Shawn Ryan Show - #218 Gavin Newsom - Governor of California

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Gavin Newsom, born in San Francisco, California, is the 40th Governor of California, serving since 2019. A Democrat, he was Lieutenant Governor (2011–2019) and San Francisco’s youngest mayor in a century (2004–2011), gaining national attention for issuing same-sex marriage licenses in 2004. Diagnosed with dyslexia at age five, Newsom graduated from Santa Clara University in 1989 with a BS in Political Science.  He founded PlumpJack Group in 1992, growing it into a multimillion-dollar enterprise with wineries, restaurants, and hotels. Newsom survived a 2021 recall election and was reelected in 2022 with 59% of the vote.He authored Citizenville (2013), advocating digital governance, and has hosted the podcast This is Gavin Newsom since 2025. Newsom champions progressive policies. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://aura.com/srs https://americanfinancing.net/srs https://bubsnaturals.com – USE CODE SHAWN https://shawnlikesgold.com https://helixsleep.com/srs https://hexclad.com/srs https://ketone.com/srs Visit https://ketone.com/srs for 30% OFF your subscription order https://moinkbox.com/srs https://mypatriotsupply.com/srs https://patriotmobile.com/srs https://ROKA.com – USE CODE SRS https://shopify.com/srs https://betterhelp.com/srs This episode is sponsored. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. Gavin Newsom Links: Website - https://www.gov.ca.gov  X - https://x.com/GavinNewsom  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GavinNewsom  YT - https://www.youtube.com/@ThisisGavinNewsom PlumpJack Group - https://www.plumpjack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFriills.ca. What's this? What's this? Gavin Newsom. It's good to be with you, man. Welcome to the show. It's great to be here with you.

Well, this is a very unexpected interview. Come on, what do you mean? A guy from California? A coastal elite? Hey, I've had a lot of coastal elites on lately in the tech space. That's true, in the tech space. Yeah, I imagine your audience is ecstatic that I'm on your show. Oh, sure they will be. But no, in all honesty, I just, I really appreciate you coming.

And, you know, I've been wanting somebody that thinks a little different than me, and is maybe on the opposite side of the fence. And I couldn't, I've tried and I couldn't get anybody, you know, for the last election. And I election. And I paid myself out to be somebody that talks to everybody. It's been extremely hard to get somebody that thinks differently than me. So I appreciate your comment. No, I appreciate it. Look, man, I appreciate your openness because as I say to everybody all the time, divorce is not an option.

Man, we got to live together and advance together across our differences. So no BS. I mean, this is critical. Because this zero sum, everyone talking past each other, down to each other. I mean, our kids are going to model that. It's just not sustainable. Yeah. You know, America has become very tribal in the past 8, 12 years.

And just seems to be getting more and more amplified. And so, you know, what I, what I really hope comes out of this is that people can use this as an example of how to talk to each other. And because I think we've lost that in America. So kudos to you. Thank you. You have balls for showing up today. And I do, I do appreciate it.

I love it. But I'm going to start you off with an introduction here. Beautiful. Man, I'm going up today. And I do appreciate it. I love it. But I'm going to start you off with an introduction here. Beautiful. Not that you need one. Jesus, let's hear this. I'm curious where you're going to go with it. Gavin Newsom, the 40th governor of California, leading the nation's most populous state since

2019 and the fourth largest economy in the world. Eat your heart out, Japan. A former mayor of San Francisco, a businessman who built the Plum Jack Group, turning a winery into a hospitality empire, host of the podcast, This is Gavin Newsom, where you've sat down to discuss issues with those you disagree with. A husband to Jennifer and a father of four children. We're probably going to disagree on a few things here, but like I said, thank you for showing up.

I appreciate it. Introduction talks about my kids. You already won me over on that, man. That's real bio stuff. That's what it's all about, right? Yeah, I mean, come on. That's the obituary stuff, not the resume stuff. That's the stuff that matters.

Yeah. So I'm're, did you come here to hang out the 92,000 Californias then? Oh, you go, you go. You hit me right there, man. The California exit. By the way, complete bullshit now, the last two years we've seen significant growth in California's population. So it's reversed and record-breaking tourism. Now the fourth largest economy in the world. We dominate in every major industry, including the number one manufacturing state in America, 41% larger than the next largest state.

And so we're really proud of California. And we went through a little rocky period over a two-year period where there were some adjustments all across the country, one of 18 states, many red states too, not just blue states, that saw an adjustment of population during COVID. And now we're on the other side of that, seeing population growth back to back years. Well, it's impressive. California is an impressive state. Even if you hate it.

A very controversial state as well. But yeah, I'd love to dive into some of the COVID and stuff later, but a couple things before we get started. So everybody gets a gift. Oh, geez. What do you got, man? Here we go. You ready for this?

Oh, look. Oh, Jesus. Ready for this? This is an accident. I got to report this gift, man. That is, so that is a California compliant. Oh, big sour P three 65 macro. Come on, man.

I don't know exactly what makes it. Wait, this is, uh, this is too cool. The fact that you would give me this. You like that this up. So you just want me to TSA to take this from the airport. I'm onto you, man. Well, I got a buddy at SIG and now he was like, he got to get a SIG in his hands. He can't even make this up.

Brother, this is fabulous. You know what? Last thing people would expect is that I respect this gift. Really? I appreciate it. Yeah, man. I'm not anti-gun at all. I'm for just some gun safe common sense that I think vast majority of folks to the right and the left agree. And I think we've lost a little touch with some common sense around background checks. I think there's an age appropriateness. I do have some, you know, I'm challenged by large capacity magazine clips in urban centers and weapons of war that are out there, sometimes outgunning the police.

And I've experienced that directly with the loss of a police officer It was gunned down by an ak-47 and the police were out gunned and baby hunters point in San Francisco But otherwise man people the right to bear arms and I got no ideological opposition to that at all Do you think I was gonna by the way, you're well, that's crazy last name thing. I expected I expected a hat Okay, you gave me a goddamn gun. Well, I got another gift for you, too okay, but You're welcome. That's crazy. Last damn thing I expected. I expected a hat. Okay? You gave me a goddamn gun. Well, I got another gift for you too. Okay.

But, um, but diving into the two-way stuff, I'm just, I'm just curious. We see a lot of the cities that don't have, that don't, that you can't conceal carry or it's extremely hard to get concealed carry or, or, you know, California being one of them. Yeah. Illinois, New York. Do you think that everyday citizens carrying a gun reduces crime or increases crime? I think the evidence suggests the opposite. It increases the likelihood of gun death. You look at all the states with the most comprehensive gun safety reforms, they have lowered gun

death rates than states with weaker gun laws. And there's a correlation there. California is one of the lowest gun death rates in America. The highest murder rates in the country tend to be red states, significantly so. You look at the murder rate, out of the top 10 murder rates per capita in the country are all red states. Well, I thought Chicago was the number one. No, it was.

Cities, you'll have different experiences. But at state levels, gun safety, from our perspective, saves lives. And we have the data to bear that out. You look at the common sense gun safety laws that California started establishing in the 90s. You look at our gun death rate from the 90s till today, significant reduction, nation-leading reduction in the gun death rate. So that's the prison to which I'm into the data, I'm into the evidence.

I'm also deeply mindful and respectful of the Second Amendment and people's constitutional rights. But as it relates to just simple common sense around background, the idea we're addressing the issue of background checks and we haven't fundamentally addressed some of those gaps where people are struggling with mental health disorders and the like or substance abuse. I just don't understand that gap. Well I think that the gap is a, at least for me, I can tell you why it bothers me. I mean, I carry a gun everywhere to protect myself and my family. And, you know, when I hear about the background checks and, you know, mentally

unstable people, I mean, you know, a lot of veterans, I mean, almost all veterans are pro-gun and fought for the country and want to be able to own one to protect themselves and their family. And especially, you know, if there's any recourse from those wars, which, you know, we've talked about it on here, there's supposedly over a thousand sleeper cells of terrorists within our borders. And, you know, but if we go down that road, I mean, I know for a lot of veterans, me included is, you know, some people have been diagnosed with PTSD and depression and shit like that

from coming home from combat. And so is it, you know, maybe we start with schizophrenia, but then then the next thing is, oh, well, this PTSD is going to be on there. I hear depression going to be on there. Am I going to lose my fucking rights, my fucking rights when I fought for the country because somebody deems me unstable? Well, maybe I'm not. Right. But a convicted felon, someone that has had a violent dangerous past, someone is a domestic abuser, I'd like to red flag some of those folks. I can't argue that.

Yeah. And so unless we have a system that allows at least some vetting with some objective constraints along the lines, which you suggest, it's just, now it's just this zero-sum games. You're either pro-gun or anti-gun. It's like, no, that's not the case, man. There's nuance here. And I think if you look, I mean, you look at, I'm not a polling guy, but it's interesting. When you look at gun safety polling, like Fox News polls, and these sort of top four controversial issues, they're overwhelmingly supported bipartisan support for some of these safety measures. And I just think people demagogue this, they demagogue on all sides. But that, you know, it's not inuring to a safer country.

I mean, there's no other country in the world that has this kind of gun violence. And it suggests we're doing something very differently in the rest of the world. Everyone has mental health problems. It's not unique to the United States of America. It's not about that. That's not the issue. I just think it is the accessibility. Suicide rates are off the charts in the United States because of the simple access as well.

So look, it's a tough issue. It's very divisive. It's weaponized. Again, blue and red, certainly weaponized nationally. But man, lived experience, former mayor, living in cities, dense urban centers, living in cities, dense urban centers, and looking at the evidence in California, as I refer to it, common sense gun safety. Well, let me ask you this then. I mean, I know you want certain weapons restricted and there's the California compliant versions of everything, but it's really hard for people to get a concealed carry permit in California. Why is that?

Yeah, because, I mean, the idea of, I mean, it just, I think there's a cultural construct in California that people just don't want people running around with concealed carry. And, you know, folks you're running into in a restaurant or bar, you're on the Barton Bay or Rapid Transit, or you're in the school or in a playground

and everyone running around that's got a gun, and you know, all the good guys from the bad guys, I think there's just sort of a cultural mindset around that, a concern around that. We allow for it. There's a process. Law enforcement has a process. By the way, we exempt law enforcement from these gun safety laws in the vast majority of cases, along the lines of what you're suggesting, as it relates to our veterans and military. There are exceptions to many of the rules that we advance. But on concealed carry, that's been a principle that we just believe in, a permit process that's admittedly very comprehensive.

And it's what your state wants. It's what the state, I think, overwhelmingly wants. Well, I disagree with it. I mean, I do, you know, digging into your background, I mean, I've, I found a number of things that have a number of narratives against you that, that there's definitely some nuance on, but one thing that I did find is that it does seem that, that whether people want to fucking agree with me or blast me or whatever for saying it, I mean, it seems like you're doing what the majority of the population in California wants. And yeah, I mean, look, and it's not a look, they don't hire me to be a weather vane, right?

I mean, I think leadership's defined, you know, they hire me for judgment and they want a they want leadership. And so it's not about public opinion in that respect, but you have to be sensitive to public opinion. I did two gun safety laws that I actually put on the ballot so I can validate the assertion that I just made that's where the public is because my gun safety legislation overwhelmingly passed in California. Interesting. And so that was my initiative. I got out, I did signatures and put it in front of the voters, work with law enforcement

on some exceptions and exemptions along the lines that I suggest, and it's been well received. Now there's certain pockets and camps. Folks in the gun rights movement, look, I'm a poster child for them. I get it. Except, what did I do on Mother's Day? I was at Wing and Barrel with my kids with a nine-year-old doing skeet shooting. No shit. That's what I did on Mother's Day.

Are you any good at it? I'm not good. I'm great at it, okay? Because I've been doing it for years and years. Or the goddamn record. You can laugh. I wish we were doing that right now. Your wife must be a shooter. Mother's Day for skeet shooting? Mother's Day skeet shooting. God is my witness. You got a cool wife.

And so with the kids and with grandpa and grandma, and that's she grew up. And we got married in Montana. My daughter's name is Montana. Family has a ranch out there. We're hunters, bow hunting for me primarily. My son, 11 years old, got his first rifle from his grandfather and that was a point of pride. It was emotional. Like, my

detachment, the history, that attachment to his grandpa now, because of that. So again, I celebrate that. And at the same time, man, running a fourth largest economy in the world, size of 21 state populations combined Trying to keep people safe We we have a different approach than many states in the country But the approach is bearing fruit if you look at gun death rates and murder rates Substantially lower in the state of California and in the vast majority of blue states Interesting interesting. Well, I got another gift for you. What is that? All right, here we go of California and in the vast majority of blue states. Interesting. Interesting.

Well, I got another gift for you. What is that? All right, here we go. Oh, jeez. Oh, it's my favorite one. How are you going to make up her? What is this, man? Vigilance League gummy bears, legal in all 50 states.

I'm hoping you brought me some California gummy bears. Brother, that's, you know, by the way, when I did that gun safety initiative, I also did the legalization of cannabis for adult use in California. Right on. And that only reinforces my progressive, you know, Bonafides or whatever, what's that word? Bonafides, whatever the hell it is. Thank you, man. You're welcome.

I'm advertising this. Look at this. You're welcome. And gummies and, look at this. You're welcome. And- Gummies and a gun. Gummies and a gun. Jesus. Gummies and a gun.

The hell is that? And we just started this. What? But- I wanna see what happens at the end, what else? Oh, we got lots of good stuff coming. But so one last thing to crank out before we get going. And actually before I read this question,

so I wanna do a live story on you and go through your life story from childhood all the way up until now. And along the way, we will dive into some issues that I know that we disagree on and have a beautiful discussion. I love it. Big, beautiful discussion. But one thing, so I have a Patreon account, it's a subscription account and it's turned into quite the community and they've been here with me since the beginning and so what I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. Oh, interesting. And so I just posted a picture of us at breakfast and about two minutes after I did the post,

Joe Rogan texted me. Motherfucker. Joe. I loved it. By the way, I'm a Joe Rogan fan. He ain't a fan of mine, but I'm a Joe Rogan fan. No bullshit. Right on.

And I feel like it's a decade back in the day before Joe was Joe Rogan. He was just a podcaster, man. Now he's a third knob. Well, he's a good friend of mine. So this is from Joe Rogan. Oh, God. This is a tough one. He won't have me on the show, by the way.

Who will be held accountable for mandating COVID-19 vaccines for children which were unnecessary and ineffective? And who will take responsibility for the unprecedented increases in myocarditis and cancer cases among them? Second to that, do you feel any remorse for that draconian decision that was obviously heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical company's desire for maximum profit? Yeah, I've signed some of the most progressive laws against Big Pharma in the country. So I have receipts on that.

So no one suggests that it was about doing the bidding of Big Pharma, quite the contrary. California, like many states, red states included, Florida included, moved forward early in the pandemic, working with the Trump administration and the advisors with the Trump administration and the advisors from the Trump administration to impose certain strategies to mitigate the impacts of this novel disease, coronavirus. What's interesting about this process is none of us have really

reviewed in an objective way, it's all through the lens of politics, what we did right and what we did wrong. And so I answer that question by telling you what I've just asked. I've asked our team to put together an objective review of everything we did right, everything we did wrong. We're interviewing people that vehemently disagree with us, that oppose the mask mandates, that oppose the stay at home orders, people that are international experts, were stress testing our entire process, coulda, shoulda, woulda, comparing and contrasting to what other states did. I mean, Florida shut down their bars and restaurants before California, before California. The question was, when did we start to unwind some of those restrictions? California was more restrictive and we were certainly aggressive at scale.

As it relates to the vaccines, vaccines save lives. But Joe asked a very different question about children. And I respect that. And that was where there was a lot of feedback with a lot of experts that I had as advisors. By the way, I used advisors from two other states. We did this West Coast Alliance to review not just what was coming from the federal government, but to have a prism and lens on the recommendations

coming from the CDC through our own independent advisors. And I took their advice, not as a doctor, but as a governor. So with humility, seriously, humility and grace, I've asked them to have that report done. It's gonna be done next month. And it'll be the only state that I know of that is putting out a truly objective review of what went right and what went wrong.

And I know everyone's a goddamn genius now in hindsight, but at the time, none of us knew what we were up against, including the President of the United States, who I worked very closely with. There wasn't a Democratic governor in America that worked closer during the pandemic than I did with Donald Trump. And you can go back and stress test that. And I say that with the kind of humility he deserves as well, and grace, or rather, grace that he deserves in terms of the decisions he made early on. We were all up against something none of us had any experience around and we counted on the experts. What are some of the things during COVID that you think maybe were a mistake or that you

could have done? Well, I mean, we were sitting there with Purell. Remember early on, we had price gouging issues around getting Purell. We were wiping down everything in the house And we were concerned it was airborne and folks, you know We worried about people being outside even and we realized then after the fact what the hell are we doing shutting down the beaches and Open areas and you know and not understanding that early on and so I think that of all issues Looking back. I remember Florida. That was a big issue too. Even there not just in California and not understanding that early on. And so I think that of all issues, looking back,

I remember Florida, that was a big issue too, even there, not just in California. No, I mean, it was in Florida. I remember that they had that cruise ship off the coast of Florida that was just stuck there. Yeah. I can't remember how long. And I say that because, look, Florida I keep bringing up

because I think they're sort of this sort of triumphant new narrative. It's all myth making. It's all storytelling narrative. There's some truth to it, but there's a lot of bullshit about it. You know, Florida had worse educational outcomes during COVID than California. Kids did worse on reading and math scores. Fact. Three out of the four areas, fourth grade reading and eighth grade reading and math, three out of the four categories

California outperform. From a health perspective, they had more per capita deaths than California. And from a wealth perspective, their GDP contracted more than the state of California. I mean, on three key areas, there's a lot of mythology around what they did versus, again, big blue state California. Again, we weren't the only state doing it. But the state of mind of the California derangement syndrome, there's a Trump derangement syndrome, no question, but there's also California derangement syndrome. As if California stands unique in some of these interventions and respects, it's true

in some, but not all. I just think more objective minds should review, and for one reason, we're going to have another one of these damn things. And we're totally unprepared because we're so distrustful of everybody and again we see the world purely through the lens of red versus blue and so to Joe that's a good question and I want an objective answer not a political answer and that's why I've tasked these folks to objectively stress test what we did right what we did wrong what are some of that are, I mean, how far along are you in that poll?

They're almost done. They've been working on this six months. In fact, not only six months, a couple of years ago at Sunnylands, California, which is an amazing place down near Palm Springs, I invited and convened a group of international experts around COVID, and they began the process of stress testing. The interviews that are going to inform this report were done then a few years ago. And now we're really looking through all the data,

which is county by county. Remember California's, you know, I know we did the stay at home order, which was top down, but a lot of the local decisions really informed the pathway ultimately out of this process and or out of COVID. And so each county had different approaches because each region of the state is radically different.

Big rural areas didn't have the issues of density that downtown Los Angeles may have. So you had different rules and regulations. We probably would have assured I'm assured this report will show, we should have started with the flexibility earlier in the process. But again, we didn't know what we were up against. So I think those are examples of areas where going forward, we want to inform whoever's in leadership going forward, how to approach a novel virus. But vaccines, man, save lives, period, full stop. I'm just not... By the way, RFK Jr., he's a friend of mine.

I was with him in the governor's office. Really? Talking about it. He handed me, I think, six or seven damn books he gave me, just all these, Attack on Big Pharma, etc. He's an old friend, one of my environmental heroes. Guy's next level, wrote some of the best environmental books in this country, connecting to God and Mother Nature,

connecting to generations. I mean, there was a spiritual quality to how he expresses himself and connects to our earth and our species and biodiversity. He touches me, man. His dad was my political hero, Like the why I'm here. Bobby Kennedy, man. His dad, Sarge Shriver, the vernacular of the 60s, solving for ignorance and poverty and disease. And so his son, his family, I revere, I was at his mom's funeral. He's one of the few governors.

The only governor in the country at his mom's funeral. And so I respect Bobby. But he really turned on me early and he flat out lied about some things. What did he lie about? He lied about, said, because Newsom got some... I got sick for two or three days and he said it was because of a vaccine and then he lied about what I had, he weaponized it, he misled. I was like, and I was reaching out going, brother, what the hell's going on? I saw him go down this sort of darker, you know, good people can disagree. I'm, by the way, Make America Healthy, that's California.

I've been leading that cause for decades. There's no governor again. Forgive me. That movement started in California. I did the Skittles Band a couple years ago. My buddy, Marshawn Lynch, was all pissed at me because we're going after red dye earlier than anything. And all the folks at Fox were mocking me.

Now they're all jumping over, patting themselves on the back. Interesting. Leading this ever. So I've always admired that about Bobby. But on the vaccines, I think some skepticism, absolutely. But I think that there's a lot of miss and disinformation that is really hurt public health. It's my humble opinion.

Do you think that some of the restrictions that you put in place created a, a mental health crisis by being locked up, by not being able to enjoy the outdoors? It was devastating. Come on, man, of course. I mean, it was for everybody. Kids in particular. I got four kids sitting there trying to get them on Zoom. I mean, Jesus, I mean, you can't, now I can't get them off a damn device. No, no one's naive about that. Come on. It was,

I mean, we're all, and we haven't gotten through it. We haven't, we don't want to talk about that. Come on. It was, I mean, we haven't gotten through it. We don't want to talk about this. We want to indict people, but we don't want to talk about it. We don't want to have a real conversation about this. It's one way, not two way. Because it's again, through the prism and lens of our certainty, the sort of binary, you're right and I'm wrong. But yeah, I know I experienced it firsthand as a father of four, as a husband, as a governor, as a guy responsible for 40 million people, trying to keep people alive, working with the president, taking the advice and counsel from his administration, which I think people forget. Operation Warp Speed was next level. Well, they definitely forget that, and I don't understand the mental gymnastics behind that either.

And by the way, to Trump's credit, one of the great triumphs, how many lives he saved because of Operation Warp Speed, because of vaccines. Now, do you really think that the vaccine prevented people from getting COVID? I think it prevented the acuity of the symptoms and disease and kept people out of the emergency rooms. And I think that's universally accepted, at least by 90% of objective of experts.

Man, I don't know. I just, you know, and that, I wound up getting the vaccine. It's one of the only fucking things I regret. And, and I did it. Which one was it? Did you go old school Johnson and Johnson? Pfizer. And you did the MNRA, yeah, you did the novel, a different version. And I just, I was scared to death I was going to miss the birth of my son. So I took it. And then I got fucking COVID like a couple weeks later and they couldn't test. I got the test and it was this one's positive, this one's negative and I'm like, you guys have any idea what the hell you're doing?

Like you just gave me the same test with, with a positive and a negative. Yeah. What there's a lot of false positives, man. It's look, it's messy. Life's messy. Public health is messy. And, and, and there's no experts out here. And there's again, back to, I just think everybody,

everybody, I don't know how to best say it. Uh, anyone has certainty about what we did or didn't do or could have, I mean, uh, just bullshit, little humility across the board, all the so-called experts that said, well, just let it rip. That's earth two. And I'm glad I didn't live on earth two. And, you know, for, and in vaccines, yeah, there was, we overhyped that somehow this was going to end the pandemic. So there was some language, I mean, it was that Fauci, was that Trump, was it,

cause then again, Trump administration buck stops somewhere. Can't blame Biden for that. I'm sitting there talking about reagents with him and swabs. I remember calls with Trump. None of us knew what the hell we weren't talking about. Corona? We were talking about beer back then, man. People didn't even know what coronavirus, what the hell is this? MNRA, NRA, what the? Literally this is all new. And so you had to count on the experts. And that leadership is at the top coming out of the White House.

