The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 178. Gavin Newsom: The Next President Of The United States?

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

What happened on a ridiculous midnight phone call between Donald Trump and the Governor of California? Why does Gavin Newsom believe the President will be crushed in the mid-terms? What is Newsom’s tactic for trolling Trump? Will Newsom run for president in 2028?  Alastair and Rory are joined by Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, to answer all of this and more.  Search IG.com to find out more and/or Look for IG in your app store. Join The Rest Is Politics Plus: Start your free trial at therestispolitics.com to unlock exclusive bonus content – including Rory and Alastair’s miniseries – plus ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, an exclusive members’ newsletter, discounted book prices, and a private chatroom on Discord. Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Lorcan Moullier  Producer: Alice Horrell Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen Head of Politics: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispolities.com. Those that think they know me may be very surprised by the actual story in my childhood and my life. I think our politics is radically changing and reorganizing. Part of that is we need to change and reorganize our thinking, our relationship with the public. Donald Trump, he's the most corrupt president in American history. I don't think people fully have absorbed what we're up against day to day. He's about to get crushed in the midterms.

Absolutely sure about it. Absolutely sure of it. Is that one of the reasons why you've taken this very aggressive social media strategy that has got a lot of attraction around the world? It shifted after a phone call that I had with Trump. Trump called me late at night. And it begins with the following. God is my witness.

He says, are you definitely going to run? This episode is brought to you by IG. If you're listening to Leading, the chances are that you're someone who thinks seriously about politics and economics and your own financial future. So here's something genuinely worth knowing. IG's flexible stocks and shares, ISA, lets you withdraw and top up your money within the same tax year without losing your tax-free allowance. And that's on top of charging zero commission and zero account fees. So it's no wonder IG was also voted best. low-cost ISA at the 26 Boring Money Awards.

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And me, Alastair Campbell, and we're joined today by Governor Gavin Newsom, who will be known to all of our listeners and viewers as... As what? Well, as somebody who... might one day be the president of the United States because that's part of the talk around him. But he's somebody who's got a fascinating childhood also then made it pretty big in business. So substantial kind of independent wealth, which allows him just to go and be a politician. And there's now really is kind of making a difference in the argument about what the Democrats should do to take on Donald Trump. So it's a real pleasure to have him.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for the introduction. Thank you, Governor. Can we begin with a question of who were you as an 11-year-old? If I'd encountered the 11-year-old Gavin Yuson, what would I have thought? Well, you know, it's interesting. I went through this process of discovery, a memoir that I call of discovery, and young man in a hurry. It's coming out in a few weeks. And in that process, I learned a lot about myself, a lot about my family that I didn't know about. My mom and dad were not very forthcoming. Both had passed away. Didn't have a chance to really reflect on their lives and their values. But at 11 years old, I was in the back of the classroom. 11 years old, I had a bulk cut. My hands were sweaty. I was scared to death of walking into the classroom, faked being sick consistently, couldn't read, couldn't write, and nothing terrified me more than being asked to read out loud in a classroom. That's really bad dyslexia. Yeah, pretty severe dyslexia. And it's really marked every aspect of my life. It's the reason I'm here. turned out to be an unbelievable gift, but it's also a great burden. As a consequence, you'll never

see me reading a speech. I'm an American politician when someone can't hand me a speech, so I'm not gifted in that respect, but it provides you the opportunity to overcompensate in other ways and allowed me a creativity that allowed me to get into business, to see things a little differently, to problem solved, to be able to make mistakes and learn from them, to be resilient, all those things that turned out to be attributes. And you had this fairly troubled child, and not just you disliked you, but your parents divorced. Yeah. Your mom was kind of bringing you up with your sister on her own, not much money going around.

And yet, I read the book last night. You had this extraordinary entry into the world of the Getty family, one of the richest families in the world. How did that come about? Yeah, both and. I mean, so my dad left for reasons I didn't know until I wrote the book. He left my mom. She was 19, two kids, 2021 on her own.

My father had a breakdown, tried to get into politics. ran for county board of supervisors, ran for state senate, had debt and had a mental breakdown, as he described it in an oral history that we discovered in the process of writing this book and just took off and left. My mother came from nothing, just hard work and grit, and raised us on our own. Meanwhile, my father's relationship with the Getty families go back to his time in school, and Paul Getty from the UK and his brother Gordon becoming his closest friends. And consequence of that, all these doors opened. to that world and then coming back home to that reality.

And that really is to sort of define my past, feeling like I belonged in both and didn't belong in either. So it's, again, memoir of discovery. And I think what was wonderful not only discovered a lot about myself, but those that think they know me define probably perhaps disproportionately on the basis of the relationship with the Getty family may be very surprised by the actual story in my childhood and my life. without being too pretentious, masculinity. You're an very interesting example, and I love you to talk about this a little bit.

I mean, you're somebody who comes across as a sort of central casting kind of Hollywood politician. You're kind of tall, you're good-looking. And, you know, if you're not lucky, people could think that you're too good looking for your own good, you're like a sports star, etc. Okay. On the other hand, you've just described this 11-year-old

who was, as you've described it, was sweaty hands, terrified about coming to class. What does that tell you about growing up, becoming a man? And yeah, go on. No, I mean, I still think I'm that person. And look, in this memoir, and I hope it reads very differently than most political memoirs. Definitely. I appreciate that.

