Pod Save America - “McCain’s legacy.”

Episode Date: August 28, 2018

John McCain leaves behind a complicated legacy after a lifetime of service and sacrifice, Republicans worry that Democrats will investigate the scandals they’ve been covering up, and Democrats reform the party’s presidential nominating process. Then Democratic candidate for Governor Gavin Newsom talks to Jon and Jon about his vision for California and the future of the Democratic Party.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Later in the pod, you'll hear our conversation with California's Democratic nominee for governor, Gavin Newsom. Stopped by Cricket Headquarters last week. First guest in the new studio. What's old is Newsom again? Okay.

Campaign slogans. There you go. We're also going to talk on today's podcast. You win some, you Newsom. Oh my god. It's an in-kind contribution if you keep giving him that good stuff for free. We're also going to talk on today's pod about John McCain's legacy,

about the Republican fears, about what might be investigated if Democrats take control of the House, everything. Newsome and his running mate would be a newsome twosome. Cool. And we'll talk about the Democratic Party's recent move to reduce the power of superdelegates.

Love it? Yup. How was Love It or Leave It? Should anyone listen? Fantastic Love It or Leave It. We did a very special performance of a one-act play about Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen sharing a cell starring Andy Richter and Max Silvestri. It is a debut of a young playwright famous for a lot of... He's actually really turning some heads.

But it was a great episode. You should listen. Tommy, what's up with the worldos? Oh, man, they're everywhere. Two quick plugs. Check out last week's episode with former CIA director Michael Morrell. We talked all about the security clearance issue and why it's actually a pretty big deal. And then for this week, I am going to sit down and have someone explain to me Donald Trump's bizarre tweet from last week about how white farmers in South Africa are having their farms ripped away from them and its claims of white genocide, this horrible white nationalist rhetoric, what's real, what's not, and try to figure that out. I'm excited to listen to that one because I have no idea either and didn't dig into the crazy conspiracy.

It's so weird. It's worse than you think. Okay. Oh, good. Yeah, with everything. There's a new Wilderness episode out today called The Filter. It's about how Democrats can break through in this media environment by rethinking their communication strategy. It features people like Dan Pfeiffer.

Heard of him. Laura Olin. And Crooked Media's chief content officer, Tanya Somanator. Yes. Great. In her pod debut. I will listen to that on the way home. Lots of people are talking about it online.

Lots of Tanya Somanator fans. Everyone is talking about Tanya. She's very embarrassed. It's great. Somanators of Tanya Somanator fans. Everyone is talking about Tanya. She's very embarrassed. It's great. Somanators. Oh. Somanate stance. Soma.

Staminate. Can we do the news? Tanya stance. News. All right, let's get to the news. John McCain, the war hero, Senate veteran, and former Republican presidential candidate, died this past weekend from brain cancer at 81 years old. He will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda

and receive a full dress funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral, where he will be eulogized by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In a farewell letter that was read on Monday by close aide Rick Davis, McCain wrote, quote, I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world's greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. Do not despair of our present difficulties. We believe always in the promise and greatness of America because nothing is inevitable here. Tommy, you and I worked for Barack Obama when he ran against John McCain in 2008.

What are some of your memories and impressions of the man? 2008, what are some of your memories and impressions of the man? You know, the primary in 2008 was, I think, far more contentious than the general election was. And I felt like a lot of us went into that general election with some mixed feelings, because what you know about John McCain, the public figure, it's hard not to admire him. I mean, the courage he showed in Vietnam when he was a POW, the fact that he refused early release when he was offered it and spent another several years being tortured in captivity in solitary confinement sometimes. I mean, like that kind of strength is remarkable. I think that there's a risk when a public figure passes away that we end up doing, you know, hagiography and lionizing people and treating them as perfect. There's also, I think, some value in

talking about those imperfections. But I think what one of the things that was great about McCain was that he made a lot of mistakes, but he was the kind of person that owned up to them all the time. Like he admitted that calling the Confederate flag a symbol of heritage was politically expedient and a mistake. I think that honesty says something about your character. He apologized for voting against a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Day, which is a very disgraceful thing that people did, but he apologized for it. He admitted the Iraq war was a mistake. Ultimately, he turned his experience as part of the Keating Five and that scandal into a crusade for campaign finance reform. So I think his

striving to improve himself and try to put values ahead of himself is something that we should appreciate and honor, even if you hate his policies. So those are my initial thoughts. Love it. You wrote a great piece on cricket.com today titled Mourning a Patriot Whose Politics You Hate. What made you want to write that piece? So there are two pieces to it. One is simply what happens when a public figure dies today and the debate that begins immediately and the fact that nothing is going to stop an immediate debate from happening ever again. You know, there's this effort when a figure on when if a prominent Democrat were to pass away, you'll see Democratic pundits saying things like, can't we save the criticism for another day and vice versa when a prominent Republican dies? And

that's just not how the world works anymore. Everything is immediate for good and for ill. And the truth is, it shouldn't wait because every eulogy is a closing argument in one way or another. And the legacy of a politician matters because the legacy of a politician shapes the views we have of the policies that they espoused. So it is important to have that debate. And because of Twitter, because of social media, because of television, because of technology, that debate begins immediately. But at the same time, because of technology, that debate begins immediately. But at the same time, there's a kind of navel gazing as we have public mourning about who's mourning, how they're mourning, what it means, what it doesn't mean, this kind of argument, this quarrel around how we feel and how we're supposed to feel. And I found it frustrating. And what I wanted to

do was just try to write down what I was thinking before I saw what everybody else was saying just sort of I'll be honest that that when I saw the news that McCain had died my immediate thought was oh man Twitter's gonna be a fucking nightmare that was my first thought too and then I thought let me stop myself for a second let me stop for a second and think how do I actually feel how do I actually feel? How do I actually feel? And how I actually felt was sad. I did. I felt sad. That is how I felt.

And as I then watched what unfolded on Twitter, I just wanted to write something down that said, this is how I'm reacting to this. This is why I think it's appropriate. John McCain's legacy is complicated. You know, Tommy lays out all the things John McCain apologized for. And it's a reminder that John McCain got a lot of fucking stuff wrong and caused a lot of damage in his career. But at the same time, it is foolish and I think childish and incorrect to reduce John McCain to simply a Republican partisan, simply a right wing politician. He was more than that. He was special. And it doesn't make you a worse Democrat to note that. It doesn't make you naive. It doesn't make you silly. It doesn't mean you're capitulating to terrible policies. It

doesn't make Medicare for all less likely. You can take a moment and say, this is the good and this is the ill. And it's worth noting and appreciating someone, because if you can't stop and say John McCain is the kind of opponent you should celebrate when he dies, then no one is. And maybe that's how you feel. But you should admit that. Yeah, I was I was also sad. And I also I've had this respect for him ever since I first knew about him from the the 2008 campaign to the 2008 campaign to, I remember when the three of us were sitting there watching the ACA repeal debate play out. And at the very end, it seemed like McCain might vote against repeal, vote against skinny repeal. And again, Twitter was a mess. Everyone's like, stop holding out hope for John McCain.

He's not the courageous person you think he is. This isn't a Sorkin drama, you neoliberal cowards. And I thought to myself, maybe I'm being a little naive here and maybe it won't happen. And sure enough, he did. He did the right thing. And look, he was not a centrist. He was not a moderate. His politics were very conservative.

His politics were very conservative, except for these moments of independence on campaign finance reform, climate change, immigration, torture, and then, of course, health care. But even on those issues, he went back and forth on some of them, right? Right. But why we think this about John McCain is not because of his policy and the policies he's pursued. It was something about his character and style. And I think what you get at, Tommy, is exactly right, which is he is someone who is self-aware enough to know when he was wrong, that he could make mistakes, that he was fallible. And he was always trying to live up to his own standards, even if he failed often at doing that. Well, I mean, I think it's impossible to judge McCain today without contrasting him to Trump. And just a few thoughts on that. Well, and also, I mean, I think it's impossible to judge McCain today without contrasting him to Trump. And just a few thoughts on that. I mean, we all became pretty close

friends with a lot of people who work for McCain and they love him. They revere him. And I think that's actually telling because that ain't the case in a lot of offices in Washington. A lot of people get to know their boss and they think he or she is an asshole. And the McCain people loved him. Senator Graham told The Washington Post that he and McCain had visited active war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan 47 times. That shows genuine interest to get out in the field, talk to service members, see what's happening on the ground. Donald Trump has not visited a war zone one time. Again, to the point about like admitting your mistakes, Trump will never admit he's made a mistake. He'll never apologize. And I think that's like that's one of the things we all dislike about him most.

