I signed with respect. And I don't know that there's many. I take a backseat to no one of being a fierce opponent to what's happening on American streets. It happened here first in the state of California. We saw 4,000 of our National Guard troop here in Los Angeles, federalized, 700 active duty Marines,

were not sent overseas. They were sent to the second largest city in the United States of America. What did we say last June? We said it was a preview of things to come. You saw exactly that happen in D.C. You saw it happen in Chicago. You saw it happen in Minnesota. But you also saw the steel in the spines of Minnesotans that stood up in the retreat of Trump and Trumpism,

which should give us pause to reflect on some optimism that we can defeat these guys. He's in retreat. And so I appreciate the advocacy. I appreciate people standing up. All of us have that responsibility. All of us have the role to play. But we are on edge. Communities are on edge.

You know, when we launched that Prop 50 campaign, Little Tokyo, the Democracy Center. People said, did you see the masked men out front? I'm like, come on, they're not masks, man. We literally went around the side. There were folks in masks. We didn't know who the hell they were. They weren't marked with any representation.

And then this guy dressed up, honestly, like he came off a set in Burbank in 1930s garb, literally with a Himmler haircut, guy named Bovino, gray bovino. And we said at the time that was a preview of things to come. So I appreciate the relationship to this moment is shaped by so many moments we have and have had here in the state of California. But it's also marked with the moment of resolve and conviction. And so I'm here, you know, in the relationship to my truth and my past, you know,

This is not a story about perfection. It's a story about perseverance. That perseverance of a mom who, you know, as a young child, was thrown against a fireplace by her father who put a gun to her head. That same grandfather of mine, her father, that spent years as a prisoner of war after the March in Corrigador and how he came back, a different person, ultimately took his life. how my mom took her life in a moment of her own despair because of her own pain,

because she was struggling for the second time with breast cancer, and she just couldn't take it. And at a time when it was illegal to do assisted suicide, and she found a doctor who had the courage to give up, you know, he was risking his license. In the relationship to that moment, and those moments you never get, again and how precious this all is. And so I hope we're all standing, including those that are

speaking. I appreciate them, that context. We're all standing in this moment that we all have agency and that we're not bystandards in the world. And I think that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's my history. That my father's fierce advocacy. He was an environmental warrior. I mean, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, this is hardly relatable. This is a weird pet. Yeah. Yeah. This is not on your bingo cart. Our first pet was an otter. What does the otter eat?

Your fingers and toes and anything he sees in the house. This jumped out at me in the book. I literally wrote down, you had a fucking pet otter growing up, question mark. And you eventually gave it away, right? Did you have to... We had to give it away because he bit the mailman and my mom. That's fair. This was the first act of resistance in my home.

My mom said it's either the otter or you, dad, you know, my father. But I say that to make a point. By the way, his name was Potter, the Otter. It's a good name. Why not? But it marks my father, just as a fierce, you know, environmental warrior and environmental justice and, you know, racial justice, economic justice. He was a Saras Schreiber Democrat.

He was a Bobby Kennedy Democrat. He was an activist judge on the California Court of Appeals. And he marks my sense of idealism and daring, but that grit, that hard work, and the energy of my mom. And it's a combination of all those things. And it's a combination that has allowed me to get through a recall. It's a combination that allows me to wake up every day and read another true social and try to sort of mark a relationship

to this moment, to do better, to do more, and recognize that we have to do better and more. People are suffering. People are struggling. And we all have to. And we all have to raise the bar of expectations and accountability and self-reflection. And so this is a book about self-reflection. It's a book about taking a deep breath, letting go, and just being yourself and putting it out there.

And I hope people, you're seeing with me, you know, I'm willing to go out there on the limb. I'm putting a mirror up to Trump and Trumpism. Check out my social media, you know. Go to that Patriot store. And, you know, and I'm in the arena, man, and I'm not perfect. And I know you want more and better. I get it. And I'm just, I'm not trying to be any more.