And I know we talk about bleach and stuff like that. I know we mocked that, but man, it wasn't like a master class of leadership ultimately there, but it was a master class on Operation Warp Speed. And I grant Trump on that. It shows that government can do big things when it wants to. I happen to believe in vaccines. I think it's one of the most extraordinary things to ever happen in our lifetime because

it's extended our lifetime to save millions and millions of people's lives. And I say that as a guy that's gone after Big Pharma and has the receipts. You know, I think you received a lot of criticism in kind of where I'm going with this is the rules for thee, not for me type thing. And so we saw Nancy Pelosi at the hair salon with no mask when California had the mask. I read somewhere I don't know if it's true that you had closed all the wineries except your own. Such crap. Is that bullshit? It's such crap it's not even it's it's so insulting to your intelligence and to your audience that anyone would fucking believe that. Are you kidding?

Obviously not. I mean we literally had a map as it relates to percentage of those that tested positive by county. And as the percentage declined, we lifted restrictions on capacity in restaurants, bars, hotels, mornings, hospitality generally. And each county on the basis of independent analysis had those restrictions lifted. One of those counties, many of the counties, dozens of counties, were in Rhine country, which exists not just in Napa and Sonoma, but Central Valley, Central Coast, and they were lifted. I have businesses, and I'm proud of the fact that I've created close to 1,000 jobs, started

21 businesses with no trust funds, Radd Eye College, pen to paper. And I have a number of businesses in Napa that had the benefit of reopening, had the burden of closing, like every other business in that region. So these are just questions I wanna ask. I mean, we were talking at breakfast, I told you, I don't watch any news anymore because I think

it is, I know it's all bullshit. And so there's, yeah, there's some things that, you know, that I've despised you for. I love that. I love your honesty. I despise me for the shit I read too. I want to, you know, that I want to ask you about. I despise me for the French Laundry. The French Laundry. Well, I was wrong. I went to this damn restaurant. That's the rules for the... You just mentioned, I'm going to indict myself here.

Biggest boneheaded damn decision I made. Now, it was a restaurant that was open. I went to a restaurant and it was sort of coming out of COVID. We were in that sort of category that I just expressed where things were lower in that region. And this was a restaurant that was open, but it was against the spirit of what it was. And I was like, I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant.

I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant.

I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. I'm going to go to a restaurant. of COVID, we were in that sort of category that I just expressed where things were lower in that region. And this was a restaurant that was open, but it was against the spirit of what I was saying, which is you shouldn't have large dinners with large group of people, as we did. And I went to a damn birthday party and I paid the price and I own it. I'm not perfect, man. I paid the price and I own it. I'm not perfect, man. And I beat the shit out of myself for that. And everyone who criticized me is goddamn right. And I own that. And there are plenty other people making those same damn decisions that weren't on Fox News every single night. But that doesn't matter. I take responsibility. So yeah, those are the things. You mean you

mentioned Nancy others? I mean, you know, life man, it's, none of us are perfect. Maybe the president is in some people's minds, but none of us in my mind are perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you coming clean on that. And so it seems like you're gearing up for maybe a presidential run. I mean, you were just in South Carolina. Went to a couple different places there to speak. I mean, are you gearing up for a 2028 run? No, I'm gearing up for 2016.

Because from my humble perspective, I think it's existential if my party is not successful next year. And that's why I was out there on the stump, nine different events, just making the case, don't look for the guy or gal on the white horse to come save the day in 2028. I think it's the Democrat party's, I'm blown away the Democrats' obsession with just that sort of perfect person that's going to say, say it's sort of this John Wayne thing This romantic version of that person is gonna save the day. Meanwhile, we're not doing the hard work

In between 2028 for damn you I mean this guy just got elected I've been off his little over six months or about six goddamn months by the hell we talked about 2028 And so we got a grind we got it at how you know these house seats 28. And so we got to grind, we got to add these house seats. That's it, man. To me, I need a Speaker Jefferies. People out there love this Speaker Johnson guy. I don't. He wants, of course, to tar and feather me. It's a spiritual term, I imagine. I didn't see that. Maybe it's in the Old Testament, not the New Testament. But we're just, we have different points of view and world vision. So you're not gonna run? I'm not, well, I'm gonna avoid, I'm gonna run if he tries to tar feather me, but as

it relates to the presidency, who the hell knows? That's fate. That's, do you meet a moment? Are you wasting anyone's time? Do you have a why, a compelling why? I mean, I would have to sit in front of you and feel totally congruent that I'm just like, this is the why, why you're running and just say this is, you know, and have that burning conviction. I'll tell you,

the more Trump keeps knowing what he does, the more compelled I am to think about it. The more compelled I am to think about it, I've never felt more outrage, more anger towards the actions and often this individual than I do now. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, work can be a stressful place. All those emails piling up, back-to-back meetings, and that constant pressure to keep up. Summer might be the perfect time to pause and take small steps toward improving your own wellness with over 30,000 therapists and more than 5 million people served globally. It's incredibly easy to fit into your schedule

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If it's not gonna be you who are some leaders in the Democratic Party that you would like to see step up I think there's a ton of them. Look, I can give you the who's who name, the list that everybody knows. But look, you have the lineup, a lot of folks that ran last time. They're outstanding leaders in our party. Again, nine out of 10 people listening, rolling their eyes, I get it, different parties. But you have extraordinarily talented people you have to acknowledge like Pete Buttigieg. You have extraordinarily talented governors that are emerging from Bashir to Whitmer to Shapiro to Wes Moore, who's a rock star as a buddy.

You've got a lot of folks we don't talk a lot about in the Senate, many in the House of Representatives. You see Ro Khanna making moves. Obviously you see Chris there up in Connecticut. You see folks I think that will emerge out of nowhere, including a lot of brand names, celebrities that folks are trying to mold since we're so into performative Policy interesting who I don't know I mean just you know that this sort of you know you get the the Cuban types that are always being pushed the rock types You know where I don't know you know their party affiliation. I mean, you know, McConaughey is always talking about running for something

You know and and so you just you have folks. I think Trump has just opened the damn door and it's style now, it's narrative, it's not facts, it's who can dominate the conversation, man, flood the zone. And this guy's a master at this. I think he's a bit of a flim-flammer, he's a carnie from my humble perspective, a music man in many respects, but he's incredibly gifted at defining the terms of the debate, unlike anyone in my lifetime. The democratic version of that, that may emerge, may not.

Bernie though is powerful, man. Cannot deny the populism of Bernie Sanders. The purity of heart, conviction, the consistency of message, repeats himself over in the vernacular of Marshawn Lynch, over and over and over and over and over again. Trump does the same. There's something about that in terms of communication style. Is it AOCs in the next generation or is it Ro Khanna in that mold? I don't know.

But there's a lot of talent. I wouldn't have said that seven, eight years ago. I didn't sense we had that kind of deep bench. We do now. Well, thank you. You know, speaking of Trump and the presidency, I mean, a lot of people are frustrated on his base with what's going on. And so I want to ask you a couple of things, you know, that are, that are really hot in

the news right now. And, you know, and, and I mean, let's talk about the Epstein stuff. You know, there was a big, big push in his campaign and his campaign about releasing the Epstein files. When are we going to see the list? And I mean, he wrote that, you know, in a campaign and then it's potentially destroying his entire base by just dismissing it and closing the case. So I'm curious, what are your thoughts on what's going on?

I don't wanna just play in it because the whole thing has always been to me a sideshow, but I thought it got real interesting when Elon put out that tweet. And then all of a sudden a few weeks later, what file? I thought it was really interesting to watch Trump take over for Pam, who's an old friend of mine, don't want to get her fired for saying that. Bondi, the AG, she was asked a direct question about it. Trump defensively jumped in. That was the most defensive I've seen in a while.

So what do you think is going on with that? I don't know what's going on, but I think- You know the rumors. Was it an intelligence op by Mossad? What the hell is going on? Well, that's one of the current... Look, man, I have no idea. I felt it was getting down a little down down the corridors of Pizza Gate for a while. And I'm like, what the heck, what is going on? And by the way, that's manifest and real craziness.

About two years of protests where I wasn't getting out of my damn house. I've had every version of that. Like what the hell's going on? Getting the chemtrial stuff. I mean, there's a lot of stuff. I get it. UFOs are a little more interesting to me. I'm a little more, less on the conspiracy side of that, but that's another conversation. But the Epstein stuff, man, I couldn't make or break anything except Trump. Look, man, the guy, Epstein and Trump knew each other.

That's not even, there's no fake videos. Those aren't AI videos of those guys hanging out. And it would make a lot, I don't know. I just, I'm gonna leave it to more objective minds. I have no objectivity. I don't even, I'm not going down this rabbit hole except to say what Elon put that out, I thought it was a big tell, something's up. A lot of weird stuff's going on. I mean, you know, and, you know, it just, it sucks because I want to take people for their word and time and time again, you know, we're, we're seeing that word broken and it's, it's made me rethink how I choose my leaders and not saying that

I'm choosing you to be my leader by anything. You just said, you said you despise me earlier. I am extremely frustrated with, with, with, with what's going on. And so let's move on. You know, the other hot topic is Iran. I mean, what do you think about that? Well, you know, I had Leon Padeta on my podcast last week. And it was interesting to have former CIA director,

obviously Leon, Secretary of Defense and Chief of Staff, with all of his hats that he wore. And they were gaming out this exact mission back when he was in charge. And it was executed flawlessly. God damn heroes. Unbelievable. It was a master class.

You're the expert here, man, but I was proud of how flawless they executed on that. How many years they were working on it and and how? Seemingly effective obliterated or not, you know, whatever a lot of bloviation from Trump But you know, it may have it seems to have delayed the program and certainly not ended it So it's now gonna require the hard work of diplomacy. We'll see what's interesting to me in this word may be It's my understanding that our 18, now one of our 18 intelligence agencies said that there was enriched uranium there. Now I'm not a friend of Iran.

I know Iran uses terrorist groups as proxies, but I thought it was interesting that now one of our 18 intelligence agencies said that we had enriched that our ran had enriched uranium at those facilities and then Israel Saad comes along and says oh no, it's in there and just like that Well, they've been saying it for most of my life. I mean, I can't remember when BB wasn't saying it We're just month away. We're just a year away. I think I was 40 at the time now, you know, I'm almost on Social Security away. I think I was 40 at the time. Now I'm almost on social security. So I get the cynicism there. I mean, Tulsi was testified a few weeks prior. So that's a legit question, man. That's a legit question. And that absolutely, it's a legitimate point of critique as it relates to what may or

may not have occurred. The fact that they did make the decision, the fact that regardless it's delayed the program makes me sleep better at night if we do the hard work of diplomacy because we didn't solve for anything. We didn't end anything. And I really worry more broadly with the aftermath of what's happened in Gaza and the devastation of Gaza. I pray there'll be Abraham 2, I pray Saudi deal Israel, I pray that we can begin to negotiate for peace. I appreciated the president immediately pivoting I appreciated the president immediately pivoting to wanting to negotiate after the successful bombing. And I think that's critical now.

So this success will be defined moving forward, regardless of the legitimacy of your observation and what has been reported from the intelligence communities publicly. How do you think the stuff between Israel and Gaza ends? Bibi is just... Come on, all these poor children. Enough. One's enough, enough. I mean, FMS, I went. I flew out there. One of the first flights in, I had to get to Cyprus, could barely get out of Israel. Flew in to meet with Bibi, met with the president just weeks after October 7th, sent a field hospital, deep reference for the state of Israel and Israeli people. My family married a lot of Jewish family. We can get into my history, and so there's a why there. I feel always connected to that country. I was proud to go out there and support the country. I mean, terrorist attack, akamas. But Jesus, I mean, look at these children, starving.

You know? And so, enough. I know we're in the final stages and as we talk, they're negotiating these 10 hostages and we're looking for temporary peace deal. But it breaks my heart man and again this is someone that reveres the state of Israel and has its back. I'm not, you know, BB, I remember meeting him in the bunker right after man and it's so interesting now to hear what he said, not in the moment, but with everything that happened after, it doesn't surprise me that his mindset, understandably, but I mean, enough. Yeah, I mean, the last numbers, I saw 40,000 people dead. Why, man?

That's a lot of... And these are 40,000 families that are going to have a point of view as they grow and get their lives back about what the hell just happened. And that's 40,000 opportunities going forward where we may not feel so safe in that cafe when we're traveling. And so I applaud President Trump on the Averitt records. I think there's a pathway. I think the Biden administration was moving down that pathway with Saudi Arabia, which

is a big goddamn deal. And the opportunity now with Syria and everything that's happened there, the conditions have radically changed and how they have significantly, I think they've just exposed Iran is not a paper tiger in terms of their proxies, but in terms of their own sort of domestic military capacity, certainly from a defense perspective. You have this extraordinary moment that could transform the history of this country,

our country, and the world, certainly the Middle East. And I pray that cooler heads prevail and that they can temper some of the Habitat of Bibi, particularly of some members of his coalition in particular that are rabid on this topic to I think get a pathway, not think, that need to get a pathway to peace and do it so immediately. Mm-hmm. Well, let's move into your life story. You ready?

See, I prefer Middle East politics to my life story. We can come back to it. Where'd you grow up? It was San Francisco, man. I know people are booing. Don't hate. San Fran, fifth generation. My dad used to joke his great grandfather, he said he didn't know

what came first, the Irish cop or San Francisco. So it's been about 150 years in the Irish cop to a politician. And so I grew up there, had pretty significant learning disabilities, so I struggled in school. Couldn't read or write, severe dyslexia. That's why I don't read speeches. Never seen me read a speech. Yeah, I've read that. You can't even... You do not read a teleprompter. The only thing I can do is a teleprompter, and it's difficult beyond words. But I certainly, sure as hell, can't look down and read a speech. Never been able to. Which is a little bit of a disability in politics. I imagine I could have picked another profession.

It's been a gift and we can get to that later. But as a consequence, I moved to Marin County for better schools. My mom, single mom, came from nothing. She died, left about a $5,000 stay, no bullshit, which was amazing because with all the care at the edge, died of cancer, it was amazing that she didn't have more debt. And just puts into perspective, there's a sort of perception of me, some rich kid, somehow born to privilege. But she was a teenager,

she was 19 when she was pregnant with me, two kids, divorced a few years later. She's just like, hustled man. She worked for aid to adoption of special kids, the Debalt family. So when it comes to issues around physical and intellectual disabilities, it's been my cause, man, Special Olympics back to Sar Shriver and the Shriver. I mean, and just the issues around intellectual disabilities and best buddies and, and, and people, you know, being bullied. I like bullies. It goes to why I have strong opinions about Trump man. Just is.

It's like it triggers me. All of us have that. I don't like people talking down to people, past people. I don't like people exploiting weakness. And so my mom taught me that and she was tough son of a bitch and she just taught me hard work, man. I mean there was no, you know, I was doing paper routes, working for Jeffix,, was doing janitorial work down at the Tenderloin in San Francisco. I mean, that was my summer job through college, just grinding. Oh, shit. I was going to go to community college. I mean, I got 960 or something on my day of SAT.

My mom said, don't even take it again. It's okay. I was panicked. You know, I was just like, that guy. I remember fifth grade, Mr. Morris's class, I start reading. You know, they make everyone read a little part of a book and you just, you're seeing the clock, you're like, fuck. You're like, please, please let the, let's, let's class end. And you're like counting the desks and you're like, and I remember getting up, people, I

swear to God, and I forget people laughing when I couldn't even read the goddamn words. And those are the scars of your life, man. I identify you. And so my mom struggled with that. My sister's smart. She's going to fancy schools. She goes to Georgetown. She's getting 13.

I don't remember. It doesn't matter. She was easy for her. And so for her, I have so much empathy. I never had kids. She died 18 years ago. So she never got to meet my kids. And I never got to say thank you.

Because as a parent, I've got a couple of kids that have been struggling and it's so hard on the parents. I never even thought about that. I never thought about my mom, man, and all the sacrifices, all the shit she went through. She worked two, three jobs, whole fucking life. I mean, that's how I got into the restaurant business. She was a waitress and doing bookkeeping and part-time real estate, and I was the bus boy. And that's how I kind of got introduced to the business.

And then she ended up working for me near the end of her life when I started growing my businesses from one little store with one part-time employee and built that to 20-plus businesses across California. So that was my mom. My dad was, he kind of panicked. He tried to get into politics, lost, went into debt, tried to do it again, lost. Lost the relationship with my mom

and then just moved out of San Francisco and went up to Lake Tahoe area. And he just, he had a little, he had a little breakdown. How old were you when he left? Just a few years old. Do you remember him? Yeah. I mean, I remember him for, you know, summers.

I remember him sometimes on the weekend. I remember when I started getting good at baseball and basketball. And that was where we reconnected. And that's the only reason I got into four-year college baseball. And was a pretty good basketball player, better baseball player, and got recruited to Santa Clara. And that's the kind of, that's, you kind of snuck in there.

There's nothing scholarship, Wasn't even about that. It was the ticket to a four-year college. But those high school years, man, my dad started to show up. He's proud. It's like the son's, you know. You were proud? He was proud. He was proud.

Yeah, and sort of connected and that. And I was like, hey, dad. You know, so we kind of started coming back in our lives a lot more. How did your mom handle him leaving? I mean, what was it? They neither ever got remarried. They both, every time they came close, they sabotaged each other.

Did they talk well of each other or... Yeah, yeah. There was no abuse. There was no issues, no affairs. It was my dad just struggling with his own identity. And he eventually became a... He was a lawyer then became a judge. He was on the Superior Court, California, then the Court of Appeals.

Incredibly bright. Objectively so. That was his sort of legendary status. He was at Stanford, he was doing a little English work there, a professor, for a brief period of time, was teaching there, and then became a judge and wrote these beautiful opinions. And his entire inheritance, he passed. for a brief period of time, I was teaching there, and then became a judge and wrote these beautiful opinions. And his entire inheritance, he passed, he made it just through my election day as governor,

which is a hell of a thing, in a wheelchair. Wow. Survived just to see his son become governor, man. And which is just fucking, in hindsight, I'm like, good as that, man. Let's roll it back a little bit. I mean, did you feel any resentment? When your dad leaves at that young of an age? I think everybody goes through these journeys differently, and there's so many people that have the same experience.

I didn't know any other pathway, right? So I didn't experience something and lose something because I was so young. That's a good point. So I didn't sort of connect with that other caregiver, the other person being home or around. I just connected with my mom and that sort of, and that was like a giant thing, man. Like I'm the only son, I'm struggling, but I'm like the guy, the boy, just like,

so man she just, I mean she sacrificed everything for me, man. Like gave up everything. Any ambition, anything else. How did you receive him coming back into the picture? His gift, man. He's my hero. I mean, he was the Bobby Kennedy, you know. He was the judge, the politics, you know.

He had all these interesting relationships, including with the Getty family, his closest relationships, which opened a lot of doors for me and created a lot of opportunities that one would otherwise have. And so he was adventure. The summers were, he was a rabid outdoorsman. Like, man, we were like, we'd go, I mean, we were all over the world. We would go, it was one summer trip, and it was just always a fucking adventure. And river trips primarily. And we'd, you know, be up there, you know, up there in Manitoba, Winnipeg,

and we're out there, Beluga Whales in Hudson Bay. I'm like, this is amazing. We're doing blue whales down in Baja or gray whales in Baja. We would be out doing these river trips on the middle fork of the salmon, American, and rogue river up in Oregon. And he was just that guy, so I'm connected to adventure. And then he was passionate about politics. But his public service wasn't partisan. It was like, man, just, again, it was the feelings around the 60s. Like it was a noble calling. And so you combine the hard work and ethic of my goddamn mom.

Don't complain. Don't explain. You have agency. You're not a victim. You got to deal with shit. And that idealism of my dad, what a gift. Wow. Wow.

I mean, any, any, did you ever ask your dad why he left? Yeah. He said he had a, he said I just was, I was in, I, he says he he had a breakdown. He said he literally had a breakdown. We were talking earlier, he did some interesting stuff. I mean, I'm getting a different territory here. He told me he did some LSD experiments at Stanford University. He said he primarily did it because they paid a lot He was just always he was he was on a journey man I think I didn't you don't think about that with your parents my mom, you know, my mom's dad the prisoner of war

In Corregidor, he ultimately took his life Talk about PTS talk about veterans't even get me started either, man. My mom struggled with that. I mean, he put a gun to their head, to my mom and his sister after he came back. That's how tough he was. He was a beautiful man, but not when he drank. And so my mom struggled with that, and was very lonely, isolated. My dad clearly was struggling more with his mental health than I expected, not in a cute way, but in a way that I'm starting to more appreciate.

He said, I had a damn breakdown. I couldn't face you guys. I couldn't own up to being a good father, and I wasn't going to be a good husband. And so I said, I had to leave. And he just said, I couldn't own up to being a good father and I wasn't going to be a good husband. And so I said, I believe. And he just said, I broke down. Wow. But he was a beautiful man. And as I say, his inheritance was his idealism and the sense of adventure and limitlessness, obligation. He was, I think, community opportunity responsibility. He was the responsibility

guy. Like, you have an obligation, brother. You gotta give back. That's your job. And he was charitable and he was cause-oriented, justice, just, just, just, newsome. And so I thought he was a beautiful man in my mind But terrible foot not a great not the best father and certainly not a good husband I mean what kind of LSD experiments I meant I was nearly about a brother. I'm learning more and more about this I'm trying to find out more from other family members. I'm like some FMK ultra shit Yeah This this is like pre dates all this stuff that's now

everybody's starting to understand how powerful and potent and profoundly important this space is. And not just for the... I mean, for vets next level. I mean, look, I'm talking to the expert here. I'm going to mind my words, but more broadly, man, this mental health crisis was the right question you asked me about COVID. Goddamn right, man, this mental health crisis was the right question you asked me about COVID. God damn right, man. Social isolation. We haven't come, we're more lonely than ever, more isolated, more distrustful. Community's been frayed. That did not help COVID, quite the contrary. Accelerated. They were preexisting trends. I mean, you had the former Surgeon General on Obama that made the point that the number one disease in America is loneliness, even before the pandemic.

And then it was accelerated. And we haven't figured that one out, man. That's where I want my leadership to speak to those better angels, man, and not divide, take down, separate anymore. And that's my gripe. I don't want to get back into politics, but that's my gripe about what's going on in 1600 Pennsylvania right now. It just, we need to knit things back together, man.

And this guy's uniquely capable of doing it because he has no political mornings. It's not ideological, Trump. So his ability to pivot, shape shift. What a gift if he would just damn exercise it. I mean, do you feel like the last administration was divisive? I think we got ideological, failed at the border. And by the way, I say that as a guy put 394 National Guard down at the border. Years and years ago. I didn't react to that.

