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Gavin Newsom Is Finally Comfortable with Himself · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Last week, Tommy and I sat down with California Governor
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom in front of a live audience here in
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles to discuss his new book, Young Man in
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: a Hurry, A Memoir of Discovery. We also talked to
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: him about Trump's war in Iran, the race for Newsom's
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: successor in the governor's office, and lots more. Enjoy, and
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: if you like supporting pro-democracy media, consider subscribing to Friends
• 0:44
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• 0:55
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• 0:58
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• 1:02
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• 1:04
  Speaker 3: get Crooked. So please subscribe to Friends of the Pod, crooked.com
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: slash friends.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Check it out.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: What's so surprising about the book is it stops at
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: your election as governor. It's all about your actual life
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: before politics.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you may want to leave right now. Yeah. The
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: whole idea was, you know, it's interesting, a little bit
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: of the origin story I was talking backstage. I had
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: the privilege of working with Anne Goddard, a legend in publishing,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: and she was the editor of the book at Penguin Press.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And she interestingly and tragically passed away last week on
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: the day of the publication of this book. And anyone
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: that knows Anne, she's fierce. She's tough. And about seven
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: years ago, she asked me if I was interested in
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: writing a book. And it was marked, that book, by
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: the relationship with Trump 1.0 and a little bit of
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the transition to the new administration under Biden. And it
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: was a lot of storytelling about those first four years,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: chaotic years around social unrest issues related to COVID. And
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I submitted the book. I'll never forget going on Zoom
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: and just, there was something off. And I tried to
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: stop her before we went into arguing the case and
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the merits for the book, which I was really proud of.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: And I said, if you want me, I know you
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: may have some concerns. There's one chapter about my childhood
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and my family, and I totally get it if you
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: want that out. And she goes, that's the only part
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I want in. So this was not the book I
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: set out to write. It was the book that I
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: had to write in response to that. And it's a
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: book that I mentioned it was a memoir, ultimately, of
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: discovery because it was a book that forced me to
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: learn about my child, to learn about my past. And
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: that's why it ended with the passing of my father
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: to the question you asked. It went through Election Day
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: where he literally survived to see his son get elected
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: governor of California. And so I thought that was an
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: appropriate way to end the book. There's an epilogue that
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: has some interesting stories that may fast track to the
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: present a little bit. But it really is a love
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: letter to my mom and dad and my family.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that election night scene is really remarkable given his
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: story and trajectory and attempts to get into politics. And
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: we're going to get into all of that and more
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: stories from the book in a second. But there's a
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: lot of big breaking news happening in the world. I
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: think a lot of folks would like to get your.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Opinion on it.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: President Trump took us to war in Iran on Saturday.
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: It feels like a little scary out there right now.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: The attacks seem to be growing in the Middle East.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: There's not really a clear plan coming out of the
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: White House. What's your sense of whether it was necessary
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: to go to war now? And do you think Democrats
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: should be taking steps to try to block Trump via
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: a war powers vote or something in Congress?
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a little old-fashioned. I believe in co-equal branches
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: of government.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: We are celebrating. It is the 250th anniversary of the
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence, after all, and, you know, this historic project,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the best of Roman Republic, Greek democracy, the notion of
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: popular sovereignty, the rule of law, not the rule of Don,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: which we'll get into perhaps later. But I hope it's
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Donnie and everybody. He had no plan, no strategy. He
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: had no interest or desire to engage you, me, all
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: of us in understanding the why. Why now? What's the
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: imminent threat? What are the intended and unintended consequences? The
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: prospect of this becoming a regional war? Was that thought through?
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Who was going to take over for the Supreme Leader,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: particularly after you went through 49 others? And now today,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Trump says, well, maybe it doesn't work out. Maybe we
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: get someone who's worse. But nothing... was more damning, I think,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: of the moment and this administration and who Donald Trump is.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: It goes to the heart of who he is. Then
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: his press conference yesterday, where his remarks, where he was
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: lamenting the life, now it's six, but four Americans that died.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And he mentioned them in passing and then went on
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: to mention in great detail the drapes. and the Imperial
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Palace on the East Wing that he's building. And went
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: on to talk about the pile drive, with real passion
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: and conviction. It says everything about Donald Trump. The uncertainty
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: in the world, to the fact that we have allies
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: under threat, UAE, we've got proxy war once again, with
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Hezbollah in Lebanon, we've got all the anxiety as it
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: relates to 20% of the world's oil flow and gas,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Issues related to oil and prices and shocks and energy
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: concerns and your 401k and the zig and the zag.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And it begs so many questions. Why?
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: He's got a passion for design.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: He's got a passion for renovation.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Loves renovations.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: But it's just, it's, so yeah, you asked me about
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: the War Powers Act. You asked me about invoking some consideration.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, it takes a cursory look at the Constitution
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: to determine the requirement, declaration of war for the president
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: to get congressional approval. And so I appreciate Congress now
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: getting back, not the leadership, but the minority, getting back
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: into the game in this respect. But this is a
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: hell of a thing. And this is, remember, you guys
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: all know this. He has done more airstrikes in his
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: first year than the last administration did in four years.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: This is the seventh incursion, twice now, into Iran. At
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: a time when he's cutting taxes for billionaires, he's cutting
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: food stamps, he's cutting Medicaid, he's cutting Medicare. And here
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: he is spending tens of billions of dollars, not for
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: recovery here in Los Angeles. He has no interest in that,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: but overseas. This is a broken president. He's historic because
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: he's historically unpopular. And we all have to recognize the
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: moment we're living in and how perilous this moment truly is.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: You mentioned the shifting explanations and rationales that are coming
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: out of the White House. Yesterday, Marco Rubio pretty explicitly
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: said that the timing of the operation was based on
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: planning by Israel. He basically said, we knew that the
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: Israelis were gonna strike Iran, which meant Iran would strike
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: back against our bases in the region, which means the
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: US had to preempt the response, I guess, and bomb
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: the Iranians first. What did you make of that explanation?
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: And then a lot of Democrats have looked at the
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: Netanyahu regime and felt like, you know what, we don't
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: like the trajectory he's on. It's time to rethink the U.S.
