Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Can American Politics Self-Correct & Avoid Civil War? + Good Governance Is The Best Resistance To Trumpism

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Full Episode - Can American Politics Self-Correct & Avoid Civil War? + Good Governance Is The Best Resistance To Trumpism · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
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  Speaker 1: I'm constantly working on this for years myself, and here's
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  Speaker 1: an opportunity for you to take matters into your own
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: hands as well. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: another episode of the Chuck Podcast. So I'll be honest
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: with you, I'm coming on literally, I'm taping right now,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: probably about thirty minutes after that incredible finish of Yukon
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: over Duke, just sort of out of nowhere. Just an
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: incredible back to back years for Duke with these choke jobs,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: blowing the double digit lead against Houston in the final
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: four last year, blowing this nineteen point lead against u
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Khon and the Elite eight, somebody's going to start getting
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a reputation. But here's what I would say to mister Shier,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Coach Duke, go look at coach K's record in Elite
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: eights and final fours in the eighties, because they was
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: in the eighties, he was making all sorts of progress,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: but he didn't break through the wall. Right, It wasn't
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: until the nineties that he broke through. And then of
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: course once he broke through, then it seemed like when
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: he'd get there, he'd be a winner. There's something about
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Yukon though, right they are. They are a tough dragon
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to slay, whether they're loaded with talent, whether they're missing
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: a few pieces that they seem off, you're not one
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: hundred percent sure. Well, one thing you know about these
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Danny Hurley coach teams is they don't quit. But anyway,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: what I mean, let's just be honest, that's why we
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: love this tournament. Right, you got to have one game,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: these final these Ellege eight games were all kind of blowout.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Ye I mean, Iowa Illinois before this, before we got this,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and this one looked like it was going to be
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the big blowout. And before we got this like Illinois,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Iowa was about the best we got and that was
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: a game with about five minutes left and then Illinois
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: started pulling away. But this means I only got two
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of the final four. Correct. I thought I was about
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to have three of the final four. I went way
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: out on a limb and took three number one seeds
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: in my final four Duke Michigan in Arizona, so I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: whipped on that had Houston, had Houston winning the whole thing,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So that was out. But I will tell you this,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I've met coach Underwood at Illinois, spent a little time
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: with him, spend a little time with that program. It is.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It is one of the schools that I've had some
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: family attend. So of the four schools Michigan, Arizona, Yukon,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and Illinois, my large extended family has the closest ties
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: to the Allian Eye. So we will be despite the
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: fact that they have those horrible, that horrible pairing of
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: colors blue and orange, which you know if you run
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the state of Florida, it's really one of the tougher
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: color matches to deal with, right that blue and orange
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: is just a terrible color match. And again, people in
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the state of Florida. Understand that, especially blinding when you
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: have to go through Gainesville. It's terrible. But despite Illinois
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: sharing similar similar colors, I guess you could argue it's
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a darker orange and a slightly darker blue. The toodcast
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: will be slightly pulling for the for Illinois and they're
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: going to be technically the underdogs, right They're the Cinderella
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: story of the three seeds. So we did get the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: chalky end of the tournament as we thought, but wow,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: what a finish there. Before I get to my more
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: serious stuff here, I do want to gloat. I had
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: one wish for the start of the baseball season for
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: my beloved Washington Nationals. I really wanted to win Game
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: one so I could guarantee that they would have a
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: winning record at some point this season. And what do
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: you know, they're two in one at the end of
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the first weekend. They've won their first series against a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: team that's supposed to be a contender for the playoffs.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I'll take it. And you know, apparently the most unhittable
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: player in baseball's Joey Weimer. And I'm not gonna tell
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you I'd never heard of them. But I'm not going
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: to pretend to tell you I knew everything about this
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: guy when the Nats signed him in January off of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: a waiver wires, so we'll take it. The Nats are
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: two and one. It feels good. If I were a
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Cubs fan, I'm a little concerned to drop two of
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: three at home. The good news is they're arguably their
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: best young pitcher, Kate Horton pitched their best game on Saturday.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: But you're going to be a little bit concerned. But hey,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: it's baseball. It's early in the year. We know that.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So I'm just happy the Nats have a winning record
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: now they have put it this way. They've gone the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: season is four days old and they have yet to
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: have a losing record. They were tied for first after
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the game on Thursday, So look, these are the tiny,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: tiniest little baby steps. We Nats fans. It's the only
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: thing we have to cling to. So we have that.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: And I think I teased that I was this was
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a big fantasy baseball draft weekend for me. I Am
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: not going to be that annoying guy and tell you
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: everything about my fantasy baseball team, because you know who
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: cares about my fantasy baseball team, not you, guys. I'm
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: aware of that, and I'm not interested in having you
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: fast forward all the way through other than I one
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: was an auction and one was a snake draft. Of
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: any of you care that much about it, You're welcome
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: to throw some questions at the back and maybe at
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the end of some podcast. I'm happy to talk about it,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: but it is. Here's what I always find out for
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the fantasy draft. Every year I find out, Oh my god,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't do my homework. I didn't do enough. I
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: knew enough. Guy, I was running out of pitchers, especially
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: when you're in one league that has twenty four teams
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and eighteen roster spots. Let me repeat twenty four teams
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: eighteen roster spots. All right, enough of that side of
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: my sports ledger that front, let me give you a
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: rundown of what to expect for today's episode. My guest
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: today is a candidate for California governor, Matt Mahon. He
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: is the mayor of San Jose. He is probably going
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to be one of the best funded candidates not named
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Tom Steyer in this He is somebody that's running a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: bit towards the center left lane and you'll hear in
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the in the conversation, Uh, he definitely is trying to
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: run against the Democratic Party a little bit. I think
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: he thinks that the California legislature has pulled Gavin Newsom.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: It's interesting he didn't have many critical words for Gavin Newsom.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: He seemed to think that the legislature tied his hands
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: quite a bit, which I thought was an interesting way
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to navigate this. And I think it's it's hard you
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: have an elector, and I think it's very and I'm
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: gonna have a little bit more to say right before
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the right before the interview starts with with the with
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the mayor of San Jose. But I do think, you know,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: it's a tricky it's a tricky environment. This is sixteen
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: straight years of Democratic governors that California has the longest
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: streak they had in over one hundred years one party.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: And it's definitely you could feel there is there is
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: certainly a desire for change, uh of some sort. Well,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: what does change look like in a one party state
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: like California? And I think that all of the Democratic
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: candidates are struggling with that. It's It is tough when
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: you're you're sort of following two gigantic personalities in California politics,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: two terms of Jerry Brown, then two terms of Cavin Newsom. Shoot,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: before Jerry Brown, you had basically the sort of a
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: term and a half of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right, these are giant,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: big personalities, and it's a whole bunch of people with
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: a name I d under twenty five percent in the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: state trying to replace them. Right, So I think everybody
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: looks small in comparison to the to to I think
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: to both Gavin Newsom and of course the current living
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: former governors of California as well. So I think that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: probably only adds to the feel that this is the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the incredible shrinking field of candidates, although that's
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: part of the problem. The field's not shrinking, even if
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the candidates are not necessarily standing tall at the moment.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So we have that conversation, and again you're going to
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: hear some interesting, interesting things about sort of where should
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the Democrats go in California, Where should the wealth tax go?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Where should all those issues that are dividing the Democratic Party.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: We will have my Toddcast time machine and we are
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: going back to the year nineteen forty nine, and let's
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: just say it's the start of an organization that is
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: still very much in the news today. That will be
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: my big hint for you. But I want to begin
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: essentially with what look we ended the week. I think
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: when I last talked with you, it was clear and
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I said, well, they're going to get something done with DHS.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Well it was not done the way I thought it
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: was going to get done. But we have tsa workers
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: being paid president doing an executive order sort of finding
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: other ways to meet some payrolls temporarily. We had the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Senate pass a compromise and then the House Republicans completely rejected,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and I think it's a you know, this is a
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: piece of where I want to go with the larger
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: point I want to make with today's episode. It really
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: is about answering our question. I get a lot, and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I want to give you a fuller answer to when
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I get this question a lot, which is you know, when,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: when when is this going to end? And when I when?
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: When I say this this sort of this moment of
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: polarization where everything is a knockdown, drag out fight. Everything
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: has to be a battle you know, of the ages
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: just to you know, decide how or how's TSA going
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: to get funded? Right and and everything. And then you
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: have these battles inside the party between half the party
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: that wants to govern and half the party that wants
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: to fight. And you're starting to see this almost look
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: like mirror images of each other. And in each side,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: right you had you had those that were getting exhausted
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: and the Democratic side feeling as if this shutdown they
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: had got and everything they could get out of it,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: it was time to find a way to land the plane.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Pun intended on that one. But then you saw a
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: sort of similarity on the right right where you saw
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: plenty of center Republicans going, yeah, let's land the plane.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Let's throw them a bone on this, this and this,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and then the President not enthusiastic about it, and certainly
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Speaker Johnson and House Republicans going, you know what, we're
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: not playing ball with that. So you start to see
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: you've got and in many cases, right the House is
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: home of the hardliners, the hardliners on the left these days,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: hardliners on the right, and the Senate is home of
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the compromisers. If I guess the founders would be happy
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: to see that. But even within the Senate, the compromisers
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: are barely able to pull off compromises, and I'm not
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: sure how enthusiastic they all are. So it gets it
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to this larger question than I want to come back to.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: And it's the one I think that matters more right
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: now than any individual election result, or any poll, or
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: any piece of legislation. And it's simply this is the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: country ready to move on? Right, It's not just turning
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the page on Trump specifically. This is not just about
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Trump or even trump Ism, right, But it's not about
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: ready to move on from one politician or a party.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: But are we ready to move on from this right,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: this era of permanent, polarized warfare politics that has defined
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: arguably American life for the better part of most of
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the century, right, two decades now. I mean, in some
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: ways it's fitting that this deck that this century began
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: with the two thousand election, where we took the Supreme
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Court to decide when to stop the count. Right, we're
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: living in an era where the other side isn't just wrong,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: they're it's existential, where every election is the most important
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: of our lifetime. Right. I've never covered election that wasn't
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the most important in my lifetime. Apparently compromise is not
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: only not a virtue right now now, it can be
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: seen as a character flaw. So let's go back to
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the question are we ready to move on from this?