I mean, I invested over $1 billion, almost $1.3 billion into migrant centers in three counties, Imperial San Diego and Riverside counties along the border, in order to put a lid on it. It's why you didn't see. On the nightly news, I know you weren't watching as much as others, but there was a lot of the flooding of the news was primarily around Texas, but we were able to kind of keep a lid on it a little bit in California.

Trust me, my friends on the right would have exploited the hell out of California had we seen that flood. We were trying to manage it, and I was trying to manage the politics, trying to have the back of the president, but very, very critical saying, you guys wake up to the hell is going on down here. I mean, the fact that here's a progressive governor putting hundreds of military at the border and consistently funding that and every, but fighting in every budget to keep that going.

Revere those guys in the National Guard, by the way, rock stars. You know, I did, I read that you put 400, 398, you just said, National Guard troops down there on the border, but I did do some research and I found that California is the number one state with illegal immigration and Texas is right there behind you. Yeah, it's the people crossing the border, I mean, it's the largest border crossing the Western Hemisphere, so you'd expect that expect that I mean just by very nature of it Largely the Western Hemisphere And obviously two-way trade there I mean, it's a whole region that whole entire economic regions connected Tijuana and San Diego region

And it's a very vibrant cross-border relationship, which is another issue that you know respectfully We should talk more about the economic side of border policy. But undoubtedly, it's a very porous border beyond sort of that San Diego sector where the wall has substantially been built, but hardly the ultimate deterrent. It's a deterrent of a people even with double border, they have a legendary status. I was in tunnels with the guard not too long ago and border patrol went into the tunnels and we're discovering tunnels all the goddamn time, which are just next level tunnels that the cartel is running.

And by the way, that's two way, that's folks sending guns, arms down and cash down south, not just the drugs coming in north. But no, I've just never been that guy. I remember there was some Democratic primary and everybody raised their, a bunch of folks raised their hand, would you get rid of the border? I'm like, what the hell's going, what are they talking about? Nations need borders. Question is, what's the most effective approach? I thought 1954 miles of a wall, I thought Trump was a little bit Yeah, come on man. You only by the way did 85 new miles in his four years

Little bloviation there about how much he actually accomplished. He'll say 458 because they retrofitted existing fence fine But it was hardly a triumph than that but I believe in border security. And I believe in the work these guys are doing every single day and the lives they've saved. Our counter narcotics efforts, our task forces have been next level, not only with National Guard and Border Patrol, but also with our California Highway Patrol that are part of these larger efforts throughout the state. Look, I'm going to stay with 39% of people that are Latino. I'm a state where 27% of people are foreign born. I represent a majority minority state.

We're the largest agricultural state when people say, well, he needs to understand the Heartland. Really? Really? Telling me that? Governor of California has more hunting jobs, more forestry jobs, and more agriculture, ranch hunting jobs, more forestry jobs, and more agriculture and ranching jobs than anyone else in the country, not even close California. I'm also mindful of the contributions of immigrants. Silicon Valley, over half the unicorn companies in this country are in my state, 57%, and half of those are literally owned by immigrants. Forty-two percent of our startups in California, immigrants from Silicon Valley to Central Valley, immigration, hospitality business I'm in, construction workers. Come on, man.

Going after these people at home depots, day laborers, taking kids or taking parents from kids that don't have criminal records. That's where I draw the line. And so California has got more to lose than anyone else in this. And we've been the beneficiary of immigrants. I'm with you on criminals. 11,000, 11,000 plus, we've turned over to ICE since I've been governor. Fact. 11,000. We work with ICE. I work with ICE with our sanctuary policy. We work with ICE as it relates to the release of dangerous and violent criminals, 11,000 that we have notified and worked with ICE to transfer and deport.

You know, I'm a little more on the middle on this than most people think. I got painted out to be like a mega troll or something because a lot of the people that I've interviewed, including Trump himself, and while I do lean conservative, I am not that far right. And so I think there's a happy medium here and I'm glad you brought up the economic repercussions of this because yes, I'm constructing, we talked at breakfast, I'm constructing a new studio. That's been delayed. A lot of, I mean, I say, you know, restaurants are hurting, construction's hurting, a lot of farming's hurting. Like we, you know, we use those people,

that they fill those jobs. They just, it is what it is. They fill the jobs. Now, I think the border has been a complete fucking disaster. Great with you. And totally agree. You know, but, and so, I mean, how would you like to see this goes?

I'll hold my look, you've been here 10, 15 years paying taxes. There's gotta be a pathway to figure that out. I know everyone, oh, they're just saying that. So they all be, you know, vote Democrat. Well, that's no, can we just disabuse ourselves with that now too? Look how well Trump did with the Latino community. So maybe that's a pathway for mega to give. It's not about politics, man. It's about the fabric of our community,

all these mixed status families. Eight and a half billion dollars of tax collection in California every year from undocks. Eight and a half billion that we received just at the state level of taxes. That was the last Pew estimate. So it's not insignificant. Backbone, I mean, it's half of our agricultural workers. You care about farmers and ranchers? If that's what your number one go-to commitment, then you sure as hell should care about their workers. 41% of our construction workers, Texas and California, have the highest percentage of

their construction workers that would fall into that category. How the hell do we rebuild Altadena and Palisades? We're going to need a peak next year. We estimate about 70,000 workers without that workforce. That ain't going to happen. You're struggling here. You imagine a peak there. So I think there needs to be a pathway for those folks as we secure the border,

then we own that issue. Do you feel that they're taking American jobs? Not in Tulare when, not in Tulare County, not when on Inventura County. I don't know many people that want a job out there in those packing facilities. I don't see many people look like me jumping at those jobs. I just don't. Maybe there's some exceptions. I haven't seen the evidence of that. So I understand what you're saying but you know that is the narrative. I mean you had this just, I haven't seen the evidence of that. So I understand what you're saying, but you know, that is the,

that is the narrative. I mean, you had this just, I thought one of the most comical things I've read in a long time and saw was your new secretary of ag saying, well, everyone on Medicaid can take those jobs. That's the secretary of ag saying that she said that literally said we don't need migrants in this country. Secretary of Ag Group Culture. Everybody on Medicaid can. Yeah. People on Medicaid, that will be the workforce.

It's not even serious, but she seriously said it, and she said it with Christine Noem and others to the left and right. They're not... Trump recognized that. I was down there in Oxnard, California. God is my witness. A couple days after he in Oxnard, California. God is my witness. A couple of days after he nationalized, federalized the National Guard over our objection. By the way, these were the heroes, 2,500 of them, that were received like rock stars in LA in some of the most progressive districts in the country. People with selfies. Their biggest problem was all the food and water people were giving them, thanking them for being there during the disaster and during our recovery

the same ones now are being masked up and now people are protesting as We're dealing with that I get a call saying they're running raids in the fields in Ventura County man You got to get up there. So I left, got there a little late, and they were showing me videos with blackhawks and literally agents running through the fields. Middle of Ventura County, man. And I met with six families. There was a 16-year-old boy.

He couldn't look in the eyes. At the end of the table, he's literally looking like this. Just tears running down his face. People tell me their stories and I said, how you doing, man? He goes, I'm fine. He speaks perfect English, was born here. He's literally 16 years old, in school still, last couple days of school. And I said, what's going on?

Every time he tried to talk, he broke down. And so someone said he lost his mom and dad yesterday. I said, what do you mean lost them? He says, well, they've disappeared. 20 plus years, they went to the field, drove together, were ripped out of the car in the parking lot of the same place they've gone for 20 plus years. Mom and dad disappeared. He didn't even know how to get back in the house. No family, nothing. Thank God, he connected with someone from the school to connect them to me and others. Didn't even know how to clean his clothes or cook

his food. The hell is that? But to his credit, a day later, Trump said, oh, we need to protect those people. Okay. Wow. Thank you for saying it. But then his actions continue to contradict it. And they continue to go out randomly on the streets going after law-abiding citizens, including American citizens, literal American citizens, people with green cards. And to terrorize people, he was in MacArthur Park with these National Guard, these heroes being used as pawns for theater with, again, damn blackhawks overhead in the middle of the day where kids were in soccer camp.

They didn't make one arrest. It was a sign of cruelty. It was an expression of cruelty just to be cruel. It's weakness masquerading a strike, man. What the hell is Trump doing? He's got 4,000 of your brothers and sisters out there in American city. And by the way, 90% of them aren't doing a damn thing, which means they're not at home with their families.

A lot of these guys are police officers and firefighters. They want to teach summer school and they're sitting there on the damn armories waiting for some bullshit assignment so that he can look tough. Anyway, forgive me on this border. Goddamn right. And you know what? To the extent we own this as a reaction to the failure, there may be some truth to that. That doesn't make what's happening right.

And I just think we could find some balance. Ronald Reagan did it in 96, or 86, excuse me. I'm not saying you have to do that pathway, that amnesty bill, there's lessons learned, but come on. I mean, this country is a nation of immigrants. The economy is going to be wrecked, not just, and California's a tent pole of the US economy. You want to mess with us, you're messing with the United States of America. It's self-sabotage.

And there is a way of addressing this issue. Go after the criminals, man. I'm all in. How do you determine who's a criminal, though, when a lot of these people don't have any record? How do you determine that? Yeah, well, on the basis, obviously, of arrests. So you're right.

I mean, we wouldn't know who's a criminal that's not in our system, somewhere had been captured in that system, that has any particular record. I mean, you have some people with little traffic offenses, some misdemeanor things, and that's categorized as a crime. But for me, it's dangerous people, it's felons. It's people that are convicted and have served their time. By the way, I've vetoed two bills. I'm on the opposite side of my legislature.

Remember, it's a constitution in California, not just a constitutional republic here in the United States. And they've sent me two bills about the veto where they didn't want me to cooperate with ICE for these 11 plus thousand people. I just think they're wrong. My party's wrong on that. And I think that, again, is aided into the conditions that Trump has exploited politically and is exploiting now with Stephen Miller in a way that, to me, is just so goddamn un-American and is going to

create so much distrust with law enforcement. These fucking rock stars with me today, CHP, where people now just looking at those guys differently. They don't trust them now. People run around with masks, with no badge and no identification. If someone came up to me like that, I mean, I would get into it. Like, who the hell are you? Am I being kidnapped? Mm-hmm. You know, I think, I mean, I interviewed Holman, you know, a couple, about a month ago or so, and, you know, one of the things that he had mentioned, and it made sense to me was, is Ventura County just north of LA?

Is that Ventura County? Yeah, that's right. That's where we were. That's an Oxnard in Ventura County. Now, he was saying that he told me that they're just going after the criminals. It's bullshit. Forgive me for all this. What he did say is that sanctuary cities, and I don't know if Ventura

County has that or not, but that it did by, by, by being a sanctuary city and not cooperating with ice, that it was, it was, it was putting a tremendous amount of danger on his, on his, on the border patrol and, and ICE. And, and I mean, I don't think there's any arguing that. So how, how do, I mean, how do cities, how does this fucking work, man? Like how, how, how, how can sanctuary cities work with the federal government to sort through who should be here and who shouldn't be? So let me, I want to acknowledge that point, his point.

I don't want to dismiss that out of hand. We have a state policy that's very different than the local jurisdictions. So what I described to you is the state policy with the largest corrections institution in the United States, CDCR. And that's why numerically, there's no governor can lay claim to coordinating at their state level with a larger cohort of people that fall in the category of dangerous and violent with ICE. But at the local level, each jurisdiction and their conservative parts of the state,

not just liberal starts of the state. I mean, Rudy Giuliani was one of the biggest proponents of sanctuary policy. Rudy Giuliani. He said, in many respects, that it keeps people safe, healthy, and educated. Safe in the context that it led to more trust for law enforcement. If you're a witness of crime or a victim of crime, to come forward without fear of deportation, created trust in the community with law enforcement. More educated because you're more likely to send your kids to school, young kid, without worrying about a crossing guard turning you in, and more healthy because you're more likely to get a flu shot at a

community clinic without fear of deportation. Giuliani, police chiefs association in the past supported in the past sanctuary policy for the same reasons around public safety and relational trust with the community. That said, this is where I disagree. And as mayor of San Francisco, I got a lot of shit for this. I inherited, just as I inherited sanctuary policy at the state, that the legislature wants to continue to change, as mayor I inherited sanctuary policy when I got sworn in, and it was too permissive. And I closed a loophole as it relates to coordinating with ICE upon arrest. And people

are pissed. When I left the mayor's office, they reversed that. So I've been on this basis, but I support the broader principle. That said, I'm happy to advocate for eliminating sex rape policy. And the reason it exists is because of the total abject failure of the federal government to do its fucking job. It exists because they persist in politicizing this. I mean, I want that Gang of Eight back. I want the old Rubio back.

That's some fucking courage. Thank you Marco Rubio. And how to compromise that he was promoting, bipartisan compromise in this space. Let's go back to the tenets of that deal. And then you could start to unwind sanctuary policy. It exists because of that failure. And so we can address humans's concerns in that respect. Not a big fan of his because he's not a big fan of mine.

He won my arrest, which I thought was a little tough guy. He's that guy. That said, I was told to his credit that he was a pretty thoughtful and good soldier before he got this sort of performative job, my humble perspective, that apparently he was well respected in his older roles over there, so I'll give him some grace in that respect,

despite his desire for my arrest. I mean, how do we solve it long-term though? You know, I mean, we see this shit, and it's just subject after subject and it gets fucking batted back and forth between Republicans, Democrats over and over again with the border being one of them. But, you know, I don't see anybody, you know, maybe I'm missing, like I said, I don't watch the news, but I don't see anybody trying to fix immigration

other than, you know, we're ripping the border wall down. We're putting the border wall up. We're going to shut the border down. We're going to open the fucking border. And, and, you know, but there's no pathway, the pathway for immigrants to come into the country legally is not changing. It's not been streamlined. Nothing's been tuned to what we're dealing with today. And a lot of these people are, I mean, I'll probably get blasted for saying this,

but I, I, I, I see it first. I mean, the guy that built the studio, uh, right here, this wasn't here before. He built it and came in on Easter Sunday, worked his ass off, had him do some stuff at other properties that I own. And now the last time I talked to him, he's got like 12 different crews. I mean, he, he has achieved the American dream. He's a, he's an extremely hard worker. He does great work.

I mean, I like, I love to see that because I've seen so many Americans, not immigrant American, Americans say, oh, the American dream's over. I can't buy a home. I can't do this. I can't do that. And it's like, this dude barely speaks English, built this, built that. Now he's got multiple crews running and he's doing amazing. But you know what pisses me off is, I do think that we need these people in this country.

I do think that there's the economy is going to face some consequences. I think it already probably is. Why is nobody on the right or the left trying to fix the actual immigration policy? I think because the politics, we're rewarded for bad behavior, man. I think the vast majority of folks in elected office are right where you are. I really honestly believe that. I think they were primarily where that Gang of Eight was.

Hell, I thought they were where the Democratic Party even was supporting that bipartisan bill a year ago, which included $650 million for the border wall to reform the amnesty system. The amnesty program in the United States is broken, as you suggest. It needs to be updated. But these guys have some... The politics is immigration is a border issue when it's much more than a border issue.

And we have an obligation, I think, to each other if we're going to knit this country back together to own up to that. And I appreciate to see finally my party move on some more border issues, but we're going to need to see some movement along the lines of what Rubio and others were trying to advance in that gang of aid to sort of get back. And I don't even think it's the center. I think it's just common sense. And look, Trump says the right things on this. He wants first round draft choices around the best, around the rest of the world. Love that, man. Let's get the

best in the goddamn right. You want to talk about AI. 50% of the AI researchers are Chinese, man. 50%. I mean, that's back to California secret sauce, it's an economic imperative diversity. I'm sorry, I know that offends some people. There's a business case to be made there. I know that's woke. That's a business guy talking to me. I know my customers and I know my employees. I won't make a damn business case for it, but I'll tell you, there's a competitive case to be made. We're toast if we can't get folks around the rest of the world to compete in AI and quantum in the next generation of technology from a national security perspective. So I pray we get through this moment.

Trump, you win. Fabulous. You got 5,000 troops. Go home now. You got me. You own the lib. You showed how tough you are. You've had the display of vulgarity from my perspective

Or strength from your perspective MacArthur Park. Can we not notice go back? You've arrested 3,000 people in the last few months. Well done vast majority. Apparently don't have criminal records You made your point a lot of people are self-deporting. We're by the way hearing a lot of that And I guess that's part of the point You got all this new money. Can we do it to be a little more constructive and advance a bill on amnesty in immigration reform? Address those who have been here 10 years paying taxes, 15, 20 years.

And by the way, in California was a survey done, very reputable survey. 69% of the undocks in my state have been in the state over a decade. Interesting. It brought up, I'm with you. I would love to bring in the best and the brightest in the world, especially when the tech space, because I also am, I mean, that's my number one thing is everything that's going on between US and China. I think that's the, in Taiwan, I think that's the most important thing that we should be

concentrating on from a global standpoint. But where I'm going with this, as you had mentioned, 50%, I think you said 50% of the world's researchers in AI. By the way, I know a thing or two about this subject because that's California, man. What separates our game from the game played elsewhere is innovation, entrepreneurialism, more patents, more engineers, more researchers, more Nobel laureates in my state than any other damn state, more Fortune 500 companies in my state than any other state. Look that up because I know people are rolling their eyes and say, no, it's Texas.

You're wrong. It's true. I looked it up. And we're, by the way, a donor state. We provided $83.1 billion more than we received from the federal government. Texas took $71.1 billion. I'm not saying that to bash Texas, but you know what? Pretty proud of my goddamn state.

I saw that too. Punching up our weight, man. But AI- Can you repeat those numbers? $83.1 billion, we provided more to the federal government than we received the same year that Texas received $71.1 billion more than they provided to the federal government. So you're net positive. Net positive.

Nine out of 10 of the donor states are Trump states, and I don't mean that pejoratively Trump. Seven of the 10 are Republican states, but nine out of the 10 dependent states, welfare states, are Trump states, the donor states disproportionately in the blue states. 71% of the country's GDP comes from blue counties. These same crack up counties with all these crazy liberals that can't get out of their own goddamn way

and the world's come to an end. It's 71% of the economy, the goddamn country, man. I mean, I think that's changing a little bit. But before we get into that, I want to go back to the Chinese. The Chinese. I mean, there's a lot of corporate espionage and just flat out espionage going on in the tech space. Interesting.

And with China stealing our patents, our techs, all of that stuff. And so how do you combat that? I mean, if we're going to bring in the world's best and greatest AI researchers, 50% of them are Chinese, and then we have to deal with all this corporate espionage. I mean, how do you navigate through that? So just perspective, 32 of the top 50 AI companies on the planet are in my state. 32. NVIDIA just came out this week for trillion-dollar market cap.

We've got, I mean, Elon's company is in California for a reason, because he couldn't compete anywhere else in the AI space. He put his world's R&D headquarters back into California. It's back, I thought he moved everything to Austin. No, he put the R&D headquarters back at HP Enterprises' old corporate headquarters in Palo Alto because he needed to get the superstar talent. No shit.

You can actually Google, there's a good press conference with the two of us that have known each other for 20 plus years where we announced that together. It's to make a point. The reason Sam Altman is quadrupled down on San Francisco, he's like, why the hell would I move anywhere else, man? This is where the talent is.

So the talent resides in certain pockets of the globe. And California is sort of the dominant player in this space. And we have the best and the brightest minds like Jensen, obviously, Sam and others, and you got all the anthropic folks, which are fascinating. They're an interesting part of the larger discussion. Of course, Facebook and what they're doing on the open source platform. But as it relates to, I think, China and AI, what they're doing and they have an open source model, we are primarily more closed source. That open source model wasn't just Deep Six. You've seen sort of derivative companies

that have come from Deep Six because everybody's building off that stack. The question is who's gonna win that damn race? Is it going to be the American stack, like the American dollar, or is it going to be stack coming out of China? And that's why this is perhaps the most definitive race of our lifetime. And that's why it's absolutely essential that we have an immigration policy that encourages the ability for folks to come to our country to continue to make the investments, not just in terms of capital investments into new business, but also research and development opportunities

and develop patents and IP in our country to the extent we can compete as it relates to IP in China and the issues around national security. On that issue, Trump 1.0 did some important things. Biden built on that as it relates to some of the sanctions and tariffs and some of the trading restrictions for national security and chips. And certainly Trump is building off that again. And that I think starts to answer your question. But man, both sides, this is it, man. I mean, this is going to define our future.

And I agree with you a thousand percent. As our eye gets off the ball with all the quagmire in the Middle East and everything going on in Ukraine and Russia, that China has the potential to clean our clock. That's why I'm a big EV guy. I know not everybody is, but BYD, EV company, it's got a market cap that literally, you look at all the American automobile manufacturers combined, exceeds it. They're flooding the zone around the world with EVs in Russia, in Europe, in Brazil,

in South America. They're dominating the space, the technology platforms that these cars provide, the AI components of that, the autonomous autonomy that comes from that. GM's toast. Mary Bar is sold her soul. They literally ceded to China one of the next great economic opportunities, and that's in the space. Elon's always understood that.

And thank God we've had him. I'll be his biggest supporter at Tesla. No one's been a bigger supporter. But China's clicking our clock on that, and these technologies of the future, if we don't get our ass in gear and get serious again about economic industrial policy, not just tariff policy, it's a tool, but worker-centered industrial policy, but immigration reform is foundational in that respect. Sorry, I get all... These are important topics, brother.

They are. They're very important. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll pick up with your college. You've heard me talk about Patriot Mobile for a while now. They've stood in the gap for Americans who believe that faith, family, and freedom are worth fighting for. And they're the real deal. They've got cutting edge technology, and switching is easy. Keep your number, keep your phone, or upgrade. Their 100% US-based team can activate you in minutes right over the phone.

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here's the bear. Oh, nice. You'd be careful when you wear that. That's a good looking hat though. Thank you. Legit. California bear. I love it.

I love it. Thank you. You're welcome. I mean, I know it's not, you know, sidearm. Hey, that's all right. I got plenty of those. So I got plenty of sidearms, but I want to move into your college experience. But before that, we were just on the topic of China.

You met Xi a couple of different times. Yeah. Well, yeah. I had a couple of different times once in, well, yeah, a couple of different times. Once in California and then of course over in Beijing. Was a hell of an experience. I've been to China for many, many years. It's interesting just for people to know this. San Francisco, the city I represent as mayor, had the first Shanghai sister city.

