00:00:00
Epste and Trump were close. Sorry, Donald. Just a fact. And when Elon Musk tweets Trump's on the list and a few
00:00:06
days later, there is no list. It begs questions. So, they dangled this in order to get votes. And they lie to
00:00:12
people. And we're only 6 months in. And the vandalization that he's done pushing the boundaries on the rule of law. This
00:00:17
is darkness. Really? Because I hear this every election cycle. No, it's a dangerous game. And America
00:00:23
is struggling and I really worry about our democracy. But Trump is likely to lose power unless they can rig the game.
00:00:30
Governor Gavin Newsome. Are you going to try and become the next president of the United States?
00:00:36
Governor of California. Gavin Newsome. Gavin Newsome. Who is the real Gavin Newsome?
00:00:42
I think most people see me as sort of, you know, slick guy. Grew up with a trust fund, but I didn't come from any
00:00:48
wealth. Like my mom was a single mom. She was working two, three jobs. She ran out of her own bedroom. Sacrificed
00:00:53
everything for two kids. And I was going nowhere academically, but she never gave up on me. And as your sort of political career
00:00:59
starts to accelerate, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Yeah. And she was in so much pain, suffering. She's going to do an assisted
00:01:05
suicide. And uh I was holding her hand. She's and
00:01:11
her last breath. But look, everything that finds the best of me, grit, hard work is reflected in her. And that led
00:01:18
to me sitting here with you as governor of California in politics. He's an incompetent governor. Look at
00:01:23
the job he's doing. He's a stone cold liar. There's always conflict between you and Trump. I think he enjoys sparring with me. I
00:01:29
know he thrives on it, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it. Every time I have a conversation, it's unbelievably cordial.
00:01:34
He says, "You need anything, call me." Including the night before he quote unquote federalized the National Guard,
00:01:40
but then calls me new. He wants to take me out. Do you think he's going to try and stay in power? So, I don't think I'm
00:01:47
exaggerating, but when people close to Donald Trump send the governor of California, "Hey,
00:01:53
they're not around." I see messages all the time in the
00:01:58
comment section that some of you didn't realize you didn't subscribe. So, if you could do me a favor and double check if you're a subscriber to this channel,
00:02:04
that would be tremendously appreciated. It's the simple, it's the free thing that anybody that watches this show frequently can do to help us here to
00:02:10
keep everything going in this show in the trajectory it's on. So, please do double check if you've subscribed and uh
00:02:16
thank you so much because in a strange way you are you're part of our history and you're on this journey with us and I
00:02:21
appreciate you for that. So, yeah, thank you
00:02:27
Governor Gavin Newsome. Can you quite believe your life?
00:02:33
You're you're running one of the most consequential states in America, arguably the most consequential state in
00:02:39
America, but also I I read that it's the fourth highest GDP in the world now. In the world,
00:02:46
it's always in the headlines. There's always conflict between you and Trump. I just wanted to start with this question, like, can you believe your life?
00:02:53
If you talk to my 10-year-old self, this is impossible. Could have even dreamt it. I don't know if it was a dream or a
00:03:00
nightmare at 10. I mean, I'm not sure this is what I wanted at 10. I'm not sure I wanted this
00:03:06
at 20 or even 30. And I know you're going to continue to shoulder roll what
00:03:12
I'm going to say, but many of the book makers, the odds have you as being the
00:03:17
next president of the United States in 2028. Yeah. I'm going to throw that. I know you're going to shoulder roll it and tell me
00:03:23
California. Well, that's surreal. I mean, that's ridic I mean, that's something that even
00:03:28
in those higher moments, not low moments, where I may have had a little bit more confidence, million years would
00:03:34
never have imagined that I would be at this moment. And yeah, that's that creates a lot of humility of a lot of
00:03:40
grace around that. I mean, the idea that that's you're even in the conversation. I know that sounds wrote and cliched,
00:03:46
little humble brag. The fact that I'm in the conversation is extraordinary. Is it a reality? I
00:03:52
don't know. I mean, that's that's fate will determine. I I I totally understand that. But I but I want to just get clear on one thing
00:03:58
which is you would be honored to play
00:04:03
the role as president of the United States if and when that opportunity called or presented itself.
00:04:09
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I don't know about playing the role, but if it if it, you know, if the moment meets you and you meet the moment, if you can express with
00:04:16
congruency the why and you can do it without the pretense and the you could do it with authenticity and you truly
00:04:24
believe that you add value against others that may be lined up. Um, yeah, but you know, I won't go
00:04:32
through the motion. I don't need to be something to do something. Yeah. For me, it's it's it's a it's you've got to I
00:04:38
mean, I got to feel it. It's got to be in my my core, my soul. It's got to be a burning need and desire to be
00:04:45
accountable and to to reflect the moment and reflect the aspirations and the dreams of of millions and millions of
00:04:51
people and and to have enough confidence uh that you feel you can deliver in that respect. Do you think you could deliver in that
00:04:56
respect? I I you know, increasingly, which is strange. I wouldn't been I don't know that I could have said that a few years ago. I mean that I feel like things for
00:05:04
me have radically changed and we can get into why. I mean I've gone through they're they're working on the seventh recall against me right now. I went
00:05:10
through a recall process. I've been on the receiving end of a national effort to you know try to do everything to
00:05:17
undermine what I'm doing and and going up against Trump and Trumpism and and the surround sound and these propaganda
00:05:22
networks 247. I'm I'm more resolved now. I mean in intense way ways I I'm I'm
00:05:28
discovering myself in this process. I'm in the other side of where I ever
00:05:33
expected to be even a year ago. And uh I feel deeply accountable and deeply
00:05:39
responsible and deeply motivated. I don't know where that takes me, but I
00:05:44
know I have a responsibility over the next 18 months and I'm going to run the 110 yard dash. I'm not going to I'm not
00:05:51
going to run the 90 yard dash on the way out of here. And so that's that's what I know. I got a sell by date and I'm going
00:05:57
to put everything on the line. Let's get into it then in terms of your early context in your childhood because I
00:06:02
think you have to understand that to understand the person and the complexities of the person that I'm sat in front of today. So can you give me
00:06:08
the specifics of your earliest context? You know it's it you know I think shaped like so many people watching I mean how
00:06:14
many of us over half of us have similar experiences of uh you know 19-year-old who's pregnant uh with her firstborn me
00:06:22
and a few years later she's on her own with two kids. Uh she came from no wealth, no real privilege. Her father
00:06:28
committed suicide, was a prisoner of war coming out of uh World War II. She struggled with her own identity, her own
00:06:34
confidence. Uh she struggled raising two kids. Uh my father who left us but not
00:06:40
in disgrace. Uh who was an extraordinary figure but an elusive figure growing up and sort of marked so much of my early
00:06:46
childhood as sort of longing trying to connect. But the the anchor, the rock was this rockstar single mom and and
00:06:55
everything that defines the best of me and the worst of me. This notion of grit, hard work, you got to manifest.
00:07:01
Nothing's going to be handed to you. Um is reflected in her. At the same time, a lot of the anxiety and and fear uh sense
00:07:07
of, you know, I mean, sometimes loneliness. I mean, she was a very lonely person. Yeah. Tessa passed away
00:07:14
almost two decades ago. And uh I'm I'm now older than she was when she passed away. And you know, I just I never fully
00:07:20
appreciated her to the degree I do now as a father, uh, as a mother struggling
00:07:27
with not only herself, just trying to be a good mother, trying to have a career,
00:07:33
a life, but also struggling to support her kids and support a kid, in this case
00:07:39
me, who was struggling in every way, particularly with pretty severe learning disabilities, with self-esteem, and um,
00:07:46
and never fully appreciated ated her sacrifice. Give me the color on the learning disabilities because someone looks at
00:07:52
you, someone so accomplished in both business and in politics. And you say that you had learning difficulties as a
00:07:58
child. I mean, I was I was a guy in the back of of the class. I was a guy with the head down. I was a guy, you know, soaking
00:08:04
wet, sweating. I was a guy shaking underneath, not physically shaking. Um,
00:08:10
desperate not to be called on in the class. I'm someone who still can't read a speech. You're in the wrong business.
00:08:16
I think politics. You can't read a speech. Could do a teleprompter, but you'll never see me. You haven't seen me
00:08:22
go up and down looking at a speech. I can't still struggle to read. If I read, I have to underline everything. I have
00:08:27
to uh organize uh everything through not only underlining, highlighting, then I go back and reread what I underlined in
00:08:34
order to understand it. Once I understand it, boy, I understand it. I mean, then it's becomes, you know, part of who I am, which is the other side of
00:08:41
dyslexia. But I, you know, was I was a guy that was was going nowhere academically. You know, I was just I was
00:08:47
that kid. And I had a sister that was the exact opposite. You know, well, I'm getting my 960 in American SAT. She was
00:08:54
getting 1380. It was easy for her. Uh, everything was easy for her. And so that
00:08:59
contrast and that anxiety that came from that contrast and the struggle that my mom had of trying to sort of work with
00:09:05
me work and you know that was uh that marked so much of you know my memories and decades of my life
00:09:11
and at that early age sub 10 what did you think of yourself what was your self-perception self-image
00:09:17
the thing that you know I don't think I've shared uh is a thing that is most
00:09:23
indelible in my life when my mother in struggling with me and I'll never forget it and I recall if I responded to her at
00:09:30
the time, but it's marked half a century of my life when she said because I
00:09:36
couldn't I was just I was giving up. I couldn't read this chapter, whatever it was. She said it's okay to be average
00:09:42
like and I think about that all the time, man. I mean, and and I forgive her. I
00:09:50
thank for that. I think cuz she was struggling with me. But that's a hell of
00:09:56
a thing to say to a kid. And I think she was just saying it's okay. You don't have to be your sister. You're not your
00:10:02
dad. You know, you never be that person. I loved her deeply and I'm here because
00:10:08
of her. But that shapes a lot of the early that that person that you know and
00:10:15
it's shaped who I've become because I've done everything in my power to to overcompensate for the struggle
00:10:23
and for that mindset where I could have easily believed that and I could have
00:10:30
easily become that. In terms of money in the home, what I sometimes think of when I think about my
00:10:35
own childhood, money was almost this other person. You know, it's funny. We talk about attachment styles and we say some people have like this avoidant
00:10:41
attachment style, this anxious attachment style, this secure attachment style. And I think of money in the same way. It it it's in homes. It's a person.
00:10:49
Sometimes it's distant and never there. Sometimes it's causing the argument. What was money in your household? Like
00:10:55
what was the relationship that you'd formed with it? Well, I had interesting experience with with money because we
00:11:01
didn't come from any wealth. But my father uh his relationships were
00:11:07
attached to extraordinary wealth, abundance of wealth. His closest friends in the world were some of the richest
00:11:13
families in the world. Um and he while he didn't have himself tremendous amount
00:11:19
of wealth, he led a very wealthy lifestyle. Meanwhile, my mom and I and my sister were there uh doing, you know,
00:11:26
our Swanson's um you know, frozen food. We're doing our craft macaroni and cheese. We're doing our you know, but
00:11:32
money was always the source of the stress cuz he didn't have much to give her. She didn't have much period. So,
00:11:39
she was working two, three jobs. And when I say two, three jobs, when I say that, I mean literally two, three jobs.
00:11:44
We had guests always living at the house. I didn't understand what guests living at the house mean. She moved out of her own bedroom to rent out the
00:11:51
bedroom. Um, if you wanted something, had a paper route, worked for Jeff Hicks Construction. If you want a basketball
00:11:57
hoop, you're gonna have to work for it. There was nothing handed, nothing given. And so, she was grinding. She's working
00:12:03
in part-time waitress. I got in the restaurant business. I was a bus boy. There's some moments that changed my life there that I'll never ever ever
00:12:09
ever forget. And so money was a source of stress but also some evil in the
00:12:17
context of too much and seen the abundance with people I knew with trust funds with the relationship to money
00:12:24
where they lost their motivation. They lost their purpose, their meaning, their mission. And so when I started getting a
00:12:30
business, it was never about making money. It was about making a difference. It was about building something, a brand. It was about adding some value.
00:12:37
And that pursuit I think created a mindset where the businesses actually really thrived because it wasn't about
00:12:44
the money. It was about something more important. It was bigger than that. And and so my relationship to money in that
00:12:49
respect really became a gift, a guide in terms of my entrepreneurial uh pursuits.
00:12:55
Dyslexia certainly was the greatest gift in relationship to the entrepreneurial suits. And that led to this led to me
00:13:01
sitting here with you as governor of California in politics. And when did you find out you had dyslexia? cuz I I read that your mother
00:13:07
she didn't she didn't tell me and I I wonder I I think about this cuz I've got a couple kids that are struggling and
00:13:14
and uh we made the mistake with one of them to tell him yeah I think you got and now he uses as a crutch and she
00:13:20
never wanted it as a crutch. She never told me. She said I found out about I was home early one day came back from
00:13:26
school and I I don't know why I ended up in her room and I'm looking she's got a little desk and there's a file open and
00:13:32
I'm like flicking through files and then I saw the word dyslexia. I'm like, "The
00:13:37
hell is this?" And I remember she got home. I said, "Mom, what is this?" And she goes, "Put that away." I'm like,
00:13:42
"What? What is it?" She goes, "No." I And we had this conversation. She said, "I didn't really want to talk to you
00:13:49
about it. You've been struggling with I said, I know I can't read and you know, stupid, mom." I said, "No, you're not stupid. We're working through all that."