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Because I've been doing this long enough to know that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: ready is an automatic. Societies don't heal on a schedule.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: They heal and the cost of staying sick finally exceeds
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the cost of the cure. And let's just say, I'm
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: not sure we're there yet. You know that doesn't You know?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean we may not have I And what
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I mean is I think we're a few more elections
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: away from the electorate demanding resolution to this, and I
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: don't think the electorate is just there. So here's the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: case I want to make today, and I'm going to
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: use some history to do it, because I think the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: closest parallel to what we're living through is a period
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: most Americans know mostly as a blur. And I think
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: it's the most understudied period in American history and one
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that all of us should spend a little bit more
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: time on. And I think it can teach us a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: lot about the moment we're in right now, and it's
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the twenty eight years between two term president Andrew Jackson
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and twice elected he obviously didn't serve his full second term,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. We had seven presidents, actually we had eight
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: presidents because one took over via death, but seven president
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: elected presidents. Okay, in twenty eight years. It's just remarkable
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: back and forth, if you will, seven men who each
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: saw the divide coming, each reached for a tool to
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: manage it, and each watched that tool break in their hands. Right,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: we haven't gone through seven of these presidencies yet, right,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: we got Push Obama Trump, Biden Trump. We're at five.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: One could argue we've probably got a couple more to go,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and that's my thesis here, but let me keep it going.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: So let's go back and let me walk you through
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: that period of history here a little bit. By the
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: time Andrew Jackson left office in eighteen thirty seven, the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: American political system was already cracking along a fault line
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: that everyone could feel and almost nobody wanted to name directly.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Slavery was the wound, right, we know, essentially it's our
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: original sin of this country. But westward expansion was the pressure,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and the political class on both sides of this argument
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: had developed an almost institutional allergy to have an honest
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: reckoning with either one. So what followed was twenty eight
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: years of presidents trying everything except the thing that needed
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: to be done. Let's start with Martin van Buren. He
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: was Jackson's hand picked successor, the original political operator, the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: man who basically invented the modern party machine, and his
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: theory the case was, don't touch it, slavery is a
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: matter for the states, keep the coalition together, refusing to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: let the coalition fight, keep your head down, keep your
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: mouth shut, and hold the line. And then the Panic
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: of eighteen thirty seven hit. It was the worst economic
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: collapse the country had seen up until that point, and
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Van Buren discovered that avoidance isn't a strategy. It's just
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: a slower form of collapse. When you refuse to lead
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: on the defining issue of your era, you don't protect
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: yourself from it. You just guarantee that when it catches
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: up to you, you're already weakened. The next president elected
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: was William Henry Harrison, quickly succeeded by John Tyler Right.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Harrison is the one who died thirty one days after
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: taking office, shortest presidency in American history. So John Tyler
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: ended up president, and he was a Virginia States rights man.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: He was placed on this Whig ticket purely for geographical balance.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: They never actually wanted him to serve as president. The theory,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: of course, was that you could paper over the fundamental
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: divide in the country with a clever lineup card right,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: put a Northerner at the top and a Southerner under,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: call it a coalition, and hope nobody looks too closely. Well. Tyler,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: when he became president after thirty one days, he vetoed
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: virtually everything that the Whig control Congress sent him. He
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: got expelled from his own party. He spent four years
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: proving that ticket balancing is not coalition building. It's just
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: a delayed reckoning. The divide didn't go away because you
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: dressed it up. It just simply waited. Next came James Polk.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Now it's an underrated presidency. Might be the best one
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: term presidency we've ever had, George H. W. Bush, and
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: we would like a little say in that. But in
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a sense that Pope actually did some things. He was decisive,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: he was disciplined, and he had a theory of how
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: to avoid the issue expansion. If we just got more land,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: there's enough for everybody, and then we don't have to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: fight about it. The promise of the West would ease
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the tension, he thought, between the North and the South,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: because there'd be room to grow in every direction. The
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Mexican American War gave in California, and the Southwest was
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: reopen the slavery question with a ferocity that nobody could contain,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: because now there was new territory, and the question of
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: where slavery would expand became the question that consumed everything.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: The Wilmot Proviso, the attempt at ban slavery in any
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: territory acquired by Mexico acquired from Mexico, was born in
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: his presidency and nearly tore his own party apart. So
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: expansion did not relieve the pressure. It multiplied it, sometimes
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: solving a symptom to make the disease worse. This episode
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  Speaker 1: code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: am a customer. Zachary Taylor he was a Southern slave owner.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: He owned more than one hundred enslaved people who nonetheless
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: told the South to back off on secession threats over
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: California statehood. And he was willing to call their bluff
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: and he said, essentially, if you want to leave, try it,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and he didn't think they would, and he might have
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: been right, but we never found out. He died in office,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: supposedly eating poisoned cherries, but most people assume it was
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a cute gastrio enteritis. But there've always been a little bit.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: If you want, you want to talk about a few
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories that are still unresolved about that death, you
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: can go down some rabbit holes, because his death was
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a little bit murky, and it was happening an incredibly
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: important time. He was a Southerner pushing back on the South,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: so we don't know if his bluff was if the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: bluff was real that he was willing to do. History
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: will never know if his toughness was actually the path forward,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: if he was the Nixon to China guy, or if
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: it was going to just lead to another dead end.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: He was willing to force the crisis unlike previous presidents.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Whether forcing it would have resolved in that moment, we're
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: never know. But he was gone before the answer arrived.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Millard Fillmore takes over, and he inherits Taylor's standoff, and
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: he resolved it, or so he thought he did. With
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the compromise of eighteen fifty package deal. California comes in
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: as a free state. Slave trade, though not slavery itself
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: ends in Washington, DC, and in return, the South gets
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the Fugitive Slave Act, a federal law requiring northern states
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: to actively return escaped in slave people to their owners,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: so called owners. Fillmore signed it genuinely believing he had
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: saved the Republic. He called it the final Settlement of
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the slave every question the final settlement, basically agreeing that
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: half the country would have slaves and half would find
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: it abhorrent, but anyway, that's what he thought. Obviously, he
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: was catastrophically wrong. What the Futitive Slave Act actually did
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: was make the North personally complicit in slavery's enforcement for
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the first time. Ordinary northern nurse people in Ohio and
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania and Massachusetts who never thought much about slavery one
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: way or another, were being deputized to participate in it,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and it galvanized the abolitionist movement like nothing before it.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in direct response
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: to this, became the best selling novel of the nineteenth century.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the compromises the crisis. Sometimes the thing you do
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: to lower the temperature is the thing that lights the fire.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Franklin Pierce came in. The Democrats had a theory for
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: his presidency. Nominate a northern man. He was from New
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Hampshire with southern sympathies what they called a dough face,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and you split the difference, you get a candidate who
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: can win in the North without alienating the South. Pierce
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: was from New Hampshire, charming, he was handsome, and he
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: was completely spineless in the question that mattered the most.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: He signed the Kansas Nebraska Act, which repeated the Missouri Compromise.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Repealed the Missouri Compromise, an agreement that had for three
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: decades kept slavery out of the northern territories, and he
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: replaced it with popular sovereignty, i e. Let the settlers
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: decide the slavery question. Sounds democratic, but what it actually
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: produced was a race between pro slavery and anti slavery
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: settlers to flood into Kansas and determine its future by force.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: The result was bleeding Kansas, a preview of the Civil War.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Years before the actual Civil War. Towns burned, people died.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: The federal government just stood by that strategy. The dough
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: face strategy did not bridge the divide, it detonated it. Finally,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: there was James Muckinnon, a former Secretary of State right
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: or a former ambassador of Britain, the most experienced man
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to assume the presidency and a generation, and he was
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: catastrophically wrong about almost everything. He is regularly seen as
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the guy who's last on any list of presidents, simply
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: because if you lose, and if you lose the Union,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: you're probably dead last. Now, if you can't in privately
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: lobby the Supreme Court justices on the dred Scott case,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: push them to issue a sweeping ruling that would, he believed,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: finally settle the slavery question legally well. The court obliged
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: no black person could ever be a US citizen. The
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: court claimed Congress had no authority to band slavery anywhere
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: you can't and celebrated this decision. He thought it was over. Instead,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: it finished off what was left of his of the
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: political center. The Republican Party, young anti slavery organized around
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: opposition to exactly this. Won the next election, guy named
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, first time a third already won the presidency,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and when Southern states began to secede, Buchanan concluded he
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: had no constitutional authority to stop them. He was in
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: a narrow technical sense correct, but he was morally disastrous.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: He handed Abraham Lincoln the country already on fire, with
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the kindling stacked by every president who came before him.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: But here's the through line, and I think this is
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: what should echo today and whyatt continues to ring in
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: my ear, and why it's a place I go. Every
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: one of these men saw the divide. They weren't oblivious,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: just like we've seen here. Everybody knows the divide that
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: we live in at the moment. All of these elected
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: senators understand this is a shit show and it's got
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: to stop, right just like those men did. They wrote
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: about it, they worried about it, they tried to manage it,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and each one reached for a tool avoidance, ticket balancing, expansion, compromise,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: legal resolution, geographic splitting of the difference, and every tool
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: broke in their hands. And it was a simple reason
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the country wasn't ready. The cost of resolution, which turned
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: out to be a war that killed seven hundred thousand Americans,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: was still in the political calculus of each of those moments,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: higher than the cost of one more delay, one more patch,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: one more clever maneuver. It took the thing nobody wanted
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: before the country finally moved through it. So are we
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: there yet? No, I'm not advocating civil war here, guys. Okay,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: So I do want to be careful there, But I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: want to show you what this week past weekend looked like,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: because I think it does tell you almost everything you
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: need to know about where we are in the moment.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Big split screen, right, two countries, same weekend on one side,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: did the third round of the note King's rallies. Organizers
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: say eight million people turned turned out nationally might be
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the largest ever. Last time. They estimated seven million turned
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: out the last No Kings March a couple months ago.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: They are grassroots organized, they've got real professional money behind it.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Let's not pretend that this is this is totally organic,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: but it's progressive driven demonstrations against the Trump agenda. And
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: this weekend, the two animating issues were immigration enforcement in
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the Iran war now officially a month in month old.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: The biggest hub was Minnesota. That's where Bruce Springsteen performed
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: at Saint Paul months after the two American citizens were
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: killed by Ice agents. And these rallies reached beyond the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: expected cities. We saw places like Shelbyville, Kentucky, Midland, Texas
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: hold some of these No Kings rallies. It wasn't just
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the big cities, the big blue cities, if you will.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: That isn't nothing. There's no doubt the opposition to Trump
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: is growing, and the opposition to Trump is in some
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: ways very focused and very mission driven here and I
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: think we're probably going to see the result of that
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: in the midterms. Now, on the other side, he had
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: another gathering of partisans seapack down in Texas. They were
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: closing out a four day conference in grape buying, Texas.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: The marquis speaker wasn't a sitting American official. It was
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Iran's exiled crown Prince Riza Paul Lavi, the oldest son
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: of the late of the last Shaw of Iran, drew
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: standing room only crowd, positioning himself as Iran's future leader,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: his supporters waving Iranian flags through the convention hall. Steve
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Bannon was there. RFK Junior was there. Former Border Patrol
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Commander Greg Rovino was there. He ran the Minnesota enforcement
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: surge and of course was forced out after the disasters
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: that he oversaw. And here's what I want you to
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: notice about both of these gatherings, while they were each
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: internally coherent and they were also mutually incomprehensible to the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: other side, probably the tell that we're in democratic energy.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: It's very real. Trump's approval ratings are second term lows.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: This is all time lows for him thirty six percent,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: and rip Borders IPSOS thirty eight percent, AP forty one percent.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: In Fox News, I probably, if you want to know
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the truth, I probably feel the best about the Fox
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: News poll, meaning I just you know, they have to
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: bipartisan team that does it. They always have registered voters.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: They just have a you know, IPSOS and AP NORC
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: just their samples. I don't think are as strong is
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: what the Fox News folks do. Each poll shows tanking numbers,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: though I mean there's some consistency to all these poles
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: tanking numbers on the economy and the Iran war. There's
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: genuine grassroots mobilization and for the first time in a while,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: we're seeing younger voters fired up about voting in the midterms.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: There is no doubt there is a movement to throw
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: out the party in power. But just remember and Democrats.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I've been repeating this before, and I think I understand
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the feeling of glossing over this in the moment. Just
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: because there's lower approval for Trump doesn't mean that there's
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: automatically now higher trust with the Democrats. In fact, we've
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: seen plenty of polling indicating, my goodness, I told you
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: about that poll last week where the Democrats have the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: worst party brand, worse than the Republicans and worse than
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Mega by a point or two, even though they're winning
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: right there is not It is once again, we know
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: what we don't want, and I want to go back
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: to those That's what we knew in the twenty eight
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: years in between Jackson and Lincoln. We knew what we
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: didn't want. That's why we kept kicking out those presidents.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: We kept getting trying a new president. We kept looking
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: for a different answer. We couldn't figure out. We knew
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: what we didn't want. We didn't want a civil war,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: but we didn't find any way around it. And I
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: fear we don't have the leaders to meet the moment
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: we need right now to avoid this getting worse. And
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: that's what's the head scratcher here in the moment that
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: we're living in. So people see the problem, but they're
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: not ready. We're not ready for a full resolution to
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: this yet. So on the Republican side, SEAPEC was a
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: snapshot of something a bit more complicated than it appears.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: And yes there were USA chants, Yes there were some enthusiasm,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: but attendees were whispering on the sidelines that this year's
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: gathering felt smaller, felt more subdued than recent ones because
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: this is a divided party and underneath the service there
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: were real fractures, particularly among young men, over the Iran
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: War and the still unresolved Jeffrey Epstein questions. One thirty
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: year old attendee said it this way. A lot of
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the young generation feels that there's not a lot of
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: hope for the economy. This economy is a mess, and
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: it is all Donald Trump's economy, right from the tariffs
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: to this war, to the spike and gas prices. I mean,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: this is turning into his eye. And I think I
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: said this before. I think he is going to I
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: think he's probably at the point of no return. You
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: get to a point in a second term where you
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: don't really get a second shot at recovering barring some
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: outside event that allows you to sort of be a
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: hero in the moment. And it's just hard to envision some.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Event like that.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: And then there's also the fact that they and this
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: is something that's true on both sides, both parties. Right now,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: there is a divide about how to tackle this moment,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: right you know in Sepack we saw it in the
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: results of the straw Phole jd Vance at fifty three
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: percent of who they wanted to see. In twenty twenty eight,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Mark Ruby was at thirty five percent. So the MAGA
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: base is not united yet on what kind of success
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: door they want to say. And we haven't even had
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: the midterms yet. What happens if the midterms are a
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: disaster for the right. So it's a party that hasn't
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: finished its own internal reckoning, right, you know, Trump's in
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: charge of this coalition, but as Trump truly change the
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: party for good, you still feel the tension inside this party, right,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: They're still not sure where they're going to go post Trump. Meanwhile,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: back in Washington, the government shutdown continued. We're not a
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: record length, you know, with the House just sort of
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: dumping on the Senate plan. Obviously there's going to be
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: at least some resolution to temporary pay with this weird
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: executive order, but it only can last for a small
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: period of time. But here we are. Senate won't pass
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: the House's plan, The House won't pass the Senate's plan.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody has the votes, and then nobody has the will
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and nobody has the face saving exit. It really is
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: James Buchanan level institutional paralysis that we're in right now.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Technically everyone has a constitutional argument and practically nothing is working.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: So are we ready to move on. Are we ready
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to get out of this moment? My honest answer, and
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I say this notw with despair, but with it, but
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: frankly with the historian's cold I patience. We're just not
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: ready yet. Here's why. In the pre Civil War era,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: every tool broke because the underlying condition, the question of
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: whether slavery would expand or contract, whether the country future
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: was slave or free, hadn't been resolved at the level
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: of public consensus. The political class kept reaching for procedural
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: solutions to a moral question, and procedural solutions to moral
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: questions never hold. They just delay the inevitable. They patch.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: They may be able to put it off for a
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: year or two, but they eventually break, and usually in
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: ways much worse than if you'd address the thing directly.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Right works this way in life. Now, what we have