The first sister city relationship in the United States and China was established in San Francisco. That sister city was really important to the people of China. You have visitors all the time coming to San Francisco to celebrate it, and there's a sister city committee. As mayor, I would go back every couple of years. We'd celebrate milestones and moments and trade and exchange and particularly MOUs on environmental stewardship

and the like. As governor, I hadn't gone. Of course, COVID, everything shut down, but no governor had gone over there in years and years and years. And I just started to see things really starting to fray. And it was both parties. I mean, when there's bipartisan consensus on something,

that's when I get a little more cynical about it and want to sort of stress test. When everyone's rushing over there and everyone's sort of sacrosanct that it's this, that's when I'm like, hold on. And so I wanted to stress test that a little bit. And so I reached out and I said, would you guys be willing, particularly at a time when we were sort of pulling back

on the world stage a little bit on some environmental issues, which I care deeply about. I asked if they were interested in updating some of our MOUs, Memorandum of Understanding, and they accepted, but she wasn't on the list. I was going to meet at the sub-national level with other governors. I was going to meet with the vice president. I was going to meet with the premier. I was going to meet with other foreign dignitaries, but I didn't expect to meet with she. We got there and immediately sensed this thing is organized at a whole other level.

And four or five days in, started in Hong Kong. This was by the way, I took the flight from, got into Israel, went to Cyprus, went to Athens, landed in Hong Kong the next day, and then went to mainland China for six days, so that same trip. And four or five days later, I'm starting to realize, where's the traffic? I mean, they were shutting down freeways. The experience was so curated, it was beyond surreal. And I started noticing every time you turn on the TV, I'm like, well, there's that guy from California.

And how organized this was. And it kind of led up to a meeting. They said, may or may not happen, but if you're in Beijing in two days around this time, we may make the president available or vice president. And so we made our way there. And they said, well, President Xi will happily greet you. He's got 18 minutes tops at this time in Beijing.

And we met. I made the diplomatic faux pas. Apparently apparently you're not supposed to smile. So there's a photo of us smiling, because I just have to be human. I can't stand that pageantry of BS. The me at the end of the day, like human beings, okay? I mean, we kind of disagree on a million, just like human beings. So there's a smile, and all of a sudden it was, and that conversation went on and on and on. on we're

talking about Kobe Bryant, we're talking about Steph Curry, which I assure you was not on the agenda in this bilat and other very substantive things on Tibet and the Uighurs and issues around human rights. I actually had a detainee that I specifically requested be released that's a Californian. We talked about fentanyl and precursor chemicals. Have you released them? They haven't, but it's interesting. There's some progress there. On the fentanyl, it was very meaningful because we had a substantive conversation about fentanyl and precursor chemicals and how it

was disproportionately impacting border states, notably my state, and we put a human face on that. And it was sort of official invite to come to the United States for the APEC summit that was being hosted in California. And so it was, from my perspective, an incredibly important trip to show respect, open hand, not a closed fist, and establish, I thought, a platform for the engagement

that came out of APEC a few weeks later with President Biden. That was a successful meeting, they had, as well, and of course, all the foreign leaders that we hosted that week. As I said, divorce is not an option. China is competitive beyond words. They play by a different set of rules. And we are going to have to step up our game in profound ways.

But we can't just turn our back and deny the existence or try to stifle, I think, and stuff out their existence either. I think it will happen in our own peril. I do not want to live as I lived as a kid growing up in high school and college in this Cold War mindset, worried that I have to put my hand under a desk because I'm worried about some nuclear weapon. I don't want my kids to grow up like that either.

What were the discussions like about the fentanyl with them? It was interesting. The most substantive thing that came out of that were conversations that we had quite literally with the ambassador a couple of days later and some agreements that were codified in the actual documents that were signed by President Biden a few weeks later in the Bay Area when the two of them met. And it was an interesting acknowledgement of his growing understanding. And again, everyone can roll their eyes, say he knows exactly what he's doing, he's dumping, he's intentionally dumping all this in American streets, et cetera.

But it was a not only recognition, it was an appreciation for how devastating and impactful the drug had become in the United States. And he acknowledged hearing it from a number of other people. And the fact that it was overly emphasized in our meeting, particularly because of the impacts in our state, it was, I thought, for me, the most substantive part of this, where I can actually connect the dot to follow- to cause and effect. I don't want to overstate it, but it certainly became, there was a sort of connection to what was said, what was done in between and what the president signed, Biden and President Xi a few weeks later, hardly perfect. A lot of enforcement questions, a lot of issues as it relates to how they even enforce some

of those sort of non-governmental actors and other bad actors within their companies, a country, as well as more sort of directly connected actors that may or may not be participating directly. What was your impression of Xi? Rosh Hashanahshi. When you see images on TV all your life, I mean, I was in the exact same place that everybody, you see those photos with all these folks. And these rooms are just outsized and absurd. Like an old Stalin-type building or Lennon building.

I mean, it's like these are just gigantic hallways, you know, people with bands, you know, they're a thing, red carpet, and it's like a 50-yard walk, all designed for power, showcase intimidation. These grand rooms, two giant seats, and then people sitting on the side, everybody very stoic and serious. Everything's very formal. And I just decided, pattern interrupt, came in, smiled, told me not to smile.

I'm like, that's not who I am. Shook his hand, walked in, smiled, picture. And then I start talking right when we sit down, which was not the protocol. And I just said, I'm just really high. Just was being human. And it broke a little bit of ice. I don't want to, look, I don't want to over, I don't want to be polyamorous about it, but

that meeting went a lot longer than anyone anticipated it going. It was followed up with subsequent meeting because we met with the president again when he landed in California. And it's just, it's about relationships, man. Just the end of the day. I mean, by the way, a compliment, President Trump, he talks in complimentary terms about President Xi. I have a great relationship with the president.

We completely disagree. I'm going to tariff him on this, tariff him on that. 145%, 50%, 25. And I think you can have that, but you also have to have a foundational relationship with trust. And so that's the approach I take As it relates to meeting with BB meeting with any foreign leader And people we agree with people they disagree that I look I think I admired

But and I'm getting a lot of trouble with my party even what Trump tried to do with Kim Jong-un I mean love letters aside all that's you know that just awkwardness The fact that he was willing to try Did he do what you've done, you'll get what you got. And you know, I don't begrudge that kind of diplomacy. I didn't like how Trump and Putin handled each other in that first press conference where he basically took side of his intelligence over the United States intelligence. And I've never understood the relationship between Trump and Putin, and it raises as many questions as the Epstein files does.

And forgive me, I'm not suggesting anything there except to say, I don't understand it. It's very curious to me. And I'm glad he's finally getting a little tougher on the guy with more evidence you need than what he's doing in Ukraine right now. But I think any new approach to foreign policy is a good approach because we've got a lot of messes out there. Did you find him to be genuine? These guys are another level of sort of tacticians. There's a precision. That's what I was going to ask if you said yes, I was going to ask if you thought it

was... No, I mean, look, I'm not George W. saying, you know, I saw into his soul or something, you know, Putin. I mean, he's fucking KGB, okay? Come on, these guys are... These are, I don't want to say trained assassins, in the case of Putin, perhaps, literally. But yeah, I'm not naive, man. But there's a precision. Everything is there's an organized construct and it's, it's top down. And every single meeting had a cadence for eight days. It was all connected to the final meeting, talking points, everything.

Interesting. I mean, these guys, it's just a different discipline. And that's why you cannot underestimate the power of their intentionality and the seriousness to which we must win the AI race and the quantum race, and we must win the race for talent and create conditions where we are the essential player. And that is a national security issue as much as an economic imperative. Do you think we're doing that?

Not right now. You don't? I think we're vandalizing relationships, alliances. I think we're a mercurial approach to everything. I think it's completely, it's not just unorthodox, which I appreciate. There's a strategy and uncertainty. But to me, it's impulse. I mean, I don't know.

I think there are, I've been interviewing a lot of tech people from your state, a lot of innovators, fascinating, just genius human beings. And you know, the one thing that they are all excited about, about the Trump administration is getting rid of some of the bureaucracy so that people can innovate and not have to navigate so much around all the red tape. And so it's- I appreciate that. It's nice to-

I appreciate that. It's nice to see that. And I think it's motivating the next generation to become innovators. And it's, I think we're getting new in some of the best innovators in the world because of the motivation, you know, that Musk is, I mean, he's revolutionized it

and all these guys look up to him and they all model their businesses after how he's modeled his and they're jumping in on, you know, to his mission to Mars and it's fascinating. But yeah, the one thing that they all say is that the Trump administration is getting rid of a lot of the red tape to enable them to become the innovators that they need to

beat. I appreciate it on one level. On another level, that's coming at a huge price. What's that? The law of Don. If you cross him, he'll cross you off the tariff exemption. Do his bidding. As long as you're doing his bidding will let you play. I

Mean that's just that that's that changes the game. That's not free enterprise That's a different system. And that's what I'm very concerned about Because Tim Cook can make a call to Trump. He gets exempted on the iPhones But none of these small businesses in South Carolina that I was with are exempted because they can't make that call. I don't know if that's good for an economic, for sort of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. I think that's folks that could pay to play. I think that's, I think on the tariff, the exemptions are people that make contributions or contribute to the larger

cause literally or figuratively. I worry about that. Seen all my friends and half of them were my friends, about three quarters of the folks that were standing there during the inaugural of my friends, known them forever, decades. Pretty sure I know who you're talking about. It was, you know, and they were there. Look, and no one's naive. Everyone's in a sort of transactional mode at that level, and you have to be, regardless of the administration, that was something totally different, man. This is cronyism, not capitalism.

I'm worried about it. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I never meant to dive into politics But you know, I watch what a lot of these big guys do and if they fucking play it smart They donate to both parties and then when they find out who's got the majority lead they Dave That's when the big donation comes and it's you know, and and I didn't realize that you know And until actually until this election cycle, I didn't realize that That's how the game the game ain game, that's money in politics, man.

We don't even get to that unless we publicly fight it. To me, it's explains more things in more ways and more days about everything that's goddamn wrong in this country. And now it's just obscene. It's fucking obscene. Eli, God bless him. Go write 300, God damn million dollar check. Start his own party now and could spend billions if he wants limitlessness.

It's it's gross. What do you think about him starting his own party now and could spend billions if he wants, limitlessness. It's gross. What do you think about him starting his own party? I think it's going nowhere. You think it's going nowhere? Because I don't think he's going to have the... Come on. You think he's going to take the time and energy to build a grassroots movement over the course of the next year, two, 10, 20 years?

That's what will be required of it. I don't know, man. I mean, the guy's built. I know. He's impressive. He's an impressive. Like I said, man, I mean, I have one of the first Teslas, literally the first numbered Tesla. The first three that came out, I was with Elon. I had an old TV show on current TV. Don't even look it up. Elon and I driving into the studio together with the first Model S. And we were showing it off on the

show. Got one of the first roadsters. I've been his biggest advocate and fan and supporter for decades and decades. He's a different guy, man. Something's changed. Something's changed. And He's a different guy, man. Something's changed. Why do you think it's changed? And as a consequence, I don't know that he is as committed as it may appear to this cause in particular, the third party. That's my humble opinion. Interesting.

I mean, why would you... So you're against the third party. I'm all for it. I just don't think Elon... You just don't think he'll pull through. I just don't think. I think if his stated intention is to pick off a few senators and a few members of the House so he can leverage party, that's one thing. That's not a new party.

That's just picking up a few seats in a divided Congress. That's interesting. That gives him outsize power and influence. If it's about building a grassroots party. We've seen this from Ross Perot We've seen this with no labels. We've seen this in the past. It just takes a lot of reps man. That's a bottom-up That's years and years of organizing. That's not top-down. You don't buy that you build that that's creating a movement And that means you have to be on a mission and it's as tough as it is to be on a mission to Mars Man the mission here on planet Earth a building a new new party with the sort of duopoly of these two

parties. I mean, you saw what happened here, he was probably sitting right here, RFK, as it relates to just trying to compete in the lane of our party for a nomination and how difficult that was objectively for him. These guys, neither party screws around in that respect. Trump completely, that's a different, but he's a unique, unique. He was an invasive species and took over the Republican Party. It's no longer, it's a vestige of itself, it's MAGA now. That was unique, but I don't see how Elon ultimately will really break through over

the long period. I just think he's too much going on, man. I mean, he's competing with some of the best and the brightest for the best and the brightest in AI. I mean, in many respects, I think they see these guys as competitors, as zero sum, the winners and losers in that space. That alone is going to consume you. He's now merged X with that organization, fired the CEO or she resigned of X. He's got SpaceX. He wants

to take public, which is an extraordinary company, proud of the support that he has provided the people of our state and this country, not just in terms of the technology, but the resources and investments he's made, the jobs. And of course, he's got Tesla, which is on life support, man. It's on life support. The brand has been destroyed. Now both parties can't stand it. And I just don't know how you then build a party with all of that, and it's devoid of

your personality. It becomes the Musk party, not a third party. That's difficult. Yeah, I don't know. I just think that the left has gone so far left and the right has gone so far right. For the people that are kind of in the middle or at least close to the middle like myself, I mean, it's just, there's a large number of people that don't feel like they're represented properly.

Totally agree. Ross Perot was a phenom. Thank you, Bill. Bill Clinton's the happiest person in the country to talk about Perot. And the consequences of that. So it shows that lane. No question about that. And look, I mean, all these elections come down, at least from the national prism, it's about those swing voters and swing states, about independence, or at least independently minded Democrats or Republicans, if not literal independents. And so I do agree. So I get the desire for that.

I just think building the actual, the apparatus of a new party, just the difficulty of getting on the ballots in each state to build that party, it's an exercise of commitment, not interest. And I think within that is the distinction of success and failure, interest versus commitment. I'm doubtful he's that committed to it. I think he's more interested in it. And that's my sense. I may be wrong, but I completely understand

the common sense you're bringing to it, which is a desire to see something like that succeed so it's more representative of all of us and can pull the parties back into a position of some sort of commonwealth or more community. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You got a lot of shit when she came to California. Yeah.

And you know, the big narrative was, and I tend to believe it is, you know, we hear a lot about San Francisco and the homelessness and pooping on the road and all that kind of stuff and it seemed like all of that was cleaned up when she came to town. Yeah. Is that true? Complete bullshit. That's complete bullshit. The city, which by the way, I'm no longer mayor, was organizing for dozens and dozens of foreign leaders, not just she, Okay. To arrive for APEC. And the city over the course of last year had finally started to step up its game to address what's happening on the streets and sidewalks. And there was no question when you have a major international conference,

that there was investments made to prepare the city as any convention in any city would. And so there was certainly a lot of aggressive intention for weeks and weeks in preparation of this major international conference in San Francisco. So the city led that effort. The state always supports the efforts as we're doing for the World Cup, as we're doing for the Olympics, as we do for large conventions, as we do for other delegations that come in. But APEC had dozens and dozens of leaders over the course of an extended week, many in the front end, many in the back end.

But this notion, oh, it's just the Chinese president coming in and Newsom somehow as the dictator, magically has cleaned up San Francisco, but he didn't care about his own citizens was not even laughable. It was so absurd. It's difficult even to respond. But I saw that weaponized, particularly with my friends on Fox. Why wouldn't the city want to just clean it up for its citizens? Well, they were.

They were finally getting their act together. No bigger critic of that than me. I was coming down hard on the city. I've been threatening to sue cities, sue a number of cities in California on housing issues and homeless issues. I've been very aggressive. I've rejected money. We're holding these guys more accountable.

But remember, I run a state larger than 21 state populations combined, hundreds and hundreds of cities, independently elected boards of supervisors, city councils, city administrators, and mayors. And so as much as I would like to run every city and dominate every block in terms of my desire to see these tents and encampments cleaned up, I have to create the conditions where we can leverage state support and sanction better

behavior and we're finally seeing some real progress in that space. I'll just give you a proof point. I mean, San Francisco, I love everybody running about crime, but Speaker Johnson's district has six times the murder rate as Nancy Pelosi's district. Doesn't really. Yeah. I mean, why the hell is that not on 90 News every goddamn day? I mean, parts of Florida substantially hire homeless than parts of California.

California's homeless growth last year of unsheltered homeless was 0.45. It was close to 9% in Florida. I mean, almost 10x. Well, I have that California has the highest homeless population in the country. Since about 2000, 2004, for 20 plus years, it's been the case. We had the highest homeless count, 188,000 in 2004.

When I was mayor, Schwarzenegger was governor. And we have the highest housing costs. It's the original sin is housing, the supply demand imbalance, Econ 101. That's why we just passed the most significant housing reforms in our state's history just a few weeks ago. And I actually locked the budget. I said, there'll be no budget

unless these housing bills get passed that wouldn't have passed otherwise. And it was a huge breakthrough on the regulatory side of housing in California, what we call CEQA. It's been the issue that has defined more of the problems in our state than any other. How do you solve that? Well, we're doing it with... NIMBYism has been the number one problem.

What is NIMBYism? There's people, no, in my backyard, I'm good. Love my views, love my backyard, love my community. Why are you building that affordable housing down the block? Why are you doing two stories? Should just be one story. Why are you doing four stories? Should just be two.

Oh, that's gonna be more traffic. No, no, no, more parking. Not in my backyard, NIMBYism. And we're shifting now to a YIMBY mindset. Yes, in my backyard, in order to address the supply and demand imbalance. The abuse litigation, lawfare, it's been our biggest damn problem.

People using CEQA, which is signed by Ronald Damn Reagan, which is our environmental rules, and just holding up projects for years and years and years and years. And that has significantly slowed down housing construction in our state. And that's why you see these prices that continue to go through the roof in California. By the way, on the other side, you see places like Austin where prices are collapsing because they have an over abundance of supply and that supply demand has a completely different set of problems because the regulatory market is so permissive there that they can tend to oversupply during times of growth.

And so we're trying to rightsize that and I've signed 42 secret reform bills, I've been playing in the margins, chipping away, pounding, pounding, pounding. And we finally, this was sort of the holy, this was away, pounding, pounding, pounding. And we finally, this was sort of the holy, or this was what we were after all these years. The politics never worked. This was a year, an abundance agenda, mindset, we've met, we delivered it, and I think it will be the most significant thing that's happened in housing in decades. Yeah, you know, I found that, it's another thing I found interesting is, you know, we are always complaining about how the palaceades, how the reconstruction has been held back quite a bit.

And of course, everything gets blamed on you, but that was a policy that was put in by Ronald Reagan, correct? That you're actually trying to undo. Yeah, CEQA. I literally did an executive order suspending CEQA and suspending the Coastal Act. What's the Coastal Act? Coastal Act is, I mean, this is where President Trump and I had some interesting conversations because he seems to know more or much more about the Coastal Commission than many members

of the damn Coastal Commission themselves because of some experience he's had as a developer working in California. But any developer or anybody doing housing or any kind of projects along the coast or even proximate to the coast have to go through another layer of bureaucracy with our Coastal Commission. So by the way, Elon and I, who've been going at it, this is the one area we agreed, he sued the Coastal Commission on some of SpaceX flights. And I said, I joined him in that loss.

I said, I'm all in, suing our own state coastal commission. He was right to do that. And I hope he's successful, because what the commission did was wrong. And they played politics with him on some permitting issues that impacted space launches out of California California disproportionately impacting SpaceX.

It's a way of saying this, we got a lot of clay layer, man, and we sort of stacked up, it's like coral reefs over years and years and years, and we've just got to sort of knock through those regulatory thickets, and Democrats need to own that space. I need to own it. And I've been pounding on it. Homelessness, housing, did the biggest mental health bond in American history, just got it passed. One year, got $3.3 billion out the door, unprecedented, changing all of our rules in order to cite

20 plus thousand new units of mental health housing in California to rebuild a broken mental health system. One billion for our veterans. We just got that passed. But with it were all the regulatory forms. So the mindset is not just about spending money. The mindset is now about performance. High-speed rail in California, man, goes back three administrations.

Everyone thinks Newsom's high-speed. Everything's news. I get that. But I carried the baton. We just did secret reforms on high-speed rail two weeks ago, finally moving in different direction. We're finally laying track. Texas completely failed in their high-speed rail system.

They started there as one year after ours. It was 4X over budget. They didn't lay one inch of track. They couldn't procure any of the sites under eminent domain. Biggest delay for us was taking these sites, 2,270 parcels that we had to bring in, litigation, CEQA, delay. That's been the challenge of our high speed realm. Now we're on the other side of it.

Of course, Trump wants to kill it. As we're just starting to lay track, we built 50 structures already. How many, how much is it? Where I'm going with this is I heard, I can't remember who I interviewed, somebody in the tech space, they were talking about how much the high speed rail in California had cost versus Elon's SpaceX program, which puts, can put a rocket into space every day. Yeah. Well, 13.4 billion is the answer.

13.4 billion. Well, 13.4 billion for what will be the nation's only high-speed rail. DeSantis is just wrong when he says he's got the bright line as high-speed rail. It's a medium speed rail. It's not, by even international definition, a high-speed rail. And we've done 50 large structures structures size of three Golden Gate bridges. We have procured those 2,270 parcels. We're going to do the first phase, which is 119 miles.

We're doing it in the fastest growing part of California, Central Valley, disproportionately Trump voters, rural part of our state, to connect that part of the state, eventually to the rest of the part of our state, to connect that part of the state, eventually to the rest of the part of state, Silicon Valley, the Central Valley, and then the Central Valley down to Los Angeles. Phase one, 119 miles, and that first phase of track, after all these other structures have been done,

finally will start being laid. So we're finally on the other side of decades of lawfare,fare litigation delay. And again, I contrast that by what Texas didn't do. If Texas is the great example of know-how, they didn't deliver on their high speed rail, they just abandoned it. Trump just cut some federal funds from them that got no attention. Just like the murder rates in these other red states that get no attention, seems

to be the only attention on housing, homelessness, crime, problems, any issues, critiques, California, California, derangement syndrome, I argue. Is there, I mean, with the homelessness problem, I mean, so it sounds like you're building affordable housing for them. I mean, is there, I feel bad for homeless people. I also think that they need to be incentivized to get back to work. That's where I think some of the immigration stuff

comes into play where people are like, well, we have all these junkies and homeless people and all this stuff that they don't wanna go back to work because welfare, free housing, stuff like that. How do you incentivize the homeless to get a job, become productive in society, and get back to work? So let me give you, I won't even virtue signal by broadly describing a response, but I'll tell you exactly what

I did as mayor of San Francisco, which saw a 33% decline in street homelessness when I was mayor, produced real results. We initiated a program called Care Not Cash. We were providing up to $400, $330, up to $400 of cash every single month for county welfare recipients. I converted the cash to housing and guaranteed services. We saw a significant decline in the caseload because people didn't want to access the services.

They wanted to access the cash. Every two weeks, the K-Day lenders, we saw a huge number of overdoses. On the 1st and 15th of every month, emergency rooms were overwhelmed. We were literally killing people by handing out that cash. This is mayor of San Francisco. I did a panhandling ordinance, anti-panhandling or aggressive panhandling, ran ATMs, median

strips. I did time, manner, and place restrictions called a sit-lie ordinance that I got passed by the voters when I was mayor. We were very aggressive in the spirit of what you just described. I've been very aggressive, including as governor, filing an amicus brief for the Supreme Court to overturn the grant's past decision that was used to limit our ability to clean up encampments. The Democratic governor for California supporting a conservative-led lawsuit to a conservative United States Supreme Court, and we were successful in that. So now there's no excuse for cities to address encampment.