It goes to your question. Someone I'm not. And I just, I'm who I am. And you know, you don't have to like the book. I can't, I can't control the third thing. I can, you know, it's not, I can only control what I can control. And, and I, it's, it's what I learned in this process. And that's why this is why it's been a really remarkable gift to be able to tell my story

and to be able to dedicated to those that will carry on this story. And that's my precious four kids. To Dutch Brooklyn and Hunter and Montana. And to my extraordinary wife, who's also here with me tonight, as you know, from the introduction. And to make sure I don't screw that up. Because at the end of the day, you know, we could talk about our resume. values. No one gives a damn about those. It's your eulogy. And it's that relationship to your truth. It's your relationship to others. And it's your relationship to the world we're trying to build

and how we can be fierce advocates for each other. Well, speaking of that world, I want to sort of talk about something in attention in politics that I think about a lot that I think you have dealt with against the best wishes. of your mother, you did go into politics, you become mayor of San Francisco, and when you're mayor, when you were mayor, you write about this, you went against the law, the California Constitution, the Democratic Party, most Americans. Not to start with the law, but even with Californians, when you allowed the first same-sex marriage to take place in San Francisco.

No one was applauding back then, I assure you. Well, yeah, I mean, that's what. I think you know, reading it, you get the idea of sort of the politics and the, and sort of like the title way of a public opinion that you were up against them. And you said, and you wrote in the book, that the reason you did it is because simply it was the right thing to do, which is refreshing. And you also called the sort of go it slow, I think you said, admonition, the mother's milk of democratic politics.

And there is a lot of ghost low admonition out there. But, you know, we also live through elections. You've lived through many elections. After this last election in 2024, we've all been going through this process, what went wrong, what went wrong. And you know, and you recently said, you know, Democrats need to spend less time on, you know, identity politics and pronouns and more on tabletop issues. And the question is, because you've now been on both sides of this, like, how do you

square those two potentially contradictory ideas? Yeah, I don't know that they are. Look, my why is to stand up for ideals and strike out against injustice. And I don't come to that flippantly. I've really absorbed that. Stand up for ideals, strike out against injustice. And if I'm on the fence on a bill

or a fence on a personal decision or a professional, even business decision, that's where the default is. And that's reflected in marriage equality in 2000, Remember, in 2004, we were just finishing up the debate around domestic partnerships. We weren't even into separate is equal, which was civil unions back then. And that's where, by the way, a lot of my family was. You know, old Irish Catholic family, the West Side, if you get my drift to San Francisco, the church,

the Irish Catholic Church, where my dad was. And I describe in the book this scene where he kind of had an intervention. with his my uncle brandon his brother and this fierce warrior for justice uh joe cachette one of our states countries great lawyers and cachette they had an intervention the night before i was going to move forward with one marriage and there's a whole other story there and they're like why are you doing this you just got elected like things are good you're relatively young you were the youngest mayor in the hundred years you know you know you got plenty of time you don't need to do this no one asks you to do this. Folks don't want you to do this. We don't want you to do this. And I really got into it.

And I couldn't. They started really challenging me. And I couldn't answer. And in a fit of frustration, that's when I said, I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. And it wasn't, I wasn't trying to win an argument. I was exacerbated. And I was like, it's the right thing. And I'll never forget, Joe looked at my dad and my uncle, and he said, boys, it's the right thing to do. And he's that was the end of it. Next morning, I married Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. They've been together 47 years. And, you know, 4,000 and 35 other couples from 46 states and six countries got married. And what we referred to in San Francisco, not as the summer of love, but the winter of love. But there wasn't a lot of love, to your point, I was getting from the Democratic Party. You know, we had the convention later that

year and, you know, I won't name names, but folks are like, you really should focus on homelessness in San Francisco. You don't have to go. They're like, you really don't have to. Certainly, you're not going to be speaking. See, you really don't have to show up. And in the hard part was a lot of the folks that showed up for me on election night who all universally gave me the same advice. It's the advice we all get. Young man, just do what you think is right. Those same folks, out there saying, the fuck you think you're doing. And there were folks that ultimately blame me, and this is the serious part of your question,