And it's one of the things like we've all had in a friend that we genuinely didn't like. Fuck you, Tommy. They're wrong. Fuck you. You admit you're wrong all the time. But like everyone has dated that person or been friends with that person. And it's like, it's the worst. So it's like, it is a character thing. And I think we today more than ever, we miss that kind of character in politics. Yeah. And look, I think it's not just a comparison between McCain and Trump, but it's a comparison between McCain and the rest of the Republican Party.

Like there there is no doubt that if the Republican Party were filled with John McCain's, that our politics would be in a lot better shape. Yes. Not not not the Senate or anything, because you still need Democrats there to fight against all his shitty policies that he had. Right. But if if every senator and the president states right now were Republicans, but they were more in the mold of John McCain, there would be more compromise. There would be more things done. They would still be pushing pretty conservative, pretty right wing policies. But at least we would be able to deal with people who had integrity in mind as a value in public service. Yeah, I mean, I said this, I said this in the piece, which is just the world would be worse if John McCain got his way,

but the world would be better if more politicians were like him. That's right. You know, it's funny, too, to Tommy's point about Trump. It is such a testament to how awful Trump is that any time there is simply a statement of American values, in this case, it was John McCain's statement that he released after he died. That simple statement of American values reads like a rebuke to Trump, which it certainly is. But the fact that simply saying America is a land of ideals and not blood and soil is seen as a rebuke to the president is actually worth noting.

and not blood and soil is seen as a rebuke to the president is actually worth noting. You know what? Well, it's worth noting, and it makes me think that Democrats should take heed of that for 2020. Yeah. And in 2018, too, when you were running, that simple statements of American values, of what we stand for, what this country has already been about, are going to be some of the starkest contrasts with Donald Trump. Yes. some of the starkest contrasts with Donald Trump.

Yes. And like to some of the major criticisms out there, I mean, the Iraq war was a disastrous decision. I think there's a lot of people who, you know, I think people get overheated about some of these things and call him a warmonger. At least like, yes, he was very pro-intervention abroad.

I think that was a decision born of his public service in the Navy. So, you know, I understand and respect it. So that, I mean, I think and respect it. So that I mean, I think that's a valid policy critique. I think it's valid to critique the choice of Sarah Palin. I think it was, in hindsight, inexcusable to pick someone so clearly unqualified for the job. It was irresponsible. But I don't know that we could have or he could have known ahead of time that she would like unleash the pre alt-right maga forces of

you know culture warrior awfulness that ultimately happened i think he publicly regretted the choice ultimately uh he also probably felt a little guilty because they hung her out to dry like she wasn't ready and they humiliated her in front of the country with these interviews and things i will say i think i think that is his well probably two greatest mistakes in his in his career. One is the Iraq war, which he not only supported like a lot of Democrats did, but was also a cheerleader for for a very long time. And I think the second one was the choice of Sarah Palin. And I think you're right, Tommy. I think at the outset he thought he was getting some reformer from Alaska. We all did, by the way. And we all thought that all that she turned out to be much.

Sarah Palin didn't know what sarah palin was going to become when sarah palin was picked so though i remember as soon the moment that she you know she was picked and everyone was like oh god she's going to be an effective vp candidate you know democrats are screwed and then when i saw her at the convention it was when she gave that convention speech that you could see the darkness and ugliness in there and where this thing was going and then it got and then it got really bad and look and he could have gone two ways though she could have gone two ways but she didn't no she did not wait guys question though this is something that i was struggling with even it's one of the things that people responded to what i wrote about and i

i think it's worth considering it was a question that i had which is he was one of the leading cheerleaders for the war in iraq and it caused an incredible amount of death and turmoil. It was a massive historical error, incredibly calamitous. Is that not enough to say, well, that is his legacy? All the rest, the character, the choices, the goodness in him, all of it pales in comparison to the harm and cost of Iraq. I think if he'd been president at the time, you know, it is George Bush's legacy. I think it's harder to say about a senator, especially when there were so many votes in favor of it. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, look, it's an important piece of this.

It shouldn't be glossed over by any means. I mean, we go through the same thing when we think when people say, you know, Trump is so much worse than George W. Bush, right? George W. Bush's decision to go into Iraq led to greater human catastrophe than anything Trump has done so far. But you can still say that Trump as a president, as a leader, as a human being, it's been far worse. You know, like George Bush had a worse policy consequence during his presidency, but Trump has still degraded the presidency in the country probably worse. Right. But we do want to talk about going back to the 2008 campaign, sort of the Palin McCain thing, because as McCain watches sort of Palin unleash these forces, you can sort of see him struggle with it. And, you know, at times he decided to go along with it. And I think in the Obama campaign, that's what got us angriest at McCain during that campaign,

right, is that he disappointed us so much when she was out there doing those rallies talking about, you know, Barack Obama palling around with terrorists because of Bill Ayers. And look, there were ads from the McCain campaign where they went after the Ayers Association as well, which you always could tell that McCain was uncomfortable with. And he wrestled with this. And I think the moment that really crystallized how he wrestled with this was a moment that has been talked about over the last couple of days. And Greg Jaffe at the Washington Post wrote a piece about this. This is when, towards the end of the 2008 campaign, a woman stood up at a town hall to McCain, and she asked him a question, and we'll just play the clip of it right now. I've got to ask you a question. I do not believe in, I can't trust Obama.

I have read about him and he's not, he's not, he's a, he's an Arab. He is not... No ma'am. No ma'am. No? No ma'am. No ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that's what this campaign is all about. He's not.

Thank you. Thank you. So now some people were saying that, you know, McCain should have, that was the least he could have done, that McCain should have gone farther. He should have said, you know, so what if he was Arab? So what if he was Muslim? Whatever she was trying to say there. I didn't take it that way at the time being in Chicago at the campaign headquarters watching that. I vividly remember watching that and thinking in this moment, John McCain did the good and decent thing because

it wasn't he was saying, no, he's not an Arab. He's a decent family man. He was saying no to basically her entire characterization of Barack Obama, which was you a decent family man. He was saying no to basically her entire characterization of Barack Obama, which was you can't trust him. He's an other. He's a foreign terror. Like that's what she was getting. I mean, if that's the standard we're setting for McCain, then it's a higher bar than we'd set for ourselves in 2008 when we were responding to those charges. When people would call me and say there's something out there that says Obama is a secret Muslim, I would denounce it and say, no, he's not. The second half of that sentence should have been.

And who gives a shit if he is? What's wrong with being a Muslim? What's wrong with the whole religion? But that was not the underlying charge. And we all knew that. McCain knew that. The charge was, you're other. You're a terrorist.

You're not American. You're not one of us. And that's what he was responding to. And he was doing it at a time where his campaign was losing. And like, you know, he chose to take this moral stand, unlike Trump, who decided to embrace all the darkest MAGA alt-right forces and use those to ride to victory. So I do think we need to give him credit. I just think it's a shame that that woman is now going to be a senator from from Nevada. Probably his running mate, Trump's running mate next time. No, I look, I totally agree. And I know we we tested our own ads on attack ads against

Barack Obama about Jeremiah Wright and about Bill Ayers. And they were much tougher ads than the McCain campaign ever ran because John McCain, even though they ran a few Ayers ads, they pulled back because McCain did not want to go harder at Ayers and go harder at Jeremiah Wright than Palin and some of the other people on the campaign did. And there were other moments besides that moment that we just played too. There was one moment where someone in the crowd yelled, we want you to fight. And McCain responded, I will fight, but we will be respectful. I admire Senator Obama. This was at the end of the campaign. Booze to him saying that from the crowd. There's another person that said, we're scared. We don't want to bring up our child in a country by someone who cohorts with

domestic terrorists like William Ayers, to which McCain responded, he is a decent person and a person you don't have to be scared of as president. And this was towards the end of the campaign. So there was this, you could see, like, there's almost this realization towards the end of the campaign on McCain's face, almost every event, what have I unleashed here with Palin? And how can I try to walk that back? And of course, the truth is, he didn't unleash it with Palin. he didn't unleash it with Palin. GOP, the GOP base was unleashing it with Palin. Palin,

who is many things, is an observer of people and a survivor. And she saw where those people were going. And she's like, I see where they're going. Where are my people going so that I may lead them? This has been a strain. There's a strain that was there. It's been there forever.

You saw George W. Bush push back against it. And then at times harness it. You saw against John McCain, against John McCain and and in favor of his own policies. You saw John McCain face it. This roiling racism and animus and bigotry and kind of conspiratorial minded base was there already by Rush Limbaugh, Infowars, all those pieces that were being put together. And, you know, you see it slowly and slowly take over the Republican Party until, you know, here we are. Donald Trump is president. Well, speaking of Trump, I just want to briefly talk about his reaction to McCain's death. The Washington Post reported this weekend that the president rejected a White House statement that praised the heroism of McCain and instead tweeted condolences to his family. On Monday, Trump backtracked and the White House released a statement from Trump saying he respects McCain's service and is signing a

proclamation to fly the flag over the White House at half staff until McCain's funeral, which is custom for presidents or well-known senators when they die, especially those who've served this country in combat and military. Of course, it was, yeah, so basically the flag went down to half-staff, and then on Monday morning it was raised to full staff, which is not what happens when someone's lying in state like McCain will be all week. And then there was this outcry, apparently, in the American Legion and senators from both parties, and probably we'll hear from, you know, a New York Times or Washington Post story, the White House staff pushed back.

