One on One with CA Governor Gavin Newsom

00:00:03
Speaker 1: Do you have a Zoolander project?

00:00:04
Speaker 2: Jesus yes, are you.

00:00:09
Speaker 1: Just ridiculously good looking? As Vogue said, So seriously, what do you do about Don't do.

00:00:14
Speaker 2: Anything about it, because if you're going to do something about it, then you're bullshitting people. You know what I am who I am, and it's fine. You don't have to like me, or maybe you like a slick person. I don't know whatever, it's okay.

00:00:26
Speaker 1: The reason why I brought it up because you talked about being authentic, and I think it sometimes works against you.

00:00:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just who I am. It's just who I am. And you know, I could go out and I can get one of these Hollywood producers to be member of my campaign and pick out which Tope suit all wear, which we've seen happen in the past when people literally are getting stylists to become someone they're not. I'm okay with who I am. I am who I am.

00:00:55
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Kittie Couric And this is next question. He's been called embarrassingly handsome, dangerously ambitious, and the one that seems to sting the most slick. Califernia Governor Gavin Newsom has spent his entire political career out running a caricature and now with a new memoir out called young Man in a Hurry, he's trying something different. He's actually letting people in. The book is a very candid look at a childhood much more complicated than the polished image suggests. A father who pretty much wasn't there, a mother working three jobs trying to keep things together, and a kid with dyslexia who was told it was ok to be average and he was not okay with that. But before we talked about the book, I asked Governor Newsom about the news of the day. Well, I am very happy to see you and excited to talk about your new memoir, young Man in a Hurry, a memoir of discovery. Governor Gavin Newsom, thank you for sitting down with me. And before we talk about the book, which is very candid, almost like a therapy session in a way, isn't it.

00:02:04
Speaker 2: Well, I could talk about the riding, it certainly was.

00:02:07
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about what's going on in the world for a moment, because it's so unsettled. When you heard about the attack on Iran on Saturday morning in the very early hours, gosh I don't know. In La it might have still been Friday night. What was your reaction?

00:02:23
Speaker 2: Wasn't surprised, you know it was a Napoleon or someone had said the only thing you can't do with the sword is sit on it. And the fact that Trump brought that second aircraft carrier in, that he had already assembled one of the largest military forces outside of the Gulf the original Iraq War, suggested something was going to take shape. I didn't have much confidence in Wi cough and Jared's ability to land an actual deal. I wasn't convinced they really wanted a deal, or the Israelis wanted a deal. I think they're going to take advantage of this opportunity or a degraded regime that had been substantially degraded over the course of the last couple year, and take advantage of something that frankly has been on the agenda not just for allies in the United States, but I think for this country for many, many.

00:03:09
Speaker 1: Years as a politician. I'm curious how you explain this radical shift in course in terms of campaigning on I'm going to not start wars, I'm going to end wars, and suddenly we're becoming such an interventionist country.

00:03:26
Speaker 2: I guess forgive me for not being shocked. You're talking about Donald Trump, who shape shifts on an hourly basis. I mean, we can just you know, all of the promises made versus promises kept. He's said we're going to be healthier and wealthier, and we're poorer and sicker. I mean, we can go through the list, so that litany doesn't surprise me. Of course, complete fraud in many ways shapes or formed. But so is JD. Vance. He was complicit in that respect. So was folks you know, on the right across the spectrum, the maga folks that said this is what makes Trump different. But look, he's failing and flailing at home, and he can't control the agenda on afford ability. He doesn't know what to do. The one thing he's learned to control is aspects of his foreign policy because they're unilateral, they don't require from his perspective. The law suggests differently, but from his perspective a lot of coordination, a lot of allied ship, and so he has the ability to make news. Guy doesn't care if he's the heel or the hero, as long as he's the star, and this makes those bright lights are now all over and on Trump. So in that respect, it's not surprising.

00:04:26
Speaker 1: The administration seems all over the map. I don't know how closely you've been following all their various explanations and their rationales plural for this military action. You hear Marco Rubio saying that, well, Israel was going to be attacked, so we wanted to join with Israel because we wanted to minimize US casualties. Then you hear President Trump saying, no, we pulled Israel along, they didn't get us to participate. Then from mar A Lago, you hear the President say, you know, this is your chance. This is you're once in a generation anston for regime change. Pete Hegseath, the so called Secretary of War, says this is not about regime change. So what in your view is the rationale or is there a rationale? You said in your first answer, Governor Newsom that this has been thought about for a long time, this regime did need changing.

00:05:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well, we've been certainly thirty seven years with the current former forty Supreme Letter, well, thirty seven with his reign forty seven overall it's a shaw, yeah, but thirty seven in the more contemporary lens. And look, I mean we're here in La and not a lot of tears are being shed for the Supreme Leader's death. Quite the contrary, which is interesting. But look, stepping back, they're making it up as they go, you know, with the real reason. Please stand up. It'd be nice if it actually revealed himself to President United States. Never made it compelling case, never made any case to the American people for taking this action. The imminent threat is illusory at best, doesn't exist. He's making it up in real time. It was about the nuclear program, which he said just months ago. He obliterated his words, not ours. He was argumentative about that, so it can't be about that by definition his own standard. He had already obliterated it. But then became that until it became about ballistic missiles. Then it became about proxies and militia, and then it became about our allies now that are all under attack and assault. We now have a regional war. It's playing out in real time in Lebanon, Syria. It's playing out in the UAE. It's playing out with allies that are wondering what the hell just happened? It is playing out in the energy and oil markets and the oil shocks and the stock market. It's playing out in our pocket books and with the not only treasury of the United States, but six Americans already dead, more likely to die, and he still hasn't made a compelling rationale save this. He made a better argument for his imperial palace yesterday and the curtains and the design for the east wing at a sacred ceremony than he did for why four people yesterday we've learned two more died today had lost their lives. He was more interested in that than he was the lives of four Americans that died for what. And we're still trying to figure that out.

00:07:19
Speaker 1: So why do you think he did it? Do you really think it's to distract from what's happening at home?

00:07:24
Speaker 2: No, I don't think it's that clear. It's the seventh incursion. So this is a president that has actually moved to more error and military strikes than Biden did his entire four years in one year. So this is very consistent in that respect. He's been willing to take risks. He's had some by you know, sort of traditional standards, the unintended consequences have yet to be felt on many of those prior incursions, and I think he was sort of testing the theory and also testing this notion that the regime was in retreat were substantially diminished, that if there was going to be a chance to do this, this was the opportunity to do it. And of course NETANYAHUO has many reasons to do It's been caused for him for decades and decades. He has political considerations, particularly with the Supreme Court looking down his throat. He's got elections that he's facing, he's looking at annexing the West Bank, he's looking at partheid state in Israel. I mean, there's a lot of compelling issues there in relationship to how Trump is so easily manipulated that all I think stack and are compounding. Plus I think sort of the magnomania that he had such an effective and efficient attack that was well designed for decades, and that truly goes back to prior administrations with the bombing campaign that didn't push them back into oblivion, but obviously had a profound impact in setting back their nuclear program.

00:08:49
Speaker 1: Let's move on to Christy Nome. She's testifying today on Capitol Hill, and as Homeland Security remains partially shut down, just curious. Should she be fired, should she be impeached.

00:09:02
Speaker 2: She should be ashamed of her leadership, lawlessness. She should be ashamed of her testimony. She doubled down on stupid. She reinforced her prevailing theme that somehow these were acts of domestic terrorism. She should be ashamed of herself. But she has no shame, as so many members of the administration tend to share that in common. Dear leader himself Trump being the principal in that respect, but no total incompetency across the boarder. Let me double down on the compency. I was just leaving Palisades with people that are torn asunder because of the fires here, that are still waiting for the President of the United States to simply submit a request to Congress to help the American people that lost their homes here in southern California. Christy Nooma is sitting on two point sixty seven billion dollars of money that were waiting to have approved, and she hasn't even distributed those dollars to the people in need here in America's second largest city. So across the spectrum, what she's done to FEMA, what she's doing on a daily basis to the survivors and victims of natural disasters, not just in my home state, but across the United States. Her gross incompetency as it relates to handling the affairs of ice and homeland security on full display. Americans being killed, Masked men mariding around the streets as if it was secret police, a guy dressed up as if he came off the lot of Warner Brothers here in la in nineteen thirties, garb by the name of Bovino, that's under her command and control, that she allowed to continue in his own ways. Even Trump had to say enough and it had to intervene and brought the bagman Homan who took fifty thousand dollars bribe from the FBI. And now he's appeared to be the adult by the flatness of contrast of the surrounding terrain. So no, she should be ashamed, she should be fired. She should have resigned months and months ago.