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: now is not slavery. And this is what I want
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: us to be careful about. Not to over analogize this.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: And I get it, I'm the one doing it, but
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm you know, And this is a reminder it
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: just there is a familiarity here. We have a version
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: of the same core problem. We have two fundamentally different
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: visions of what America is who? It's four? Who is
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: an American right? It's the same questions, and we haven't
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: yet reached the moment where the cost of not deciding
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: exceeds the cost of deciding. So you look at the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: split screen again. The No King's rallies are real, eight
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: million people is real. Energy is real, But energy doesn't
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: automatically become a coalition. The pre Civil War era had
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: plenty of energy. The abolitionist movement was vibrant, passionate, and
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: morally clear, and it took decades more before that energy
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: converted into the political realignment that produced Lincoln. But remember
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Lincoln was a third party solution. Just keep that in mind.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: The fractures at Seapack are real, young men worried about
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the economy, worried about a wrong on quietly whispering that
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: something feels off. But fractures don't automatically produce alternatives. The
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Whig Party fractured badly multiple times before it finally collapsed
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: and the Republican Party emerged from the wreckage. What I
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: think we're missing, and what I'd argue both parties are
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: still missing, is the exhaustion from these maximalist positions that
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: each side wants to take care. Each side still believes,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: or at least its base beliefs, that one more election,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: one more mobilization, one more wave gets them to dominance,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and then they can get this done. Democrats look at
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: trumpet thirty six percent and think, this is it, this
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: is the moment. Republicans look at those twenty twenty four
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: results and think, we have the mandate. We just have
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: to hold the line. Neither side is fully reckoned with
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the possibility that they can't win this way, that the
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: country is too evenly divided, the structural incentives are too
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: deeply entrenched for either maximalist project to fully succeed. And
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: here's the uncomfort question I keep coming back to, does
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: each party need to exhaust its own version of the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: maximalist fantasy before we find something more durable. Now Republicans
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: have had basically are having their maximalist moment. It's Donald Trump, right,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: they're living it right now. They have a shutdown that's
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: breaking records, they have an Iran war that's generating real
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: division within their own coalition, approval numbers that suggest the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: public is increasingly uncomfortable where this goes. But they're trying
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: to deport millions of people. Right, They're trying to do
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: everything they can. But if Democrats had their equivalent, have
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: they found the thing that forces a genuine reckoning with
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: why they keep losing ground on the economy, immigration, and
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: crime even when the other side is collapsing, Or do
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: they win the midterms, feel vindicated and defer the reckoning. Again,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not asking rhetorically. I think it's the actual question
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: that determines whether twenty twenty eight is a stabilizing election
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: or another pendulum swing that sets up the next cycle
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: of backlash. Bottom line is I think we're still a
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: couple of more elections away. All right, I have I am,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: like I say, I'm a long term optimist, short term pessimist.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: But in some ways I think each side and I think,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: you know, the base of the Democratic Party hasn't gotten
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: its presidency yet, the Republican base has gotten its presidency,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: and it may be we need to see that play
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: itself out. Maybe it succeeds, maybe it's the answer, Maybe
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: it's maybe it is maybe it's an FDR like figure,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: but we don't know that yet. The point is, I
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: don't think this has played out now. Lincoln understood something
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: that the the the eight men before him didn't or wouldn't.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: He understood that you couldn't solve the divide by managing it.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: You could only solve it by going through it. And
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: going through it meant naming the thing directly, taking the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: political risk, and accepting that the short term cost of
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: honesty was lower than the long term cost of another delay.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: His second inaugural one of the most extraordinary speeches in
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: American history, frankly in world history. It didn't pretend the
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: war hadn't happened, or that reconciliation would be easy. He
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: just simply said, with malice toward none, with charity for all.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: But he said it after four years of war, after
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the cost had been paid, after the country had finally
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: brutally decided where are we going and who are we
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: So we're not there yet. We're probably somewhere in the
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Franklin Pierce to James Buchanan range of this story. We're
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: probably past the early avoidance phase. We're into the phase
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: where the tools are breaking faster and more visibly. Right,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Congress couldn't get every six months, it gets more functional, dysfunctional.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: J Judiciary seems to get a tad more dysfunctional with
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: it as well. But we're not yet at the moment
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: where the country decides the cost of delay is finally
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: too high, where we finally have a leader who meets
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the moment that we may be really fully looking for.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: It might sound grim, I actually think it's useful because
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: if you know where you are in the story, you
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: can stop being surprised by the chaos and you can
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: start paying attention to the signal underneath it. The signal
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: isn't the rallies. It isn't the straw poles, That isn't
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: the shutdown. The signal is whether either party or some
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: new force we can't fully see yet. Right there was
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party was not really that's that much in
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: the front and center of things in the eighteen thirties, forties,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: and even in the early eighteen fifties. The signal is
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: whether either party is developing the thing that comes after
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: this maximalism that we're ball that we're all in in
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the moment politics of the country as it actually is,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: rather than the country. Each base imagines it can force
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: everybody else to exist it. So that's what I'm watching for.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: That's what twenty twenty six will start to tell us.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm obsessed with what's happening in Michigan. Governor.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Are they going to go independent or not? Right, we're
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: going to see, well some of these independents win. Are
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: we going to see a punishment of both parties or
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: are we going to see just sort of this continued
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: sort of windshield wiper approach to things, or we just
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: go back and forth one more time. So we're not
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: there yet. But do know this, just like with bankruptcy,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: all this stuff takes forever until it happens almost overnight.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: All right, So with that, and again, let me just
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: emphasize I just realized I need emphasiz I'm not saying
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: it's going to take a hot civil war for us
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: to decide this political divide that we're in, but we
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: are sitting here basically right. At some point there's going
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: to be an attempt to break this. Maybe it's from
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the center, maybe it's from inside one of the two parties,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: maybe it's from a third party. The point is, I
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: don't think we're there yet, or we're probably at least one,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: if not two presidential elections away from that. All right,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: coming up. Like I said, I got Matt Mahon, he
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: is the candidate. Then when I talked to Democrats not
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: associated with any of the candidates running, and they think
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: about the nightmare that is this governor's race has turned into,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: particularly for Democrats, because you have two Republicans Chad Bianco,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: sheriff from Riverside down there in the southern part of
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the state. Steve Hilton, who was one time an aide
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: to former British Prime Minister David Cameron, and he's been
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: he's likely to be the top vote getter. And the
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: possibility is there that two Republicans could finish on top
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: and the all party primary and top two and then
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden and by the way, if you're
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: wondering what would happen, there in a friend of mine outline.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: And so if you had somehow the two Republicans finished
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the top two in California, Hilton versus Bianco, you'd have
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Hilton would probably win. You'd have a whole bunch of
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: people saying he's the more center of the two. He
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: would clearly tack quicker to the center than the air FOROO.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: And as a friend of mine said, and he'd be
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: recalled and there'd be a new recall election probably within
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: a year, and so you would have essentially governing paralysis
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: in California like we had sort of in that era
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: between Gray Davis up through the beginning of Arnold Schwarzenegger
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: and really through about the first year of Arnold Schwarzenegger
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: before he found his sea legs. That said, there's still
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: a couple of months before this primary actually takes place.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I do think some Democrats going to get traction. Maybe
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: it's Eric Swawell, maybe it's Tom Steyer and all the
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: money he's spending. Matt Mayhon hopes it's him. He has
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: got a ton of financial resources, he's got a ton
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: of money helping him, but he's yet to really get
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of traction. But he argues there's still time.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: So with that, we'll take a break and when we
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: come back, by conversation with somebody who would like to
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: be the next governor Democratic governor of California. That mayn
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• 46:55
  Speaker 1: all right. As many of you know, I have spent
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of time featuring candidates for California governor. I
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: beat your candidates for a lot of offices, but I've
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: been especially interested in, you know, when you have an
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: open race for the fourth largest economy in the world.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Now it's creeping up to number four. Maybe my next
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: guest will confirm for me if it's moved from fifth
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: to fourth. Now we we have a there's an open contest,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: and there's really no even in the previous years, right,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: you know, Gavin Newsom was sort of it was there
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: in waiting. Jerry Brown before that was there in waiting.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: You know, really not since arguably nineteen ninety eight. Have
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: we had an open race for the California governorship that
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: looks truly open and obviously with the with the all
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: party primary, it makes everything kind of fascinating. And so
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: the candidate that that's coming on today is the mayor
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: of San Jose. He's a Democrat, Matt Mayon. He is
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: somebody that I know a lot of a lot of
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: folks are cs, somebody that that might be that might
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: have the ability to unite the Democratic coalition in a way.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: It's a very fractured primary at the moment, a lot
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: of expectations, a lot of interesting supporters that he has
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: so wanted to get to know the mayor. Mayor Mayhon,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Chuck, Thanks so much for having me on. I'm looking
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: forward to our conversation.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Well let me start with this, So why'd you run
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: for mayor when you decided to become mayor of San Jose?
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: What got you into politics in general and what made
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: you want to run for mayor of Santase.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Chuck, my interest in politics goes back
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: to my childhood. I grew up in a little farming
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: town in California called Watsonville, for those who don't know it.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: It's where your strawberries come from. And like a lot
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: of rural communities, we had we had big challenges, high unemployment,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: a lot of crime. Our local high school had a
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: higher dropout rate than graduation rate. And it was a
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: work study scholarship on literally on the other side of
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: a mountain range in San Jose and the heart of
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Silicon Valley that gave me a really big opportunity in
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: my life to branch out and be able to go
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: to a great college, and it really just changed the
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: trajectory of my life. And I was always interested in
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: the differences between my hometown with all of its challenges,
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: in Silicon Valley, with all of its growth and opportunity.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: I started reading the local newspaper, went to a high
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: school that was very into service and civic engagement. My
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: parents were into civic engagement. My mom was a teacher,
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: my dad was a maleman, And just from a young age,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: I came to this belief that politics and government is
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: the area where we work out the big questions, solve
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: the big problems, and it's kind of the only game
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: in town for really tackling the big things that create
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: opportunity for people, which is what I'm really interested in.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: So I ended up being a public school teacher for
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: a while, worked in tech for a while, but ultimately
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: found myself drawn back to the place where I was
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: living and raising a family, San Jose, where it just
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: felt like we kept asking people to raise their taxes,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: but the outcomes weren't getting any better. And I thought,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: I'm going to jump in and see if I can
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: do this a little differently.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about your decision to run for governor.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: You were in some ways. I know a lot of
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: people reach out to you, wanted you to run. There's
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of candidates in this race you could have,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: you know. So I'm going to ask this, what about
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: the other candidates in the race, particularly in your party
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: on the Democratic side, what are they missing that you
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: think you bring to this race.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was watching the race closely, was not planning
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: to run, sort of watched it all of last year,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: and then early this year realized there was a big
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: void in the conversation, particularly in the more moderate problem
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: solver lane to try to bring people together. And it's
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: just I guess a few things felt missing. One I'm
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: the only current mayor and executive with both public and
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: private sector executive experience in the race. I think we
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: are moment where the next governor of California has to
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: be very execution focused. We don't have a revenue problem,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: we have an execution and accountability problem, which I'm sure
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: we'll talk more about. Number Two, I'm worried about the
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: partisan divide in this country and rising populism on the
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: right and the left, and people sort of just giving
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: easy answers, and so in my party on the left
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: right now in California, at least, it's in vogue to say, well,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: all of our problems in California are just because of
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump or just because of the tech billionaires. And look,
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: I've got plenty of critiques of both, but the truth
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: is We've got a lot of resources, a lot of assets.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: We've increased spending in the state of California by seventy
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: five percent, or one hundred and fifty billion dollars in
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: just the last six years. And I'm the only Democrat
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: in this race saying we need to demand that our
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: state government do better before we ask people to pay more.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: And I've got out a track record as mayor of
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: the largest city in northern California. Of doing that, we
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: didn't raise taxes, but we dramatically changed the level of crime.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: We reduced it and became the safest big city in
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: the country. Same with reducing homelessness, getting housing built, and
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I just I think accountability is what the state needs.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: And I didn't hear anybody else talking about it.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. I know that I spent a
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: little bit of time in San Jose and one of
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the there are times when you're in the city that
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you you can't you're unaware that Silicon Valley's right there.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, I the first, you know, I
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: expected more of a presence in a positive way, and
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: it isn't there. It's it's interesting suburban Yeah, that that
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: that the Silicon Valley workers don't really live in San Jose.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: It was actually the opposite. It's the opposite. We we
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: housed the workforce. San Jose was built as the bedroom community.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that seems to commute, that
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: seemed to commute right all the way closer to the Sancisco.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So historically what happened was the defense industry invested
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: early and out of that became the semiconductor industry, and
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: the jobs were actually closer to Stanford or Palo Alto,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: which is almost the midpoint between San Jose and San Francisco.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: San Jose was all agriculture up until the World War
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: two boom, but in the sixties and seventies, all of
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: that that valley would used to be called the Valley
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: of Heart's Delay. All of those orchards got turned into
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: single family home neighborhoods. And so San Jose is one
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: million people in the heart of Silicon Valley, but it
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: is it is the residential center of the valley. It's
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: where tech's workforce lives. It's where their kids go to school,
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: they go to the park, the library. But what we've
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: been doing in recent years that I'm really excited about
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: is we're building an urban center in our downtown and
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: it's starting to grow. We're getting housing built. Silicon Valley
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: has always lacked a proper downtown or urban center, and
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: that's now becoming. That's San Jose's downtown. But you're right,
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: it's it's a more sprung It's not like New York
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: or Chicago or one of our you know.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: What would you attribute this to though, why why hasn't
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Because I looked at it, It's like, I'm just surprised
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: that the companies themselves, you know, I expected to see
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: the Facebook Arena, the arts the Apple Arts Center, you know,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, which is what you see in
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: other cities where the industry is sort of connected to
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: the community, and it always it has felt as if
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: and I'm just curious if you believe this or maybe
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: you've improved you feel like you can improve this, which
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: is that the big companies of Silicon Valley haven't necessarily
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: invested in San Jose and the way you might expect
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: them to.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that these I worked at the tech
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: sector building civic tech tools, helping people essentially organize and
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: be civically active and hold their elected officials accountable. And
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: I can tell you from working in the space for
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: quite a few years that technologists don't start from the
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: perspective of politics or or the kind of presence that
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: you're talking about, or even brand building. I know. It's
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: sort of the myth, although I think kind of the
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: reality of tech that it's much more people who are
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: tinkers invenors who are literally starting in a garage, and
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: they're interested in creating something new and powerful that gives
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: you a new capability that can solve a problem. And
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: it's sort of like the all the rest, you know,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: the revenue profit, you know, sponsorships, marketing. Politics is super secondary.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: For years, the tech sector had a mutual avoidance with
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: government and just wanted to be left alone. It's actually
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: a very libertarian sector. And so whether you're in San
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Francisco and.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Again still is a libertarian mindset. I mean, you know,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: We do have some though. I have to give a
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: huge shout out to Adobe, headquartered in downtown San Jose,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: thousands of employees. They contribute a ton to the community.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: They're always sponsoring things, investing in arts and culture.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: But they are Why do you think they're the exception
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: because they do a minute you just said that. It
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: dawned on me. I remember seeing a lot of the
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Adobe brand.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, although I've got to say same for Cisco, which
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: is here in San Jose. I think it depends on
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: the maturity of the company and the maturity of the
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: sub industry. If it's a new robotics company or vertical
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: takeoff and landing vehicle, they're just focused on trying to
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: get the tech to work. They're trying to actually figure
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: out as they're a market for this thing, and does
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: it work. Once a company has been around twenty thirty
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: years as profitable, as more mature, they're a lot more
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: likely to actually look around and say, Okay, how do
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: we show up in the community. What are our responsibilities?