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: relationship with Israel, especially military support.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Where do you stand? Well, he's making that easy right now.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that. So the first rationale was we've
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: got to make sure that they're not armed and nuclear armed.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: But we, of course, that rationale I thought was resolved,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: meaning we had completely obliterated their sites. Right. And so
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: that was the first rationale. Then, okay, so well, maybe
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: that wasn't the case, but now it's about their missiles.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And they can perhaps hit the United States. And then
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: you realize, wait, that's a decade plus away, if that.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: So that's BS. Okay, then it's about their militias. It's
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: about their proxy. Then it's, no, it's about their Navy.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: And then it's, no, it's in response to the likelihood
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: that Israel was going to. So we had to go
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: in ourselves. And then you hear Hexa, God help us.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: His rationale or non-rational. So this is Keystone Copse. but
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: playing with real lives, with our reputation. They've already, I mean,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: so you see what's happened to our allies, you see
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: what's happened in the NATO alliance in the context of
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: truth and trust and the conversations that all of our
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: allies are having now with India and with China as
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: they're strengthening those relationships because they're starting to decouple or
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: de-risk their relationship with the United States. But the issue
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: of Bibi's interesting because he's got his own domestic issues.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: He's trying to stay out of jail He's got an
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: election coming up. He's potentially on the ropes. He's got folks,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the hard line, that want to annex the West Bank.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, Freeman and others are talking about it appropriately,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: sort of an apartheid state. They couldn't even, I mean,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: we're talking about regime change. For two years, they haven't
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: even been able to solve the Hamas question in Israel.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: So this is, I mean, you know, I want to
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: be careful. here, but, you know, in so many ways,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: that influence in the context of the conversation of where
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Trump ultimately landed on this is pretty damn self-evident. And
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: so Rubio may have been saying something else in the
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: context of what he ultimately said in terms of being
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: sort of pulled into some of these things. But I
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: will say this, didn't surprise me in this context. I
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: don't know if it was Napoleon or whoever said about
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: a sword, the only thing you can't use a sword
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: for is sitting on it. And when you bring two
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: aircraft carriers out there and you assemble the kind of
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: military force that Trump did over the last few weeks,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: it didn't surprise me ultimately that they moved that direction.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Do you think looking down the road that the United
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: States should consider maybe, you know, rethinking our military support
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: for Israel?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: It breaks my heart because the current leadership in Israel
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: is walking us down that path where I don't think
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: you have a choice but that consideration. I mean, to
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: say this is in America's interest at a time when
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: affordability is at crisis levels, where you had an administration
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: that literally got elected saying this is exactly the opposite
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: of what they would ever consider doing. The fact that
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: we are in this now regional war, all these proxies,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: the fact that we, you know, And all the grift
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: and the corruption that's also marks a huge part of this.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: And that's a real conversation we need to have, this
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: board of peace. And the peace that the Witkoff family's getting,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: and the peace that Kushner is getting, and the peace
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: that Trump Jr. is getting. You just got to reconsider
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: the whole thing. You just have to. And, you know,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: that's a stubborn, I didn't expect to be in that place.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: You know, a few years ago, let alone, you know,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: where we are today. And it's accelerating in real time
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: in a deeply, deeply alarming way. And it's just one
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: of many alarm bells that are ringing. And we can
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: get it to democracy, our republic. We can get into
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: what's happening with the secret police, the bovino vacation of
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: our streets and what's happening in this country with democracy.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: It's a precious and perilous time, but it also has parallels.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: And some of those are reflected in some of the
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: storytelling in the book and some of the revelations about
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: my own family's relationship to the Red Scare, to Oppenheimer,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: to McCarthy and McCarthyism. And some of those currents, some
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: of those tenets echo today in many respects.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: One more newsy question. I'll connect it to the book
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: about that. Um, in the book, um, you talk about
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: your first race for governor and you talk about the, uh,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: one of the strategies you guys pursued was that you
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: sort of directed your advertising, uh, campaign against a Republican
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: candidate that was running and said, because if you know,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: the top two vote getters in California and the primary
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: go on to the general. And if it was you
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: and a Republican, in this case, John Cox has supported Trump,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: then you were to have a much easier general. And Um,
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: if it was Antonio Villaraigosa, it would have been a
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: little trickier. So you elevated John Cox.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And it worked.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And I know people hate that, but yes, it worked,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Um, and now, even though you are, of course, irreplaceable,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: there is a race to replace you for governor.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Did you hear that?
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Irreplaceable.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Um, here's the third terms.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: There's a very, don't worry. Don't worry. Do you have
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the hat?
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: So I do have a hat on my, on my
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Patriot site. You can check it out. We, With our
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: knee pads, and Newsom was always right, hats, but I digress.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: You were asking me a question.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Very crowded field of Democrats. A couple polls have actually
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: shown that it's so crowded and they're splitting the vote
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: so much that it has the two Republican candidates in
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: the one-two spot, which would mean a Republican governor of California. Today,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: the chair of the California Democratic Party said, look, if
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: you're not making meaningful progress towards winning the primary and
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: you're a candidate by April 15th, you should drop out.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: I saw the Speaker of the Assembly agreed as well.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Do you agree with that as well?
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting. Rusty Hicks, the head of the party,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: sent me his statement, and I read it a few
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: hours ago, and I confess I agree. And I don't
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: really protest it because... There's just, I mean, at this
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: moment in history... With all the peril and promise that
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: marks this moment for California, the most un-Trump state in
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: America to have a Republican Trumper running. There is no
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: margin for error. And so look, but I do confess,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: it is the hardest thing. I used to, when I
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: was running for governor and it was, you know, all
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: about me. And, you know, I'm like, what is this
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Jerry Brown? Why doesn't he, you know, and I was
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: his lieutenant governor. I said, just go out of the state, governor.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Go out. Why are you still talking like you matter? Oh,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: now I feel his pain. And I'm like, I'm sorry, Jerry.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: You know, it's hard when you're like, I'm a milk carton.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: I got to sell by date. And it's, you know,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: it's a countdown. By the way, my daughter is 16.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: She's like, oh, she can't wait till I'm no longer governor.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Circling the date.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's like, it's freedom. It's liberation day, the real
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: liberation day. For her, but it's, you know, look, this
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: thing's around the corner. I think it's been hard. Just
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: a brief reflection. You know, this race hasn't, I don't
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: think is getting the kind of attention it deserves. And
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: it's hard at a time of Trump and Trumpism where
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: so much of our politics is so nationalized and the
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: ability to dominate the narrative and the shock and awe
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: that is Trump. And of course, last year, so much
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: of it was marked by a lot of the work
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: we did around the Prop 50, et cetera. And so
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that. You all did on that. So it's
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: been a little more difficult. And you got an election
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: in a few weeks, early voting. It's not even that
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: many months. And so this is a moment for real self-reflection.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Is it about you? Is it about me? Or is
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: it about all of us? And the stakes couldn't be higher.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: And so all I'll say is choose wisely.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the book.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: You've been saying that writing this book made you realize
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: that for most of your life, you were trying to
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: be someone you're not.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Who are you trying to be?
