This is Gavin Newsom - And, This Is The Chaos Within The GOP Featuring Ben Shapiro

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00:00:28.040 This is Gavin Newsom.

00:00:31.800 And this is Ben Shapiro.

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00:02:52.680 All right, Ben Shapiro, welcome.

00:02:54.200 Hey, thanks for having me.

00:02:54.960 I appreciate it.

00:02:55.160 I love it.

00:02:55.440 All the way from Florida.

00:02:56.580 We'll get to that in a moment.

00:02:58.860 You seem a little bit spicy about it.

00:03:00.700 Yeah, a little salty.

00:03:01.580 Well, you know, Texas, that would have been more spicy.

00:03:04.600 But, you know, especially, come on, you're a Hollywood kid, at least Hollywood adjacent.

00:03:10.020 You're a Burbank kid.

00:03:10.920 Born and bred in St. Joe's in Burbank.

00:03:14.180 I love that.

00:03:15.120 What year, 1984?

00:03:16.580 Mm-hmm.

00:03:17.040 And you went, you know, and it's interesting because you were sort of a middle-class family, grew up, and I got a new book we're going to get to in a moment, Lions and Scavengers.

00:03:26.180 But in that, you talk about your home where, I think, six members of your family live in a two-bedroom home, one bathroom of Burbank, California.

00:03:35.060 And you describe it, at least briefly, as pretty bucolic, huh?

00:03:38.540 Yeah, it was great.

00:03:39.280 It was great.

00:03:39.740 I mean, Burbank was a great place to grow up.

00:03:41.540 It was like kids playing in the street.

00:03:42.660 And I had the greatest privilege of all, right?

00:03:44.880 I'm an American, growing up in the greatest country in the history of the world, and I've got a two-parent household.

00:03:49.300 My parents love each other, and they take care of us, and they're able to make a middle-class income.

00:03:53.080 My mom started off as a secretary and worked her way up to become vice president of a small film and TV company.

00:03:58.960 My dad came out here to be a composer, and he ended up playing piano at a restaurant on Ventura Boulevard, I believe.

00:04:05.600 It was in – or actually, it was in – across from Universal Studios.

00:04:09.200 It was the Michelli's over there, not if you've ever been there.

00:04:11.280 And he was, I mean, like a five-night-a-week piano guy there?

00:04:14.020 A couple nights a week.

00:04:14.820 He'd go in there and play jazz piano because he'd been playing since he was 14.

00:04:17.400 Wow.

00:04:17.820 And so that's how I grew up.

00:04:20.000 And, again, I think that that's the American dream is you start there, and then you end up making a better life for your kids,

00:04:26.600 and they end up making a better life for themselves.

00:04:28.920 And that upward trajectory is kind of what America's all about.

00:04:31.760 I love it.

00:04:32.160 How many brothers and sisters?

00:04:33.560 So I have three younger sisters.

00:04:34.700 Three younger sisters.

00:04:35.720 Three younger sisters.

00:04:36.280 And were they music?

00:04:37.160 Because you were a violinist in childhood.

00:04:39.180 Right, yeah.

00:04:39.740 I started playing violin when I was five, and then I was pretty good.

00:04:43.500 I mean, I –

00:04:44.320 Was it you were – it was your dad just saying, you're going, son, you will be?

00:04:48.200 I mean, they threw that at you, and they made you in your crying doing these lessons?

00:04:51.020 No, it definitely wasn't that.

00:04:52.140 And you loved it.

00:04:52.660 No, I was pretty dedicated to it, for sure.

00:04:54.780 I was practicing by the time I was 16, maybe three hours a day or something.

00:04:59.320 And then I looked at sort of the life of a musician, and I thought, well, again, that

00:05:04.600 upward trajectory is very difficult, particularly in classical music.

00:05:08.880 And so I thought, you know, maybe I better shift career strategies here.

00:05:12.160 But when I went to UCLA, or I went to UCLA for undergrad, when I went to UCLA, I was 16

00:05:16.580 at the time.

00:05:17.240 My parents didn't want me going out of state for school, so I was living at home because

00:05:20.620 I was 16.

00:05:21.320 Wow.

00:05:21.500 And I thought I was going to double major in biology and in music, actually.

00:05:27.560 And I got on campus, and I found myself kind of drawn to politics, and, you know, the rest

00:05:32.340 is –

00:05:32.820 I want to get back to that a little bit more.

00:05:34.400 How about your sisters?

00:05:35.740 Where do they end up in terms of their professional pursuits and careers?

00:05:39.660 So all of us grew up, obviously, here.

00:05:42.660 Only one is still here.

00:05:43.860 I still have one sister who lives in Orange County.

00:05:46.860 I have a couple of sisters who live within a mile and a half of me in Florida.

00:05:50.600 So basically, the whole family ended up in Florida.

00:05:52.720 My parents ended up near me in Florida.

00:05:54.080 My in-laws, who lived in Sacramento, ended up near me in Florida.

00:05:57.120 Interesting.

00:05:57.820 Yeah.

00:05:58.080 There may be some reasons for that, Governor.

00:05:59.700 We'll get to that.

00:06:00.440 We're going to get to all of that and a lot more.

00:06:02.600 I just want to paint the picture a little bit.

00:06:03.940 I appreciate it.

00:06:04.500 Because not everybody knows your childhood, but it also connected, I mean, as you said,

00:06:07.560 UCLA undergrad, and then your interest.

00:06:10.120 My wife went to UCLA medical school.

00:06:11.480 I mean, we were very Californian about it.

00:06:13.240 I love that.

00:06:14.020 But politics had its calling there.

00:06:16.540 Do you remember sort of a moment or issues or was politics part of the – even your

00:06:20.740 childhood was a part of the conversation around the dinner table?

00:06:23.860 Were your parents politically active engaged?

00:06:25.420 They weren't super politically active.

00:06:26.960 I would say they were kind of Reagan Republicans.

00:06:29.960 And growing up, we would talk politics in the House.

00:06:32.860 But the thing that sort of sent me in a political direction overtly is I got to college campus

00:06:37.360 at UCLA and I picked up a copy of the UCLA Daily Bruin.

00:06:40.240 And this is back in the year 2000, there was an editorial from the Bruin editorial board,

00:06:47.380 I believe, comparing Ariel Sharon, then the prime minister of Israel, this would have been

00:06:51.040 2001, I guess, to Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi.

00:06:54.140 And so I walked in and I said, I'd like to write a counter to that.

00:06:57.100 And that turned into a point-counterpoint column that I would write every week.

00:07:00.260 That became pretty popular.

00:07:01.380 It turned into kind of a normal column.

00:07:02.940 And then I went to my father one day and I said, do you think that my stuff is good

00:07:06.200 enough to be published in like a normal paper?

00:07:07.940 And he said, you know, it might be, let me do some research.

00:07:10.480 So he found this place called Creator Syndicate, again, out of California.

00:07:14.160 And they syndicate a bunch of columns to different newspapers around the country.

00:07:17.940 At the time, it was everybody from Molly Ivins on the left to David Limbaugh on the right.

00:07:22.220 And so I applied cold and they called me three weeks later, I was 17, and they said, we'd

00:07:25.980 love you to write a syndicated column.

00:07:27.440 So pretty much all of my bad ideas since I was 17 have been public, which is, you know,

00:07:31.100 an interesting way to live for sure.

00:07:32.300 So at 17, I mean, that's pretty remarkable, that young age.

00:07:35.620 You have a syndicated national column.

00:07:36.920 And a few years later, 20, you have published, what, two books by then?

00:07:41.500 So you're right.

00:07:42.240 My first book came out when I was 20 from, it was sort of an expose of leftism on college

00:07:48.620 campuses.

00:07:49.260 I think some might say it was a little ahead of its time.

00:07:51.640 And then I went to Harvard Law School at 20, and I wrote a couple of more books while

00:07:55.800 I was at Harvard Law.

00:07:56.960 And when I came out, I came back to LA and I practiced at a real estate firm or real estate

00:08:02.980 wing of a major law firm called Goodwin Proctor.

00:08:05.600 I practiced there.

00:08:06.400 I lasted for about 10 months, decided I hate it, quit.

00:08:09.160 I remember walking into the boss's office and saying, I hate it here and I want to leave.

00:08:13.440 And I remember him turning to me and saying, you're never going to make as much money as

00:08:16.600 you're making right now.

00:08:17.720 And I've been wanting to send him some tax returns for a few years now, but it all worked

00:08:24.340 out.

00:08:24.580 Politics was something that I was always very invested in.

00:08:27.080 And so my sort of political approach generally is that I'm much more invested in principles

00:08:32.200 than personalities.

00:08:33.480 I care much more about the ideas than I do about sort of the gossip aspect of politics.

00:08:40.100 I think that that's unfortunately becoming less common.

00:08:45.060 I think that it's great that you're having me on.

00:08:47.280 I really appreciate that.

00:08:48.140 I like the exchange of ideas.

00:08:49.280 I've always liked the exchange of ideas.

00:08:51.640 And so that's still, I hope, what animates me, what animates the show.

00:08:55.540 Love that.

00:08:56.020 I mean, you're obviously known as, I mean, people have described you in so many different

00:08:59.940 ways, but debate bro.

00:09:02.900 I mean, is there a quick wits?

00:09:04.260 I mean, obviously next level, um, uh, intellect ability to quickly distill facts and figures.

00:09:10.360 We, you talk about facts over emotion, et cetera, but were you that person in high school?

00:09:14.880 Were you that person in middle school?

00:09:16.860 Or did that take shape?

00:09:17.620 I was pretty combative in high school.

00:09:18.700 I would say I'd skipped a couple of grades.

00:09:20.220 I skipped third and I skipped ninth.

00:09:21.920 Wow.

00:09:22.160 And so I was much younger and much shorter and much skinnier and much more of a wise ass

00:09:27.160 probably than some of the other kids in my high school class.

00:09:30.200 And so high school was not exactly a joy for, for that reason.

00:09:33.580 But I've said before that obviously bullying is terrible, but being bullied can be sort

00:09:39.340 of a make or break situation for you.

00:09:41.000 Meaning that a lot of the people that I know who are very successful went through a lot of

00:09:45.400 adversity in that age range.

00:09:47.740 And then you sort of develop an attitude and the attitude is, okay, I can either use this

00:09:52.480 as fuel and grist for the mill and, and say, listen, I'm going to take all of that negativity

00:09:57.700 and channel it toward, you know, more strength and more positivity and, and building.

00:10:02.420 And, and maybe you get a little bit of a chip on your shoulder sometimes, uh, or you

00:10:06.200 can kind of let it break you down.

00:10:07.520 And what do you remember?

00:10:08.380 I mean, some of the specific instances where you sort of, where you had that kind of exchange

00:10:13.020 where, where, was it political?

00:10:14.800 Was it, was it because, I mean, the fact you're always younger, uh, a little bit smarter,

00:10:19.800 maybe you're quick witted.

00:10:20.820 I mean, was it, do you remember any political, interpersonal, um, but I remember, you know,

00:10:25.340 being the kind of kid who, when I was 16 years old, there was a program at, at the UC

00:10:31.020 system, uh, that was all about affirmative action at the UC system.

00:10:36.660 I remember there were about a thousand people who were protesting, uh, down in the plaza or

00:10:41.060 there.

00:10:41.400 And I believe I was the only counter protester.

00:10:43.580 Interesting.

00:10:44.060 And I, and I would show up and do that, that sort of stuff.

00:10:46.260 Did you have, I mean, you had the, was it the confidence or was it gumption?

00:10:49.380 What was it?

00:10:49.780 I mean, was it, was it something your parents distilled in you?

00:10:52.480 Just stand up for ideals, strike out?

00:10:54.260 I think it was more stand up for ideals, but, but also, you know, from the time that I was

00:10:58.060 young, I, I never had any problem with being in crowds or, or, you know, being in front

00:11:02.720 of people.

00:11:03.220 You were a performer after all.

00:11:04.280 Yeah, exactly.

00:11:04.940 I played violin.

00:11:05.660 And so if you, if you spend a lot of time playing, you know, a rigorous sort of set of

00:11:10.280 pieces in front of people and you do that over and over and over, it kind of gets rid

00:11:14.420 of whatever trepidation you might have about being in front of people and doing that sort of thing.

00:11:17.860 When did you, was there a moment when you sort of developed,

00:11:19.780 developed a next level confidence?

00:11:21.320 You're like, wait, I'm pretty good at this.

00:11:22.940 Or was it the writing that was doing it?

00:11:24.640 You know, I'm not sure.

00:11:26.000 I will say, I don't think that it's ever good to develop next level confidence.

00:11:30.320 Meaning, I think you got to prep for everything.

00:11:32.820 One of the things that I try to do is really over-prepare for my show.

00:11:36.160 If I'm going to have a debate or a discussion with somebody, I really try to dig in and,

00:11:40.080 and get into what's true, what's, what's not true.

00:11:43.340 Right.

00:11:43.900 I'd much rather be over-prepared.

00:11:45.380 I think there's a certain level of insecurity that's good.

00:11:48.460 Yeah.

00:11:48.660 I think when, when you're overconfident, that's when you've made mistakes.

00:11:50.960 I think in my career, whenever I've made a mistake, it's typically because I didn't

00:11:54.220 take a challenge seriously enough or I sort of brushed it off.

00:11:57.060 Yeah.

00:11:57.360 Yeah.

00:11:57.480 And you see that happen a lot.

00:11:58.500 People sort of rely on their native intelligence as opposed to assuming that you're not going

00:12:02.160 to be the smartest person in the room all the time.

00:12:04.940 Remember when I was in middle school, so I went to Walter Reed in, uh, in North Hollywood

00:12:07.800 and they had a magnet school, like a highly gifted program.

00:12:10.500 And I remember there was an IQ test actually, uh, kind of a rudimentary IQ test that was

00:12:15.080 the baseline to get in.

00:12:16.260 And I, I got in, but I didn't get in by leaps and bounds.

00:12:20.320 And we, and we, you know, I remember first day of class, everybody was kind of passing

00:12:24.120 around their IQ scores and all this kind of stuff.

00:12:25.700 And one girl had, had, uh, above 180, a really, really, really high IQ.

00:12:30.140 And I remember going back home and talking to my father about it.

00:12:32.760 He said, listen, you should assume that you're never the smartest person in the room, but

00:12:35.760 you can always be the hardest working person in the room.

00:12:38.060 Love that.

00:12:38.580 And that, that, that I think has been sort of the motto.

00:12:40.900 I love it.

00:12:41.400 So you went, uh, you know, UCLA undergrad, here you are 17 national syndicated columnist.