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: But you're right, I mean, I think we're pointing out
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: as an industry that until recently at least, has been
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: sort of being nascent, just wasn't a totally.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Mature I mean, I guess if you were to describe
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: them as a person, you'd say they're kind of introverted.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: They're just they don't and I don't, I don't, I
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: don't write. I don't buy that it's like some nefarious
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: reason they don't want to contribute to a community. It's
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: just this. It's not like you see with other industries.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: And I remember it. I guess I would. It feels
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: as if Santjose should be benefiting more than they are.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: I do you argue that?
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, do you feel like that's my pitch? So
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: for example, we have a Super Bowl World Cup coming
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: to San Jose this year. We just hosted Super Bowl
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: World Cups coming with six matches actually March Madness this week,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: and I went around to our local employers and asked
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: them to contribute to a fan experience to make it
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: open and accessible to all of our residents, so that
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: even residents who couldn't afford a ticket to one of
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: the big games could have a great experience. We raised
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: about five million dollars from local employers, mostly tech employers,
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: but not all view that as being their sort of
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: civic responsibility. I'll give you another example I'm really proud of.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: We've created something called AI for all. I am concerned,
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: as I think most people are, that AI is coming quickly.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: It's very powerful. It could do a lot of good.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: It could also do a lot of harm. We worked with,
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: reached out to and convinced three of the leading AI companies, Google,
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Open Ai, and Anthropic to actually partner with our library
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: system to make their tools freely accessible along with tutorials,
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: in person trainings, and really try to open up this
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: technology and make it accessible for all of our residents.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: We have seven hundred thousand people in San Jose with
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: a library card. City of a million people, seventy percent
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: of a library card. We want everybody in our city,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: and ultimately everybody in the world needs to have access
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: to these tools and the training and tech that they
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: need to be able to participate and share in this
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: new emerging economy. If we don't get ahead of this,
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: there's real risk of harming you, harming people.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: To me, there's two challenges with AI. There's accessibility, you
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: just outline that one. But there's also guardrails, and the
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: industry doesn't want any you know, maybe anthropic is more
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: open to guardrails and open AI, but ultimately, you know,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: other than regulatory capture, I'm the political senate here. You
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: don't have to concur with that. I'm the Senate. I
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: will say it. You know, I think ultimately, usually in
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: one of these instances, there's somebody that is willing to
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: be pro regulation as long as they get to do
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: it on their terms, right, you know, and becomes a
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: bit of industry capture. So let me ask you this,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: what should Because the state of California here, you guys,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: decide on some guardrails, it's going it potentially becomes the standard.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: It potentially can have that kind of impact, Right, California
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: has that kind of ability that it can have outsized
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: impact on you know, we're seeing it now. New York
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: passed a law about surveillance pricing that you've got to
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: let people know about surveillance pricing. So because New York
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: has that law, you see companies even if they're sending
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: an offer to Oklahoma, they know it might be seen
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: in New York, so they have to abide by the law.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: So the point being is certain states can have outsized
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: influence when it comes to guardrails. What are the guardrails
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: that you'd like to see state government? If you're governor,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: what would you be proposing for the AI industry?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a really important question, and I
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: have the benefit of being the only candidate in this
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: race that has already had experienced regulating AI. We use
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: technology throughout San Jose. In fact, we've been on the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: leading edge of deploying AI to improve public services. We
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: created something called the gov AI Coalition that has grown
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: from a handful of cities to over nine hundred public
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: agencies that are convening and setting policy around the responsible
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: and ethical use of AI. So what does that mean
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: in practice when we deploy a new tool like automated
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: license plate readers. We have a responsibility for being totally
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: transparent with the public. What do we collect, where, when, why,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: how's the data used? Is it shared with anyone? So
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: we publish all that on our website, and we're very restrictive.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: We don't do facial recognition. That is an explicit regulation
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: and standard. We don't keep the data indefinitely. In fact,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: with our automated license plate readers, we delete the data
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: after thirty days unless it is still actively needed in
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: a prosecution or investigation and it's it's been kept specifically
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: for that purpose. Otherwise it's deleted because we don't want
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: to build long term profiles on time.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: That government is. How do you guarantee that the company
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: that you've contracted with to do this isn't Well, we make.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: We make them sign a contract with us on we
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: do not. So in the case of just the license
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: plate readers, we own that. We make sure we own
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: the data so it can't be shared by the company.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: They don't control it. We do it in our it's
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: in our server. And so I think the importance of
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: being out in front and testing and using these tools
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: in government is so that we don't get blindsided, so
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: that we learn and are in a position to understand
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: the tools so that we can effectively regulate them. And
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: I think that the state of California over the coming
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: years is going to have to create the regulatory framework
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: around privacy, data security, protecting children all in this new
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: context of AI. And I think the biggest thing is
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: what you referenced in your New York example. Transparency is
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: what I think is the most important starting place. There
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: may be specific things that we need to stay Yes
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: you can do this, and no you can't do that,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: but you need to know when AI is being used.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: You want to know if a video is AI generated
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: or not. So I think that sort of transparency and
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: truth in labeling almost if you will to use an
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: analogy from a different, different sector, I think that's really important.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, why do you think a
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: fairly large majority of the country is essentially negative on AI.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's the unknown. I think it's it's scary. Two.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: I think there are a couple of things that.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: We're an outlier with other Western democracies. By the way,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: on this, like we're AI is more unpopular in the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: United States than it is in other in in other
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: places where there's been there's been some public opinion research,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: So it does seem like we're a little bit more.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: We're on the forefront of it, so we may just
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: be the leading indicator. Maybe that is other countries. I mean,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: we have the world's leading AI companies in the US.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: So we're feeling it first. Yeah.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: I think we're feeling it first. Yeah. I mean, look, people,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: people are right to be concerned, and I think you know,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: one area of concern is privacy, and that's where total
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: transparency around what you collect and how it's used, and
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: whether or not it's stored all of that.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: Right, you saying the right things, but me, I understand,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: But let me pauge you. Then let me podge you
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: there in privacy because this has been an issue for
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: twenty years with Silicon Valley and the development of social
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: media platforms. Was we were supposed to have all these concerns,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: and we'd hear plenty of people talking about these concerns,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: and then the companies themselves didn't behave And you know,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: I personally, I think the reason why there's no trust
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: with AI and some is because the same people that
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: brought you social media which has been an utter disaster
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: for our information ecosystem. Are the ones bringing you AI,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: and we're supposed to feel good about this, Like I
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: just that's what frustrates me is the we're going through
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: the same conversationtions we had at the at the advent
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: of social media and and you know, because at first
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: it was awesome, and then of course after they are
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: we really, oh, whoa, this this could be weaponized and manipulated.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Now we're and now we're now it's already toothpaste out
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: of the tube. It's nothing we can do about it.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: And how do we ensure this doesn't happen with AI?
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: Well, Chuck, I mean, look, I'm not I'm not here
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: to defend social media and when they're I'm.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: Much trying to make you But I do want I
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: do want government to be more skeptical and put these
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: guys a bit through a little bit more of the ringer,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: if you will.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and I think there's okay. So there's there's
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: a couple of different things. So when there's an actual
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: violation of people's privacy, collecting their data, using it in
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: ways that they have not authorized, there needs to be
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: strict accountability Cambridge Analytica being an example of a firm
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: that scraped a bunch of data used it a ways
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: people weren't aware of, and I believe they were fined
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: five billion dollars and that's appropriate. There ought to be
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: serious law enforcement around the regulations we've put in place
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: around personally identifying information PII. There's a whole body of
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: law around that that needs to be enforced by regulators,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: and that has to be done. When it comes to
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: the echo chambers of social media, you start to get
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: into a difficult place. And I think it's important to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: be skeptical and to think about but you also don't
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: want to impose on people's free speech. One of the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: things that is interesting is the crowdsourcing of community notes
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: on x where somebody can actually say, well, this is
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: not the whole story. Click here to learn more. And
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: so I think there's kind of this evolving space of
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: how do we actually deal with misinformation? And that's a
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: harder one because what you call misinformation maybe somebody else
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: saying well, that's my opinion, and so it becomes hard
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: to police the truth. And I think there are limits
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: there to what government or technology can do in ensuring
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: that what people are saying is truthful and accurate. At
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: some point here you said regotron environment that needs to
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: be enforced. The Cambridge analyticals of the world need to
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: be sued and held accountable, maybe criminally liable, But at
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: some point it's also up to us to think through
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: our public education system about media literacy, critical thinking, you know,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: training and teaching people so that they don't just passively
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: hear something and think, oh, that must be that must
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: be true. It is, it's on steroids. I'll grant you this,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: but keep in mind when the country was found and
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: everybody was running off pamphlets in the basement, say whatever
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: the heck you wanted, and we always we've always dealt
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: with this issue of misinformation.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: This is I and I and I. It makes me
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: happy to hear you put it in those terms, because
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: that is something I'd like to frequently remind people. In fact,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: you know, people say our media is polarized. Our media
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: has been polarized for a majority of our cunture's history.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: We just had a brief period called the Cold War
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: where we weren't it. We can we can have an
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: entire debate about why that was for an outlaw period
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: of six years. We had a we were you know,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: we kept our fringes at the side. All right, I'm
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: going to get off social media, the Silicon Valley issues
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: and get to something that is you're doing in San Jose.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: Two issues that you're tackling in San Jose that are
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: also issues that this to deal with homelessness and affordable
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: housing and the things you're trying to do. Some people
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: love them, and you're some people are pushing back at you.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's you get You know in
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: some ways that that means you're trying something. If you
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: don't have people on both sides of stuff, that it
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: meants you're not means it means you're not trying hard enough.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: In my opinion. So you're trying something, Tell me about it,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Tell me about homelessness. What do you think you're getting
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: right in San Jose that you can take statewide?
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, first of all, the starting point on this
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: as I came into office was things just kept getting
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: worse year after year, even though we were spending more
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: and more. The state had spent over thirty billion dollars.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: Even just in a city like San Jose. We were
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: spending one hundred million dollar dollars a year. Our county
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: had passed a billion dollar bond, and I'm I try
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: to be a data driven guy. It's important to have
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: a governing philosophy and some court and core values, but
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: then on top of that, you've got to actually look
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: at data on what works in practice. And everything was
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: going in the wrong direction. We had this community plan
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: to end homelessness in San Jose that didn't have any
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: math behind it, and as I did the back of
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: the envelope math, what I found was what we were
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: doing was never going to solve the problem. We would
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: have needed six billion dollars in twenty years just to
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: address the people on our streets at that moment. And
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: so we moved away from the slowest, most expensive solution,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: which was using public dollars to build brand new apartments
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: for folks at a million dollars a door, which is
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: thirty percent higher than it costs the private marketplace to
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: build new housing and over six years to build, and
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: we pivoted to building basic, dignified shelter. We converted old motels,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: bought prefabricated modular units. What they all have in common
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: is we're giving people a safe, dignified place, a room
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: with a door that locks access to services, case management,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: on site security, meals the basic things people need to
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: be stabilized and start to turn their lives around. And
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: what we have found in the last few years of
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: scaling up safe and dignified shelter with services is that
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: we've been able to move thousands of people in from
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: these unmanaged tent encampments that have been just there where
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: people are just living in human misery and dying at
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: very high rates. We've reduced the number of people who
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: are dying, we've reduced the amount of health issues, and
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: we've given people a real shot. In fact, twenty eight
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: percent of the people we brought indoors over the last
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: few years have already graduated to permanent housing because they
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: were able to take advantage of the services we were offering.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: So San Jose, by pivoting and looking at the data
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: and thinking differently, has led the state of California and
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: reducing the number of people living outside in tent encampments
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: by about one third, and for the first time in
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: our history, a majority of people who are homeless in
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: San Jose will be living indoors, not outdoors. And you know,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: it's very rich for folks to criticize this, but they're
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: not the ones living and dying in misery and a
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: tent encampment without even access to a bathroom. And the
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: truth is, cities like New York and Boston and Chicago
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: have similar rates of homelessness, but the differences they build
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: shelter capacity. They don't leave people to die on the streets,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: because you can't do that in a place with the
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: cold winter. But in California we've been complacent. We never
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: built the shelter capacity to bring people indoors.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: So we think this is an issue in San Francisco,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: La San Diego that they need more shelter capacity.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: Well, look, yeah, I mean the data is so clearuck.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, we are twelve percent of the nation's population.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: We have over forty percent of the people who live
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: outside in the country on our streets. We haven't built
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: enough shelter, we haven't built enough treatment capacity, and even
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: when we have those beds, we have been reticent to
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: hold people accountable for coming indoors. Now, I do want
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: to note something else here. We can get into all
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: the addiction and mental illness points, but a place where
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: I agree wholeheartedly with the advocates in this in this
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: case is that we have broken the housing market in
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: California and the rent is too damn expensive. So we
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: actually agree.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: You're supposed to say the rant is too damn high.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: Remember there was that political party.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: That got that's what it is.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: I missed that guy. I don't remember, but he was
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: the rent is too damn high guy. I think he
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: ran for mayor of New York City about ten years ago.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: But that's I think people feel that way in a
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: lot of places.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I mean, look, that's part of the overarching
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: problem here is that we don't have enough housing that
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: is affordable. But I would also say that's largely a
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: public policy failure. We have the slowest permitting times, the
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: most aggressive environmental laws, the highest impact ease. I mean,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: we just we've made it so slow and expensive to
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: build that the housing market isn't keeping up with demand
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: and actually building housing affordably for people.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: Let me ask this, because you know, I can we
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: have environmental regulation that's just faster, Like you know, I
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: hate that the choice becomes well, we just won't do
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: this environmental impact statement because it slows things down. Well,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: why does it have to slow things down? Why can't
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: we Why can't you both have those things but in
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: a timely capacity? What is the And maybe you don't
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: know the answer to this, and I would understand if
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: you didn't, But that's always been one of my head
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: you know, it's always presented as a choice. Well, either
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: you can have an environmental impact, you know that, or
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: that slows things down. No, well, why does it have
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: to Why does it slow things down?