I decided to sort of crack myself open. And I made a commitment with a co-writer, beautiful writer, Mark Erick's. And his commitment to me in this process was, if we're going to go, we're going to go another level deeper. But the bottom line for me is I put a mask on. And there were times when my face grew into it. I was becoming someone I was not. And that mask started to fray. I mean, it's that, you know, it started to break down.

And that is very well reflected in this book as well. And so it's... The remembrance of attraction. The book, remembrance, when you're drinking too much, this moment when marriages are falling apart. Exactly. Yeah, all of the above. And imperfect, it doesn't even describe it.

And I think what's wonderful now for me and sort of cathartic, I'm on the other side, I am who I am. I'm not trying to be someone I'm not. And so in the context of a gender frame, as you describe it, I just think more it's just developing confidence and realizing your expression's unique. No one else has it. Learn from, but don't follow others. In so much my life, I was trying to be like somebody else. And I think a lot of people with learning disabilities, they need to do that.

You're performing all the time. You're overcompensating for your own anxieties and securities. You know, it's just not as successful at doing certain things the way other people do. them and tasks so you have to come up with more of a creative mindset and and I think that's turned out to be a gift in politics it provides a different pathway different perspective and has allowed my politics to be shaped by risk-taking by iteration by trial and error in a way that i don't think many or most american politicians that's not the chosen path were you deliberately within the book trying to with a very different story but is the part of you thinking well what helped barrick obama really

kind of reach out to people was the book that he wrote about his life and his dad. Dreams of my father. Yeah. Fantastic book. But I wondered whether, because it is, it is a very different sort of political memoir. In fact, there's not that much about your political life in it. No. And just, frankly, just the epilogue.

I mean, it's, we obviously goes up to my time getting elected as governor, but it's shaped in the context of my family and the relationship with my mom and dad. And their parents, which I discovered, this House of Horrors, it was a description. by my mom who literally her father put a gun to her head when she was a young child. Her father, my grandfather took his life who spent years. And your mother kind of did. Yeah, she did. I was there with her and an assisted suicide.

And I was there with her last breath. And, you know, that is really, I mean, not something I recommend for anybody, how painful that was. But in the pain she was in and how she sought relief at a time when that was illegal. full disclosure. And that's a point of criticism, which is a fair point of criticism. Thank God, we had a courageous doctor. And I was there. My sister was there on one side. I was on the other side. She was looking through old photos, struggling with her breath. My sister ran out. And I stayed with her for the extra few minutes that she was there and about 20 minutes after. And, you know, just those marked sort of deep moments in your life. We all have our own journeys. But try to put

that out there and express it in as authentic way I possibly could in the spirit to your question of what Obama did, which was so different, so distinctive, so unique, so un-American in the context of so many political memoirs, which are frankly sanitized. Ten-point plans, they're cautious, they see all sides, they're inclusive. This lets it open, let it rip. This is important because we're in a new politics, aren't we? And the sort of politics that I agree. up in as a British minister was hypercautious. And maybe the kind of politics that Alistair was associated with, which was message disciplines and grids, a lot of this was about not making mistakes because any slight

misstep, any allegation about something you've done when you were young, any, blew up, right, all over the newspaper, and you resigned and you were gone. But we now seem to have entered a different world for better or for worse, where... Trump does, not everybody has. Trump certainly has. it's an interesting parallel. That's right. But it may be that as we enter the world of Trump,

his opponents too need to become more comfortable with failure, mistakes, scandal, and just keep rolling. It's the right question, right observation. And I mean, Trump in so many ways is unique and what works for Trump doesn't necessarily work for everybody else. But you're noticing just more broadly. And it means the nature of the medium we're on today with podcasts, this notion of extended conversations.

That was not necessary. I mean, we were talking about... It's a bit risky, right? five minutes, you know, talking points. We got them right here, you know, just stay on message. And, you know, editing away. But now, I mean, I just spent four hours and 20 minutes on a podcast the other day with a conservative in Tennessee.

The opening question was, are you willing to take this Glock, this American gun, as a gift? And that was the opening question, sort of testing the theory of where I was. I said, thank you. And I braced it. And now I'm getting training on it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that I'm sure.

Holy in America. But the point being, I think, no, I think that's what people are looking for. They're looking for authenticity. We're exhausted by the status quo. I mean, there's an anti-establishment feelings across the globe. I mean, so I think it's very much part of our politics in the United States. Trump expresses that, obviously, is succeeded in that respect. So does Bernie Sanders on the other side of the political coin.

And so I think our politics is radically changing and reorganizing. Part of that is we need to change. and reorganize our thinking, our relationship with the public, and just be more transparent and open. Again, I mean, politics, as you know, is full of conventional wisdoms that often turn out to be completely wrong. There is a conventional wisdom that if you're from California, the rest of the country is not going to take you. Yeah, yeah. And of course, Reagan did it, but he was going to Nixon goes to China kind of thing. Nixon tried.