And then begrudgingly, Donald Trump does what he should have done originally. Now, are we surprised at Trump's reaction? Yeah. Yeah. We're real gobsmacked. I will tell you, I do not plan on reading the story about which staffer convinced him to do it. I'm completely not surprised. Donald Trump is an asshole. He's always been an asshole. It's an asshole move. He cares about nothing.

And it's all I have to say. Tommy, what do you think about it? Yes, it's not surprising. It's just, you know, it's just one little anecdote that tells you everything you need to know about the smallness of this man. But of course, we should have seen it coming. I mean, he very recently refused to mention McCain's name at a bill signing where the bill was named

after John McCain. He still talks shit about him voting against Obamacare appeal, despite the fact that he's been dying of brain cancer. They refused to condemn or apologize for Kelly Sadler's remark, the White House staffer who said McCain's opposition to the CIA nominee didn't matter because he was dying anywhere. So it's a cesspool of awful people doing terrible things. This is the president who wants you to believe the kneeling to protest police brutality during the national anthem is disrespectful to the flag and to veterans. And he refused to lower the flag to have staff for the Senate's most famous war hero. And, you know, it's about more than Trump because it's about everything that led to a moment where Trump doesn't feel like he needs to respect anyone,

even someone beloved by the Senate. Jim Inhofe, who is disgraceful and a reminder that there has been a brokenness in Republican politics for a very long time, was asked about this and he said, well, in a way, it's McCain's fault for disagreeing with Donald Trump. So so Jim Inhofe, a senator from Oklahoma, climate change denier, disgusting person, had no problem disparaging John McCain, who simply had the audacity to disagree with our president. So, you know what? And him. And it wasn't just, it wasn't like, Trump still,

he never has, never will, learn what the job of president is supposed to be, the job of being head of state, you know?

And it was like, the McCain thing wasn't the only thing he did this weekend, right? There was a mass shooting in Jacksonville, Florida. Three people died, including the shooter,

I think 11 wounded. And Trump is tweeting about his approval rating. Like Tiger Woods. And Tiger Woods. Making up an approval rating. There's no evidence that he is making it up. 52 percent. Great.

Why not make it higher, buddy? You're making him up. But it's like he's doing this while there's news about a mass. Everyone's reading about news about a mass shooting. You know what, John? I think that's great. I am glad. I do not want Donald Trump to figure out how to do

the basic, easy things. This is who he is. I don't want him to pretend. I don't want him to figure out how to diversify the White House interns. I don't want him to figure out how to put out a decent statement. I want him to be his disgusting self until he's gone. Oh, yeah. I don't think he'll ever change. It's just... Of course he

won't change. I don't want him to pretend. I don't want anyone there to help him figure out how to get one over on us and do an impression of a good person even for one fucking second. One final word on what happens to McCain's Senate seat since a lot of people have been asking this. Arizona's governor, Doug Ducey, Republican, must now appoint McCain's successor to the Senate. That person will serve until 2020.

Had McCain resigned or passed away before May 30th, there would have been a special election this year for a seat. According to reporting in the New York Times, people under consideration to fill the seat include McCain's widow, Cindy, former Arizona Senator John Kyle, and a few other Arizona Republicans. The question is now whether Ducey selects someone in the mold of McCain or a Trumpier Republican or someone in between. Yeah. And I don't think we know. We have no idea.

But, I mean, look, Arizona is just another battleground between somewhat normal Republican politics and Trumpism. You have Joe Arpaio. You have Martha McSally running for Jeff Flake's seat in the Republican primary against Joe Arpaio, one of the worst human beings in the world, recently needed a pardon because he's so awful. And then a former state senator named Kelly Ward, who was out there campaigning with Mike Cernovich of Pizzagate fame, a man who said date rape doesn't exist and the Clintons are running a pedophile ring and that the Syria chemical weapons attack was sponsored by the deep state. So that's the cesspool out in Arizona. And, you know, tells you a lot. And that primary is Tuesday. And, you know, one of the only reasons I think McSally might end up winning this thing is because Crazy Arpaio and Crazy Kelly Ward, I don't know who's crazier, are splitting the awful vote. That'll be like 40% in polls. The one hope that I will say that Ducey selects someone more in the mold of McCain is that Ducey's up for re-election. And he has a much more competitive general election against the Democrat than he does a primary challenge on the right.

So you would hope that he at least politically he would be thinking about his general election. Yeah, I just one one last point on all this, which is, you know, we talked so much about what happened to the Republican Party. Did it actually change? It's just because whatever. I do think one of the central questions we should be asking is, how does a party that produced someone like John McCain stop producing people like John McCain? How does it go from elevating someone like that, someone who had a safe Senate seat for decades, to a party where Jeff Flake doesn't think he can win, where people like Kelly Ward have a shot, where this kind of toxic, devious, vile, hateful kind of politics is just practiced out in the open and seen as dangerous to oppose. And I don't know the answer, but it really is one of the, it's the great challenge, at least inside of Republican politics. And I don't think anybody has the answer, but I think it's another reason just to be sad about John McCain dying. Yeah. I mean, the sad and I think true answer is that people like the John McCain's, the Jeff Flakes, the Ben Sasses, all the other people before him.

They just, some of them might have tried to ward off these forces at times, but they didn't do enough. They didn't do it. And a lot of them allowed this media apparatus with Fox News and Breitbart and all the rest to sort of take hold of their base. And they participated and they went on Fox all the time. And they all sort of knew that it was getting a little crazy at times the talk radio was getting a little much but it was also getting their base to the polls it's not my job to solve it not my job just i gotta you know if if i don't win if i don't make these compromises to win there'll be someone crazier in my seat yeah it has to cause them to lose is the only answer in mccain's defense on just on the media front though like i think no one spent more time cultivating the mainstream media. John McCain, like you can see

it in all the coverage. Every reporter had a personal experience with him. They personally appreciated him. He ran like a radically transparent open campaign in 2000. That was, you know, I think would have been groundbreaking, could have changed the course of elections if he had won. It's disappointing that George Bush beat him by running a vile, racist smear campaign in South Carolina. But yeah, here we are. Yeah, he did. He would. And even long after the 2000 campaign, reporters will say he was, you know, one of the few senators who would stop and answer their questions at any time of day, no matter when, talk to them all the time.

Let's talk about the midterms. Last week we learned that the president has been implicated in two federal crimes. That was last week! By his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, as well as the news that his former campaign manager had been convicted by a jury of multiple federal crimes. This week, Axios has reported that congressional Republicans are terrified of the investigations that might finally happen if Democrats take back the House in the fall. So, these Republicans have put together a list of potential scandals

that Democrats might investigate because Republicans haven't. That list includes Trump's tax returns, his family business, his dealings with Russia and his preparations for meeting Vladimir Putin, his payment to Stormy Daniels, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's business dealings, the use of personal email by White House staff, the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Cabinet Secretary travel, his firings of U.S. attorneys, his proposed transgender ban for the military, Jared Kushner's ethics office compliance, family separations, and more. Tommy, what does it say that Republicans know exactly where Democrats might pursue oversight?

I mean, if I'm a Democrat, I'm saying thank you. That's a very helpful list you put together. It's a great reminder. Our interns. Yeah. Thank you, congressional attack people. You're interning for the investigations to come. Yeah.

Save that one next to the list of happy hours on Capitol Hill or whatever. I mean, I think what that sad little list does is just highlight the fact that they've completely abdicated their oversight responsibility. These clowns were bragging about how they had compiled a whole bunch of things that they were preparing to investigate if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency. Remember, what's the goofball's name? Jason Chaffetz, who was so sad he didn't get to investigate Hillary that he quit to go kind of beyond Fox News, although he appears to have disappeared off the planet. It's a dumb book. He's a doofus.

Can't get booked. It's like, yeah, guys, you guys haven't done your job for two years, so there's a whole lot of shit that's got to get done. Here's the list of scandals we've been covering up. Some Democratic campaign apparatus, if we still have those, I think we do, should take that document, cross out whatever's at the top and say, here is what we will investigate and then put it out. Love it. My next question was, should Democratic candidates be handing out this list of their campaign events?