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Oscar Wilde says, you know, the first
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: duty in life is to strike a pose. The second duty,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: no one knows. And I feel like I'm in that
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: second phase. You know, the first phase I struck a pose.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: I put a mask on and my face was growing
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: into it in some respects. You know, I quite literally,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: as a kid, I write about putting on a suit.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: You know, I try to put on this armor. You know,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: as a kid that struggled in school, it's a pretty
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: severe learning disability that still marks who I am today.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: A lot of my anxieties, my insecurities. But I was
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: also marked by those moments that I never fully understood
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: until I wrote the book and learned about them in
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: a way that I never understood it. Give you an
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: input point of that. My mom was 19 when she
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: was pregnant with me. And a few years later, she
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: was on her own with two kids. My father, for
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: reasons neither of them explained, left just a few years
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: after the birth of my sister who's here tonight. And
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I didn't understand it until I learned about it, an
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: oral history that he had done that none of us
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: knew about at the Bancroft Library. And someone said, when
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I was asking about my father, and do you guys
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: know why they got divorced? They never talked about it.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: They said, well, did you hear the interview he did
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: in the Bancroft Library? So he said it to a stranger.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: He never told us. And he said that he, and
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: there's a reason that I'm telling this story. He lost
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: an election for county supervisor, turned around the next year,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: ran for state senate, lost both races. And in the interview,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: he said he was broke and broke in. And he
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: had a breakdown. and just had to get the hell
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: out of there. And he left. And he went up
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to Lake Tahoe region. And for years and years and years,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: not only did I not understand that, I also never
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: understood why my mom was so insistent that I never
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: get into politics. And up until her dying days, she's like,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: you need to run, get out of this. And by
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: the way, when that recall against me, you know, qualified,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: she spoke very loud to me even though she passed away.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: in that moment. But it makes sense now. Here she
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: was coming from no wealth, no money, no privilege, got
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: married to a guy who was 32 years old, scandal,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: at 19 looking for that mentorship, looking for that stability
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: and support. And here he is, he takes off. Not
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: because he was a bad guy, but he didn't know
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: how to be a good husband and he didn't know
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: how to be a good father in those early years.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: And here's my mom, just hard work, grit, single mom.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: And by the way, Single moms. I mean, just mad
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: respect for all those single moms out there. Honestly, like
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I didn't and I didn't know. My mom died 20
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: years ago. I never told her. Thank you.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: That young man in a hurry with that mask on
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: was just me, me, me. You know, I'm just running, running,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: just hustling, just trying to. you know, I'm grinding away.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And here she was working two, three jobs. And by
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: the way, when I say two, three jobs, I describe
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: every single damn one of them. Part-time bookkeeper, part, you know,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: working part-time in a, you know, department store, working for
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: aid to adoption of special kids, kids with intellectual and
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: physical disabilities, working as a waitress at Ramona's restaurant and
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: And just grinding grit. We had roommates. We had people literally,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: people I walk in, my mom's living in the living
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: room because she left her bedroom because she's renting out.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: She's just trying to pay the damn rent. And so
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: what this book is, I'm paying homage to her. To
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: thank her for her sacrifice. And teaching me resilience, man.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Teaching me grit. And in the process of doing this,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: also teaching me To let go. That it's okay. You know,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: take the mask off. Just be yourself. And so this
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: book was cathartic. It's not a sanitized politician's book, man.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: It's not. It's not.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I've read plenty of those.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. And I try to scrutinize and I
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: kick the tires and I went deeper and I questioned
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: my own relationship to, you know, my own participation and
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: my own image of that slick guy and all the
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: whole thing. I mean, I get it. I get it.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not naive about that. And so this was my
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: opportunity to, you know, tell a different story and also
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: tell the story that my mom and dad deserved.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: So look, as you were saying, you clearly have a
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: complicated relationship with your father. I can tell reading the
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: book and in this conversation that you revere your mother
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: and all that she did for you and all the sacrifice.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: But I was struck by a comment made to you,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: I believe by your aunt Cindy.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: Who's, by the way, here tonight, so let's be careful.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: She's a star in this book. Fascinating person. I'd love
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: to meet Cindy. But no, I think she said to
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: you that your parents' inattention to your dyslexia as a
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: boy was abuse.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: And that was sort of a jarring thing to read,
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: and I was wondering how it felt to you to
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: hear that and whether you agreed.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: You know, I was... And some of you may know this.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Most of you probably... don't or won't believe it, I
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: can't read speeches. You'll never see me, someone hands me
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: a speech and I start to read it. I could
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: do a teleprompter and it just takes dozens and dozens
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: of hours for dozens of minutes. And it's hard just
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: sort of focusing on that written word, but allow spatially
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: I'm able to just, you know, stare at the screen
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: and I'm able to do it. And that's, you know,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: my entire life I've felt dumb. You know, in the
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: back of the classroom, you're struggling through school. And by
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: the way, you know, it wasn't just me struggling. And this, again,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: part of the process of writing the book, I can't
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: even imagine what it's like to be a mother, a
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: single mom, trying to read your kids, trying to explain
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: it's okay. I mean, my mom said something that I'll
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: never forget. I really was angry about it. And I
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: wrote about it in the book. She said, in a
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: fit of frustration with me, she said, it's okay to
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: be average. And it's like, damn. And it I honestly,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: for years and years, I held a lot of resentment
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: around that until, again, in the process of writing this
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: over the last five years, I realized she just was saying,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: it's okay to just be you. You don't have to
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: be someone you're not. You don't have to put that
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: mask on. And so, you know, my aunt saw it
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: up close. She saw the struggle that my mom had.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: She saw me running out of classrooms, running away from,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: you know, just constantly running and searching and struggling. And,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: you know, I just, I can't sugarcoat it. And anyone
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: that's got a learning disability, I think you can appreciate this.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, you also start developing these
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: superpowers because you start overcompensating for the things you can't
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: do as well as everybody else. And that has been
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: the gift and the ability to, you know, sort of
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: absorb and create and look outside the lines and paint
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: outside the lines, take risks. You have to take risks,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: learn from mistakes, have a resiliency. All those things are
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: also part of the journey of having a learning disability
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: and having a learning difference. And so I'm here because
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: of it. despite some of those early scars that mark
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: those moments in the book.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: I was going to ask, one thought I had when
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: you were talking about, when you were writing about dyslexia is,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: how does it affect you writing? Was it a challenge
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: writing the book?