00:12:46.660 A few years later, you got two published books, um, about issues around the university.

00:12:51.140 As you say, you may have been a step or two ahead of most in that respect.

00:12:54.340 And, and then issues around, I mean, it was interesting to the, the porn industry broadly

00:12:58.860 defined.

00:12:59.460 Yeah.

00:12:59.480 I was writing books about how the pornography industry was going to really carve out particularly

00:13:04.540 young men's souls in about 2005.

00:13:06.840 And at the time people were saying, oh, this is crazy.

00:13:09.140 What is he talking about?

00:13:09.980 Now, of course, uh, I think that there are a lot of young men who have fallen prey to that

00:13:13.660 industry who needs less family formation, less general happiness, less sex, actually, uh,

00:13:20.120 people who are, who are kind of falling out of the, the social fabric that's necessary

00:13:24.500 to build societies.

00:13:25.440 I was calling that out in about 2005.

00:13:27.260 So even in my state of the state last week, I, I referenced just one of many different statistics,

00:13:31.760 but roughly half of young men have never asked a woman out in person on a date.

00:13:36.360 Uh, so your, your point and emphasis in that, and we, I want to unpack that a little bit

00:13:40.900 later as well in the conversation, but you started then to not only identify yourself in

00:13:45.660 the context of your intellectual pursuits and, and, and expressing your point of view through

00:13:50.680 writing also sort of gifted capacity to engage in debate and speech.

00:13:54.460 But then you found Andrew Breitbart, uh, was out and about, uh, in Southern California.

00:13:59.920 And, uh, and, and you took a job there, uh, working at Breitbart.

00:14:04.520 That went in 2012 during the, the 2012 election.

00:14:07.400 Uh, I, I joined Breitbart.

00:14:09.740 I'd known Andrew actually since my UCLA days.

00:14:12.160 Uh, so I'd known him already for, for quite a number of years.

00:14:14.740 What do you think of Andrew?

00:14:15.600 A lot of people.

00:14:16.680 Andrew's kick.

00:14:16.700 Andrew, so I think that there's sort of the, I mean, you're in public life, so you know,

00:14:19.560 there's for, for a lot of people that are sort of like the private person and there's

00:14:22.180 the public person.

00:14:22.860 They're not quite the same.

00:14:23.920 Uh, so Andrew, the private person and the public person were actually very much the same, I would

00:14:27.880 say up until the end, uh, toward, toward the end, I think that, that Andrew became very

00:14:33.260 frustrated with, with a lot of the political system, media coverage.

00:14:36.040 But the truth is that Andrew was for the vast majority of the time I knew him very garrulous,

00:14:41.280 willing to have conversations with nearly anyone.

00:14:43.040 I think that if you talk to people who knew Andrew really well, their, their best memories

00:14:45.880 of him are things like him just rollerblading in Venice and then just having like political

00:14:49.860 conversations, taking somebody to coffee, like a random person.

00:14:52.580 What I used to say to people about Andrew is that I knew Andrew for, you know, over a

00:14:57.280 decade before, before he passed away.

00:14:59.220 And if you knew Andrew for five minutes, you knew him about 95% as well as, as I did, because

00:15:03.400 he was just very much there.

00:15:04.820 Like he was just on the surface, everything that, what you saw is what you got with Andrew.

00:15:08.420 Uh, so yeah, I joined Breitbart in, in about 2012, it was during the Romney, uh, the Romney

00:15:14.080 Obama election cycle.

00:15:15.780 Uh, I was there for a few years.

00:15:17.560 I believe I ended up leaving in 2016, like early 2016.

00:15:21.940 There'd been some sort of career transitions there in which I was taking other jobs at the same

00:15:25.640 time.

00:15:28.060 Uh, there was a point again, going under that sort of working hard rubric, uh, there's

00:15:30.960 one which I was working effectively for jobs.

00:15:33.000 I was doing a morning show in LA where I interviewed you actually.

00:15:35.100 Uh, and then, uh, there was a, an afternoon show that I was doing in Seattle.

00:15:38.660 So I was six hours of radio a day.

00:15:39.860 I was the editor at large Breitbart, which meant writing a piece or two a day for Breitbart.

00:15:44.040 Uh, and then I had also taken a job as the editor in chief of a website called Truth Revolt

00:15:48.000 for the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

00:15:49.220 So I was working four jobs simultaneously.

00:15:51.200 Uh, and yeah, again, uh, my, my advice to young people, particularly you want to be successful,

00:15:56.600 say yes to doing everything, even if it's for free at the beginning, because eventually

00:16:00.440 saying yes a lot gets you the power to say no later on in your career when you can sort

00:16:04.500 of window down what, what will make you successful.

00:16:06.620 And people, a lot of folks know this, but a lot of folks don't.

00:16:09.320 Steve Bannon was down there, uh, working for Breitbart at the time.

00:16:12.440 Uh, you guys got along initially.

00:16:14.400 I know.

00:16:15.160 Uh, even in the beginning.

00:16:16.740 Uh, and Steve is not the easiest person to get along.

00:16:19.560 I will say that.

00:16:21.340 We'll talk a little bit more just briefly.

00:16:23.180 I don't want to over index with Steve, but, uh, so you left in 2016, but 2015, you more

00:16:29.980 formally established what more commonly is identified with your data color, right?

00:16:34.420 I mean, it was, it was daily wires, right?

00:16:36.060 So daily wire, we established formally, uh, in 2015, so it would have been in the middle

00:16:42.160 of the primary.

00:16:43.140 So it'd been 2016.

00:16:44.160 Yeah.

00:16:44.440 Uh, that's when, that's when we formally launched was a few months before the election of 2016.

00:16:49.480 Uh, I I'd been working at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

00:16:51.880 It was kind of a funny story there where we had Jeremy Boring and I, who are business partners.

00:16:56.600 Uh, he, he'd been working there and he basically hit upon what was a social media arbitrage plan.

00:17:03.080 And he basically saw that you could market on social media in new ways and that would

00:17:06.220 bring you traffic.

00:17:06.980 And we proposed this to the board.

00:17:08.680 They legitimately did not understand what we were talking about because boards of nonprofits

00:17:12.460 are, are famously, you know, sort of elderly and non-tech involved.

00:17:15.940 Uh, and so we made a presentation.

00:17:17.960 Uh, Jeremy was, uh, kind of fondly known as the, as the stupid whisperer because we'd met

00:17:23.180 with many Congress people and, uh, I speak quickly and, uh, and Jeremy spoke slowly with

00:17:28.960 a Southern accent.

00:17:29.740 And so he would very often, you know, get across better and see those Congress people

00:17:33.180 who shall remain unnamed.

00:17:34.380 Anyway, we met with the board, uh, Jeremy sort of explained the marketing plan.

00:17:37.920 They had no idea what he was talking about.

00:17:39.440 They turned to me and they said, Ben, can you explain the marketing plan?

00:17:42.180 I said, sure.

00:17:42.680 Very easy.

00:17:43.460 I was frustrated by this point.

00:17:44.600 So I took out a napkin and I wrote on it, dollar sign, arrow, Facebook, arrow, website,

00:17:52.240 arrow, back to dollars in your book.

00:17:53.820 Yeah, exactly.

00:17:54.480 And that was the marketing plan, right?

00:17:56.120 It was that you're going to spend money on social media in order to gain eyeballs.

00:17:59.540 Those eyeballs would then provide advertising on your website.

00:18:02.120 And then you would just direct that money back into Facebook.

00:18:05.100 And so it was kind of a flywheel and they fired Jeremy the next day.

00:18:09.400 Uh, I quit a couple of days later and then we basically took that plan out to market.

00:18:13.540 We found a little bit of seed funding.

00:18:15.800 Uh, it was about $5 million in seed funding originally.

00:18:18.280 Uh, and we launched daily wire, which last year did $200 million plus in revenue.

00:18:23.720 How many, how many employees now?

00:18:25.380 We have, uh, about 220 employees at daily wire.

00:18:28.880 And you guys are doing the, I mean, well, we can talk more specifically, but I mean,

00:18:32.920 it's documentaries, it's movies.

00:18:35.060 Yes.

00:18:35.280 It's all this show.

00:18:36.080 I mean, it's a whole suite of things.

00:18:37.860 Yeah.

00:18:37.980 We've tried to turn it into a semi-major media company, right?

00:18:41.420 I would say it's probably the second biggest conservative media company in the country

00:18:44.240 after Fox.

00:18:45.040 So at the time, who were your mentors?

00:18:46.680 Who were you looking up to at the time?

00:18:47.960 Who did you want to become?

00:18:49.080 Was, I mean, Andrew obviously had a big impact.

00:18:51.180 I assume in terms of your trajectory, who else was out there you were watching?

00:18:55.100 Was it the Limbaugh's of the world?

00:18:56.460 Was it the savages of the world?

00:18:58.100 Who, I mean, on radio?

00:18:59.340 So, I mean, I think it was sort of a different thing in every industry.

00:19:01.960 Yeah.

00:19:02.100 So from a sort of ideological point of view, just being a great writer, be people like

00:19:06.420 Charles Krauthammer, which of course I love the writing.

00:19:09.060 That's actually my favorite thing that I do because I can sit there, organize my thoughts

00:19:12.420 and I happen to write incredibly quickly.

00:19:13.940 So that's very nice.

00:19:15.820 And then, you know, from a radio or podcast point of view, obviously Rush, Rush is sort

00:19:21.780 of the granddaddy of us all in this industry.

00:19:24.140 And so Rush was the guy who I grew up listening to on talk radio, you know, him, Larry Elder,

00:19:28.800 like everybody who was sort of in the LA radio sphere when I was growing up.

00:19:31.720 Yeah.

00:19:32.100 And then in sort of social media land, obviously Andrew was a major force in sort of showing

00:19:37.260 what you could do in the new media.

00:19:40.620 And so I'd say that triumvirate would be a pretty good way of defining.

00:19:43.860 What else?

00:19:44.300 And were you inspired?

00:19:45.300 I mean, at the time, just even beyond those examples, were there books you were reading

00:19:49.520 at the time, periodicals that really inspired?

00:19:51.760 So I read incessantly.

00:19:53.000 I've been reading three to five books a week since I was probably old enough to read.

00:19:56.380 Wow.

00:19:56.480 So, you know, the books that I was reading on economics were things like Hayek, right?

00:20:02.000 I spend actually less time engaging, I would say, with, you know, the non-traditional media

00:20:08.060 space than I do engaging with books and great ideas, I hope.

00:20:12.680 I mean, that's where I'd like to spend my time.

00:20:14.600 Also, you know, I'm lucky from Friday night to Saturday night, I can't engage with media,

00:20:18.840 right?

00:20:18.960 I'm an Orthodox Jew, so all of the electricity goes away.

00:20:21.860 Yeah.

00:20:22.060 And so I read a lot of books, you know, fewer now than I used to because I have four kids

00:20:25.920 now.

00:20:26.600 But that means that if I want to, what's great about that for what I do is that if a topic

00:20:31.880 comes up in the news, I have a pretty good memory bank to draw on in terms of a baseline

00:20:36.500 of knowledge that I can then supplement with sort of further research.

00:20:39.940 But I have a very strongly defined kind of worldview about everything from economics to foreign

00:20:45.140 policy to social policy that I hope is rooted in some fundamental values, which means that

00:20:50.860 I would say my level of political consistency has been pretty high over the course of the

00:20:55.460 last couple of decades.

00:20:56.360 I mean, I'm 42, about to turn 42 years old this week.

00:20:59.700 And I've been in this industry for a quarter century.

00:21:02.400 I started writing at 17.

00:21:03.180 And if you read stuff from when I'm 17, if it wasn't highly dumb, which some of it is,

00:21:08.700 but if you were to find a column I wrote when I was 23 and it wasn't one of the ones that

00:21:12.360 was like trying to get attention and look at me, if it was one of my more serious columns,

00:21:15.840 it would probably look a lot like the stuff that I'm saying today.

00:21:19.700 What do you make of the current media landscape?

00:21:22.340 I mean, it seems to be the sort of dialectic between the old and the new, sort of the digital

00:21:26.100 first and these legacy media companies.

00:21:28.500 I mean, obviously podcasts becoming at least part of the, it's a conversation.

00:21:33.200 I don't know if we can get into the merits to merits of overstating, over-indexing podcast

00:21:38.380 influence, but so much of what you seeded and influenced in terms of the right-wing media,

00:21:45.160 even now in some respects, what folks are trying to replicate with more progressive media

00:21:50.420 voices.

00:21:50.980 What do you make of the landscape today?

00:21:52.480 How would you describe the current landscape?

00:21:54.800 I'm entirely fragmented.

00:21:55.940 I think in some ways that's good.

00:21:57.080 I think in some ways that's bad.

00:21:58.800 It's had tremendous benefits in the sense that you don't have three networks and you

00:22:02.840 have to rely on just those three networks.

00:22:04.800 You can in real time fact-check things.

00:22:06.700 It's bad in the sense that while gatekeeping is difficult and obviously can silo off information

00:22:13.080 that you need to have, if you have people who are algorithmically driven, who are desperate

00:22:18.220 for clicks and desperate for attention and don't seem to care very much about the truth,

00:22:22.160 and if there's kind of no pushback, then bad information can spin its way around very,

00:22:26.140 very quickly, and it doesn't take long for people to draw extremely hard narratives about,

00:22:31.020 I would say, convoluted sets of facts.

00:22:33.960 And I think that, frankly, politicians sometimes have a position in doing this because if you're

00:22:40.640 catering to a base, and obviously, isn't everybody has to be aware of audience capture

00:22:44.500 in my industry, in politics, you have to be very aware of audience capture because

00:22:47.880 you need to win votes.

00:22:48.720 But, I mean, just to take as a recent example what happened in Minneapolis, I think that

00:22:53.200 the normie response to what happened in Minneapolis is this is obviously a tragedy from a sort

00:22:58.940 of legal perspective.

00:23:00.260 I'm putting on my lawyer hat.

00:23:01.880 The intent of Renee Goode is not relevant to the question of the intent of the officer,

00:23:07.920 right?

00:23:08.040 If you're going to prosecute the officer, then you'd have to determine whether an objective,

00:23:12.260 reasonable officer would have perceived that he was being threatened by her vehicle when

00:23:16.720 he shot her, and it seems to me that you could voice a fairly strong defense in a court of law

00:23:21.400 that an objectively reasonable officer, since he actually was nudged with the car at the

00:23:24.840 very least, would have perceived it that way.

00:23:27.600 Now, this immediately broke down into two separate narratives, both of which I think

00:23:31.460 are untrue.