and this is what I, back to scrutinize, not sanitize, for the election outcome. Too much, too soon, too fast. You know, I can wax on about letters from Birmingham Jail, which I did, which I reread, or maybe read for the first time. They meant something very different. it's always the right time to do the right thing king said and and so fast forward fast forward

to the conversations we're all having today and what we need to do to get back into power and so it's a legitimate question so you have the tactics the electoral question and then you have the policy making question you know how and i just think the democratic party needs to be a little and forgive this word, ruthless about winning. We just have to be. And so that's the second part of your question. We're just trying to win arguments. Right after Donald Trump called Greg Abbott

and said he was quote unquote entitled to five seats because he knows he's going to get slacked in the midterm elections. He knows he's going to lose. So he's trying to rig the election. And that's one of 10 things he's doing. We could talk about the other nine, is doing mid-decade redistricting.

I imagine he thought, and frankly, I may have even thought. Our reaction would be maybe like to call you guys up, see if you can help maybe draft an op-ed. Yeah. That we can place in the New York Times. Wow. To try to win an argument, you know. God, darn it, this is so wrong.

And, you know, and we responded very differently. We said, look, we got to fight fire with fire. We're going to lose this country. We're going to lose our republic. And so I just think at the core, at the core, my humble belief, guys, is at the core of our party problem, it's my humble belief is strength. We've got to be stronger in our convictions, our courage. We've got to start to dominate the narrative again. We've got to win not just the.

argument, but we've got to address the attention deficit that we have. There's an asymmetry. These guys have propaganda networks. It's Pravda. It's prime time lineup. I mean, my gosh, Laura Ingraham is in business with Trump Jr. That's happening in the United States of America. I mean, it's Pravda. You know, listening to Hannity in these guys and Murdoch, Inc. It's surround sound 24-7. They're flooding the zone. Donald Trump understands this. can no longer be conventional in our politics is ultimately what I'm arguing for. Potsave America is brought to you by Armra Colostrum. Feeling sluggish, feeling bloated, not like yourself. Life bombards us with silent threats. Process foods, artificial light,

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I could count on one hand the times I actually changed a diaper. You have four children, sir. This was the first child. How did you pull that off? You know, this was the edit. My wife. made to the book. I don't think, Jen, it's that bad.

But like I said, I was scrutinizing, not sanitizing. This young man in hurry was out and about. You know, I was mayor of San Francisco. I was showing up at events. And that was a pattern interrupt. You know, in psychology, we talk about scratching the record for those old enough to know what a record is. And, you know, a pattern erupt where Jen's like,

get your shit together. And there were a number of those pattern interrupts. that I write honestly about. Look, one of the things that I imagine, you know, Jen's here, got to be careful, that she was wondering when she married me, like, what kind of husband are you going to be?

And then shortly after truly, what kind of dad are you going to be? Are you going to be your dad? You know, she loved my father. My father was present in my life later on, but she was also deeply aware he wasn't when we were growing up. And that stress test came home

in this beautiful, bundle of joy, Montana, our firstborn. Montana, Tessa, who wasn't there, my mom, Sebel Newsom. And I didn't know until that moment. That's, and you guys have had this, right? You don't know. You can intellectualize it all day. But I had something that I'm not sure my dad ever had. And I, boy, dad, you missed it. I had this thing that went from here and it just burst. in here and it was like this baritone this deep like oh whoa this light this this sort of like oh my God to truly understand love at a different level that said I didn't necessarily love changing diapers and and Jen who's a fierce advocate is

written and done all kinds of documentaries one called fair play which is about partnership in the household. She got it reminded me, you got to get your shit together. You got to step up your game. And so that was marked for my first daughter's diapers. I made up for it, sir, John, with all the other kids and continue to work harder to make up for equal time. And in parity, though equal may be illusory.