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Well, the worst part was doing the audio of the book.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, whoever did the editorial, they deserve a pay
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: raise and hugs. You can't pay them enough, Penguin. that
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: did it. It took like, I don't know, 20, 30
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: hours to do the audio, reading the book and reading
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: about your own dyslexia as you're talking, as you're saying
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: you can't read. Going through 25 times that same sentence. So, no, it's,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just an interesting, you know, the writing
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: process is difficult, but the opportunity to work with a writer,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Mark Eriks, was how I was able to. That's why
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: this was a five-year project. process of writing this book
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: and constantly editing and iterating and stress testing. And we
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: were joking backstage, writing about your family when most of
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: your family's alive, that's not so easy. You better get
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: it right because you got to go to Thanksgiving dinner
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: and explain, you know, why the story is this, not
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: the what you're all saying the story was. Here's the
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: real story. And so this was, yeah. It's an imprecise
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: art writing, particularly a memoir.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: So you didn't grow up wealthy, but your family's close
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: relationship with the Gettys put you in proximity, as you
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: write about, to obscene wealth. How did that shape your
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: view of wealth, extreme wealth, as you got into politics
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: and sort of how you look at the world right now?
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Well, it certainly shapes the way I, look at the
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: world right now, I'm with the single moms in terms of,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: you know, where that, where the fundamental decision points are
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: in that respect. Um, but it was really interesting. I,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: you know, my father grew up, um, one of his best,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: best friend is, uh, my dad described and his best,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: best friend describes Gordon Getty. Uh, they grew up together
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: in high school and, uh, became just best friends and
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: so much of their lives crossed paths. My dad, God,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: a father of number of the Getty kids and their travails,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: their triumphs. One of, you know, my dad's godson was
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: tragically kidnapped in a very famous kidnapping where his ear
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: was cut off. And my father, you know, marks so
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: much of my early memories. In fact, a little cute story.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Paul Jr. was his name. He came back from the kidnapping.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: And his godfather, my dad, wanted to drive him and
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: his two kids. We were visiting. down at Chestnut Street
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: in the Marina District, and there's a story that I
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: tell my sister and I in the back of the car,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: relatively young age, and my dad just pleaded with us,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: whatever you do, don't talk about Paul's ear. Just whatever
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: you do. And within a few minutes of Paul getting
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: in the front seat, and we're driving along, my dad's driving,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: and I'm looking at my sister Hillary, I'm like, you know, shh.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: And my sister just couldn't help herself, she's staring, And
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: she goes, Paul, how many ears do you have? I'm like, oh, God.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: And luckily, Paul had a great sense of humor. But
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: it really marks my first memories of the family. And again,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: some of the tragedy, not just the triumph. And these
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: are still my days. Some of my closest friends are
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: members of that family. But I never was a member
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: of the family. And there's a scene in the book,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: this crazy, and there's some wonderful scenes. stories in here,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: and it's really, honestly, worth taking a look, some that are,
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: you know, just rather ridiculous, including a trip to Spain
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: that I took. And, you know, King Wong Kar, it
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: was one of those trips. And I'll never forget all.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: These fancy people. He was a king.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a kid. I was in high school.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Quite a party.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking I'm all that. You know, again, young man
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: in a hurry in his little suit, thinking he's, you know,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Pierce Brosnan from Remington Steel. LAUGHTER Like, actually, literally. LAUGHTER
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: And just discovered hair gel. That's a whole other chapter
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: in the book. Forgive me. And I'm with Ann and
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Gordon's four kids on this trip, and relatively the same age,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: and the Getty boys. People are, oh, it's wonderful to
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: meet all of you. Which one are you? I'll never forget,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: which one are you? With such pride. And I said, well,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: my name's Gavin Newsome.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: She goes.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: which one is that? I said, Newsome. And she literally
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: immediately turns. Go away, young man. And it was such
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: an imposter moment. Like you knew your status. You knew
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: your standing. And so that was my relationship to that.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I walked into those doors, but I walked
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: back home into my mom's arms. And I'll never forget
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: All those trips, once a year, we would go on
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: these amazing trips with my father and the family. But
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I'd always come back home. And when my mom opened
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: the door, she was not on those trips. She would go, invariably,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: she'd go, welcome back. I hope you had a wonderful time.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Good night. And literally never talk about it again. And
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: that was the reality. And so it shapes a consciousness
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: of wealth, but in different layers, in a different understanding.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: The proximity to it, the relationship to it, but never
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: absorbing it. My father, when he passed away, he gave
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: us a second mortgage and a lot of beautiful books
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: in a small town in Dutch Flag, California, in Placer County.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: So even his relationship, it never created the abundance that
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: so many people, I think, believe in terms of my
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: life and the perception of remarkable privilege, plenty of privilege,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: plenty of doors that were open. I'm not naive about that.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: But again, a very different reality than those many believers.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: Speaking of extreme wealth, I mean, you knew a lot
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: of the big luminaries in tech when they were broke, right?
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, you write about Steve Jobs showing you the
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: first iPhone at a party.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: We were like, wee, wow.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Sergey Brin was there.
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: I think you said Elon Musk gave you a ride
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: into the set of current TV in the first Tesla.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Roadster, right?