Yes. Take the thing and say Republican, Republican honchos are saying they're afraid we're going to investigate these things. Damn right we are, because these are the crimes. These are the abuses. And you know what? Thanks. It's a good list. Good list.

Am I too loud? It's a little bit just that in my head. My ears hurt a little bit. I ask that because a few Democratic strategists told CBS News, and I've been seeing this in a couple different stories, that Republican scandal shouldn't overwhelm Democratic messaging in 2018 and that the culture of corruption issue still won't be a huge issue this fall. And that, you know, it's got to focus on only the kitchen table issues. What do you guys think about that?

I mean, I don't know. I'd like to see some more polling, but I kind of doubt it. Like those ads write themselves. You can make a pretty compelling 30 or 60 second spot based off just Trump cabinet official scandals, let alone Duncan Hunter blaming his wife for stealing a bunch of campaign money, allegedly. And it's like, OK, fine. Spin that. Go ahead. That's your spin. I'd like to test ours against yours. I just don't think it's that hard to do both of these things. The Republicans who run Washington are enriching themselves at your expense. Well, your health care costs go up. Well, your wages haven't moved. Well, they've done nothing to improve your life.

They're getting rich. They're staying in power. They're breaking all the rules and they can get away with it. Trump ran a dream in the swamp. It's also happened. We've had we've had to have that. We've said this so many times. Yeah. Yeah.

It would be great if the questions candidates on the trail were going to be asked for the next three months were all about preexisting conditions and tax cuts for corporations. But they're not. Right. We're about to see a bunch of news about Mueller and Cohen And Roger Stone tweeted a video of himself saying, I didn't do any crimes today. You might read a story soon that said that I did some crimes. I just want to go on record and say, not true.

Delete the story. This is Roger Stone signing off. Roger Stone, adios. Catch you on the flip side. This is Roger Stone. This is a stone. I'm trying to think of a stone name. Doesn't matter.

This is what is going to be in the news. And I think Democrats need to know how to talk about these corruption stories in a way that it helps them because they have to be able to tie Mueller and and Russia and corruption into what they want to talk about. And I think, as John said, it's not that hard to get from corruption and collusion and abuse of power to their failure to help people afford health care or in many cases make it worse. Duncan Hunter, Republican congressman in California, now indicted for, I don't know, just using his campaign fund as a personal slush fund. Paid for vacation. Paid for vacation. I know it's all his wife's fault. He's blaming his wife for it. We didn't get to talk about this in the last pot so we should it is so fucking funny that he's like yeah i don't know i didn't sign off on the numbers it was my wife you got to talk to her talk to my wife who i love like you don't think that the a response to that like duncan hunter has he uses campaign funds for

personal slush fund for him and his family do you have a personal slush fund in your life or do you have a campaign slush fund that you can use to pay your medical bills while you don't think that's a great message while republicans in congress were covering up the president's crimes allowing him to steal from the government they were uh inside retreating on the white house lawn illegally spending campaign donations cutting taxes for corporations and making your health care more expensive seems yeah i that wasn't hard. That was a sentence. Yeah. And look, I mean, we have a lot of work.

It does seem as if the Cohen and Manafort news from last week hasn't completely broken through. You know, the news has sort of moved on. Partly that's because of, you know, John McCain died. But NBC, Wall Street Journal did two polls, one before the Cohen and Manafort news and one after. And Trump's approval rating ticked down two points. But that's still within the margin of error. Do we just sort of let that slide? I mean, it still drives me insane that the president of the United States has been implicated

in two federal crimes. No one in Congress is saying that they're going to do anything about it. This election may ultimately be about Trump, but the sort of vagaries of Trump's approval rating don't really matter. Is it possible that we may see Trump's approval rating drop back into the 30s and drop down into the early 30s like George W. Bush's eventually did? Maybe, but we can't count on it. So we have to win in a world in which Donald Trump maintains this rock solid 40-ish approval rating that he's had from day one. No, but it's what he's from day one. It's hard to move him that much above 40. It's hard to get him that down below 40.

This is where he has lived. So that's the environment. I don't, it doesn't matter what we wish it were. That's what it is. Yeah. I mean, Duncan Hunter wanted some shorts to go golfing and he couldn't afford them. So his wife said, Hey, just buy them at the pro shop. Say it's golf balls for wounded warriors. Okay.

So that anecdote, that ad is writes itself against Mr. Hunter. Everybody else, you can just ask them to comment on why they have enabled Trump's corruption, why they haven't done anything about Tom Price taking private jets or any of the other scandals. And you put them on the defensive. I would love to see his approval rating plummet to zero, but it's just not the world we live in. You're right, though, tell me about asking them, too, because Vox went to go ask eight Republican senators what they planned to do about the fact that the president was implicated in federal crime.

They were like, gotta go. They were like, um, well, like Mueller's finishing his stuff up and I don't know, isn't that the courts are going to handle it? I mean, it's definitely troubling. I'll tell you what. There's no good answer. None of them had it. Their real answer is confirm the judges

as fast as fucking possible. Yeah. This is, it is, the fire sale, you know, it's going. They're going to try to get

as much done as they possibly can. These guys, if you turn them upside down, democracy is falling out of their pockets. Okay. I also want to talk about

the fact that the Democratic Party voted this weekend to dramatically reduce the influence of superdelegates in the presidential nomination process. For those who don't know, superdelegates are essentially a group of party insiders and elected officials who are able to cast nominating votes for president that aren't pledged to the results of the primaries or caucuses, which are decided by people and voters. which are decided by people and voters. The superdelegates' role within the party has been controversial for some time, particularly in 2016 and actually in 2008. 2008. You know, we knew in the Obama campaign that Hillary would have a large lead with superdelegates because the Clintons had a lot of connections and had been around for a long, long time in the Democratic Party,

and we knew that was sort of a hurdle for us. And then the same thing happened with Bernie Sanders in 2016. A reform package voted on by party members this weekend also cleared the way for several states to move from caucuses to primaries. All right, first, let's talk about the superdelegates. The critics of this move say that it means the party will have less power to stop the nomination of a Trump-like figure in 2020? That if someone can cruise through the primaries and caucuses somehow in a very crowded field and we get to the convention and this scary person that we don't think can win is there,

then now we'll be powerless to stop them. What do you guys think of that? Seems unlikely. I mean, look, superdelegates were 20% of delegates in 2008. They were 15% of delegates in 2016. They have never tipped an election. They can change the momentum and the narrative around a race. And they clearly created an appearance of sort of a rigged insider process where party Pumbaa's come in and they get greased by candidates and get promises and they buy their vote. So like I I think we have to have more faith in voters than to play to prepare for a scenario

where the DNC rides in and saves us from ourselves. I think it's absurd. It's totally absurd. I think the I think superdelegates are overblown in terms of how they're treated as some sort of rigged deal because they haven't played that big a role. They haven't played any role in an outcome. They haven't tipped the scales at all. At the same time, I also think it is a silly and anti-democratic institution, and I would have absolutely no problem getting rid of it completely. It is a sop to power brokers and leaders inside the party. That is why it is hard to get rid of it. And the idea that we're going to nominate the wrong person and then a bunch of, I don't know,

a bunch of assemblymen from the Midwest are going to ride in and steal it from who won it and not just capitulate is absurd. It's absurd. It's never happened. Superdelegates are never- It's a waste of time. Superdelegates have never overruled the will of the people.

They were never going to. But if the perception is that they make the process seem more rigged, then get rid of them. It's that simple to me. Absolutely. What scenario are they going to be like? I mean, that didn't happen in the Republican convention. No, they weren't sitting there and being like,

all these voters want Trump. And we're going to help his message along by saying that the party insiders in D.C. are going to take it from him. No one's going to do that. No, nobody. The party insiders in D.C. are going to take it from them. No one's going to do that. Nobody. There has been pushback from African-American groups and other superdelegates who say, like, this is the only time I get my issue heard. And if you take away that opportunity, then that reduces the influence of minority groups in the process. And I think, you know, supporters of the change dispute that charge saying that state parties still have diversity requirements in their delegate selection rules and that that will ensure that diversity is there. But I do think

like that is a concern that needs to be heard and respected and we need to figure out ways to be more inclusive. But, you know, there are strong feelings on both sides. I mean, there was a person who went on a seven day hunger strike in support of superdelegate reform. Seven-day hunger strike. I'm sorry. No. Look, the Democratic Party should look like Democratic voters and should look like the face of America. And so the people who represent the DNC, the delegates, the party, the people who make up the party structure should be far more diverse than it is.