Yeah, exactly. So just tell me, is California a thing? Is it a problem? Yeah, I think it's both and. It's, I mean, I say to the book, it's the most blessed and cursed state in America. And then I would argue politically, too. I mean, I said that in the context of fires, droughts and floods and being the center of the universe as it relates to AI and quantum and robotics and advanced manufacturing. But no, I think it comes with attributes, particularly in a primary. You know, the future happens in California first, where America's coming in attraction. So many of the policies, progressive policies, pragmatics. pragmatic progressive policies that the Democratic Party is arguing for we did years and years ago. Give me a subject matter and I'll give you a policy prescription that we've advanced. Some have been more successful than others. And so there's grace and humility in that respect, trial and error.

But, you know, look, we're the center of energy and daring, innovation, entrepreneurialism. We're dreamers and doers, entrepreneurs and innovators. And I think that is compelling to a lot of folks. In a general election, there's no question on the right they've paid a california. California in the same derangement terms as Trump has been described. There is Trump derangement syndrome. I believe that in many respects, and I think it's valid, and we'll get to that. Well, I didn't say a word.

You seem very, very defensive right now. But there's certainly California derangement syndrome. It's 24-7, and it makes sense because careers, industries, Fox News, Murdoch, I mean, they're defined by what we're against. Our success runs counter to their entire. argument of the case. You say in the book, there is no Trump without Murdoch. Can you really believe that? I absolutely believe that. I just think his weaponization, his ability to shape shift what Murdox have done for. It's provda, Fox News, prime time lineup. And I mean, the Rubio speech today was interesting.

I mean, the shape shift, compare that to advances ship. I mean, they celebrate advance a year ago. They're going to celebrate Rubio tonight. Whatever the dear leader, whatever position, repositioning, they advance. I've never seen a network like this. this, you've more experience in this space. Murdoch, of course, is bringing a little bit of his East Coast bias to the West Coast, has created the California Post, whose purpose is to take down folks like myself. That's who these guys are. The Secretary of State speech this morning began with a statement that he wanted America's allies in Europe to be strong, and he wanted them to stop being guilty and stop being apologetic,

and instead to be proud of their heritage, proud of their civilization, proud of being part of the greatest civilization on Earth. I really understand that. What's he trying to say? I guess the suggestion is you are not, which is a hell of a statement. And that's perhaps a consistent threat of what Bance was saying.

What does he and Stephen Miller think civilization is? When Stephen Miller's standing up saying, we're the heirs to a great European civilization. Or the National Security Council says, I like the way he said it, color of your shirt. Right. That's exactly what they mean. I mean, that's what the migration.

I mean, these are all the code words, and we know them well. These are the dog whistles and the vernacular of the 80s with Reagan, Nixon, and others. And it's a weird thing, isn't it? Given that America has a history of being against empire, many ways of progressive history, to have the United States trying to say to us that, I mean, the way I heard it, but maybe I'm exaggerating, It is that he's almost saying, you know, we should be proud of the French and the British empires. There's this extraordinary kind of Western civilization. It's this sort of, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, if he's talking about the best of the Roman Republic, the best of Greek democracy, and this notion of popular sovereignty, co-equal branches of government and the vernacular of democracy or republica, bring it on. Amen. Right? The rule of law, not the rule of Don, Donald Trump in this respect, rules-based order versus, you know, law. the jungle, might makes right, or perhaps he does mean what you're suggesting, we have, I believe, an imperial presidency that is inspired by might makes right and the law of the jungle. If you have something he wants, you're a target, period, full stop, and that will continue to be the case.

And Governor, just final thing on this, there's something that's very difficult to understand, which is, on the one hand, the Trump presidency seems to say they want us to be strong. On the other hand, it suits them, they seem to say they want us to do what Trump says. And these seems to be intention because on the one hand, he wants everybody, for understandable reasons, buying American weapons, accepting the dollar, accepting his trade terms, giving goodies. On the other hand, he's trying to push Europe to be more independent, pushing them away, which will undermine all those things.

I'm trying to work out what do you think is going on. I don't think I think he's working it out in real time. That's to suggest there's a value point. proposition that's clear and consistent. It's not. It's mercurial. It's whim. It's feeling. It's news cycle. It's 24-7. It's shock and awe. It's iterative in this context. Throw things out, see what works. But right now, the entire theory of his case is in retreat. They're in retreat in terms of their attitudes towards their alliances in the European Union, based on what Rubio said today, in retreat, obviously in Greenland, and retreat even domestically as it relates to domestic forces.

You know, mass men, the secret police that he sent out to cities like Minneapolis and Minnesota, they're pulling back. His own domestic agenda is fraying. He's historically unpopular at the moment trying to address the issue of affordability. He's out on an affordability tour. He is in a very interim mindset because he's about to get crushed in the midterms. And so, he's weakness masquerading as strength, but he does respect strength in this context. He senses weakness and he exploits it. That's his expertise. And so I thought it was important what Carney said in Davos. I thought it was important. What continues to be important, what is being said yesterday, last night, today, here in Munich. And I think the European Union, I think global leaders are

starting to recognize the approach to Trump cannot be of appeasement. It has to be from a position of strength. Is that one of the reasons why you've taken this very aggressive social media strategy that has got a lot of attraction around the world because it's kind of going for him. And likewise, I thought it was really into one of the most kind of laugh out loud moment in your book is when Trump comes down when you've got these terrible fires raging. You paint a picture of a guy who's still utterly self-obsessed, completely narcissistic, only thinking about how he's going to look on Fox News. And you tell this incredible story about he's got Jared Kushner sitting alongside you,

and he's basically saying, I wish that Ivanka was marrying Tom Brady, not him. Yeah. What are we dealing with? How do I impact this? How do I impact? Well, you're dealing with a malignant narcissist. I mean, for one. someone who's remarkably engaging one-on-one.