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the first Tesla.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: So I know I've heard you say, and I agree,
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: that like tech writ large is There hasn't been as
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: big of a metamorphosis as people might think, given where
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: some of the CEOs are. But it does seem like
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: there was an inflection point, maybe around COVID, maybe around
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: Trump's election or re-election that radicalized, changed some of them
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: or made them speak out. Elon Musk, obviously, being the
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: number one example.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Do you have a theory for what happened? Not only
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: a theory, actually, interestingly, that's part of the book that
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: we're not publishing. And I write about it in detail,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: particularly Elon's relationship to me and the state And stories
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: around how he got us ventilators. She never did. And
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: how that breakdown started occurring. I started seeing there was
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: libertarian tendencies, but we saw something that came out the
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: other side. Very, very different. And for a lot of people,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: not just some of these more well-known tech luminaries. And
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: it's been hard to see in every way, shape or form.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Because I write about those early days, you know, Kara Swisher,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: she wrote an amazing book in this space. And Kara
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: and I were talking about it the other day in
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: San Francisco and comparing notes to the old days. And
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: it was do no harm back then. There was a
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: sense of idealism and we were connecting the world. And
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: San Francisco was in the center of that entire universe.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I remember doing Uber Day and Yelp Day and Twitter Day.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: And it was like a big deal. And the CEOs
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: would show up and I got a T-shirt. And I
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: was like the first guy on Twitter. And I was like,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: you could go back to my first tweet. I'm jogging
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: in the marina. You know, I didn't know, what does
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: this even mean?
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I'm getting a coffee.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Wow, this is amazing. I have 10 followers. And, you know,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: and it was when Larry and Sergey were talking about
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: we need to do free Wi-Fi in San Francisco. And
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: so it's just so radically different and it feels so
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: much darker because it is today. And that darkness came
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: on inaugural, you know, when I saw all those guys
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: up there and You know, and it wasn't just those guys.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: You know, I joke about that Patriot site and the
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: knee pads. You know, the good news is we have
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: new ones in because the last... They're the new Trump
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: signature series knee pads because the last ones sold out
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: just like many of the tech CEOs, just like the lawyers,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: just like the universities, just like the law firms, just
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: like so many members of the media have been selling
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: out this country, our republic. And so... You know, we
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: got to call that out. And we got to call
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: them out. And that's why... And that's why... Okay, yeah.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Anyway, all right.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: We're going to continue the conversation. Let's please let the
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: governor talk. We're going to have a conversation up here
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: about the book. That's what we're here for. So, governor, continue, please.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. So, look, I think it goes to
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: the zeitgeist of this moment and the moment all of
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: us are feeling, the anxiety, the stress, you know. And
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I think so much without, you know, getting into the
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: last few years, I mean, I think, you know, it's
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: been the last 10 years since Trump came down the escalator.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: And just, you know, this stacking of stress that's reflected in,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: you know, I signed the first bill banning private prisons,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: including Core Civic in California. Yeah. So that was legislation
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: I advanced, I signed with respect. And I don't know
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: that there's many. I take a backseat to no one
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: being a fierce opponent to what's happening on American streets.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: It happened here first in the state of California. We
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: saw 4,000 of our National Guard troop here in Los Angeles, federalized,
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: 700 active duty Marines were not sent overseas. They were
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: sent to the second largest city in the United States
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: of America. What did we say last June? We said
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: it was a preview of things to come. You saw
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: exactly that happen in DC. You saw it happen in Chicago.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: You saw it happen in Minnesota. But you also saw
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: the steel in the spines of Minnesotans that stood up
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: in the retreat of Trump and Trumpism, which should give
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: us pause to reflect on some optimism that we can
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: defeat these guys. He's in retreat. And so I appreciate
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: the advocacy. I appreciate people standing up. All of us
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: have that responsibility. All of us have the role to play.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: But we are on edge. Communities are on edge. When
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: we launched that Prop 50 campaign, Little Tokyo, the democracy center,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: people said, did you see the masked men out front?
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: I'm like, come on, there aren't masked men. We literally
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: went around the side. There were folks in masks. We
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: didn't know who the hell they were. They weren't marked
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: with any representation. And then this guy dressed up honestly
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: like he came off a set in Burbank in 1930s
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: garb literally with a Himmler haircut, guy named Bovino. Gray Bovino.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: And we said at the time that was a preview
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: of things to come. So I appreciate the relationship to
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: this moment is shaped by so many moments we have
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: and have had here in the state of California. But
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: it's also marked with the moment of resolve and conviction.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: I'm here in the relationship to my truth and my past.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: This is not a story about perfection. It's a story
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: about perseverance. That perseverance of a mom who, as a
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: young child, was thrown against a fireplace by her father,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: who put a gun to her head. That same grandfather
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: of mine, her father, that spent years as a prisoner
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: of war, after the march in Corregidor and how he
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: came back a different person, ultimately took his life. How
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: my mom took her life in a moment of her
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: own despair because of her own pain, because she was
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: struggling for the second time with breast cancer and she
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: just couldn't take it. And at time when it was
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: illegal to do assisted suicide. And she found a doctor
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: who had the courage to give up, you know, he
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: was risking his license. in the relationship to that moment
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and those moments you never get again and how precious
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: this all is. And so I hope we're all standing,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: including those that are speaking. I appreciate them, that context.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: We're all standing in this moment that we all have
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: agency and that we're not bystanders in the world. And
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: I think that's my history. My father's fierce advocates. He
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: was an environmental warrior. I mean, we Our first pet.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: This is hardly relatable.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: This is a weird pet. Yeah.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: This is not on your bingo card. Our first pet
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: was an otter. Yeah.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: What does the otter eat?