00:23:32.680 One was a narrative that was immediately pushed by the Trump administration and Secretary of

00:23:37.020 Homeland Security, Christine Ohm, that she was a domestic terrorist who was attempting to

00:23:40.020 run over officers with her car and was legitimately trying, not just this officer, but multiple

00:23:45.040 officers.

00:23:45.380 That was the original statement I said at the time.

00:23:47.660 I thought that was untrue.

00:23:48.960 And then your press office tweeted out that it was state-sponsored terrorism, which, I

00:23:54.400 mean, Governor, I do have to ask you about that.

00:23:56.780 That sort of thing makes our politics worse.

00:23:59.900 Yeah.

00:24:00.380 I mean, it does.

00:24:01.060 I mean, our ICE officers obviously are not terrorists.

00:24:03.880 Yeah.

00:24:04.160 A tragic situation is not state-sponsored terrorism.

00:24:06.740 Yeah, I think that's fair.

00:24:07.660 I mean, when it comes to ICE, I mean, I'll ask you this just generally about policy with regard

00:24:12.220 ICE because obviously it's become incredibly contentious given what the federal government

00:24:15.240 is doing in states like California.

00:24:17.400 You know, it seems to me that there have been a number of deportations from red states where

00:24:22.000 there are governors and localities working with ICE.

00:24:24.640 California is a sanctuary state, which makes it much more difficult for local law enforcement

00:24:29.020 to hand over information to ICE about deportation status.

00:24:33.500 What's the purpose of that?

00:24:34.540 Wouldn't best policy—you're pragmatic.

00:24:36.220 You talk about your pragmatism all the time—wouldn't best policy be to cooperate with ICE in the

00:24:41.340 vast majority of cases?

00:24:42.320 So instead of ICE going to, as you say, hospitals and churches to pick people up, they'd be

00:24:45.620 going to jailhouses to pick people up.

00:24:46.760 That's exactly what they do in California, and we have over 10,000 that I've cooperated

00:24:50.340 with since I've been governor of California.

00:24:51.940 We work very directly with ICE as it relates to CDCR, state prison.

00:24:57.920 California has cooperated with more ICE transfers probably than any other state in the country,

00:25:02.920 and I've vetoed multiple pieces of legislation that have come from my legislature to stop

00:25:07.300 the ability for the state of California to do that.

00:25:10.320 So when it comes to the issues of violent criminals, when it comes to felons, people

00:25:13.660 that are being released from the largest state system in the United States of America, California

00:25:19.360 cooperates with ICE.

00:25:20.980 Okay, but why is it then—what makes it a sanctuary state?

00:25:24.280 Well, the broader sanctuary policies that are established, and we had a policy that was established

00:25:29.100 under Governor Brown, SB 54.

00:25:30.520 You have city sanctuary policies that go back quite literally to the time Ronald Reagan was

00:25:36.120 governor, and it relates to some of the issues in Central America, sort of the origin stories.

00:25:40.320 But at bottom line, it relates to those policies, this notion that federal law should be enforced

00:25:45.780 by federal law enforcement agencies, that we should not consign local law enforcement to

00:25:50.220 federal responsibilities and prioritization.

00:25:52.580 Right, but shouldn't the states step in with localities and tell localities that they ought

00:25:55.900 to cooperate better with ICE, thus to facilitate?

00:25:58.300 Well, you know, I have sort of Rudy Giuliani's point of view, who made the point as an advocate

00:26:02.980 for sanctuary policy when he was mayor of New York.

00:26:05.900 He said it keeps people safer, healthier, and more educated.

00:26:08.800 Safer in the context that it allows community members to be more likely to participate as

00:26:13.240 witnesses of crime or victims of crime in going after the perpetrators.

00:26:16.980 More likely to get an immunization shot if they're not worried about the nurse turning them over to ICE.

00:26:21.660 More likely to go to school and get educated if they're not worried about the school crossing guard

00:26:26.920 crossing them and ultimately turning them over to ICE.

00:26:30.420 So it's the tool of pragmatism because of the complete abject failure of the federal government.

00:26:36.880 Sanctuary policy is unnecessary if we had comprehensive immigration reform and we had a federal response

00:26:41.720 that was adequate to the task, but in the absence of that, it's grown from the 70s and 80s and 90s, 2000s,

00:26:48.240 and obviously I got here as governor and we had an established framework before I got here.

00:26:53.200 But it is true that sanctuary policy obviously has had a massive impact as a driver of a tremendous number

00:26:59.260 of illegal immigrants in the state of California.

00:27:01.300 I don't know about that.

00:27:02.500 I mean, you see in a lot of states that don't have sanctuary policies, huge increase in immigration,

00:27:08.740 illegal immigration, massive increases, even far greater than the state of California.

00:27:13.080 Just look as an example.

00:27:13.680 But in terms of the cost structure, I mean, you recently, for example,

00:27:15.880 had to freeze the enrollment of undocumented immigrants in state health systems to save money.

00:27:22.820 I mean, these are major burdens, no?

00:27:24.580 That's a separate issue.

00:27:26.240 There are 12 states that provide health care for undocs,

00:27:28.240 and we believe in universal health care regardless of the previous conditions.

00:27:30.700 My only point is that the cost structure is extraordinarily burdensome.

00:27:34.100 But I don't think it's, in unpacking it, I don't think it's the sanctuary policies that are driving that.

00:27:40.760 And I'll give you a proof point.

00:27:42.220 Florida doesn't have sanctuary policy.

00:27:43.620 Huge increase in undocumented community.

00:27:47.420 Huge increase in Texas.

00:27:48.780 It's not a driver.

00:27:50.360 They're sanctuary policies.

00:27:51.440 They don't have sanctuary policies in those states.

00:27:54.140 The state of California's policies, I don't think in that respect,

00:27:58.360 have invited people into our state.

00:28:02.580 And I use those as, I think, proof points of that.

00:28:05.080 And that's a different—so the notion of how do you deal with people that are here 10, 15 years?

00:28:09.560 How do you deal with mixed status families in this state?

00:28:12.560 And how do you provide for health care as opposed to emergency care

00:28:16.080 in stabilized populations and community health?

00:28:19.060 It's a different approach.

00:28:20.140 It's one that we've been very transparent about.

00:28:22.440 It's one that's hardly unique because in every state they provide compensated care for undocs at the emergency room.

00:28:28.900 Many states provide it for children, many for seniors.

00:28:31.900 California provides it across the board.

00:28:33.700 I mean, the biggest problem, though, as somebody who left the state,

00:28:36.480 is that the cost structure in the state has become so burdensome,

00:28:39.140 not just because of illegal immigration, but generally.

00:28:40.840 And so the idea that policy has no impact as a magnet for particular human behavior

00:28:46.580 or alienating people from a state, that's clearly untrue.

00:28:50.800 And when you look at the homeless population, for example,

00:28:52.980 friendlier policies toward providing services in Santa Monica led to—

00:28:56.680 Separate point, though.

00:28:57.220 But now you're getting a homeless policy, not an immigration policy.

00:28:59.860 But let's—

00:29:00.300 If you want to stick with immigration policy, do you make it easier for illegal immigrants?

00:29:04.140 But let's stick with immigration policy.

00:29:05.120 Not to avoid ICE than presumably.

00:29:06.740 No, look, I appreciate this.

00:29:07.880 So we've established an important—I appreciate the question

00:29:10.860 because I'm glad we've established that we do cooperate with ICE in California,

00:29:15.140 in particular this governor who's, as I said, on multiple occasions vetoed efforts

00:29:19.000 to stop me from that coordination for dangerous criminals.

00:29:22.160 And we've done that over 10,000 folks.

00:29:24.360 So it'd be wrong for—so when AOC said this week that ICE should be abolished, you disagree?

00:29:27.940 Oh, I disagree when I think a candidate for president by the name of Harris said that in the last campaign.

00:29:34.680 I came out.

00:29:35.360 I remember being on Chris Hayes hours later.

00:29:37.880 I was saying, I think that's a mistake.

00:29:39.140 So absolutely.

00:29:40.340 Number two, as it relates to the issue of sanctuary policy, I think it's important to establish,

00:29:44.300 because it's not well established, sanctuary jurisdictions have lower crime rates,

00:29:49.620 lower crime rates than non-sanctuary jurisdictions.

00:29:52.360 So this notion that it somehow increases crime is also, I think, contradicted on the basis of the facts.

00:29:59.100 So this notion that population, it becomes an attractive nature for population increases, I think, is contradicted by the facts.

00:30:08.380 As it relates to crime, it's contradicted by the facts.

00:30:10.420 But there's unquestionably—and you're right about this—as it relates to an expansion of services,

00:30:15.840 but not just for sanctuary jurisdictions, for population, diverse populations.

00:30:21.400 Yes, there are states like California that have chosen a different approach.

00:30:25.080 And that approach, I mean, means that when you came into office, for example, the budget was, what, $200 billion?

00:30:30.160 And your proposed budget last year or this year is $350 billion.

00:30:34.080 The general fund's $248 billion.

00:30:37.360 We have $42.3 billion additional revenue structure than we anticipated.

00:30:41.800 By the way, another 2.8 came in in December.

00:30:43.980 And California is now replenishing its reserves, $23 billion, paying down pension obligations, $11.8 billion.

00:30:52.000 There's no question there are cost pressures as rates to Medicaid and Medi-Cal in California.

00:30:58.060 And those pressures are going to be made worse because of the big, beautiful bill.

00:31:00.980 Well, I mean, I think that the main pressures in the state of California, in terms of kind of future costs,

00:31:06.060 looks like some of the programs that you mentioned, mainly, if we're going to look at it, CalPERS, CalSTARs,

00:31:11.600 the fact that you have perhaps $500 billion in unfunded liabilities going forward.

00:31:16.580 Well, they—in which we've substantially improved in the last seven years.

00:31:20.300 I just mentioned the $11.8 billion commitment.

00:31:21.980 We've highlighted that in the state of the state to pay down long-term pension obligations.

00:31:27.020 STRS and PERS, their funded liability has been improving over the last five or six years.

00:31:32.740 Can't make up for the last 30 years.

00:31:34.480 You may recall a decade plus ago, we did reforms for new employees moving in.

00:31:39.620 We dealt with spiking and other issues and abuses in that space.

00:31:43.300 We're hardly unique in this country as it relates to unfunded liability.

00:31:47.800 Or fraud issues, obviously.

00:31:49.020 And fraud issues, let's—we can talk about fraud all day.

00:31:52.520 I'd love to talk about that, and we could get back to that,

00:31:54.540 because I think it's an incredibly important topic,

00:31:56.620 and California has been actually out front on a lot of these anti-fraud efforts.

00:32:00.700 And, you know, I think there's a lot of, you know, a lot of BS in this space

00:32:05.540 as it relates to sort of targeted assaults and offense that obviously are paying our positive.

00:32:11.660 Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA Health

00:32:15.920 and host of the Mailroom Podcast.

00:32:17.420 Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions.

00:32:21.300 Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken.

00:32:24.100 But what if the real work isn't physical at all?

00:32:26.700 To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter,

00:32:29.520 a psychologist with over 30 years' experience helping men unpack shame,

00:32:33.780 anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name.

00:32:37.260 In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof,

00:32:41.480 why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others.

00:32:48.160 Guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved.

00:32:52.860 Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy and some compassion.

00:32:57.600 If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath,

00:33:02.760 listen to the Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

00:33:08.120 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers.

00:33:15.800 But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.

00:33:19.480 The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

00:33:22.240 So why did it take so long to catch him?

00:33:24.640 I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer.

00:33:28.800 The investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since The Son of Sam.

00:33:33.480 Available now.

00:33:34.180 Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.

00:33:39.540 Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally.

00:33:42.560 And I'm Hari Kondabolu.

00:33:43.780 It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.

00:33:48.460 Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be.

00:33:53.380 I like to sleep in late and sleep early.

00:33:57.200 Is there a chronotype for that, or am I just depressed?

00:34:01.200 We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight.

00:34:05.180 You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that.

00:34:11.600 We break down the topics you want to know more about.

00:34:14.740 Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health.

00:34:19.860 We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind, inside and out, healthy.

00:34:25.080 We human beings, all we want is connection.

00:34:27.360 We just want to connect with each other.

00:34:29.600 Health Stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

00:34:33.020 Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:34:40.480 Hey everyone, it's Ed Helms.

00:34:43.260 And I'm Cal Penn, and we are the hosts of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

00:34:49.200 This week on the podcast, I am talking to film and TV critic, radio and podcast host,

00:34:55.040 and Harry Potter superfan, Rihanna Dillon, to discuss Audible's full cast adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

00:35:05.500 What moments in this audiobook capture the feeling of the magical world best for you, or just stood out the most?

00:35:13.360 I always loved reading about the Quidditch matches, and I think the audio really gets it,

00:35:20.360 because it just plunges you right into the stands.

00:35:23.860 You have the crowd sounds, like all around you is surround sound, especially if you're listening in headphones.

00:35:29.660 Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:35:36.500 I want to go back, because we're going to get all this.

00:35:45.080 I know everyone came here for all this stuff.

00:35:46.860 Of course, before we do, I just want to ask, there's sort of a general take that I have,

00:35:51.020 and that is, I heard the podcast theater with Ezra Klein.

00:35:53.600 I think Ezra's wonderful.

00:35:54.700 You know, he and I disagree about nearly everything.

00:35:56.660 And I think Ezra's really, really a fascinating person, with a lot of really interesting and heterodox ideas.

00:36:02.020 And he talked with you a lot about sort of governance, and you talked with him a lot about how you were trying to remove regulatory barriers to, for example, building units, right?

00:36:10.600 Because when you came into office, you wanted to build, I believe it was 3.5 million units.

00:36:14.340 That was the stated need.

00:36:17.320 Right, the stated need.

00:36:18.040 And then we created a legal framework of 2.5 million, which is under the renewables.

00:36:21.420 And it will come up way shorter than that, but it's like 2030, what is it, about 100,000, 150,000 units that are being created the year?

00:36:27.240 A little less than 150,000.

00:36:28.980 You're right, about 111,000, 108,000.

00:36:31.080 And this isn't rip on you.

00:36:33.260 No, it's been a major national issue, you know.

00:36:35.400 And the macroeconomics of this with interest rate environment, sort of post-COVID environment, made this housing crisis across the country.

00:36:40.860 Although, to be fair, the housing crisis in California is particularly bad.

00:36:43.760 I mean, there are places like Phoenix or Austin or there's some places.

00:36:47.380 It's the original, I said yesterday or last week in the State of State, it's the original sin, our inability to get out of our own way and all the regulatory thickets.

00:36:53.900 Right, so.