And that's universally understood anyone who's had extended interactions with them. I've had perhaps the most interesting, I would argue, relationship with them of any Democrat because we worked together during COVID. And we worked very, very collaboratively during that period of time. I don't think any of Democratic governor can like claim to that.

You were in favor of taking bleach to do with you? I was, you know, I've been met in bleach. we had our differences. But in the context of at least engagement, the biggest surprise to me on the international stage was a Zelensky meeting. It was so unlike Trump. He doesn't like conflict and friction one-on-one.

But that was Vance, wasn't it? It was Vance. Yeah, exactly. And so to understand Trump is to understand that. And I think, look, part of that is he's easily manipulated. And that's from a foreign policy perspective. I mean, for Xi and Putin and these others, I mean, it's a little legendary, and that's a point of some deep caution.

But he has a deep desire to get along for you to appreciate, to engage him, slap you, the backhand on your knee, to engage in the kind of banter, sometimes crude infamously, sometimes rather insulting and degrading to poor Kushner in the context of the Brady comments. And at the end of that, you go off, so you see him close up, You're trying to work with him on dealing with these fires. And then not long thereafter, and your social media put out, we've got to get an administration that's less corrupt and more competent than this. And he phones you up almost like, pleading.

He was hurt by it. Yeah, he's hurt by it. He said, I thought we had something. And I said, well, that was maybe a little tough. It was pretty mild. And he immediately goes, yeah, it's all good. We're good. He just wanted to make sure we're good.

He called me. And right before he federalized, you want to talk about the origin story. And you didn't ask, but I'm going to take advantage of you bringing up myself. media. It radically shifted last June and it shifted after a phone call that I had with Trump. Trump called me late at night about 1.30 almost two in the morning his time and unknown number Palm Beach. I didn't even answer it. Then I listened to voicemail and it was the president. I checked back in. I thought it was particularly late. I wasn't even sure I checked in with his chief of staff first said I know it's late. I got the call called tomorrow. I said no,

you should call him now. So I called him. It was a 19 minute conversation about quote unquote the riots in Los Angeles. And it begins with the following. God is my witness. He goes, hey, yeah. I mean, this is 10 o'clock my time, PM. He goes, what do you think of New Scum? You know, the nickname New Scum. He calls me New Scum, a worst governor. And I said, he goes, pretty original, right? I said, no, it's not original. I said, Mr. President, in eighth grade, it's actually in the book. They were calling me New Scum. He goes, ah, you know, he goes, what about Magga? Pretty good. I said, yeah, make America great. But I said, that's not original.

I mean, Reagan, how many hats you think I sold last month? This is right when we allegedly had riots on the streets about, had no interest. 17-minute conversation did not once bring up Los Angeles, had no interest in that, wanted to get back into the debate performance with Kamala. He says it was four against one. I said there was only two people that were a cross-examination. He says, a cameraman. The camera, I'm like, Jesus, my spread.

And this is literally, man, that 15 hours later, He tweets out, said, I read News and the Riot Act and were federalizing the National Guard. 4,000 National Guard are federalized 700 active duty Marines. Didn't even talk about it. Completely made up. But it was at that moment that my mind radically shifted. That this is, I mean, for all the banter aside, the fact that he's descending thousands of troops, the second largest city in the United States, not overseas.

Remember, this was the first city that he did it, just shifted in my mindset that we've crossed that red line. I started to do is put a mirror up to that. And I did in a very crude ways in ways that were profoundly controversial because I started to mimic him for a reason. I mean, dressing up as the Pope, the President of the United States. I mean, this is not normal.

And the best part about it, we had some fun with it. It's Fox News, again, back to Provna, and his enablers. They were so offended. One of their well-known hosts and one of their biggest programs said, oh, this news so me,

where is his? his wife, he should be washing his mouth out with soap. This is not once recognizing their lack of situational awareness. They've not said a thing about Trump's tweets this entire time. So we haven't doubled down on it. We have made it kind of an art. And if you haven't checked my social media out, I encourage you to check it out. Okay, Gavin, Rory, quick breaking them back for more. Hey, this is Michael and Hannah from Gollhangers. The Rest is Science. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK. We often think of beating cancer as treatment. But imagine stopping it before it begins.

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The first stage of the trial starts this year, focusing on people at higher risk. It shows what long-term research makes possible. For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org forward slash the rest is science. Hi everybody, it's Dominic Samarik here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Rest is Politics, when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alastair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Rest Is History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now, we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East. are rippling through the world economy, when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise,

people are arguing about Europe, the government has got a few issues with the trade unions, and we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues, and people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain, and the Britain of the mid-19. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we'll be looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistaira will have strong opinions about.

We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. and we'll be talking about one of the grimmest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History,

wherever you get your podcasts. So how did your own experience growing up and this sort of development from quite a shy and secure boy into becoming who you are today? How does that help you understand bits about the president? I mean, when you look at him, can you recognize people in your life who's a bit like? I mean, are the hints of his personality you're picking up?