00:13:55
And she just didn't want to give create the stigma. She didn't want me to use it as a crutch, as an excuse, I think. And
00:14:01
I'm angry back to the sort of you know dialect in my own brain about good bad
00:14:07
um I appreciated that because it was an excuse not a victim decisions not
00:14:12
conditions term our fate and future this notion u that we can shape things that I don't that I wasn't stigmatized in that
00:14:20
respect so I can make excuses around it I had to work around it I had to work through it and I think that was the path
00:14:26
she she chose and and I'm many ways grateful that she Were you bullied by other children?
00:14:32
Yeah, we had uh Baltimore Street. I told the president this too. Speaking of Trump, uh he he we were
00:14:39
talking a few weeks ago and he goes, "Hey, this new scum thing, you know, because he calls me new scum, Gavin
00:14:45
Newskum." He goes, "Pretty original, right?" I said, "It's not, Mr. President, it's not particularly
00:14:50
original." And he goes, "What do you mean? What do you mean?" I said, "Well, there were there was the bully on Baltimore Street
00:14:57
uh in Cordom Madera, California used to call me new scum." He goes, "Ah, hey, well, you know what?" Yeah. I mean, he
00:15:04
was 7, eight or nine. You're 79, Mr. President. I told him that, too. And he moved immediately off on another topic.
00:15:10
Uh, yeah. So, we, you know, I was I was the bold cut guy. The hair, you know, the Dutch boy look, you know, you
00:15:16
remember I don't know if you remember the old Dutch boy stuff. U sort of American iconic American brand. Uh, and
00:15:23
and uh and it was easy to see why I might have been bullied. I've got a picture here. If you look
00:15:29
Oh, look at me back at uh Isn't that great? So, you get the haircut. You get the vibe. This is uh this is my father
00:15:37
trying to insert. So, Irish Catholic family. My dad went to Catholic schools
00:15:42
and so by definition, I went to Catholic school. My mother who loved the sailor outfits, kneeh high black socks. Uh
00:15:49
yeah, you're likely to get bullied going on the bus. It's not the best cut, but we've all we've all had we've all been on a
00:15:55
journey with our haircuts. It's good when I hear your story and the context you grew up in with with your
00:16:00
mother, with the bullying, with the challenges at school, um with the dad that's away and I know the stats around
00:16:07
young boys that grow up in particular that don't have a father figure in at home. That for me that's a perfect
00:16:12
recipe for like small tea, maybe big tea trauma in some capacity. Later in your
00:16:18
life, you talked about having challenges with alcohol. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I know.
00:16:23
And I wondered if that if that that picture that's part of the same picture, which is putting the mask on, various
00:16:29
forms of escapism. Yeah. No, 100%. Well, look, I mean, my my my grandfather that took his life was
00:16:36
was an alcoholic. Um, and my mother struggled a little bit
00:16:41
and it was more self-medicating for me. I started discovering that as well. Of course, look, I got in the wine
00:16:46
business. Yeah. So I need attracted to the business side of it. Opened a wine store right out of
00:16:52
college. Opened a number of restaurants. Had seven or eight restaurants. Have four wineries as I speak today. So wine
00:16:58
became ubiquous in my life. Is also my connection back to my dad which is a whole another journey. And you started that business in 1992
00:17:05
which was the year I was born. And as I as I rubbing it in as I sit here 32 years
00:17:12
later the business still exists. You've placed it into a trust. It still exists. and uh grew about there
00:17:17
were 22 or four businesses at peak about a thousand employees at peak came from that one business I was the only
00:17:24
full-time employee for almost two years yeah I mean I'll tell you just the greatest training for politics and life
00:17:29
just opening your own business small business and uh those were some special days and went from that to a restaurant
00:17:36
up the block a few years later a hotel a winery now four wineries uh we had five
00:17:42
or six restaurant uh hotels and nine restaurants at peak and businesses are still around.
00:17:48
I was reading that you had this sort of scheme where you gave employees $500
00:17:53
for a magical moment award. Well, it was a failure award. A failure award. And then it became my sister took over
00:17:59
because I I got into politics and uh she said, "I don't like this failure framework." I said, "Well, it's the I
00:18:05
love failure. I'm good at it. Dyslexics are the best at it. I mean, there's nothing linear about our lives. It's
00:18:12
fail forward fast, miss 100% of shots you don't take." So you were giving employees $500 to if they failed.
00:18:17
Yeah, I had a great just a a very brief example. I So I had a little hotel up in [ __ ] Valley, Lake Tahoe area and a lot
00:18:24
of mosquitoes during the summer months. It's an old motel built for the Winter Olympics, the 1960 Winter Olympics,
00:18:30
built in 1959 for the delegates was supposed to be torn down. It sort of patched together and we we we held it
00:18:35
together, but it had no air conditioning. So you'd keep the doors open, you keep the windows open, but in the summer the mosquitoes came in, drove
00:18:41
the guests crazy. So, we had this night clerk, you know, those crazy night clerks come in and he was getting complaints all the time about the
00:18:47
mosquitoes. And he on his own decided one day to go before he went to work, get in 11:00 at night, and he bought a
00:18:53
bunch of catfish at the store because there's a bunch of ponds around the business. And he figured that's where
00:18:58
all the mosquitoes are starting. So, the catfish will eat the larvae of the of of of the mosquitoes, and he'd solve the
00:19:05
problem. So, he just on his own decided to buy a bunch of catfish, dumped them in the ponds all around the hotel. Well,
00:19:10
about 4 in the morning, this engineer calls me gruff guy, says the raccoons had a feeding frenzy and ran through the
00:19:18
hotel because the doors were open with bunch of, you know, flying fish in their
00:19:24
their mouths and fish everywhere. And Ludo said, "You got to fire that son of a [ __ ] This goddamn idiot." And I
00:19:31
started laughing. Went up there the next morning, met with them, and I said, "This is a magical. You tried to solve a
00:19:37
goddamn problem." And we created the failure award and I gave the biggest screw-up every single month a bonus. And
00:19:44
at the end of the year, we'd put them all together. January screw-up, February screw- up, and we'd have the failure of
00:19:49
the a year award. And did that for years until my sister said, "We'll call it the magical moment award." But it was about
00:19:55
initi initiative, taking initiative, taking responsibility, taking ownership, trying new things, seeing what works,
00:20:01
iteration, entrepreneurial mindset. It's not linear. It's thinking creatively
00:20:06
outside the box. That's what a dyslexic by definition has to do. And that's what I thought a successful business needed
00:20:13
to do. And it literally empowered our employees loved it because they felt seen and heard
00:20:19
and safe I guess and safe because they was like as long as they do it with, you know, no one's jumping off cliffs here. We're not
00:20:25
encouraging, you know, recklessness, but risk-taking. And it literally allowed
00:20:30
the business not just to survive, but to start to thrive in ways I couldn't ever imagine. I I think that's a really
00:20:35
important just such an important lesson to so many business owners especially in these changing times where everything's moving so quickly in AI and technology
00:20:42
that most people are incentivized just to business as usual you know protect
00:20:48
our position if we're successful or you know to prolong convention or whatever that might mean but businesses that adopt that approach clearly have an edge
00:20:55
in these rapidly changing times. Yeah. No. And and look, I mean it back to just, you know, I remember there was
00:21:01
a book Tom Peters wrote called The Pursuit of Wow. I mean, if there was one book that just just hit me in the core
00:21:09
that sort of expressed everything I wanted to become, he talked about hire the smile, train the skill, uh about
00:21:15
finding these superstar leaders and developing owners with your leadership team that they, you know, he talked
00:21:22
about, I remember the Ritz Carlton at the time gave literally cash to the
00:21:28
folks that were cleaning the rooms and gave them the ability to use the cash as needed to solve a problem for their
00:21:35
customers. They created ownership with frontline employees that were undervalued or
00:21:40
devalued. He talked about, I remember, diversity as a business essential with
00:21:46
all the anti-woke, anti-Dei stuff we're dealing with in the United States of America. I mean, from a business
00:21:51
perspective, there's a business imperative to advance diversity. But it was it was Peter's decades ago that
00:21:58
really created that mindset for me in the business. Diversity broadly defined uh in every way, shape, or form. And so
00:22:04
the business became this sort of the pursuit of wow of awe of surprise of
00:22:09
iteration of of daring energy. So the core ideology just kept growing in that
00:22:15
space. Restaurants hotels wineries and audacious adventurous people uh that
00:22:20
wanted to sort of build a brand build something that was special. It wasn't about money. It was about pursuit of meaning and purpose moments.
00:22:26
So why did you leave that and do politics? I know there was a two things happened. I got a
00:22:32
phone call. I was running the wine store, closing it up, doing bookkeeping, accounting, you know, my the warehouse was in my apartment. Um, one night right
00:22:40
before I'm closing up, this guy runs in um to the store and very nervous guy and
00:22:46
he's like, "Can can you help me? What's a good champagne? Just I got to get cold." He's like, "Thank you." Put it away. I'm like, "It's good." He goes,
00:22:52
"Can you wrap it?" I said, "Yeah, I got it wrapped." Says, "Thank you, man." About 30 minutes later, the guy comes back. I'm like, "Oh, damn." Like, I
00:22:59
screwed up or something. but he's got this girl with him and he's knocking on the door and I open key back up. He comes in. He goes, "Just want to
00:23:05
introduce you to my fiance." And I said, "Wow." He goes, "Well, your champagne, I
00:23:11
just asked her to marry down the block at the Palace of Fine Arts and we love the champagne and I just want to say thank you. You were so nice
00:23:17
to me." I remember literally sitting there crying after he left. Like that's everything that this is like
00:23:25
this is this is this is business, man. It's not a transaction. It's relationships. Talk about moments.
00:23:31
Magic, man. That's that's it. To your point, I thought, "This is it. This is my bliss. This is I'm going to keep
00:23:37
doing this forever." And then I got a damn call from the mayor of San Francisco. Can I just ask you on that question? When that guy came in with his fiance,
00:23:43
why was it so meaningful to you? I can literally still see the emotion in your face some 20 years later.
00:23:50
Because what I did had meaning. It mattered in a way I never thought. I thought it was a transaction.
00:23:57
Thought I was buying something. and I was selling something. Wasn't that man? It was it was marking a really important
00:24:04
moment in his life. Business changed after that. It wasn't business. It was just it was it was a different
00:24:10
proposition. Then you get a phone call and I get a phone call and uh screwed everything up. Willie Brown says, "Hey,
00:24:16
you've been you know, you just opened this store and uh you know, I've been reading. You were complaining getting
00:24:22
those permits. It was taking too long." And he's Willie Brown. Willie Brown, the mayor of San Francisco, former speaker
00:24:27
of the California Assembly, one of the most dynamic, one of the most extraordinary politicians in California history, I
00:24:35
would argue American history, and I don't say that lightly. Some of the world's great leaders will identify as
00:24:40
Willie Brown as one of the most transformative political leaders. And uh so there's a couple articles in the
00:24:46
paper about me bitching about permits and parking or something. And he calls me, he goes, "This is Willie Brown." I'm
00:24:53
like, "Oh, Mr. Mayor." He goes, "Hey, come on down next Wednesday. I'm a put you on the film commission." I'm like,
00:24:59
"This is amazing. I'm going to be on the film commission. I'm 20ome years old. Got a wine store, about to open a
00:25:04
restaurant I was working on, and now he's put me on the film commission." I go down to city hall that next Wednesday. It's a group of 20 or 30
00:25:11
people. He's swearing a bunch of people on commissions. And he says, "And Gavin Newsome, you know, opened a a wine store
00:25:17
down the block, blah blah blah." Goes the new chair of the parking and traffic commission. I'm like, I thought I was
00:25:23
going on the film commission. Literally didn't tell me or anyone. I didn't even know what chair meant. And all of a
00:25:29
sudden, 26,7 years old, I'm now the president of San Francisco's Parking and
00:25:34
Traffic Commission. He just randomly put me in that position. Inspiration,
00:25:39
desperation. I know what the hell I was doing. And that was how my political
00:25:45
career began. Literally that phone call, that appointment, not to film, but
00:25:51
parking in traffic. And uh that marked a pretty significant moment in hindsight
00:25:57
in my life. And that was a pivotal moment in your your trajectory because you were on
00:26:02
course to continue being an entrepreneur probably for the rest of your life. Yeah. Could have been somebody.
00:26:09
Jesus. So give me the whistle stop between that moment when he places you in this role to here. I know I know
00:26:16
whistle stop is a tough word to use to describe that journey but what is the whistle stop? Well I just I mean I I put my head down.
