The Daily Beast Podcast - This Is How We Beat Musk And Miller’s Cruel Plans

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

California governor Gavin Newsom tells Joanna Coles how he is going head-to-head with Donald Trump and Stephen Miller's cruelty and chaos—and why the country has never faced such a crisis before. He goes scorched earth on the "carny bulls**t artist" president and say what he thinks about being nicknamed "Gavin Newscum." Newsom has harsh words for Speaker Mike Johnson and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, warning their loyalty to Trump's authoritarianism shows how weak they are. And he spells out what is next in his fight against Trump and why he doesn't regret hosting MAGA stars like Steve Bannon on his podcast.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Joanna Coles, the chief content officer of The Daily Beast. Welcome to our podcast. The president has asked for him to be arrested. The leader of the House has demanded he be tarred and feathered. Today we are talking to the man at the center of the action, the California governor, the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who's been fending off Trump's overreach, bringing in 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to quell the rioting. over the ice incursions in downtown L.A. Let's get straight to it. And we start with the sad news of Brian Wilson, actually, the ultimate Californian beach boy. I'm not aware of that, so I'm the first to hear. And as a proud Californian fifth generation, you know, you think of the sort of nature of iconic characters,

people that define generations and define the greatness of the state. I'm sorry to hear that. Oh, well, I'm so sorry to break the news to you without, it just seemed like the ultimate Californian, actually. Anyway. God bless. God bless his family and all my best to them. Yeah. And what an extraordinary sort of different place California finds itself in now.

I wanted to start by asking you that at the beginning of the year, you were shaking hands with Donald Trump. You had Steve Bannon on your podcast. You had Charlie Kirk on your podcast. And now the president is suggesting that you be arrested. the leader of the House is saying you should be tarred and feathered. They've brought in 4,000 national guards and the Marines over your head. I mean, some people, I think, are looking at this and thinking that you've been played by the president. Well, no, you forgot he suggested I should be arrested as well.

And let me add to the fuel to your question and had Duke Gingrich on the podcast a few days ago and Dr. Phil. So, no, I have no problem having an open hand in reaching out to other people. It's who I am, and I'm looking forward to continuing in that posture. I'm not someone that looks to put a crowbar in the spokes of the wheels of other parties or people that agree or disagree with me. By the way, Newt Gingrich was one of the co-chairs of my recall campaign, and so I'll continue to engage people. I'll continue to try to learn from people I disagree with.

It's who I am. I try not to be disagreeable. But I'll stand my ground and I'll stand it firmly. And we're doing that now against Donald Trump. What do you think Donald Trump's plan is here? What's his endgame? Power, dominance, control. He doesn't believe in the rule of law.

He doesn't believe in co-equal independent branches of government. He doesn't believe in the enduring principles of our founding father. Doesn't believe in popular sovereignty. He's someone that will use violence. if it services his goals, January 6th, the perfect example of that. He'll demagogue those he disagrees with, belittle them, talks down to them. He's a bully. But he's also, you know, he's a flim flammer in the vernacular.

He's a carny. He's the music man. He's a bullshit artist, is what he is. But he happens to be President of the United States. I revere the office of presidency. That's why I talked to him for 20 minutes a few nights ago and had a very cordial conversation. Hours later, he referred to me as new scum.

And a day later, he talked about my arrest. That's Donald Trump, in a nutshell. What do you think would happen if they did arrest you? I mean, Greta Zunberg's just been arrested and she was on the front pages of all the newspapers. I mean, actually, would it be good for you if he arrested you? No, it's not. good for any, it's not good for our democracy. It's, just even the threat of it. It's not good for

any of us. We got to bring this country together back to the spirit of your opening question about the podcast. You know, we all want to be loved. We all need to be loved. We all need to be protected, connected and respected. I don't like talking down to people, past people. You know, I just think we've got to soften the edges here. Now, he's doing everything to do the opposite. He's doing the And so we can't roll over. We've got to be firm and resolved. We are firm and resolved. We're watching our democracy. We're watching this extraordinary place being destroyed in real time. In 141 days, we have seen things we couldn't even imagine in our lifetimes, the erosion, not just of trust and truth, but information, an attack on knowledge across the board and culture.