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Your fingers and toes and anything he sees in the house.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: This jumped out at me in the book.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: I literally wrote down, you had a fucking pet otter
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: growing up, question mark.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: And you eventually gave it away, right? Did you have to.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: we had to give it away because he bit the mailman.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: And my mom, that's fair.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: This was the first act of resistance in my home.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: My mom said, it's either the otter or you dad,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: you know, my, my father. But I say that to
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: make a point, by the way, his name was Potter,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: the otter.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: And it's a good name.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Why not? But it marks my father. And just
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: as a fierce, you know, environmental warrior and environmental justice. And,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: you know, racial justice, economic justice. He was a Sarge
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Schreiber Democrat. He was a Bobby Kennedy Democrat. He was
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: an activist judge on the California Court of Appeals. And
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: he marks my sense of idealism and daring, but that grit,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: that hard work, and the energy of my mom. And
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: it's a combination of all those things. And it's a
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: combination that has allowed me to get through a recall.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: It's a combination that allows me to wake up every
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: day and read another True Social and, try to sort
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: of mark a relationship to this moment to do better,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: to do more, and recognize that we have to do
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: better and more because people are suffering. People are struggling.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: And we all have to raise the bar of expectations
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: and accountability and self-reflection. And so this is a book
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: about self-reflection. It's a book about taking a deep breath.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Letting go and just being yourself and putting it out there.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: And I hope people, you've seen with me, you know,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: I'm willing to go out there on a limb. I'm
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: putting a mirror up to Trump and Trumpism. Check out
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: my social media, you know. Go to that Patriot store. And,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: you know, and I'm in the arena, man, and I'm
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: not perfect. And I know you want more and better.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: I get it. And I'm just, I'm not trying to
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: be any more, it goes to your question, Someone I'm not.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: And I just, I'm who I am. You don't have
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: to like the book. I can't control the third thing.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: I can only control what I can control. It's what
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: I learned in this process. And that's why it's been
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: a really remarkable gift to be able to tell my
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: story and to be able to dedicate it to those
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: that will carry on this story. And that's my precious
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: four kids. To Dutch Brooklyn and Hunter and in Montana,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: and to my extraordinary wife, who's also here with me tonight,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: as you know from the introduction, and to make sure
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: I don't screw that up. Because at the end of
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: the day, you know, we could talk about our resume values.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: No one gives a damn about those. It's your eulogy.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: And it's that relationship to your truth. It's your relationship
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: to others. And it's your relationship to the world we're
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: trying to build. and how we can be fierce advocates
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: for each other.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Well, speaking of that world, I.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: Want to sort of talk about something, a tension in
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: politics that I think about a lot that I think
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: you have dealt with. Against the best wishes of your mother,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: you did go into politics, you become mayor of San Francisco,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: and when you're mayor, when you were mayor, you write
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: about this, you went against... The law, the California Constitution,
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: the Democratic Party, most Americans.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Not to start with the law, but.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Even with Californians, when you allowed the first same-sex marriage
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: to take place in San Francisco.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: No one was applauding back then, I assure you.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah. I mean, that's what.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: They weren't.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, reading it, you get the idea
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: of sort of the politics and sort of like the
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: title wave of public opinion that you.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Were up against then.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: And you said, and you wrote in the book, that
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: the reason you did it is because simply it was
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: the right thing to do, which is refreshing.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: And you also.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Called the sort of go it slow, I think you
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: said admonition, the mother's milk of democratic politics. And there
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: is a lot of go slow admonition out there. But,
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: you know, we also live through elections. You've lived through
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: many elections. After this last election in 2024, We've all
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: been going through this process.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: What went wrong?
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: And you recently said Democrats need to spend less time
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: on identity politics and pronouns and more on tabletop issues.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: But the question is, because you've now been on both
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: sides of this, how do you square those two potentially
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: contradictory ideas?
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that they are. Look, my why
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: is to stand up for ideals and strike out against injustice.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: And I don't come to that flippantly. I've really absorbed that.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Stand up for ideals. Strike out against injustice. And if
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: I'm on the fence on a bill or a fence
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: on a personal decision or a professional, even business decision,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: that's where the default is. And that's reflected in marriage
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: equality in 2004. Remember, in 2004, we were just finishing
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: up the debate around domestic partnerships. We weren't even into
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: separate is equal, which was civil unions back then. And
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: that's where, by the way, a lot of my family was.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: You know, old Irish Catholic family, the West Side. If
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: you get my drift to San Francisco, the church, the
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Irish Catholic church where my dad was. And I describe
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: in the book this scene where he kind of had
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: an intervention with my Uncle Brennan, his brother, and this
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: fierce warrior for justice, Joe Kachet, one of our state's countries,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: great lawyers. And they had an intervention the night before
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: I was going to move forward with one marriage. And
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: there's a whole nother story there. And they're like, why
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: are you doing this? You just got elected. Like things
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: are good. You're relatively young. You were the youngest mayor
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: in a hundred years. You know, you know, you got
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: plenty of time. You don't need to do this. No
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: one asked you to do this. Folks don't want you
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: to do this. We don't want you to do this.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: And I really got into it and I couldn't, they
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: started really challenging me. And I couldn't answer. And in
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: a fit of frustration, that's when I said, I'm doing
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: it because it's the right thing to do. And it wasn't,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: I wasn't trying to win an argument. I was exacerbated.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: And I was like, it's the right thing. And I'll
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: never forget, Joe looked at my dad and my uncle
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: and he said, boys, it's the right thing to do.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: And that was the end of it. Next morning, I
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: married Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. They've been together 47 years. And,
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: you know, 4,035 other couples from 46 states and six
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: countries got married in what we refer to in San Francisco,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: not as the summer of love, but the winter of love.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: But there wasn't a lot of love, to your point
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: I was getting from the Democratic Party. We had the
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: convention later that year, and I won't name names, but
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: folks are like, you really should focus on homelessness in
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: San Francisco. You don't have to go They're like, you
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: really don't have to. Certainly you're not going to be speaking. See,
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: you really don't have to show up. And in the
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: hard part was a lot of the folks that showed
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: up for me on election night who all universally gave
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: me the same advice. It's the advice we all get.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Young man, just do what you think is right. Those
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: same folks were out there saying, what the fuck do
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: you think you're doing? And there were folks that ultimately
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: blamed me And this is the serious part of your question.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: And this is what I, back to scrutinize, not sanitize,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: for the election outcome. Too much, too soon, too fast.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: You know, I can wax on about letters from Birmingham Jail,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: which I did, which I reread, or maybe read for
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: the first time. They meant something very different. It's always
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: the right time to do the right thing, King said.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: And so fast forward, fast forward, to the conversations we're
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: all having today and what we need to do to
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: get back into power. And so it's a legitimate question.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: So you have the tactics, the electoral question, and then