00:26:22
I I I learned everything I could back to sort of the humility of not knowing what you don't know and recognizing, you
00:26:28
know, success leaves clues and you can learn from everybody. And I started listening, learning from people,
00:26:34
absorbing. And I applied myself as parking traffic commissioner. So much so, nine months later, uh there was a
00:26:40
vacancy on our our board of supervisors, our city council, and Willie Brown goes, "You know what? You've been doing a
00:26:47
pretty decent job here, man. I'm gonna give you a shot." So, I was a relatively young guy now is the entrepreneur
00:26:53
business person on our city council board of supervisors and I just hit the
00:26:59
ground running. I opened I by that time opened a few extra businesses. It was a
00:27:04
part-time job but I started to apply myself a little bit more full-time. Had to put together a management group to
00:27:10
start managing the business and started applying myself more as a supervisor. Spent almost seven, eight years doing
00:27:16
that. And I was a relatively young guy, 33, four, and Willie Brown was termed out as mayor. And there was an open with
00:27:23
the mayor's uh uh seat. And I think at 33, I announced why the hell not. Um,
00:27:28
you know, give it a shot. Miss 100% of shots you don't take. And uh was I think pulling third or fourth and decided to
00:27:35
go for it and ran for mayor of San Francisco. You became mayor of San Francisco. You had a big impact while you were mayor of
00:27:42
San Francisco. One of the things people remember you a lot for is your attitude towards same-sex couples and the uh
00:27:49
Defense of Marriage Act where you took a quite a controversial stance at the time by enabling
00:27:56
I believe it was um same-sex couples in the state to get their marriage licenses. Well, I was uh yeah, it was uh 2004 and
00:28:04
uh my party, the Democratic party was not uh um people were not enthusiastic,
00:28:10
weren't even promoting. In fact, they were almost universally opposed to same-sex marriage. And I had an
00:28:16
experience in Washington DC. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the house, invited me as a new mayor to listen to
00:28:21
George Bush give his final State of the Union speech. And I was there um with an extra ticket, her husband's ticket. And
00:28:27
I was up there in the rafters listening to George Bush give a speech. And in the speech, he's talking about Iraq war.
00:28:33
He's talking about a lot of interesting things. And he ends with, "It's time for a constitutional amendment to ban
00:28:39
same-sex marriage." And everyone starts applauding and the people around me are applauding. I'm like, Jesus. I walk back
00:28:45
out and you had to put your cell phones, early cell phone days. And we're all in
00:28:50
line waiting to get our cell phones back. And I remember the couple right next to me as I'm waiting in line after
00:28:56
the speech goes, that was a hell of a speech. The president gave, I'm so sick and tired. I'll never forget these guys
00:29:02
said, "I'm so sick and tired of the homosexual agenda." And I'm like, and I literally turned homosexual. It was
00:29:08
porative. And all I thought about is, man, I want to introduce myself as mayor of San Francisco. I didn't say a word. I
00:29:14
didn't even thought about marriage equality. When I ran for mayor, no one asked me about it. They were talking about domestic partnerships. It was
00:29:20
literally that moment that I walked outside, used that cell phone, called my
00:29:26
chief of staff, and said, "We need to do something about it." He goes, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Well, I'm gonna come back tomorrow, man. Let's do
00:29:33
something." I just got elected mayor and made the decision then and it unfolded a
00:29:39
few weeks later to start marrying same-sex couples. And we married Phyllis Lion and Delm Martin. And they've been together almost 50 years. You talk about
00:29:46
faith, love, and devotion, constancy, what marriage should be about. They were denied the ability to marry for only one
00:29:51
reason. They were a same-sex couple. And uh we decided to test the law and was
00:29:57
told that people found out and they were not going to allow us to move forward
00:30:03
with the first this marriage. We were going to do a simple ceremonial marriage and then file a lawsuit. Courts open at
00:30:10
9:00. They were going to do a temporary restraining order. I realized I was mayor. I could open city hall earlier.
00:30:17
So we opened city hall at 8. We married Phyllis and Lion. Phyllis and Lion um
00:30:24
and Dell rather and nine o'clock the courts opened and we waited for the decision and the judge said there's no
00:30:30
irreparable harm. There's no reason to have a temporary resting which meant that we could keep marrying same couples
00:30:38
which was not what we had imagined. Fast forward what we call the winter of
00:30:45
love in San Francisco not the summer of love. February 2004, 4,036 couples from
00:30:52
46 states in eight countries came to San Francisco to live their lives out loud
00:30:58
to say I do in this magical experience that just shook me to the core and
00:31:05
changed just my relationship to my party. They were pissed.
00:31:12
They were furious. The Democratic party. Yes. And I got an earful from all of them. people I adored, revered. The same
00:31:20
people, the same people said, all of them. I mean, this is the road advice that everyone goes, "Whatever you do,
00:31:25
just do the right thing. Do what you think is right." I remember that's what they, you know, hey, young man, congrats on being married. Just do what you think
00:31:31
is right. You do what you think is right. How the who the hell are you? I mean, I remember those, who the hell are you to do what
00:31:38
you just did? And it sort of shook my confidence in this whole bracket of
00:31:45
politics. like what am I doing? What did I just do? Um but it was it was a hell
00:31:51
of a first impression as mayor uh to do that and uh that sort of started my political life.
00:31:56
When I overlap the dates here, you win your mayoral mayoral race in 2003.
00:32:03
Um your mother was getting was sick in the years in the leadup to that. She was diagnosed with breast cancer.
00:32:09
Yep. So, you're contending with the woman in your life who's clearly had the most impactful role on shaping who you
00:32:15
are and being there for you when the odds were against you and when no one else was. In the leadup and as your sort
00:32:20
of political career starts to accelerate, she is suffering with breast cancer. Yep. And also suffering with her son
00:32:27
being in politics. She did not want me to go in politics. In fact, the the biggest
00:32:35
regret she had is that I was walking down the path that my father was interested in that led to their divorce
00:32:41
in the first place. He pursued politics and lost in two elections for state senate and for county supervisor.
00:32:47
Ironically, the seat that I held lost both races, was in debt, was humiliated,
00:32:53
defeated, said he had a breakdown, and left. That's when they got divorced. and
00:32:59
she saw me walking down his path and she loved seeing me in business. She ended
00:33:05
up working for me as our bookkeeper and she saw my passion in the business. She said, "Why the hell you getting in
00:33:10
politics? Don't do this to yourself." And she literally near deathbed said,
00:33:15
"Just please don't do this. Don't don't keep doing this." She was really upset that I ran for mayor.
00:33:23
something I think about. You know, there there's days where I'm like I go, "She told me so." You know, when you're
00:33:29
sitting there facing a recall, you're like, "Told you." So, a recall for anyone that doesn't know is
00:33:34
No, they just, you know, in the middle of, you know, you get a four-year term and two years later they say you and they get a petition and try to get rid
00:33:41
of you. And uh I faced that just second time in a half century in California. I I defeated it overwhelmingly. But that
00:33:48
was a hell of a thing to experience and to see the nationalization of that recall. I mean, the the entire Republican party came out to try to take
00:33:55
me out politically. And you think about what your mom said, like she may have been right. When did you realize that
00:34:02
your mother wasn't going to make it with her breast cancer? It was when it she she went through so
00:34:08
often as a case. She fought back. It was in remission and then boom, it hit again. And it metastasized and it was
00:34:15
and she did it was I'll tell you this I will never ever ever ever recommend for anyone. And this is just my own personal
00:34:21
experience. She called me, left a voice message.
00:34:26
Imagine getting this voice message. I was very busy doing all this stuff and
00:34:32
obviously not attentive enough to her. And she was making the point. She goes, "Hi honey, it's your mother. I know you
00:34:38
haven't seen me in a while, but next Thursday I won't be around, so you may want to come next Wednesday because it
00:34:44
will be my last day." Literally left a voicemail like that. I called my sister. I'm like, "What the
00:34:50
hell is this?" She goes, "She's crying." And she said, "She just told me she's going to do an assisted suicide because
00:34:55
it's so bad." She left a voicemail. And so that next week I was there, my sister
00:35:01
and I were in her room. Doctor comes in, gives her some what turned out to be
00:35:07
oxycottton. I remember like early on like what are these pills? She had to take those an hour before he got there.
00:35:12
She takes them. God is my going through [ __ ] photos like this, man. It's all she wanted to
00:35:18
see. All the old photos of us growing up. And we're sitting there on my sister on the left, I'm on the right, my mom
00:35:26
there took these pills waiting for the doctor and she's going through all these old photo albums of us growing up
00:35:32
talking about these moments. Yeah. Come on, man. So,
00:35:39
yeah. And uh but wanted to be there for her. doctor comes in and ministers and
00:35:47
she starts gasping. My sister runs out. The doctor had already left and I was like I She's gasping for air and I'm
00:35:55
just sitting there and holding her hand and she's and her last breath and uh I
00:36:02
just sat there and my sister no one walked in. I felt like for a day, it felt like hours, but it was just
00:36:08
probably 10 minutes before someone finally came in just sitting there with my mother who passed away. And uh not
00:36:16
realizing that moment, what it represented, what it ultimately meant. Uh
00:36:22
I regret that was hard. I don't being there for assisted suicide. Uh by the
00:36:27
way, I was proud we changed the law in California. That was probably done illegally. I don't even want to know. And if you want to come after me, come
00:36:34
after me. um she needed to do it. She was in so much pain, suffering. Now it's legal to do that, but it wasn't at the time when
00:36:40
she did it. Um and um so that was uh that was a moment and um you know that
00:36:48
was you know just became mayor. It was back to just making stupid mistakes, man. You know,
00:36:54
you're brand new mayor, you're overwhelmed, you're trying to figure yourself out, you lose your mom, no excuse. um was in a marriage that was
00:37:02
going south. You know, it was a it was you know what did she say to you when she I had
00:37:08
no idea that you sat there as she she was administered the drugs that took her life.
00:37:14
What were those conversations? What do you say to someone in such a situation where it's the last conversations you're having?
00:37:20
It was um you know you you say the prefuncter things you know just know how much you meant to me how much I love you
00:37:27
everything else and and she um she all she cared about is just don't forget me
00:37:33
she said that that was the last word she said God is my witness don't forget me
00:37:40
and uh and one of the things I'm most proud of my sister we started through
00:37:45
our plumpjack we start a foundation um So, every year we raise money to cancer
00:37:51
research in my mom's name. And uh and we've never forgotten her. And uh but
00:37:58
she was someone that could have easily been forgotten, man. Um she's just, you know, sacrificed everything for two
00:38:04
kids. She, you know, she left us her character experience, no money, nothing.
00:38:10
I mean, she was just she struggled her own life and uh just gave it all to us. And uh so you know those are and we all
00:38:18
have people in our lives like that. What a gift and uh you know I was blessed. Were there any words unsaid? Sometimes
00:38:24
once people have moved on and you mature as as an adult and a man you you see things differently and you
00:38:30
I mentioned that earlier being perhaps way too candid. I imagine after this is
00:38:35
over my folks what the hell were you you know who cares? Life's too short. Um but when I said you know when she talked
00:38:41
about being average I I didn't confront her on that. that just that was for me perhaps more
00:38:48
than her. It wasn't about me this moment. It was about just, you know, it
00:38:54
was so important for her to walk through all these memories. And again, that's what it's about, man. It's memories,
00:39:00
moments. It's about nothing else. When you're later, you win the race to
00:39:06
become governor of San Francisco. Do you think about
00:39:11
her? Do you think Do you wish she could have seen Yeah. I I wish she could see my four
00:39:16
kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. I got sworn in as governor of California
00:39:24
and my wife's there and we got a three-year-old. He's got his pacifier and he's got his blanket and he in the
00:39:31
middle of my speech runs up. I'm giving the speech stressed
00:39:36
out. Again, I don't read speeches. So, it was a read I had to read. So, I'm like, I can't look because I'm going to
00:39:42
lose my sight on the on the teleprompter. And my son runs up. My wife was nervous to run up on stage
00:39:48
because it was like, this is a big damn deal. And he comes right up, grabs me.
00:39:54
And everyone kind of like is moving around the audience. I'm like, what do I do? And I like just instinctually lifted
00:40:00
him and he put his head right on the side and started to fall asleep. And I read
00:40:05
the speech with my son. No one remembers a damn word I said. I don't remember a
00:40:10
word. Everyone remembers what it felt like. Oh, I thought about that moment.
00:40:16
If my mom was around to see that wasn't the governor, it was uh it was
00:40:23
the parent and uh yeah, sorry, ma'am. It's uh unbecoming. Forgive me. But that
00:40:31
that uh I wish I wish he was around for them. Why?
00:40:36
because it's uh well I wish I could thank her for being an extraordinary parent. I never did. I told you I took
00:40:44
her for granted. I never knew how hard it was until I had my own kids. But I I think she'd be so proud of of uh of of
00:40:52
our, you know, 9-year-old Dutch, 15year-old Montana. I think she'd be
00:40:58
proud of me in that respect. I think she wanted me to be happy. She wanted me to
00:41:03
be a good husband. I got this incredible rockstar wife, Jennifer. I got these four unbelievable kids, man. Just filled
00:41:10
me with joy. Um I struggle to be a better parent, husband, politics,
00:41:16
stress, you know, but u that's all she wanted for me. When you're in the public eye, um as I
00:41:22
guess I kind of am now because people watch me a lot, man. Um, it's there's always this balance between what people
00:41:29
see, which is a very two-dimensional thing, which is what people see of me, and then there's the the the imperfect
00:41:35
messy home life, which I contend with every single day. Like, even on the way here this morning, I'm like, I'm going to be late for Gavin New Gavin Newsome
00:41:41
because my girlfriend's having like period cramps, and I'm like, I don't want to leave my girlfriend, but I need to go. I'm going to be late. And I'm
00:41:47
like trying to, you know, and then we had the alarms going off in the house. And then the all the lights flicker cuz we just moved in as you know. And then
00:41:54
the just craziness. And then you look at my phone and there's business problems. And then there's my my my family problems are going on. And then I come
00:42:00
here and I interview you. I'm sorry. I feel like I got in your
00:42:06
way. No, no, no. But obviously it's a great it's a tremendous honor as you know, but it's just it's I say that because there
00:42:11
is a behind the scenes and the behind the scenes is not as perfect as the exterior. No. Oh man, you were alluding to the season of your
00:42:18
life being filled with imperfection. Yeah. Tell me about the human imperfection that was was taking place behind the
00:42:24
scenes as you were excelling professionally. I think there was a a magazine,
00:42:31
The Economist did a headline said, "Young man in a hurry, he wants to be governor."