We've seen this cultural purge. I mean, there's so much weakness coming out of the Pentagon now with Pete Hedgeson. He can't even have. handle the fact that West Point heroes, these extraordinarily young cadets, that they can access a Tony Morrison book or James Baldwin book. They're quite literally censoring historic facts. So it's an extraordinary time in U.S. history, and we're going to push back. Right. I understand the sort of cultural issues going on. You have, I think, two and a half million undocumented people in California. The economy relies on. on them. They wash dishes. They work in garages. They work in the fields. I wanted to ask you,

A, how you thought, well, let me ask this as a two-part question. First of all, this can't have come as a surprise to you, ice moving in like this. The majority of those undocumented people live in L.A. So this is not a surprise. You must have been planning for it. What is your plan to deal with ICE and to deal with the National Guard that have been sent in to cope with the rioters. And is the courts your only plan? Is that all there is, the courts? Let me break your question, really two parts of the question.

Yes, we did prepare for this. In fact, I was the, I think, first and only governor in the United States right after Donald Trump was elected to call a special session of my legislature in anticipation. of this moment. And let me, let me bear fruit to that assertion that not only did we do that,

but it was a successful special session that included tens of millions of dollars for litigation, but also tens of millions of dollars for rapid response networks and legal aid for our undocumented community. Those dollars are being utilized. We've certainly asserted ourselves from a legal posture,

over two dozen now lawsuits against the Trump administration. And yes, one of those lawsuits, was filed just a few days ago under the Title X authority and this 12406 statute and the notion that you can deploy, quote, unquote, 700 active Marines to do domestic law enforcement. We are asserting the president does not have that legal right. And we have a hearing tomorrow with a federal judge at 1.30 p.m.

And we're going to make our case demanding that there be a temporary restraining order, basically stopping the president until he advances an appropriate legal theory. There are people who are saying that you should have been able to stop the rioting in L.A. itself. That what we're seeing here is the militarizing of policing in the state, which may become a tool of the Trump administration. But there's also a concern, I think, that Democrats have lost the plot when it comes to law and order and that when you see people stoning police cars

or you see people setting cars alight, that the local police or you should have called in the National Guard to take care of people's property. Well, you're confusing me with someone. I'm not. I've never been one of the defund police Democrats. I've been very explicit about calling at those acts, those criminal acts. And last night, we had another 227 arrests.

I've deployed the National Guard on multiple occasions. Let me now bear more fruit to that claim as well. Since becoming Governor of California, I put the National Guard down at the border. I just deployed roughly 3,000 National Guard men and women as it relates to the fires here in Los Angeles. They were actually here pre-deployed even before the first sparks of the fire, our rattlesnake teams, which, by the way, three-quarters of our rattlesnake teams, which are teams that do vegetation and forest management to protect us from wildfires that were mission-tasked by my office, three-quarters of those teams now have been redeployed to Los Angeles. We have National Guard men and women that are literally being taken off the streets

doing police work in their local police agencies. California has one of the largest and most robust mutual aid systems for local law enforcement in the nation was more than adequate number of local law enforcement that can handle these incidences. We deal with civil unrest all the time, and there was more than enough resources at our disposal. We do not need the National Guard,

and let me just underscore that. You've got about 100 tops, and it's 50 to 100 National Guard men and women that surround the federal building downtown. Last night I had 1,600. Not just me. I'm not the mayor of California. I'm the governor, but I had 700 CHP officers,

our SRT teams, which are trained for this kind of civil unrest. 1600 were there, and many of them were protecting the National Guard themselves. That, again, have been pulled off the border, pulled out of protecting us from next year's wildfire season, and pulled away from their local police duties in their community for the theatrics that are coming from the Trump administration. So I completely reject the premise that we're not foundationally focused on law and order and public safety, quite the contrary.

And I'll just add to that because I think it's important. This state significantly increased $1.1 billion support for local law enforcement agencies in the last number of years because the seriousness, the purpose that we place on protecting the public. Governor, hold on one second. We're just going to take these messages from our sponsors. We love our sponsors, but we're back with Governor Newsom of California. Okay, so why is it that your fellow Californian, Stephen Miller,

who is the architect of this plan, is wanting to ramp it up? Have you met Stephen Miller? What is this? Why is he doing this to his own state? They want to divide this country. There is a cruelty. They want to divide this country. They don't believe in the rule of law.

I said it last night. It's about the rule of dawn. He's an authoritarian. He is, by definition. I mean, it's the definition. The authoritarian tendencies are self-evident to anyone's paying attention. He's threatening to recall judges because he doesn't like their opinion. There's no system of checks and balances.