But instead of just playing whack-a-mole and throwing people into another county, we do encampment resolution grants, which means you have to address the underlying issue in the first place, provide the support and services, and you move into clean the encampments hundred plus million dollars We put out in the last couple of months in that space 700 million in the last couple years in that space We're flooding the zone with a new Court called care court Which allows for people that have behavioral health issues that are self-medicating with drug or alcohol addictions, people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, paranoia, people that can't help themselves, that need to be conserved

but want to do so in a way that still protects their civil liberties. We created a whole new system called Care Court. Worked on this for three years. Over 2,000 people have already participated in that. The Mental Service Act reforms that we're doing, next level, man. And those go into effect next July. It will be over a billion dollars every single year to address not just homelessness in the context of addressing one part of it, which may be someone's drug addiction or housing

insecurity, but what we call whole person care and integrating substance abuse, meaning alcohol, drug, addiction, mental health, and housing together and flooding the zone with annual appropriations of a billion dollars a year. So counties have predictable money, plus the $6.38 billion in that housing bond that I talked about that has zoning reforms that allow them to actually cite the housing.

I'm doing everything I damn can, man. And I'm going in personally, you can, I mean, that has zoning reforms that allow them to actually site the housing. I'm doing everything I damn can, man. And I'm going in personally. You can, I mean, if anyone can look this up, just Google me, cleaning up damn encampments all over, not just in San Francisco when President Xi comes into town. For literally years and years and years in every city of San Francisco, of my state or many cities, cleaning up encampments when no one was coming into town in the spirit of what you say for our citizens.

I've been grinding on this, man. When I came in, there was no homeless strategy, no homeless plan. Not a dollar was invested by the state. When I was mayor, I never looked to Schwarzenegger to solve the homeless problem in San Francisco. No one criticized Schwarzenegger to solve the homeless problem in San Francisco. No one criticized Schwarzenegger. Sean Hannity wasn't criticizing him every single damn night. Apparently, the homeless problem became my, all of a sudden, Newsom's homeless problem. I agree.

It is my responsibility, and that's why we provided unprecedented support, homeless strategy, homeless plan, hitting on all cylinders. And it's accountability, responsibility. It's not just handouts. I want to see reforms. I want to see these mayors do their job. State visions realized locally. I'm not abdicating responsibility. I'm taking it.

And I agree with everyone that criticizes. Every time they come into this, my state, and they see these encampments, they're right to criticize that. God damn right. As they should be criticized in Jacksonville, Florida, as they should be outraged at what's happening in Austin, Texas. As they were, I was driving through Nashville last night and there were some parts of town, I'm like, this is not unique by any stretch. You had an 18.13% increase in homelessness last year. In California, it was just a few percent, three. 18.13 percent. Unsheltered, 0.45, nine percent in places like Florida. So, California is finally stabilizing.

And I got in, it was 50% growth in the prior four years when I became governor. It was like this, and now we're finally starting to stabilize. And it's not good enough. People are right to be critical, but don't think for a second that we're neglecting to try to address this issue. We're trying to solve it, and we're trying to do it head on. When it comes to the mental health crisis that's going on, not just in California, across the nation. We had had a off-camera discussion about psychedelics.

And a lot of the benefits. I mean, I'm, I'm one of them having drank for three years. It's like a light switch when I did Ibogaine in Mexico. And I mean, you know, Stanford did some studies on traumatic brain injury and how traumatic brain injuries are just, I mean, the black spots in people's brain are just disappearing from the use of Ibogaine and doing a medically supervised journey with Ibogaine. I mean, and we saw what about a month ago, Texas did a big push to their credit. Yeah.

Are you going to... We're all in. Look, it's how we land this. And what you said was very significant. Talk about medically supervised. And it's in that where the policy debate is occurring. And how we can... Look, I did the cannabis reform I mentioned earlier. And a lot of folks still have strong opinions, whether or not it was a good idea or a bad idea. We believe in a regulatory market. We still haven't killed the black market, and tax issues create a lot of raw feelings.

People feel like our taxes are still too high, even though they're lower in most states, and that black market persists, and there's still issues that we need to address. So there's a little more caution now if we look at the psychedelics and look at more of a permissive attitude or creating a regulatory framework where you could see more recreational as opposed to medically supervised uses. So if we can land the plan on the medically supervised men all in, the anecdotal evidence that I mean the actual science coming back is one thing, but I cannot tell you how many people have come to me.

Like, I mean, when I was talking to you earlier, I was just fascinated. All these proof points out there are just lives radically changing. I mean, it will cure an opiate condition in 12 hours, done, because it replenishes the receptors in your brain that caused the cravings. Yeah, as opposed to being on methadone the rest of your life, man. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and, you know, so I, look, I've been out on harm reduction for years and years and years, but, look, there's this, you know, you're always looking for the Holy Grail,

and, but I'll tell you, this seems to be for a lot of folks, particularly in the vet community. It's amazing, the emotional stories folks have come to me, come in my office, and I'm like, you don't even need to do it anymore, you've convinced me. It's just now landing the plane on exactly what the language looks like. The downside for me is I have a lot of entrepreneurial friends that are eager to get in this space. Oh, that you do. And that's where I'm like, that's a lot of my valley friends. And I'm like, okay. So I just, I'm cautious because I can see capitalism move this in a very different direction than where we want to move it.

So I'm hopeful we'll get something meaningful done in this space. Let's move into college. What'd you go to college for? Santa Clara. And you'd be shocked as a political science major, man. Barely got through though. Again, there was no Rhodes Scholar. You're not talking to one here.

Back to my 960 SAT. My mom, she disputed that. She said, I think I got 980. It's one of the two. But I think she may have been wrong. When someone discovers it, it will hardly be a gotcha moment. So I'd rather share it with folks. So just look, it wasn't like I can't compete like others.

I had to find my own path, man. And one thing with dyslexia is you tend to be, and it's interesting, some of my closest friends, people I admire the most from afar, people I've always admired and never even knew why I admired them, all have dyslexia in common. Just tend to be a little more creative. And I remember opening my first business

when I opened it out of college, and I named it Plump Jack, which like different, it was branded, it was designed differently. And I took a different look at how the other businesses like it were run. And I was willing to take risks. I had a failure award at my business where I awarded the person who fucked up the most. I mean, it became a huge thing. Like it was-

You were awarded the person who fucked up. Oh yeah. If you didn't- Yeah. And we'd have an annual failure award with the biggest screw up of every month that we'd parade them on the stage and say, January's fuck up with Bobby. And it happened, by the way, no bullshit, just very, very story. So I have a little hotel up in Lake Tahoe, the old Squaw Valley, now it's called Palisades,

but the Squaw Valley Inn, it was called, the time, still around. And I had this crazy night clerk, you know these night clerks, you know, people that come in 11 o'clock, allegedly stay up until four in the morning, till the new crew comes in. And it's an old inn built in the 1960s or 59 for the 1960s Olympics for the delegates of the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley. So it's an old motel. So just imagine an old motel, no air conditioning. So in the summer, got to keep the doors open, the windows open. We have all these ponds outside and mosquito problems all the time. And this guy at night was getting complaints about the mosquitoes. And he was, you know, the guy's like, I'll tell him in the morning. So one day he says, okay, I'm actually trying to fix this. So he goes down and

So he goes down and he gets a bunch of catfish. He buys them himself with his own money and dumps them in the ponds where all the mosquitoes were being hatched. And I get a call four in the fucking morning, I'll never forget it, from Ludo, this guy, like old Serbian guy, who was our engineer. Never goddamn heard from the guy. I'm in the Bay Area. I'm far away. He lights me up on the phone, I'm like, Jesus Christ. Ludo's like, hey, Gavin, this is a goddamn

disaster. I said, what's the problem? Because I said, the place burned down? What the hell happened, Ludo, man? He's like, no, no, there's goddamn fish tails everywhere. There's fins, there's eyeballs everywhere. I said, what the hell are you talking about? He goes, that fucking guy. And I can't even remember the kid's name now. I said, what the hell you talking about? He goes, that fucking guy. And I can't even remember the kid's name now. That son of a bitch bought catfish. I said, what the hell you talking about? We said, the goddamn raccoons.

They went in and they had a feeding frenzy and went down the hallways and they were throwing the fucking fish everywhere. And I'm like, and I start laughing. He's like, why the fuck are you laughing? I said, this is amazing. I said, I got to give and I started laughing. He's like, why the fuck are you laughing? I said, this is amazing. I said, I got to give that guy a raise. He said, you know, cause he wanted to, it was an initiative, man.

He wanted to solve a fucking problem. That's all I want, man. I want ownership. I hate victimization. So one thing about Trump I don't like blaming everybody else, take some goddamn responsibility, man. You're not a victim. You have agency. So one thing about Trump I don't like, blaming everybody else, take some goddamn responsibility, man.

You're not a victim. You have agency. You can shape the future. Decisions not conditions. So the fact this guy tried something, you guys, remember, I gave him 500 bucks and then I sent that around to all the other businesses. And then I'm like, this is a great, I'm going to create a failure award. And my sister, she took over the businesses after I got in politics, and she called it magical moments.

She didn't like the phrase failure. Magical moments. But I like, I mean, for me, you got dyslexia, man. It's moving from failure to failure with enthusiasm, right? I mean, that's Churchill's old line. Miss 100% of the shots you don't take. You know, Gretzky, I mean, this notion of iteration. And I think if there's anything that defines me in politics

is I'm willing to iterate. Willing to try things, see what works. Got an entrepreneurial mindset, not ideological, open argument, interested in evidence. Seriously. And you know, if you got a better idea, I'm all for it, man. Let's go.

And I think that business background, having dyslexia where you're used to failing, you gotta be resilient, you've got to create energy, because you recognize you can't do what other people do, so you've got to look at things from a different angle, do things a little differently. That's like super power, man. And the thing that great gift from me,

I mentioned earlier, wanted to say thank you to my mom, which I never got a chance to do, but I did by writing a children's book called Ben and Emma's Big Hit. And it was just a composite of me, Ben, number 17, which I was as a kid, lefty, in Joe Wagner Field, a little book that's about Ben's struggle with reading. And above the door, there's a number of the door in the teacher's room, which is the date of my mom's passing. And it's a composite of a teacher, which was my mom, sort of working her way through my dyslexia.

And it was a picture book I did because I was looking for picture books with my kids that can describe what dyslexia was and there wasn't one. And so I decided to do my own. And it was a way of thanking my mother and also acknowledging the grace which other parents are out there trying to educate their kids with the gift of dyslexia at the same time. And there's a letter at the back that literally is a letter to my mom. Wow. Which was sort of a... Which you can get emotional.

If I ever read it, I get emotional about it. So it's all those parents out there struggling, all those kids, they're so... They think they're stupid. They're not stupid, man. They just learn their brains are wired differently. And it's a goddamn gift if you can just work your way through it. But it's the reason I still have all these different anxieties in life, because you're still that kid.

But it's helped the businesses grow, man. There's nothing naturally gifted. I mean, restaurants, and a few hotels in the past. We have four wineries now, Plum Jackado, Det, the 13th Vineyard, which is the 13th bonded vineyard in Napa. I'm proud of that, man. I know people say, oh, he's a wine guy, elitist. Well, you know what? Fuck you.

I started with nothing. Got 13 investors, borrowed five grand from my dad. $7,500 each. Just grinding, man. I was the delivery person. I was a marketing person. I bought all the person. It's a marketing person Got the bottle the wines just struggling year and a half in I finally said we'll hire a full-time employee Got lucky a little restaurant. It was grinding work in the wine stop the restaurant was doing all the bookkeeping and accounting

I mean don't tell me about P&L's Don't tell me how stressed it is to see a tax increase or a small business regulation. Took me almost two years to open the wine store because of bullshit regulations, a mop sink that I had to put in a wine store where there was no, there was a carpet. I'm like, what am I going to mop? San Francisco, tough place to do it. So I get all that and I have passion for entrepreneurs, man. People that put everything on the line for risks, that take all the risks.

And that's why COVID, I get it. People are saying, fuck you, you shut up. I get it, man, including all my businesses. I get it. That's why I just, working through all that and understanding all that, it's a fair game for objective review, critique. But I have real passion in that space, man,

and will continue to always be that. You can't be pro-job and anti-business. But businesses also can't thrive in a world that's failing. So my whole mindset is growth and inclusion. And that's why I'm proud, man. I did the highest minimum wage in the country, and I know people say, well, you know, but you got damn states out there, 725. Come on. I mean, two thirds of red states, 725. I provided $25 in the healthcare,

highest in the country, $20 in fast food. I know people are best at that, but you have two thirds of fast food workers are not teenagers anymore. They're moms, man. It's full-time jobs. And I was proud to give them that wage increase. And yeah, a burger's a few cents more. I get it. But businesses can't thrive in a world that's failing. And right now, the haves and have nots, why I hate this big, beautiful bullshit. Bill, who's the biggest transfer of wealth in our lifetime? $3.5 trillion of debt stacked on my kids, your kids, our grandkids, all for fucking

tax cuts for vast majority of my billionaire friends that don't even give a shit. Last thing they needed was a tax cut. Corporations that have never done goddamn better. Markets never doing better. The hell is this? And you're cutting them millions of people off Medicaid. It's 3.4 million are going to lose it in my state.

Nothing about it. It's a betrayal. lose it in my state. Nothing about it. It's a betrayal. I was in South Carolina. There are five rural hospitals. They're on the brink. I mean, it's in Trump country, Pickens County, one of the most conservative counties in the country. I was at 25 more protesters than I did people in the room the other night.

I'm like, man, do you know what this guy just did to you? Come on, man. So I just, you know, for fiscal discipline, we balance budgets. These guys don't know how. I don't know what the hell happened to that. But I don't know, I'm gone off. But business, business mindset, bottom line. College, that was, I just wanted to get out. Started right out, I was a delivery boy for Pro Lab Orthotics, living with my mom. She moved out of her room, so I can have her 15 Rico way, the Marina district. And she's like, you got to do something more than deliver orthotics for a podiatrist. It's not why you got a four-year degree. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know what I'm going to

do. And then she said, well, why don't you get this real estate license and you can make show homes? I'm like, all right, Anthony's School for Real Estate. I was like, yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do. And then she said, well, why don't you get this real estate license and you can make show homes? I'm like, all right, Anthony's School for Real Estate. I was like, fine, I'll do that. Got that part time and then got a weird job downtown, nine to five, the Schornstein company. I lasted like nine months. And then my boss, Craig Edwards said, bro, you're just, you're not a nine to five guy. And he inspired me to open the wine store.

And he helped me negotiate it, my boss, to get me out of there. Not because he wanted to fire me, but he's like, don't become me. You sit in there smoking, drink five jugs of fucking Mr. Coffee every day, seven cigarettes, packs of cigarettes. He's like, you don't want to become me. Oh, you got to get the hell out of here.

You're an entrepreneur. I was like, man, I appreciate that. Kind of gave me confidence. So you started a wine store. Started a wine store. And then the restaurant opportunity came and it was goddamn 15 years, just a huge hit. Sold all the wine at retail.

Cause I had a retail wine store. I'm like, well, why would you mark it up? So it was the best wine list in the city. Cheapest prices, people were like, this is amazing. Got three and a half out of four stars. Sky Arnold Rossman was my chef. And everyone thought I was a goddamn boy wonder, genius. So much so that Willie Brown, the mayor, said, I'm going to appoint you to the parking traffic

commission because I was bitching about doing business in San Francisco. The mop sink and everything. You were pissed because it was a $27,000 mop sink and a carpet. I wanted the city to pay me back, motherfuckers. God damn it. Yeah. And so that's what got you into politics. I was pissed. Yeah. $7,000 mopsink in a carpeted- I wanted the city to pay me back, motherfuckin', goddammit, yeah. And so that's what got you into pop? I was pissed. Yeah.

I'm trying to create jobs and you're telling me I have to put a mopsink for a carpeted business? The hell am I mopping? Well, they said it's under the restaurant card. I said, change the code. And Willie was, I was in the news yelling and screaming about him and he called me up, said, I'm going to make you part of the problem. He said, I'm going to shut you up, Newsom. I said, what are you talking about?

Because you're the next president of the parking and traffic commission. What the hell is parking and traffic? He said chair. I remember he said chair. I'm like, what the hell's a chair? Like I could sit in them. And it's actually worse. He told me I was going to shut me up by making part of the Film Commission.

And I'm like, man, that's awesome. Film Commission, 26. Have a restaurant and a wine store. I'm the man and now I'm gonna be on the Film Commission. Life is good. Get down to be sworn in. That son of a bitch goes around the room. There's like 12 people being sworn in. And he goes, Newson, this old man's tacky. You know, Willie Brown's a legend. Old, I mean, the best of the best. Just back, old school politician. And he talks like this. And he's like, Newson out there bitching about doing business there. And now back to, I'm going to shut him up. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going on the film commission. He's the next chair of the Park City Trap. And I literally had a news reporter, Cron 4 News, goes, what's your vision on parking and traffic?

I'm like, I still lose like a VHS tape out there. You want a hit piece on me? It's not the French Laundry or sitting there with my ex-wife for the Bazaar magazine piece. It is this piece of me trying to explain my vision for parking and traffic at 26, 27. That was how I got into politics. Wow.

But business, you know, entrepreneurialism, that's it. That's the, that's when I'm done with this stuff. How did you develop the business? Just grind, man. Reading books, struggling to read, but reading books. Anita Ruddock, Buddy Shop, learning about Southwest and its history. Richard Branson inspired the hell out of me, man. That's why I was inspired by Elon. I was spending time with Sergey and Larry, Google's early days.

What a time to be mayor. I became county supervisor after parking traffic. It was right when all these guys that are now brand names, Travis, came along with an app. I ran the taxi task force to fill out taxis, and this motherfucker comes along with an app and disrupts the entire taxi industry with Uber. I mean, I remember doing Twitter Day with Evan Biz, and they were so excited that I did Twitter Day that I gave them a little proclamation. There was like 10 employees. I still have a little Twitter shirt.

Wow. And I was like, I'm like, how are you going to monetize this? This thing will be a... I always was like, you guys. So I was like, this Twitter stuff. And, you know, Jeremy is top of them, and all these guys, and starts doing reviews differently. And then, but it was Larry and Sergey. And I'm like, and, you know, I got to know them really well. And that's how I met Elon.

And what a time, man. Just like the golden age was like Florence, and, Florence, and you imagine the 1500s and the Renaissance. The Bay Area, San Francisco, and late 90s, early 2000s, all these guys were starting to form. And there was a sense of optimism and limitlessness with technology at the time. We didn't see the downsides, the peril. We only saw the promise.

And we didn't really know what we now know, particularly platforms like Facebook. And so it was a hell of a time, man. And just fed to my entrepreneurial, I think they were attracted to my entrepreneurial energy as a mayor, that was the pro-business, small mayor, small business mayor. And I was certainly attracted to their entrepreneurialism, energy, and you know, I'm proud, man. That's California. That's at our best. That's our country.

And that's why you got to nourish that, man. You cannot take that for granted. Almost appointed to the Film Commission. Yeah, it could have been somebody. The adult film industry was kind of born in California, correct? I think it was until I think we passed some condom law and basically killed it. And it pushed it to Florida. Yeah.

Was that you? No. Everything else is me, so I might as well. Jesus Christ. Did you push it? No, that was before my time. Was it? I think it was.

I recall it was yeah That's that would not have been an issue that I yeah. Yeah again. I'm blamed for everything else. Let me double-check Governor for that long man. It's only been six and a half years feels like a lifetime I'm everyone's favorite pinata now. Would you have done it? Done what? Would you have made that rule, the condom rule, the push that? Oh, I don't know. It's interesting. I get why I was, you know, I thought it was a little earlier with sort of HIV and AIDS and some of the concerns in that space. And we were sort of had some sort

of flare ups in that respect. From a public health perspective, I don't know. I don't know. It's an interesting, like, of all questions, man, in a million years, I didn't expect to hear you ask that question. I didn't expect to ask it. So I'm not trying to deflect. I want to hear, it'd be interesting to hear

the debate on that again. I think that, I mean, I told you I have little ones. You have kids. This shit is so accessible. It's a problem. It's everywhere. Problem. And it's ruining kids' minds. And you can find anything you wanna find out there

on the internet as far as sexuality. And people model that, they think that's what relationships are about. And for our young men, man, we got a crisis of masculinity, a crisis with young men. It's a big goddamn issue. Suicide rates, deaths of despair. I mean, in every category, our men are just getting crushed. And I'll tell you, as Democrat, we better own that space, man. I mean, if this was happening to any other group, we'd be

yelling and screaming about it. It's interesting. I'll tell you, to Trump's credit, he was able to use that in many ways politically to his advantage. And I worry, and I mean, that's why I had Charlie Kirk on my first podcast and guys in the space that are really, to me, fascinating, interesting, successful in terms of their capacity to communicate and organize and address these concerns and these grievances. As a Democrat in our party, we need to really dive deeper into that. But as you suggest, the issue around pornography is part of that, issues around relationships, the lack of relationships. In fact, most of these kids, many of them not

even having any sexual relations with other women. They're so socially awkward. And so it's a real issue. And again, it's a tough issue to talk about because it's not childcare, healthcare issues, et cetera, but it's about the mental health of a whole generation and we're losing these young boys. It's a, to me, my wife did a documentary called The Mask You Live In on this years and years ago, way ahead of its time. And I appreciate Richard Reeves,

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What would you like to see happen? Well, look, I think you can't be where you can't see. And I think for, you see it with teachers. I mean, vast majority of kindergarten teachers, elementary school, middle school teachers are women. I mean, these young boys don't even attach themselves to, there's those relationships, the mentorships, big brothers, this connection that support, they don't have it.

The gaps begin there. I think you really have to start there. In fact, I got a big executive order I'm about to put out in this space that talks about actually recruiting more men to the teaching profession, that highlight just the glaring gaps as it relates to mental health, substance abuse, high school dropouts, college attainment. It will be two to one in a few years. Women compared to men.

This is serious stuff. And how that crisis manifests politically to me is also just fascinating. You saw those young men shift to Trump multicultural. It's not about white boys as it's across the spectrum, moving, finding some identity with Trump that I think is interesting. I think Democrats are quick to dismiss that at our peril. And so I've been trying to mine this on our podcast, trying to understand it, but also realize I got a day job, what a gift,

that I can actually do something about it. And so we're gonna, a couple of weeks, announce a series of reforms in this space and really challenge people, particularly Democratic leaders in California to start focusing on the needs of our young men. Do you know what the number one searched thing in porn is? Oh God, don't tell me man.

Incest. Brother does sister, brother does stepmom, brother does mom, and then I mean it's ripping families apart. Sick. And making, and it's making shit that should not be normal, normal. And now you're saying all these problems, I mean, you know, there's a large population of rape that's, it's from a sibling or a father. And I think that derives directly from the shit that's accessible on the internet to kids.

Ubiquitous. I mean, you can Google White House. I mean, I remember my son, no bullshit, literally, he came to me. It was our house phone. He goes, Dad, look at this. And he was literally Googling something related to the White House and got this porn site because he had spelled it wrong. And he was kind of ashamed.

I'm like, brother, it's totally cool. He said, you have no idea what you're about to experience. And that was just a couple years ago. And I'm like, and I remember my wife, she just, she went, she, she, I wish she was sitting in this seat because she, you guys would have a conversation for hours on this damn topic. It's a big deal. It's a big damn deal.