00:42:37
Seriously. And it wasn't question mark. It was more There we are. It was more like like he's serious. He actually
00:42:43
thinks he could be governor. It was kind of a snarky headline and piece, but the headline struck me. Young man in a
00:42:50
hurry. That's who I was. Was the entrepreneur. I'm sort of trying to, you
00:42:55
know, just trying to make things happen, trying new things, seeing what works, having a little bit more success than
00:43:02
failure. Um, you know, learning from mistakes, moving on. Um, you know, move
00:43:07
pretty quickly, relatively young age. I mean, I was, I think, one of the youngest mayors in San Francisco history. um you know in my 30s and um
00:43:15
and you know losing my mom a relationship my my first wife who it was
00:43:20
ended extraordinarily well she's you know I have nothing negative to say etc but it ended that was embarrassing you
00:43:27
know it's you're it's in the public everything's in the I'm growing up in the public growing up with this just
00:43:32
bright lights how did you [ __ ] up yeah I just I I I just I got I I didn't
00:43:39
I wasn't situationally aware I wasn't emotionally mature in terms I remember a good friend
00:43:45
of mine Mie Silver who's just a rock star got my just just got my act she she
00:43:51
is the one who got me to get my act together. She goes I said she goes
00:43:57
you're the mayor in San Francisco. I said yeah I know. She goes well then start acting like it. I said what are
00:44:02
you talking about? I said I said when I go in I don't need to be in the front row. She goes you need to be in the I
00:44:08
said I don't need to I don't like being in the front I don't like I don't need to be right. She says the [ __ ] mayor and you'll be in the front row and
00:44:15
you'll have people watch you in the front row because that's what they want from their mayor. And I'm like I remember her saying this. I'm like what?
00:44:20
I just say she's like no I'm good. She said it's not about you. I said well no I I don't need that. I don't need to I
00:44:26
like the job. I don't that's that's not part of the job. That's the p that's like the press conference side. like I don't and it was such a she literally it
00:44:34
had such a I remember that I remember sitting there with dinner with her at Delansancy Street when she said that to
00:44:40
me and it sort of hit me in the core. There was I there was a lack of maturity
00:44:46
that I I was just the entrepreneur that happened to be mayor and I
00:44:53
this is ironic based on our conversation needed to play the role a little bit more than I was and I needed to mature
00:45:01
and I needed to get my act together and I you know and that I went through a process there was a couple years there a
00:45:07
year where you know a lot of things happened all at once and I was able to get through it get reelected.
00:45:13
What were those things that happened all at once? Well, I mean, divorce, you lose your mom, divorce, dealing with a new job,
00:45:20
dealing with high-profile decisions that became very national. All of a sudden, I'm, you know, punching above my weight
00:45:27
as a young elected official in ways that I not many people didn't necessarily imagine. Marriage quality issues being
00:45:34
one of them. other things that I was involved in to your point about drinking a little too much um and after the
00:45:40
divorce making some stupid mistakes that uh that I owned up to and regret and uh
00:45:46
having to work through all that. I mean these are you know it's around this time you know and uh you know what I could
00:45:53
tell this kid. What would you tell him? Get your [ __ ] together. You're referring to an extrammarital
00:45:59
affair which you owned up to. Yeah. I wasn't married, but she was. And u and I it's funny. I I've got a a
00:46:05
little um memoir that I'm putting out, ironically, called Young Man in a Hurry next year.
00:46:10
I love the title. I can relate as well that I'm very, you know, I reflect on
00:46:16
that and dive deeper in a very self-critical way and I hope very honest way and I hope people can appreciate
00:46:21
that. I think people will because I think every normal human being understands that they too are imperfect
00:46:27
and especially when life takes hold and you're growing and you're learning. We all make mistakes. I've made mistakes
00:46:33
and I expect to make a lot more. Yeah. But I think it's in the admittance of those mistakes and acknowledging them that that's where we uh
00:46:40
that's where we find out who we actually are. Yeah. You know, and Yeah. Humiliated. Humiliated.
00:46:47
I had no knowledge of any of this stuff. But so when you say humiliated, I I just humiliated my dad. Uh he said
00:46:52
something and I'll tell you it carried forward with me. He told me at the time uh he was so disappointed in me and he
00:46:59
said you go home with the one who brought you to the dance. [ __ ] And that was the impact I had on
00:47:06
one of my friends that I you know because of that very and I don't it's
00:47:11
not a way it's just like the shortest. It wasn't even a relationship was like just just some stupid stuff. And um and
00:47:18
I've just tried to you know I think the fact that we're friends today is like really important to me like one of the most important things like to sort of
00:47:24
reconcile and that's been really u profoundly important as part of a journey. Uh but you know I let him down
00:47:32
I embarrassed my dad. I embarrassed myself. I wasn't myself and u I had to
00:47:39
get my [ __ ] together and um and did I just a drop of the dime. I mean back to just Mimi Silver just a rock star. and
00:47:46
she told me, you know, I remember she said, "You're coming over to see me tonight and we're going to fix this."
00:47:52
I've built companies from scratch and backed many more. And there's a blind spot that I keep seeing in early stage
00:47:58
founders. They spend very little time thinking about HR. And it's not because they're reckless or they don't care.
00:48:03
It's because they're obsessed with building their companies. And I can't fault them for that. At that stage, you're thinking about the product, how
00:48:09
to attract new customers, how to grow your team, really, how to survive. And HR slips down the list because it
00:48:15
doesn't feel urgent, but sooner or later it is. And when things get messy, tools like our sponsor today, just works go
00:48:22
from being a nice to have to being a necessity. Something goes sideways and you find yourself having conversations
00:48:27
you did not see coming. This is when you learn that HR really is the infrastructure of your company and without it, things wobble. And Just Work
00:48:34
stops you learning this the hard way. It takes care of the stuff that would otherwise drain your energy and your
00:48:39
time, automating payroll, health insurance benefits, and it gives your team human support at any hour. It grows
00:48:46
with your small business from startup through to growth, even when you start hiring team members abroad. So, if you
00:48:51
want HR support that's there through the exciting times and the challenging times, head to justworks.com now. That's
00:48:57
just.com. At that age, you were a very young man.
00:49:03
I mean, you still look look like a young man now. God bless you, brother. Um, but uh, young men are in particular
00:49:08
have a particular set of struggles in the modern world and you've used certain words that sort of parlay into that. You've used the words purpose and
00:49:14
meaning and if we look at some of the stats around how young men are doing in the country, it's not great. And even even
00:49:20
young boys are doing terribly across the world for a variety of reasons. And when we think about the political climate and
00:49:26
what's happened in this last election cycle and how young men are voting increasingly for a certain set of ideas,
00:49:32
what what what do you think is going on with young men and what is the solution or answer that will lead them to a
00:49:38
better outcome? You know, I'm really proud. My wife um who's been a real leader, she's done a
00:49:45
half dozen documentaries. She did one that was particularly wellreceived called um a misrepresentation about the
00:49:52
myths and disinformation around women and girls. She followed up with two years later in 2015
00:49:59
uh with a documentary called The Mask You Live In about masculinity. In 2015,
00:50:05
she was highlighting all the things the trend lines a decade ago that are headlines today
00:50:10
as it relates to the crisis of of boys and men. And she was noting the suicide rate. She was talking about, you know,
00:50:17
deaths of despair. She was talking about educational attainment. She was talking about all these issues that were a next
00:50:23
level crisis. And it was so ahead of her time in so many respects. And and she's
00:50:28
come back to me on that over and over again, particularly with our two boys and their maturation versus my two girls
00:50:34
uh in the relationship we have to our deeper understanding of how men and u and and girls and women and boys are
00:50:40
different. And and so this is code red in this country around the world
00:50:46
increasingly. And if it was happening to any minority group, particularly in my party, the Democratic party, we'd be all
00:50:52
over it. Instead, we've been timid about it because men have this sort of hierarchical uh benefits in society. Go
00:50:59
back hundreds and hundreds of years. Oh, men are really struggling really. You know, men still dominate in all
00:51:04
these key positions of power and influence. But when you see all what's happening underneath, it is a crisis.
00:51:10
And as a consequence, the Republican party, Donald Trump in particular, and I think some respects, what's happening in
00:51:16
this sort of manosphere, and I don't mean that pjoratively, but in, you know, there's been not an exploitation, at
00:51:23
least there's a recognition and a relationship to it that has attracted a lot of young men that are seeking
00:51:28
meaning, purpose, and mission. And as a consequence, it's also been weaponized
00:51:34
uh particularly by one party in a way that I don't think is ultimately beneficial or positive. Our party needs
00:51:41
to own up to that and we need to address these realities. Uh Richard Reeves is doing amazing work on it. Scott Galloway
00:51:47
is doing amazing work on it. So many folks in this space uh you know cats
00:51:53
been doing a decade ago talking about it. But Democratic Party, my party needs
00:51:58
to own up in the space. And just so I'm not, you know, accused of preaching and not practicing, I've worked for the last
00:52:05
six months on an executive order that we're about to release in this space that goes to issues around education.
00:52:12
Can't be what you can't see. And a lot of these kindergarten, elementary teachers, most of them are women. is so
00:52:18
about recruiting more men uh to become teachers, focusing on caregiving, focusing more broadly on very
00:52:25
intentional interventions to begin to address this crisis. The Democratic Party, I think it's fair to say, most certainly played their hand
00:52:31
wrong in this regard. And the word played is obviously again comes loaded, but but very much I think
00:52:38
I think to so some I think people could fairly say to some degree turned against
00:52:47
or misunderstood men is a probably a better way of saying it. Misunderstood the plight of men and boys. and the the
00:52:56
the Republican party I think the message that they offered although there's shades of
00:53:03
you know behavior or um narrative that is not productive
00:53:10
at least spoke directly to men 100% we didn't what do you think the Democratic party got wrong as it relates to appealing to
00:53:17
young men what's the narrative that the Democratic party projected but shouldn't
00:53:22
have I think there was just deep lack of empathy. Yeah. Care, any compassion to what was going
00:53:29
on. This this uh and and and recognition, even deeper understanding. I think it's still some I still have
00:53:36
conversations with folks and and people are very uncomfortable in my party talking about this, particularly members
00:53:43
of my party in leadership positions, particularly women that just feel like, come on, we just went through me too.
00:53:50
We're struggling with gender inequality inequality. We still don't have equal representations in all these CEO
00:53:56
positions and obviously we're struggling in legislatores. Uh we continue to have this glass ceiling we can't break and
00:54:01
what more proof do you need than Kla Harris and and uh and Hillary Clinton. Uh we don't even get paid for uh the
00:54:07
same amount as as men and what the hell are you talking to me about the unique plight and challenges of men. And then you start saying well there's going to
00:54:14
be two to one graduates coming from our UC system here in California in the next six years. They're like that's not true.
00:54:19
and and then they see the stats women and they go, "Oh, I didn't realize that." Or two to one women graduating versus I mean, we're on that track. I
00:54:26
mean, we're moving down that path in the UK. You see the suicide rates are just off the chart. You see the deaths of
00:54:32
despair, meaning overdoses off the charts. And you see all of these indexes of unhappiness and loneliness and
00:54:39
isolation. You see, I mean, Scott, it's been just he's the best. I mean, talking about what this means in terms of just
00:54:44
the inability for for boys to ever become men, to be caregivers. uh to be
00:54:50
those warriors, to have, you know, to to be uh those role models, to even have to
00:54:55
have the masculine traits of just being able to be engaged in a real relationship as opposed to attached to
00:55:00
some notion of relationship online porn or something. And so I it's a
00:55:05
comprehensive strategy that needs to be engaged. And for me politically, it's as
00:55:10
I said, it's code red. not just the substance, the morality of it, but also the politics attached to it because the
00:55:18
other parties weaponize this and it's it's multicultural. It's multi-thnic. It's not just it's not just white male
00:55:24
uh grievance that's being expressed in this space. If and when you become president in 2028 or another year,
00:55:32
how is the attitude towards men going to shift and what are the practical ways that you get there towards, you know,
00:55:38
well, I don't think you wait for that moment. And I think we have to shape that moment. I think we have to take responsibility. We have to take account.
00:55:45
We have to have a sober, first of all, you have to have a deeper sober reflection. Why the hell Democratic party is at 27% in polls just a few
00:55:52
months ago. I mean, it's a toxic party in terms of its brand. Why? Uh, exactly. We need to understand that.
00:55:58
I can give you 25 theories. Can you give me super because I'm not a politician, so I don't understand a lot of the political talk, but like that is
00:56:04
staggering. Yes. And and why did it happen? Yes.
00:56:10
Thank you. No, but that was the question. Why? How does that why it's one of the reasons I started my own podcast. It was part of that
00:56:15
exploration. Again, back to humility and grace. Two words I'll use over and over and over and over again. Seek first to
00:56:21
understand before you're understood. I listened to all the punditry hours after the election results. Yeah.