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: you have the policy-making question. You know, how, and I
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: just think the Democratic Party needs to be a little,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: and forgive this word, ruthless about winning. We just have
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: That's the second part of your question. We're just trying
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: to win arguments. Right after Donald Trump called Greg Abbott
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: and said he was quote-unquote entitled to five seats because
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: he knows he's going to get slacked in the midterm elections.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: He knows he's going to lose. So he's trying to
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: rig the election. That's one of 10 things he's doing.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: We could talk about the other nine. He's doing mid-decade redistricting.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: I imagine he thought, and frankly, I may have even
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: thought our reaction would be maybe like to call you
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: guys up, see if you can help maybe draft an
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: op-ed that we can place in the New York Times.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: To try to win an argument. Gosh, darn it, this
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: is so wrong. And we responded very differently. We said, look,
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: we've got to fight fire with fire. We're going to
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: lose this country. We're going to lose our republic. And
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: so I just think... At the core, my humble belief, guys,
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: is at the core of our party problem, it's my
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: humble belief, is strength. We've got to be stronger in
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: our convictions, our courage. We've got to start to dominate
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: the narrative again. We've got to win not just the argument,
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: but we've got to address the attention deficit that we have.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: There's an asymmetry. These guys have propaganda networks. It's Pravda,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: it's primetime lineup. I mean, my gosh, Laura Ingraham is
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: in business with Trump Jr. That's happening in the United
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: States of America. I mean, it's Pravda. You know, listening
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: to Hannity and these guys and Murdoch Inc. It's surround
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: sound 24-7. They're flooding the zone. Donald Trump understands this.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: So we can no longer be conventional in our politics
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: is ultimately what I'm arguing for.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: So the line that stuck out to Tommy was about
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: the otter. Um, for me, for me, it was this line. Uh,
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: you write this about becoming a father quote. I could
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: count on one hand the times I actually changed a diaper.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: You have four children, sir. This was the first child.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: How did you pull that off? I, you know, this,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: this was the edit my wife made to the book. Uh, it's, uh, uh,
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: I don't think, you know, it's that bad. Uh, But
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: like I said, I was scrutinizing, not sanitizing. This young
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: man in hurry was out and about. You know, I
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: was mayor of San Francisco. I was showing up at events.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: And that was a pattern interrupt. You know, in psychology,
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: we talk about scratching the record for those old enough
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: to know what a record is. You know, a pattern
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: interrupt where Jen's like, get your shit together. And there
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: were a number of those pattern interrupts that I write
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: honestly about. Look, one of the things that I imagine,
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: you know, Jen's here, got to be careful. that she
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: was wondering when she married me, like, what kind of
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: husband are you going to be? And then shortly after, truly,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: what kind of dad are you going to be? Are
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: you going to be your dad? You know, she loved
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: my father. My father was present in my life later on.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: But she was also deeply aware he wasn't when we
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: were growing up. And that stress test came home in
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: this beautiful bundle of joy, Montana. Our firstborn, Montana Tessa.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: who wasn't there, my mom, Siebel Newsome. And I didn't
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: know until that moment. And you guys have had this, right?
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: You don't know. You can intellectualize it all day. But
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: I had something that I'm not sure my dad ever had.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: And I, boy, dad, you missed it. I had this
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: thing that went from here and it just burst in here.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: And it was like this baritone, this deep, like, oh, whoa.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: this light, this sort of like, oh my God, to
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: truly understand love at a different level. That said, I
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: didn't necessarily love changing diapers. And Jen, who's a fierce advocate,
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: has written and done all kinds of documentaries, one called
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Fair Play, which is about partnership in the household. She
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: kind of reminded me, you got to get your shit together.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: You got to step up your game. And so that
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: was marked for my first daughter's diapers. I made up
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: for it, sir, John, with all the other kids and
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: continue to work harder to make up for equal time.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: And in parodying, though, equal may be illusory. I'm still
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: working on that.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: One other thing that jumped out at me in the
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: book is you talk about election night, you get elected governor,
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: you wake up the next day, you walk out of
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: the hotel room and there's two California state patrolmen who
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: then become your kind of ubiquitous part of your life,
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: your security detail. And you're then followed by staff everywhere
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: you go and you lose your anonymity, you lose your freedom.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: I think you say freedom is the price you pay
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: for the privilege of the job. I was wondering how
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: that impacted you and if you thought about how there
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: are other jobs where that problem may be exacerbated. Even
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: the process of running is exponentially worse. And if that
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: bothers you, if that worries you, is that something you
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: think about? You can't go for a walk. You can't
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: drive yourself in a car. You can't go to a
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: fucking drive-through.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: Look, and everyone's rolling, like, whatever. Yeah, oh, it's so
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: tough for you. But there is a thing. So in
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: the book I described, just running for office and being
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: able to run around on the streets and be able
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: to go to coffee clutches and stores and, you know,
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: have some anonymity here a little bit. You know, people angry,
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: pissed off, yelling here. And, you know, you should do this, that, fine.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: And then there's an election. And I literally went to bed.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: And then truly, I woke up the next morning and
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: didn't get a lot of sleep. And sort of blurry-eyed,
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: walked out. And there's like these two strangers right outside
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: the door. I'm both, I'm like, oh, hey, sorry. What's,
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: you know, excuse me. And I walked down and they're like,
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: they started walking with me. I'm like, who the hell
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: are you guys? And it literally was that moment that
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: I have not had one without some semblance of that.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: You know, guys in the car, you're trying to make
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: a phone call. Hey, honey, how are you? I'm fine.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: You want to talk about it? I'm fine. What's wrong? Nothing.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: You know, we're sitting right there. It's sort of this
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: relationship to anonymity where, you know, there was, there was a,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: year and a half where literally i wouldn't get on
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: an airplane not for me but for everyone else on
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: the plane because i'm like i'm sorry yeah i'm sorry
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: i know i know you know people have you this
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: that the whole thing because i get it like back
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: to the stacking of stress back to the stress the
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: intention that we're all feeling and and so i you
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: know it allowed me to drive back and forth to
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: la more often and spend more time in central valley
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: than any governor in history which was also important but
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: yeah it is you lose that you lose the serendipity
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: And I remember as mayor, I lost a little of it,
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: but not a lot. So every week, a true story,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: and I wrote about it a little bit. Every Friday,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: I would walk to work and I'd walk through the
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: tenderloin of San Francisco. And I didn't need the focus group.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: I didn't need to see where the polls were. You
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: got the pulse of how people felt in that relationship
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: to people's struggles and aspirations and desperation, especially in that
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: part of San Francisco. And I miss that. And I
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: think our politics misses that. You want your elected officials.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: It's management by walking around. You want to walk through
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: a skid row, but not with an entourage. You don't
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: want to be that guy. You want to be able
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: to absorb and feel and understand how you're really doing.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: And I think you're right with the president. I mean,
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: that's something I can't even imagine. And you guys were
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: up close to that, how that disconnection to your truth
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: and that relationship to that truth and how you absorb
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: it and how you feel it differently than intellectualizing and
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: poll testing it. how I think it does shape our politics,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: and how do you overcompensate for that?