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree with you. I don't think it
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: needs to be either or at all. Now, I do
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: think there's a big difference between wanting to build out
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: in greenfield open space outside of a growth boundary. If
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: you want to build out in the valleys in the
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: hills of California, that probably should take an environmental review
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: process that is quite a bit more robust and takes
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: more time than if you want to do infill development.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: My big complaint has been even in our urbanized areas,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: where we have roads and sewers and we're talking about
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: building on a surface parking lot or a place that
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: is adjacent to a bunch of urbanized development, we will
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: still take, at least up until very recently, on almost
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: all projects have taken over a year to go through
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: environmental and our definition of environmental, just to be clear,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: with California's Environmental Quality Act SEQUA, is so much broader
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: than what you might imagine is the environment. It's not
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: clean air, clean water, it goes far beyond that. It
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: is noise impacts, traffic impacts, shadow historic registries, Native American
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: remains in the ground. I mean, just an endless list
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: of potential impacts with a lot of discretion or debate
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: over what are the right mitigations. And I think we've
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: got to simplify that now. It's not to say we shouldn't,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: you know, check if you're destroying a historic building, and
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: sure that's valid, but it can't take as long as
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: it does. And this is where I actually think technology
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: can be really helpful. It ought to be that we
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: have inventory things in advance, and it doesn't take a
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: year to do a one off bespoke study. Where we
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: have this cottage industry of consultants who make millions of
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: dollars taking a year or more to study everything. We
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: ought to be able to run it against a database
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: and say, okay, here's how many people are living here?
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: Here's the decibel level. You can't hit memory and nail after,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: you know, nine to eight pm or whatever.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: I'm going to make a really awkward comparison here, and
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: you could say I'm crazy, and I hope it doesn't
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: get you in trouble, but it's I sort of feel
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: about it the way I feel about there should be
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: a time, because you're right, this stuff can be endless
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: when it comes to like waiting for a permit to
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: be approved and all this stuff. It's like, frankly, when
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: I'm watching a sporting event and there's instant replay. If
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: it's taking you so long to decide whether something is
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: in or out, then whatever the call was is the call,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: and it's like you just time is up, you know there.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: It's it's like I almost feel that way about like
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: instead of an endless it being, it's almost like people
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: want to have more time so they can find something
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: that's wrong, versus, look, you've got a finite amount of time.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: This is a reasonable amount of time, and if it
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't you don't discover it within this amount of time,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: then it's and it's probably not there and if you
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: miss it, that's on you. And eventually you're going to
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: be held accountable for missing it.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that exactly, And actually that's part of my plan.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: I put up my my big housing plan on mayn
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: from California dot com and it's my you know, fifteen
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: point plan for how we unbreak the housing market in California.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: One of the fifteen points is to require that conforming
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: projects for infill get that permit within the building permit
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: within thirty days.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: And it just they're just going to get it. You
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: find out within thirty days, like you know, whatever it is,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: so that you can move on, you know.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I also think we're so risk averse and
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: worried about litigation. California is probably the most litigious place
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: on earth that we were scared of ever making a mistake.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would rather that we bias toward action
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: when we have a crisis like our shortage of housing
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: and our affordability crisis that's pushing working families to the brank,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: causing people to leave our state, creating so much stress
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: and heartache for folks. Let's bias toward action, particularly when
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: you're in an urban area, Let's build where.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: Are you and look, one of the first places that
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: I learned about eighty us. Okay, these is San Jose.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: I feel, I guess you guys were on the cutting
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: edge of this. I'm of mixed minds on this. I
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: just think that that that I can see the I
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: could see the uh, the immediate utility of it and
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: the potential like do we have I think we need
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: to update our landlord laws. We need to update our
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: There's going to be some issues that come into play
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: about Okay, who's got access to a driveway, who's got
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: access to a yard? Right? Do you think we are
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: we have enough up to date laws to protect both
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: tenants and owners here when it comes to these ad us.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: My senses, in California, we do. I mean I'm always
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: open to learning more and changing my opinion based on
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: on real data. I mean, we have very strong renter
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: or tenant protections.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: Some might might argue though, that they're so strong that
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: they're anti owners, and yeah, that you got to have
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: a balance here that that if you have a problem
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: tenant and you know it's going to take you three
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: years to deal with it, that's a big So then
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: that's too much.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think particularly so if it's a unit
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: in your backyard. Now, a lot of people who are
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: building eighty use or building them for family members. But
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, I hear you. I do think, you know,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: just common sense wise, we can go look at the
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: law and the process and try to get better data
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: on this. But if you've built an accessory, dwelling unit
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: and an in law unit in your backyard and somebody's
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: not paying the rent or there being a bad actor,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: and this is you know, your yard, your home, your
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: primary residence, I do think you need the ability to
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: tell the person that they that they've got to vacate
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: to promise that being said, you need some kind of
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: greatest period for the person bill to pack up and go. So,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: you know, striking that balance again kind of what the
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: job of policymakers is. I will tell you though, in
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: a city like San Jose that is relatively suburban and sprawling,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: you've said, you've been here, it's it's you know, a
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: lot of single family home neighborhoods eighty years are quite popular.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: In fact, twenty noticed a lot of mom Yeah, twenty
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: two percent of the new housing built in San Jose
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: every year are is a to us and they give
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: people flexibility they can have a family member. You have
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: your grandparent or your child returning from college who needs
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: to save up in order to be able to break
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: into the housing market. They can create income for folks.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: So that flexibility has been really valuable to a lot
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: of families that I think we should encourage it.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about affordability. And I'm gonna ask
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: probably a question that you may think is a gotcha,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: it's not meant to be. Are taxes too high in California?
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: Are there too many taxes or taxes too high? Or
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: is hey, it's California, welcome. You know, it's a privilege
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: to live here, and you know something's cost more.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: Taxes are really are high. We have the second highest
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: taxes in the country. They are mostly very progressive, which
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: I support. Those who make more, earn more, do better
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: in society should pay more back into the pot to
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: help everybody else. So I don't mind at all. In fact,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: I very much support the fact that we have one
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: of the most progressive tax structures in the country. In fact,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: the only I would say about that is is it
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: is a bit of a risk and vulnerability. Forty percent
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: of our in we charge an income tax. It's a
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: major source of revenue for the state. Forty percent of
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: that revenue, sometimes up to fifty percent comes from the
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: top one percent of earners each year. So we are
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: very concentrated and vulnerable to capital flight because it's the
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: top earners who pay most of the revenue. We also
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: have some of the oddly enough, some of the most
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: regressive taxes. And so if anything where I would look
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: to maybe, you know, modify things as something like our
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: gas tax. So wealthier folks are buying evs and are
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: sort of opting out of gas tax by doing that,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: and that's a good thing. We want EV adoption, we
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: want cleaner air, I'm all for it. But what's happening
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: by default is those who can't forty evs and are
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: still driving gas powered vehicles and driving longer distances, which
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: also happens to correlate with lower income communities like the
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: one I grew up in. Rural communities in particular, are
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: paying the disproportionate share of the nation's highest gas taxes
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: that go to maintaining the roads. So that needs to
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: be right sized. EV owners should be paying their fair
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: share to maintain the roads.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: What is the what is the calculation now I remember, well,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: I remember about ten years fifteen years ago now, the
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: state of Oregon piloted a program that would sort of
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: get rid of that move from a gas tax to
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: a user basically road user fee. And the idea was
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: you would get charged per mile that you used. And
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: of course the libertarian crowd went bonkers, Right, what do
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: you mean that's you know, privacy and all this stuff.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: But I understood that. I understood the the larger idea, Well,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: we've got to figure out not everybody's going to be
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: buying gas, so how do we How do we do this?
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: And I know, you know some states you get charged
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: an annual fee if you're an electric vehicle. That's this
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: what what should what is your plan to do this?
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: How would you level the playing field here?
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my preference would be just when it comes to
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: the road maintenance revenue, that we that we just do
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: a per vehicle fee, because a mileage tax is also
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: regressive like a gas tax.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: It really when you're what you just mentioned, when you know,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: a working class person may have to drive more because
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: they're a side hustle or whatever.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to drive. I had to go about
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: two hours to get to a really good high school
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: from my little town, and my parents drove an hour
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: and a half the other direction to get to their jobs.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: So I just I think a flat fee. Now we
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: do have a fee. We have a flat fee for evs,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: but when you look at what's actually paid, it is
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: set way too low. Our EV owners are paying on
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: the order of one hundred dollars a year. Are working
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: class families driving a gas powered vehicle or contributing over
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: three hundred per year to the rest? I would just
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: write size that. But look overall, let me answer your
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: bigger question on.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: Tax about the tax bill. Yeah, the average California.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: Is it's high. We've also locked in a lot of
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: expenditures and commitments we have, we have pension liabilities, we
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: have a lot of infrastructure to maintain. My goal right
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: now is and as governor, my goal would not be
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: too would be explicitly not to raise or lower. Maybe
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: we can write size to deal with some of the
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: regressive taxation. My goal is to make sure we spend better.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: I think we can get twenty thirty percent more impact
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: in terms of outcomes out of the dollars we're spending.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: And what I worry about in California is a complacency
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: that has set in where Sacramento, our state government is
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: basically captured by highly organized interests. We have single party rule,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: my party. We have controlled every statewide office for fifteen
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: years now, super majority in the legislature, the governor's office
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: and so forth. And every year revenue is going up
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: far faster than population growth or average income, and we're
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: not getting better outcomes. I mean, we are literally spending
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: seventy five percent more than six years ago, and not
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: one outcome that matters is better. The housing costs are
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: as unaffordable as ever, second hized energy costs, highest unemployment rate,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: highest poverty rate. So of our public schools are lagging
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: behind Mississippi and Louisiana and educating low income students. So
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: we just we have got to demand better before we
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: even think about asking people to pay more.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: There's some great pilot projects that they're doing down there.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: Kim Barksdale, former founder of Netscape, for what it's worth,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: has done some innovative work down there with with phonics,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: with teacher training. It is the young early reader stuff
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: has been terrific in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama. So definitely take
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: a look at that. Look there's I look again. I'm
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: not here to force a fight on the force a
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: fight on you, or force you to criticize somebody. But
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: that's anplicit criticism of the last two democratic governors a
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: little bit or certainly democratic governance. So let me ask
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: you this on Gavin Newsom, what's he gotten right and
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: what's he gotten wrong?
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: But I think what the governor has understood and been
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: willing to push on is in certain areas that we
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: need reform, and he's laid some of the groundwork. And
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: so let me tell you, we all I want to
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: just be sure to give him give him credit. On education,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: there's a lack of accountability. He's proposed that we align
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: accountability all the way up to the governor's office. Right now,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: we have a separate superintendent of schools statewide who's elected
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: and runs the Department of Education. The governor does not
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: have executive authority over the education department. Huge problem. We're
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: one of just a dozen states who has that structure.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: Would you like to get rid of the elected state
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: public school instructor? Do you think that that's an office
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: that probably shouldn't be an elected position.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know that it matters as long as basically
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: what Governor Newsom has proposed, which I agree with, is
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: keep the office, but have it be a sort of watchdog,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: umbudsman and advocate for parents. Don't have it be the
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: executive authority over an entire or.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: Like a comptroller. More like the way a comptroller works
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: with finances right here.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: Monitor the spending, to be the advocate for the parents
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: and students. But the governor is the chief executive of
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: the state and the Department of Education on a report
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: directly up into the governor. So that's one I totally
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: agree with. He sees the need for reform there. On housing,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: we talked earlier. The Governor and I are completely aligned
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: on the importance of interim solutions. In fact, it's his
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: state budgets that have helped fund the solutions that we've
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: championed in San Jose. Now we've done it faster, better,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: more cost effectively than any other city in the state.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: But we're aligned there. He also recognizes the need for
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: an alternative on treatment for addiction for mental health, put
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: forward things like care Court Proposition one, which expands treatment beds.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: The area where I think we differ is I am
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: very I'm very execution focused, and I have been willing
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: to take on members of my own party, highly organized
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: interests in some cases disagree with the governor, the most
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: prominent example being Prop thirty six, where I believe that
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: if someone is repeatedly committing crime due to addiction, at
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: some point they should be given a clear choice between
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: treatment and jail. And that was an area where he
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: and I just just fundamentally disagreed. That's a philosophic difference.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: I've had a family member who spent time on the
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: streets with addictions, so I maybe just have a different
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: perspective on the level of intervention that's needed to save
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: someone's life. But look, I think he's had a lot
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: of the right directionally, a lot of the right ideas.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: My focus, though, it will be on following through and
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: making sure people actually use care, court actually implement Prop
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: thirty six, build those beds. And we're when our execution
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: is bad, when we're too slow and too expensive to
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: execute a good idea. We have to be willing to
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: do something I haven't seen anyone in Sacramento do enough
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: of in recent years, which is take on the interest
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: groups the highly organized interests, from trial lawyers to public
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: sector unions to corporate interests who have a veto right
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: now in Sacramento, and this is kind of becoming the
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: case in our democracy everywhere. Highly organized interests have a
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: veto over change because they're so organized and they don't
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: want anything to change. They want to protect a status
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: quo that protects them. So it's the vetoocracy that I'm
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: worried about, and I just haven't seen anybody challenge that
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: because it's painful.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: How much do you think the governor's been stifled by
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: a by the super majority in the legislature.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't help. But look, I'm as a as
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: you know, my own my own person a different everybody is,
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: everybody's different. I would be more active in putting legislators
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: on the spot and demanding results and getting behind candidates
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: for the legislature who reflected a common sense, problem solving mentality.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: And like, so if you get elected governor, you're going
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: to be a little more active in state legislative races,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: both Assembly and Senate.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: I think we need we need a significant change in
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: the political culture of California, one that is that is
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: really centered on accountability for outcomes. I say this because
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: this has been my experience as mayor of San Jose,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: where I have had to overcome the objections of highly
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: organized interests who liked the city budget being spent the
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: way that it was spent. I've had to overcome the
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: opposition of colleagues on my city council who also were
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: wedded to the same old way of doing things. And
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: if you want to create change, it should always be
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: rooted in solid core values and a clear sense of
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: where you're trying to go. But you have to be
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: willing to take on the big fights. And our inability
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: to take on the big fights and solve our problems
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: despite spending more and more is frankly giving a lot
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: of ammunition to the MAGA movement, to a president that
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: thinks that might makes right. We are, you know, we
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: talk about being the resistance and pushing back and fighting
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: against trump Ism, and yet we're not minding the story here.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: If we don't fix our problems and show that our
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: values actually deliver results for working people in practice, we
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: don't have any credibility.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: The best way, the best case against MAGA movement or
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: trump Ism is governance.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: The best resistence. Yea, the best resistances results.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I I uh as somebody who considers themselves
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: an incrementalist and a pragmatist. That's you know, I understand,
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: I understand the passionate frustration that's out there in some
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: forms of MAGA movement. Not every you know, there's some
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: that are there for their own reasons, but there are
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: others that are frustrated with the system. Hey, you know,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that I think find themselves
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: in that camp. All right, I mean, let's land the
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: plane here and let's talk about the elephant in the
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: room or the donkeys in the room, and the math
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: problem that the jungle primary is creating, the pressure that
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you're feeling many Democratic candidates running for governor
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: feeling because you've got two Republicans who both have just
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: an enough traction that the likelihood they could take the
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: two slots be one two and end up being you know,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: it's Steve Hilton and Chad Biaco, right, and there's you know,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: this might be only forty percent of the state once
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: a Republican. Sixty percent may want a Democrat, but their
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: choice may not be on the ballot because of so
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: many Democrats splitting the vote. How much of a concern
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: is this to you, and how mindful of you are
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: of this?