00:36:54.240 And we blew through those in the last couple years, 61,000 reform bills we just passed.

00:36:59.980 And Ezra was highlighting that.

00:37:01.780 Interesting.

00:37:02.120 New York just moved in a direction.

00:37:04.460 I think finally, we Democrats broadly are moving now finally in the right direction.

00:37:09.240 After decades and decades, Democrats and Republicans in California neglect in this space.

00:37:16.060 Right.

00:37:16.280 And I think that one of the problems that people see, and there's been a big question.

00:37:20.040 You've asked it.

00:37:20.580 You've talked about it a lot, actually, about the frustration that people have with politics and the disenchantment that people have.

00:37:26.420 And the feeling that no matter what they do, they can't get ahead.

00:37:28.980 And that's manifesting in a lot of political polarization.

00:37:31.860 And this gets to, I think, a sort of broader issue.

00:37:33.520 It's not just you.

00:37:34.260 So I don't mean this to be a specific critique of you.

00:37:36.240 I think it's a critique of a lot of politicians that I have left and right.

00:37:39.620 And that is, you look at the system, you realize as the governor how complex the system is, how difficult it is to get things done, how much gridlock there is in the system.

00:37:47.840 But politicians, in order to get elected, have to make a lot of promises about how much things are going to change in the future.

00:37:54.180 And they usually are talking about using the power of government in order to facilitate and make that change happen, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle.

00:38:02.160 And it seems to me that that is a recipe for disaster for the American body politic.

00:38:06.020 Because if you make promises that cannot be fulfilled because the system does not allow for it to be fulfilled, people inherently end up frustrated.

00:38:14.320 And I have relatives who still live in the state of California.

00:38:16.960 I visit it routinely.

00:38:18.080 And they're making a very good living.

00:38:20.040 I have a sister-in-law and brother-in-law who live in L.A.

00:38:22.440 They make a combined excellent living.

00:38:24.180 And they're barely making their mortgage.

00:38:26.800 And the housing costs are too high.

00:38:28.820 The cost of living is too high.

00:38:31.080 I believe the poverty rates in California on a cost-adjusted basis are some of the highest in the nation.

00:38:35.520 Right there with Florida.

00:38:36.520 Correct.

00:38:36.940 When you look at the Supplemental Poverty Index, when you look at poverty broadly defined, it's slightly above average.

00:38:42.300 Supplemental Florida and California right there.

00:38:43.960 If you're looking at real estate costs in particular are extraordinary in the state of California.

00:38:48.180 As you say, you're trying to remove regulations.

00:38:50.200 But the problem is that unless we are willing to recognize a fundamental reality, which is that the relationship of the American people with their government needs to change.

00:39:00.840 I agree with that.

00:39:01.520 And what that means is that we need to radically, radically remove the regulatory structures that allow for more building.

00:39:08.220 That we need to radically stop perverting markets when it comes to how we make housing policy.

00:39:17.600 That we need to stop wasting money in taxpayer funding on things like, for example, a gigantic – you once called it a boondoggle – high-speed rail that is going to cost in excess of $100 billion.

00:39:28.000 In this state, the guarantee – and again, I see it rising on the populist right too, which is sort of a big government right, which is something I object to on a sort of classically conservative level.

00:39:38.820 The promises that are made that if you give government more power and more taxpayer revenue, that suddenly these problems are going to be alleviated.

00:39:46.820 And the actual result, which is less ability to move – to do what my parents did, to move from a two-bedroom small house in Burbank to a four-bedroom slightly larger house in North Hollywood.

00:39:56.140 And then for me to go to a great state school like UCLA, and then for me to go to Harvard Law School, and now to have a really, really nice house.

00:40:03.920 I did have a nice house in California before we left, obviously.

00:40:07.940 Those obstacles need to be –

00:40:10.420 Well, you sound like me.

00:40:11.460 I couldn't agree with you more.

00:40:12.420 I mean, we can get high-speed rail aside.

00:40:14.620 You made my speech and my argument last three years in terms of the housing reforms we pursued.

00:40:18.380 Could not agree more.

00:40:19.780 I highlighted the 61 bills just last year.

00:40:22.480 I didn't highlight the 42 sequel reform bills.

00:40:24.400 You know, talk about process and regulatory thickets, those environmental rules.

00:40:28.180 It was established, ironically, by Ronald Reagan himself when he was governor of California.

00:40:32.200 So we've been in the process of doing precisely what you're suggesting we need to do, and we've been doing it very meaningfully and been nation-leading reforms in this space.

00:40:40.240 Now, of course, the private sector needs to catch up in the context of interest rate environment becoming more favorable.

00:40:45.400 But now we are – cities and counties, we put on notice.

00:40:50.120 Maybe you recall when I first became governor, I sued Huntington Beach, the first city, because they were out of compliance with their housing element.

00:40:56.160 We established a legally binding goal of two and a half million units.

00:40:59.660 We talked about the stretch goal, what needed to get some equilibrium in our prices, the supply-demand imbalance.

00:41:05.720 But we created a legally binding goal of two and a half million.

00:41:07.820 So what could we done to make that happen in not Huntington Beach, but L.A., San Francisco?

00:41:12.100 Well, we've been – we created a housing accountability unit.

00:41:14.400 We pursued 46 actions.

00:41:16.100 We've unlocked tens of thousands of units.

00:41:16.500 But I guess the question is from like the common man perspective, right?

00:41:19.120 From my perspective, where I left, I took my business, right?

00:41:22.140 From that perspective, how do we get to the material change?

00:41:25.660 And if we cannot, then perhaps that requires a complete rethink.

00:41:31.540 Now, come over to my classical libertarian economics here, governor, is I guess what I'm saying, and maybe recognize that the amount of tax revenue that's taken in in the state perverts the market incentives.

00:41:44.080 That what's been generated in the state is a middle class that is really struggling.

00:41:49.160 Vast social services for people who are at poverty line or below and slightly above, and then a group of people who are either so wealthy they don't care or so wealthy now that now they're leaving because of the prospective wealth tax, which I know you oppose.

00:42:02.100 You understand markets.

00:42:03.500 So that's why I'm always a little bit bewildered when there are measures taken by the state legislature that end up perverting markets in fairly serious ways.

00:42:12.100 Well, we can get into the crony capitalism, state capitalism, and the tithings from NVIDIA and AMD and what's going on with Intel and what's happening with the Trump administration in that respect.

00:42:24.140 But I agree with you broadly in all this.

00:42:25.740 I mean, the fact is we've been tackling all.

00:42:27.740 I can't make up for 50, 60 years.

00:42:29.260 And you're talking about literally a 50-year trend line as it relates to the issues of cost of housing and affordability.

00:42:35.240 But I can talk in terms of the substantive actions we've taken, tripling their income tax credits for working families, creating a child tax credit, foster tax credit, doing more as it relates to pre-distribution opportunities.

00:42:47.340 How about radically lowering the income tax rates in the state?

00:42:48.900 Well, California has taxed.

00:42:52.060 I mean, there's 16 states right now.

00:42:53.500 Let's talk about those 16 states.

00:42:54.880 Why don't we talk about California?

00:42:55.940 Well, I'm going to.

00:42:56.820 They tax their low-wage earners more than California taxes its high-wage earners.

00:43:00.740 Let's talk about lowering those tax rates in those 16 states.

00:43:03.940 How about the middle class?

00:43:05.360 40% of the middle class in Texas pay higher taxes than they do in California.

00:43:09.460 The tax, we have the highest tax rate for the 1%.

00:43:13.660 But the overall tax burden, and there's been independent analysis after independent analysis, is marginally higher than the national average.

00:43:22.880 So the tax rate for the 1%, you're in that bubble.

00:43:26.660 But 99% empirically are not.

00:43:28.520 As a person who grew up in California and spent my entire career in California, I paid every single tax rate in the state of California.

00:43:33.640 I started off making, when I first got out of school and I'd quit the law firm, I was making maybe $60,000 a year.

00:43:38.200 So you started out paying less than you would in a dozen plus other states.

00:43:41.580 And I didn't leave.

00:43:42.460 It's a progressive tax state.

00:43:43.480 I understand it's a progressive tax state.

00:43:45.200 The problem is that when I left, I also took 80 employees.

00:43:48.040 And there's somebody who's got to pay the bills for those employees.

00:43:51.260 And that's typically not the state, the person who is paying the bills for the employees.

00:43:55.020 And the person-

00:43:55.620 As a guy who's created a-

00:43:56.940 By the way, you're talking to a guy who started right out of college, pen to paper, and started 23 small businesses.

00:44:03.460 Literally, 23.

00:44:04.540 Sorry, created almost 1,000 jobs.

00:44:06.140 So you know, as a person who ran a small business, you wanted to pay salaries to your people.

00:44:09.620 Honored.

00:44:10.100 Well, yeah, right.

00:44:10.720 I mean, it's not about the greed of the one-

00:44:12.560 And I hated a lot of the regulations.

00:44:15.020 And I've been fighting against a lot of those same regulations.

00:44:16.840 And trying to fire people because of that stuff is awful.

00:44:19.020 I agree with you.

00:44:19.280 And losing your profit margin, which allows you to hire more people, is a bad thing.

00:44:24.060 And when you're seeing-

00:44:24.920 I mean, I've talked to major tech founders who say today that they would not-

00:44:28.560 If they had to do it over again, they would not found in California,

00:44:31.400 specifically because of the regulatory and tax returns.

00:44:33.300 Well, let's talk about the largest startup in world history.

00:44:35.780 Could have chosen any place to open its headquarters just recently.

00:44:40.180 OpenAI, and the folks there decided to open in San Francisco.

00:44:43.340 I mean, it runs-

00:44:43.720 That's where the talent is.

00:44:44.540 I mean, there's no question.

00:44:45.160 Therein lies the formula for success.

00:44:47.720 California has more Fortune 500 companies than it's ever had in 20-plus years.

00:44:53.420 To be fair, you have 40 million people who live here.

00:44:55.020 Well, hold on.

00:44:55.640 But four years ago, that wasn't the case.

00:44:57.760 Today, it's the case.

00:44:58.680 We have 58 Fortune 500 companies.

00:45:00.520 When I started, it was 49.

00:45:01.900 We're the sixth largest economy.

00:45:03.160 Now, we're the fourth largest economy.

00:45:05.000 You look at the 3.1 million jobs that have been created since I've been governor.

00:45:08.180 You can look across the spectrum.

00:45:09.800 I'm not denying its challenges, but those persist and exist in every other state.

00:45:13.520 You moved to a state that has higher insurance rate, higher car insurance, not just home

00:45:17.580 insurance, has higher property taxes.

00:45:19.540 Many of these red states have higher murder rates, lower wages, lower productivity, less

00:45:24.020 innovation and entrepreneurialism.

00:45:25.700 They're less contributory to the GDP of this country.

00:45:28.040 And so, I mean, not to defend my current state, Florida.

00:45:31.040 I mean, obviously, you had a debate with Governor DeSantis where you guys had this discussion.

00:45:35.000 But I will say that some of the statistics that you use with regard to California are

00:45:40.340 aggregate statistics, not on a per capita basis.

00:45:42.780 So, I've heard you say, for example, that California is the top innovation state because

00:45:48.440 it has the highest number of new businesses founded on a per capita basis.

00:45:51.300 That isn't true.

00:45:51.980 How about on a per capita basis?

00:45:53.320 More Floridians move into California than Californians to Florida.

00:45:56.500 I mean, that's-

00:45:57.980 Per capita basis.

00:45:58.880 That's fine.

00:45:59.680 And on an absolute-

00:46:00.040 Okay, I just want to-

00:46:01.000 Let's establish the per capita frame.

00:46:02.780 Per capita murder rate.

00:46:04.260 Let's look at infant mortality per capita.

00:46:06.180 Look at child mortality.

00:46:06.960 We can look at violent assault rates.

00:46:08.620 We can look at property crime rates.

00:46:09.680 I don't know.

00:46:10.240 But it's not-

00:46:10.780 I mean, Jacksonville versus San Francisco.

00:46:13.840 California, outside of immigration, has had a loss of population for the past several years.

00:46:18.460 But immigration is part of the secret sauce of California going back to its origin story.

00:46:22.580 I understand.

00:46:22.980 But if you lose people like me and the 80 employees I took with me and members of my family-

00:46:26.080 I'm not happy about anyone leaving the state, but population's grown three years in a row.

00:46:29.920 Last time it declined, it went down with 11 other states.

00:46:32.600 And we lost 151 people 2021.

00:46:34.360 If you're talking not about immigration, if you're just talking about people who lived in California

00:46:37.240 who are leaving, that number is high.

00:46:38.860 And again, I'm not blaming that on you because-

00:46:40.560 That will be the case in many, many states, as you know, across this country.

00:46:43.880 By the way, a lot of red states, which I'm surprised you guys don't talk more about.

00:46:48.060 What about the last few years, all these red states losing folks?

00:46:51.120 California hasn't been the last few years.

00:46:52.540 These red states are.

00:46:53.420 Louisiana, Mississippi, let's talk about those states.

00:46:55.920 Let's talk about the murder rate.

00:46:57.380 Adding the top 10 murder rates in America are in red states.

00:47:00.560 I think there's some real problems.

00:47:01.920 The most regressive taxes in the country are in these red states.

00:47:05.340 Who are you for?

00:47:06.360 I mean, the question really, again, you're the governor of California, not the governor of Louisiana.

00:47:10.740 If I'm speaking with the governor of Louisiana, I'd be very happy to talk about-

00:47:13.340 I just never hear anyone talk about the governor of Louisiana and the population.

00:47:17.360 Yeah, because I'm aware the governor of Louisiana probably wasn't running for president and also

00:47:23.200 doesn't-

00:47:23.540 I don't know.

00:47:24.100 Who knows?

00:47:25.000 Everyone else seems to be running for president.

00:47:26.680 I never live in Louisiana.

00:47:27.460 Are you running for president?

00:47:28.440 By the way, let's get back to that.

00:47:29.860 Bannon is running for president, he said.

00:47:31.540 Oh, goodness.

00:47:32.120 You don't buy that?

00:47:33.200 No, I bet that Steve would run a vanity campaign in order to garner a few dollars and some more attention

00:47:37.720 for himself.

00:47:38.160 Sure, why not?

00:47:38.480 I'm going to get back to all the California bashing here in a second because I know everyone

00:47:42.080 wants to tune in on that.

00:47:43.100 But I want to talk- I want to keep going a little bit and just in the interest of you

00:47:46.160 coming all the way out from that red state of Florida.