00:10:58
Speaker 1: I'm going to lower your blood pressure for a little while.

00:11:01
Speaker 2: But I'm having some coffee to balance it.

00:11:03
Speaker 1: Out before I raise it again. By talking about your book, young man, in a hurry. It's funny how all these people who are considering a run in twenty twenty eight are suddenly being bitten by the publishing bug. What is going on there, Gavin.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: It's something you have never experienced or witnessed as it in your years of outstanding journalism. The idea that politicians would put out books around this time interesting. Any next year, I imagine a few more.

00:11:34
Speaker 1: But why now? Why now?

00:11:36
Speaker 2: Well, this is interesting. This was supposed to come out three and a half years ago, so it was not a why now. It was never in that consideration last year. In fact, I had announced this time last year it was going to be published, but the fires pushed it back a year. But this was originally a project around my first term as governor. It was a project that included one chapter on my bio and my history and to Anne gone off, God bless her. She just passed away on publishing date of my book, The Legend at Penguin Press, and she was also editing the book. I submitted the book. It was about two years with Trump and trump Ism, COVID, the election with Biden, some interesting stories and tidbits and lessons learned in California, most blessed in curse state submitted it and she simply rejected it. Wow, she said, No, one wants to read about COVID. I said, but it was a very thoughtful, honest, self critical look at what we did right and they.

00:12:32
Speaker 1: Didn't shop at other places.

00:12:33
Speaker 2: And she said no. She goes, I was fascinated, and I said, I assumed she wanted the one chapter on my biolod. I was prepared to give that to her. Say fine, I actually have a substitute chapter on utility rates or something, some policy. And she goes, I didn't know you, and I thought I knew you. I didn't know about your mom, I didn't know about your dad. I just assumed certain things about you. She goes, I'm actually kind of interested learning more. And she goes, that's a book that I want to sell. That's a book you need to write to your decision. You want to move forward with this, I'll do it. But that's not the best you can do. And it forced me to go through a process of discovery. A young Man in Hurry became a memoir of discovery because I had to go deep and start to learn about myself, my history, my family, things no one ever told me, lies that they did, truths that were revealed, and a reflection in my own puplicity who I am and how people perceive me.

00:13:38
Speaker 1: You recently said, I've become a caricature of myself and contributed to it as it relates to this perception of privilege and wealth that has dogged me and at times infuriated, not just frustrated me. Reading the book, it's clear, first of all, that Anne felt the same way a lot of people felt. You know, they kind of know this, Gavin Newsome the Veneer, but don't really understand, I think, and maybe part of it is because you haven't let people in or they don't see what's beneath. But this book really does pull the veil off, and your young life was much more complicated. I think then people might realize your parents separated when you were just what I think, three years old. You're a toddler, and you and your younger sister Hillary were raised primarily by your mom, Tessa, and you learned a lot about your mom. Tell me about her.

00:14:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never knew why they got divorced, and neither would ever talk about it, and nor did I ever know why my mom was so insistent she passed away about twenty years ago. Why she was so insistent on me not going into politics. I mean, she was very clear and emphatic, whatever else you do, just don't go into politics. She never would explain beyond that. I would try to solicit some more sort of layered feedback, and she said, no, you should be in business. I was a small business person at the time. You should pursue other things. And I find out writing this book that there was an oral history done of my father's family at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. No one had told me. I went and got this oral history and started reading these transcripts where my father describes why he got divorced from my mom, who was nineteen when she was pregnant with me. He was thirty three, two thirty three, and he describes in their scandal, he said in terms of the age differential, and that played obviously a profound role in my mom's life because she was looking for an adult, She was looking for someone to take care of her, and here she is with a husband who was quote unquote broke and broken after running for county supervisor and losing running for state Senate and losing, running for two political offices, losing and just had a break down and took off. There's my origin story with my mom. Why politics had such an outsized role, negative role in her life. She never revealed that, nor did my dad. And so again in this process, I discovered not just their motivations, their challenges, but what makes me tick. Why I put a mask on, as you suggest, why I was wearing suits in high school, why I have certain utterances, why I discovered hairjail Dare I say we're going to discuss that I've lost someone there? And I started to, you know, my face started to grow into someone I wasn't where I was becoming an inauthentic version of myself and being what I thought people expected me to be, and all the anxiety and insecurity that comes with that. And so that's what I try to sort of release, not just scrutinize, certainly not sanitizing, but also release. In the process of writing this, it's cathartic because it allowed me to honestly just take a deep breath and just accept who I am.

00:16:45
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, so your mom is working her ass off right, holding multiple jobs, trying to raise you in your sister and your dad originally wanted to be a writer, kind of a man of letters, right, mister erudite. But ultimately he became a lawyer and a judge and kind of a consigliary for the Getty family. He ran for office a few times, as you mentioned, he lost. But I have to be honest, he sounds like kind of a schmuck. First of all, he abandoned the family when you were a toddler, and he was only present for occasional vacations. You describe your relationship with him as episodic, and yet you clearly adored your father, And I'm like, why weren't you more pissed off at him?

00:17:26
Speaker 2: I didn't know any differently, I think when you're that young and you have vague memories, and the only memory of my childhood is my first pet, which was a river otter. That was so weird, of course, because it's the most relatable thing, isn't it in the world. His name was Potter the Order, and my name comes from a book that ring a bright Water Gavin Maxwell, famous Scottish author. My father revered loves you know, my dad was, but he was that guy. He was a rabid environmentalist and advocate for you know, and this goes to your question of why he was about social justice, economic justice, and ronmental justice. He was a warrior in that respect, and of course that was brought into my first memories as a child with this pet, but also his causes, and so I was always connected to that. He just wasn't there raising us.

00:18:12
Speaker 1: You describe him kind of like a nice uncle. Right, yeah, he was you but still your mom is working so hard, that's so unfortable.

00:18:19
Speaker 2: A love letter to her. It's a love letter to single moms, to those and it's you know what it is. It's also you know, this young man in the hurry was never good enough for his mom. I learned when you become a parent, it's obvious and a parent to any of us the lens to which the world the needs of the child, but you also have needs. And how broken she must have been struggling without any of that reciprocity and affirmation, not just from a husband, but from two kids, particularly one that was struggling as well, which I write a lot about in this book.

00:18:53
Speaker 1: You write about your dyslexia. You're really candid about that and how insecure it made you, and there's a heartbreaking moment in the book in which you're struggling to read and your mom tells you the following, I hated it. It's okay to be average, Gavin.

00:19:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like you reading it. Really, I always hated her for that, and it's a terrible word to say. Hate. It really angered me and it's taken me a long time back to to let that go, because she was struggling to raise me back to my original point I was about to make. She was going through. I mean, I can't imagine working two three jobs and I'm talking literally two or three jobs. She had part time bookkeeping, she was doing part time waitress. She was doing a little bit of real estate on the side. She worked at I Magnus as a buyer sell it me. She just hustled. We had roommates all the time at Foster brother growing up, we rented out rooms. We just she just patched everything together, just hard work and grit, kind of latchkey kids, raising her own.

00:19:53
Speaker 1: Why wasn't your dad giving your money?

00:19:55
Speaker 2: He didn't have much.

00:19:56
Speaker 1: And then when the Getties gave you all presents, yeah, I would return them for the cash and give it to your mom.