Well, I mean, we all want to be loved. We all need to be loved, even the President of the United States. Look, he's a broken man in so many respects. Let's not forget. He's the guy who tried to light democracy on fire and wreck our democracy after January 6th. He's a very dangerous person. One should not underestimate what he's capable of doing on a daily and hourly basis. I don't think people fully have absorbed what we're up against day to day.

He is trying to wreck this country. It's 250th anniversary of this historic project of our founding, fathers, and he is doing everything in his power to break the core tenets, the spirit, and those values. That said, he's not complicated. He just simply wants you to understand how wonderful he is. How, you know, what a good chap he is. What a good bloke he is. He wants to do the right thing. Just give him a hug. He didn't get many, clearly, from his parents. I don't know that it's more complicated than that. However, he's always. He's always, A guy I've described him as a T-Rex.

He will either devour you or you have to mate with him. It's almost impossible to work with him. You only work for him. And so I have iterated in that respect as governor. We have tried the path of least resistance. Doesn't necessarily go so well. And now we're taking an approach that's a little bit more aggressive, a little more assertive. And interestingly, I think he responds to that with a little more

respect than most people would otherwise appreciate. Who do you despise might be too strong a word, but who do you despise more? Him or the people who enable it? Oh, the enablers. I do. They know better. They should know better. Rubio?

Vance, Miller. Where are we? Well, don't get me started. I mean, you talk about the dark heart of this administration. You're talking about Miller. The dark heart of the administration. Here we are in Germany. Is he Goebbels?

I don't want to get me in trouble in that respect. I don't know. I mean, I think maybe other members of the administration may fill that slot. He's a hard right by its supremacist. And Trump, I've had conversations with Trump where he's implied that. He goes, he's a tough guy, tough guy, which is Trump's way of saying, you know, he's not a useful idiot, but he's very intentional sent out there. And look, the entire mass deportation strategy is a Stephen Miller strategy.

And his, you know, I mean, you saw Miller defend the Venezuelan action in a way that was, I mean, a little understated, alarming. Even by Trump standards, I think he started to pull him back a little bit. But look, I think Rubio talk about putting a mask on. He's put a mask on and his face is growing into it. I don't recognize Marco Rubio, nor to the Democrats in the Senate that worked with him as a colleague. He saw that today. He was doing Trump's bidding, but doing it in a way that was not as upsetting as Vance was last week. Correct.

Last year. Correct. Sitting here now, you're bound to think, let's say that you do win the nomination. Who do you think is going to fight for the Republicans next time around? Look, Donald Trump's a lame duck president. He hates those words. Donald Trump is a lame duck president. What do you say three times?

as a lame duck president. He will be remembered in years, not decades, time of life, not a state of mind. He would run for a third term in a nanosecond if he was a younger man, I believe that. He's the most corrupt president in American history. The self-dealing, the graft is next level. It's not about policymaking.

It's about profit-making for the entire family. I mean, it's extraordinary what he's been able to achieve in a very short period of time, and his enablers allowing that every second of the day. But in terms of, Trump's tenure, it's about to come to an end as we know it today in November. He's going to, as I said earlier, get shellacked in the midterms. Absolutely sure about it.

Absolutely sure of it. I've said this before, and it's absolutely important to underscore. He's an historic president, historically unpopular. That's the pivot with Rubio today. That's the pivot with Greenland. That's the pivot in Minnesota. I mean, Susie Wiles is no idiot, his chiefest. I mean, they recognize how existentialists. All of a sudden, the U.S. Senate's down play.

That wasn't even on the table. That was never. I mean, we could have theorized it. We could have promoted it as good partisans, but to believe it, now it's a chance. And so this ends. Lame duck with Congress, now with subpoena power, real authority and oversight, but the ability now also to generate some attention. And that's what he hates most. And I want to go to the Vance question. It's all about attention. He doesn't care if he's the heel or the hero as long as he's the star. That's Donald Trump. The idea that he's going to sit back and watch a primary unfold in organic ways and look around and wonder where CNN is in the Oval Office and like, well, sir, CNN is with J.D. Vance in Iowa at the primary.

He won't put up with that for a second. So he has to be, I mean, this is the Apprentice 2.0. he'll make that determination is the answer to your question. He'll have some fun. He'll throw it out as he does with everything. His focus group are his rallies. He'll go, as it, Vance. It's like the gladiator.

You know, thumb up or thumb down. It's not complicated. And he'll, so is, no, it's Rubio, Vance. You know, and he'll throw out some other names. And he'll do this until the last breath. And so it's interesting. I think about the nomination for whoever the Democratic president is. I know all of us want to move, and we do, right?

from resistance to renewal. What's the positive alternative message? What's the journey we can all go on in all of us? I mean, Democratic Party, what do we stand for as opposed to who we stand against? I get all that. We all recognize that. It's going to be an interesting and challenging environment because Trump will continue despite his weakened stance as it relates to now no longer having the House of Representatives and being a lame duck. It's still going to be defined in so many ways by Donald Trump. How did Kamala Harris lose the last election and how is the next Democratic candidate going to win the next one? Well, I mean, well, we can go on a journey together on punditry on this. We can start with many theories, incumbency. There's one theory. Interest rates. There's another theory. Inflation scars.