And so I, and look, I, it's why I'm just social media generally, you know, don't mess with our kids You know, I passed some pretty aggressive child privacy laws nation-leading stuff the and these are my friends are suing us Like I'm done. I call them. I call the CEOs. I'm like the founders. What the hell you guys doing? Well, we're making pricing You're not making progress man, you know, you're with your own goddamn kids bullshit Well, you're allowing them to do and see the abuse? So every time you even pass these laws, they litigate. They often get thrown out. But this is serious stuff.

And it goes to our politics too, man. We're just these algorithms. Every time I flip through something, now I'm just seeing more of it. And you're nothing but a mirror of your consistent thoughts. Whatever you focus on, you find more of. So people that hate California, hate San Francisco, seems like the only feed they got is reinforcing that.

So they can't believe they're not right. When I say their murder rates are higher, they're like, bullshit, I'm telling you, look at my feed, look at my feed. That's how we're so goddamn divided. I mean, speaking of sexuality and divisiveness, I mean, I think one of the things, and I don't think, I know one of the things in the last administration that really divided people was gender affirming care, LGBTQ. I also know that, you know, I think that I read, it's in my outline that, you know, one

of your proudest achievements is same-sex marriage. Yeah. Well, probably because it's about love, it's about humanity, about people, people that have been together 50 plus years, faith, love, devotion, constancy, the manifestation of what marriage is supposed to be about. And so, yeah, I married 4,036 couples in what we call the winter of love in 2004. I mean, and I was completely just crushed by my own party, outraged by what I'd done. So I assure you, this was not politically correct or just something, oh, you're from San Francisco. It was not supported back then. And I thought it was the right thing to do. And I'm proud of that because I saw the human face of mothers. I just... How many people...

If you look back at those images in San Francisco in 2004, there wasn't one image anyone could exploit. It was literally doctors and lawyers and fighter pilots and fucking vets and real goddamn people. And they came from 46 states and six countries for one month just to be seen with their kids, with their parents. The emotion, the intensity was beautiful, man. But you just made a point that's important and it's a point that I want to acknowledge that's really, I think, significant. And that is, when you get to the issues around sports, trans issues, that's now no longer about celebrating your rights, it's about denying other people theirs.

Marriage equality was about everyone's right. Your marriage was not diminished because a couple that had been together 30 years got married and happened to be the same sex. But your child may not have that same opportunity to get on the podium if a trans athlete is competing for that limited spot. And two years ago, that came to me in a very different way. I looked at it, and I'll be candid with you. I looked at that issue and I said, boy, they're just exploiting this. It's a handful of people.

What the hell is this? It's being weaponized. It was sort of the new CRT thing. I was like, oh, God, here we go. We went off CRT, everyone even forgot about that. And now it's all about transports or banning books or whatever it might be. It was just another cultural issue. I remember Donald Trump was saying, I have no problem with same sex restrooms for Caitlyn

Jenner or whatever. He had no issue with this years, a few years ago when he was even running for president. And I didn't really think about it in that respect either. I didn't have an issue. I remember the governor, Republican governor of Utah said it beautifully. He said, never so much tension been focused on so few people. That was Republican governor of Utah said that. And so that was my prism to see the world until two years ago,

there was a state track championship. And we had trans athlete that was successful. And there was a video of the girl that lost and she was devastated. And that video went around everywhere. And it was very emotional, it was very real. And you felt for the girl that she's not going to get to those state finals. And the finals were a few weeks away. There was a lot of energy around it. Like people are like pissed, understandably. And I remember calling my team and I said,

you know, is there a conference, what can we do here? Like this is legit. And we actually, there was Olympic, someone that advises the International Olympic Committee who happens to I think live in California. And they came in to say, well, what's the right stage for a woman man has pre puberty, et cetera. And they came in to say, well, what's the right stage for a woman, man, is it pre-puberty, et cetera?

They said, it's incredibly nuanced, incredibly difficult. And I remember being just amazingly frustrated by it. And the worst thing is the two girls, instead of us figuring it out, they both dropped out. The trans athlete and the girl that lost. They both didn't even play the files. I'm like, man, that wasn't fair. I said that to my team. I remember at the time saying it to my team.

Then I started showing up on my kids' soccer games, everyone else. Every parent coming up said it's so unfair. Like, whoa. Like, everywhere I went, progressively minded people, not bigots that are champions of trans policy, like I am, but didn't like the sports. It's like, come on, man.

You've got to do something. And I just sat there sort of quietly trying to figure this out. And my feelings were well known by my staff. And I did this podcast with Charlie Kirk. And Charlie was the first one. It was my first podcast on my new show. And Charlie showed up and unsurprisingly, he brought it up. And he said, tell me that's not fair.

I said, it's not fair. You're right. And I said, it's also not fair that these people feel scapegoated and all they want to do is just goddamn survive. I didn't say goddamn, but I said something along those lines. Well, it blew up. People were pissed. My party was pissed.

LGBTQ caucus, I'll never forget that meeting with my friends, furious with me because I don't think it's fair. It's not. The challenge in California, and it's all over the news the last 48 hours and I got it with protests in South Carolina, is there's a law that was signed by the last governor, 2013 or 14, that is the law in the state of California. There were two efforts a few months ago to change it after I said it wasn't fair.

They didn't get out of committee. We have a constitution. The governor doesn't decide to change the law by fiat. It has to be done with the consent of the legislature. They didn't move forward. So now, of course, Trump is having time of his life. And I assure you he is because we've had conversations on this topic. So I know exactly, he says, you got abortion, I got this. He told me that. My mother's grave. Politics. Politics. And now he's suing and threatening us and I'm the poster child.

And now he's suing and threatening us. And they're just, and it's, you know, I'm the poster child. But I do think we have to address that issue. And I do think the legislature should address that issue. But with grace, with humanity, with respect to someone different than yourself. And, you know, I get the kids, I get all that. I mean, it's, it's deeply emotional and complicated. But I wish people wouldn't weaponize it the

way they do and demean people the way some people do. But because you oppose sports does not make you a bigot, doesn't make you homophobic. And my party needs to stop saying that. There are certain people that cannot stand the community and that's different. But the vast majority of the folks I come into contact that think it's unfair are good human beings and I think we should treat them accordingly and we got to own up to that. So I went on a journey on this and I'm firm that it's not fair. And we had another example just a few weeks ago in California, just reinforced it, you know, triple jump and it just, you

know, just not. And I'm trying to figure out, we came up with some compromise. It's not me. Something called the CIF in California, which is independent of the governor. But they came up with what they thought was a compromise, which was allowing two medals, but that kind of pissed everything. It worked-ish, but it's not the answer to this. So, we got to address it because I really worry about LGBTQ rights getting rolled back. Even support for marriage equality is declining now. I think this issue is really, they've been very effective weaponizing it, very effectively

expressing their anger about it, not even weaponizing, but legitimate anger, people that disagree, and it's hurting the broader movement. And as a guy who's been a champion for the movement, I hope we wake up to that. I think it's a much bigger issue than I fully appreciated a few years ago. It is a handful of people, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not fair. I mean, do you think that in your opinion that the whole LGBTQ agenda went a little too far? On this. I mean, in my opinion, it went way too far. And, you know, I'm a person, I don't give a shit. You want to get married? Fine. Cool. Well, I'm curious, and just out of curiosity, 20 years ago, did you feel that way about same sex

marriage? I mean, 20 years ago, I was 22 and in the SEAL team, so I didn't really care. You know, wasn't really on my radar, but yeah, there was definitely a time that I was against it. But it's, you know, I've always been kind of a person that's, you know, you do you, all do me. I don't need to see it. You don't need to like push it on me, I guess. I don't even care if I see it. Yeah. No, it doesn't, it doesn't fucking bother me.

I get it. None of it really bothers me. It's when it's, it's, it's like, I'm forced to, it just gets pushed in my face all the time. All the companies turn into rainbow flags. You know, we saw the, the, the party at the White House, you know, two years ago maybe. Maybe it was last year.

I can't remember. And you know, we have people showing their boobs on, trans people showing their boobs on the White House lawn and you know, I'm like, well, this is- Missed that one, but I could appreciate if that was the case. And then, you know, and the major thing that I hear the most is the kids, you know, and I don't know if California is one. I know Washington's one where, you know, the state can come in and basically take your kid if you're against gender-affirming care. Yeah, there's some nuanced language around that. There are about 21 states, by the way, just on the,

California is hardly, again, not the only, everyone back to California, but about 20 other states, 21 states that tend to operate in this space similarly with sort of variance of along the same rules. And obviously California is one of them. But no, look, I didn't mean to cut you off except to say there's no doubt this issue, I thought it played a very significant and outsized role in the last election. I thought that, and by the way, I told Chris that and Susie when I was at the White House, Susie, while I was the chief staff and Chris who ran the campaign and a lot of the media when I was over at the White House earlier this year, we had a conversation around the

trans issue, which was fascinating. I wish that one was recorded. And then I met with the president right after, who was in the middle of a press conference as we were talking on the topic and began a 90-minute meeting I had with him in the Oval talking about this very issue, where he said what I just said about you got abortion and I was like, come on come on man it's not politics this is there's human beings here but I I get it I get the politics but it's also about human beings but that ad that trans ad you know he's she's commonplace for they, them, Trump's for you or something. That was powerful. And it was an

unforced error of the Harris campaign not to push back on it, but they had a little move, they had a few moves to push back because it was what it was. The gender affirming care was afforded under a lawsuit when she was AG and part of the settlement compelled that the state had to move forward to allow for it. And it was a circumstance with an undocked person that was incarcerated that got the gender affirming care. Everything about it just met a political moment. And the fact that she defended it on a video only reinforced the vulnerability. And so they kept running the ad over and over and over again.

It was incredibly impactful. And as just, again, removing the humanity, right versus wrong, the morality on either side, politically, it is a major problem for the democratic party. What about for your values? I mean, is, is eight years old too young? Yeah. I mean, look, I, I, now that I have a nine year old, just became nine. Come on, man.

I get it. So those are legit. You know, it's, it's interesting, just the issue of age, as someone that's been so focused on equality, broadly, LGBT rights, particularly gay marriage, the trans issue for me is also novel. It's over the last few years. I'm trying to understand as much as anyone else, whole pronoun thing, trying to understand all of that. That was like the hell... All that stuff. I get it. All this stuff started to collapse on us. I joked with Charlie about Latinx. I remember walking into my staff, I started using the

word Latinx a few times. And then my chief of staff, who happens to be Hispanic, goes, would you shut up? I'm like, what? She goes, who uses that word? I said, I don't know. She said, my whole staff said, do not ever use that word again. I'm like, what's going on? I was like, okay.

And they literally, I said, I'll never forget, I was like, whoa. We were on this sort of Zoom conversation. And she, I mean, literally, my Hispanic team staffs like, shut up. And so I'm like, we were all kind of like, I never, I mean, those meetings were my pronouns and everyone goes across. All this was sort of, I think, post George Floyd, post COVID, we kind of came out. And there was obviously this rights movement post George Floyd, which you got to understand, I mean, on the basis of what occurred

and all the social unrest. And there was a natural inclination then to try to course correct. But it was across the spectrum of issues, including increasingly on the issues of how we talk, communicate, how politically correct and sensitive people started becoming, use of language, pronouns, and then issues around the trans community and this notion

of gender-affirming care for children. That's tough, man. And in the science on that, I haven't dove that deep into it, but I read one report and then there's one that's slightly contradictory, and then they said, there's no contradictory. Here's what the UK just came out with. You're full of shit. It's absolutely Scientifically sound that it's outrageous, you know, and so it's it's intense and then I meet with families

Literally me with families save save my child's life and they're thriving I mean, it's just I mean you can't serve the country until you're 18 You can't buy a gun you can't buy a kid alcohol until you're 18, you can't buy a gun, you can't buy alcohol until you're 21. And I mean, to make that big of a decision as a kid, I mean, you could also be destroying a lot of lives as well. I mean, their brain isn't even fully developed. You got, well, until 26 plus, yeah, so that's even further with the brain. Look, I come to this I come to this very much more open-minded than I've ever been, more receptive, because a lot of the pushback came from folks candidly that I didn't respect, that never respected the gay community period. There are people who are opposed to just basic rights that have been going after.

So I think the natural inclination was sort of dismissed. And now I recognize more fully and deeply, and I think the sports issue really opened that door for me, the nuances in the space. That said, I'll take a back seat to no one in terms of anti-discrimination laws against the community. I just don't... That's where I take a back seat to no one. And I've signed some of the most progressive legislation on that, and I'm proud of that. That's who I am.

Stand up for ideals and strike out against injustice. And I think it's injustice to attack vulnerable communities and discriminate against people. That said, on the issue of children, this is a tough, tough issue. Do you think it's unjust to push those values on people that don't want that? Like where I'm going with this in schools? Yeah, I don't know who's pushing. I mean, I hear this all the time. While people were promoting, I mean,

Donald Trump says kids come to school one day as a boy and they come that afternoon as a girl. I mean, what the hell is he talking about? Well, I mean, I'll tell you what he's, I don't know what he's talking about because I'm not familiar with that conversation or when he said that. But I mean, just here in Tennessee, for example,

and I think it's Cookville. They had these kids that showed up and they're called Furbies or something. And they're showing up in school in a kennel, which, you know, 10 years rolled back, you put your kid in a kennel, you're going to fucking prison, but you know what I mean? And then they're shitting in a kitty litter box and it's, it's like, this is a little, that's not a little too far, this is too far.

This is disrupting the rest of the class. Yeah, I mean, that stuff like that's absurd. Come on. And by the way, that's been so over-hyped and exploited. There's a few instances of that, and I've seen that. I'm like, geez, you think that stuff's happening every day, everywhere? Those are extreme examples. And yeah, that's absurd. It's gonna agree more man. Come on

I can't I mean with cat litter I've turns out most that turns out most of its bullshit But if that occurred that's that's ridiculous like that's crazy with respect maybe on Halloween That's what I think I just wanted wanted to see where you're at. Oh no, that's come on. I mean, yeah. I've seen some of that stuff online. We track some of that stuff down, even my own state. And it turns out a lot of that was just bullshit. And then it gets weaponized, exploited, surround sound on social media. And my friends Jesse Waters and everyone at night running up and down saying Democrats want to turn out the kids of the furries. And now we've got to do accommodations and anti-discrimination for kids that need

cat litter and their coals. I mean, come on. They're red lines. That's one of them. All right. God bless. Thank you. Thank you. I needed to hear that. I needed to hear that. I get caught in the surround sound. No, and on the sports, we're going to have to figure that out, man. I just wish there was a space to do it that's not this space.

And in this space, it's like the state of California had to do a counter suit against Trump on this because it's state law on the issue of transports, because they're looking to defund the state with congressionally appropriated dollars over this, which is just, it's political theater, it's the weaponization of the issue. But it's an issue I'd love to resolve, but I need my legislature to resolve it, and it can't just be done by an executive order of fiat That's why we have a state constitution longer than the US Constitution and That's the conditions were in in this country right now and Donald Trump's a master at exploiting that

What do you think Trump's doing wrong right now? Well for 5,000 damn military in the streets of an American city sowing chaos, fear, and anxiety intentionally, purposely, ripping communities apart, taking kids, not even going to summer school now because they're scared to death. They just had the diocese down in San Bernardino say you don't have to come to church. Not even faith leaders now. Members of their own congregations are scared to death to show up at church.

I mean, this is a chill. The tariffs, I mean, this guy, there's a recklessness. The tariff 50% on copper, that's going to cost every single person listening. That just happened. Pissed off because he has a guy who's a buddy of his, Bolsonaro in Brazil. I'll do 50% on that. We have a trade surplus with Brazil. Give me a goddamn break. Theory of his case about on-shoring.

I mean, it's a madness as an economic policy. Again, tariffs is a tool, but now they're just a political weapon. So across the board, I think he's been, you know, 90 deals in 90 days. There were two vague deals in 90 days. Keeps moving the goalposts. I'm not impressed at all. We had contraction in the economy in the first quarter. His last quarter, last year, was 2.4% growth.

Hell, the Biden administration created 16.6 million jobs. That's eight times more than the last three Republican administrations combined, 1.9 million. You talk about jobs, by the way. You go back to the end of the Cold War, I said, at Ronald Reagan's old office when he was governor. The end of the Cold War in 1989 until last year, there's been 52 million jobs created in America. Forty-nine, almost 50 million of them were created under Democratic administrations.

96 plus percent under democratic administration. The idea that we're losing on the jobs issue is beyond me. And now we're seeing GDP contract. We're not seeing prices significantly decline. We've got significant reduction in trade and port activity impacting my state disproportionately. We've got an immigration policy that's going to impact workforce and our global competitiveness with allies and trade policy. I'm not impressed at all in this big, beautiful bill.

I'm with Elon Musk on it. I think he described it better than anybody. I think the job numbers are a little bit botched. I mean, because also during Biden's administration, you know, that everybody went back to work after being laid off and fired for COVID. And so we had, yes, businesses reopened that created a lot of jobs. And so that inflated the numbers more than normal. Yeah. But we blew past the pre-bacdemic numbers in 18 months.

And all the jobs subsequent were net new jobs. I mean, our GDP was the envy of the world. We had the lowest uninsured rate in US history, the lowest black unemployment in US history, lowest unemployment for women in US history. I mean, an industrial policy with the Chips and Science Act, that was about bringing jobs back to the United States, disproportionately benefiting red counties and red districts. I was in South Carolina, the governor there last year in the state of the state was waxing

on about the $2 billion investment in South Carolina in an EV company because of the IRA and the other investments the administration was making. I know people, you know, the inflation scars were real, going from 9.1%, but we were moving in the right direction, basically stuck right now. And you saw the Fed's delaying, reducing the Fed rate because of the potential inflationary impacts in the back end of these tariffs, which haven't been fully absorbed or felt. So I've just not been impressed. And I was very depressed about this big, beautiful bill, which is apparently the big victory.

And maybe the other victory was a sense of strength that was expressed in the bombing in Iran. I thought day one we were going to solve Ukraine. That ain't happening. The flip flops on the Patriot missiles and the defense package to Ukraine is just a masterclass in inconsistency and or incompetency, depending on perspective. Was that Pete who said no and now Trump's saying yes day to day. It's just, I'm not inspired.

Well, Trump told me on my show when I interviewed him that he would have that war wrapped up before he ever even took office. That obviously did not happen. In politics, you're supposed to under promise and over deliver. But see, you look at the promises made, it's just an over... Look, I'm the wrong guy to ask when I've got a city it feels under siege in a state that he's just trying to wreck. So how did that happen?

We saw riots. I'm sure they're probably over embellished, you know, in LA, you know, when when understatement with the ice stuff that happened. There are videos and lots of. Yeah, there were a bunch of assholes that ordered way most. And they're jumping up and down and there've been hundreds and hundreds of arrests and we're continuing to get the videos to get subsequent arrests. There were thousands of officers surrounding those guys moving in.

It didn't need the National Guard to be called in. The guy trumpets the National Guard coin and said, we've solved for them. They hadn't even been deployed. Come on. Trumpets the National Guard coin and said we've solved for they hadn't even been deployed Come on LAPD mutual aid 88 cities in the county mutual aid system second to none one of the most we have 616 LEA's local law enforcement agencies in California. There's few places more robust. I've had a thousand CHP I'm a big champ. I was never one of those defund policemen guys quite the contrary I was the first mayor in San Francisco history to meet minimum staffing of our police officers,

putting a pride in intensity. I have their back. We support these guys. They do an amazing job. CHP does an amazing job supplementing and supporting those efforts. They need a national guard. Those were our guys that were out there, you know, out there at every single intersection during the fires. These guys were exhausted and now they're being told to mask up. I mean they were pulled, there was no masks. I told you they're getting selfies out there where they're beloved in Santa Monica. Now, man, all that reputational damage that's being done as they're sitting there on horses with American flags running through soccer fields scaring kids that are playing soccer in the middle of the day at a summer camp. For what?

Just toughness. It's a weakness masquerading as strength. That's what I don't like about this son of a bitch. I don't. And forgive me, I know he's the president of the United States. Forgive me. I didn't, you know, he calls me new scum. You know, come on.

I mean, how do I explain that to my kid? Now he's got, I have my kid's friends calling my kids new scum, you know, come on. How do I explain that to my kid? Now he's got, I have my kid's friends call him my kid's new scum. That I get, because I was called that in seventh grade, but not by a 79 year old. Model better goddamn behavior, man. Forgive the goddamn. It's what I don't, you ask what I don't like about him.

Is that resolved? It will be resolved don't, you ask what I don't like about him. Is that resolved? It will be resolved when he, look, when it doesn't get any attention, then it will resolve itself. But what they're doing is testing the boundaries. They knew we litigate, they wanted lower court, the appellate court, we lost, we now are updating the litigation. We filed 27 We now are updating the litigation. Uh, we filed 27 plus lawsuits against this guy. I didn't want to do one.

Honestly. I remember I did this special session, met him in the Oval Office and I left the Oval Office right at the end of the meeting with Trump. I said, and we had a great conversation. No bullshit. Great conversation. Just like a great conversation. The night before he put in the National Guard, didn't give me any heads up.

No heads up no kidding not one fucking word on the topic He wanted we talked about he we talked about everything But what was going on in LA? He completely lied about that conversation Totally surprised me with the National Guard We were in contact with his Chief of Staff, Suzy Wiles, back and forth. Let's work this out.

What do you need? We've got supplemental support. We had hundreds of guys down there. We'll have hundreds more. Obviously, we want to protect your guys. Give me a break, of course. Protect your folks. We don't interfere in federal law enforcement, federal resources, doing federal work.

Never have. That's not the state's role. Period. Full stop. Period. We're clear about that. Their responsibility to do federal work, we're not going to get in the way. You do that.

I just don't want you to co-op our guys that are doing all kinds of other work. That's not their job. That's your job. And he decided to do this because they're testing it. They're using this as a petri dish. They're testing executive boundaries to see how far they can go across the United States. Now they're so resourced that Donald Trump

will have one of the largest private armies in the world. Well, that's what came to my mind. And, you know, I'm a little torn on it. I mean, you know, all I see, I didn't go there. I didn't see it for myself. But, I mean, on social, the shit coming out on X, I mean, it looked fucking horrible, like really dangerous. And so, but at the same time, I mean, when you do that,

I mean, there's, I mean, we're skirting the line of martial law here. You know, I'll get, I'll get, probably get blasted for this with my audience, but I mean, we're, we're treading a thin line here between martial law and, and state's rights. And, and it's something that I'm concerned about because like you said, they're testing boundaries. How far is this going to go go where else are they gonna go and you know I personally think it's a real concern. What if you could delay your next two mortgage payments? That's right imagine putting those two payments in your pocket and finally getting a little breathing room. It's possible if you call American financing today if you're

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Call now at 866-781-8900. That's 866-781-8900, or you can go to americanfinancing.net slash SRS. NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. That, that, let me just tell you how absurd it got. We had to protect the National Guard. Really? They're surrounding the federal building, which became the attractive place to protest. You're talking about a couple blocks, by the way.