00:47:48.100 Because it is interesting just in terms of just as you laid out the framework of the

00:47:54.340 media environment in this country and how fragmented it's become, et cetera, this notion

00:47:58.920 of trust and truth and how things are weaponized and how everybody, you know, society becomes

00:48:03.800 how we behave and how you indict a little bit my press office, which I appreciated the

00:48:08.420 direct point you made on that.

00:48:12.440 And I'm not naive about that.

00:48:13.800 And I think about that all the time when we put up a mirror to Trump, we become more

00:48:16.680 like him.

00:48:17.120 And are you complicit in that?

00:48:18.700 And by the way, again, not unique to you.

00:48:19.460 Obviously, we've had things at our company that have been said.

00:48:21.620 That's not unique.

00:48:22.420 I will say that I think that for elected politicians who are hoping for a better future where we

00:48:26.200 all come together, it is a problem.

00:48:28.820 And, you know, I don't like the catastrophism.

00:48:31.520 I've criticized it on the right to the sort of catastrophism that you see in a functioning

00:48:35.280 democracy, which is what the United States is.

00:48:36.940 It is a functioning republic.

00:48:38.560 You know, when, for example, when the president decided to push for redistricting and then

00:48:43.000 you push back with your proposition, I actually didn't have a problem with that.

00:48:46.520 I thought, you know, that is a that is a normal use of the political mechanisms in order

00:48:49.820 to fight back by one side against another.

00:48:51.940 What I do have a problem with is if you go on Stephen Colbert and say your word, there

00:48:56.060 won't be a legit election in twenty twenty eight.

00:48:58.180 I die.

00:48:58.660 But I feel that.

00:48:59.500 I mean, if I believe that you really believe that, I really believe that.

00:49:02.160 But then why are you running or why would you consider?

00:49:05.000 I want to make sure those I because we have agency, we can shape the future.

00:49:08.400 It's not something to experience.

00:49:09.840 But I didn't believe what President Trump said.

00:49:11.220 It's a President Trump said in twenty twenty he wants.

00:49:13.320 I believe in it.

00:49:14.860 He tried to really believe that President Trump is going to try to run in twenty twenty eight.

00:49:17.700 No, I believe that he'll try to wire the outcome in twenty twenty eight.

00:49:20.500 I really see this sort of stuff is very dangerous.

00:49:21.940 I really because I heard it from the right in the aftermath of twenty twenty.

00:49:26.340 And you'll recall I was one of the few on the right who said this is not true.

00:49:29.860 Right.

00:49:30.220 That Joe Biden was legitimately, legitimately elected in twenty twenty.

00:49:33.460 And that if someone could provide me evidence that he was not, that was sufficient to overcome

00:49:37.000 the burden of what Trump tried to do.

00:49:39.520 Well, I mean, what what is the thing that you think?

00:49:41.020 I mean, he dialing up for twelve thousand votes in Georgia and a party.

00:49:45.080 I mean, where you say I'm not justifying.

00:49:46.900 I'm not justifying.

00:49:47.680 Try to light democracy.

00:49:48.640 I'm not justifying what he said to Brad Raffensperger over over in Georgia.

00:49:52.060 Yeah.

00:49:52.600 Brad Raffensperger, by the way, did the right thing.

00:49:53.980 I think Mike Pence did the right thing, by the way, in certifying the election.

00:49:56.300 But my point is that when it when it comes to if you want the country to continue to work

00:50:01.580 together, then if you set the predicate, if I lose, it was rigged.

00:50:05.720 And no, I can't stand that.

00:50:07.520 And then then we need then we need some objective.

00:50:09.080 I agree with you on that.

00:50:09.700 Then then if you're going to say that we need some objective metrics by which we can

00:50:13.300 adjudicate whether or not the election will be fairly decided.

00:50:17.700 And it seems to me that just in terms of how elections are conducted globally.

00:50:22.040 And again, I'm in favor of many of these sort of election reforms that have been proposed,

00:50:25.860 for example, voter ID.

00:50:27.200 I think it's kind of silly to argue that you shouldn't have to show ID when you vote.

00:50:30.240 But do I think that we are at high risk in the United States of full scale national elections

00:50:35.460 with 150 million voters being stolen and that the the the elective leadership is then

00:50:41.780 fundamentally illegitimate, which leaves you with no choice, presumably, but to go to the

00:50:45.360 mattresses, which is what you don't want.

00:50:46.920 That sort of that sort of language, I think, is really dangerous.

00:50:50.160 But back to the point you were making earlier about the aggregate, we're talking about a

00:50:55.140 few thousand votes here and there that ultimately determine that election for the nation on

00:50:59.520 the basis of the electoral map.

00:51:01.080 So I think it's more prone to concern than you may suggest.

00:51:05.480 But I think that concern, by the way, specific problems that we can actually agree on the

00:51:08.740 specific.

00:51:09.060 Oh, I'm with you.

00:51:09.720 And that's why that's why I'm calling it out now.

00:51:11.380 And I've been I try to provide evidence to back up my point as it relates to the Department

00:51:15.620 of Justice and how it gets weaponized.

00:51:17.320 And I've seen it on my from my party as well.

00:51:19.540 Sure as hell seen it from Trump's part, some perspective, what they try to do with the

00:51:22.880 BORTAC teams on the day of the election here under Prop 50, where they send folks out

00:51:27.500 and these guys and all dressed up to try to chill free expression and free speech on

00:51:31.560 Election Day, where Trump tweets out that morning saying this is a rigged election.

00:51:35.440 The fact that he's out there suggesting that all the vote by mail is is illegal and a bunch

00:51:40.420 of immigrants, illegal immigrants are out there doing all all of these things.

00:51:43.960 You start stacking them, including trying to rid midterm elections as it relates to changing

00:51:47.880 the maps and what he tried to do on January 6th.

00:51:50.960 Yeah, I start getting a little bit concerned about those things in together because I don't

00:51:54.880 think they're all the same, but they're not all the same, but they stack together from

00:51:58.000 my perspective, not one action to some total of all of those things, including sending

00:52:02.220 out ICE.

00:52:02.880 But it is very difficult to argue.

00:52:03.940 On Election Day, which I'll repeat just occurred.

00:52:05.640 Here's the thing.

00:52:06.060 It's very difficult to argue over intentions because now I'm in the business of mind reading,

00:52:09.180 which I can't do.

00:52:10.040 I can.

00:52:10.920 Well, Trump's not.

00:52:11.740 Trump's not.

00:52:12.340 He's telling you what he thinks.

00:52:14.020 I know.

00:52:14.560 And I will criticize him when he says what he thinks.

00:52:17.680 I'll criticize.

00:52:18.040 So, for example, when he said 2020 was a rigged election, he said, you'll recall in 2020,

00:52:22.280 on the night of the election, he said, I won before all the results were in.

00:52:25.420 I came out before anybody and I said, that's wrong.

00:52:28.960 The election is not over yet.

00:52:30.100 All the votes have not been counted.

00:52:31.300 Good for you.

00:52:31.920 So I tried to, I try and I think the responsible thing to do is, and I don't always do this,

00:52:37.720 but I think that the responsible thing to do is to try and hone in on the specific behavior.

00:52:42.980 So, you know, you mentioned that it would be election rigging, you know, if President

00:52:46.460 Trump is pushing for gerrymandering in Indiana.

00:52:48.660 I don't think that's election rigging.

00:52:49.840 I don't think it's election rigging when you gerrymander in California.

00:52:51.800 I think that is a long practice part of American politics.

00:52:54.560 And I don't think that you did anything wrong, actually, in pushing for it in California,

00:52:58.080 as much as it does not benefit the party that I tend to vote for and of whom I'm a member,

00:53:02.820 of which I'm a member.

00:53:03.780 So, you know, when the general tenor, and this is what I see in democratic crises that

00:53:10.660 you see around the world, one of the things that I see is both sides saying, if the other

00:53:14.880 side wins, it was rigged.

00:53:16.400 Yeah, I'm with you on that, though.

00:53:17.520 I want to make, I'll double down on being crystal clear.

00:53:19.860 I can't stand that any more than you can stand that.

00:53:21.720 I couldn't agree with you more.

00:53:22.860 I'm concerned about the inputs between now and 2028, including concerned about folks

00:53:29.380 that you know well, Steve Bannon and others saying there'll be a third Trump term.

00:53:33.900 The fact that I was in the Oval-

00:53:34.900 I think Steve's totally full of shit.

00:53:36.040 And by the way, I think that people should stop giving Steve attention for saying things

00:53:38.860 that are complete horseshit.

00:53:39.740 And I appreciate that.

00:53:41.320 But should I give attention to Donald Trump when I sat there in the Oval Office for 90

00:53:45.760 minutes and he tells me to turn around and there's a picture on the wall or painting on

00:53:50.780 the wall of FDR?

00:53:51.700 And I look at him and I smile.

00:53:52.860 He goes, I said, oh, here's the third term.

00:53:54.820 He goes, what about four terms?

00:53:56.100 Should I take him seriously?

00:53:57.300 Okay.

00:53:57.520 Should I take him literally?

00:53:58.580 So I will say-

00:53:59.380 I don't know.

00:53:59.640 I'm just a question.

00:54:00.400 I know.

00:54:00.720 And my general answer-

00:54:01.820 That's the president.

00:54:02.080 And my general answer to this is if we've watched Donald Trump for 10 years, 10 years,

00:54:06.400 and we're still doing the thing where we all take him explicitly, literally, I think

00:54:10.260 that-

00:54:10.940 Maduro did.

00:54:12.040 So people-

00:54:12.800 Or has.

00:54:13.800 Okay.

00:54:14.420 It turns out Maduro should have.

00:54:15.780 But one of the things that I remember, I would get this critique about President Trump

00:54:20.120 a lot is President Trump, who, as I've said multiple times on his epitaph, it will read

00:54:26.200 45th and 47th presidents of the United States.

00:54:29.000 He said a lot of shit.

00:54:29.940 Um, you know, like the, the, the, the thing that I'm not going to pretend-

00:54:33.640 I take my presidents a little more seriously than most.

00:54:35.320 See, I don't, I don't, I see, I don't think you do.

00:54:36.900 And this is, this is the thing where I really, I really doubt it.

00:54:39.180 I see a lot of people who will, Trump will, will fire off a random tweet and everybody kind

00:54:44.840 of laughs because it's President Trump.

00:54:47.760 If I'm going to pretend that that is coming from the same thought process as whatever comes

00:54:51.620 from Joe Biden's press office, which went through seven layers and maybe not the

00:54:55.300 president, then I, then I'm not going to, I'm not going to pretend that's the same

00:54:58.300 thing because I'm not an idiot.

00:54:59.200 You know, and that's, I look, and by the way, I could not agree even more.

00:55:02.220 And that's, I think reflected in the humor I'm trying to put back in on my social media.

00:55:06.620 And actually, I think it's kind of a problem for you because I think that frankly, the

00:55:09.620 stuff that you're doing is more thought out than the stuff that President Trump does.

00:55:12.560 Meaning I think that President Trump is waking up at three in the morning if he went to sleep

00:55:15.600 at all and he's firing off stuff on truth social, right?

00:55:18.340 And so am I supposed to take that as seriously as you in a methodical fashion saying, you know

00:55:22.320 what, I'm going to prank him back.

00:55:23.400 And I think that people on, you know, people who are your supporters do take you in that

00:55:28.140 way more literally than they would be apt to take President Trump.

00:55:32.760 I think, I mean, a lot of my support has been offended by, by what we're trying to do, but,

00:55:37.420 but no, look, and, and, and a lot, I think appreciate the humor that we bring to it.

00:55:41.980 And I do think it, I think it's reflected in, I think a sense of agreement that we have

00:55:46.760 in that respect as it relates to what Trump puts out all the time.

00:55:49.320 But like, if you win the 2028 election, I will call you President of the United States,

00:55:52.660 right?

00:55:52.780 Because that election will be legitimate.

00:55:55.360 And if it's Jamie Vance or Marco Rubio or whoever else.

00:55:57.460 As I was, you know, as an American, I called Donald Trump President of the United States,

00:56:02.860 Mr. President.

00:56:03.680 I mean, of course.

00:56:05.020 And I, so I'm with you on that.

00:56:06.300 Yes.

00:56:06.400 And the outcome, but that doesn't suggest that I believe for a second, and you haven't

00:56:11.620 respectfully convinced me, uh, that I'm wrong or errant, that he won't do everything in

00:56:16.620 his power to manipulate the outcome.

00:56:18.880 Um, I, do I expect, I think it's time of life.

00:56:21.240 If he was 20 years younger, I absolutely believe he'd run for a third term.

00:56:25.340 Uh, but it's time of life suggests that that's not going to be the case, but I do think he's

00:56:29.880 going to try to hardwire.

00:56:30.500 This also, you see the reason I'm, I'm concerned about this because it also implicates the guardrails.

00:56:36.660 So as you've talked about in your state, there's a lot of gridlock, right?

00:56:39.760 There are a lot of various moving parts.

00:56:41.300 When you're trying to get something done at the state level, you've got local governments

00:56:43.880 that can impede you.

00:56:44.680 You've got a legislature that can say no to you, right?

00:56:46.880 You've got a bunch of, you've got a judiciary that will, that will tell you no in, in certain

00:56:51.040 areas.

00:56:51.820 You know, there was, there was a ruling a couple of weeks ago that I, that I strongly agree

00:56:54.700 with from the judiciary with regard to, for example, uh, school districts and what

00:56:58.500 they can and should tell parents about, about their kids.

00:57:01.420 That's going to be thrown out, but I will get, but you know, when he test decision.

00:57:05.580 But when, when, when it comes to, you know, what president Trump is or is not trying to

00:57:09.700 do, the problem is when we say that he will try to, he will try to steal this issue, will

00:57:13.780 the election be stolen?

00:57:15.020 That relies now on a, an opinion about, for example, the Supreme Court of the United States

00:57:19.080 or an opinion about the various state legislatures and courts.

00:57:22.920 And, and so now you're not just implicating what president Trump might try to do.

00:57:26.440 You're now implicating pretty much every major institution that is electoral in nature.

00:57:30.620 Well, I, there's a lot of evidence and, um, I know both sides have, have argued a lot

00:57:35.580 of evidence as it relates to the weaponization of justice and the bias that's expressed in

00:57:39.760 a lot of these federal, uh, judicial opinions.

00:57:42.520 Um, and, and it's, uh, yeah, it's a little alarming.

00:57:45.040 I mean, as a father of a judge, uh, who reveres the courts and, you know, as someone that I was

00:57:50.800 very proud of, my father may have been accused of being an activist judge, but he, I, in many

00:57:54.960 occasions call in balls and strikes.

00:57:56.900 And, you know, I revere that sense of justice.