There's the third theory. Israel. There's the fourth theory, combination of all the above, the fifth, wokeism, the sixth. Let's talk about transport. I mean, we can go down that list. Not sufficiently independent. Wrong answer on the view. Didn't go on Joe Rogan.

Which article? Which pundit do we want to highlight and recognize a combination of all of the above? Perhaps 107 days, it was 108. It would have been different. Open primary. I can continue. I don't know, but I'm in the process of trying to understand. It's why I created a podcast.

Fended a lot of folks. My first guest was Charlie Kirk. My second was Steve Bannon. I almost didn't get a third guess because there was a what the hell is going on over there. Who's this guy? I just had, you know, Ben Shapiro on talking about the mega movement and the split now within the mega movement. I mean, again, back to weakness, masqueraneous strength.

There's something happening there. You saw it on the tariff vote, too, those in six congressional representatives on the Canadian tariffs. But that said, Trump cleaned our clock. Just objectively did. I know it was 170,000 votes, perhaps in the aggregate. It okay. But still, seven swing states, popular vote, historically unpopular person, yet still was successful. So look, we have to learn from that. And I don't think we've done the forensics.

And our party, interestingly, did, but is unwilling the Democratic Party to actually make public their analysis. So it's the whole process that the party's done, but we don't know what that. But we don't know what it is. I don't know that that's healthy. I imagine we'll open up wounds and scars, and I think we're feeling better now because in 2025 was a good year from us. Not the beginning of 2025. We were weak. I think, look, my whole thing, you guys have talked about this before in the podcast, and, you know, Scaramucci, others are absolutely right. And Clinton said this, right, years and years ago, given the choice, the American people will always support strong and wrong versus weak and right.

Weakness is another part of this whole story. It's not just policy. It's a sense of how Biden stepped down, this sort of sense of weakness after the loss of the election, the party's weak. You know, Schumer, leaders of the party decided not to move with the government shut down early on. The base of the party frustrated, outraged. There was no real resistance. And then it started to emerge a little bit from the states, the front lines of these battles, increasingly states. And there was a little bit more muscularity.

Then all of a sudden, people started showing up on the streets in a way, these no kings rallies. that actually bucked up our party a little bit. And then at the end of 2025, we got these gubernatorial races. We're winning in these state races. We're winning in races for a dog catcher that we had never won across the board. And then Prop 50 for me and the work we did to push back against election rigate. So now I think we found our footing a little bit more. And when we take back that gavel, we take back the House of Representatives even more aggressive.

Where would you fit on a kind of UK political spectrum? Or give me an American. If we put Bernie and AOC over here and the kind of more conservatives over here, where would you be in there? Well, I'm a guy doesn't begrudge other people's success. I say that because there's a tendency in my party, a little bit of that. I've just never been that guy. Nature and nurture. I grew up in sort of the Clintonian mindset.

I'm not talking about triangulation third way here. So I want to be careful about that. But this notion of the value, the prism to which Clinton made decisions, community, opportunity, responsibility. And I think on the responsibility question, we've fallen short. We can talk in terms of community and opportunity, but the issue of responsibility and patriotism, service, contribution, the Democratic Party can do more. Uniting around the things that bind us together, I think my party can do a better job. In the vernacular of Clinton, we celebrate our interesting differences, but we don't do enough. to focus on what unites us together.

So, for example, could you see yourself running alongside OEC? I mean, with a kind of a shared agenda that could reach out to the country? Well, we, look, our system is broken. 10% of, you know, people on two-thirds of wealth in the United States. If you're 30 years old, you know, particularly a young man in terms of gender terms, so we have a crisis of masculinity more broadly to find not just the toxicity of a Donald Trump, but more broadly what's happening to boys and men in the, crisis in that space in terms of suicides, dropout rates and the like, educational achievement,

etc. The broader issue of populism is so dominant now in our party that there's a reason people, the reason AOC is out here, the reason Bernie and AOC still fill out stadiums. It's very resonant. I mean, we're going to have the first trillionaire class. We don't need more trillionaires. Happy to have more millionaires, but we don't need any more trillioners, or any trillionaires, frankly. And so I think these class politics is going to play a big role and that populism is going to be dominant in our politics. So it's what, you know, how do you dial that up or dial that down in a way that doesn't push people away ultimately be that termination. So forget the personalities. I think, you know, tonally, we've got to address these systemic issues.

There's a sense you can't play in the margins with the established order of things. And so I think some more radical thinking without being radical or radicalized will be in order. I pick you up on this challenges of young men and what she think the approach should be. Well, I've been working with Richard Reeves. I've been working with Scott Galloway and others. I mean, they've been thought leaders in the space. We did a very significant comprehensive executive order in this space. We have dozens of initiatives from some as simple as this.