I'm still working on that. One other thing that jumped out of me in the book is you talk about, you know, election night, you get elected governor, you wake up the next day, you walk out of the hotel room, and there's two, you know, California State Patrolmen who then become your kind of ubiquitous part of your life, your security detail. Yeah. And you're then followed by staff everywhere you go. And you lose your anonymity, you lose your freedom. I think you say freedom is the price you paid for the privilege of the job. I was wondering how that impacted you. And if you thought about how you how there are other jobs where that problem may be exacerbated.

Even the process of running is exponentially worse. And if that bothers you, if that worries you, is that something you think about? You can't go for a walk. You can't drive yourself in a car. You can't go to fucking drive-thru. Look, everyone's rolling. You're like, whatever. Oh, it's so tough for you.

But that is, there is a thing, you know, so in the book on his, describe, you know, just running for office and being able to run around on the streets and be able to go to coffee clutches and stores and, you know, have some anonymity here a little bit, you know, people angry and pissed off yelling here, and, you know, you should do this, that fine, and then there's an election. And I literally went to bed. And then truly, I woke up the next morning and didn't get a lot of sleep. And sort of blurry I'd walked out and there's like these two strangers right outside the door. I'm both, I'm like, oh, hey, sorry, what's, you know, excuse me. And I walked. And I walked. And I walk down they're like they started walking with me i'm like who the hell are you guys and it literally

was that moment that i have not had one without some semblance of that you know guys in the car you're trying to make a phone call hey honey how are you i'm fine uh you want to talk about i'm fine what's wrong nothing uh you know there's city right there and sort of this relationship to anonymity where you know there was there was a year and a half where literally I wouldn't get on an airplane, not for me, but for everyone else on the plane. Because I'm like, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. I know, I know. You know, people that, you know, this, that, the whole thing. Because I get it. Like, back to the stacking of stress, back to the intention that we're all feeling. And so, you know, it allowed me to drive back and forth, LA more often and spend more time in Central Valley than any governor in history,

which was also important. But yeah, it is, you lose that. You lose the serendipity. And I remember he is, I lost a little of it, but not a lot. So every week, a true story, and I wrote about it a little bit. Every Friday, I would walk to work, and I'd walk through the tenderloin of San Francisco. And I didn't need to focus group. I didn't need to see where the polls were. You got the pulse of how people felt in that relationship to people's struggles and aspirations and desperation, especially in that part of San Francisco.

And I miss that. And I think our politics misses that. You want your elected officials. It's management by walking around. You want to walk through a skid row, but not with an entourage. You don't want to be that guy. You want to be able to absorb and feel and understand how you're really doing. And I think you're right with the president.

I mean, that's something I can't even imagine. And you guys were up close to that, how that disconnection to your truth and that relationship to that truth and how you absorb it and how you feel it differently than intellectualizing and poll testing it, how I think it does shape our politics and how do you overcompensate for that with the violence right especially with your trump people shooting at trump you know the charlie kirk assassination i mean the distance between politicians and the people who they're serving or you know trying to get votes from is only getting greater and greater and it's i mean don't even this is this is like an actual real thing

and this is where you know i think about any future i think about in relationship to my kids you know when i talk about that recall you know we had to homeschool my old oldest daughter. And I will never forget. I helped her with her speech that she gave in our living room for eighth grade graduation. And I was so proud of her because she looked up the whole time. And I said, look above someone's head because they'll see you thinking and she was staring at me with a big smile. And she gave this beautiful speech, but she gave it just to Jen and the kids and her brothers and sisters. Because the attacks at the school. You know, I hate your daddy, I hate this and this and that. And we had

this again. I mean, we all did, all had this protesters for almost a year and a half. And now, to your point about what's happened, this is another level of stuff. And like, trust me, you don't know, you don't know infinitesimal amount of the stuff

that comes in. And that's why the temperature definitely, I mean, we have to take that temperature down. And I do worry about, I mean, we talk about, you know, when you send troops to American city, not overseas. This sort of

the lack of civility and this concern that we all have, are we crossing those red lines? Are we at war with one another? And forgive me, because I know and forgot the long wind in this. But we've had this conversation when I went on your podcast because you were asking me about mine.