Absolutely. party the people who make up the party structure should be far more diverse than it is absolutely but this is about party insiders in dc having more of a say than your average voter and that shouldn't happen of course not of course not it is just a vestigial it's also it's a political artifact it's also like but it's not even like an old artifact it's from like 1984 this is a fairly new part of the process so i like i don't know why everyone got so precious about it and like as someone who's been on a campaign it's super fucking annoying having reporters call you all the time being like well you might be doing okay in iowa but hillary's super delegate lead is like through the roof it's like a dumb horse racy thing

to report on that clouds that issues it came it artificially raised this the difficulty level for obama to defeat hillary even though yeah it didn't actually it didn't matter and couldn't have mattered she was ahead around super tuesday in super delegates and that was a big piece of the narrative and by the end we had more super delegates but like because it impacted there's a reason they're super delegates they don't want to back a loser right and they all knew yeah they all knew bill clinton he was getting calls and yeah um so the way that state caucuses are governed will also change under the reforms, with state parties now required to accept absentee votes rather than requiring caucus voters to be physically present

to support candidates at the events. Tommy, you worked in Iowa for a year, leading up to the Iowa caucuses with Barack Obama. What do you think about that reform? I mean, the Iowa Democratic Party seems to be good with it. They're happy that the DNC wasn't too prescriptive to tell them how to meet this standard. And they're going to hold a bunch of open hearings and figure out how to implement the changes. I think there are very legitimate criticisms of caucuses. Like if you can't make it out because you have to work, if you're disabled, if you're elderly, like it's hard to

get there. So accepting absentee votes is important. Maybe it'll change the fundamental nature of the Iowa caucuses. Maybe it will devalue organizational strength that helps you that night. Maybe not, but it'll probably accelerate a broader switch to primaries. We'll see. I mean, I think, you know, it's notable that Obama hadn't been good at caucuses, we wouldn't have won. If Bernie, a lot of his strength was derived from his organization and doing well at caucuses. So they're interesting changes. They will be pretty impactful. What do you think? You were on the Clinton campaign when they, you know, you guys there in 07 and 08 didn't like the caucuses that much. No, I so I'm of two minds of it, because part of the reason Obama was able to win the Iowa caucus is he was building a new and more sophisticated kind of organization that helped him win after Iowa and helped him win the presidency.

And there was value in that, the value that continues to this day. At the same time, as somebody who was on the Hillary campaign in 2008, it was frustrating to know that the Iowa caucus does reward people that are not just passionate, but who have free time. So that does skew towards younger people, maybe students. It doesn't help people who are shift workers or nurses or others who just can't move their time around and don't, or maybe just frankly don't want to spend a night dealing with this because they have two jobs and a kid and all the rest. So that has always bothered me, not even just as a Hillary person, but just as a person who thinks that Democratic voters shouldn't have to give up this much time and have to meet there at that specific time. So I like the idea of anything that allows people to participate. No, I think that the absentee, you know, accepting absentee ballots is a great compromise here while still keeping the

spirit of the caucuses and people meeting together on a snowy night to, you know, debate democracy and stand up for people. That's great. But now, you know, the more participation, the better. The Democratic Party should be as democratic as possible. That's why it's good that the superdelegates aren't there. That's why it's good that the caucuses reform. Yeah, but it's funny, too, because I got you shouldn't lose it. Like, I like that there's a mix of caucuses and primaries, ultimately, because it shows you something important, because it actually tells us that you don't just want somebody who can win broadly, softly. It's good to know that there's also a passionate, committed, energetic group of people who back someone. So I'm of two minds of

it, but I think this is a good change. I mean, just last point on this, because we've been hard on the DNC about some fundraising issues, like credit to Tom Perez and the other party leaders for voting to reduce their own power. You don't see that very often. So credit to them. Absolutely. their own power. Yeah. You don't see that very often. So credit to them. Absolutely. That's good.

Good point, Tommy. Thanks, bud. Before we get to our interview with Gavin Newsom, should we also just briefly mention a story in The New Yorker last week by Adam Entis and Mr. Ronan Farrow about a memo that was circulating around the Trump National Security Council. I'm furious. Early on in the administration about a group of people who were trying to sabotage Trump's foreign policy.

And that group of people was us. So absurd. What a bunch of paranoid, crazy people. Calling us the echo chamber led by ben rhodes and colin call our puppeteer a puppeteer the puppeteer ben rhodes and and tommy and pfeiffer and me and left my fucking name out of it but they did say that you and john were roommates yeah they got some stuff wrong uh there's a serious piece of this which like ben rhodes's wife is mentioned and it feels like there's a decent chance that this information in this memo ended up in the hands of Black Cube, a shadowy pseudo-spy

organization that was actually tailing people around. That is not cool. That is very serious. I thought it was notable that the memo mentioned that people were being mean to Seb Gorka on Twitter. I highly suspect that means Mr. Gorka had a hand in writing this memo. And I imagine that happened because he didn't have a security clearance, so he didn't really have shit to do. So he was just banging around the NSC all day, making up paranoid memos that apparently traveled through the NSC. But like, White House's idiot Hemingway. That is so crazy, though. But I mean, we know that they had this political hack installed

as the head of the intelligence director like there were people working in very sensitive senior national security positions that were believing in this fantasy world of echo chambers and like a cabal to take them down at a deep state. Like it shows the depths of their paranoia and maybe that they're not that bright. Can you imagine with all of the issues that you face in the national security council, that they would spend their time worried, like writing

a memo about the big revelation that we are against Trump's foreign policy. We have a whole fucking podcast dedicated to it. Right, it's not a secret cabal. You can download it in iTunes. It's free. It's a free podcast.

You get it on your phone twice a week. But we know the genesis of this. It's like I remember when we were all – like Seb Gorka did something crazy, and we were all tweeting about it, you and me and Dan and everyone else. And then like all at once I think Gorka blocked all of us. Remember, he blocked me, you blocked Emily, blocked – I'm blocked but couldn't get my name in the fucking memo. The echo chambers were friends

i mean i just i just imagine someone on the obama nsc writing this and dennis mcdonough walking into their office snapping them over his knee like bo jackson with a baseball bat and returning to work it's so i can't imagine one person in the entire obama administration that would have written a memo like that i can't it's not it's like no it's like playing white house yeah it's these are not this you know if you're at the trump white house it means you're the kind of person that works at the trump white house which means you are a reject of politics not the uh not the sharpest gorka in the hungarian nazi group anyway allegedly anyway you can buy buy Echo Chamber t-shirts now online. Yeah.

We are selling those. We want to give it to a charity that will really upset the people who wrote the memo. All of the proceeds. We're trying to figure out what that is, so please tweet suggestions at Crooked Media. Think of a charity that is very good that Seb Gorka would dislike. You probably have your pick. Okay. When we come back, we will be talking to the Democratic nominee for governor of California, Gavin Newsom.

We are very lucky to be joined here in studio. First guest in the new Crooked Media studio. I'm honored. It's, by the way, stunningly beautiful, particularly the blue backdrop. And you are. We don't need this kind of political nonsense. This room is a dump and it is a work in progress. It needs a little work.

It needs a work, but we'll look to the future. I love it. And in case you didn't recognize his voice, he is the current lieutenant governor of the state of California, the Democratic nominee for governor, Gavin Newsom. Good to be here. Honor to be here. Honor to be here.

It's good to have you. By the way, lieutenant governors. I mean, can we talk about lieutenant governors? A lot going on. The species. I mean, come on. You know, I mean, it's a profoundly important position. It's a lot like cinematographers. They don't get the credit they deserve.

I'm saying, beneath the director is the cinematographer. No one else with me on this? I don't really know what the cinematographer does. Exactly. Exactly. But no one knows what Lieutenant... But you know, Kerry said, John Kerry, you forgot was Lieutenant Governor. Everyone forgot John Kerry was Lieutenant Governor. Said the most important job of Lieutenant Governor is waking up every morning, making your way to the front door, picking up the morning paper, going to the obituary section, seeing if the governor's name appears in it. And if it doesn't, you go back to bed. That's the number one job, according to John Kerry. Now, I don't subscribe to that point of view.

I've heard that before. I didn't know that was a John Kerry thing. We're going to bring it up to him when he's here. He's going to come here in September. Verify that. But,'t know that was a John Kerry. So we're going to bring it up to him when he's here. He's going to come here in September. Verify that. But, you know, that's Lieutenant Governor. That's that's kind of that's a that's a lieutenant governor joke. I like that.

That's what we talk amongst ourselves. There's not many of us. It's a lieutenant governor in joke at the meetings. Speaking of lines of secession. Well done. Let's start with the fact that as we are recording this, there is a split screen on the news. On one side, Paul Manafort is being found guilty. On the other side, Michael Cohen is pleading guilty.

Michael Cohen said that he was directed by a candidate, doesn't name him. Doesn't name him. I wonder who. To commit crimes. It was Martin O'Malley. Was it O'Malley? When in doubt, you still can't get a break. It's not fair. They said lock her up. Maybe it's just not what we expected. Maybe it's a circuitous path. It was Hillary the whole time. Let's just start with that. What do you make of the rampant criminality? Well, that's the only way to describe it. You just said it.