I saw the map. Okay, in one of the largest counties, in one of the largest states in the world Okay, talk about couple blocks if thousands of thousands of police surrounding the place So it could see the images you just see three blocks like oh my god all of LA. I was up there in helicopters I was driving around I'm in the Reagan building my office literally a couple blocks away. You don't even hear anything You don't even know what's going on and The National Guard are there, but they can't engage. So our guys are arresting the protesters that are protesting

the guard. We're protecting the guard. That's how absurd things got. Holy shit. God is my witness, literally. Our CHP guys, these guys are, a lot of these guys are Trumpers, man. They love this guy, all the law enforcement. And like what is going on like why what is happening? all these National Guard men and women these great kids like I Actually used to work for that law enforcement agency. No, they got me doing this. Why the hell I want to go back to work paramedics firefighters

Trump took hundreds of people off the lines, our rattlesnake teams, doing vegetation and forest management to prepare for wildfire season. In his forest, we were raking his forests. Took hundreds of them off. National Guard. I used the National Guard. I deploy them, not just on the border and doing counter-narcotics, anti-fentanyl interdiction, but we use them to deal with forests and vegetation

management with our conservation corps and others. Love these guys. Love these guys. Told you, 2,500 of them I deployed during the fires. They were there before the fires occurred in LA. I pre-deployed 110 engines, pre-deployed. The National Guard was part of the pre-deployment. All our air assets brought them from Northern California to Southern California. They were part of that team integrated in. Proud of these guys, man.

And to see these guys abused, hundreds of millions of dollars wasted at tax-parade. They're sitting there in armories and then a few of them get to be paraded around and they're like, what the hell are we being paraded? What are we doing? To run into a park when there wasn't one damn arrest in MacArthur Park on the sixth month anniversary of the fires. Intentionally doing it the day of our press conference, just to rub it in. No acknowledgement of the 40, 30 people that lost their lives in LA or his successful recovery efforts.

He's been our partner. I complimented Donald Trump at our press conference as he was sending out our National Guard behind my back at the same damn time in this vulgar display of cruelty in MacArthur Park. And I was saying, thank you to the US Army Corps. Thank you to Lee Zeldin in this historic debris removal effort in six months,

unprecedented in US history, the fastest debris removal ever. And this guy, president of the United States, decides not even acknowledge that work that we partnered with him in, but sends these guys out to completely terrify the community. So when does it end? It's when he decides it needs to stand or we're successful in court. And I'm gonna keep coming back hard. And, you know, I'm on the other side of this now. I, as I said, I had a great conversation with them. We always do. I was out there in the tarmac with

them down there and worked well with them during COVID. Back to if you're going to criticize governors, you need to also criticize the president on COVID. And I want to work with them, man. When it comes to emergency preparedness and safety, Hurricane Helene is why I was in South Carolina. I was talking about the recovery efforts. They're still not fully recovered. We have to be there for each other. I want to be there with the folks out there in Texas, man.

No politics, not condition aid. Grey garbage, get every goddamn dollar you need. I mean, you're a 13-year-old girl clutching the hands of an 11-year-old found dead down river, man. Oh, what age are my kids? It's not politics. I don't care who's to blame right now, man. Find anyone that's alive to have that conversation.

And if they need aid, provide it. I sent search and rescue teams that Friday morning, sent out, said, whatever you need. I was proud to support Speaker Johnson in the recovery in the hurricanes in Louisiana. But they want to condition aid in California because they disagree with a water faucet or somewhere that he's made up in water policy or saying I'm not raking his forest. 57% of the forests in California are federal. 3% are California. I spent $2 billion raking all our forests.

He's spending nothing. Interesting. I didn't know that. It's just a lot of crap. Billions and billions of dollars. We've 10xed our investments in that space, 10xed it. From the day I got in the first executive order I signed as governor of California was around vegetation and forest management.

Waved CEQA again. Did an emergency order to fast track these efforts. Unprecedented investments in this space. And he just demagogues them. We have a big federal fire on his land. In Cal Fire, our folks are the ones that are the vast majority of the incident command. He just cut goddamn workforce at the US Forest Service. Damn.

Look, I just want a little bit of consistency, a little less hypocrisy, a little less politics. Otherwise, he's fine, to your question. I mean, with those wildfires, I did an interview on that with Tim Sheehy, senator out of Montana. And one of the things that stuck with me the most was him telling me about houses that were burning down, that were next to ponds, next to lakes, and that the helos that were carrying water that fill up in lakes, could not dump, could not fill up their tanks or their buckets or whatever the hell they call them in those lakes because of an endangered fish. In Montana? No, this is in California.

Oh, he's full of shit. He's full of shit. Full of shit. Doesn's full of shit. Full of shit. Doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. What crap. Just made up. That's so stupid.

I can't even believe he said that. I'm embarrassed someone told him that. And I'm sorry someone told him that and he had to repeat it. Well, Trump said it on Joe Rogan's podcast. Trump, it was laughable. He said he sent water down to LA, completely made it up. He was trying to show me maps and convince me at the resolute desk in the Oval Office. I started laughing. I said, I can't convince you. I said, you literally show, you're making this up and I

don't know what else to tell you. And then I finally said, okay, you win. You've solved for the problem. You've made California abundant with water again. I said, can we just stop this nonsense? California, abundant with water again. I said, can we just stop this nonsense? It's like when he said he had another conversation with me, he never had. Just made up. So they were able to access those lakes and ponds and... I mean, I got dozens and dozens of these things and they're pulling water and running these figure eights, these goddamn rock stars 24-7, using

the assets that I invested in as governor, allowing us the night drops 24-7. Yes. So, do you think that they are not— What bullshit. Do you think they're not— By the way, Senator, I'm sorry, Senator. Boy, that's embarrassing. And I'm sorry someone told you that.

And I guess it was the president. I would encourage you to stress test what he says. Do you, I mean, when you're saying that you're the one that's cleaning out the federal forest and that's the federal government's job to do that. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars we've invested doing the work of the federal government. 57% of the state's property is in federal hands. 3% are in state hands.

These fires, Camp Fire, the most deadly in California, started in federal lands. And this guy comes in and talks about raking, and he's serious about raking, he actually believes in raking. It's insane. It's like actually, honestly, just think about that, raking the forest. If he's talking about forest and vegetation management, he's talking about defensible spaces, we have significantly, I told you, 10x'd the investments in this space. I can't make up for 100 years of Smokey the Bear in suppression strategies that predate my existence, but I can take responsibility for historic investments in my state and moving heaven and earth and changing rules and regulations that were slowing that process down, including

another executive order I did a few months ago on this topic. I mean, when he's talking about raking the forest, I mean, he's talking about getting the dead debris. No, he's talking about raking. Sean, I'm just telling you, man, after he said raking the forest, I was down in the Woolsey Fire, I flew with him in the Air Force One,

I was with him in the car, I was with him on Marine One, spent the day with him. Northern California, went to Southern California, he talked about, you know, Newsom needs to rake the forest. And everyone kind of laughed. He wasn't laughing. And he called me, I'm not kidding, a couple days later, I'll never forget, I was at my house up in Fair Oaks. And the president's all, I'm like, hey, he goes, hey, do you follow up on raking the forest? He says, oh, yes, sir, Mr. President. We were doing the vegetation forest management. He goes, no, raking the forest.

You gotta call the president of Finland or something. Can't even remember which one. I said, well, I know, I said, no, we're definitely doing all the vegetation management. He says, no, raking. When he says it, he's not kidding. I'm just telling you. Why aren't they sending, why are they not sending federal aid? Well, at least send some rakes. He didn't even send a damn rake.

I may make some hats, make America rake again. Sell some goddamn merchandise on my podcast, not just yours. Thank you for the gummies. You're welcome. There's red dye in those, by the way. Jesus, see? RFK Junior and Newsome are ashamed. It's going to be illegal soon. Both of us.

At least we agree on that, Bobby. So look, when it comes to emergency preparedness and management, man, just we got to get along. I mean, we're in the billion dollar disasters, I mean, this bankrupt this country. Now, he wants to eliminate FEMA. He's certainly vandalized NOAA and the Weather Check. I don't know if it had any impact in Texas. I don't even want to go there at the moment. I think people eventually have to look at that.

But man in the West, hots are getting hotter, dries are getting drier, just objective facts. There's no Democratic or Republican thermometer, man. But man in the West, hots are getting hotter, dries are getting drier, just objective facts. There's no Democratic or Republican thermometer, man. And if you don't believe in science, you gotta believe your own eyes. Towns being literally turned off the map, Greenville, California, Grizzly Fats, California, obviously Campfire and what happened in Paradise, California. But it's serious. And we have unprecedented resources. We have the largest firefighting fleet, area firefighting fleet in the world, my state. I've invested unprecedented dollars, not just in vegetation forest management. I've doubled my state Cal Fire budget. I mean, there's no bigger.

I told you I put 110 engines and pre-deployed them. I was on the fire in LA within hours as governor of a county fire and initiated on federal property multiple fires that were occurring at the same time. Most of them on federal property were initiated. We had 100 mile an hour winds attached to fire or a fire attached on a mile an hour winds. I was up there in the hills with these guys and we all turned around when my hair literally burst on there's a video of it and they threw me in the car. A guy gets my hair and throws me in the car and says, get the fuck out of here.

And these guys, there's no hose in the world attached to a thing that mattered at that point. It was a life safety mission and that was just a few hours in. Those were 60, 70 mile an hour gusts before it hit at peak at 100. All our helicopters had to be grounded. All the big C-130s we had down there, um, grounded. And then these guys blamed them in, they just blew us up. Contrast that to how they're celebrating Texas.

Why do you think you're the target? Uh, I, in some ways I'm humbled by it. Must mean something. But no, I'm definitely the favorite. I'm glad you're not watching Fox because you'd be a little bored with me. 24-7, man. I don't know. I mean, I appreciate if I can unite people in some ways, but I just,

I don't dislike those people protesting me everywhere. Man, they love their families and they love their kids. We all want to be protected, connected to something bigger than ourselves. We all want to be respected. And man, I don't want to talk down. I don't talk down. It's not about you. I respect you, man. You care about this country. You care about this country. I told you, I'm a big Republican family.

I'm married in two. I love my father-in-law. My guy's a rock star. He's a hero. He came from nothing, man. Built this unbelievable business. And he's the most amazing father. Had five kids, lost his oldest daughter to a tragic accident,

changed everything in his life. Man of values and principles and faith. In fact, he's the grandfather of my kids, man. And he live and die for this fucking country. Big gun owner, hunter. He's an incredible role model. And he's a Republican. God bless him, man.

Good. We had this voice of you. I don't hate him. I don't think he hates me. I mean, like some of my politics, we've had the conversation we just had about dreads issues. It's tough. I get it.

But he knows my heart. I know it. Uh, but he knows my heart. I know his and I think, you know, man, that's, that's not that 99.9% of people out there, good goddamn people. And I just wish Trump would play to that as opposed to, you know, I feel like the stars and stripes, there's going to be only 25 damn stars up there, 26. He wants to eliminate the rest. He's deciding if you're blue or red, he's just going to support disaster aid, man. I have 6 million Trump supporters in my state.

That's more people than live in South Carolina. 6 million. I'm one of the reddest rural parts of the country. I live in that district, by the way, there's Trump signs right across my, literally out, I drive out of my home right way, there's Trump signs right across my literally out I drive out of my home right there big-ass Trump sign Love I mean my neighbors man. Yeah Defunding the police no terrible they just I mean what idiots

616 I mentioned local law enforcement agencies. I think there were six in California that had any adjustments in their budget. All six within 12 months had significantly increased their damn budgets. I read that the budget was cut. And if you were cutting, you were cutting, I mean. Not me, opposite. Wasn't you? I added a thousand. My law enforcement is California Highway Patrol I'm the governor of California not the mayor of California and you had cities that decide their budget their own

I mean you've a lot of charges and there were a number of cities I said I had the time was very vocal saying I do not support defund the police and this is a big mistake Remember when I was mayor I was moving in the opposite direction, got first time minimum staffing. By the way, San Francisco has never recovered on the staffing levels they have in terms of historic crime reduction. However, even LA now is on pace to have the lowest

homicide rates in 60 years. They're down 20% year to date. The state was down 11.9% last year, year to date, year over year. I invested $1.1 billion in vertical prosecution grants, in supporting DAs, supporting police, retail theft, most comprehensive retail theft, organized retail theft laws that we know of in the country. That's not my word. That was the head of the retail association saying that. It was a model for the rest of the nation. There's a lot of mythology because there are some mayors that have a very different point

of view than the governor. And there were some mayors, most of them are no longer mayors, that moved in that year after Floyd to mostly modestly cut their budgets and immediately regretted that or the new mayors came in and fixed that. But the state has significantly increased that support and anyone who says otherwise doesn't come with the facts they come with opinion. Did you say we need to reimagine the way police police? I said the idea of looking at how we address policing in modern construct, particularly as it relates to issues of social policy, where police officers are increasingly becoming

paramedics addressing issues on the streets and sidewalks like encampments and homelessness, where we're pulling people off for inebriation and two cops are sitting there getting overtime wondering why the hell they're not back out on the street waiting in the emergency room to transport the guy once he comes after the ER. I said, absolutely, that's an area that we should look at. And we did do police reforms and we worked with our law enforcement agencies. They agreed to a number of them, disagree with a few as it relates to Coradic Holds and some other things, and we adjusted some of those rules. And to me that was, I mean, pro-police.

I mean, all my guys make the same point. We can't stand the bad apples. These sons of bitches make us all look bad. And so yeah but I never I just think every it really hurt this notion that the Democratic Party defund defund like you never said that. Well where did the law come in what is the law you can steal up to 900 and something dollars worth of goods. Well you can steal 2,500 in Texas. You can steal $2,500 in Texas. I mean, there's something to this, because. I agree.

I think it's insane in Texas. You go to Walgreens, everything's locked up. Can't even buy a damn thing of deodorant without it. Yeah, California is the 10th toughest threshold in America. There is something to that. 10th toughest. This is not even in dispute. It's just a fundamental fact. There is something to that, 10th toughest. This is not even in dispute.

It's just a fundamental fact. You can steal up to $950 in California, that is true, before it's a felony. You can steal up to $2,500 in Texas before it's a felony. Texas is weaker. It's the weakest in the country. There are 40 states where you can steal even more than in California. Forty? Forty.

We're number 10 toughest, 10th toughest. It got made, I mean, I love, I just sat there and the press got so goddamn lazy on this. It wasn't even just right wing media saying this. It was even just what thoughtful press saying, well, you know, the 950. I'm like, really? It's a little more complicated than that. But 10th toughest in America, it's a fact. Look it up.

I know people are out there going bullshit and doing, and before you send a little thing on YouTube saying he's full of shit, look it up. 10th toughest. Don't embarrass yourself by posting that. You tried to fix that, didn't you? I was the one wanting to fix and reform our retail theft issues and work with the retail association, the grocers, and did a package of 12 bills. I also did a crime package three years prior, anticipating.

I was like, guys, pay attention. My legislature, I'm like, guys, we're not paying attention. What's going on? Right after COVID, and we started to see, you're right, quality of life stuff. Streets, encampments, like, come on. And what was happening, organized retail theft. These were organized operations,

going on third-party platforms, selling all this stuff for half price. You may even bought something. Going, wow, what a deal. organized operations, going on third-party platforms, selling all this stuff for half price. You may even bought something. Going, wow, what a deal. Now, knowing that this was part of these rings, and we started to build support for a new approach and these grants, these vertical prosecution grants have been a big part of the success.

CHP ran these task forces with local DA sheriffs. Mass majority of these sheriffs can't stand me, wanted to recall me. They got on the seventh recall against me as we speak. One went to the ballot, you may recall, that Trump and others supported. Gingrich, who just was on my podcast, supported. Still had him on my podcast.

And because we were slower to act than we should have, there was a ballot initiative to address the issue that purported to address the issue as a retail theft issue, when in fact it disproportionately is a drug issue, possession of drugs. And I fear that that will set us backwards and it does not push us forward. So I opposed it, public overwhelmingly supported it. I was on the wrong side politically. But I think on the substance, I was on the right side

and you're seeing crime even before that's gone in effect, just went in effect in January or late last year, late last, very late last year. But the crime rates are dropping across the spectrum in every category except arson last year, very late last year, but the crime rates are dropping across the spectrum in every category except arson last year. And we're seeing back to back years, this year even faster, even predating this initiative. But they never changed the threshold of $950 because they knew it was the temp toughest. They used it as a talking point even though they knew they were full of shit.

That's how effective narrative is. But they're right about organized retail theft. They're right about these punks coming in and smashing and grabbing. Every single one of those sons of bitches should be arrested. I've been saying that consistently. I'm a merchant, man. You smashed my window? No.

No, no, no. I don't care about your childhood. I care about my damn deductible and my insurance rates. How dare you? You've violated me. It's not even the money too. I mean, you create a vulnerability, man. It's the principle.

You're hurting the community. You got to get a red... So I'm for accountability, period, full stop, yes. But I just think... And so we recognize we need to do more in retail theft. That's why the package of 11, 12 bills. But on drug policy, I have a different point of view. I just, I don't want to go back to the war on drugs.

I don't want to go back to the 1980s. And good people can disagree. I just have strong opinions on that. Why are, why, I mean, let's move into some good stuff now. The Silicon Valley and all the tech giants are there. It's amazing. All the innovators are there. Yeah.

All the talent is there. I mean, that's what these guys say in their interview too. They go there because that's where the talent is. Why is so much talent drawn to that area? We've got a formula for success. It's not by accident. It's not even a complicated formula. What is the formula?

Best research and development. We're 18% of the world's R&D. The world's R&D. Wow. China and Germany are slightly above as nations, 21 and 22%. California at 18 percent. So pushing out the boundaries, because that's why we have more patents, more venture capital, more scientists, engineers, and researchers than any other place.

We have Conveyor Belt for Talent Education, UC, CSU, Caltech, the ecosystem around Stanford, man come on, second to none, connected to the R&D, Lawrence Livermore Labs, and others that are partnerships I mean the Hulk this stuff in the quantum space partnerships with Google We just announced in Southern California means this is where the future happens there first Where America's come in attraction every way shape form good and bad by the way Housing prices are an issue now all across the country homelessness is growing everywhere else much faster than even, California now number three the country. Homelessness is growing everywhere else, much faster than even California now. Number three, back to this notion of first round draft choices, we had an immigration

policy where we were able to get the first round draft choices because people felt included, seen, heard. It's a majority minority state. You go around Silicon Valley, man. You could be in India. You could be in China. You could be in Taiwan, man. You could be anywhere. You just feel at home. You look around like it's amazing. Just feel included, you feel heard, you feel respected and connected. And number four, infrastructure. I mean, we built out the kind of infrastructure

in 50s and 60s, we dominated the space. It's a big issue for us. So we neglected that. And I put out $180 billion 10 year plan on infrastructure investments, the most in California history because we frankly neglected a lot of it. But it was part of what made California great. That water system that Trump loves to hate was designed, it was one of the great feats of the world in the 50s and 60s.

And it allowed water to move, it allowed Silicon Valley and the Central Valley to see that water flow and the state grow and thrive. And so in all of these areas, California sort of maintained that, built the middle class. And I think in so many ways, that formula needs to be reinvigorated. And I think that formula also is inert to the country's benefit because the world in many respects, California invented and Venice competing against us. I was talking, get a little out of school, but one of the things Trump actually, because I may have been, forgive me, I may have misled you a little bit when Trump called me right

before he nationalized or federalized the guard. I said he didn't want to talk about LA, he did in this case, about the film tax credit. He wanted to talk about tariffing films. I said it's just a terrible idea. What the hell, you get to tariff Hollywood. I said everything's a damn tariff to you. I said I'm doing a film tax credit. He goes, well, you're losing it.

I said you're 100% right. World, we invented it. It's competing against us. That's what I told him. That's why I doubled the film tax credit, just signed that bill last week, literally just announced it in Hollywood. We rested on our laurels. We put up our feet.

And I think you could say that about our country as well, but notably about California in certain areas. So what I'm trying to do in the last few years in my administration is really reinvigorate. You gotta invest in your lead. If you wanna do well in the future, you gotta invest in the future. And I recognize now,

and I think COVID really sobered us up. We had a year and a half there where people were going to Austin, people were flying out here. You started that in the interview. I appreciate that. And that was a big wake-up call, man. But how many people are now moving back? Like I have all these fancy friends of mine, engineer people, like, yeah, I'm cool with Miami. I'm gonna keep my house, but we're coming back home. Glad we didn't sell it. Same thing with Austin. That's why Elon, you know, that's,

I mean, if you're not an AI right now, you ain't even in the game. And if you ain't in California, you ain't an AI. And so it's kind of exciting, but same time, that's why higher education, with all due respect, Mr. President, is not an establishment plot. It's kind of exciting, but same time, that's why higher education, with all due respect, Mr. President, is not an establishment plot. It's foundational to the nation's future and our ability to compete.

Yes, it needs to be reformed. I'm with you on reform, but you don't gut the NIH and NSF in the process of advancing reform. I mean, these guys are reckless. You ask me what I don't like about them. It's all this stuff. And Elon understands that. That's why I was so disappointed by some of the Doge stuff, taking a sledgehammer stuff as opposed to a scalpel. When he understands he's the biggest beneficiary of that. By the way, biggest contributor to his success was California.

It was our regulations that created Tesla. Had we not done the tailpipe emission regulation, he would not have the certainty of investment. And it was our tax policy that flooded him with billions and billions of dollars of subsidies. That guy was losing money but making money, reselling tax credits. That was what a gift it was for him. I mean, he's a bloody genius. I'm with you, man. And we were going at it on a bunch of stuff But I admire the hell out of his entrepreneurialism, but I'm very proud of my state for making the investments in that company

It's one of the world's most Extraordinary success stories and I'm proud he's created this whole space I'm just again worried that we're gonna completely get our asses kicked by China and we're gonna regret it and we're gonna never get It back same with clean energy, man. We're raising the prices for average utilities by eliminating all these damn green energy tax cuts. That's what Elon said he was right. We're doubling down on the past on subsidizing coal and more oil and gas and eliminating

investments in the future, which is cheaper, greener, more abundant energy. Speaking of energy, I hear about the rolling blackouts in California and stuff. I'm curious, what are your thoughts on nuclear? I extended the life of the last remaining nuclear plant in California. Took a lot of shit, so that's where my position on it. You're pro-nuclear. I was the guy who kept the lights on because I extended the life of about nine, almost nine and a half percent of our base load in California with the last remaining nuclear plant. And I think it is absolutely critical moving forward if we're going to help decarbonize

and change. It's the only way, the only path I see to get us where we're going to need to go. And... And you got some great innovators working on it over there. I just had Isaiah Taylor on. He's making the mini nuclear reactors. We had Scott Nolan on talking about enriched uranium. Look, the challenge is it's a generational thing. Three Mile Island sort of generation that sees this in that perspective.