We looked around at how many kindergarten teachers were men, realized, very few. And that relationship to a young child to see something. someone that represents something. So we're out there recruiting more male teachers as just one example. We have an initiative to organize 10,000 new mentors and coaches, young men. You talk about boys and girls club, a lot of these NGOs that we have. There are not many boys, the boys and girls club. And so we're recruiting men as mentors. We have volunteer initiatives, the largest, larger than the Peace Corps in the state of California. Points of Pride. I think we should do required public service in the United States of America. I think it should be compulsory. I think

that is foundational. We need to work together across our differences in the spirit that I think defines the best of us. We have to have shared experiences. And so all of those are part of this larger fabric that we're trying to quilt together. Are you definitely going to run? I don't know. To be determined, the four people that will decide five of my four kids and my wife. And it depends on any given day, how they feel about it. My oldest daughter has a calendar that counts down the days that she will be quote unquote free where I'm no longer governor. My nine-year-old has one interest and that is Air Force One. My 12-year-old just wants dad to be home and dad and hates that I'm here literally and it breaks my heart and she's just amazing. And I'll tell you that's what this book was

for them. I mean it's the dedication of the book. I didn't write it for anyone. else the third way i can't control people how they review the book whether they buy it i wrote it for them and it's a book of second chances you saw that in there yeah and i'm not going to screw that up again and that's the only thing ultimately that's enduring matters is my family okay so given the scale of the challenge of winning the nomination raising the money tour in the country getting there and then possibly being president is there not a danger that if you are if that's the decision making process that the doubts are going to win. I'm pretty honest and transparent about it.

You know, I'm not, you know, there's no picture of me with a former president that's been on my mantle since I was a kid. I didn't know that was my destiny. And nor am I prone to that. I think biggest mistake the Democratic Party has made in the past is we fall in love. It's about the guy or guy on the white horse to come save the day. And we're not doing the hard work, bottom up. It's always top down.

And so we tend to chase that. We're focused on 2028. My entire focus last year was on 2026, and that's why I did this proposition, Prop 50. But look, I said to someone when they directly asked me, I'd be lying if I said, I haven't thought about it. I think the moment in many ways chooses you as well. Do you meet the moment? I do think the obstacles away in the vernacular of the Stoics, what stands in the way becomes the way, and the impediment to action becomes the action.

Trump, in many ways, is defining. It's defined this last year for me. and a bit of a, you know, a sentencing and name recognition and identity. I didn't expect that phone call from Trump, that 17 minutes, changed the directory of things. So I think it sparks consciousness and depends on the flatness of the surrounding terrain as well. As I say, he only appears eminent because of the flatness of the surrounding terrain. There's humility in all of this, grace, and we'll see where the journey takes us. Governor, so many directions to go in, but one of the things that I've been thinking about is you in California and tech.

And you mentioned we're about to have a first trillionaire. So much money now, embedded in very, very few individuals, all of whom you've met and know, and who are worth tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. And they don't want AI regulated. They don't want tech regulated. They don't want the taxes too high. and yet you're going to have to persuade someone to give you money. I mean, how on earth do you sort out the kind of systems we need, given those kind of pressures?

Well, we're doing it. I mean, we're doing it. And we're doing it better than anyone else, and we have a lot more work to do. We're the only state, well, New York just modeled our frontier model AI regulations, first in the nation. I worked on that for two years. Tell us a bit about that. Well, I mean, it's about dealing with truth, trust.

It's also dealing about, you know, the fear and anxiety around these large language models and making sure that those models are more transparent, and that information is shared in an open way. Work with Faye-Fei Lee, work with Stanford University, Berkeley, work with MIT, did a white paper, built consensus with anthropic, open AI, Gemini, some of the other major frontier players. and we're able to put together and knit together a legislative package as a first step. We did 18 AI bills on watermarking, on, you know, robot calls, you name it. We're out there on child safety. We're litigating constantly with these same folks.

We have the most progressive tax policy in the United States of America infamously. I did my state of the state arguing in favor of it, not defensively, but making a case for progressive tax policy. So, you know, we're leaning in. At the same time, look, it's in the book. I think there's a chapter that begins. They were known by their first names back then. There's a wonderful interaction that I had with Larry and Sergei with Steve Jobs, where Steve literally pulled out of his pocket, said,

hey, come over here to Larry and Sergey. I was the plus one and came over. And we started to swipe. And it was the iPhone that he was about to release a few days later at the Moscone Center. And so I've had that privilege of seeing this in the front row. I don't begrudge them, but some of them have become vestiges of themselves. I don't know or recognize them. They've completely sold out.

Increasingly to Trump and Trumpism, to darker impulses and instincts. There was a libertarian bent always with these folks, but now it's increasingly grown darker. And I don't know if it's aided and embedded by AI or times I wonder how many are microdosing on an hour-to-hour basis. And that's, I'm serious about that. And that darkness is reflected in the proximity, many of them have, to J.D. Vance, to the Vance question. And the concern I have about our country. And so at the same time, there are a lot of enlightened folks that have shapeshifted, that showed up in inaugural, that will shape shift shift right back when the prevailing winds move in the opposite direction when this pendulum swings back. And so I have a little more confidence.

Well, listen, we're running out of time. you've got to go and do something else. But it's great to talk to you. I hope you do go for it. God bless you. I appreciate. And also, what did Paul McCartney sing to your daughter, Montana? Oh, my God.

I have the video, and I can't remember this song, but come on. I know. I was in my baby Bjorn, and he just comes up, and he doesn't stop. And I went quietly and handed the phone to someone. I said, are you recording this? This is McCarthy's right here with Montana, my beautiful Montana, who's still going to con. Maybe it was Paul that got her into these concerts,

which are costing her dad a pretty penny. Another reason, I may need another job, not just political office. I can't afford this. Thank you so much. Very generous to your time, and thank you. It's great to be with you guys. Thank you so much.