00:20:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, forgive me to Anne and Gordon that provided it. But it was it was like a windfall, you know, four hundred dollars sweater or something, you know, like, oh my god, you know what we could do with the money. And then we'd kind of split it up or something and my mom would have a few bucks, but she would she did something I never fully understood it now in the process already this, I think she was also making a point. She would regift in the same box, her version of something from Macy's or from Sears or something. I don't want to overstate it, but I'm not going to understate that was sort of the contrast of these two different worlds, my father's relationship to money but never wealth in his own right, but his relationship to it, which was very, very apparent, and that contrast, that push pull different reality of mom that hard work and grit, don't explain, don't complain, and then this sort of you know, adventure that my father's life defined, particularly in relationship to his best friend or his best best friend as he described Gorngetty.

00:21:06
Speaker 1: Your dad, even though you speak so highly of him, he was also withholding and you write that as he was dying. Even as he's dying, he had enormous trouble acknowledging saying the words I love you, you write, he would not utter those words. And yet I had not one ounce of doubt that he loved me dearly.

00:21:27
Speaker 2: There, Yeah, I write in the book, this book goes up to basically when I got elected mayor, and there's an epilogue that expresses a transition, and an epilogue that has a few little stories that we may get into. But my father was not expected to live through the election, and literally survived to see his son get elected again. My father's pursued in nineteen sixty seven, sixty eight to run for elected office back in the time, the vernacular of the sixties, solving ignorance of poverty and disease, SARS, Shreiver, Bobby Kennedy, those are the heroes. Those are my heroes today. Again to the lane of my father and those ambitions, that sense of pride that I think is so defined in that era in terms of politics and public service. But he that night did when his caregiver was kind of pushing him. It was stated, right, we won pretty handily, So they called it right away, and they looked to my dad said, now is the tide to say and he did a little Jackie Cleson thing, you know, as any good Irish Catholic father. But the reason I never doubted it is he would tell everyone all the time, and so all his friends would say, I was with your dad the other night we had a drink. He's so proud of you. And I heard that for years and I started hearing it and he came back in my life, not when I got into politics, but when I got good at sports. So whatever it took, I mean, sports changed this reason I'm here. I'm here for you know, obviously my mom and dad, Willie Brown, we can get to and how sports gave me confidence I didn't have academically, got out of my shell and that me and my dad a little proud. So he brought his friends. He could brag on his kid playing baseball, playing basketball, and he would show up. I'm like, whoa, there's dad, And then I'd start diving for the ball or I'd just like swing a little bit harder, and it was way of connecting with them, and we'd have dinner afterwards. Those are my great memories, dinner with my dad and a few of his friends, always with friends, but those moments, and you live for those moments. Any divorce family kid, you live for those moments.

00:23:30
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Upcall by going to Katiecuric dot com. Do you think it made you parent father differently being raised by your dad the way you were?

00:23:58
Speaker 2: You know my wife and who's a fierce advocate in her own right. You know someone who has done documentaries about gender roles and responsibilities and tasking and the like in terms of what she expects in a partnership after all, and I can only imagine what was going through her mind when we first got married is what kind of husband are you going to be? And then when we in our first child, Montana, what kind of dad you were be? And I didn't know. I fell in love with her, I had a second chance, and I brought that into the relationship with Jen, and so I thought I proved myself in that respect. I'm continued my work in progress in that respect. But when I had Montana, Oh, I was so relieved in this respect because I didn't know. I thought I knew, but this lightning bolt from head to heart in a way of like, oh whoa like that's this is different, like it's and I say light light, like actual light love in a way that I'd never like. I didn't like. I thought I understood love, butterflies all that, but like love like a deep breath, just this warmth, this intensity of feeling. And I have it for my four kids in profound ways. Oh I wish my dad had that. Oh God did he miss that. He must have had it, but I don't know if he had it in the sort of baritone of his heart.

00:25:24
Speaker 1: Maybe he had it, but he couldn't show.

00:25:26
Speaker 2: It, didn't have the words for it. And I it's hard. Look, he came from a classic family. He went to church every single morning, every morning, alcoholic mom, tough dad, who was the boss, they described him. But also you know, ran ran the neighborhood in many respects old Irish family, but all the kids church every single day, and so that, you know, that marks a different generation and relationship to family and to tradition, and he was sort of the last vestige of that, and he kind of carried a little and then he became, as he said, I became a Catholic of a distant kind. And he kind of pushed away the older he got, and then we get closer and closer.

00:26:08
Speaker 1: It's so wild, isn't it. What kind of imprinting you have on your children, and how significant it is, and how on inspiring and overwhelming and intimidating when you think about how much you shape the psyches of your offspring, isn't it?

00:26:29
Speaker 2: And we all learned this. It's not what they say, it's what they do. And I talk about that in the book, examples of what they did that And you know, it creates a permission slip. Whatever you do well badly mistakes, it creates that structure. And so it's just off the charts. And that's why it allowed me to go, Oh, that's why I didn't you know my mom. You know, I knew a little bit about her father's suicide, but I didn't know that he put a gun to her head as a kid and threw her against the fireplace and said he was going to shoot her and alcoholic rage. I didn't know the details of his incarceration as a prisoner war in the Philippines after the Currigador March. Everyone remembers the Baton Death March, not the Crigador March. And I came back a different person, and how it shaped her to your point of imprint, and why she didn't talk for the first many years of her life, literally didn't talk. I thought that was a fable. Turned out I stress tested it was true. And here's a teenager with no wealth, no money that had that shattered early childhood, raising two kids on her own with not much support.

00:27:35
Speaker 1: And rushing to your father right for safety initially.

00:27:39
Speaker 2: Initially, and then he takes off and they neither of them got remarried, and every time they got close, they kind of re entered each other's life. And I wish both were around to say thank you. I never fully gave them ah, because all my weaknesses, all my insecurities, all my strength the reason I'm sitting here, God bless them, thank the most importantly.

00:28:02
Speaker 1: For even their flaws.

00:28:04
Speaker 2: Oh that's the gift. Their flaws are my gifts. My flaws have been my gifts. I regret many things, but I also am the person I am today and I'm again, and I'm in person every day. I'm becoming. I'm trying to be better, obviously, but I'm the willingness to stress test that, not to sanitize it. That's why this is I believe this to be a different book you opened up about. Oh, here we go with candidates running for office or those that may be, you know, suggesting they may have no interest, but really do have an interest in another office putting out books. I wanted to put something else out altogether, and I wanted to put it all out there. I just want to tell my story from my kids, for you know, selfishly. And the third thing I can't control, which is how you perceive it, the critics. Whether it sells one book, one thousand books, one undred thousand, but for me it was it was a blessing, the whole thing. I just learned so much.

00:29:00
Speaker 1: Have your kids read it?

00:29:01
Speaker 2: They only read the dedication. Hey, look, Montana, you and I are in the front. Dutch is like cool, you know you' all cool? That was it. I'm like, anyone else want to read it? Yeah? Where are you going? Dad?

00:29:13
Speaker 1: Maybe they're a little young because they are, how well sixteen.

00:29:16
Speaker 2: Sixteen, fourteen twelve and just turned ten. Little Duchy who is in the book, near the end during my inaugural my little two three year old with a little pacifier and his blanky, and he's sitting them that. Here's the guy doesn't read right. I'm the only thing I do not read speeches, But I will read a teleprompter because I'm specially looking up. If I look down, I'll lose I can't the words get scrumbled yet, So I'm sitting there just like you know, nothing good about me reading a teleprompter. This is not something people should endure and experience. So I'm doing the inaugural speech. It's hard enough, I'm staring at it. And then all of a sudden, I hear a bunch of noise in the crowd, and I realized my little kid was running around near the stage, and of course no one's paying time to me. I of course can't look away because I'm going through the teleprogram and then we will in my first to one hundred days. And then all of a sudden, I look down and he's at my leg, and my wife is like on the corner, totally paralyzed, like should I walk up? And I do what any dad would do, You just instinctually pick up your kid again. Pacifier in the blanky and he goes into my arms and puts his head right in my and falls asleep. And I'm sitting there giving the speech and I'm like and people are laughing, and I'm reading through the speech and speech ends and I've never It's been seven years, and people are like, can you give that speech again? No one remembers a damn word. I said, this was the thing, right, It's how you feel, and it was the essence that for me. I'll tell Katie that's the reason I bring this up. It's a long story, is ah love. But also that's where I wish Mom and Dad that was if they has seen that. My mom never met any of my kids, but they saw that, Oh come on, I mean that that was the moment for me.