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: You know, Jeuck To be honest with you, I am
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: not that concerned about I think there's been a lot
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: of inks billed on this. I think it is overblown.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: Most voters are not paying attention to have People are
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: busy doing their jobs, paying their bills, raising their kids.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: As voters start to tune in, you will see some consolidation.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: Right now, undecided is beating everyone, and it's overwhelmingly Yeah,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: and it's overwhelmingly Democratic and independent voters who are undecided.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: When Republicans see name the name on the ballot with
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: Republican next to it in a state where they haven't
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: won statewide office in fifteen years, they say, yeah, I
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 2: like that guy who's a Republican. So we have a
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: lot of time for this field to consolidate. And I
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 2: jumped in because no one was saying what's wrong with
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: the state of California. Everybody in my party wants to
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: simply blame somebody else for the problem. And I think
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: as Democrats, we have to remember that the best resistance
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 2: is delivering results, and we have to take ownership of
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: our public policy shortcomings and be really honest with voters
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: that we can do better. But it's going to mean
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: taking on the interest within our own party. It's going
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: to mean changing things in a way that won't always
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: be popular. And so I just I think I thought
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: it was critically important to get into this race, to
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: speak to all of those undecided and disillusioned voters. There
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: has been very low enthusiasm for the field up until now.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: People are now starting to tune in, and I'm saying
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: something very different, and I think we're going to see
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: as we marched Sport election day, is people hear that message.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to resonate. I'm seeing that as
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: I travel around the state. I was down on the border,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: you know, looking at the crisis of ross sewage flowing
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: into the country through the two on a river. I
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: walked a skid row and we talked about the failures
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: on homelessness Alta Dina and the Palisades and our issues
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: with with how slow and expensive it is to build housing.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: As we go around the state and talk to people
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 2: about what's broken and why and how to fix it,
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 2: We're getting an enthusiastic response. My biggest challenge is most
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: Californias still don't know who I am. So thank you
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 2: for leading me on the show.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: No, I get it. Look, you're you're doing something that's
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: quite difficult, which is to run from a merit one,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: a singular mayor seat right anytime. I mean, it's just
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: only only thing harder, I would argue is congressional is
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: running from a congressional seat. But let me let me
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: ask it, me, let me ask you this. You know
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: you're look, I'm somebody, I'm I'm I think both parties
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: are broken. I'm somebody who thinks it. Frankly, the only
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: way they're going to fix themselves is if they if
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: an independent of some sort or for a movement of
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: some sort of sort of you know, voters demand it.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: There's a reason why the fastest growing party is no party.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: And I don't care what state in the Union you
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: go to, California is no exception, particularly with voters under
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: the age of thirty, you know. And to me, it's
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: pretty logical. Right, they've watched this, they've grown up in
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: this polarized environment, and they're like, neither party seems to
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: want to solve a problem. They're just reaction being They're
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: just reactionary politics. Why are you staying? Why did you
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: stay as a Democrat? You could have run as a
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: no party candidate, and in some ways you are advocating
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: for me. It sounds like a sort of more independent
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's small I capital D is what
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: you're going for. But why you know that the D
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: next to your name? Some people who want change will think, well,
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: we've had Democratic governors sixteen years in a row now,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: which is I'm trying to the last time California went
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: longer than that? I think you have to go back
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: to the thirties. Do you worry that the D next
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: to your name is not going to indicate to voters
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: that you're a change candidate.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: Look, I'm a I'm a different kind of Democrat who
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 2: reserves the right to think, Uh, you know, think for myself,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: be independent in my thinking about policy issues and solutions.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: But I still believe the Democratic Party is fixable. I
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: grew up in a party whose core values I deeply
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: identify with. I grew up in a working class community where,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: you know, my folks and most people we lived around
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: were generally paycheck to paycheck, and when the party gets
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: back to its roots and gets back to solving problems,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: we expand opportunity for people. We create better schools, we
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: build infrastructure, We make sure the economy is inclusive and
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: that people don't left behind. We make sure people have
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: access to healthcare. But we need to upgrade the platform
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: because we're still trying to do things the way we
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: did in the twentieth century, where the answer to every
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: problem is if we just have more tax revenue and
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: more programs, we're going to fix it. And at some
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: point we've got to make government smarter, more responsive, more efficient.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: We're the party that needs government to work. We believe
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: in government as a force for good. That's why I'm
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 2: a Democrat. My sense is, you know, many of the
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: folks on the other side of the aisle, if you will,
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: are more interested in just kind of hobbling and shrinking
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: and making government as fall as it can be. And
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 2: that's kind of an endless debate. But for where I'm at,
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: it's not about making government smaller or bigger. It's especially
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: in a state with the very high tax burden we
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: have in California, let's give people value for their dollars.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: Let's make sure we're making people's lives better. So I
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: just yeah, I grew up in a Democratic party. I
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: believe in the core values. I think the party is salvagible.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: But I'm running as a different kind of Democrat to
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: try to make the case for a different kind of politics,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: whereas by opponents in the race are kind of offering
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: more of the same.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: No, the only thing, Look, I get what you're trying
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: to do, and my skepticism is not about what you're
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: trying to do. My skepticism is in the voters, meaning
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: voters right now are very in the moment, particularly Democratic voters,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: and they're very frustrated with the current presidential administration, and
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: in many ways, right that's the you know, and they
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: gravitate towards the resistance warriors, particularly in a campaign. You know,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: I think if you put them in a focus group,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of them would agree with many of the
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: premises you're saying. But you know, sometimes this is more
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: emotional than intellectual. That's that's your challenge. Do you think
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: you're going to be you think that you're not. You
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: could come up short because you don't bash Trump enough.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of faith in the common sense
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: of the voters of the people of California. I've knocked
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: on well over ten thousand doors, I have spoken with
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: tens of thousands of people over my six years now
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 2: in public life, and I think when people start to
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 2: tune into this race, hear what the candidates have to say.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 2: I think people's common sense intuition on this is that, yes,
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: we want to elect a Democrat who's going to fight
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 2: for our values nationally, somebody who understands that Trump is
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: an existential threat to our values in our way of life,
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: and we need to fight through the courts and through
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: the bully pulpit and do everything we can to offer
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: an alternative. But I also think they understand. I think
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: this is actually true across Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 2: that in California, for most of our challenges around public school,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: housing costs, energy costs, we can't blame anybody else. We
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: need to take ownership of our mistakes, We need to
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: take control of our own destiny, and we need to
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: solve our problems because that's actually the best counter to
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: this populist, authoritarian strain in our politics.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: And I I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: about the so called wealth tax, I given your answer
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: you gave to me earlier about how the income how
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: how much of the income tax revenue comes from a
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: very tiny percentage of Californians. I'm guessing I have an
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: idea of where you are in the wealth tax, but
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: i'll let you articulated.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my view of it is there are a number
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: of other things we should be doing to make the
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 2: tax code fairer and to make sure that the wealthiest
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: amongst us pay their fair share. And as you've heard,
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: I'm worried about regressive taxation, income inequality, and opportunity gaps.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: That's been kind of my whole career is thinking about
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: those issues. I I am not supportive of the wealth
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 2: tax specifically because I don't think it'll work, and I
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: think it will actually ultimately burden middle class and working
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 2: families in California because billionaires aren't going to pay this tax.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: Half of them have already left the state. Since it's
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: been proposed, We've seen over a trillion dollars in capital flight.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: I'm interested in what works, and what works in this
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: case is and I know it's harder, but if we're
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: going to be intellectually honest about this. We need to
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: fight at the federal level over things like what should
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: the capital gains tax rate be. I don't believe you
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: should be able to borrow endlessly against your appreciated assets
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: and never have to pay a capital gain. That's a
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: huge loophole. I don't believe Elon mushould be able to
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: pass five hundred billion dollars worth of appreciated stock onto
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 2: his kids have it rebased at market rate. The day
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 2: that they inherit it, they can turn around and sell
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: it and pay no capital gains. That's wrong. So there's
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: a lot we can do to deal with the wealth
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: inequality in this country. But a wealth tax targeting two
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: hundred people in one state is doomed to backfire and
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: mean higher costs for middle class families.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of Democrats that are against this,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: but it feels nobody wants to be on the side
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: of defending billionaires. But you're making I mean, there's there's
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: just a fiscal I get it.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: About defending the billionaires, though, It's just like, I mean,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: you have to think about the second order effects things,
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: and the truth is, I mean, again, we've got to
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: be honest with people and trust that people. You know,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: people are smart. People will get it. They will if
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 2: you are if you respect them enough to tell them
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 2: the truth. I think you, over time breakthrough and people
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: get it. It won't be the billionaires who pay this tax,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 2: if it's past, It'll be the rest of us.
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: Do you worry that's going to be the litmus test
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: between you know, two of your leading opponents are pretty
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: pretty in favor of it, I believe.
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they are. They're in favor of a lot
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: of things that don't make sense, frankly, and they'd rather
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: blame Donald Trump for all of our problems. And look,
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: I have deep concern about Donald Trump. We've sued him
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 2: a number of times in San Jose, and I'll fight
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: them as hard as anybody as governor. But again, if
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 2: the Democrat Party in California isn't willing to take ownership
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: of our public policy failures and start bringing down the
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: cost of housing, of the cost of energy, and improving
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: our public schools, We've got another thing common. We're going
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: to see a maga movement in California, which is what
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 2: scares me. So let's actually start owning our problems. And
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 2: take control of our destiny and make government work for people.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, Mayor Matt Mahon, it's been good to
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: get to know you. I appreciate it. And you know,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: as long as it's not been the best of years
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: for California basketball, has it for college basketball? I don't
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: feel like you got enough. You know, a lot of
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: years you will get University of San Francisco, you might
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: get others in there, UCLA. You know, I mean, are
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: you going to do something about all this West coast
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: flight to these conferences in the Midwest and the East coast?
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: Listen, Chuck, I got to focus and prioritize. I can't
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 2: solve every problem. I'll leave that one to you.
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I know there's a lot of sports fans that
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: are frustrated that all those West Coast teams always have
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: to sit on an airplane. There is there is a
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: there's got to be a better way. But you're right,
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: go worry about how homelessness and housing first, and then
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: we'll go. We'll get somewhere be safe in the campaign trail.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you coming on.
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I have to tell you I'm obsessed with all
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: things California Governor, Right, now I'm really curious to see
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: how these Democrats are going to shake out. Will somebody
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: catch up to Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell and Tom Stier.
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: I will tell you this, I think the weakest candidacy
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: is actually Tom Styers when you think about the amount
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: of money he is spent and how little support he has.