Thank you again. Thank you. Yeah, I thought really intriguing. I mean, and I really warmed him. My encounters with him in the past, I'm afraid I only saw the surface. and it's actually sort of rather kind of wonderful where somebody who comes across as a kind of high school hero

and he was a kind of high school hero he was like a sports star and he got an amazing sports scholarship and this kind of thing reveals the sort of insecurities and the awkwardness of his childhood and as he says that part of the being the great kind of all-American hero

was for him for some years a mask which he's now had to get into an examiner I think he's really got something I was rather alarmed at the end when he said that it'll be down to the wife and the case. Yeah, because you, I mean, normally, when I tried to say that kind of thing, when I was running to be Maryland and Prime Minister,

people would like, cut, stop. People want to know you're 100% committed that this is the thing you think about all the time. They don't want a leader who's a little ambivalent about the job. Well, it's the whole phrase, where there is doubt, there is no doubt. And so are there doubts in there? I mean, look, I think he's very, very clever, very, very charming, very, very smart.

His analysis of Trump, I think, is spot on. And he's worked out a way to deal with it. And very clever, but in non-conventional ways. He says he's so dissatisfied you can barely read at the age of 11. Yeah. And I mean, look, we know that famously Trump doesn't sort of re-briefs. I think doing any big executive job where you're really struggling to read and write is really, really difficult. But he's done it as the various political positions he's at.

I thought, you know, there's a frankness about him. Yeah, California's a bit of a problem. The book is very, very open about some of his issues in the... the past to do with alcohol to do with he had an affair with the wife of one of his staffers it's very kind of out there and i think that's the lesson that he's taking from what you talked about the asking about this sort of new way of new politics that we're in is why he does spend four hours talking to somebody on one it's very much not kirstama is it i mean british politics doesn't feel as though it's in that state british politics still feels

as though maybe it's better that the slightest scandal and you know if you look at Antsor Rainer's mortgage or whatever. I mean, that's that compared to the kind of stuff that he's going through, that a lot of American politics is not. So British politics is still actually quite cautious watching your words, one step out of line, the journalists are after you and you're being pushed to resign. I mean, it, well, other than, you might say, other than, you might say other than, when he was there, Boris Johnson. So I think there are, I think a lot of it will be down to the personality. But so, for example, what I saw there was somebody who whatever he's going on around him has got confidence about what he's and by the way

the one moving he moves his hands just like bill clinton right the left hand movement is identical and i wouldn't be surprised what does it look like this left hand move it's sort of it's very relaxed and then occasionally he uses the finger to point but it's not a kind of aggressive point it's a it's a i'm connecting with you point but i was at a football match a burmling game recently and I was talking to the chairman of the club that we were playing against, who was quite sympathetic to Labour, but he says something really interesting. He said, you know, whenever they come on the telly,

they remind me of managers that are explaining why they're just lost. And he has that sense of, maybe it is an American thing. They're just much more positive about themselves and what they're trying to do. What was extraordinary was the elegant way with which he avoided the question of how Kamala Harris lost. Because, of course... He said whoever else said. Yeah, yeah. Because answering that question tells you, are you with Seth Moulton? Are you with AOC?

And he says, well, let's do the punditry. Could be this, could be that, could be the other, could be the other. We don't know. It's almost two years since she blew herself up. I know. Also, I think what I thought he was going on to say, which he kind of did, was in the end, whatever happened then, we now have to shape something and create something much, much better to take us forward. But he didn't quite complete that pivot there, did he? He was still giving this very intellectual Well, he was making sure that people understood that, listen, we can't just blame Trump. We screwed up ourselves. So he was saying whatever else was saying. Again, I thought I was quite clever.

I did see touches of Bill Clinton in him, not just in the hand movements. But differences too, right? Oh, huge differences. Bill Clinton is a much more bookish man, right? And Bill Clinton sort of consumed books endlessly, went to Yale law school. But I think in terms of, I thought it was really interesting. I'm not doing it. I thought it was really interesting when he went and that thing about community, opportunity,

and responsibility. That was a big thing. That was a big thing for new labour as well. It was basically saying we can't just become the kind of, you know, that we're providing people with better health service, better education, better this, better that. There's got to be a sense of shared ownership of the responsibility. And I think that would be a very powerful message if you could land it.

And the other thing I think he showed, I think is one of the reasons why he kind of is emerging in the way that he does. is this thing of calling out Trump. And having Trump, as I said, this comes out in the book, when he calls him out, wanting to know why he calling me out. I love the count of those conversations. I mean, it's interesting, we don't get as much as we should of really getting a sense of how Trump works.

Because all the people he normally talks to, other world leaders, other Republican politicians, they're scared to say this is how the guy behaves. Right. You know, and honestly, in the book... What do you think about the name, Newscum? Great name, right? Well, no, they said that in eighth grade. Anyway, I hope it does run for it. I think it would be, it certainly lightens these up.

I thought he was terrific. Thank you. That was very much something that you brought in. He's an admirer of yours. So thank you for getting him. And I thought that was a great, great podcast. See you soon.