00:56:27
And everyone was an expert. I'm like, that's amazing. You're an expert. It was Israel for sure. No, it was inflation
00:56:33
for sure. No, it was interest rates for sure. No, it was incumbency uh for sure. No, it was uh it was woke for sure. It
00:56:40
was trans for sure. Everyone was for sure. They knew exactly what it was. I'm like, "This is amazing. Everyone just
00:56:46
knows what's going on." Meanwhile, I'm like 20 pages in writing this down. Say, "Oh, it it's about loss of man." "Oh,
00:56:52
no. It's about the man of No, it's about it was about Joe Rogan. We didn't go on Joe." Oh, for sure. It was about No, she
00:56:58
didn't, you know, she didn't say this or she it was the view for sure. She could have separated from Biden. No, it was it
00:57:04
was a And and then I'm like, "Well, wait a second. I I need to really understand this more fully. Well, you know, uh and
00:57:11
so that became my own journey back to the entrepreneur of the trying to iterate and deciding to get some folks
00:57:17
that I vehemently disagree on with it on my on a new podcast, Charlie Kirk, because you know, for sure he was
00:57:24
successful in convincing a lot of young men to turn out in record numbers for Trump. I wanted to learn about that. Back to notion of success leaves clues.
00:57:31
I want to pick his brain. What are you doing, right, man? Show some humility and grace as it relates to uh not try to
00:57:37
be argumentative in in the interview. Just I'm trying to pick I want to know why you're so successful. That offended
00:57:44
a lot of people. Uh there he's got a plan. He's executing
00:57:50
a plan. He's got a strategy. He's got a date that he's identified with a goal attached to it. Uh he's got a dream with
00:57:56
a deadline. He's there in places people don't expect him to be. He's meeting with folks without any filter. He's
00:58:03
willing to confront people he disagrees with and and agrees with. He's willing to be out there on the field. He's he's
00:58:09
organized a construct and he's been very deliberative at building a sense of community and this notion of community.
00:58:16
We all want to be connected to something bigger than ourselves is a big part of this as well. Part of the MAGA movement.
00:58:23
And particularly with people feeling disconnected, you're naturally going to want to find your way back to something
00:58:29
bigger than themselves that sort of moores you and gives you a sense of purpose and meaning as well. And when people are lost, they do go in
00:58:35
search of someone who resonates with them and someone who speaks directly to that their plight. And I my observation
00:58:41
as someone that's not an American, when I think about someone like Charlie Kirk versus Camala Harris, it's the absolute
00:58:47
opposite approach. Yeah. Camala Harris, lots of people say she avoided going on Rogan. She wanted him to fly to She wanted Rogan to fly to
00:58:55
her. She was going to give him a tiny short time window. It was probably going to be a bit sanitized in all all
00:59:01
respects. And then Charlie Kirk sits on campuses across the US and has students come up and ask him any question. And
00:59:07
his response is he shows you his response to his credit and he um is
00:59:14
doesn't care about sanitization or being politically correct. Correct. and he puts it on YouTube for
00:59:19
hours and hours and hours and hours. And I think in a glassbox world where we get
00:59:24
to see inside now because of technology, the blackbox approach where your PR team paints tries to paint an image on the
00:59:31
outside is over. And we saw it in the election cycle. And you're doing you're leading the I have to give you credit. You are leading the charge there because
00:59:37
I can't think of another key political figure globally who has started a podcast where you literally invite the
00:59:44
other side on. So, you're doing I think you're playing the glass box approach.
00:59:49
I app I love the way you describe that and I I everything you said resonated with me. Um had Steve Bannon on.
00:59:57
Yeah. Which is just in of itself was interesting. Look um
01:00:04
these folks exist and persist. You can deny it. My party can deny it at its own peril. Back to your point about what the
01:00:10
hell's happened to my party. And so trying to understand that, trying to unpack that. But you know it's interesting just I think you know comma
01:00:17
is an old friend of mine. I don't want to get into comma and I say old friend and people roll their eyes in politics. People say you know old friend it means
01:00:23
they're friendnemies. It's not but we we go back before we were both in politics. We both share that Willie Brown the
01:00:28
former mayor in common in terms of a relationship that we both had. Uh and as a consequence of the relationship we had
01:00:33
with him uh we were able to get to know one another as sort of this cohort. And um and I I I think a lot about you know
01:00:42
what we've just gone through. I wish I'd love to see Ka on your show.
01:00:48
I'd love to see her picture of mom and dad and I know her as well or better than most.
01:00:53
Yeah. But I would love to see that side of her. I would. So this notion of what' you say? Glass box.
01:00:59
Glass box versus black box. Black box. Uh hey I'm on here for a reason. Yeah, I
01:01:06
just, you know, it's like I'm out of any excuse. Look, you are who you are and uh let it let it all out there. And I think
01:01:13
people I I I I think we claim we long for authenticity. I still mostly believe
01:01:19
that. Sometimes I question that because people want you to be your authentic self, but they're like, "Well, don't
01:01:24
swear as much or be your authentic self, but don't be so emotional or be your authentic self, but there's a but." Uh
01:01:30
but I think at the end of the day, I think we're we've crossed that. I think we're on the other side. People just
01:01:35
want more of you, whoever the hell you are, regardless of what it is. Because even the crazy thing I I observe
01:01:42
about Trump is even the imperfect things he says that would once upon a time have
01:01:48
revolted on people and would have had adverse reactions. The fact that he's willing to say them
01:01:54
creates the impression in my mind that I know who he is. Yeah. And you don't have to like someone, but if you trust that you know
01:02:01
who they are, then you feel, I think, safer in predicting what they'll do.
01:02:07
Totally. Now, if I don't see Kamala sat on Joe Rogan or some someone like this, getting to know her unfiltered. You know, you
01:02:13
your team didn't tell me this. Your team didn't give me any parameters. They didn't say you can't ask him about this. Don't talk about this. There was no
01:02:19
parameters. At least people will know who you are. Yeah. And I think most people don't. They see me as sort of, you know, slick
01:02:25
guy that, you know, was they think I was grew up in with a trust fund. Everything was handed to them. People don't know my
01:02:32
entrepreneurial background. I don't think they they they they they believe what they they may have seen on Fox News
01:02:38
out here or, you know, One American News and the weaponization of that. And so, you know, I just it's critical, I think,
01:02:44
for our party generally. I think for both parties now, just you've just got to get out of that bubble. I give Trump,
01:02:49
to your point, credit in that respect in every way, shape, or form. criticize him for many things. He can't criticize him
01:02:54
for accessibility, uh, for at least appearing to be authentic in terms of his approach, his willingness to
01:02:59
confront and engage. And I I think that's very refreshing. How do you think America's doing?
01:03:05
I think we're struggling our identity. I think we're um, you know, Trump has made it made us feel free to shove again.
01:03:13
It's not our better selves. Um, you know, the the sort of John Meechum
01:03:19
language, you know, the soul of America is is is is struggling. And I really worry about our institutions. I worry
01:03:25
about our democracy. I worry about neighbors turning on neighbors. Uh, people forgetting the universal truths
01:03:31
that we all want to be loved. We all need to be loved. I talked about everybody needing to be connected. We also need to be respected. And I think
01:03:38
people are talking down to each other, talk, talking past each other. It's again why I want platform people I disagree with. and Nuke Gingrich on,
01:03:44
former Speaker Gingrich who led my recall effort against me. You know, I just I'm trying to just find some
01:03:50
balance in that respect because, you know, there are good people that vehemently disagree with us. Uh I don't
01:03:56
know that it benefits any of us to uh to demean or belittle folks. That's my thing with Trump. He attacks vulnerable
01:04:03
communities. My mom her what her real early indelible inspiration for me in
01:04:09
terms of one of those two to three jobs she had wasn't just working as a waitress and doing the bookkeeping but
01:04:15
she worked for aid to adoption of special kids with the Debult family that had kids with intellectual and physical
01:04:21
uh disabilities. And I remember with spending time with these kids and I hate
01:04:26
bullies. I I mean forgive the word hate. I know I I just I dislike I hate bullies. I don't like people demeaning
01:04:33
other people. I don't like people scapegoing scapegoating vulnerable communities. My why is standing up for
01:04:38
ideals and striking out against injustice. It defines nine out of 10 things for me, personal, professional,
01:04:45
standing up for ideals, striking out against injustice. And it's just to me unjust to see people demeaned and
01:04:52
belittled and to use to see vulnerable communities used as ponds to talk about,
01:04:58
you know, alligator whatever and and Florida and talk about immigrants and de
01:05:03
demeaning uh in ways and they have to zigg and zagu if they want to avoid getting killed by an alligator or
01:05:09
something or mocking people with disabilities. I that's where I that's where I get that's where I stand firm
01:05:16
and uh right now my biggest fear you asked about how where our country is. I
01:05:22
feel like Trump has opened that overturn window in a way uh that I very concerned
01:05:28
about our ability to get back to find our better humanity. Who does Trump care about
01:05:33
himself? Period. Full stop. It's not complicated. He doesn't he doesn't care if he's the heel or the hero as long as
01:05:39
he's the star. I mean, it's and that's just anyone that spent time with them. I spent time with this much more than any Democrat,
01:05:45
certainly any Democratic governor in the country. Period. Full stop. I did it through COVID my his first term and certainly even in the second term.
01:05:51
And what surprised you? Nothing that surprised me now is that he's a very different guy than he was in the first term. He's uh there's no
01:06:00
limits now. It's there's a megalomania there. Megalamia. He feels no limits now. And you feel
01:06:08
that in every way. He can say and do whatever the hell he wants. And there's
01:06:13
no oversight. There's no advise and consent. There's no co-equal branch of government. Speaker of our House of Representatives completely abdicated
01:06:19
that. The question is, do the courts hold up? Or we the people? And uh I'll tell you that and we're celebrating our
01:06:26
250th anniversary of the founding fathers, the best of the Roman Republic, Greek democracy. and and uh you know
01:06:32
this notion of of of system of checks and balances, popular sovereignty and uh I think it's uh it's on life support now
01:06:39
and I don't say that lightly. I say that very thoughtfully and I say that as a guy that's watched the president of the
01:06:45
United States not send military in his first term or his first six months anywhere in the
01:06:51
world except to an American city where he has 5,000 military in the streets of Los Angeles. A war within. So, I say
01:06:59
this very soberly and mindful of the moment we are in American history.
01:07:05
Do you think he wants to see you fail? I think he wants to take me out and down at the same time. I think he enjoys the
01:07:12
sparring with me. I think he I think he thrives on it. I know he does. Cuz he calls you Gavin New Scum. Yes.
01:07:18
But then meets with you privately. Yeah. And what are those meetings like? Unbelievably cordial. Unbelievably it drives people crazy when I say this, but
01:07:24
I'd be lying if I didn't say it. every time I have a conversation, including the the night before he quote unquote
01:07:31
federalized the National Guard. We had an unbelievably good conversation and we were going back and forth. He said, "Use
01:07:37
this cell phone. Keep keep calling me on this cell phone directly. You need anything, call me. You need anything, call me." Which is an amazing final
01:07:44
statement as I hung up. Only to read eight hours later uh that new scum I
01:07:49
read him the riot act, which he never did. Completely made 100% made it up and then federalizes the guard. Um, it's uh
01:07:57
it's a game. It's a show. It's a dangerous game and it's a very exhausting show and it's becoming
01:08:04
derivative and uh and more dangerous. Isn't this just how politics goes in
01:08:09
America? Shouldn't No, it shouldn't. Look, I used to have my beef with George W. Bush, George HW Bush. We we'd have our beefs
01:08:17
on the other side. Uh Republicans certainly with Clinton or Obama or even Biden. Long for those days. University.
01:08:24
I go in the office of Ronald Reagan's old office, Governor Ronald Reagan, that's my old office in as governor of
01:08:29
California. I mean, you know, his his last speech in the Oval Office, his last speech was about the life force of new
01:08:35
Americans, Lady Liberty's torch, our better angels. I mean, what happened to that Republican party? Um, and uh this
01:08:43
is different. This is darkness. Really darkness because I hear this every election cycle.
01:08:49
No, this is this is dark. We're we're only six months in. Mhm.
01:08:54
The vandalization that he's done to this democracy and institutions. I mean, eliminating oversight. I'm not just
01:09:00
talking about a co-equal branch of government. What does that mean for the average person that doesn't It means there's no He's eliminated the
01:09:07
inspector general's auditing capacity. He's going after uh polit political
01:09:13
opponents, removing them from key positions of power and influence and putting in uh acolytes, putting out
01:09:19
people uh that just do his bidding. He's pushing the boundaries on the rule of law. He's threatening to recall not just
01:09:26
people he disagrees with. He wanted my arrest. Remember the president of the United States said Nome should be arrested. They said on what grounds he
01:09:33
got elected. Said he doesn't like the fact that his political enemy got elected. It means he's not he doesn't
01:09:39
say that lightly. And you know once the mind is stretched it never goes back to its original form. So every time he does
01:09:46
this he's sort of testing these boundaries. And this is what makes me
01:09:51
more concerned. I'll give you a proof point. God is my witness. We're sitting here when we do this today on this
01:09:57
podcast. We just I just read this morning that Donald Trump was on the phone with the Texas legislature and
01:10:04
they're going through a redistricting thing to basically get five more seats for the midterms
01:10:09
because they're likely to lose the midterms and Trump is likely to lose power unless they can change the
01:10:15
districts and rig the game. So he stays in power. Do you think he's going to try and stay
01:10:21
in power when people close to Donald Trump when
01:10:26
people close to Donald Trump send the governor of California a hat that says Trump 2028?