00:31:08
Speaker 1: I was like, oh boy, I miss you, Mom, and talk about a movie moment. I know you didn't plan it, but boy, I mean talk about sort of inadvertently melting everyone's hearts.

00:31:20
Speaker 2: He still does. He just turned ten and we had eighteen birthday parties and he got another two days of gifts, including one this morning when I left.

00:31:30
Speaker 1: He sounds like your favorite kind of dad, And I.

00:31:32
Speaker 2: Gotta be careful he was the surprise, my wife revided me. But he's the best. And he's named Dutch. My dad lived in a small town, Gold Country and Plaster County, very conservative me, very conservative part of the state, and it's called Dutch Flat, and so it was also I named him on behalf of my dad and where he spent most of his life and where I spent a good portion of my life. The older my dad got.

00:31:59
Speaker 1: I don't want to gloss over your dyslexia, because it was fascinating for me. I don't have that much experience with dyslexia. But how it affected you, How your teacher was saying he thinks his d's or b's he's mispronouncing things and explaining why you use some sort of sat word.

00:32:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, you over compensation and.

00:32:20
Speaker 1: Your speech is How tough was it to come back and to be such a public person and to have to read so much and to have to, you know, do much public speaking. How challenging was that to deal with and to overcome.

00:32:35
Speaker 2: I love that question because I often think this is absolutely the worst profession to be in, right, because I mean, what do politicians do. They read speeches? They have speech writers. We don't have those things. I don't have those things. So you don't get rid of it. You overcompensate for it and you find other strengths. But it was my greatest weakness. I mean it was brutal. And anybody out there that's got kids that are struggling with this, oh God bless the parents, but the children, they just feel dumb. That's a word I used all the time, like that.

00:33:07
Speaker 1: And that's how you felt. And I think your teacher even said told your mom you were yeah.

00:33:11
Speaker 2: I mean no, they had no hope for it. I mean, there was no This was I was tracked with all those other kids if you get my drift and the sort of you know, you ended up in that little shed right you know, on the other side of the.

00:33:22
Speaker 1: Campus who had challenges.

00:33:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, that you know, the other kids and h and so I was in that those and I got to know those kids, and it just in it, by the ways, shape my empathy gene. That's why I don't like bullies. That's why, you know, that's why Trump I have no problem punching Trump back because I don't like people talk down to people, mock people. I don't like people belittling people. My mom worked one of her many jobs with aid to adoption of special kids, the Debault family with those kids with intellectual and physical disability. So I'm deeply involved with special Olympics, deeply involved with best buddies. That's why I again love the Shriver family and everything they represent and who they are and their values. And but I also have this this deep you feel and that's what I think a lot of dyslexis they have that they feel rooms and so that that empathy, the ability to just see things a little differently, to try to problem solve, willingness to take risks because you don't know how to do it in the traditional terms. So you learn trial by her iteration, problem solving, creativity and you're like, WHOA. So I open my first business. I'm relatively young, and it's very different. People like and I'm like, I don't know where this comes from. And I'm like wait, and then I open another business. I'm seeing things differently, trying to get different and take it, and I try to bring into politics, and they started taking risks in terms of a lot of the policies I would do, where people are like, that's not you don't need to do that now. Slow down, and so it's been a gift. It's what a gift. But it's wasn't easy, and I just for those that I know are struggling with it and those parents out there. I know how hard. I know how hard it is, but you're not dumb, and the only thing that can stop you is yourself when you give up. And my mom never let me give up. Even if she told me it's okay to be average. She did that because she loved me. Because she's basically saying, it's okay just to be who you are. You don't have to be someone else. My dad would have been sixteen hundred sat as English professor and which we write about. It's okay, you don't have to be That doesn't mean you're not smart. She never said that, but it's what I've learned.

00:35:22
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that that still stings so much. That it's okay to be average, which I'm sure she was trying to comfort you.

00:35:30
Speaker 2: Well.

00:35:30
Speaker 1: I want to move on to politics because I think a lot of people are concerned about the state of our country. There's a lot of anxiety, and I want to get your take on a number of things. You've gotten a lot of attention. And you just mentioned bullies that you don't like, bullies for adopting a more in your face fearlessness that takes on Donald Trump in a way that actually works. She recently said, at the core of our challenge and brand is that now that we are weak, and it goes back to the old strong and wrong versus we can right. Given the choice, the American people always support strong and wrong. Trump understands this, you know, I hear that, and I want strong, but I'm sure as shit don't want wrong.

00:36:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well I about strong and right.

00:36:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be better.

00:36:21
Speaker 2: But strength at the fundamental core convictions. You know, look, the right is ruthless. They're ruthless. You got these propaganda networks twenty four to seven. Illusion rules. Facts don't matter their ability to shape shift the conversation. We're constantly on the defense, I.

00:36:36
Speaker 1: Mean manipulate things that you've said.

00:36:39
Speaker 2: Not just what we say, but the subject matter to which we even engage. This is think back. You know two years ago was all about CRT and people were literally looking it up. Do we do this? What is this? And you realize, well, no, we're not. No one's really doing the CRT in k through twelve in their shape shift and they're winning that debate, and we're like, what's the CRT. Then it's you know, DEIESG anything with three letters. And we're constantly on the defense, you know, and the right is you know, focusing on just power, dominance, aggression. We're trying to win debates, we're trying to be right back to the ruthlessness of the other side. And so I started to really shift after I got recalled. Didn't get recalled, but recall petition got enough signatures where I had a recall campaign. I'll tell you that changes a lot of things, because all of a sudden, there's a finality of that. I mean talk about humility, and for me, that mindset of all politics is local. As like threw that one out. I must have said, you know, all politics is local. Everyone goes, oh, yes, it is bs it's all become nationalized and increasingly weaponized. And I discovered that when the RNC and New Gingridge, Mike Huckabee and Trump all these guys tried to take me on a mid year election, and there was moment where I thought I was going down. There were some polls that were within a couple percentage points We eventually pulled it out by twenty points, but it woke me up to this new world. I came out of that a different guy, ran for reelection, won by twenty points, only to have the fires a year or so ago in LA and back on my heels I went and they were shape shifting that Elon Musk, Donald Trump. They're not even in office, They're winning the debate, Another recall petitions out there, and I realized I needed to get into another gear altogether. And that's when I started putting out new fact sheets and websites, when I started shifting my social media, and that's when I really started to call out dare I say my party a little bit, saying we've got to fight fire with fire. We are losing right now where we appear weak across the board, across the spectrum of issues. We have to have more conviction, more courage, We have to be willing to take risk. We've got to fight the fight, and we got to start to dominate the narrative. Trump gets this, he floods his own. It's shocking. Ah, he dominated our conversations every single day. He's dominating our conversations.

00:39:05
Speaker 1: But isn't it Because people are disgusted by him. I mean, how do you dominate the conversation in a positive way, you know, how do you go from week to strong but with ideas that are really possible. I mean they're different kinds of strength, and I'm not sure you want to be bombastic. And the way Trump operates is that how you go from week to strong?

00:39:32
Speaker 2: No, you do prov fifty. He knows this is going to get selecked in the midterm elections. Well else is He called Greg Gabbott to say he's entitled to five seats because he knows he's going to lose in November, so he's trying to rig the election. He thought we would maybe write an op ed. I actually, for a moment thought about literally writing an op ed saying this is just so unfair Democrats. We need to do more and better. You know, let's have a candlelight vigil and we should talk more about democracy and our ten point plan and to bring America's renewal and how we can restore the soul of this country. I was saying and doing all that, and then I'm like, wait a second, what the hell am I thinking? There's not going to be a two hun and fifty first anniversary, at least in the spirit of our founding fathers. They didn't live and die for this moment, to watch the rule of law completely denigrated to become the rule of God.

00:40:19
Speaker 1: So what did you do? Instead of writing and not that?