Thank you. The one of you. Please applaud. I've got one listener. The man has a podcast. That's the sound of a download. But I was, people felt I crossed the line because I was reaching across the aisle. Because I was making the case Bill Clinton made for years and years, divorce is not an option. We're just, you know, it's not. Just because I don't want you to exist doesn't mean you're not going to persist.

And we just have to define the terms of the future. And so I started reaching out to people. I vehemently disagreed with. And a lot of folks were angry saying, how are you platforming these people? Why are you talking to that son of a bitch? but it's honestly it was in my relationship to this reality man we this we got to take the temperature down you know we can punch trump back we can have the line but the same time man you know we're all we all want to be loved we all need to be loved we all want to be protected connected respected

and and we've just got to move i you know i appreciate the resistance frame but i think all of us back to you know we want to talk about renewal we want to talk about a rebirth of our civic you know spirit and civic pride and our civic duty. And we're all waiting for that moment. That moment's going to come. I don't think it's here yet. You know, we're in this struggle. So many ways the obstacle is the way Trump will define that.

But all of us look forward to when we can turn the page on this moment. And we can restore some civility and grace. So the epilogue of the book, you write a lot about your relationship with Trump. your interactions with Trump. We could talk about it forever. We will not do that. I want to talk about my tour with Trump in the bedroom. Well, that's what I was.

So the thing that Tommy and I really want to know is tell us more about the reaction on Jared Kushner's face when Donald Trump said in front of him and you that he wished Ivanka had married Tom Brady instead. Seems kind of mean. Was he crying? It's a weird thing to say to your son. I was crying for Jared. I thought, I mean, how could someone, it was so dehumanizing in front of his own son-in-law saying it wasn't his first choice.

And if Trump can do that to his son-in-law in Marine One in front of strangers, that sums him up, man. That sums him up. And it's an interesting, it's a fun little story. where Trump talks about how Ivanka didn't call Tom Brady back. And she's like, what are you, what the hell? Why are you calling Tom Brady back? It's Tom Brady. And she goes, well, Dad, I'm in love.

And Trump is telling the story. And he goes, well, who are he in love with? Well, with Jared. He goes, you mean the guy whose father was in jail? He says it in front of Jared right there. Said, can you believe? And he like hits me on the leg. Said, can you believe Tom Brady? She didn't do Tom Brady.

I was like, there's Jared's right there. Damn. That is so weird. Damn. So weird. So weird. It really brought me. The story brought me joy, though.

It's petty, but. Yeah, no, Jared sucks, but I mean. No one deserves that. Also, Tom Brady's everybody's first choice, if we're being honest. Like, this is a good. Take a number of, Ivanka. What are you talking about? Governor, you've been so generous with your time, everyone.

The book is, young man in a hurry. It is honestly, it's a really good book. I appreciate it. It's a really good book. Thank you guys. Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading the book. Thank you, John. Tommy. Thank you guys all for being here. I appreciate you. Thank you guys. Very, very much. That's our show. Thank you to Gavin Newsom for joining us. One little housekeeping note before we go. Love it or Leave It is coming to D.C. April 23rd at the Lincoln Theater. It's Lovett's traditional pre-White House correspondent's in her show and it's always a ton of fun, maybe even more so this year, since Trump will actually be attending the correspondence dinner itself.

Love It will be announcing some big guests soon. And if you can't make it to the DC show, Love It or Leave It is live in L.A. every Thursday night. Tickets for DC and L.A are on sale now at cricket.com slash events. Love it. Tommy and I will be back on Tuesday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcast.

Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics.

The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seiglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellevieve, David Tolls, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.