01:10:34
They're not around. They sent you a hat saying Trump 2028. 2028. They're not screwing around. I sat
01:10:40
in the Oval Office for 90 minutes with Donald Trump, first Democratic governor to do that. And he was looked and he
01:10:47
looked around. I said, "Hey, so he was behind you." I said, I looked around the pictures. I'm like, "Fdr." And I literally turned. I'm like, "Oh,
01:10:53
seriously?" He goes, "Yeah." Goes, "What do you think? Three terms, four terms?" I said, "Oh, come on." And then he just
01:10:59
starts laughing because he's lighting. He's having fun, but again, he's throwing things out. He's Yes, he's
01:11:06
iterating. Do you think he would stay for a third, fourth time? Yeah. I mean, he I think he's the guy
01:11:12
that tried to wreck this country, try to light our democracy on fire. He said it was it was a day of love January 6. So
01:11:18
much so that he literally, as you know, pardoned everybody that participated in that melee. I mean, that happened. That
01:11:27
is grounds in and of itself to question whether or not I'm overstating anything.
01:11:33
And that was first week in office. It's it's I mean, this is shock and awe. We have people in masks
01:11:40
going to car washes without identifying. And people are disappearing in the
01:11:45
streets of America today. Thousands of people disappearing on the streets of America today based on what you look
01:11:52
like, your skin color on the streets of America today. That's happening. That is not normal. And every day he's able to
01:11:59
shapeshift and distract us to move someplace else. I've got a big announcement, huge announcement on Putin. I'll do major sanctions in 50
01:12:07
days. Really? I mean, this ability to distract, it's serious with lies underneath is serious. And I don't think
01:12:16
I'm exaggerating. And I am very very cautious when it comes to this kind of
01:12:21
language because you're right. when you you tend to say you know you know you
01:12:27
crying wolf here uh I don't think we're overstating the seriousness uh that uh
01:12:33
we have to push back the seriousness of purpose to which this moment needs to be met that is
01:12:39
really this is not just another you know president comes in they do a bunch of changes a bunch of executive orders and
01:12:45
then they they leave in three and a half years he tried to stay into office he called the elections chief in Georgia and asked
01:12:52
I just need a few thousand votes. He wasn't [ __ ] around. He was not joking about that. He was dead serious about
01:12:59
that. And had they found that, he would have rigged his own election. You
01:13:04
serious? What more evidence do you need? He's quite literally they're so
01:13:09
concerned about taking over the House. Now, Democrats were on path to do it. They have to re-rig the game. And you
01:13:16
think if they don't take back the House of Representatives, they won't move from some form of voter
01:13:21
suppression the likes of which we've never seen in this country, threats of martial law. What do you think this
01:13:27
whole experiment with 5,000 military weeks and weeks and weeks doing nothing, by the way? They're sitting in the
01:13:32
armory. They're doing nothing. They're there for show, but he's pushing the boundaries of what they're capable of
01:13:39
doing. Testing the courts and the constitution. That's for a larger purpose. And I'm not trying to be, you
01:13:46
know, I'm not trying to be m it may not be intentional purpose yet, but they'll
01:13:52
place an opportunity to utilize the lessons learned here today to extend
01:13:59
their reach and power tomorrow. And I very much, yes, I worry about our democracy in three and a half years. And
01:14:06
I worry about that election if they maintain their power in the House of Representatives. I'm that deeply
01:14:12
concerned. Dead serious. On the balance of probability, do you think it's likely Trump will stay try and stay in office in 2028?
01:14:19
On the balance probability, no. No. Okay. But I can see a scenario, but not on the balance probability. And that's on the
01:14:25
basis of one thing, time of life. Oh, okay. He's if he was 69, not 79.
01:14:33
Look, he uh this is the great grift. He's he he did what he never did in the
01:14:38
first term. He played in the margins. he was able to take advantage of his brand and his businesses and make a few bucks
01:14:44
here and there, but not the money he's making now. I mean, the crypto, everything he's doing. I mean, I mean,
01:14:50
the kids now selling cell phones, the whole thing, monetizing everything, coming out with new brands and new plan.
01:14:56
I mean, he it he finally is doing what he didn't do the first term is now is
01:15:01
he's president of United States, but now he's going to make a fortune. So when he's no longer president, he'll have a $400 million plan that has a billion
01:15:08
dollars of upgrades on it that'll be donated to the foundation that he can use for the rest of his life. Thank you to the Qataris. He will have billions
01:15:14
and billions of dollars. He'll make the vast majority of his wealth in just a few years as president of the United States. He will set himself up in that
01:15:21
respect. He'll have hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of excess campaign cash that he'll be able to use for whatever luxurious lifestyle
01:15:28
he ever needs. And I imagine that may satisfy him as long as he gets his
01:15:34
person in to replace him so they can continue that griff going forward. The American people elected him. They
01:15:41
said that's our guy. That's why my party needs to own up to that. And u this is existential. We need
01:15:48
to do better and we need to I'm uh that's correct. Are you fa are you faithful hopeful that the Democratic
01:15:54
party are going to wake up in time to field a serious campaign that can
01:15:59
compete with that very sort of dominant prevailing narrative? I think it it starts yesterday. It's not
01:16:05
about the guy or guy on the white horse to come save the day. It's not about 2028. It's about the midterms which we
01:16:10
just talked about. It's also about what happens between now and the midterms. It's about the rule of law. It's about courts. It's about governors. It's about
01:16:16
states. It's about mayors. It's about we the people citizens. I mean it look I was inspired in the no kings day. I mean
01:16:23
you guys know a little bit about kings. I mean the no kings day five million people showed up on Trump's birthday. That gave me hope
01:16:29
which was a sort of a protest against authoritarianism. Yeah. Against Yeah. It was look it, you
01:16:35
know, it was Justice Brand. I said in a democracy the most important office is not office of president, governor, mayor, office of citizen.
01:16:41
You're an entrepreneur. How do you think your party have done with appealing to entrepreneurs? terrible you you preside over San Francisco which
01:16:48
is globally we think of as the center point of innovation and technology terrible but I I think the perception is that the
01:16:54
Democratic party don't like entrepreneurs and the Republicans it's the home of entrepreneurship in fact all of my friends that are entrepreneurs if
01:17:00
if they were being honest in private they would say that they lean towards the Republican party as it relates to
01:17:05
entrepreneurship I it's amazing but you know it's interesting since 1989 the end of the cold war in the United States of America there's
01:17:11
been 52 million jobs created There have been three Republican administrations, three Democratic
01:17:17
administrations. So, it's fair to say, how'd we do? Republican administrations, Democratic administrations since 1989
01:17:23
and then Cold War at the end of last year. 52 million jobs. And you'd say, well, it's maybe 5050. Maybe Republicans
01:17:29
on the basis of your entrepreneur friends. Republicans probably did 60% of those jobs were created. Well, 50 of the
01:17:36
52 million were created under Democratic administrations. 1.9 million jobs created during Republican administrations. You look at the last
01:17:43
three Republican presidents, they have one thing in common, recessions. During the last administration under Joe Biden,
01:17:49
created 16.6 million jobs. And I know a lot of those were COVID jobs, but he
01:17:55
blew past that after 18 months. He created eight times more jobs than the last three Republican administrations
01:18:01
combined. But economy does better. Job creation
01:18:06
thrives during Democratic administrations. But perception is exactly what you said. Yes. So you you you gave me the logic.
01:18:13
I know. But the brain isn't orientated towards logic. It's narrative. Where where's the economy in this country? Why are we the fourth largest
01:18:19
economy in the world? We have four of the top seven market cap companies in the world. Nvidia just came with $4 trillion market cap. We dominate 32 of
01:18:26
the top 50 AI companies are right here in California. We're dominating every key industry. We're the biggest
01:18:31
manufacturing state. We dominate naming industry. California dominates. So why are entrepreneurs so pissed off
01:18:37
state? Why are entrepreneurs in your state pissed off? 71% of the GDP in this country are blue metro counties.
01:18:43
Elon left. He went to Texas. He left and came right back. Where's Grock? Where's Where's his R&D headquarters,
01:18:48
world headquarters? Where are the vast majority of his jobs for SpaceX and and Tesla? He did that because he wanted to
01:18:54
make a buck so he can avoid capital gains and avoid income tax as he cashes
01:19:00
out on 20 years of large s by the taxpayers in California that created a regulatory environment that created the
01:19:07
industry because of our vehicle emissions standards and subsidized that industry with billions and billions of
01:19:12
dollars of taxpayer money to make Elon rich. And then he turned his back so he didn't have to pay capital gains.
01:19:19
Do you know I think and by the way he's back all his AI. Where's all his AI? It's in California. Where are all of his research and
01:19:25
development folks? All in California. Everything you said might be true and I don't know the details of it, so I can't
01:19:30
comment on that. But again, perception, come back to perception. I agree. When I in my, you know, over in the UK,
01:19:36
when I watch the Democratic party um attacking these really successful individuals,
01:19:42
I hate that. And and Biden attacking Elon Musk. Look,
01:19:47
look, I'm not going to go into the details of Elon Musk and his imperfections. He makes it easy to attack. Both parties
01:19:53
are doing but let's try and let's just try and hit this point which is the Democratic party tend to be the ones who are criticizing
01:20:00
the world's most successful people and saying that they're this and this and never pausing to say
01:20:06
actually they did something good as well. And it's the lack of nuance for me where I go I can't I can't trust that these
01:20:13
people are just pure evil. I can't trust that they're just pure evil and only bad things which is all I hear. But on the
01:20:18
right side you might hear the opposite. Where is the nuance here? Like, can you say something positive about Elon Musk?
01:20:24
I've been there's been no bigger champion of Elon Musk for 20 years than I have. I've been his biggest supporter.
01:20:29
In fact, I have one of the first Teslas right off the factory floor. I've been his biggest promoter and supporter for
01:20:35
decades and decades. So, I've said that over and over and over again. All tends to be negative about these these entrepreneurs. You know, you you
01:20:41
can understand from like left politics around the world does seem to have a certain disdain for successful
01:20:47
entrepreneurs. So, let's talk about that. It is the worst part of my party. I can't stand it. I do not begrudge other people's
01:20:54
success. I I'm inspired by it. I admired it. We opened this conversation up all these heroes of mine. Like, and Richard
01:21:00
Branson's a hero of mine. I love his success. I love his audacity. I love his ability to compete. I love his ability
01:21:06
to promote, create jobs, opportunity, wealth. I think it is a big problem in the Democratic party. And we do not do
01:21:14
enough to make this fundamental point, you know, that that you cannot be pro job and anti- business period.
01:21:21
And we need to say that and we need to demonstrate that. Look, it drove me crazy. Half my friends were up there,
01:21:26
like maybe not even half, a lot more than half were up there with Donald Trump when he got sworn in. And the
01:21:32
symbolism of that was he's got the back and they have his back of entrepreneurs
01:21:38
uh and dream makers in this country. Yeah. And I thought, Jesus, I mean, just that alone, where the hell was my party?
01:21:46
Why aren't we making a case for entrepreneurs and and business leaders? Do you respect Elon? I I've long respect him. But he's
01:21:52
changed in the last seven, eight years. He just has. And I say that with so many mutual friends universally saying that.
01:21:58
In fact, I was one of the last to come around. I'm like, "No, he's all right." Even after he left, quote unquote, Tesla
01:22:04
left, which they never did. They didn't change. They didn't move a job. They just changed the corporate headquarters.
01:22:09
He came back a few months later. You can go online and you can see a press conference I had when he moved his world
01:22:14
R&D headquarters back to California and I praised Elon. And that wasn't that long ago. That was after quote unquote
01:22:21
he left the state of California. But he's different now. Something's changed.
01:22:27
And u and now of course that's been exposed across the spectrum. It's not just from a prism of left and right. But
01:22:33
I've long admired him. He created this entire market and he's 100% right about this big beautiful bill. He's 100% right
01:22:39
that we're doubling down on stupid and we're investing in the past as the rest of the world is leaping forward. China's
01:22:45
going to clean our clock as it relates to electric vehicles. They're going to clean our clock in terms of the future and dominate it because of some of what
01:22:51
Donald Trump has just done and rolling back progress that was made over the last uh decade or so, particularly as it
01:22:57
relates to what just occurred with the IRA and notably with the infrastructure bill that the the president of the
01:23:02
United States previous president passed. So I agree with him on a lot of things but uh some character issues that I that
01:23:09
I question. I use his name I guess because he's now so influential in this country but he's also like a figurehead of like a certain
01:23:14
you know of entrepreneurship and innovation. So he's and now he owns X as well. So the platform's so big under if
01:23:20
you are ever to become president what's your attitude going to be towards entrepreneurs like him and how is that
01:23:27
different to the democratic celebrate I rever their entrepreneurialism. We celebrate them.