I mean, the Speaker Johnson's completely checked out. He doesn't want opposition or opponents. Why does he assert that I should be arrested? I'll use his words. Literally, he said, because I got elected. That's what he said in response to question, what? What's the grounds for this? So Stephen Miller is part of that architect.

Going after criminals, going after violent people, absolutely. And by the way, no state has done more in that in the United States America than we have. And I'll give you a specific. over 10,500 people have been passed over to ICE since I've been governor under our policies. 10,500. There's no other state that like claim to that. We have coordinated to go after dangerous criminals. This is not what this is about.

I just got off my phone seconds ago. They're raiding clinics, community clinics. They're stopping people from walking into the clinics. They're checking their papers in their cars. This is about stowing distrust and chaos. This is about creating civil unrest. This is about making things worse so that they can employ more tactics and more oppressive force. How do you make this issue resonate with the public?

We saw at the last election that the Democrats, Kamala Harris and Tim Wals, used the allegation that Trump wanted to end democracy. and it didn't resonate with voters. They're experiencing now, it's not an assertion. We've got proof point after proof point after proof point. What more evidence do you need? You fire whistleblowers, the people that have oversight, you sue, you know, you attack and sue independent media.

You put law firms to their knees. I mean, what more evidence do you need? It's not an assertion anymore. It's a proof point. So we have to call it out. We have to be clear. I mean, they're censoring historic facts. They're rewriting history.

I said it a moment ago, I'll report. It has to be repeated over and over. The question, there's the answer. You repeat it over and over and over again. We have to be firm. We have to be resolved. We have to call all of this out. This is a serious and sober moment.

And yes, border policy needed to change. It didn't. That's a reality. It's why I put 394 National Guard down at the border years and years ago as a Democrat. That's why I've coordinated with ICE on dealing with the issues of dangerous criminals. Democrats need to own that, what happened in the past. At the same time, we need to call out raids that are going after day laborers,

going after, you know, folks that are taking care of our seniors and taking care of our farmers and ranchers. Many of them are farmers and ranchers that are the backbone of our economy. 41% of our construction workers. Over 50%, 5-0 of all of our ag workers. I mean, these are members of our community. We've been here decade plus, and we also need to highlight that, the humanity behind all of this as well. What's the compromise for those people? What's the Democrat solution for their undocumented who are here, who aren't committing crimes, who are paying into the system, and who are vital to the Californian economy?

Well, we put out detailed plans. President of the United States, the prior president, Joe Biden, put it out this first day in office, his first day in office. We had a bipartisan plan to answer your question in detail as it relates to reforming the asylum system, to provide more border security. We had specific plans. So we've answered that. It's been demagogued. It was politicized. They didn't want more immigration judges. They didn't want more border enforcement.

Heck, Democrats even agreed hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the border wall. This was just a few months ago. So there is a plan. There's been strategies, but it's been politicized. I know you have to go, but final question. Where does this end for L.A.? Donald Trump rescinds the order when he brings these National Guard men and women back home

so they can go to their kids' graduation, so they can start working again in their local law enforcement agency, so they can go back to the border protecting us from guns and drugs. It ends when Donald Trump decides that he, or he recognizes that he's broken the law, that he's in violation of not only a law, but the Constitution of the United States. And we hope that occurs tomorrow afternoon and we'll continue to push back and move forward,

try to bring this state together and clean up Donald Trump's mess. All right. Thank you very much. Who's the next guest on your podcast? I can't even. I don't remember now. But I think it's time to find some of my friends on the other side of the political aisle. I agree with you. I want to ask you one very final,

cheeky question. But it's always puzzled me, and I know it puzzles lots of other people, too. I have an ex-husband, and lots of things he's done since we separated, have surprised me. Are you surprised by how full MAGA your ex-wife went? No, I mean, she was a fiancé for Donald Trump Jr., so no surprise whatsoever. Thank you very much, and best of luck with it. We need you to keep the state safe. God bless. On an extraordinary day to talk to Gavin Newsom, the president is asking for him to be arrested. The leader of the House is demanding he be tarred and feathered.

Stephen Miller, his own fellow Californian, has architected this whole dastardly plan going on in downtown L.A. Going on in downtown L.A. And Brian Wilson, the legendary frontman of the Beach Boys, which put California on the map, which lodged it in all our imaginations has died. What a day. If you have been, thank you for subscribing or listening to this podcast. Please leave us a comment on YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe for daily minute-by-minute updates to what's going on at

the DailyBeast.com. And don't forget to be Beast. And this podcast was produced by Devin Roderino and Anna von Erson. Want more great listens? check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.