00:40:21
Speaker 2: We decided to write new lines into the state constitution. We fought fire with fire. We put an initiative on the ballot a special election ninety days right, its one hundred and eighteen million dollars, and we won, and we neutralize what happened, and we pushed back and we send a message to Democrats we have your back in all fifty states. Prop fifty, after all, wasn't just about California. It was about the constitution, our republic. It's about the two and fiftieth anniversary, our founding fathers, the best of Roman republic, Greek democracy. So it's style, yes to your point, but it's substance to the point I want to offer, including the lawsuits, including the FA it's to be a little bit more brazen, bold and aggressive in how we respond and the lines that we refuse to allow to be crossed, in terms of calling it out with clarity and conviction.

00:41:13
Speaker 1: Do you think that that made Americans feel like Democrats were stronger because you all still in public opinion polls that's not really reflected and people still think the Democratic Party is weak.

00:41:25
Speaker 2: Well, that's going to change this November when Speaker Jeffries gets the Gabble, and I think that's going to radically shift in our favor. I think the headwinds are putted in Trump's direction. I mean he's in retreat, not just in Greenland, retreat in Minnesota. He's retreating. Every public opinion polls underwater in every key category in section. The economy is getting weaker jobs, job creation is the worst it's been last year, since twenty thirteen. Inflation's starting to go up. The only thing was a saving grace was gas and energy prices. Those are now starting to spike again. The market's now more valid than been. Crypto has crashed his entire at, domestic agendas crashing under him. So we're going to take back the mental We're already shape shifting, taking back momentum. Not just PROV fifty, not just those two gouminatorial successes, but twenty five state legislative flips to zero Republican flips. It's happening all across this country. The party's feeling its owns again. We're now starting to get back on our toes. You're going to see those polls reflect that they're going to trail, but we are finally moving in the right direction.

00:42:26
Speaker 1: A lot of people say, we know what Democrats are against. They're against Donald Trump. We don't really know what they're for. And I've always posited I don't know if you agree with me that part of the problem is the Democratic Party is much more diverse in terms of its messaging and its priorities in the Republican Party, which is very sort of simplistic, very kind of over and over again with talking points. I mean, what would they be, Gavin.

00:42:52
Speaker 2: Cut taxes and regulations.

00:42:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, not so much military strength, although that has flipped recently.

00:42:58
Speaker 2: Well, they're going to identify in the villains. The villains are, you know, the other ring of people. It's the minority, it's the LGBTQ agenda, it's obviously immigrants in the context of Trump and trump Ism. So they're able to escape goat vulnerable communities very effectively, and they've been able to weaponize that since the Southern strata. I mean, that's a golden oldie. But they're also able to weaponize the media in a way that's just next level. These guys are disciplined. One American News is discipline. News Max's discipline, Sinclair's discipline, the right wing echo chamber is discipline. We're not on the left. With all due respect, I appreciate MS, I appreciate some of the others, but we're not doing surround sound in terms of today's talking points. These guys are. They're ruthless in that respect. It's again, it's pravda. I mean, the primetime liar is provda. I mean Laura Ingram is in business deal with Donald Trump Junior. How the hell is that ethical? How is that allowed in this country? By the way, with their partner, who's in partnership with David Sachs on a podcast, Chamoth, who's deciding crypto and AI policy, and they're all part of this great grift, the story of the last year. There is a corruption story Trump. We can get to that. But here's the point about what we're for. We're for America. We're not just against Trump. This is not just anti Trump. We're for those endearing values, the historic project of this country. We believe in co equal branches of government, we believe in popular sovereignty, we believe in the rule of law, and we believe we're all better off, and we're all better off.

00:44:21
Speaker 1: Those are lofty values and obviously admirable and ones that I would never disagree with, But they're lofty. What can you say to the average voter that resonates with that person that you want their lives to be better? And I think that is what the Democrats have had a hard time articulating.

00:44:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, we articulate ten points plans as opposed to Look, it's remarkable when you get into the debates, and I've been to so many Republican debates and there's just literally zero specificity that backs up the problem. Just the bs, the vice, but the values resonate. People tune into the value, they tune into what you believe. I made this mistake. Take historically. I read about a little bit in the book is I'll come out with my dan fifteen point plan. I lost you in the second one. My parents' agenda, getting eleven dollars insulan, subsidizing mortialcare slots, and how I'm gonna do six days of paid sickly and eight weeks of paid family leave, and then we're gonna do an earn income tax credit, the I'm gonna do a tile tax cred, I'm gonna do a baby bond, and then we're gonna do universal preschool.

00:45:19
Speaker 1: But if you don't do that, people are saying, we're the specifics right, Well, we have.

00:45:23
Speaker 2: All that, and I was promoting all that the last two years. You didn't give a damn. All of a sudden, I put my picture on Mount Rushmore, mirroring and mocking Trump, and everyone goes, ooh, Newsom's fighting back.

00:45:34
Speaker 1: Is it just that we're all so shallow, no ore our tension spans or have been shot.

00:45:39
Speaker 2: I don't know. People want subst If you did a poll, everyone says I want substance. They also need to be entertained a little bit. Dare I say, and this is not my prescription, but I will offer this into the mix. Trump's an entertainer, and you know what, we tune in to get entertained. Even if we tune in, we're trying to tune out because the algorithm finds us we can use a little sense of humor. Democrats sometimes we're a little humor less. What I'm doing to Trump, or I'm putting this mirror up to him with all caps and a guy who cause plays is the Pope and Superman, not just putting him face up on mouse Rushmore is I'm doing it in a humorous way. And my humble opinion is this Trump thrives when we're indignant.

00:46:24
Speaker 1: He likes to piss people off.

00:46:26
Speaker 2: But authoritarians, historically, they want to appear to be more powerful than they are. When you mock them, they wither. They don't like being mocked, They don't like being made fun of, humor finding a little of humor in all. This is why I think we've broken through a little bit more than most expected. And what you said, I love you said over and over. I would just add an over and over and over and over again, because repetition is the mother's skill. And this it's hard because you want to be original, you want to be authentic, You want to or at least.

00:47:04
Speaker 1: You don't want to be boring.

00:47:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, except his ability doesn't matter what the topic is. He's going to go back to those old talking points and they become mantras in all our minds. If you were trying to escape, it's like going to Disneyland coming out of that one ride and you can't get the music out of it.

00:47:19
Speaker 1: Well, think about fake news, how that's become a mantra. And anytime something's written or said about him that he doesn't like, it's fake but that fake news. There was never a term fake news until he showed up on the scene. And now it's like an earworm.

00:47:34
Speaker 2: And now you have truth and trust issues because it's getting harder to know what is true and what is fake. And that's Sora and Ai And we've got two other podcasts that week and just ended on that one alone.

00:47:45
Speaker 1: You know. The other thing I think that you're trying to navigate is that perhaps the Democratic Party, and particularly progressives in the party, became too judgmental and too earnest and to demanding of people to convey things and be a certain way when maybe they weren't quite there. Yet. You've defended previous comments you've made that it is quote deeply unfair for trans athletes to compete in girls' sports. You've also asked your party to stop spending a disproportionate amount of time on pronouns and identity politics. And yet at a time when the trans community is so under attack, talk about other rising and scapegoating people. People like Carl, one of my followers, who is trans, feels as if you're throwing trans people under the bus and that you see them as a political liability.

00:48:42
Speaker 2: And I appreciate saying that, and in fact, you send it to the person who's promoted and signed more pro trans legislation than any elected official in this country, periot, full stop. And I can back that up. Who has a trans godsend, who literally signed some of the most progressive trans legislation just nine months ago, not nine years ago, Who nine years ago, fifteen years ago was actually arguing with the HRC that they weren't including the trans agenda, just the game lesbian agenda as mayor.

00:49:13
Speaker 1: So why are you kind of seemingly backing off from that.

00:49:16
Speaker 2: Because I can't defend I'm not backing off. I'm doubling down on all of that and the grace that people just want to survive and just want to live their lives out loud and again a record that back set up. But I cannot back up an argument in favor in a competitive environment for sports, having experienced on multiple occasions two years in a row, and track championships in California, the impact of that competition and how people were displaced, and how we couldn't square the circle of how to make this fair, and so I don't think it is on the sports side.

00:49:55
Speaker 1: What about the idea of letting local communities and school districts and states or I guess my question is should it be a blanket policy?