01:23:33
We celebrate their contributions. Again, we don't we don't I mean, I I just the idea that our party is branded by
01:23:42
begrudging other people's success. It's devastating to I think the to the
01:23:48
aspirations of what it means I so much of what it means to be an American in California is the dream. It's attached
01:23:53
to this notion of social mobility that there's a limitlessness in terms of being and doing anything. And so my job
01:23:59
as governor and my job in any position would be to create the conditions where people feel included, feel seen, where
01:24:05
they can live their lives back what I said earlier out loud and we create the conditions where their success becomes
01:24:10
inevitable or irresistible. And uh I think a lot of what leadership is is climate control, not in the sustainable
01:24:18
sense. And it's no longer command and control. But what I concerned about now is the command and control of crony
01:24:24
capitalism coming back into the United States of America because of Donald Trump. You got to kiss the ring. You
01:24:30
don't kiss the ring, it's going to be punitive. You want an exemption on the tariffs, just make a call. Or rather,
01:24:35
better yet, make a contribution. Maybe you make a contribution indirectly by buying some crypto. And that
01:24:41
contribution then gets the benefit. Maybe you make a deal uh overseas on weapons and we'll take care of the golf
01:24:48
course. Maybe we'll take care of the new two towers uh for the family. That's what's happened under Trump in just six
01:24:53
months to a degree never. It's unimaginable in the United States to see it at this scale in this this level. And
01:25:01
uh and that's to me not free enterprise. Business takes me all over the world and
01:25:06
I travel about 50 weeks a year. And up until recently, one of the challenges I continued to face was staying connected
01:25:12
as soon as I landed somewhere new. The reality is I don't have time to wait around and sort out SIM cards while I'm
01:25:17
on the go. So a few months ago I tried something called ALO for the first time and they are now a sponsor of today's
01:25:24
episode. He is the world's first e SIM store. It's entirely digital. No SIM
01:25:29
cards are needed at all and you can keep the same phone number you have now. It means that you can get reliable data in
01:25:36
over 200 destinations with instant access to a digital e SIM card with a
01:25:41
click of a button. When you buy your first ALO eSIM, you can get $3 off by using code DOAC3.
01:25:48
For me, being able to land Switch on my phone and get back to work is gamechanging. And Airl makes this
01:25:53
possible. Install ALO today to get $3 off your first ESIM with code DOAC3 at
01:25:59
checkout. That's D OC3 when you download the ALO app. I've just invested millions
01:26:06
into this and become a co-owner of the company. It's a company called Ketone IQ. And the story is quite interesting.
01:26:12
I started talking about ketosis on this podcast and the fact that I'm very low carb, very, very low sugar, and my body
01:26:18
produces ketones, which have made me incredibly focused, have improved my endurance, have improved my mood, and
01:26:24
have made me more capable at doing what I do here. And because I was talking about it on the podcast, a couple of weeks later, these showed up on my desk
01:26:30
in my HQ in London, these little shots. And oh my god, the impact this had on my
01:26:37
ability to articulate myself, on my focus, on my workouts, on my mood, on
01:26:42
stopping me crashing throughout the day was so profound that I reached out to the founders of the company and now I'm
01:26:49
a co-owner of this business. I highly, highly recommend you look into this. I highly recommend you look at the science
01:26:54
behind the product. If you want to try it for yourself, visit ketone.com/stephven for 30% off your subscription order. And
01:27:01
you'll also get a free gift with your second shipment. That's ketone.com/stephven.
01:27:07
And I'm so honored that once again, a company I own can sponsor my podcast. Is the world safer now under Trump than it
01:27:14
was under Biden? There's nuance to that. I don't think it's a binary safe. I mean, I think
01:27:20
in terms of war and the probability of a World War II, are we I think it's more unpredictable than
01:27:27
it's been. Um, I worry about nuclear proliferation. I worry about AI.
01:27:36
Biden wasn't doing so well when I watched that debate and he was struggling over his words and couldn't couldn't be coherent with sentences. I
01:27:42
did I was his chief surrogate that night. So, chief surrogate. Yeah. Meaning I was there representing
01:27:48
the campaign to make Oh, so you were there uh for Yeah. I actually think I saw you afterwards doing interviews. I uh was doing my best
01:27:55
to have uh and go home with a guy who brought you to the dance and um you know
01:28:02
I um I was proud to support him. Uh but that was a that was a that was a difficult night.
01:28:07
Did you realize in that was that the moment you realized that he wasn't right when he walked out on stage doing well. I was in the back. I'll never forget
01:28:13
physically standing up as I was watching and going and I turned to my staff. I
01:28:18
said something's off. Right when he walked on stage felt it. It was the only time I saw that was um at a fundraiser
01:28:25
here that he had after he had no sleep and I just we all just literally assumed it was just jet lag and he had flown
01:28:31
back and forth in over a week back and forth to Europe twice and he had a late night and um I thought boy he's just not
01:28:39
on like and that was in private not just his public uh comments with President Obama that night. There was a lot of
01:28:45
talk, rhetoric that there was an internal desire to overthrow him around that time because you could see on TV he
01:28:52
was struggling and in the polls and Donald Trump was reveling in it. And then I heard this narrative coming up that, you know, Nancy Pelosi and the
01:28:58
Democratic party were having private conversations and telling him to step down and forcing him out. All cards on the table, 100% truth. Is
01:29:05
there any truth in that? Yeah. No, a lot of that was happening. I mean, a lot of people were I mean, there
01:29:10
was there was a phone tree that lit up that night. There was a text tree, phone tree, email uh just blew up
01:29:17
saying people are in panic. Total fullfledged panic and and and there was a need and
01:29:26
desire to know that he was okay and that this was momentary uh or discover there
01:29:32
was something else maybe had a cold, maybe there's some other issue. And it led to those kind of conversations that
01:29:38
many have been made public, many private, led to meetings with Democratic governors in the White House with the
01:29:45
president uh around a table, including including me. Mr. President, tell us, you know, what's your path? How you
01:29:52
feeling? Uh some honest back and forth with a few governors that challenged him a little bit more than one would have
01:29:58
expected with sort of protocol within the party. Um and um yeah, a real desire
01:30:04
obviously to turn the page and ultimately that manifested with a decision he made um and led to uh
01:30:10
obviously our nominee her his vice president. He was effectively effectively pushed out of the party by pressure.
01:30:17
Yeah. I mean because he wanted to continue. That was clear. He said that. Yeah. He believed he was the only one that could beat Donald Trump.
01:30:23
Yeah. Having beat him once, he was convinced he could do it again. He believed that his record of the lowest black
01:30:29
unemployment, Hispanic unemployment, lowest unemployment for women, the best economy in 60 years as it relates to
01:30:35
jobs and GDP growth, uh, inflation that was cooling from 9.1 and was moving in the right direction with the chips and
01:30:41
science act, with the infrastructure bill, the IRA, 400 bipartisan bills. He felt lowest uninsured rates. They felt
01:30:49
like things directionally were moving despite the inflation scars and that he can make that case. He felt that. He
01:30:54
really did feel that way. A lot of the narrative was that you were going to step in potentially at last minute and
01:31:00
that I know in your head you must have been mulling and thinking about going back and forward about different
01:31:06
possibilities and outcomes. Things were moving so quickly and there was so such little time. I saw your name mentioned
01:31:11
all the time associated with stepping in to replace him. No, I was but I was also the one that
01:31:16
was out there still campaigning for him after everyone else had had turned his back. I just But you mustn't be in your head at night
01:31:22
thinking I wasn't then. And I things could change. Uh you talked about what shaped me,
01:31:28
those moments. Um when I say no daylight, when I say, you know, I got to
01:31:34
make up for disappointing this guy and myself, when I'm in, I'm in. And I'll
01:31:40
tell you, the coin of the realm in politics is loyalty. Period. Full stop. Willie Brown taught me that. Um and Joe
01:31:46
Biden um um I was going to have his back. So I literally, I'm telling you, look me in the eye because I know it's
01:31:52
cynical. did not think along those lines. after he dropped out those
01:31:58
minutes later and my cell phone blew up. I confess that there were a number of
01:32:03
people uh that uh wondered uh and I imagine uh you can you know there were
01:32:09
there were plenty of people sort of circling go well maybe maybe the moment I
01:32:14
once he dropped down I to be candid um I'm going to get in trouble for saying this because I haven't said it public I was a little
01:32:19
angry I didn't get heads up you didn't get a heads up that gave me like a text two minutes cuz I I was
01:32:25
embarrassed I was sitting with a group of people I was and I was like my phone rang I was like wow I saw was I was my
01:32:32
first reaction honestly was like gez man all this stuff I did for this guy and not even a heads up and it and um first
01:32:39
mis call true story I I didn't even know it was an unknown number I didn't even look at it for about six hours and it
01:32:44
was she already made the call to me saying what just a voicemail love to talk so
01:32:51
about what well she was running so it's uh you know and uh a few hours later I put out a
01:32:56
press release supporting her candidacy what should the Democratic party have done with the wisdom of hindsight Ight in that moment instead of just putting
01:33:03
Camala straight in. All geniuses in hindsight. I don't know what you could have possibly done with just such a short runway.
01:33:09
You had the vice president of the United States. You had the apparatus that was built within the party. You had the
01:33:14
legal ability for her because it was the Biden Harris campaign to transfer a lot of that. Yeah. You had little time. You
01:33:22
would have opened up to a circular firing squad as it relates to the party. In hindsight, it didn't work.
01:33:28
What could you have done with the benefit of hindsight that might have worked? Yeah, I would have, could have, should have. I don't live in that. I think but
01:33:35
but I live where we where we were exploring a moment ago and that is in
01:33:40
reflection more broadly of where the party is less the individuals and I think that's our biggest mistake. We're
01:33:47
so consumed by the individual identity politics. Yeah. But well issues related identity politics broadly but it's not just the
01:33:54
person. Okay. It's who we represent. And there's a word we didn't use earlier, but you used it in relationship to Trump. Weakness
01:34:02
versus strength. And I'll tell you, to me, at the core, the end of the day, to
01:34:08
me, it's that distinction that perhaps says more things in more ways on more days about where our two parties are.
01:34:14
Donald Trump exudes strangely strength. I think he's weakness masquerading as
01:34:20
strength. Our party appears weak for many, too many. And I remember Bill
01:34:25
Clinton after shellacking, we got crushed in a midterm and he said, 'Given the choice, Bill Clinton said, 'The
01:34:32
American people always support strong and wrong versus weak and right.
01:34:38
There's something about that. I think this notion of strength, I think it goes to young boys. I think it goes to Trump
01:34:44
and Trumpism, what he sells, what he represents to people. I think in that distinction maybe is a pathway for our
01:34:51
party. And my last question before I get to the book, which is the question left by our
01:34:56
last guest, is um there's a there's a high probability, which which you know I'm aware of, that I'm sat with the
01:35:03
future president of the United States. There's a probability, you know, even if it's a 1% probability, it's an extraordinary opportunity to ask
01:35:09
question. Yeah, even if it's a 1%, but I I looked at the the odds before I walked out, so I know it's higher. um under you if I
01:35:16
took that Men in Black little pen thing that erases memory and I erase my memory of the Democratic Party and I erase the
01:35:23
memory of the Democratic Party for all of my audience watching and you have a clean slate to redefine that party and we don't we
01:35:30
don't remember or we don't reflect on the past and that party is coming up in 2028 against the Republican MAGAentric
01:35:38
party maybe led by JD Vance. What is what is that proposition? I'm a young
01:35:43
man, but not just for young men, for everybody. What is the proposition you're putting forward? What does it sound like?
01:35:50
I And I don't want any of the political stuff coming. No, no, no. What does it sound like? And and and you can appreciate I hope
01:35:58
that that I don't have the kind of answer that's worthy of that question. Mhm.
01:36:03
Because it's a spectacular question. Yeah. And it's fundamentally the question that needs to be answered by whoever is
01:36:10
running for president of the United States and it needs to be done. So congruently, it can't be to your point [ __ ] It can't be a pole tested
01:36:17
focused group bunch of words and pabum. What does your heart say? You have to feel it. In so many respects what you just what
01:36:24
we just ended on. I think this notion of the dream, I think this notion of of I think there's something about why we're
01:36:31
together that is sort of that the intersection of entrepreneurialism,
01:36:36
aspiration, inspiration, growth, opportunity, inclusion
01:36:43
that is that that begins to answer and flesh out or create an answer that
01:36:49
fleshes out. Um, and it's in that space that I'm consumed. I'm consumed by
01:36:54
contribution and service. this notion of service, communitarianism, this notion that we're all better off,
01:37:00
we're all better off. I think public service should be a requirement, um national service. Uh but it's in that
01:37:07
space uh that ultimately I think um a a an answer uh will emerge. And there's
01:37:14
lots of um it's funny because politics more and more I've learned about it is this battle between like
01:37:20
rationality and logic and then just emotion and uh perception I guess. Exactly. Right.
01:37:26
So you talked about some of the great things the Democratic party have done. But it's it's crazy how the headlines
01:37:31
will be dominated by some issue around quote unquote woke ideology. 100%. And it almost becomes the case that
01:37:37
people care. They're more emotionally compelled by this idea that their kids in schools are being t taught something.
01:37:43
that is corrupting their mind versus how the economy is doing or jobs. I know. And it was it was it's and I
01:37:49
think we struggled to recognize that. How do you recognize that they were shapeshifting CRT, ESG, DAI,
01:37:54
anything with three letters. I mean, we were on our heels. We were on the receiving end of all this. We're constantly on the defense. We got I love
01:38:00
what President Obama just said. He said, "We got to get more aggressive. Get on the offense. I've been saying this for years." What does that mean?