And then you got this next generation, this tech generation, that sees AI at data centers and sees energy consumption going through the roof, sees a transition or the duck curve and issues around battery storage, maybe not getting to the scale it needs to be with solar and wind and needing to accelerate that transition and they see nuclear as a significant part

of getting us to where we all need to go, both economically, national security, and from an environment. So I see just win, win, win with the new technology, safety protocols and standards. So no, I'm there and look, the blackouts in Texas have been significantly worse in California and they're getting better because they're investing

in the future batteries. Our largest power plant in California. And they're getting better because they're investing in the future. Batteries. Our largest power plant in California is installed batteries. Second largest jurisdiction in the world, China and California. It's been a point of pride. I had 770 megawatts when I became governor. It's over 15,700 now. I'm very proud of the work we've done in that space.

And that's allowed us to capture. We're running the fourth largest economy at a hundred percent green energy for the majority of this year Think about that fourth large economy the world has run at 100% Renewable energy for the majority of this calendar year. Don't tell me we can't do this in the future Absolutely, and by the way, these are cheaper. Battery, batteries are expensive in the front end. Once we figure that out, cost curve continues to come down in the storage side, but solar and wind, man, it's more competitive.

Well, I mean, I don't, I don't, I disagree with you and agree with you on some aspects. I mean, we just had another guy on that was, what is it? He's building satellites in space that are going to beam solar energy into... All right, well, there's always that. God bless, man, I love the innovators. There's fusion in California too. We're leading in fusion. Really?

I mean, California is the only one, we're the closest in the world. Wow. Happened right in our backyard in our state. You're right. I mean, look, on the other side of this is unbelievable innovation, but if we don't continue to push out the boundaries of that innovation, man, if we're just doubling down on coal, I get it. But when like literally doubling down on coal, we're going to get our ass kicked by the innovators around the world.

It's just a simple question of just where do you want to, I mean, are we going to get our ass kicked by the innovators around the world. It's just a simple question of just, where do you want to, I mean, are we going to dominate the future or are we going to double down and try to recreate the 17th, 18th damn century? I'm just with, I think Elon's sort of, I thought it was great. I thought it was, I know it was such a farce and all my friends, like it was a vulgar display of sort of corrupt capitalism. The man of station of Corny Capital would see the fire sale of Tesla's there with Elon and Trump. At the same time, I was sitting there telling my friends, man, this is what we've been

at. I said, you guys should shut up. We've been saying we needed this the whole time, man. We need this to not just be a green movement. It's about competition. It's about national security. And now Trump is advancing that, it's helping us by promoting the technology and Teslas are going,

damn, look at this. I was like, this is good, man. Now it's all come crashing down and everyone's pissed at God damn Elon. No, I just think the batteries of the future, solar, just we're there. You're already the dominant. Under the Biden administration, we were never more energy independent. Just the fact we were doing 13.4 million barrels a day in 2024, we peaked in terms of our

energy independence. Trump continues in that path. He's hardly creating that path. Biden administration, We were leading in Renewables and an oil and gas I kind of like that approach more than the let's eliminate The green energy transition and just continue to dominate an oil and gas. I think that's a major strategic mistake. I Mean you're concerned about China. I'm concerned about China Does it concern you that the majority of the solar solar panels windmills are all produced in China Yeah, well now it's not even it's over

We just we're killing a damn industry here that what there was a chance with the IRA There was a chance with the infrastructure bill that had a component part For green energy there was a chance when the biggest beneficiaries were red states and rural parts of those states that were seeing the benefit of these green energy investments. I gave you an example of, a specific example, two billion just in the backyard here in South Carolina. And now, I mean, they just locked this stuff down, man, to pay for tax cuts and sell our kids with three and a half trillion dollars of debt so they can cut healthcare to rural communities

across the country and cut food for kids in schools. By the way, in vets that are Medicaid, vets families, Medicaid, four plus million. Breaks my heart, man. I mean, the vandalism was just done to this country. And they know better. They just couldn't do better because failure was not an option. was just done in this country. And they know better. They just couldn't do better because

failure was not an option. I mean, I know the narrative is, you know, drives pretty much everything. And I mean, it's just, fuck, it's hard to believe. It's hard to know what to believe. I mean, even with the, with the, was it last winter when Texas went out, they had the blackouts and all these people were freezing to death down there. They blamed it on green energy. But what it was, it was the oil and gas that's created the narrative because the gas froze in the fucking pipes and they blamed wind and solar. I'm going to personally ask for a clip of what you just said. I can't take it, man, because I said no one believes it. What you just said is a goddamn fact.

California modest little blackouts for a few minutes. It was two days. It was a peak a couple years back. It was a big wake up call. And I extended the life of some of our older gas plants and peakers. And that's when I said enough. I didn't roll because I don't want to get to work with the legislature. I said, guys, we're keeping this nuclear plant up.

Let's wake up. If we're going to have a transition, we have to have a just transition. I'm dealing with that refineries closing in my state. We got to own that, we got to address that. And we are as a crisis in the making, if we don't address it. We've got to be sober about the transition. But Texas, to their credit,

the markets have moved their transition, not their regulation. They're actually addressing it by moving down the path that California was on as it relates to installed batteries and more renewables that are more resilient than the old fossil fuel infrastructure that they had. They've had significantly worse blackouts in Texas. Again, not a fact you get on Fox News.

You think it's only California. Back to China. Yeah. A lot of people are concerned about all the Chinese that are buying up US land. Is that, how much is that happening in California? It's funny, I've seen some of that. I know Sarah and others in Arkansas were betting on, of course, any opportunity for my friend DeSantis to flex on that stuff. I just haven't seen that level. By the way,

we have 150% larger ag footprint than any other state. So about the largest manufacturing state, I told you. So in that respect, I look from the manufacturing structure, I look at the industrial infrastructure, I look at the land amass, I see more investments from Saudi Arabia in many respects, which are more interesting than me. And looking at water issues and water rights there, some other stuff that's happening with foreign ownership. So I just haven't seen it at that level. I remember we had a little bit of scare in the 80s.

I remember China, Japan, buying everything up. And the buying Rockefeller Center, I think it it was literal, I figure that, I remember that. And then we went a little through that with China, but I'm not necessarily seeing that in my state. And I'm not seeing it the scale that other governors are stating. I see it as virtue signaling, and I do see a lot of conspiracies

in this place in my state around all these rumors that always seem to pop up around military bases of Chinese ownership moving in. And in every instance, it's turned out to be completely bogus. But man, oh man, it drives the narratives for weeks, and weeks, and weeks. And last year, we had a perfect example

that if I was watching some of these networks and I literally started being convinced I'm like, come on guys must be true Look at everybody saying it and we're finding out these shell companies turn out to be some folks from Silicon Valley From China. No shit. Yeah, so I mean you look at it case by case, but I'm you know, I Anyone should be concerned about look at the Confucius, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff. I mean, no one's, I'm not naive. Again, I come from San Francisco,

and we've been at this longer than anyone else in terms of those relationships. And there's been, you know, Senator Feinstein, who had a key member of her staff. No one's not, no one's naive. By the way, we're doing the same damn thing over there. It doesn't excuse it. I mean, we're, you know, I mean,

you don't understand that better than anybody in the world you've been living in. But there's no doubt, man, this is it. This is the moment. And again, I don't begrudge other people's success. I say that also as a Democrat. I'm not one of those Democrats that want to tear other people down. And I'm not one of those people who believe everybody should have some automatic outcome bullshit opportunity. But at the end of the day, it's about, as you said,

that young entrepreneur that's hustling, barely speaks English, man, that's just like, you get emotional around that, man. It is the American dream. And it's still alive and well if you want to work your ass off. Same time, a lot of people start behind. They're not just left behind. And I also think we have to recognize that.

And that's why we have to make targeted investments. We have to do things that do acknowledge that. So everyone has an opportunity. But as it relates to other countries, as it relates to other people, I don't begrudge success. I admire it, man. Success leaves clues. And the power of emulation. So I want to begrudge success. I admire it, man. Success leaves clues and the power of emulation. So I want to learn from folks.

That's why I sat down with Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. That's why I'm meeting with people that disagree with me, can't stand me, quite literally hate me. Like literally hate me. Say it still, even after I interview them, because I want to learn from them. What did you learn? The Steve Bannon interview was fascinating to me. I thought I was listening to Bernie Sanders.

It was wild, man. Just was. His ability to connect from populist narrative and understand that, his deep understanding of the emotional attachment to industrial policy in the heartland, this connection to class, elitism, his understanding of that, his willingness to break out of the mold and promote higher taxes on the wealthy. I joke with him.

I said, Steve, you sound like me with a progressive tax policy in California. I said, by the way, California is not a high tax state. We have the highest tax rate. We're not a high tax state. What does that mean? That means 1% and I have evidence is not 99%. 1% pay, highest tax rate. But 80% of Californians pay about average taxes.

40% of Californians pay lower taxes than they do in Texas and Florida. Texas and Florida tax their lowest wage earners more than we do our highest wage earners. So who's the high tax state? Is it California or is it Texas? If your only constituency are rich people, then I understand we're a high tax state. My point is Bannon was actually making the case and as you know, was part of the debate with Trump in this new bill. And Trump showed an openness which would have killed the Democratic Party. Best damn thing Trump did for the Democrats is not taking Bannon's advice on tax policy.

He would have gutted us. We have the right talking point because it's right and it's politically popular that he's given away the largest transfer of wealth in US history by giving away billions and billions of dollars of tax cuts to the richest as he's cutting programs to the poor. That would have been taken away if Bannon's tax policies went in effect, where we would have had more intense cuts to the middle class taxes and working folks and increased modestly taxes to the rich. I was fascinated by that, to hear that from Bannon on the podcast.

I didn't come on to talk about January 6th. I think he's full of shit on that. That's well established. And Trump's completely full of shit on that, from my humble perspective. But Charlie Kirk, man, guys just crush, that son of a bitch is in every goddamn campus, progressive parts of the country, hundreds and hundreds of people coming out, takes on anyone on a debate, is organizing, hustling, we're sitting here bitching, complaining. This guy's just working it.

And I admire that. Democrats should learn something about it. I don't agree with them on nine out of 10 damn issues. And I think it's important. I mean, I even had Dr. Phil on for Christ's sake. And two weeks later, he was out there as they're doing raids in my backyard with the National Guard. Like, come on, Phil. Oh, man. He was embedded as the Geraldo of his time or something. I told you the Maha stuff, I mean I just learned from these guys. And I just, you know, it's like you man, I'm learning from you.

Appreciate you. Appreciate your service man. Thank you. The next level, the stuff that you've experienced that's in your brain, relationships, makes you patriotic, man. Love this country. Thank you. Sacrifice, not just service.

What do you think the Democrat party is getting wrong? That we're not talking like that a little bit more? God damn, you know, gotta show our pride and patriotism a little bit more, not be shy about it. You know, celebrate to show our pride and patriotism a little bit more, not be shy about it. You know, celebrate this goddamn country. And I think one of the problems of the Democratic Party is we're so good at celebrating, as Bill Clinton would say, our interesting differences. And we've forgotten about focusing on our common humanity, what binds us together.

And so we celebrate all this, but we don't celebrate what unites us. United States of America, these enduring principles of our founding fathers taking the best of Greek democracy and the Roman Republic, three independent co-equal branches of government, the rule of law. What a gift, they were imperfect, but man, what a goddamn gift to this country. We're about to celebrate 250th anniversary.

So this notion of, yeah, the lexicon of Clinton, community and opportunity, but back to responsibility. And that's your service and sacrifice. And I think all of us have a responsibility, not respect. That's why I believe in, I absolutely am committed to universal national service. That's back to my Sar Schriver thing. Peace Corps, I have the largest, California's the largest service corps in America. Yeah, I've read that.

It's bigger than the Peace Corps. Spiritual, man. Republican, Democrat, I don't give a shit. Black, white, first general, just people fucking, common cause. What is it? Is it the, did you call it the Cal? It's California Volunteers and it's just different cores.

It's college core. This was the biggest, not biggest, but I thought it was a big mistake of the Biden administration. When we did those student loans and we asked for nothing in return to give them back. I was like, what? In California, we asked,

we'll do $10,000 grant to college, but I want 450 hours of service in your community. You decide, man. That's a good goal. And I thought we should attach that. I just, again, responsibility, not just opportunity. So I think Democrats can do better there. I actually fucking love to hear that. I like that a lot.

You gotta earn it. Yeah. God damn it. I've never enjoyed anything I've been given, but hell I've enjoyed every goddamn thing I've earned. Seriously. It means something different to me. Treat it like that. Treat it like I earn it. You give away, I remember, I know there's a, mayoral candidate wants to do free public, you'll treat it like it's free, man. I had an opportunity to do that with mayors. We did analysis that we can, you know, we could justify doing free public transit. I said, no, no, got to have some skin in the game, man.

Good for you. Good for you. No. I think Democrats need to find that a little bit more. I think we just need to emphasize certain things more, de-emphasize other things more, man. Don't dial it up on some of these issues that are so, you know, that have created these culture wars. Just dial those down. You don't have to back away.

Good people can disagree. They can vehemently. I was in no bullshit last night at an event in Nashville, members of the trans community came up to me pissed about obviously the thing. But I still have your back. It's like the point being, well, I don't know, there's broader points I'm trying to make except to say we need to scale back some of the things we have the size and start to invest more energy in things that we support but people don't believe it because we're not expressing it.

We're not showing it as much as we should. I mean, I think you could say the same about the Republican Party. The thing is, I mean, how would that even come to fruition? Because, you know, when the mainstream media creates the narrative on both sides, because it's the same issues over and over and over again. And it's, if you don't talk about those issues, or if you talk about something else that is important, then the population finds that boring because it's not at the forefront of the media cycle.

Man, I'll give you a perfect example. Right after Trump won, it wasn't intentional. It happened to be wildly coincidental, but it was also very opportunistic. I had just finished a three-year process to do a career master plan for California. California has an infamous higher education master plan that created the three systems,

the finest university system in the country, which is our community college, our CSUs, and the fabled 10 campus UCs. And I decided to do one for career education. And it was about taking the skills that you learn in the military. And if you wanted to extend that academically, you wouldn't have to take all the basic courses in a community college or a CSU. That your skills mean something and they are automatically then credits towards your degree. So you don't have to waste time with those basic courses because you already had that

skill. So using your resume to connect with opportunities for lifelong learning, did with apprenticeships, et cetera as well. And we require, we took hundreds and hundreds of positions in state government, saying, you don't have to have a damn four-year degree for this bullshit. You don't even have to have a two-year degree. You just have to have the skill set. So we did a civil service reform.

And I rolled that out in nine counties, all red counties and Trump counties, right after Trump won. And literally, press after a couple of days was like was like, they're just rolling their damn eyes. And I kept seeing all this, the same press saying, we need to focus on why we lost this election. We need to connect the rural parts of our country. Democrats need to spend time in rural parts. We need to focus on people that are not getting four-year degrees.

And all it was about was transports. Because Trump said something that flared up and everybody rushed over there and oh, Newsom. When in doubt, Newsom. So here I am just grinding, county after county after county, rolling out details of a plan. We had 10,000 people worked on it, no bullshit. Actually 10,000.

But hundreds of millions of dollars. So it wasn't just a plan sits on the desk, it was grants going out. It was a community-led process. And again, people are more than interested in these cultural issues and just blow up and it consumes us. And then people start thinking that's all we're talking about because I'm responding to something I disagree with. I wouldn't even have a press conference on it.

I'm just saying I call bullshit on that. I think that's wrong to demean someone like that or good people on whatever topic. So that's... We're getting our ass kicked on there. DeSantis was very effective. That's why I ended up doing that debate with him, God help us, with Hannity. It's a two against one debate, which is fine. So I went on with Sean and did an hour and a half interview with him, started going on Fox, went on Newsmax, trying to meet people where they are, man. Hanging with you. I don't know.

I'm just trying, iteration, entrepreneur in me. I got no, I had no particular insight on all this shit. Well, this isn't a debate. This is just a discussion. Yeah. So, I'd like to see more of this shit. And just my brother. Well, this isn't a debate. This is just a discussion. Yeah. So I'd like to see more of this, which hopefully this interview helps. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think people, there's sort of blood spore, take everybody down, own the lib, own whatever. Same thing. I mean, look, Trump and I, I ain't timid, brother. I'm flooding the zone. I'm heading back on Trump. I mean, I'm not scoring.

I mean, I'm like all in on that. Same time, if he called, pick up the call, phone, I bet if I called him, literally right now, he'd pick it up. No bullshit. I think that's healthy at the end of the day. I do too. I got a personal question for you. Jesus Christ.

Boxers. I gotta ask, I've always personal question for you. Jesus Christ. Boxers. I got to ask. I've always wondered this. What's that, man? How did your ex-wife wind up with Trump Jr.? How do you go from Gavin Newsom to Trump Jr.? First lady of San Francisco.

Crazy, right? She was always- Yeah, it's fucking crazy. She always had a prosecutorial mindset, a great immigrant, dad from Ireland, sort of rock star back to sort of bootstraps, great guy, huge supporter of mine, until that day he passed away. And just always had my back, even after the divorce. And so, and she lost her mom early, and he kind of shaped her and shaped her up. I mean,

had to toughen her up. Man, you're on your own. We're on our own. And she always sort of had that sort of mindset. And again, as a prosecutor, a prosecutorial mindset. So she leaned in that direction. Definitely more progressive, moderate values. And I don't mean this as a pejorative. I don't mean this as a cheap shot, I hope it's not considered, but when Roger Ailes hired her to go on Fox, just changed. I think in some ways, if you go on Fox, you have to put a mask on and your face grows into it. Otherwise, you're not going to last on Fox.

And that was sort of my sense, but her face grew into it, meaning she became, in many respects, really started, you know, she was a real believer in Trump when she was on The Five. I remember talking to Trump in the Oval, he brought her up because she'd been appointed as ambassador, or has been appointed, is about to be confirmed. And he brought her up out of nowhere, we're sitting there, and he said she was my biggest supporter back then. I mean, he was very loyal in that respect, which I appreciated. And she has certainly in return been loyal to him. And that sort

of developed trust with the family and long-windedly, I guess, the relationship with Junior. But man, you know, that's, well, I wish you drank because we'd have a few beers and talk more because I'm gonna get in trouble talking about any more of this goddamn stuff. This is the uncomfortable version of Newsom as he squiggles around you. Well, we're wrapping up the interview. And so I just have one question left for you. As the father of four, what advice do you have for fathers? We got to step up, man. I mean, women, just, yeah, there's a, my wife did a documentary called Fair Game, basically

just talks about roles of gender, not from a cheap shot, not trying to tear down men, not all that bullshit, but just the responsibilities that are placed on women in the household in particular. And there's actually a card game they have. And it says, who does the dishes? Who walks the dog? Who's doing the birthday presents? Who's scheduling the kids for play dates? And you do the cards and you finish and the stack is here with my wife and I had like three or four cards, man. And I swear to God, the game starts with you estimating quietly what percentage of the

household work you did. I'm like, okay, I know it's not 50, but man, it's like 45. Fucking at the end, it's down to like 3, 97% of the 3. So for all the 3 percenters out there, as dads, we got to step our shit up. I'm serious, man. We all bitch and complain about the stuff we have to deal with. Imagine being a hardworking goddamn mom, dealing with our shit. We come home acting like we're all emotionally stressed and we need to be listened to and hugged and heard. So I got a rock star wife, man. I'm so blessed. And four of the most, I know everyone says this about their kids, but man, still my little dutchie, nine years old. When I was on this, man, the coolest thing, I swear to God, if there's a photo,

I asked you when I came in here, man, what would you take? There was a fire. I'd probably take this and I hope they put it in, when I pass, they put that photo. When I got sworn in as governor and I'm in the middle of my damn speech. And my little boy is three years old or something. And he's got a little passy in his thing. He's on my wife's lap. And he just jumps off her as I'm speaking, runs to the podium as I'm giving my inaugural speech. And he's literally, people are laughing.

He's standing there. I am reading the teleprompter. I'm terrified. I can't read the fucking teleprompter. So I'm like, I have to concentrate. I can't even look at him, because then I'm just going to be... This is a disaster. And then I'm like looking, and he's hugging me, he's grabbing me, and I couldn't help it. I just picked him up, and I put him in my arms, man, pacifier, and he puts his head down and tries to fall asleep.

Oh, man. And I finished the fucking speech, man. I didn't finish the entire thing, but I kept speaking. No one remembers a goddamn word I said. I don't remember what I said, but everyone felt something. And it was just love, man. Kids. Fuck. Life.

And I swear to God, I'm the future goddamn ex-governor, and there'll be someone else to beat the shit out of. Tear someone else down and bitch and complain but that's all that matters man. It's all that matters. That's beautiful. I love that. I love that. If you had three guests that you wanted to see on the show, who would they be? My show? On my show.

Motherfucker. Not my show? Well you gotta come on my show now Well, you've got to come on my show now. I will. I'll come on your show. I'm ready for that. I will fly my ass to California. Yeah, that's right. You've got to do it in person, you son of a bitch.

I don't do Zooms. Good. I'm with you. I've only done one with DeSantis and it didn't go great. Never doing it again. Yeah, I'm glad we're not talking about Ron, but I wish him luck, though. He's a father. Three guests for you.

I wonder just, you know, I swear I would be a hell of a thing to see a guy like you with Joe Biden. I know that's insane. I would love to do it. Dead serious, man. I would love to do it. He's a, I'm just telling you, and I'll take this to my grave as well. I know I get a lot of shit and I know it's politically correct as Democrats

kind of turn their back on him. He's a good and decent man. I know we can criticize him for this or that or other things, but I think you'd find that just as an interpersonal, in a way that would surprise you. And I think honestly, no bullshit surprise you, guys, even if you disagree with him on a hundred fucking issues. As a father, I've had some really amazing conversations with him talking

about his kids. Anyway, I think that would be a hell of a guest. Jesus Christ, man, you've had everybody else. I couldn't even go to Trump now because you already had him on. Who else should you get on? Maybe you can connect me with G. Well, that would be a hell of a minute. Now you're talking. He'll be coming out soon, right? Who else should you get on? Maybe you can connect me with Xi. Well that would be a hell of a minute.

Now you're talking. I mean, he'll be coming out soon, right? Mar-a-Lago for a second visit? I don't know. Is he? Well, I mean, they're going to get together sometime this year, or if not late this year, early next year, maybe Trump flies out there. But he'll eventually get back out here.

That would be a hell of an interview. Kim Jong-un, that's's your guest brother. All right. I mean he's got a new resort out there in North Korea. Right on. Well Gavin, like I said, I really appreciate you coming and just being totally honest, a lot of my opinions about you have changed. And thank you for coming. I'm grateful to you, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Jim Rome takes on sports.

Why? Because you're not playing me. With rapid fire takes. And a lot to get to and I'm not sure you're gonna like all of it. Honestly, I don't even care if you like all of it or not. I have a job to do. Scorching debates. On any given week you have lots to beef about.

Ticket manager, get up in here. He's the Spitfire of sports smack. She's not my fault. We will get to all of that. The Jim Rome Show podcast. Get up in here and we'll beef later on. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

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