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: If any other Democrat has spent had the same amount
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: of money spent on their behalf, Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: Matt Man, Antonio Via Ragosa, you name it, anybody else
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: with the amount of money that's Styer spent, I promise
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: you they'd be doing they'd be highering the polls in Styre.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: So I do think that we know with no matter
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: how much money he spends, he's got a hard ceiling,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: and I just can't imagine he's going to find his
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: way in the top two. I know he's trying to
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: buy it. He may he may destroy Swallwell in the process,
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: but my guess is he will help candidate see somewhere
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: on the Democratic side breakthrough whoever candidates see ends up being.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: Is it Katie Porter, I'm skeptical. Is it Matt Man
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: hasn't gotten traction yet? Is it via ra Gosa. I'm
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: not going to rule it out, but I'm skeptical as well.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: But we'll see. But something's going to break here, somebody
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: will start rallying. It'll and the person that it's going
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: to be interesting to watch Gavin Newsoman and all this
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: because it would be really embarrassing if his party can't
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: get a Democrat in the top two. But he doesn't
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: really have an air parent and frankly, many of these
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: Democrats are kind of criticizing him in this so it
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: is kind of a mess there. And let's just say
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of Democrats in California. Glad
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: that there's a couple more months to work this out.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: All right, it is time machine time. As you know.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: I like to take an anniversary of this week that
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: we're living in, so March thirtieth through April fifth, historical
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: events that have taken place within this seven day period.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: There were a lot this week to choose from to
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: one assassination attempt Ronald Reagan, one historic assassination tragic in
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior. That is not the direction we're
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: going today. We're going to go to nineteen forty nine,
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: April fourth, nineteen forty nine, inside Washington, d C. Representatives
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: from twelve countries signed a treaty creating something that was
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: brand new in American history, a permanent military alliance, the
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO. Now it doesn't sound radical today,
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: but for the United States in nineteen forty nine, this
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: was radical because for most of its history America avoided
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: permanent alliances. George Washington himself warned against permanent alliances, and
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: in fact, there was a belief that so many wars
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: in Europe took place because of these alliances between monarchies
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: that forced countries to take part in wars that maybe
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: they had no issue with and no business being it.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: And in fact, after World War One, the United States
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: refused to even join the League of Nations, which was
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: an idea by an American. So the real question is
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: not just what NATO is. The real question is why
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: did it take two World wars for the United States
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: to decide it needed one. After War One, there was
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: an attempt at collective security the League of Nations. The
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: idea was similar countries would cooperate to prevent future wars,
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: but there were two fatal flaws. First, the United States
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: never joined. That was a big one. The Senate rejected
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: the membership in the League of Nations. Americans were very
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: wary of foreign entanglement. Second, the League had no enforcement mechanism,
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: no binding military commitment, so when aggression came in the
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, the League couldn't condemn it, but it couldn't
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: stop it. That failure shaped everything that came next. After
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: World War II, the calculation changed. The United States wasn't withdrawing,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: it was staying, and the threat wasn't theoretical. It was
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. Between nineteen forty five and nineteen four
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: forty nine, Eastern Europe fell under Soviet control, the Communist
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: coup in then Czechoslovakia, the Berlin Blockade. In fact, Churchill's
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: famous Iron Curtain wasn't just rhetoric, it was actually a
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: map that he was trying to show and visualized. Western
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: Europe could not defend itself alone, and for the first time,
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: the United States accepted something new. Security couldn't be temporary,
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: it had to be permanent. But that idea still had
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: to pass the skeptical United States Senate. The breakthrough came
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: with the Van den Berg Resolution in nineteen forty eight,
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: one year before NATO was born. Senator Arthur Vandenberg helped
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: shift American foreign policy towards internationalism, but he did it
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: very carefully. The key condition he came up with was
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: that any alliance that the United States got into must
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: preserve Congress's authority over war. That constraint would end up
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: shaping the NATO Treaty. The North Atlantic Treaty did not
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: pass automatically. The Senate debated it for ten days because
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: the central issue was would NATO automatically commit the United
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: States to war or would Congress still be the decider
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: on that. I know what you're thinking at the moment
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: here you're like, well, wait a minute, Congress is not
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: the decider. Even now we're in a war and they
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: didn't do a thing about it. I know, but let
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: me finish this. So Article five was written the way
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: it was in order to navigate this question. Each country
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: would take quote such action as it deems necessary, so
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: it was an automatic war. It did allow for some
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: constitutional discretion. That language made ratification possible, So in July
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: twenty first, nineteen forty nine, the Senate approved that April
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: Fourth Treaty eighty two to thirteen strong support, but it
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: took real debate and some compromise. At the center of
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: NATO was Article five. You've heard it before. An attack
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: on one is considered an attack on all. For the
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: United States, that was a big lead a permanent security
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: commitment to Europe. Now there were twelve original members, the
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Italy,
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: and Portugal. That was a North Atlantic alliance, was not global,
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: and it was not open ended. It specifically was focused
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: on Europe and North America. Now NATO would expand, first
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty two and then again in nineteen fifty five.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: In fifty two, Greece and Turkey would join, But the
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: most consequential decision was nineteen fifty five when West Germany joined.
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: Only ten years after World War II, the West integrated
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: a re armed Germany into its defense system. Not everybody
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: was thrilled with that idea. For countries like France, that
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: was deeply uncomfortable, but the logic was clear. Germany would
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: be safer inside the system than outside it, and the
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: payoff was real. West Germany became a stable democracy and
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: eventually would become Europe's largest economy and really the political
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: anchor of the continent. So for decades NATO had a
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: simple purpose contained the Soviet Union, and it worked not
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: by fighting a war, but by making one too costly
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: to start deterrence. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and NATO
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: lost its original purpose. The question became does NATO still exist? Well,
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: the answer was yes, but the reason changed. NATO expanded
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: eastward in nineteen ninety nine Poland, Hungary, and the Czech
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: Republic one half of Czechoslovakia would join. In two thousand
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: and four the Baltic States, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, they all
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: would join, and later Albania, which borders on the Adriatic,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: which we all learned if you watched enough Cheers episodes. Sorry,
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: I couldn't help myself. There's always a little coach in me.
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: It's an easter egg for some of you. Later though, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: North Macedonia, and of course, most recently, the two that
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: the Russias War with Ukraine triggered Finland and Sweden for
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: new members, NATO mense security for Russia. It meant encroachment.
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: Both perceptions have shaped modern geopolitics. Then there's Ukraine. Ukraine
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: sits at the center of this tension and it always has.
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, NATO decided said that Ukraine
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: would eventually join, but it didn't provide immedia protection created
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: a gray zone. This turned out to be a catastrophic
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: decision by the way by NATO in two thousand and eight.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: In hindsight, easy to say now understandably why they didn't
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: do it then, but it was enough promised to matter politically,
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: but not enough commitment to deter a conflict. Ukraine became
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: the most dangerous space between alliance and non alliance, and
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: obviously we now know we didn't do enough. Biggest what if?
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: Biggest what if is if we'd let Ukraine join, would
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: rush it ever invaded. But here's another part that many
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: people miss about NATO. Article five has only been invoked
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: once after the September eleventh attacks by the United States.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: It's not just a historical detail, it's a reminder that
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: alliance has become real in both directions, and once alliance
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: has become real, they also become testable, which brings us
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: to today. For decades, the primary pressure on NATO came
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: from the outside. Now there's pressure from within. In the
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: United States, skepticism about NATO's resurfaced in the form of
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: one Donald Trump. He has repeatedly questioned the value of
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: the allign alliance, particularly where the United States should guarantee
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: the defensive countries that do not meet defense spending expectations. Frankly,
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: he doesn't think we should be warring. It be brought
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: into a conflict by a country that's below us, whatever
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: that means to him. And obviously he's he believes if
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: NATO doesn't do whatever he wants them to do, like
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: secure the strait of war moves. Because he stumbled into
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: a war with Iron without a plan, he gets angry
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: that NATO won't bail him out. Now he hasn't withdrawn
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: from NATO, but he has introduced something pretty new for
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: this alliance, the idea that American commitment is simply conditional.
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: And this idea that American alliances are conditional, America's relationship
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: is conditional. This is a huge problem. America used to
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: be a reliable partner because it didn't matter if we
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: had a Democratic president or Republican president. They were always there.
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: For Europe. They were always there for NATO because NATO
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: isn't just a millilitary structure, it's a psychological one. Deterrence
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: depends on belief, and up until Donald Trump, there was
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: full belief in NATO left and right in this country,
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: democratic republican president eLife. Now at the same time, Europe's
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: begun asking its own question, how dependent should it be
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: in the United States? Germany is shifting to its post
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: Ukraine shift towards a major defense investments. It's part of
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: the answer. So it's the broader conversation about European strategic economy,
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: but it raises some tensions. Is Europe's strengthening NATO or
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: preparing for a world where it may need to operate
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: without it? So NATO's identity crisis has evolved. It's no
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: longer just what is NATO for after the Cold War?
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: It's now how permanent is the American commitment? How independent
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: should Europe become? And can an alliance built on uncertainty
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: function in an era of political uncertainty? I might also
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: are you should it just be about North America and
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: Europe or should we should this umbrella of deterrence include
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: continents like South America, Asia, Africa, at least for countries
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: that would like that kind of protection. But all of
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: it brings us back to April fourth, nineteen forty nine.
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: It was a moment when the United States made a
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: decision it had resisted for more than a century to
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: tie its security to others, not temporarily but permanently, because
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: it had learned twice as standing apart actually carried greater risk.
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: We thought we were protected being surrounded by two oceans
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: and not involved in that and not living on that
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: content that not to be true. So NATO wasn't born
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: out of idealism. It was born out of failure, and
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: ironically that's why it's lasted. But how it evolves after this,
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: and what happens to Ukraine after this war ends, it's
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: probably going to tell us a lot about whether NATO
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: has the ability to survive in perpetuity. So there you go.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: There's your history lesson for the week, ask Chuck. All right,
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: let's take some questions. First one comes from Ira Shulman,
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: and Ira writes, longtime listener and fan. During the last election,
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: women's rights were at the top of every news story.
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: We were told by almost every new outlet that inflation
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: was transitory and that regular people did not know how
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: great the economy was. You talked about the price of check,
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: and now it's about affordability. How come no candidates talk
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: about job creation? Aren't good paying jobs that protect the
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: social safety net? You know, it's interesting, it's not just
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: job creation, and I think that's an issue that I think, frankly,
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: it's because there's no politicians. They don't know where the
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: next jo are coming from. We're not, We don't. The
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: scary part about the transition we're in right now is
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: we know we're in. We're transitioning rapidly to UH, an
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: economy that's going to be powered in some form by
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, and that this is going to be a
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: massive transformation. And we in history says when we have
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: these massive technological transitions like we did with the Industrial Revolution,
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: that there are a bunch of jobs that go away,
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: and there's a bunch of new jobs that come up,
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: but we don't know what they all look like yet.
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: And you're right that we're not in so, you know,
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: even five years ago, I think the Democratic answer to
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: what the new jobs looked like was all things. You know,
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: it was really only a clean energy world that they
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: were focused on. I think the Trump answer has been
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: if if we get rid of illegal immigration, there'll be
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: a lot more jobs that they're ready for people in
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: the United States. I don't think that's not to be true,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: and it is, you know, clearly when when the political
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: winds shift, these clean energy jobs just totally disappear. So
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: I think the answer your first question come, no Cani's
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: talk about job creation at the moment. I don't think
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: they know where the jobs are coming from. You know,
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: you hear some of it on the left having to
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: do with, you know, some sort of energy transition jobs.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: You certainly we talk about these you know, chip manufacturing
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: and the and the buildouts that are necessary in order
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: to support artificial intelligence and sort of a temporary you know,
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: And you're hearing more and more commentators going, hey, the
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: great new jobs are going to be things like being
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: a plumber and being an electrician, And you're like, Okay,
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: that's the answer for some people, but that's not you know,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: what's the next job revolution going to look like? Or
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: are we going to have to start debating a larger
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: social safety net, universal basic income, expanded childcare tax credit,
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: shorter work weeks. Right, where is all that coming from?
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: So what's interesting? I is your question to me crystallizes
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: how why democratic messaging these days in particular feels more
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: reactionary rather than forward looking. Right, and the new ideas
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: are about job creation the way don't seem to have
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: the traction. I think because clean energy is not seen
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: as sort of embraced in that sixty to sixty five
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: percent larger core of the American lector, which I frankly
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: thought we were on our way to pre Trump. I
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: think that's been hard to visualize. Another issue I'd throw
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: out there. So when you don't have the good paying
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: job issue to push and talk about job creation, because
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: right now it feels like it's job replacement R this
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: AI replacement of jobs, then you should be talking about education.
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: And that's another area where Democrats are just decided not
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: to put education as front and center as they once did.
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: I would love to steer you back to my conversation
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: with Ram Emmanuel a couple probably about three or four
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: weeks ago, where he talked about this is all he's
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: been doing is going around the stump talking about education,
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: and he noted with me how much Democrats have sort
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: of let that drop off the national conversation, and you know,
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: I think there's a reason, and I particularly with Latino voters.
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: I think the reason Latino voters have been more open
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: to Republicans is the more they talk about education a
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: lot more. Some of it has to do with school
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: choice things like that, but they're talking about the education issue.
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: Democrats largely have not in the way that they even
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: used to just ten or fifteen years ago. Next question
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: comes from Jim. Jim writes, Hey, the Strait of Ormuz
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: has such an international impact due to a Ran disclosure
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: of it as leverage. What else is out there that
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: is the equivalent of the Strait of Ormus that other
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: countries have potential leverage out there? Well, that's the Panama Canal,
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: there's the Suez Canal. Right, you know, you've got I
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: think what you would argue the Strait of Taiwan is
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: one of these things. So you know, some of these
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: big choke points that could be the cause. Right, geography
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: can have be a cause of war, simple geography, but
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: it's it is you know, we learn this in science
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: fiction if you follow Star Wars, right, what really triggers
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: the war? Between the between the empire and the rebellion.
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: It was trade. Right, when you block trade, when you
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: limit economic opportunity or growth and whatever way you want
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: to in trade is essentially one of those things that
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: is usually some sort of trigger, right, you do an embargo,
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: you do whatever you're doing there that can easily trigger
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: a violent response. And so I think it's it's it's
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: essentially the big shipping lanes are the big ones. You
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: have the Panama, the Suez, and the Strait of Ormons.