00:57:59.000 That's, that's where justice is found with an objective analysis, but no, I do worry about

00:58:03.620 the Supreme court.

00:58:04.460 You may not.

00:58:05.100 I'm concerned about the Supreme court of the United States.

00:58:07.100 I'm concerned about what Donald Trump did after January 6th, the degree that he went,

00:58:12.320 uh, to, uh, ultimately try to stay into office.

00:58:15.380 Yes.

00:58:15.720 I'm concerned about the actions he's taken, not any one of them from the midterm redistricting,

00:58:20.920 but the sum total of many of them.

00:58:23.660 And yes, I'm concerned if we don't take back the house of representatives and we have no

00:58:27.400 oversight and we continue to have the supine Congress, uh, we may not have a country that

00:58:31.540 we recognize.

00:58:32.240 I really believe that.

00:58:33.260 I do.

00:58:34.120 And, and it's fine to believe all of those things.

00:58:36.620 I will say that to articulate them as though they are all of equal levels of alarm or that

00:58:40.720 the sum total of them is that if we don't win the next election, the country's over,

00:58:44.780 which again is something that, that you hear very often from, from the right too.

00:58:48.200 I think that that sort of alarmism is quite bad for American politics.

00:58:51.180 And I don't think that anyone who's in electoral politics actually believes that because I

00:58:54.800 promise you that if a Republican wins in 2028, a Democrat will then run in 2032.

00:59:00.200 And if the reverse is true, the same thing will happen.

00:59:02.740 Yeah, I agree with that.

00:59:03.440 Look, I do.

00:59:04.080 I just, the level.

00:59:05.660 And I think the American people should know that because it gives them a sense.

00:59:08.000 Okay.

00:59:08.380 I didn't win this time, but I might win next time.

00:59:10.420 And once American people start to believe they can never win or their side is always cut

00:59:14.300 out.

00:59:14.680 Ben, I love what you're saying.

00:59:15.640 The spirit of what you're saying, what you're saying, I completely concur with.

00:59:19.600 I just, I, I have a different level of anxiety based upon my own direct experience, not just

00:59:26.000 indirect, direct experience with Donald Trump.

00:59:28.800 My concern about the rule of law, this notion of co-equal branch of government in your book,

00:59:33.100 you talk about sort of the fundamental Judeo-Christian values in this country with the best, the Greek

00:59:37.620 democracy.

00:59:38.640 I worry about those principles of our family fathers.

00:59:40.720 I worry about checks and balances too.

00:59:41.940 Yeah.

00:59:42.080 And by the way, I think that the best way to do that, Ashley, and this would benefit

00:59:44.760 you as governor of the state, is devolution of more authority back down to the states,

00:59:48.820 devolution of more governmental authority back down to the local levels, and more robust

00:59:51.840 checks and balances of the federal level.

00:59:52.680 Your lips to God and the White House's ears.

00:59:55.840 Yeah, I'm a little-

00:59:56.760 And I hope you remember that if you become president.

00:59:58.640 Yes.

00:59:58.820 This notion of federalism and 10th Amendment.

01:00:00.580 Yeah, I remember, I remember, you know, the red states were arguing for that during those

01:00:05.160 Obama years.

01:00:05.900 God bless you.

01:00:06.440 No, back to your being more consistent.

01:00:08.580 And I respect that.

01:00:09.380 And that's why we're here.

01:00:10.220 And I respect you, and I appreciate this opportunity to engage, even though, obviously, we have

01:00:14.780 fundamental disagreements on a lot of these issues.

01:00:16.680 Maybe not fundamental, just disagreements on a lot of these issues.

01:00:20.080 Let me go back to some of the disagreements, and I don't want to paint too much and color

01:00:24.400 this in, because as a Democrat, it's in my interest to do so.

01:00:28.420 But you got a lot of attention for going recently to AmericaFest, Turning Point USA.

01:00:34.980 You made a terrible decision of being the first speaker.

01:00:38.440 That's just me saying editorially, what the heck were you thinking?

01:00:41.880 That is not my decision, right?

01:00:43.720 They invited me.

01:00:44.640 They gave me a slot.

01:00:45.600 That's-

01:00:45.900 Yeah, just your luck, because then every speaker can come on and tackle you.

01:00:48.680 That's okay.

01:00:49.320 You know, I got to say what I wanted to say, and then I said pretty much-

01:00:52.340 So let's paint the picture.

01:00:52.360 What did you say so people tuning in don't know what the hell we're talking about?

01:00:55.740 You went in, and a pretty somber time.

01:00:59.380 You know, Charlie's Widow was there.

01:01:01.800 You had a lot of, you know, the sort of branded celebrities in the right, and Candace Owens was

01:01:06.940 there, and-

01:01:07.440 Candace was not there, to be fair.

01:01:09.040 But-

01:01:09.580 But became part of the conversation.

01:01:11.420 She definitely was part of the conversation.

01:01:12.340 And Bannon and Megyn Kelly, others, so many others.

01:01:16.060 Certainly Tucker Carlson.

01:01:17.480 So give a sense.

01:01:18.460 What did you say, and why did you say it?

01:01:20.280 And why did you choose that moment to say it?

01:01:22.820 So the reason that I chose the moment to say it is that Candace Owens, who has some issues

01:01:28.900 of her own, she has been saying since Charlie's death that there was effectively a conspiracy

01:01:33.960 to kill him.

01:01:34.840 She has implicated pretty much everybody, ranging from, believe it or not, French intelligence

01:01:40.640 to the Israelis to various friends and family members, possibly, of Charlie in his murder.

01:01:48.020 And there have been an enormous number of people in the influencer space on the right

01:01:52.900 who have gone along with this, who have massaged it, pretended not to notice it, tried to defend

01:01:57.160 her, tried to pretend that it was an aspect of, that questioning her was an aspect of free

01:02:00.880 speech, which, of course, was a violation of free speech, rather, which, of course, it

01:02:05.100 isn't.

01:02:05.480 You know, criticism is not a violation of free speech.

01:02:07.200 It's a form of free speech.

01:02:08.220 Thank you.

01:02:08.540 And so I got up on stage, and I basically gave a speech saying our responsibility as

01:02:14.820 people with influence in the public space, we have some responsibilities, and those responsibilities

01:02:19.580 include truth above all.

01:02:22.380 We ought to give you, we ought to be clear about what we believe.

01:02:24.440 We should not hide the ball.

01:02:25.920 We should not allow, quote unquote, friendship to trump what is true.

01:02:29.220 Just because you're friends with someone does not alleviate the responsibility for you

01:02:32.320 to say when they're doing something that is wrong or immoral.

01:02:34.800 We should not engage in audience capture just because our audience wants us to say a thing

01:02:39.280 doesn't mean that we ought to say it.

01:02:41.500 And we ought to ensure that we are held responsible for the things that we say and also the people

01:02:48.740 that we have on and how we question those people.

01:02:51.560 So, of course, anybody has the right to have anybody on their show who they want, and then

01:02:55.500 they should treat those people how they want to treat those people.

01:02:58.620 I mean, if I were to have on somebody who is, you know, in a deeply adversarial position,

01:03:02.140 I think what's great about this conversation is you can see how adversarial we are.

01:03:04.800 With regard to some of our positions, but at the same time, still have the discussion.

01:03:08.660 You know, if you are going to have on, for example, as Tucker Carlson did, Nick Fuentes,

01:03:13.480 who is a self-stated Nazi apologist, and then you're going to treat him with kid gloves,

01:03:18.760 then you ought to be held responsible for that in the court of public opinion.

01:03:23.080 And if we as influencers do not do that job, if we lie to you, if we fib to you, if we make

01:03:29.480 predictions which we are then not held responsible for, if we hide behind, quote unquote,

01:03:32.840 just asking questions, this is one of my bugaboos, I hate it.

01:03:35.520 You hear this a lot in the influencer space, mostly on the right, but some on the left

01:03:39.200 as well.

01:03:40.120 This sort of, you know, I'm not putting out a theory, I'm just asking questions.

01:03:43.800 Well, there's a difference between seeking answers and just asking questions.

01:03:47.180 Seeking answers, that's what questions are for.

01:03:49.560 It's to get better information, more clarification.

01:03:52.220 You know, I should have a better idea after the question of the answer than I did before.

01:03:55.600 Just asking questions is usually a guise for willful ignorance and for positing a theory

01:04:00.380 without having to carry the responsibility for positing that theory.

01:04:04.120 So if I say, you know, I'm just asking questions about whether you have peculiar sexual proclivities.

01:04:08.900 I don't have any evidence, I'm just asking the question.

01:04:11.080 And then you say, well, where is that even coming from?

01:04:13.360 Listen, I'm just asking questions.

01:04:14.860 I'm not asking questions.

01:04:15.760 I'm obviously attempting to impute something to you.

01:04:18.300 And so this is what this speech was about.

01:04:20.320 I named names in it.

01:04:21.440 I mentioned Tucker Carlson.

01:04:23.520 I mentioned Megyn Kelly, who had sort of gone out of her way to massage Candace Owens

01:04:28.660 in her pursuit of bizarre conspiracy theories about Erica and Charlie's murder.

01:04:34.480 I mentioned Steve because I think Steve has been doing many of the same things.

01:04:39.040 And so that was the speech at Amtesty.

01:04:41.420 And that you felt it was necessary to name names as opposed to imply you just felt it was

01:04:45.700 important to be clear.

01:04:46.460 Yes, because I think that people should know exactly who they are listening to, particularly

01:04:49.420 since they were going to hear from some of those people at the same event.

01:04:53.080 And so I thought that people should, you know, be forewarned about the people they're going

01:04:56.440 to hear about.

01:04:56.880 Then they can make their own decisions and determine whether my assessment of those personalities

01:05:00.700 is accurate or inaccurate.

01:05:03.160 And the reaction was exactly as you anticipated?

01:05:07.600 I think that the reaction in the room was, I think, overwhelming because a lot of people

01:05:12.260 were very upset that people had been saying this about Charlie's murder, which, again,

01:05:17.000 was carried out by all available evidence, by a person motivated by hatred of Charlie's

01:05:24.780 position on transgender issues in particular.

01:05:28.620 And, you know, all the evidence points to Tyler Robinson as being the person who shot Charlie

01:05:32.460 Kirk.

01:05:32.780 And so I think that a lot of people in the audience were deeply offended and upset,

01:05:35.980 correctly so, at the kind of specious conspiracy theories that have been promoted by this group

01:05:41.420 of folks.

01:05:42.980 The sort of blowback that came afterward was really interesting.

01:05:46.600 You know, there were a lot of people who obviously were very upset.

01:05:49.520 And many of the people who I'd named, I'm not surprised, came back and, you know, fired

01:05:52.840 back.

01:05:53.160 I will say that I don't think any of them actually argued with the point that I was making.

01:05:56.620 They seemed to make collateral attacks, imputing intent to me, suggesting that my speech had

01:06:02.560 something to do with Israel, which is funny since I didn't mention Israel one time in the

01:06:05.080 entire speech.

01:06:06.320 And I found that sort of bizarre.

01:06:08.720 And then obviously you've seen, you know, sort of the influence or wars going on.

01:06:12.080 But the whole point that I was making is here's a principle.

01:06:14.500 Either you uphold the principle or you don't uphold the principle.

01:06:17.140 If you don't uphold the principle, I'm going to call you out for not upholding the principle.

01:06:20.260 And it really is quite simple.

01:06:21.840 It's not about friendship.

01:06:22.680 It's not about whether we go fishing together.

01:06:24.840 None of that has anything to do with the principle that's at stake.

01:06:28.880 Because if we want to have an honest discussion with one another, then we actually should be

01:06:32.020 honest about the principles that we hold.

01:06:33.640 And if we disagree, we disagree.

01:06:34.700 But clarity before agreement, as my friend Dennis Prager says.

01:06:36.860 Were you close with Charlie?

01:06:40.100 Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA Health and host

01:06:44.800 of the Mailroom Podcast.

01:06:46.420 Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions.

01:06:49.740 Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken.

01:06:52.560 But what if the real work isn't physical at all?

01:06:54.860 To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years

01:06:59.760 experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name.

01:07:05.260 In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why

01:07:10.460 shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others.

01:07:16.600 Guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved.

01:07:21.340 Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy, as in compassion.

01:07:25.440 If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's

01:07:30.340 underneath, listen to the Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

01:07:35.940 favorite shows.

01:07:36.580 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but

01:07:44.400 it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.

01:07:47.900 The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

01:07:50.680 So why did it take so long to catch him?

01:07:53.080 I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation

01:07:57.940 into the most notorious killer in New York since The Son of Sam, available now.

01:08:02.640 Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:08:09.140 Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally.

01:08:11.000 And I'm Hari Kondabolu.

01:08:12.220 It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about

01:08:16.360 our health.

01:08:16.900 Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can

01:08:21.000 all be.

01:08:21.840 I like to sleep in late and sleep early.

01:08:25.660 Is there a chronotype for that, or am I just depressed?

01:08:28.160 We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight.

01:08:34.220 You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and

01:08:38.440 just start doing that.

01:08:39.940 We break down the topics you want to know more about.

01:08:43.180 Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health.

01:08:48.300 We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind, inside and out, healthy.

01:08:53.540 We human beings, all we want is connection.

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01:08:58.180 Health Stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

01:09:01.900 Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:09:09.060 Hey, everyone.

01:09:10.180 It's Ed Helms.

01:09:11.680 And I'm Cal Penn, and we are the hosts of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

01:09:17.160 This week on the podcast, I am talking to film and TV critic, radio and podcast host,

01:09:23.620 and Harry Potter superfan, Rihanna Dillon, to discuss Audible's full cast adaptation of

01:09:30.580 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

01:09:33.760 What moments in this audiobook capture the feeling of the magical world best for you,

01:09:39.560 or just stood out the most?

01:09:41.800 I always loved reading about the Quidditch matches, and I think the audio really gets

01:09:48.580 it, because it just plunges you right into the stands.

01:09:52.320 You have the crowd sounds, like, all around you is surround sound, especially if you're

01:09:56.240 listening in headphones.

01:09:58.120 Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you

01:10:04.080 get your podcasts.

01:10:04.940 I don't want to pretend that we were best friends or anything.

01:10:13.700 One of the things I said in the speech is I think that it's pretty rare, actually, in

01:10:16.700 politics.

01:10:17.200 People say that they're friends in politics.

01:10:18.880 These are usually not people you're going and hanging out with on the weekends.

01:10:21.660 It's not real, okay?

01:10:22.820 Like, whenever you hear politicians, oh, we're best friends.

01:10:26.120 It's such bullshit.

01:10:26.920 I'm sorry.