00:50:07
Speaker 2: No, I mean that we're trying to figure it out in our state. We haven't and no one has.

00:50:11
Speaker 1: Are you saying, under no circumstances should a trans athlete compete in a competition in which the competitors are not the same as that person was assigned at birth? Which is a mouthful. I know.

00:50:24
Speaker 2: I've just been confronted. It's not an intellectual exercise for me. I've been confronted with very specific examples of this, and we just couldn't figure it out. We couldn't figure it out to make Let me give you example. We're iterating. Last year we decided just to do an extra medal, and no one was really happy with that. The prior year, the trans athlete and the one that was defeated that didn't get in to the finals, both of them decided not to compete in the finals, like, well, that's not fair either. So we're oh for two. I've been asking what how do we accommodate? How do we address this? And so that's not throwing folks under the bus, that's just trying to trust me. There's a lot of anxiety out there in sports. I mean when someone they do think at times there's an unfair advantage. Not all the time, but there are moments where it's not a stretch to suggest there is an advantage. Quite the contrary, and there has been in those examples, and that's where I find it unfair. So it's my personal opinion as a champion for LGBTQ rights going back to two thousand and four when I married same sex couples, where the entire Democratic Party condemned me almost universally, all the leaders condemned me. All right about that? In the book, who pointed the first trans judge in California that has appointed many members of the trans community the most powerful positions in state government, including our retirement Board, that continues to advocate in many positions of government for the trans community, assign more progressive trans legislation than anybody else. But on the issue of competitive sports, not all sports, in those metal sports, I respectfully don't think it's fair, and others will suggest, well, we shouldn't, it's okay. And I don't think with the families on the other side of that that it's as easy of looking him in the face and telling him it's okay. I don't think it's as easy as people may think when you actually are responsible for trying to find some balance here in policy.

00:52:13
Speaker 1: These incidents are pretty rare, and so is this conversation, in your view, taking up too much oxygen in the national discourse.

00:52:22
Speaker 2: Because we defend it and then people go, how can you defend that? And all of a sudden, now I think you lose a lot of people. So I'm on the substance. That's my belief. Now, in the politics of this, it's overwhelming what people feel on this. It's not just Republicans. Democrats and Republicans have strong opinions on this as well.

00:52:42
Speaker 1: Friend of Mineset, it's like eighty twenty yeah.

00:52:44
Speaker 2: And so now if you're unwilling to accept what you see with your own eyes, you know, competitive disadvantage or advantage, then you may not have any you know, it's going to make it a little more difficult to get in all those other topics. But again I completely submit. Never is more focused than it, you know, tended to so few people, and it's disgraceful what these guys do, and it's disgraceful what they've done in the trans community. It's disgraceful what they're doing on this banning binge and what they're doing to all the four three hundred and forty books last year. A year before that they banned.

00:53:13
Speaker 1: That had a lotical care.

00:53:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the medical care at what's happening in this country, and that's disproportion impacts California. It's been a leader in these spaces and UCSF notably. And Trump's attack on this community it's disgusting, but doesn't mean on every single topic that I agree, And that's the one area I disagree, and good people can disagree with me, but don't with respect. That's not throwing the community under the bus. Quite the contrary, it's providing the grace where we can actually protect all those other rights because they're coming after all the other rights, and we make it I think a little easier when we defend what is more and more difficult to defend the more and more high profile examples like I've had experience with track mats in California.

00:54:06
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's me Katie Couric. You know, if you've been following me on social media, you know I love to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Lighty Hoyke, Alison Roman, and Ininagarten. So I started a free newsletter called good Taste to share recipes, tips and kitchen mustaves. Just sign up at Katiecuric dot com slash good Taste. That's k A t I E C O U r I c dot com slash good Taste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did. Let me ask you about this constant tension between progressives and more centrists establishment candidates within the Democratic Party. Do you worry that the of the Democratic Party is going to be divided among so many centrists that it will split the party up and end up working to the advantage of, say, a Democratic Socialist candidate like Alexandria Acasio Cortez, who beat you in every other candidate handily. In a recent Yale youth poll for voters between the ages of eighteen forty four. You know, to me, having covered politics for a long time, this is sort of the age old problem of the Democratic Party. Do we go for someone who's more centrists, who's more palatable to independent voters and maybe Republicans who are fed up with trump Ism, or do we need to kind of blow the whole thing up and go for somebody really progressive who clearly appeals to young voters.

00:55:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is great, and she's wonderful and well deserved that kind of support that I haven't seen the polls, but I'm not surprised by them. Here's my humble opinion, having experienced and been on the receiving end of disproportionate amount of Trump and trump Ism, and that has really expressed considerable alarm to this moment. We have to be more ruthless and win. We just have to win.

00:56:08
Speaker 1: How do you do that.

00:56:09
Speaker 2: You just have to put together a winning coalition, winning message, winning messenger. There's got to be a freshness. We've got to acknowledge these systemic issues that AOC and certainly Bernie has been incredibly effective about. That is the economy is broken. You can't save democracy if we don't democratize the economy. We can't live in a society we're ten percent of people and two thirds of the wealth where thirty year old's doing worse for the first time in human history, at least American history, than his parents' generation. So no surprise that a lot younger people that are delaying marriages, delaying having kids can't even imagine renting a home, owning a home, and so that economic reality is so real there's almost a nihilism. I was a twitch con talking a lot of gamers and I've got a podcast, I mean a lot of young people, and you know, there really is this sort of you know, darkness about the future and ye had ai and the anxiety there, and so we have to dress all of that AOC, the language of burning AOC play into that DSA a little bit, and that's effective. But look, I'm for building a big tent. I'm not for being as judgmental you implied that I had stated that for I feel very aggressive about that. Should I have thrown out people in my party when they weren't supporting marriage equality, which was pretty much all of them, and say well, you're dead to me. Now you no longer apply and you should no other issue. Are you progressive enough? And by the way, some of the biggest progressive voices in America that are leaders in the progressive moment oppose that. Not of course, that's it'd be silly and ridiculous. So we're going to agree to disagree on a few key issues, but we agree on basic fundamental values. So put that on full display with a lot less judgment. Find those areas in common, try to build a bigger tent and build a coalition that is truly representative. Not just one guy on the gain Allen Whitehorse just come save the day, but a coalition, a party represented, a body of people that you know, understand the live reality people are feeling, so that people can identify and feel connected to.

00:58:11
Speaker 1: It, and then you all get along.

00:58:13
Speaker 2: It's not it shouldn't be zero sum. Now you have to find a candidate. So there is a process of elimination, and that's unfortunate.

00:58:19
Speaker 1: But it's a democratic socialist be elected president.

00:58:22
Speaker 2: I don't know, I just don't know. I mean, there's sort of a popular vote construct where you can start to at least paint that picture, make an argument. We'll see, you know, and then I could give you counter arguments that and then there's an electoral map that make challenge that. Or you look at seven swing states and sixty two counties and you know, then you focus on where Bucks County may be in Pennsylvania and that becomes perhaps, you know, a little more challenging. So you got to meet people where they are. That's the nature. Look, it's it's not an academic exercise. You got to meet people where they are. You got to sell something people want to buy, and you got to believe it too. And if you're in authentic, you shouldn't even get it in the game. So you also have to hold your convictions. And so it's that perfect blend. That's what we're looking for. That unicorn. I could be authentic. You may not agree with them, but they're not disagreeable. They respect you, they're not being disrespectful. They're not talking down to you, past you their open argument. Maybe they'll evolve. They're interested in evidence, you know, they respect the diversity of opinions, and they want to build a coalition and they want to govern in a coalition, not just campaign in one.

00:59:32
Speaker 1: You talk about authenticity and interesting, you know, I've been in LA for a month, and every time I meet someone who lives in California, I guess what I asked them?

00:59:41
Speaker 2: Why are you so lucky to live here?

00:59:43
Speaker 1: Now? What do you think of Gavin Newsom?

00:59:47
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of other Californians besides me, about forty nine million others.

00:59:51
Speaker 1: I want to hear straight from people who live here. You get a mixed report, and we'll talk about Californian a minute, because I do want to ask you about some one of the things that you're facing in California. But what do you think is the most often used word to describe you?