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: So those those three, so Suez would be up there
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: by Egypt, Panama Canals, Panama. We know Donald Trump was
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: concerned that the Chinese were going to get control of
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: the Panama Canal. And then if you have the Trait
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: of Taiwan, and there's an interview I'm gonna have pretty
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: soon about sort of potential preparing for a war with
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: China over Taiwan and just sort of how you know
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: how those shipping those those shipping lanes, and that part
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: near Taiwan is a very contested space. So those would
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: be the first the first that jump out at me,
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: Nick Radovic or Radovic, we'll see how I did there,
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: you'll tell me. I hope Nick, He goes, Hey, it
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: never occurred to me that Trump conflated political asylum with
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: insane asilence. I think you're right. Thanks for the laugh
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: this morning. I wish I were making this up, but
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: it's pretty clear to me he's doing it. I mean, look,
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: we learned this right excursion incursion. I mean, you know,
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: he's not the first we all I butcher, as I
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: just did with your last name. I butcher pronunciations all
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: the time. So I am not going to mock anybody
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: that Butcher's pronunciations or anything like this. You know, I
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: love somebody said this, Hey, never criticize somebody that mispronounces
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: something because it means they attempted to read. And I
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: thought that's a I like that. But yeah, it's pretty
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: it's pretty clear that he doesn't quite understand the word asylums.
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: And I wish I were kidding, but I don't think
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: I am Robin San Francisco rites. Hey, your recent comments
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: in democratic leadership got me thinking. I grew up in
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: the UK, where each party is a single leader who
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: speaks for it at all times. In the US, that
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: voice is perpetually split between the national committees, the Senate
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: and the House, with real unity only emerging briefly when
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: a presidential nominee has chosen. Since twenty fifteen, Republicans have
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: had one dominant voice in Trump. Is the Democrats problem
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: less about individual leaders and more about a structural inability
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: to consolidate messaging? And if so, is there any realistic fix?
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: Rob in San Francisco. Well, I'd argue anytime a party
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: is out of power for a period of time, or
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: certainly when they lose a well known leader, they struggle,
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: like I so take you know, Democrats were you know,
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: there were sort of a series of singular Republicans that
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: spoke for the party at Nixon, then Nixon transitioned to Reagan.
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: You had the Kennedy and Johnson in the sixties, and
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: then you sort of Carter never really grabbed that mantle,
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: and so that there was you know, so, but you
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: could argue who was the leader of the Republican Party
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: during the Obama era? Right, they were constantly searching for one.
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: It really wasn't McCain. If it was, they would have
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: had an immigration deal. Right, McCain was leading in somebody's
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: leading the party down that road, but it got him nowhere, Right,
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: Romney wasn't really a leader of the party ended up
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: the nominee. So I think in this case it's this
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: is when you when you get a presidency for two terms,
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: A lot of times you know you have that, and
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: then it's the other party that is constantly looking for
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: a back look the singing. Having the presidency makes it
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: look like your party has a leader. When you don't
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: have the presidency, it looks like everything is split into
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: different factions because everything is split into different factions right A.
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: Usually somebody that successfully gets elected president means they've figured
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: out how to bring their party together, create a coalition
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: that might be slightly bigger than their party. Now, I
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: would argue that neither that. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris have struggled to create a coalition that's bigger
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: than their party. Barack Obama created a coalition that was
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: bigger than his party. Bill Clinton created a coalition that
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: was slightly bigger than his party. Ronald Reagan created a
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: coalition as bigger his party. When you hit that point,
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: I think that's when you feel like you can put
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: your party together, and that's why you know, what direction
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: does the party take? Choosing its next presidential nominee. And
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: then when that person is chosen, how do they choose
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: to lead? Right? Are they going to try to be
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: a sixty percent president or are they going to try
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: to be a fifty percent plus one president. There's a difference, Right,
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: If you're striving for sixty percent approval, you're going to
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: disappoint your base more often than the base would like.
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: If it's fifty percent plus one, then you're going to
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: lean more heavily on your base, and you're essentially going
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: to put the center into a put them in a
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: tough position to make a choice between something that goes
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: too far in one direction versus something that goes too
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: far in the other direction. But that's why we have elections,
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: and that's what I think we're going to learn a
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: little bit in twenty six and a lot of it
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: in twenty eight. Next question does not have a name
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: on It looks like it's from anonymous, but I'll read
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: it anyway. I've been thinking about whether there should be
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment requiring that any presidential pardon be approved
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: by a two thirds vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: as a simple check on that power and to prevent
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: potential abuse, especially in cases involving family members are close associates.
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: Do you think a reform like that is realistic or constitutional?
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 1: Is there any serious discussion in legal or political circles
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: about putting limits on presidential pardon power? Well, I hope
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: you checked out the interview I had with Jolly Johnny
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: Congressman Johnny Olachski. God, I hope I got that right. Anyway,
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: Johnny O Baltimore, congressman who introduced the has introduced a
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: constitutional amendment to see if you can get Congress to pass.
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: It has at least one Republican co sponsor, Don Bacon,
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: and it is a it's similar to what you're describing.
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: It's essentially the ability for Congress to nullify a presidential pardon.
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: And now it would take you know, two essentially two thirds. Essentially,
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: this what it takes to overwrite a presidential veto is
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: what it would take to overwrite a presidential pardon. But
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: just putting that check in there, I think it's I think,
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: you know, I kind of like where you're going. I
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: think we should have a pardon board. I think we
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: should even just get rid of the singular power that
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: the president has to do this. I think it should
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: have been a board from the very beginning, and it
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: has always been one of these head scratches to me,
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: like what why why did the founders who were revolting
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: against the monarch give the president a power that only
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: a monarch used to have. So the point is is
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: that you're going to need a constitutional amendment in order
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: to notify a presidential pardon. So it does have to
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: be a constitutional amendment, or else it wouldn't be constitutional.
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: I know that's redundant to say it that way, but basically,
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: Congress could pass no law without a constitutional amendment that
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: would have any impact on denying a presidential art Next question,
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: another one here, hundred percent sure we have I don't
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: think we have a name on this one either, more
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: anonymous question. I like it, Hey, I've been a long
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: time listener since your days at Meet the Press. Appreciate it,
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: Love your podcast and always listen to it during my
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: walks or on long car trips. I know, and I
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: keep getting longer for you, so you're going to need
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: to do longer card trips. Two things I think you
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: often call Michigan Senate hopeful Mallory McMorrow by the wrong.
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: First name. I think you're right. I don't say Mallory.
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: I call her Molly McMorrow. You are one hundred percent
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: right my error. Thank you for pointing that out. I
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: think she has a bright future in Michigan national politics.
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: I do do. In fact, I think she's if she
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: wins the primary, she wins the Senate race. I think
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: i'd read it's interesting she seems to be the Goldilocks candidate.
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: You know, you have three candidates. Don't mean to like
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: beat up that thing, right, you have one it appears
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: a bit too progressive, one of it appears a bit
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: too establishment, and I think Mallory I keep calling her Molly,
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: and thank you for fixing that. Is doing a pretty
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: good jobs splitting the difference. Sometimes he's put the difference
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: and you can disappoint everybody. In this case, I think
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: it's going to work. Second, I love your interview with
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: floridattorney John Morgan. Yes, mister Morgan and Morgan, you think
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: Morgan will pull the trigger and run for Florida governor
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: as independent? Seems like we are too close to the
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: election if he jumps in this slate. Mike Duggan, an
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: independent former Democratic mayor of Detroit has been running for
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: Michigan gov since he was still in the mayor's office.
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: During your interview, Morgan seemed like he was all in
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: on the race for Florida governor. I think voters in
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: Florida are looking for something different, especially after two terms
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: of Ron DeSantis. Thanks for all you do. I look
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: forward to listening to every episode you drop. I appreciate
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: you asking. Look, I think it's pretty clear, and I've
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: had I've had more conversations with him offline and with
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: people close to John Morgan that he's you know, he's
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: he's still open to doing it. The filing deadline hasn't passed,
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: and he probably is one of the few with the
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: resources if he chooses to do it, could still do it.
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: I think he's skeptical that the Democratic brand is strong
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: enough to win, no matter even if they nominate a
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: former Republican. I you know, we now have a Democratic
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: primary between the mayor of Orlando, Jerry Demings, and the
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: it's Orange County mayor actually sorry, which is the county
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: that encompasses Orlando, and former Republican Congressman David Jolly. And
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: so we'll see how that goes. And you know, I'm
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: still waiting for the Republican primary to get more competitive
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: than people realize. I mean, Byron Donald's has a massive
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: amount of money, Trump's endorsement, it's all very strong, but
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: it's clear Governor DeSantis would like somebody else, And you know,
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure. You know, I don't think Desantas is
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: alone in wanting somebody else. He's just the most vocal
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: about wanting something somebody else. But the candidates that have
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: popped up are not exactly don't look like winners, and
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine would do that. So but I'm I
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: think this is a more fluid state politically then folks realize.
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: But I don't think the Democratic Party is putting in
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: the resources to actually make the state competitive on a
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: state wide level. So then the question is, could I
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: do think this is a case where a third party
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: candidate could really make a lot of noise, because I
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: think there is kind of a hunger. Florida is a
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: I think a right leaning state, but more in the
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: libertarian sense, meaning that there's a you know that when
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: the Republicans get too sort of you know, the conservative
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: movement that Trump has led, and arguably DeSantis has led
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: has not been small government at all. It's been government
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: involved in your lives almost too much. Right, It's really
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: pushed away the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, and
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: that's why you're seeing so many I think the libertarians
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: be less comfortable with the right than they've been in
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: a long time because of this decision by some of
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 1: these Republican leaders to have government more involved in your life,
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: using government as a weapon to get involved in America's
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: culture and things like this. So I don't disagree that
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: the I think they I think the appetite is there,
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 1: and I certainly think it's a right. Morgan is the
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 1: right guy, but he might be a few years too old.
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, what you really need is a reincarnation of
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: Lotton Childs, who, while it was a Democrat then I
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 1: think today would be sort of an independent of some sort,
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of more probably closer. I mean John
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 1: Morgan clearly is more of a Clinton Democrat, more of
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: a Loton Child's Democrat. I think that's that could work, right,
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of somebody out of the somebody out
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: of the head of Carl Hyson, if you will, of
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: how Carl Huson would design an independent governor. Sorry, I'm
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: a huge hyasin fan of his novels. Have some strong
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: feelings about Decker, and I'm not going to get into
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: him now because I don't want to derail my conversation
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: and to all this answer. But you know, I'm you know,
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: look I've been I've been dancing around this moment of
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: looking for you know, I do think voters are looking
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: for an alternative to this, to this NonStop polarization that
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: we're in. I just don't know if there's credible third
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: party or credible independent actors yet that are ready to
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: take the jump. I think Morgan has a lot of
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: the tools you need, a little bit of fame, a
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: lot of bit of money, but he's got to have
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: the ambition. And I actually don't know if he's got
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: the ambition. I think he'd I think he'd be just
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: as just as happy, uh getting getting everything legalized in Florida,
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: if you know what I mean, and focusing on that
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: and enjoying a little bit of retirement. But I do
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: think his there is You're not wrong. He is probably
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 1: somebody similar to him as the type of person that
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: can break through. He's got a little bit of got
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: a little bit of Jesse venturing him. And I say
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: that as a compliment, And that's why he might just
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: be just be quirky enough in that good in that
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: in the in that Florida man way, he gained traction.
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: But you got to have the ambition to do it.
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: And I'm not one hundred percent sure he's all in
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: on that. I think if he, if he was, he'd
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: already be there. All right, I only got two more
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: questions here, so let's take them. Let's finish it up.
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: Greg from Central Illinois riots, Hey, last week, I was
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: an election judge in Central Illinois. I've been doing it
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: for years, so I was not surprised by the low number.
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 1: We only had less than one hundred and fifty people vote.
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: But before the poll opened, we were discussing if it
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: was going to be low since it happened, since it
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: happened to be Saint Patrick's day. My question would be
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 1: if we had open primaries where the top two vote
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: getters have to face off with each other, would that
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: be a solution. The other thing is I noticed on
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: party ballots only I had one candidate for multiple seats,
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 1: and the other party had many seats with no candidate.
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you Craig from Central Illinois. Look, I do think
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: putting everybody on the same ballot top two, maybe it's
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 1: the top four, and then there's a general election, and
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: then if nobody gets fifty percent, there's a runoff from there.
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: But anything that engages more of the electorate I think
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: is healthier for the democracy. Anything that limits the number
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: of people who can participate in election is just not
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: fully democratic hard style all right, I'm not saying ablic
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: A club called the Republican Party and a club called
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party can't decide who their preferences are, can't
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: say who they would like to see. But I think
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 1: them deciding who gets to participate in election and that
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 1: you get to keep other people out, and especially using
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: the power of the state to keep other people out
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: just because they didn't choose to become members of a
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: private institution, feels frankly unconstitutional and certainly feels undemocratic. So
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: I am a huge advocate of this, huge advocate of
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: all party primaries, all open primaries. One Look, I think
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: the ideal situation is that we should be registered voters heartstop.
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: We should not have to pick a political party and
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: tell the government where any government, local, state, or federal,
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: what party I choose to become a member of. I
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: don't understand why that has to be part of the
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: deal in order to participate in a primary election. So
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: it is I think if you want to if we're
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: trying to decide who gets to be in a general
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: election ballot, everybody should have access to that general election ballot.
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's just some signatures you need to
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 1: get on it, you know, but it is. It is.
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: I think how we do it now is more undemocratic
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 1: than we want to admit. And it would solve this
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: problem of what you're talking about certain races not having
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: any candidate in it. And this is, you know, this
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: is what If we want to refresh this democracy, we
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: need to allow more people to We need to make
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 1: it some more people have skin in the game, and
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: more people participate. There's your Monday episode. This is a
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 1: huge holiday week for many people of faith. We've got
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: Passover later this week, good Friday Easter coming up. With
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: the weekend, I know a lot of people are gonna
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: be spending time with family. I will try not to
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: overload your feed this week. I want to be mindful
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: of all the time you're gonna be spending with family,
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: but I'm also mindful that you're going to want to
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: put your headphones in and listen to something while you
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: maybe take a break from family. Anyway, with that, I'll
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: see in forty eight hours. Thanks for listening, and until
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: we upload it,