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: Especially now with the violence, right? Especially with Trump, people
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: shooting at Trump, the Charlie Kirk assassination. I mean, the
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: distance between politicians and the people who they're serving or
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: trying to get votes from is only getting greater and greater,
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: and it's.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: A terrible cycle. This is like an actual real thing.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: And this is where I think about any future I
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: think about in relationship to my kids. When I talk
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: about that recall, We had to homeschool my oldest daughter
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: and I will never forget, I helped her with her
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: speech that she gave in our living room for eighth
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: grade graduation. And I was so proud of her because
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: she looked up the whole time. And I said, look
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: above someone's head because they'll see you thinking, and she
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: was staring at me with a big smile as she
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: gave this beautiful speech, but she gave it just to
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: Jen and the kids and her brothers and sisters because
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: the attacks at the school you know, I hate your daddy,
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: I hate this and this and that. And we had,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: you know, this again, I mean, we all did, all
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: had this, protesters for almost a year and a half.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: And now to your point about what's happened, this is
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: another level of stuff. And like, trust me, you don't know,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: you don't know infinitesimal amount of the stuff that comes in.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: And that's why the temperature definitely, I mean, we have
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: to take that temperature down. And I do worry about,
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, we talk about you know, when you send
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: troops to American city, not overseas, this sort of lack
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: of civility and this concern that we all have, are
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: we crossing those red lines? Are we at war with
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: one another? And forgive me, because I know and forgot
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: the long windedness, but we've had this conversation when I
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: went on your podcast, because you were asking me about mine.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: And Thank you, the one of you.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Please applaud. The man has a podcast. That's the sound
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: of a download.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: But people felt I crossed the line because I was
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: reaching across the aisle. Because I was making the case
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: Bill Clinton made for years and years. Divorce is not
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: an option. It's not. Just because I don't want you
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: to exist doesn't mean you're not going to persist. And
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: we just have to define the terms of the future.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: And so I started reaching out to people I vehemently
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: disagreed with. And a lot of folks were angry, saying,
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: how are you platforming these people? Why are you talking
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: to that son of a bitch? But it's honestly, it
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: was in my relationship to this reality, man. We got
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: to take the temperature down. You know, we can punch
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: Trump back. We can have the line. But at the
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: same time, man, you know, we all want to be loved.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: We all need to be loved. We all want to
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: be protected, connected, respected. And And we've just got to move.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: You know, I appreciate the resistance frame, but I think
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: all of us back to, you know, we want to
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: talk about renewal. We want to talk about a rebirth
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: of our civic, you know, spirit and civic pride and
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: our civic duty. And we're all waiting for that moment.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: That moment's going to come. I don't think it's here yet.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: You know, we're in this struggle. So many ways, the
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: obstacle is the way Trump will define that. But all
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: of us look forward to when we can turn back
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: the page on this moment, and we can restore some
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: civility and grace.
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: So the epilogue of the book, you write a lot
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: about your relationship with Trump, your interactions with Trump.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: We could talk about it forever. We will not do that.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about my tour with Trump in
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: the bedroom.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: The thing that Tommy and I really want to know
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: is tell us more about the reaction on Jared Kushner's
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: face when Donald Trump said in front of him and
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: you that he wished Ivanka had married Tom Brady instead.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: Seems kind of mean.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Was he crying?
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: That's a weird thing to say to your son.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: I was crying for Jared. I thought, I mean, how
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: could someone, it was so dehumanizing, in front of his
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: own son-in-law, saying it wasn't his first choice. And if
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Trump can do that to his son-in-law in Marine One,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: in front of strangers... That sums him up, man. That
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: sums him up. And it's an interesting, it's a fun
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: little story where Trump talks about how Ivanka didn't call
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: Tom Brady back. And she's like, what are you, what
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: the hell? Why are you calling Tom Brady back? It's
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Tom Brady. And she goes, well, dad, I'm in love.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: And Trump is telling the story. And he goes, well,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: who are you in love with? With Jared. He goes,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: you mean the guy whose father was in jail? He
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: says it in front of Jared right there. Said, can
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: you believe? And he like hits me on the leg. Said,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: can you believe Tom Brady?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: She didn't do Tom Brady. I'm like, there's Jared's right there.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: Damn.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: That is so weird.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: Damn.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: So weird. So weird. It really brought me, the story
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: brought me joy though. It's petty, but yeah, I know
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: Jared sucks, but I mean. No one deserves that.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: I was like.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: Tom Brady's everybody's first choice, if we're being honest.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Take a number, Ivanka.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: What are you talking about? Governor, you've been so generous
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: with your time, everyone. The book is Young Man in
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: a Hurry. It is honestly, it's a really good book.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: It's a really good book. Thank you, guys.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading the book.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you to John and Tommy. Thank you guys all
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: for being here. I appreciate you. Thank you guys very,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: very much.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: That's our show. Thank you to Gavin Newsom for joining us.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: One little housekeeping note before we go. Love It or
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: Leave It is coming to D.C. April 23rd at the
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Lincoln Theater. It's Love It's traditional pre-White House Correspondents Dinner show,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: and it's always a ton of fun. Maybe even more
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: so this year, since Trump will actually be attending the
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: Correspondents Dinner itself. Love It will be announcing some big
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: guests soon, and if you can't make it to the D.C. show,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: Love It or Leave It is live in L.A. every
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: Thursday night. Tickets for D.C.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: And L.A.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: Are on sale now at cricket.com slash events. Love It
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: Tommy and I will be back on Tuesday. If you
• 1:01:54
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• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: is a Cricket Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Austin Fisher is our
• 1:02:15
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• 1:02:19
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• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our
• 1:02:24
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• 1:02:28
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• 1:02:31
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