01:38:06
Meaning, we've got to shape the narrative. Illusion rules. Facts don't matter. You got these propaganda
01:38:11
networks weaponizing grievance 24/7 and we're constantly responding uh to these
01:38:18
these these these culture wars. And let me be specific on that. I think you know the the governor of Utah said it best.
01:38:24
Never has so much attention been focused on so few as it relates to the issue of trans athletes. He's 100% right. But
01:38:31
there's also truism and it's part of, you know, part of being in business. You're nothing but a mirror of your
01:38:37
consistent thoughts. Whatever you focus on, you're going to find more of. And so if 247 that's all that's coming from
01:38:43
you, California this like California crackup, everyone's leaving worst place to do everything else. You start to
01:38:48
believe it. You start starts to shape your conversation. Then you start finding proof points. Oh, there's an enomous encampment. Oh, I just read
01:38:53
about this crime down at the Walmart and it's just it everyone's leaving because what because Elon left everyone. So I I
01:39:00
think narrative matters to your point. Trump understands that better than anybody. Mhm. He repeats things over and in the you
01:39:07
know the vernacular of my buddy Marshon Lynch and over and over and over and over and over and over over again. So I
01:39:13
think flooding the zone in that respect you are a master at it. I mean dealing with Jesus seriously I mean of all
01:39:19
people should hire you my friend uh that understand data and analytics
01:39:24
communication how to target um broader message values
01:39:30
brand strength um and how to sell. You got to sell. I mean, we sitting there talking about the chips and science act.
01:39:36
No one knows what the hell you're even talking about. We didn't sell what we were delivering. I think we have to brand it.
01:39:42
Yeah. And we and it's also look part of the answer to the question you asked earlier. It's also and you know Ezra
01:39:47
Klein's talking about but abundance mindset. We've had this scarcity mindset, this sort of zero sum mindset.
01:39:52
And as an entrepreneur, you don't have a scarcity mindset. And I think as part of the bar brand building of our party,
01:39:59
it's not just in terms of housing and issues related to what Ezra speaks in terms of abundance mindset, but it's
01:40:04
that growth abundance mindset. And I think that's part of when I talk about the dream. I'm also saying this, by the
01:40:11
way, from the prison that no other governor can lay claim. You have the American dream and you have the California dream. There's no other state
01:40:17
that's attached to a dream. And I think there's something evocative in that because that that inspires a journey
01:40:23
that we can be on, a journey that we can go on together. And so I'm I'm captured by the vernacular of the 60s and Bobby
01:40:30
Kennedy was my political hero. Sar Shrivever and Kennedy, everything about that, solving for ignorance and poverty
01:40:36
and disease and and this notion of going on a journey together. That was what the moon was all about. And and we can see
01:40:43
ourselves on that journey. right now, you know, is a blue versus the red team.
01:40:49
Uh this is a war that within in this country and I think whoever runs in the next four years or three years, um it's
01:40:56
about stitching this back together and and going on a journey together. Uh because as I say all the time, divorce
01:41:02
is not an option. There's just two other things that sprung to mind as you're talking is I've always wondered in California, specifically in LA, I told you I moved
01:41:08
here. I just moved into my place yesterday, in fact. Um, I was in a CVS, I think it was, and I was trying to get
01:41:15
some toothpaste. Horrible, right? Yeah. I couldn't believe it. I said to the team, this was like six months ago, I was like, I went to a CVS to get some
01:41:21
toothpaste, and I got to the toothpaste and it's in a cage. And I said to the lady there, I was like, why is the toothpaste in a cage?
01:41:27
And she she goes, "Look." And she points down the aisle and there was a gentleman
01:41:32
um a homeless gentleman who was stuffing things in his sock. Yeah. And I thought, "Fucking hell." Like,
01:41:39
yeah, if I look over there, there's these mansions in the hills. And if I'm in the CVS, the toothpaste is in a cage because
01:41:44
the homeless people are stuffing things into their socks. Yeah. Is that fixable?
01:41:50
Yes. And what caused it? Well, and then now you're dealing with larger systemic issues that that go back
01:41:56
decades and decades and the has have nots and and that goes to drug addiction. Yeah. and the broad I mean the specific
01:42:02
issues around homelessness and that gets to deeper issues about mental health behavioral health issues affordability
01:42:08
housing crisis but look is it fixable yes by definition why doesn't no one fix it it's being fixed and progress is
01:42:15
literally being made we're seeing significant reductions backto-back years in crime we're seeing significant
01:42:20
reductions in organized retail theft seeing significant reductions including just here in LA and they announced 17
01:42:26
and a half% decline over two years in the number of people out in the streets and sidewalks and unsheltered homeless that was literally announced yesterday
01:42:32
by the mayor. So, there is progress in all these cases. So, absolutely, you're getting more radical on this
01:42:38
point as well because I I saw the announcement you made and I watched very closely a couple years ago when you announced that you're going to have to
01:42:43
get these encampments off the street. I'm done with it. It's exhausting. Clean them up. It's the job of a mayor. My job
01:42:48
as mayor, former mayor of San Francisco. Uh do your job. Clean them up. Get people off the street. There's nothing
01:42:55
there. Stepping over people on the streets and sidewalks is not compassion. And so we have flooded the zones in
01:43:00
terms of support and resources. Now it's about performance. And I I have the great honor of working with Prince William in the UK on a in a
01:43:06
home homelessness initiative. So I know the complexities of it. And some people think of it as just a housing issue. But having spent time with people at risk of
01:43:12
homelessness, I know it's a confidence issue. It's a mental health issue. It's a jobs issue. It's a pathways into
01:43:18
employment issue. It's a very very complicated issue. So that's actually blown my mind. home would have in terms of
01:43:23
I mean I say it all the time shelters solve sleep housing and supportive services solve homelessness. You've got
01:43:30
to deal with the underlying reasons people are out on the streets and sidewalks in the first place. And so it's about this comprehensive integr
01:43:36
integration of care, whole person care as we describe it. We've just gone through the most significant mental health reforms in US history. We have
01:43:43
flooded the zone with more support. 26,000 new units of behavioral health
01:43:48
housing we are producing and procuring in the state of California in real time with zoning reforms so we can site them
01:43:55
workforce development reforms and we're reorganizing the integration around mental health and the silos and people
01:44:01
with drug and alcohol addictions and the integration uh and this is the source to me of so much of my real passion in
01:44:08
terms of my day job and and you're going to see real progress in the state well I did do some research beforehand and I can see that there's some really
01:44:14
significant actions taken and they are nuanced and complex in their solution. So that's very very encouraging and it's
01:44:20
encouraging to meet someone who understands the complexities of this problem because actually the narrative that will win out in an election cycle
01:44:25
is going to be emotional. It's going to be simple and so I think everybody should look out for emotional and simple answers and
01:44:32
exclude them whenever you hear them. Um, last question before I ask you this one is, um, all the headlines at the moment
01:44:38
are about Jeffrey Epstein. And, uh, the way that that's been handled really is the thing that I find
01:44:43
so fascinating because on the way into the presidential office and into those some those big roles, there were certain
01:44:50
promises made about the Epstein files and it would be released and if you vote for me, then I will release these files.
01:44:56
And now there's nothing to see. Yeah. What what what happened there?
01:45:01
Well, they lied. They they lied to you then or they lying to you now. Period. Someone lied about this. They dangled
01:45:06
this in order to get votes and they lied to people. They use people. And um and
01:45:11
someone needs to be held to account. And and look, I you know, I can be cynical about it. I can be very political about
01:45:18
it and say it's interesting when Elon, we brought up Elon, when Elon Musk tweets something out saying Trump's on
01:45:25
the list and a few days later there is no list. You can be cynical about that.
01:45:30
It leads to some open-ended questions. What would you have done if you were Trump in that situation? So, say that
01:45:35
you you'd been elected and the public are demanding to see this list. What would you have done? Well, one thing is obvious. I I know Pam
01:45:42
Bondi well, uh, the attorney general. Um, we known each other over the years. She doesn't move without Trump.
01:45:49
If she's fired, she's the fall person because there's no question she was
01:45:54
directed by Trump to say what she said. She would not have
01:46:00
period, full stop, done something independent of the president on the Epstein files.
01:46:06
So Trump is the person that's So one has to acknowledge that. So then it begs additional questions. Why was
01:46:13
she told not to release the files unless a there's no files and they made it up
01:46:19
the entire damn time just like they made up Obama's birth certificate just like they make up most things most days. my
01:46:27
humble position. I think that's very plausible. It could be very simple. It could be as simple as that. They started the conspiracy up. They
01:46:33
started. They're covering their ass and they're just like, "Shit, we got caught. We We use this. We We sort of squeeze
01:46:38
this out. We got everything we needed. We're in power." Or it's more insidious than that. And look, the one thing is
01:46:45
just not even there. There's It's just simple truth. Epste and Trump were
01:46:51
close. They were wasn't just a few photographs. They were close. That's a
01:46:56
fact. Sorry, Donald. Just a fact. So, look, I get why this outrages folks. I
01:47:03
think it's interesting. It's outraged some of the core base. Um I I I enjoy the hell out of it. I'm just I spoke
01:47:11
that was my private voice out loud as a Democrat. And um yeah, and I hope our
01:47:17
party jins this up much more. If you get into office, people are going to say release the list. I mean, if
01:47:23
there's commit to release your list or what unless there's some national security
01:47:29
secret here or something and I know that leads to speculation about MSAD and other speculation about was he on a
01:47:35
foreign intelligence list and is there real implications to our national security? Why did he make all his money?
01:47:41
I mean, I I've got enough problems with homelessness and housing in California worry about Jeffrey Epstein. But hey,
01:47:47
they created this mess. Now they got to clean it up. Governor,
01:47:53
we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for.
01:47:58
Good. And the question left for you is what is it?
01:48:04
Have you received a sign from beyond a That's good. In the spirit of Epstein
01:48:11
and sort of conspiracies, I immediately go to uh yeah, look um I don't know about
01:48:18
that, but I there's a spiritual aspect to me. meaning I I I'm a person of faith. I grew up in the church, went to
01:48:26
a Jesuit university. I quote the Bible often, many parts, one body. So, I feel
01:48:32
that connection to something bigger than myself. If for no other reason than I'm desperate for
01:48:38
it, the person who wrote the question, I'll tell you, to give you a little bit of a clue, they're referring to a a late
01:48:44
loved one that passed away. More specific. Yes. Fascinating. I've never You feel You
01:48:50
feel people's presence when you hear a song. You feel people's presence when you you know during
01:48:59
season of the year and you know I I I will say all right I will say you've got
01:49:06
me um and uh this was uncanny. My father
01:49:12
passed away in his house in s in San Francisco. I came after in this case and there was
01:49:19
no assisted suicide but I came right after um and visited him on right
01:49:26
outside the window was a paragrine falcon. Can't make this up. My father
01:49:31
was passionate about paragine falconers. I've never seen a parag I've grew up in San Francisco in my life was a paragine
01:49:38
falcon right on the balcony right after his death. My sister and I looked at each other. So, you can't think that was
01:49:44
the sign. True story.
01:49:49
There's my answer. Thank you. Thank you so much. I am I'm
01:49:55
really encouraged by the example you're setting for so many reasons. Um, and I the reason one of the biggest reasons
01:50:01
that I'm super encouraged by the example you're setting is because you're doing what I've wished for so long so many
01:50:08
people in your position, your political position would do, which is to speak to the other side, but also to get out
01:50:13
there and to have conversations like this in this new medium of podcasting that is unfiltered, uncensored, and is
01:50:20
long form. And I just I always longed to see that from the Democratic Party, but they've hidden behind PR and sanitized
01:50:28
messaging for so long. And you're bucking the trend. I was so happy when you sat down with Charlie Kirk because
01:50:33
those are the conversations I want to see. And actually, you being in the same room made me both realize that there's a lot you have in common and also allowed
01:50:40
me to compare the fundamental differences um in person, but also um
01:50:46
it's so wonderful to get to know you as a man and where you come from. I appreciate because I because now I now I understand
01:50:52
I understand your motivations. I understand the decisions that I think you'd make, you know, going forward as
01:50:58
president and um it feels like a great honor for you to have given me this time, but also as I said for your team
01:51:04
not to tell me you can't talk about this, you can't talk about that and just to let me talk about whatever I wanted to talk about. So um thank you so much
01:51:11
and um thank you for having me in your your home state now of of California. I guess I'm a kind of a half semi-resident
01:51:17
or something and um yeah, I'm going to be watching with uh with much um curiosity to see how it plays out and
01:51:23
you you present a new vision for America. I highly recommend everybody goes and checks out your podcast as well. I'm going to link it on the screen
01:51:29
and below. This is Gavin Newsome where you do exactly that. You sit with people and have these conversations that are so
01:51:35
unfortunately rare um with people you often disagree with. It's a fantastic show and it always has me absolutely
01:51:40
hooked. and um your book here as well I'm going to recommend because it really shaped how I think about your philosophy. Um it's called Citizenville
01:51:50
um how to take the town square digital and reinvent government which talks a lot about social media and the role it
01:51:55
plays. Thank you so much Gavin. It's been an honor. My honor really grateful. Thank you so much for the time. Appreciate it.
01:52:02
This has always blown my mind a little bit. 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the
01:52:09
show. So, could I ask you for a favor? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you want to support us, the free simple way that you can do just
01:52:15
that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is if you do that, then I'll do everything in my
01:52:20
power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback.
01:52:25
We'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much.
01:52:33
[Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music]
01:52:50
[Music]