Yeah. Rampant criminality. But it's interesting. Bank fraud. You know, we'll get to the money laundering trial, which is the obstruction of justice trial, which is the great irony of this. This was the tougher case to win. Right. On Manafort.

But as it relates to Cohen and everything around Trump, that goes back to money. And at the end of the day, I mean, how, by the way, how long does an audit take at the IRS? I mean, seriously, when it's done, we'll obviously get the benefit of the tax returns. I'm just curious. How long? Do you guys know? What's the average audit? I do not know.

It seems to be taking a little bit. It does seem to. But I'll tell you, at the end of the day, that's the fear factor for the Trump administration. Money. It all goes back to money, fundamentally. And so it's not surprising everyone around him, of course, recording this on Tuesday. People will probably listen to this a couple of days from now or a week from now. If we get to this point where Donald Trump has been basically named an unindicted co-conspirator in a crime, you know, for a while we've been saying Democrats should not be talking too much about Russia. That's not what people care about. We shouldn't be talking about impeachment that

much. Does this change the calculation a little bit? Do you think that Democrats need to sort of stand strong here and hold the president accountable? Yeah. I mean, again, on the Russia side of this, it's still a circuitous work, right? I mean, so we're just getting into financial malfeasance around everybody that's surrounding him, which, by the way, has been his legacy. It's been his history. I mean, these are the folks that he's constantly surrounding himself. So it's not surprising it's splitting into his administration. But no, look, Russia aside, Mueller finished the investigation, adjudicate the facts as it relates to subsequent shoes dropping. Obviously, Mueller's got more lined up in that respect.

He's like, what was it, Imelda Marcos with the amount of shoes he's able to drop. There's lots of shoes that are being dropped. That was a pull. Well done, by the way. That sends you back. I'm impressed. And you weren't even alive. You were like reading about that in the history books.

All gay people are required to know about those shoes. Is that right? I don't know why. I love it. No, it is jaw-dropping. I mean, the normalcy of all this. I mean, the fact that, as you suggest, split screen. What more potency do

you want? One of these things is enough to end our administration in the traditional sense, but this is just Tuesday, as you suggest, just Tuesday. And so he'll tweet himself out, at least in a new direction, within the next 48 hours, and then we'll see where the dust settles. But it is extraordinary. And I have no confidence that we can stick on one narrative or one story for even a weekly basis. That's the problem. So you've said that you're looking to run a state that is a positive alternative to Donald Trump. If you take office as governor, what are the two or three most important things you want to get done in that first year to sort of prove that case that it's a positive alternative? Well, it's hard to say in the first year, but I'll tell you, if we don't address the issue of wealth disparity, not just income inequality, the issues of social mobility,

this whole experiment collapses. I don't think there's a bigger issue in our country. I don't think there's a bigger issue around the rest of the world, all grappling with this issue of these disparities. You know, it's interesting. I was just talking to Mayor Garcetti from Los Angeles, and he made a point that a reporter made to him, which I thought was interesting. I never put it in perspective, that California is the only state that's attached to the brand, the California Dream. There's no Iowa Dream or New Hampshire Dream. It's not necessarily sort of part of the conversation. And it is an interesting fact about California, and perhaps that's the size and scope or just what we've always represented, that pioneering spirit of being on the leading and cutting edge.

So in that sense, as someone who believes the future happens here first in California, I feel a deep sense of responsibility to address the issue of those disparities. But that can't be done overnight. It's been a 40, 50-year trend line that's now a headline, but it's simply not sustainable. And I say this as a business guy. I've got 23 small businesses. I've got a little over 700 employees in the state. And that's not to impress you, but to impress upon you a strong entrepreneurial bias, meaning I am a pro-job, pro-business Democrat, but businesses cannot thrive in a world that's failing. And this whole thing is in peril if we continue down this path. And I'm worried about

IT and globalization detonating at the same time, the nature of work changing in real time, the future of work as it relates to automation, that this could get out of hand. So we have to address that, number one. So we've talked to some people, you know, there's a lot of talk about universal basic income as one potential policy solution that's very popular in the Bay Area and all around California. We've talked to other people who've talked about federal jobs guarantee, state jobs guarantee. And some people have said we need a combination of both. Where do you come down on some of those really big policy solutions and inequality? Voltaire said it best, said work solves, you know, when and by the way, I'm replacing Jerry Brown.

So give the guy a break. Lieutenant Governor Jerry Brown. Let's do some Latin. Let's get some Latin going. I'm not doing it in Latin, so I'm going to do this in English. Thank you. All right. I'm just trying to be his heir apparent. But Voltaire said, you know, work solves life's three great evils, boredom, vice and need. You can address the issue of need, but you're not necessarily addressing the issue of boredom and vice. And I'm not suggesting that there's not a fanciful notion of a universal basic income allowing all of us to find our inner renaissance self. I get all that.

And I'm intrigued by it. In fact, just had the privilege of spending some time with Stockton, who's experimenting in California at a local level. It's intriguing to me. That said, I'm more interested in enhancing the earned income tax credit, extending it into the middle class, extending it to caregivers, doing more in that space. Child tax credits that I think could more substantively in the short term address the issue of deep childhood poverty. I think the issue of child poverty is the issue we've got to tackle first. Again, I live in the richest and the poorest state, 7.4 million people live below the poverty line, 134,000 homeless. Anyone who comes to California, you sit here and

go, what the hell's going on? Not just in the big urban areas here in LA or Northern California, San Francisco, San Jose, but increasingly in the inland part of the state. That's an issue that's happened on our watch. We own that. And we've got to step things up. And we've got to look, I think, as you suggest in your question, at novel approaches. Employment insurance, not just unemployment insurance. Look at opportunities around a Marshall Plan, around apprenticeship programs and vocational strategies, not just rhetoric in the margins, which frankly has been our toolkit in the past. Let's talk about homelessness for a second, because San Francisco has a thorny, terrible homeless problem. LA has a thorny, terrible homeless problem. You were the

mayor of San Francisco. Do you view that as a place where you failed? Do you view that a place where you made progress? What is your response to people who hold that out as a big negative for you? Yeah, I mean, a lot do, but there's a lot of lazy punditry on that. I haven't been mayor in seven, eight years, and we actually decreased the street population by 40% when I was mayor. So we made enormous progress in the short term. So you think that with those policies abandoned, have things gotten worse since you left? No, in fact, they've gotten much worse.

In this respect, the street population has changed. The overall numbers haven't radically changed. Here's the problem, though. It's not a static number. We started with about 7,000 people on the street. We got 12,000 people off the street. There were still close to 7,000 people on the street. We did a survey, our annual surveys.

One survey showed over 90% of the people on the streets weren't from San Francisco. So as soon as you house two or three people, this dynamic population continues to challenge mayors, cities large and small. So there's no way a mayor can solve this alone. It's got to be regionalized. The state of California needs to intervene. The state of California has been nowhere to be found in homeless policy in the past. Shelter, soft sleep, housing, and supportive services is the closest approximation to a solution to homelessness. But the federal government also needs to reconcile the fact for 40 years, housing and urban development's gotten out of the housing

and urban development business and the subsidy businesses, Section 8 housing vouchers, public housing, providing the kind of support that cities and counties and states need. So this has animated my why when I ran for mayor and animated my successes and failures, to answer your question quite honestly, and my critics. It fueled them. And it also fuels my sense of purpose as it relates to a candidate for governor that recognizes that Mayor Garcetti here, other mayors simply cannot do it without significant resource and resourcefulness from the next governor. So on resources, one thing you've said in praising Governor Brown is that you can be a progressive without being profligate. Some have said that you've sort of gone back and forth on projects like rail and other mass transit projects. Where are you now on high-speed rail in California?

And how has your position changed? Well, I mean, when the facts changed, if you don't change, then you're an ideologue. And then I have strong critique of ideologues of all stripes. I was the co-chair. I was very passionately engaged in the original bond, the $9.95 billion bond, but it was a $33 billion bond. A third of the money was going to come from the private sector, a third of the money from the feds, a third of money from the state. Well, only $3.5 billion has come from the feds, not $1 come from the private sector.

And the state no longer can afford one third because the price of this project's on the low end, $77.3 billion, high end 98.1. That said, we have a brand new business plan and the old business plan I criticized. The old leadership, frankly, I was very critical of as well. And those reflect my previous comments. They have completely reconstituted the plan, focused it not north-south, now east-west, primarily a valley-to-valley, Silicon Valley-to- Central Valley plan. And I believe if we can achieve that, we're still short of billions of dollars. But if we can achieve that, then we can invite the private sector in and get it down here into Southern California. One thing that seems to be plaguing cities, plaguing the entire country, is these projects are extraordinarily expensive.