01:10:27.320 It's such bullshit.

01:10:28.260 There are a few exceptions.

01:10:28.880 There may be a couple of exceptions.

01:10:30.260 They're rare.

01:10:30.760 The reality is that they are business colleagues and associates in the same way that most people

01:10:34.920 have business colleagues and associates that they see at the office.

01:10:37.960 We see each other more rarely than you probably see your business colleagues or associates

01:10:41.240 at the office.

01:10:42.220 You respected how he organized in the campus level?

01:10:44.800 I mean, again, all the echoes of things you were doing.

01:10:47.820 Listen, Charlie was incredibly gifted as an organizer.

01:10:51.040 I won't say that we agreed on everything politically, because clearly we didn't.

01:10:54.640 But I think that Charlie, as a person who was willing to go into fraught spaces, obviously,

01:11:01.920 and he was killed doing this, and to speak his principles to people who disagreed and do

01:11:06.980 so in what I think overwhelmingly was sort of an honest and decent fashion.

01:11:11.100 I think that was a very good thing.

01:11:12.500 What, Tucker Carlson, and you, history, do you?

01:11:16.040 I mean, I'm not sure that we have a history so much as Tucker seems to object to my politics,

01:11:21.900 and I object to his.

01:11:23.260 I think Tucker tries to personalize this.

01:11:25.340 I think Meghan has tried to personalize this.

01:11:26.860 I don't believe in personalizing these things.

01:11:30.780 I was asked by somebody, you know, would Tucker and I ever be friends?

01:11:33.420 I said, I'd go fishing with Tucker.

01:11:34.820 I mean, I don't care.

01:11:35.540 I mean, that doesn't matter to me.

01:11:37.220 The question is his principles and the things that he says.

01:11:39.940 I think that Tucker, I gave a speech right before TPUSA at Heritage Foundation where I

01:11:43.360 pointed out that Tucker is not an advocate for conservatism in any way that I can identify

01:11:47.600 conservatism.

01:11:48.460 He's not in favor of a more limited government of checks and balances.

01:11:52.940 He's come out in favor of feudalism fairly recently.

01:11:54.780 Uh, he, he's not in favor of, you know, traditional institutions.

01:11:59.140 He seems to think that they have lost their way.

01:12:01.740 He is, he's in favor of what appears to me a sort of horseshoe theory, Noam Chomsky foreign

01:12:06.480 policy where America is always the, the, the bad actor in the world.

01:12:09.620 Uh, and so I, I think.

01:12:10.800 I read Mike Chomsky back in the day.

01:12:12.780 You would not be surprised.

01:12:14.800 And, uh, and, and, and I think that, uh, you know, when, when the, the biggest thing that

01:12:18.280 Tucker engages in, I mentioned the just asking questions, which, which he's very fond

01:12:21.760 of, uh, is, and this is something again, that is a both sides problem.

01:12:25.200 Uh, and that is a general conspiracism about the world.

01:12:28.080 The worst thing happening in our politics is a grievance based politics that is being

01:12:32.300 set up by actors on both sides, which basically says the failures in your life are generally

01:12:38.220 speaking, not your fault.

01:12:39.620 You have no responsibility for them and you need to, and you need to shift the burden of

01:12:43.760 your own responsibility over to systems.

01:12:45.940 And so the systems could be free, the free market is responsible for your failures or

01:12:50.380 the, or the, the systems of history are responsible for your failures.

01:12:54.420 And listen, there are real conspiracies out there.

01:12:57.500 They exist and usually can provide evidence for them.

01:12:59.860 That's the difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.

01:13:02.300 But if your theory, your going theory is that the reason that you are lacking in life

01:13:07.120 is because the most successful people in your society have rigged the system on their

01:13:10.140 own behalf.

01:13:10.720 And therefore they must be brought low in order for you to succeed.

01:13:13.680 First, you need to show me that that's actually evidentially the case.

01:13:18.640 You can't just make that claim and then abdicate all responsibility for doing the right things

01:13:23.240 in, in your own life.

01:13:24.420 And the, the number one message that I would, that I constantly am trying to, you know, give

01:13:28.440 to what I would now call young people since, you know, I'm, I'm of the older generation

01:13:32.000 now and I, exactly, is get off your ass and do the thing.

01:13:36.840 I hear people complain, I can't, I can't get married.

01:13:38.820 It's just so hard to get married and no one can get married these days.

01:13:41.520 Bullshit.

01:13:41.940 I'm sorry.

01:13:42.380 That's not true.

01:13:43.200 You absolutely can find someone in you.

01:13:45.040 Absolutely can get married.

01:13:46.100 Your grandparents were way poorer than you and they got married and they had more kids.

01:13:49.600 Okay.

01:13:49.720 This is just nonsense.

01:13:50.900 You are, you are the richest, most privileged people in the history of the world living

01:13:54.740 in the United States today, just relatively speaking.

01:13:57.600 That doesn't mean everything's perfect because I'm not comparing it to perfect.

01:14:00.060 You can't compare anything in life to perfect.

01:14:02.560 What you can say is that if you, if you are sitting around in a country that has a GDP per

01:14:07.380 capita among the highest on planet earth and open jobs and the ability to move to those

01:14:12.500 open jobs and the ability to vote on your leaders and not get shot in the streets like people

01:14:15.920 are getting shot in the streets in Iran, you should consider yourself pretty damned fortunate

01:14:19.640 and maybe you should start with what can I do to make my life better today before you

01:14:23.460 figure that it's the system.

01:14:24.400 Now, that doesn't mean there aren't problems with the system.

01:14:26.060 And this is why I like these conversations and we can get very specific about policy and

01:14:29.400 how we fix a policy so as to make it easier.

01:14:31.540 But I think that the, the big, the American dream is you can make it, you can, right?

01:14:36.820 Get government out of your way, get everybody out of your way, right?

01:14:39.240 Let, let people succeed.

01:14:40.700 And we do need obviously a functional social fabric, right?

01:14:44.120 Which is why you've seen a lot of the, the institutions like I would say churches,

01:14:47.800 synagogues break down that social fabric.

01:14:49.960 Breaking down is a massive problem because that's your safety net.

01:14:52.520 When family breaks down, that's your supportive safety net for, for when, for when things go

01:14:56.640 wrong, we need to, we need to, you know, on a social level, help restore all of that.

01:15:01.120 But the, the desire by politicians to say, I alone can fix, which is something President

01:15:06.240 Trump said, but has also been said by, you know, you've got Zarmamdani talking about

01:15:11.140 the warm embrace of collectivism, which is insane, by the way.

01:15:13.900 Nature of campaigns, campaign promises you may on day one, on day one, and also the Ukraine

01:15:19.820 Russian war, day one.

01:15:21.420 Or give me more power and I will solve the affordability crisis or give me more power and I, and I will

01:15:26.260 ensure that you have a good paying job and you can buy a house on a single income the

01:15:29.640 way that your grandfather could in 1952.

01:15:31.940 And I mean, first of all, let's just be real.

01:15:34.280 The, the, the house your grandpa was buying in 1952, you wouldn't want to live in.

01:15:38.600 They're kind of crappy.

01:15:39.800 Okay.

01:15:39.980 It was like a brick.

01:15:40.720 It was like a brick box in Detroit and your grandpa was working on a, on a Ford line riveting.

01:15:46.320 Okay.

01:15:46.740 Now you're not, how many people are riveting today?

01:15:49.300 The answer is none.

01:15:49.920 The machines are doing the riveting, right?

01:15:51.260 Like the, like the, the, we should recognize the reality of our situation as opposed to creating

01:15:56.040 either a false promise of utopia or a false utopian past that wasn't really existing in

01:16:01.600 1952.

01:16:02.420 The reason the United States, the reason we in the United States were able to survive

01:16:05.200 on a one, on a, on a one parent's income.

01:16:08.520 52 paychecks versus 104.

01:16:11.360 It's because, it's because the entire rest of the world did not, it had been destroyed.

01:16:16.560 Every place on earth had been destroyed as of 1952.

01:16:19.200 The United States was basically left untouched in the homeland by world war II and literally

01:16:23.780 every place else had been destroyed.

01:16:25.740 And so that was all an export market for the United States so much so we had to prop up

01:16:28.700 our export markets by doing things like the Marshall plan.

01:16:30.980 So people would actually have money to buy things.

01:16:32.560 Right.

01:16:32.860 And then it turns out that, you know, by the 1960s, reality was setting in and many of the

01:16:37.280 union contracts that had been negotiated weren't sustainable and we were being outcompeted

01:16:40.500 by foreign sources.

01:16:41.340 You know, like let's just, again, ignorance of sort of economic history and how people have

01:16:45.900 actually lived throughout history leads to, I think on the right, a nostalgia for an economic

01:16:49.740 time that didn't exist and on the left to a sort of utopianism about what is possible

01:16:54.180 that is also not possible.

01:16:56.100 And I think that we should start from a position in the United States of gratitude and duty

01:17:00.400 and hard work and virtue and recognition that we live in a free country where the vast majority

01:17:05.620 of decisions are your own.

01:17:07.300 And then if you, and then let's, and then let's deal with the problems.

01:17:10.420 And you laid all this out in lines and scavengers and in detail with historic context and traveled

01:17:15.520 the globe.

01:17:16.100 I mean, each chapter begins with a sense of place from, you know, London, Oxford and

01:17:21.680 Poland, which is interesting that, that section with Elon Musk and others.

01:17:25.520 But let me ask just a little bit, it's interesting, the politics of nostalgia.

01:17:28.340 And I try to paint this, forgive me to keep going back to the state of the state I just

01:17:31.600 gave, but we talked about the politics of nostalgia, try to put America in reverse, but

01:17:35.660 sort of selling this notion of this utopian notion.

01:17:39.120 And it's interesting, you, you, you, you, you, you cast, you know, some critique, not

01:17:44.860 just on the right, but also on the left in that respect.

01:17:46.940 And I imagine you weren't a big fan of Elizabeth Warren's speech yesterday.

01:17:50.260 No.

01:17:50.880 On the basis of what you just said.

01:17:53.580 But Elizabeth Warren was much more interesting when she was a professor at Harvard Law.

01:17:56.540 I was there at the time and she's writing the two income trap, which was a much more

01:17:59.440 interesting book than where she is now.

01:18:01.540 Let me just talk about, and I appreciate the trap of promises being promoted in politics,

01:18:07.000 the nature of politics, both political parties.

01:18:09.460 And Trump sort of trapped now on this affordability question.

01:18:12.640 He's in, as we, as we tape this, he's in Michigan.

01:18:16.000 He's part of this affordability tour.

01:18:18.620 You've been, and again, just to your credit, calling balls and strikes, you know, and it

01:18:24.680 goes back even your Breitbart days as you had some issues with the early aspects of Trump

01:18:28.840 in terms of this sort of just the character personality issues, but you've been a big supporter

01:18:32.360 of him more broadly.

01:18:33.260 Yeah, I did not vote for either candidate in 2016.

01:18:35.100 I voted for President Trump in 2020, and I actually campaigned on behalf of a bunch of

01:18:39.900 Senate candidates and did some events for President Trump.

01:18:42.720 And you've been very forceful in your support of what he did in Venezuela.

01:18:47.320 And I think more broadly, just in terms of looking at the picture across the globe, but

01:18:54.000 back here in the United States, as it relates to terror policy, you've-

01:18:57.720 I'm very critical of his terror policy.

01:18:58.580 You've been critical of the terror policy on other domestic issues.

01:19:03.860 How do you score the first full year of Donald Trump?

01:19:07.140 So I think that when it came, I think the number one domestic issue for President Trump

01:19:11.380 was closing the southern border, A plus, right?

01:19:13.320 I mean, that I think put the lie to the Democratic proposal that you needed comprehensive immigration

01:19:17.580 form to close the southern border.

01:19:17.780 You also acknowledged for about six months, it was substantially, 87, 80, 90% closed when

01:19:23.180 Biden decided that he ultimately, to your point, could do something about it, which they

01:19:28.080 suggested they couldn't do something about it.

01:19:29.280 Right, and the fact that they had basically lied about that for several years, saying,

01:19:33.300 there's nothing we can do.

01:19:34.040 We need congressional action in order to shut the southern border.

01:19:36.180 We have more areas of agreement on this.

01:19:39.280 Remember, I put almost 400 National Guard down at the border going back to 2019.

01:19:44.720 So I've been pretty consistent on that basis.

01:19:46.720 And of course, California, I do absorb a lot of that on our own with migrant facilities in

01:19:51.360 three major counties, five migrants that work into Jewish family services, Catholic charities

01:19:55.240 that did God's work, but at the same time, try to put a lid on what was an unacceptable set

01:20:02.560 of conditions.

01:20:02.940 So that's a big win for President Trump, for sure.

01:20:05.300 So much so that it's not even a top issue for voters anymore.

01:20:07.760 Well, he seems to forget about it.

01:20:09.200 Well, I mean, I don't think he's forgotten about it.

01:20:10.840 I think that he made, again, I think a lot of promises with regard to mass deportations

01:20:14.660 that in practicality are probably not fulfillable.

01:20:17.420 And what you see is, you know, Tom Homan, his borders are, who's being a little bit more

01:20:21.260 meticulous about his language.

01:20:22.080 Where did the temperance come from?

01:20:23.740 Homan, geez.

01:20:24.600 Yeah, I know.

01:20:25.160 I'm like, who is this guy all of a sudden?

01:20:26.400 We're going to go after criminal, illegal immigrants.

01:20:28.560 Those are the people who are mostly going to deploy resources.

01:20:30.320 That's what they said.

01:20:30.980 And I think that overwhelmingly, by the numbers, that has been the case, as far as I'm aware.

01:20:37.840 But when it comes to-

01:20:39.220 Questionable, but I appreciate it.

01:20:41.420 There's a lot of different data on that.

01:20:42.940 As a general rule, I think that's a win for President Trump.

01:20:45.120 Obviously, I agree with the extension of the current tax rates and not allowing them to

01:20:49.380 rise.

01:20:50.720 You don't agree?

01:20:51.620 I mean, I hate to bring up Steve Bannon.

01:20:53.180 I mean, this notion of a more progressive tax rate for corporations and the wealthiest among

01:20:57.720 us, I mean-

01:20:58.360 No, I think it's a bunch of nonsense.

01:21:00.240 And the reason I think that it's a bunch of nonsense is because corporations are just

01:21:04.800 legal entities.

01:21:05.720 Those legal entities are comprised by people.

01:21:07.620 If you tax a corporation that is still money that in the end is coming away from the people

01:21:10.740 who comprise the corporation-

01:21:11.840 You're sounding like Romney when you were covering them with Breitbart.