01:00:06
Speaker 2: A God is my witness?

01:00:07
Speaker 1: I don't know, you don't know the one word.

01:00:09
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a distillation. It's hard for me to just.

01:00:13
Speaker 1: Okay, this is the one word that people use to describe you over and over.

01:00:17
Speaker 2: Are resilient is what I would love to hear. See. I'm going to give you my response. I'm pretty resilient.

01:00:22
Speaker 1: Slick.

01:00:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the look. That's what the book's about.

01:00:25
Speaker 1: They describe you as slick, and I am just curious why you think that is? Is it the hair gel?

01:00:32
Speaker 2: It's the book you're selling? The book Katie. It's literally in the book. It was one of the first questions you asked, and I walked into it. I played to the character, I played to type. You know, I was joking about the hair. I mean, I get it.

01:00:44
Speaker 1: So what do you do about that?

01:00:45
Speaker 2: I don't do anything about it.

01:00:46
Speaker 1: Do you like use less hair gel? What do you do?

01:00:49
Speaker 2: I let it go.

01:00:51
Speaker 1: Do you have a Zoolander problem? Jesus yes, are you just ridiculously good looking? As Vogue said? So seriously, what do you do about it?

01:01:01
Speaker 2: You don't do anything about it, because if you're gonna do something about it, then you're bullshitting people. You know what I am who I am, and it's fine. You don't have to like me, or maybe you like a slick person. I don't know whatever, It's okay.

01:01:14
Speaker 1: The reason why I brought it up because you talked about being authentic and I think it sometimes works against you.

01:01:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just who I am. It's just who I am. And you know, I could go out and I can get one of these Hollywood producers to be member of my campaign and pick out which Tope suit all wear, which we've seen happen in the past when people literally are getting stylists to become someone they're not. I'm okay with who I am. I am who I am GENI wrote the book let It Go. I'm here meeting the moment I want to be accountable to the moment. I'm going to punch this bully in the face. I'm going to fight back. I'm going to I have courage of my convictions. I'm proud of the work I've done. I mean, you want progressive you know, who's who else done twenty five dollars minimum wage for healthcare workers? Twenty dollars minimum wage for fast workers? Who else has done universal health care in the United States, regardless pre existing conditions, abillity to pay in immigration status? Who else has provided over four hundred thousand subsidized childcare slots, greater brand new grade KEYK for all. I could go down a list eleven dollars. And my point is, we've done all those progressive policies. But if i'm you know, don't like the way I look, the cut of my jib, then it's okay, And that's okay, and you'll have plenty of other folks to consider. I may not even be on that stage, And it's Okay.

01:02:30
Speaker 1: What do you mean. You may not even be on that stage.

01:02:32
Speaker 2: I don't know that I'm ever going to run again for elected office. I gotta sell. I got ten months left. I gotta sell by date.

01:02:38
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a couple more questions. You talked to earlier governor knew some about economic anxiety and young people. And I know that you are on the record you're opposed to a one time California five percent wealth tax because you say California is in competition with forty nine other states. Billionaires could leave, as we've seen. As we've seen, but Bernie Sanders just released a national wealth tax that would be five percent every year in all fifty states. Is that something you could support?

01:03:08
Speaker 2: Very different and we can debate the merits to that. What do you think about I don't know the details. I think he literally just came out with that. I think he did some headlines, so I don't know any of the substance. Interesting he picked five percent. I think he's modeling aspects of this. I hope he doesn't model one aspect of what they're doing in California, which is that tax doesn't pay for teachers. It doesn't pay for firefighters. The tax in California doesn't pay for childcare workers. It's exclusively for one particular use, and it's one time to address ongoing structural issues, and it's already had an impact. So California is the most progressive tax policies in the United States of America. And it's not something I've defended, it's something I've promoted in something I spent a great deal of time in my state of the state talking about the nation needs to go back to hire tax for the wealthy. I believe in progress or tax policy, and I think we need a new tax bracket for extraordinarily wealthy. Now what that looks like, what's the exact threshold, How does it work? That is absolutely a debate we need to have. The imbalance between the rich and the poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. And that was said two thousand years ago by Plutarch. So it's code read in terms of that imbalance. So it is understandable why Bernie is promoting. That's understandable why I was promoted in California. But a nationwide debate is exactly the one we need to have state by state it will create a competitive disadvantage.

01:04:34
Speaker 1: But at first blushed the national concept. It sounds interesting to you.

01:04:39
Speaker 2: It's an imperative tax cuts for billionaires and corporations, cuts to medicaid and Medicare, cuts to food stamps, a war without the War Powers Act invoked, and tariffs with a regressive component. That's Trump's policies and they need to be reversed. So absolutely.

01:05:00
Speaker 1: I want to ask you just a few questions about California, because, as you well know, if or when you run for president or try to get the Democratic nomination, there's going to be a ton of focus on California, of course, which is often seen as a laboratory for progressive policy, and you've just talked about many of them, but some of the stats are not so great. California has the highest tax rate.

01:05:22
Speaker 2: I thought that was I thought we established that was a good thing.

01:05:25
Speaker 1: Well maybe it's not so good for everyone.

01:05:28
Speaker 2: Right, not for the one percent. By the way, just on that just briefly, because I know you go through the affordability of letting me know anything else. But as it relates to tax policy, California is the most progressive tax rate. Places like Texas and Florida have the most regressive. They tax their low wage orders more than we tax our highway way journers. So the question is who is the high tax state?

01:05:46
Speaker 1: Then why is everybody moving there?

01:05:47
Speaker 2: Because the one percent don't represent the ninety nine percent. By the way, they're not all moving there. We've seen population increase three the last four years in California just complete. People have update their talking points, and California has minted moreionaires and billionaires than any other state in the country. And we do that on a weekly basis and continue to this moment. But the progressive tax policies, again, I think is the approach the nations should take. Those that have had the most economic success can afford a little bit more. These states that have regressive tax policies are slamming the middle class and working people. And I do not, in any way, shape or form, want to align myself with those high tax states and those regressive tax policies.

01:06:31
Speaker 1: Here's some other stats. The highest poverty rate tied with Louisiana, the highest unemployment, and as Nick Christoff of The New York Times recently wrote, Mississippi schools outperformed California schools, especially for poor kids. Now people see that or hear that or read that, and they're like, no, thanks, California, No thanks, Gavin Newsome. We're good.

01:06:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the poverty rate is you're talking about the supplemental poverty rate. Our poverty rates about average, and we're right up there with Florida and Louisiana and others with supplemental poverty rate, which has been the case for forty years. And the original sin there is housing, which has been a problem in California since Ronald Reagan left office as governor, and we simply have a supplied demand imbalance, and we have zoning policies and nimbiism that have been legendary, and we've finally broken through it with some of the most progressive housing reforms in US history. Our biggest critics, like Ezra Kline, would even acknowledge that progress in that respect. As it relates to our schools, we've seen significant We've seen some of the fastest improvements since twenty eleven till today as it relates to achievement and reading scores and test scores that we just announced in every category socio economic and grade. We saw progress particularly interesting at La Unified School district. As it relates to Mississippi, it's interesting, well established they hold people back in third grade. Their scores tend to be a little bit inflated because of some of those policies that are not necessarily standard policies that everyone wants to promot across the country. And by the way, you can compare a coutrast California and Mississippi could characterrast many other states to Mississippi in terms of that one data point. So you want to be I think a little bit more reflective of a broader sample set about. A lot of progress has been made in California's education policy, community schools, after school for all, summer school for all. We're the first to do two free school meals, and of course we created a brand new grade preschool for all. We also did the first savings accounts. Everyone's talking about Trump savings accounts six years ago. Five I did it. We have five point five million kids, all our kindergarteners. We did a one point nine billion dollar appropriation to create these college savings accounts, these career accounts, in addition to these baby bonds that we're doing all in an effort to try to deal with financial literacy, connect the dots in terms of wealth disparity, not just income disparities, and address some of these systemic issues of poverty more broadly. Though, California is more scientists, engineers, more Noble laureates, more research in any state in America, we dominate in every category. The biggest manufacturing state in America, we have more farmers, we have more ranchers. We dominate an egg sixty two point one billion dollars. Our manufacturing output is over four hund and five point six billion dollars. There's no one comes close in AI, thirty two of the top fifty AI companies in quantum robotics, the dominant leadership in the future technologies as it relates to autonomy, space, advanced nuclear where eighteen percent of the world's R and D, only behind China and behind Germany eighteen percent of the world's ID. We had four Nobel Laureates last year. At the UC system. We have more active patents than any other system higher learning anywhere in the world. Venture capital was one hundred and six billion. We're number one in business startups and we created three point one million jobs. You brought up unemployment. Unemployment has been point nine to one point one percent higher. There's five or six UCLA studies Again since Reagan left office, Why read their studies consistently one percentage higher the rest nation, which it is again today, because of the transient nature of our sectors, because the hospitality sector, the ag sector, and because the relatively youthful population compared to other states. So all those things have truth. All of them are substance of arguments, and there's plenty of counter arguments, including the fact we're the fourth largest economy in the world because our economic policies are working and our economic output is second to none in the United States.