The lengths of time it's taking to complete them is going up. And it seems to be something that everybody is wringing their hands about. Why has infrastructure in the United States become prohibitively expensive to the point where we're not building anymore? Process, process, process. You know it. I mean, it's one of the great things about our democracy. Process. People have a right to opine. People have a right to engage. People have a right to oppose, not just support. People have a right to do process. People have the right to access justice, courts, eminent domain proceedings is a substantive answer to the question as it relates to the issue of the state doing land acquisition for right away for this system being part of the delay. Our environmental review, which I embrace, is to take a backseat to no one in my passion for the environment. But there's a time value

associated with that. And obviously, there's no CEQA when they did that high-speed rail between Shanghai and Beijing. They weren't worried much about land acquisition, as we are in the United States, due process and access to justice or remediation, let alone the issues of environmental justice. In the United States, we do. And we pay a price for that in some levels. We also are the envy of the world for that on other levels. But the bottom line is this. It goes to the issue of trust. And if you're going to say you support something, damn it, if something changes, have the courage of saying it's changed. And you know what? There's tradeoffs.

There's honesty and transparency. And you're going to talk about those tradeoffs. And I just prefer politicians that are open argument, interested in evidence, and not ideological. Democrats, we can't stand the ideologues on the right. folks in our party are presented certain facts and we stubbornly dismiss them because they're easily knitted into the progressive frame, then we're playing in the same kind of, I think, cynicism that invites critique. And so I just think you got to be more honest, more transparent. And large scale projects, rarely do they come in at time on budget. And that's something we're just going to subsequently have to be more honest and transparent about.

But it has gotten worse. I mean, it's a problem that's gotten worse. I mean, these projects are costing more and taking longer over time, basically everywhere. Do you see that as something to address? Do you see that as a problem for the next governor to deal with? Yeah, let me just very brief without boring you, but let me just attempt to modestly bore you over a 60-second version. So I had something on a long-term care facility in San Francisco, Laguna Honda Hospital. And it doesn't matter what it was, but it was a $299 million bond. It wasn't $300 million. It wasn't $305. It was $299. And I said, well,

why is it $299? And I found out it's because it poll tested well, but it wasn't what it's going to cost. And so I expressed that very publicly saying, you know, we're making that number up. And folks were outraged and said, you don't care about seniors. You don't care about the health. Because I wasn't opposing the project. I was opposing the construct of the project because I knew it would disappoint people. And it's exactly what happened. Wildly over that budget.

Significantly more modest in terms of project scope. So when I became mayor, rather than criticizing, I had the chance to rebuild our public hospital, $884.6 million. People say, why $884.6? Because we actually did the pre-development work. We put money up to figure out actually how much it costs. You know, in doing so, the voters overwhelmingly supported it because we were honest about it. Even though the polling said we probably better to say it's 499 million. My point is, if you're honest, you're transparent. By the way, it came in right on time and on budget, interestingly. And the last mayor could take credit, not me, because he was on the back end of that construction project. But the point is, that's how I think you approach these things. Just be damn honest for a change.

So let's talk about something very costly, single-payer health care. You've been very supportive over the course of the campaign. You've expressed in the past support for Senate Bill 562, single-payer health care here in California. As amended, yes. Right. So it passed the state Senate. It died in the Assembly. As governor, do you hope to revive that bill? Do you want to see a new bill? How do you plan to get single-payer passed? It needs to be pulled into the governor's office. The executive needs to lead it.

Obamacare would not have happened if it was just exclusively a legislative fiat. That said, Nancy Pelosi did a magical job of organizing it, but it required the concerted contributions of the President of the United States. The only way in a state whose population is larger than 163 nations, California's economy is larger than all but four nations, the fifth largest economy, to approximate a strategy for universal health care is with the support and concurrence of the governor. And that's frankly, it's not an indictment. It's just what's been missing in the past. So I'd bring that into my office. I'd broaden it well beyond a bill that basically started a process. If you read 562, which the vast majority of elected officials that were for and against it didn't, did not.

For and against, did not. Because they would have actually known what it said. created a committee that began a process to come up with a strategy and plan to finance and organize with 34 prescribed benefits a universal strategy for single-payer financing. That process can be done without a bill. That process should be done by the next governor, and I'm committed to it for no other reason than health care is devouring our budget. Health care in this state is the biggest driver of unfunded retirement benefits. It's a driver of a lot of our costs, not least of which at the UC and CSU. I serve on both those boards.

Tuition is impacted by the costs of employment, personnel costs, which is impacted by healthcare. It's the issue that animates most of the voters I talk to still, even in this post-Obamacare world. And the inflationary burdens are self-evident. And the vandalism these guys are doing in the federal level is only going to make things worse. So I'd like to see if we can control our own destiny. I'm not naive about it. I did universal health care when I was mayor, fully implemented, regardless of pre-existing condition, ability to pay, and regardless of your immigration status. San Francisco is the only universal health care plan for all undocumented residents in America. I'm very proud of that. And we proved it can be

done without bankrupting the city. I'd like to see that we can extend that to the rest of the state. So obviously the biggest obstacle in the way of single-payer health care in a lot of the states that have tried and failed to do this is the financing. I know you're a policy wonk. What are some of the financing ideas that you think we might be able to try here in California to actually pay for this? The mistake we make is we allow lazily a CBO report to come out and somehow suggest that we're going to build on top of an existing system when, in fact, we're replacing the existing system with a completely new system. We need to assert some foundational facts.

Forgive me, facts. $3.3 trillion a year we're spending on health insurance in this country, $8,700 per capita, 17.9% of GDP. Those are last year's numbers. Wait for the new ones. You look around the rest of the world, the beverage model, the Bismarck model in Germany, the national health insurance model in Canada, all of these OECD countries, these developed nations, provide universal health care for per capita costs that are about half of the United States because of their single-payer financing framework. In the United States, we have a multi-payer system. What we're proposing, Medicare for All, is replacing that existing multi-payer system with a new single-payer financing system. It's the transition

that's the challenge. It's going from something old to something new where the whitewater is. And that's going to be the struggle for those that are promoting it at the federal level, those that are promoted at the state level. And that's where the nuance and the detail lie. And for me, from a California frame, that requires looking at things, and I will really bore you, looking to go to the voters to get approval on our constitutional set-aside for education dollars, Prop 98, GAN limits, ERISA issues, issues related to deductibility of employer-based and employee-based health insurance, which then go away. It's a tax reform conversation. You can go to 1115 waiver, 1332 ACA innovation waiver. Forgive me again for being wonky. It's just to make a point. You have to be pragmatic about this. It's difficult. It requires federal support and waivers. It requires voter support.

It requires other reforms within the system, not just health care reforms. And it requires consensus from a political frame. And that's what makes the ACA even more remarkable, that the Obama administration was able to go as far as they were, and that's why it's critical as we're having this debate, we protect what's left of the ACA, particularly in a post-individual mandate world. All right. I know, I lost you on all that. No, we've been there.

We were there in 2009 but there's still 27 million people without health insurance in this country and and inflationary costs now with the junk plans these skinny plants is only going to go up and up and up and with all due respect donald trump and republicans they own it yeah they own it now do you think it's possible for california to have a single-payer single payer system while the basic structure at the federal level remains the same? No, I think we're going to have to, we are going to have to have support from the federal government. And that, I mean, I walk into that while I was wide open. I mean, we're struggling right now just on emergency declarations related to fires, let alone allowing us to move forward with a radical retooling.

And that's the only way you can describe it. I know that word scares people, but it is a radical retooling of what we've known our entire lives. No other state in the United States has ever done single-payer financing. Two states have asserted it, fallen short. The good news is it's been done around the rest of the world in almost every case very successfully. With lower infant mortality rates and longer lifespans. We take care of cancer patients a little bit better, but chronic disease, we do a little bit worse. We're 37th this year when they came out with the quality index for health care around the

rest of the world, 37th, right around Costa Rica and Cuba. So there's a lot of mythology about what we do vis-a-vis the rest of the world. But my point is success leaves clues. Power of emulation. Bring those values to bear. Incorporate those values with your values and initiate the conversation. If it requires waiting past Trump to the Harris-Garcetti administration or whoever's coming next, then I'm all for it. Okay. Let's talk about the Harris-Garcetti administration. So you said when asked about potentially running for president, you said something very political. Wait, you said, not my aspiration. Wait, and then now you had a great conversation with Politico about this,

where they asked you, you said, no next question. Thank you. But I didn't say next. This is a different interview. People want to know, you know, you're not exactly facing an incredibly difficult race for governor right now. They want to know that they're voting for somebody that they can count on to be there. That's exactly right. And so you're promising not to run for president. Was that a, you're promising not?