01:10:29
Speaker 1: You talk about how this book really taught you humility. So what do you think you wish you had done better or that you could be better at as governor of California if you disagree with your critics, and you have certainly plenty to brag about if you listen to that litany, Well, when you think about it, like, what do you wish you had done better?

01:10:50
Speaker 2: Well, the million things could have what it should have, or I'm a genius, We're all geniuses. In hindsight, a lot of these things, they're stacked with the lack of political capital that you absorb over time, conditions shift. I'll give you an example on housing policy. For three last three administrations, they were unable to get these land use what we call seek reforms done, and the conditions were never ripe. And they presented themselves last year and I put it in the budget, which was a risk, and we were able to get it done. Do I think I could have done that two years earlier. I don't think I could have done it, but I would venture to say I wish I did. So that's one I wish I was a little less accommodating to your question, meaning so many interest groups, so many jurisdictional challenges. I'm a governor of the state. That's the size of twenty one state populations combined. There's nothing like it anywhere else. So this notion, you have one thousand and fifty school districts, you know, ten thousand schools, your fifty eight counties for it, in seventy six cities, and you're constantly trying to land the deal. And I look back, you know some of those deals I wish I didn't land. I wish I was a little more aggressive in that respect. So those are the areas where I feel like some timing issues. I'll give you an example, more less indulgent. We saw our unchildrened homeless population drop nine percent this year, first time in fifteen years.

01:12:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk to you about that because a lot of people want to know about that.

01:12:16
Speaker 2: But go on, first time in fifteen years. There's never been a governor that's actually experienced that drop in a decade and a half. And one of the things that's driven that is more accountability at the local level. State's visions realize locally, it's not state is not in the homeless business. State is funding local government in that respect, I wish we were more aggressive on the accountability earlier. We're very aggressive now as examples of things in terms of iterative could of what it should have where we could have I think done a little bit a little more aggressive.

01:12:49
Speaker 1: This is my second to the last question. But you mentioned as Recline. I know you loved the book Abundance. He was a co author. You bought a bunch for members of the legislature. A core tenant of the book is that progressives have a special responsibility to spend money wisely. Spending in California has gone from two hundred and eight billion dollars when you took office, to almost three hundred and fifty billion dollars in your latest budget just seven years later. Now your critics would say at least twenty billion dollars wasted in unemployment fraud. Your state auditors said your administration failed to fully track more than twenty four billion dollars in homeless spending or measure which programs are effective. And you spent almost half a billion dollars on a new nine to one to one system that had to be scrapped. So how is this spending money wisely? And please give me your response.

01:13:44
Speaker 2: So the twenty billion dollars, the OIG at the DOL, the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Labor under the Trump administration during COVID came out with a report that they estimated one hundred sixty three billion dollars of fraud was attached to the PUA program, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program during the Trump administration federal dollars that were distributed. California was actually a leader in highlighting some of those concerns. California we estimate, by the way, was our own report about twenty billion dollars of fraud during the Trump administration related to that program, which was below the national average, which is interesting. Number Two, We have since hired a former Trump official, Gregor Scott, who is prosecuting close to one nine and twenty nine at last count people have been prosecuted, and we've clawed back six billion dollars of that twenty billion dollars. We also led the nation with three programs, Thompson, Reuter, and id ME, notably the two that actually stopped over one hundred and thirty five billion dollars in fraud, and we were promoted and pushing anti fraud programs back then. That's the specific as it relates to the audit on the twenty four billion, it's just total. It's been debunked. California knows where every single penny in terms of the homeless money went. What that audit reflected was local government's distribution on the final distribution at their end of the government to nonprofits, etc. But every single cent we can account for. And that's that's universally accepted and known. But it's not an updated talking point for those critics. You may have had one additional point, and the broader point though, was on the meta.

01:15:34
Speaker 1: It was on the nine to one to one system that cost a half a billion dollars but was scrapped.

01:15:39
Speaker 2: Which was initiated when we first got here. They moved in a direction where they were trying to do these regional approaches. We're now moving to a single system. People that started that have been removed. There's now accountability that's been pursued as it relates to the contractor and the procurement related to that, and that is something that absolutely we are addressing in a meaningful way. But let me say what else we've addressed. We created the Office of Digital Innovation. We did DOGE before DOGE was possible. Well, we've eliminated positions waste, fraud and abuse and redundancy. We continue to highlight that as relates to the SNAP program, which we just announced some new anti fraud efforts there that have saved taxpayers billions of dollars. Our budget, by the way, as the highest reserves this year, we're going to have another surplus. Highest reserves has have paid down in almost nineteen point seven billion dollars in pension obligations. And yes, our economy has grown and our budget has allowed us to invest one time capital one hundred and eighty billion dollars. You can go to build dot CA, dot gov. You can see exactly where you're one hundred and eighty billion dollars ten year capital plans going. Where a lot of that money growth has gone to invest in the most historic infrastructure projects since Pat Brown was governor in California. And I'm very proud of that, as well as a lot of other programs that weed and enhanced. But a lot of those things are just golden oldies that are Fox News talking points that seem to be California specific and not necessarily reflective save my friend out there in Minnesota to many other states.

01:17:16
Speaker 1: I want to end on a philosophical note, since we've been number crunching for the last half hour. You know, it seems to me that Americans are really desperate for good leadership, someone who truly appeals to the better angels of our nature, as Abraham Lincoln said in his first inaugural address as he was appealing for unity. Do you think you're that kind of leader?

01:17:40
Speaker 2: I don't know. I believe that that's not for me to judge, for others to judge. I think all of us have the capacity to flow at the force's life. All of us have the ability to use the most important authority, and that's moral authority in our day to day lives. You saw that as the steal of the spines of the Minnesota protesters that got Trump to reverse course and get into retreat. You see that. I was down in Fulton County. I was meeting with Ambassador Young and we were talking about doctor King and his relationship to Gandhi. And you know, I reflected after that meeting, this was last week as neither of them spent a day in elected office. I was never a Prime Minister Gandhi, it was never President King. And they were some of the most transformative leaders in our lifetime. So leadership can be found anywhere. As the point, as it relates to the point that you're emphasizing around what I referred to earlier as the guy or gal and the white horse that somehow is going to save the day. It's a romanticized notion. In so many ways, the moment makes the man or the woman, and that person will appear in many ways. The obstacle is the way Trump currently what stands the way becomes the way and sort of the stoic mindset, the impediment to action becomes the action. How we work around Trump and how Trump is and will play an outsized role in shaping that paradigm of leadership that we seek and we need as we turn from resistance to renewal, which all of us are looking forward to. When that moment presents itself, that leadership profile will present itself. And I think it's a very organic thing. And I think for any of us to answer that in absolute terms humility and fate, we'll determine that more than personal opinion.

01:19:21
Speaker 1: Governor Gavin Newsom. The new book is called young Man in a Hurry, a Memoir of Discovery. I can't thank you enough for being so generous with your time, for answering all my questions and criticisms and philosophical thing so I really really appreciate it. It's good to be with you.

01:19:39
Speaker 2: Good to be with you.

01:19:40
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening. Everyone. If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out, send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.