Yes. But let me give you a proof point. That's great. Bless you. I don't even need the proof point. You got the proof. I don't even need it. You just wanted that quote.

You just want this tape and that quote. You promised not to run. You made a promise. You broke your promise. We're not even newsbreakers. He just wants it for himself. Unbelievable. I don't give a shit.

He wants it as a resident. You don't have to put this up. I want it. Unbelievable. I want it. I got every person. I got Michael Avenatti running for president. It is unbelievable.

Are you thinking about it? Honestly, I haven't ruled it out. I've made no promises. I like this. But by the way, let me just say this. By the way, here's the ultimate proof point. A couple of years, when Kamala Harris announced she was running for the Senate, there was a lot of folks saying, okay, what are you thinking?

And I could have given the, well, you know, I'm still enjoying my job as lieutenant governor. And I said, look, rather be candid than coy. And I said, you know what? My intentions are run for governor. And people said this is preposterous. It's outrageous. It's too early. And I said, well, at least I'm being transparent and honest. And I'm being equally transparent and honest when I say I am not running for another office. I'm running exclusively to represent the most magical place on earth, the state of California. You did it in the present tense. You guys parsing words. But we got the promise, though.

You got it. Now, Jerry Brown, on the other hand, ask him that question. It will be an interesting response. Listen, I'm a Jerry Brown fan. I agree with you. A couple years off the top and he's in. He's with you. I just, a couple years off the top, and he's in. He's only 80.

Youthful 80. Don't count him out. Okay, so as Lovett was saying, it's not the most difficult campaign, but you're facing a campaign. You've got a challenger. Donald Trump could be coming out here campaigning for him. Yeah, supporting my opponent, John Cox. And it's interesting.

What's nice about this race, We're so partisan in this country. You can imagine here in California, ours with ours, these with these. It's not like we love our own party. We just cannot stand the other party. And in that frame, it's a challenge. That's why we know statewide Republicans in this state. So the good news is we're spending a lot of our time and energy taking nothing for granted, but also working on all the down ballot races and coordinating with Nancy Pelosi in the federal races, these 14 congressional seats, which minimum seven are in play. And so we're working hard with the party and getting people to be animated about California's outsized role in taking back the House. And so we've got this

website, gavinnewsom.com backslash blue CA, And that backslash blue CA has a detailed toolkit of how people can get involved, how they can get plugged in to other campaigns and the broader cause of our democracy and saving it from Trump and Trumpism. Fantastic. Yeah, we've been targeting. We first did those seven congressional races that are most likely flippable. And then we added an eighth because we hate Devin Nunes. You cannot stand him. Thank you. Right? Right? So we now call the because we hate Devin Nunes that much. You cannot stand him. Thank you. Right?

Right? So we now call it the crooked eight. Right? Yeah. Thank you for adding that. Don't give up on that. No, it's a long shot, but mine as well.

It's 2018. Who knows what's going to happen? How is it even a long shot, though? How? I don't know. Andrew Jantz, we've got a good candidate. I know we actually do. Devin Nunes, man.

I just... Keep going. If you want to be that crooked, you've got to be a little smarter. That's all. There's a... Well, I'm going to be that crooked, you got to be a little smarter. That's all. There's a, well, I'm going to get in trouble. Let's just, yeah. I have one last question.

It's sort of a story I've always wanted to know. Obviously you became very famous in 2004 nationwide because of your courageous stance on gay marriage as mayor of San Francisco. Talk about making that decision, making the decision to open City Hall to couples who are going to marry, knowing that at the time it was not only unpopular nationally, but unpopular within your own party. And also illegal. Right. And deciding, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to do this anyway. I mean, the fastest substantive response I can give you goes along these lines. I was invited back to Washington, D.C. by Nancy Pelosi. Senator Clinton was there and Feinstein, among others, did a little event because I just won my election for mayor.

And they were going to, you know, you know, a little bit of whatever. It was one of those little things. I was going to go back home. Nancy said to me, hey, Paul, her husband, is not going to go watch President Bush give the State of the Union. We got an extra ticket. You have any interest? I said, all right, why not? It'd be fun. I go in there. I'm in the rafters sitting up with everybody else, put my cell phone away and sat up there, listened to the president talk about the war in Iraq, understandably. And then he started talking about abstinence. Like, okay, that's interesting, State of the Union. He talked about drug testing. Interesting. Talked about steroid abuse. It was a really, it's an interesting,

you go back to that 2004 State of the Union, and then he ended it with a crescendo that marriage is between a man and a woman, and he supported a constitutional amendment because he saw something wrong with the Constitution. He felt it needed to be amended as it relates to the issue of same-sex marriage. Here's what happened. I'm getting back my phone, and you're in this scrum as you get out of there, and you're waiting in line, and two people, I'll never forget, it was like yesterday, are sitting there saying, I'm so proud of our president.

That was an amazing speech and said, quote, unquote, I'm so sick and tired of the homosexual agenda. And I sat there. I literally wanted just to introduce myself as a San Francisco mayor and tempted to do that. I didn't. And I remember walking out one of the hallways. No one, everyone's walking in one direction. I walk another, get on the phone to my chief of staff, openly gay chief of staff, which

is an interesting story for another time. And I said, we got to do something. He said, what? And I said, I got to do something. He said, what? And I said, I don't know, but something more than a press release. Came back home and a week later started to have this crazy conversation around having one couple get married, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. They had been together almost 50 years. The manifestation of what marriage is all about, faith, love, devotion. They had lived through everything. And we said, if we can just get them married, we can then file a lawsuit against the state of California's prohibition on same-sex marriage, but put a human face on it. Word got out that we were

interested in doing this. Democratic Party was outraged. For another time, God, I can't wait to tell the conversations of some of our greatest political leaders that had it out on me, outraged. Excited about that. And we ended up doing it. The problem was we found out this group was coming in to stop us to get a TRO, which I don't even know what it was at the time, temporary restraining order. And they were going to open the courts. Federal courts were going to open up at 9. We were going to do our first marriage the next day at 9 a.m.

And so I realized, wait a second. It's good to be mayor. I don't have to open at 9. We could open City Hall early. And so we opened the clerk's office before the federal courts, quote, unquote, stop us. And Phyllis and Del got married. And we waited, bated breath, for the TRO. And the judge came back, turned out a few hours later and said,

you know what? There's no irreparable harm being done here. And I said, well, what's that mean? They said, you can still do this. And all of a sudden we're like, uh-oh, got a couple, been together 50 years, but there's other couples here that've been together 20, 30 years. And they're saying, well, what about us? We weren't even prepared for that conversation. Long story short, the next month, 4,036 couples from 46 states, six countries around the world came to San Francisco in what we describe as the winter of love, not the summer of love. And the amazing thing about it, we weren't prepared for that. The amazing thing about it was how extraordinarily uninteresting it was in this respect. There wasn't one image anyone could exploit. Fox couldn't run

one image. It was husbands, wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers. We realized it wasn't just about the couples. It was about the kids and grandkids, about families coming together. And there was something so normal about it that just struck a chord and ultimately struck a chord in the Chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Ron George, who was across the street where his office was. And he said in his book, he said years later, he says, I was just looking outside and hearing these roars of applause as every couple would come out and these throngs of supporters would cheer and hug. And he saw the faces of these families. And he said it changed his heart and his mind.

And it led to that one majority, that his majority opinion and his one vote that led to California granting same-sex license, which then led to Prop 8 taking it away, which then led to Theodore Olson and others, David Boies coming together in a federal case. So a series of events, but I'll tell you, magical is the only way to describe it. Bliss at another level. And it was just for me, you know, it's why politics matters, what it's about. And it connects me. I thought I'd be out of office. Schwarzenegger went on, you know, there's chaos in San Francisco.

He's going to meet the press. There's chaos. People are getting arrested. And honestly, I thought, we got a private attorney. I was worried about being arrested, a recall. It was a crazy time. But I look back, and it was, as I say, a magical, magical time. Sorry for the long-windedness.

No, it's a great story and all these years later now I get to be bothered by my mother. Oh, sorry buddy. About when I'll get married. So thank you for your role in that. It's come full circle. Gavin Newsom, thank you so much for joining Podstable America. Great to be here guys.

We appreciate having you. Thanks for having me. Thanks again to Gavin Newsom for joining us. We'll talk to you on Thursday. I wish you guys could see Gavin Newsom's hand gestures. You can. There'll be video. There'll be video of it. They're very specific.

YouTube.com slash Crooked Media. Elijah just yelled that. We got you, Elijah. He's trying to get those YouTube subscribers up. Smash that like button. No matter how many times you say that, Priyanka's cringing right now. Who cares?

Bye, everyone.