01:21:14.540 Well, I mean, this is just like basic black letter econ 101.

01:21:18.220 A corporation doesn't have a magical existence whereby it hires people.

01:21:22.220 There are people who make those decisions.

01:21:24.500 People get paid by the corporation.

01:21:25.800 Most people in the country are getting a paycheck.

01:21:27.200 All right, we have established you like the big, beautiful bill as it relates to the

01:21:30.200 tax structure.

01:21:31.060 You don't give a damn about debt, but that's another conversation.

01:21:33.280 Oh, no, I definitely give a damn about debt, but I do not think-

01:21:35.980 Trump doesn't appear to, does he?

01:21:37.220 I don't think anyone seems to care very much about that governor.

01:21:39.980 I mean, to be fair-

01:21:41.120 Well, we balance our budgets, just for the record, just for the record.

01:21:43.600 I mean, kind of.

01:21:45.040 A hundred percent.

01:21:46.040 It's legally, statutorily required.

01:21:48.300 Talked about my reserves.

01:21:49.640 We talk about paying down-

01:21:50.600 So it's statutorily required that we are running, you know, the last several years, the budget

01:21:55.860 is run, what, a $20 billion debt?

01:21:57.240 No, we just, I just submitted a balanced budget on a, I mean, a de minimis $2 billion, two

01:22:04.140 points up my billion dollar, which is a rounding error in the state.

01:22:08.000 Balanced budget, submitted, period.

01:22:10.140 And half a billion dollars of unfunded liabilities, increased tax rates.

01:22:13.880 Well, we haven't increased taxes since 2011.

01:22:15.800 I haven't increased any taxes, so that's just factually untrue.

01:22:18.840 I'm not, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that you increased taxes.

01:22:20.860 But your friends continue to believe Newsom's tax rates.

01:22:24.400 Anyway, let's go back to Trump, because I appreciate where you go down the rabbit hole

01:22:28.100 in California.

01:22:28.560 But I want to talk about, and it's interesting, so we established, from your perspective, he

01:22:32.280 fulfilled his promises on the border, mass deportations, a work in progress, and good

01:22:36.480 people can disagree as it relates to whether or not he'll achieve that.

01:22:39.800 I think it's absolutely-

01:22:40.840 When it comes to-

01:22:42.060 He's incapable.

01:22:42.720 When it comes to dismantling structures inside the federal government on DEI, I think that's

01:22:46.600 a very good thing.

01:22:47.240 I think a meritocracy is what ought to be preferred.

01:22:49.280 What about the economy?

01:22:50.100 What about the quality of our lives in the context of what we deal with day in and day

01:22:55.440 out?

01:22:56.220 Just your typical family.

01:22:58.020 What has Trump done that has significantly benefited us in last year?

01:23:02.200 So, this is where I'll go back to my fundamental-

01:23:03.760 Because I'm not getting that big tax cut.

01:23:05.040 Well, this is where I'll go back to my sort of fundamental point, which is that I think

01:23:08.480 that the government guaranteeing that your life is going to be enormously better based

01:23:12.760 on what are, at best, marginal changes to the structure of the federal government, I think

01:23:17.320 that's an overpromise.

01:23:18.000 So, I think that how are lives better?

01:23:20.200 Well, I mean, inflation is obviously down.

01:23:21.680 It started to drop under the late Biden.

01:23:23.840 And then it started to-

01:23:24.720 I just saw the numbers today.

01:23:25.960 I mean, you saw food was up 8%.

01:23:28.140 You saw groceries up 8%, and food was up 7%.

01:23:32.000 I mean-

01:23:32.600 The overall CPI is running at about 2.6%, 2.7%.

01:23:36.380 That's way down from where it was two years ago.

01:23:38.040 Still not close to that, too.

01:23:39.680 I agree.

01:23:40.440 Been kind of stuck where it was a year ago.

01:23:42.160 This is why I'm not in favor of, for example, lowering the interest rates.

01:23:44.680 I think that the federal-

01:23:45.400 Worst job market in 16 years.

01:23:47.880 Manufacturing factory jobs down 8,000 last month.

01:23:49.280 Yeah, tariffs have not helped in manufacturing.

01:23:51.580 Average person's paying more for Halloween.

01:23:54.540 We paid a little more during Christmas.

01:23:55.920 Than they were last year on a margin, sort of on a low rate.

01:23:59.540 I mean, I think that-

01:24:00.940 Can he do what?

01:24:01.600 Get rid of those tariffs?

01:24:02.860 That would be significant policy.

01:24:04.300 I've been a big advocate of getting rid of the tariffs since literally day one.

01:24:07.340 The biggest issue that I see with the Trump administration on the economy is that the

01:24:12.820 promise that Trump thought he was making is not the promise I think that actually came

01:24:15.760 out rhetorically.

01:24:16.500 So rhetorically, he was saying everything's going to become affordable again.

01:24:19.860 And what people mean by affordable is I want 2019 prices.

01:24:23.420 Yeah.

01:24:23.840 Okay?

01:24:24.160 No one is getting 2019 prices.

01:24:25.680 Unless we get into a stagflation and massive recession.

01:24:28.800 If we get into a recession, stagflation wouldn't know.

01:24:31.580 You need actual stagnation, right?

01:24:32.840 You need like an actual depression or a recession.

01:24:35.240 I stand corrected.

01:24:36.540 And so that promise is not a coherent one.

01:24:40.800 It's why I actually had some sympathy for when he said affordability is nonsense.

01:24:46.120 I think what he meant by that actually is that affordability, when have you ever thought,

01:24:51.020 hey, everything's affordable, right?

01:24:52.780 Pretty rare in anyone's life to say things are just affordable.

01:24:55.820 Maybe it's a dollar store.

01:24:57.060 Right.

01:24:57.280 It's a comparative term, right?

01:24:58.000 Now it's $1.29 at the dollar store.

01:24:59.740 And so specifically saying, specifically speaking, I think it's good that inflation is down.

01:25:03.780 I think it's good that the stock market is up.

01:25:05.740 50% of Americans hold stocks.

01:25:07.160 And when the stock market is robust, that means there can be more investments in, for example,

01:25:11.400 infrastructure projects and data centers and all the rest.

01:25:14.700 I'm a believer that there is, in fact, a bubble that's going on in the stock market because

01:25:18.640 there's an enormous amount of momentum at the top end.

01:25:20.740 And most of the gains in the stock market are happening in AI.

01:25:23.480 Seven stocks.

01:25:23.840 It doesn't mean that AI won't be an amazing thing.

01:25:26.420 I think it is an amazing thing.

01:25:27.460 But I do think that there will be a winnowing at the top end of the market.

01:25:30.220 When that happens, then there will probably be a depression of some sort.

01:25:33.760 Not a great depression, but I mean like depressed prices in the markets.

01:25:36.740 I think that a lot of these stocks are trading at unsustainable PE ratios.

01:25:40.720 So I'm concerned about all those things.

01:25:43.040 The main critique I have for President Trump on the economic front is that investors, what

01:25:48.520 they are really looking for is, number one, less regulation, ease of investment, but number

01:25:54.140 two, consistency.

01:25:55.560 And the lack of consistency at the federal level is incredibly difficult for investors

01:26:00.600 to navigate.

01:26:01.900 And actually, I think that if the Supreme Court steps in and says no to the tariffs, you'll

01:26:05.040 actually see a rather large economic boost because of it.

01:26:08.420 Because the Supreme Court will have placed a limitation then on the executive branch that

01:26:12.140 is fairly robust.

01:26:12.820 That's the case that he can oppose with other means, though.

01:26:14.620 That's going to be when the IEP is going back.

01:26:15.780 Yeah, but then the Supreme Court will likely step in at that point, too.

01:26:18.860 Six months, a year later, that's a problem, the lag.

01:26:21.580 Again, I'm very critical of the tariff regime here.

01:26:23.400 Yeah, no, no.

01:26:24.160 I appreciate the consistency.

01:26:25.580 But on Trump generally, I'm curious, just the-

01:26:29.980 On foreign policy, which you put it to the side, I think Trump has been the greatest

01:26:33.600 foreign policy president in my lifetime.

01:26:35.220 I don't think it's close.

01:26:36.200 I think he's been spectacular on foreign policy.

01:26:37.720 And that's with many of my critiques with regard to, for example, Ukraine, where I'm significantly

01:26:42.160 more hawkish than the administration has been.

01:26:43.940 And did you feel that way in his first term?

01:26:46.120 Yes.

01:26:46.900 I felt the same way, too.

01:26:47.800 Yes.

01:26:48.040 I was very much an advocate of his foreign policy.

01:26:50.200 I thought that in terms of his foreign policy, he is, as he said before, he's not got us

01:26:54.740 into any major wars, which is a good thing.

01:26:57.540 He's used the military six, seven significant times.

01:27:00.300 He has used the military in, I think, targeted and pinpointed ways that do not reinforce

01:27:06.400 the Iraq war syndrome, that we need to put hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground.

01:27:11.120 I think the president has a very good feel for-

01:27:14.500 The thing about foreign policy is it kind of works like the New York real estate market.

01:27:17.720 It actually is a sort of zero-sum win-or-lose game.

01:27:19.940 And President Trump actually is quite good at those.

01:27:21.780 I think that on domestic economics, the president tends to bring a zero-sum approach sometimes

01:27:26.160 to his economic issues that I don't agree with, because I think that you can expand the

01:27:30.060 pie for everybody.

01:27:31.200 But I don't think the same thing holds true generally in foreign policy, where when it

01:27:34.840 comes to geopolitics, there's a winner and there's a loser.

01:27:37.660 And it's all about relative power and power dynamics.

01:27:41.000 And the president seems to get that on a very gut level, which is why in the Middle East,

01:27:44.740 I think he did the right thing with Gaza.

01:27:46.080 I think he's done the right thing with the Iran strike on the Forda nuclear facility.

01:27:49.780 I think he did the right thing in extraditing Nicolas Maduro.

01:27:52.440 I think those are all good things.

01:27:53.460 I think that he has found ways to continue the funding of Ukraine via this sort of jury-rigged

01:27:59.600 NATO, NATO buying weapons and funding.

01:28:02.360 I think that he has gotten a bunch of countries in Europe to increase their defense spending,

01:28:05.900 which is something that even Mark Rudy over at NATO has said is generally a good thing.

01:28:09.780 I think all of these things are good things.

01:28:10.840 I don't argue with that.

01:28:11.420 I mean, we can, boy, and if people are looking for us to unpack that, we can spend hours and

01:28:17.140 hours on every single one of these specific examples.

01:28:20.120 Let me ask you, and just before we get off the foreign policy, I am curious, Greenland,

01:28:25.260 come on.

01:28:26.440 I don't understand why we are attempting to make Greenland our 51st state.

01:28:31.380 It seems to me we already have defense agreements in place.

01:28:34.400 Yeah, well established since 1951.

01:28:35.820 We were the ones that pulled back.

01:28:37.000 We can re-enter at any end of the week.

01:28:38.880 Listen, I think that Greenland, I think that, you know, despite the desire to rename it

01:28:44.180 Trumpland, I think that-

01:28:45.520 I haven't even heard that.

01:28:46.520 But I'm just trying to deal with the Donnie doctor or whatever it is.

01:28:50.060 You know, I think that's silly.

01:28:54.040 I think that the, you know, attempt to strengthen our bases in Greenland would be a good thing.

01:29:00.060 But I think that's a different thing.

01:29:00.920 Which you can do tomorrow, which they've already agreed to.

01:29:02.780 Agree, agree.

01:29:03.820 The whole thing seems folly, but it not seems.

01:29:06.140 Now, invading Canada, that's it.

01:29:07.520 Okay.

01:29:07.860 Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA Health and host

01:29:14.160 of the Mailroom Podcast.

01:29:15.760 Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions.

01:29:19.080 Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken.

01:29:21.920 But what if the real work isn't physical at all?

01:29:24.520 To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30

01:29:28.880 years experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught

01:29:34.160 to name.

01:29:34.620 In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why

01:29:39.820 shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others.

01:29:46.000 Guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved.

01:29:50.700 Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy and some compassion.

01:29:55.420 If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's

01:29:59.680 underneath, listen to the Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're

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01:30:37.320 Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally.

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01:30:41.600 It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about

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01:31:38.280 Hey everyone, it's Ed Helms.

01:31:41.100 And I'm Cal Penn, and we are the hosts of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

01:31:47.000 This week on the podcast, I am talking to film and TV critic, radio and podcast host, and

01:31:53.240 Harry Potter superfan, Rihanna Dillon, to discuss Audible's full cast adaptation of Harry Potter,

01:32:00.540 and the Sorcerer's Stone.

01:32:03.360 What moments in this audiobook capture the feeling of the magical world best for you,

01:32:08.920 or just stood out the most?

01:32:11.620 I always loved reading about the Quidditch matches, and I think the audio really gets it,

01:32:18.180 because it just plunges you right into the stands.

01:32:21.400 You have the crowd sounds, like all around you is surround sound, especially if you're

01:32:25.600 listening in headphones.

01:32:27.560 Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you

01:32:33.420 get your podcasts.

01:32:34.300 I want to just, because you write about it in Lions and Scavengers, you talk about this notion of

01:32:44.240 free enterprise, you talk about markets.

01:32:46.600 What do you make of Trump's interventionist attitudes, not just overseas, but as it relates

01:32:51.320 to corporations and companies?

01:32:53.060 So many disproportionately based out here, including MP Materials, which is-

01:32:59.300 I don't think the federal government should be taking stakes in private companies.

01:33:01.800 I don't believe in what has been called crony capitalism or state capitalism.

01:33:05.620 Really, it's just corporatism.

01:33:06.840 I'm not a fan of the idea that the government ought to be involved in command and control

01:33:12.180 economics with regard to private companies.

01:33:15.260 So I've opposed that pretty much every step of the way.

01:33:18.700 I think it's a mistake.

01:33:19.780 I think that the market has a magical ability to make things better and cheaper over time,

01:33:24.020 if left to its own devices.

01:33:25.100 And that includes, by the way, not interfering in the independence of the Fed?

01:33:28.360 Yes.

01:33:29.280 So what do you do with policy?

01:33:30.260 Listen, I'm an Austrian school of economics guy.

01:33:32.100 I think that there's a good case to be made that the Fed really should not have control

01:33:34.760 over inflation rates in the first place.

01:33:36.080 I think the target inflation rate should be zero, not two.

01:33:39.340 And I think that we should allow interest rates generally to free float, because I think

01:33:43.420 that sometimes one of the great problems with the American economy is artificial bubbles

01:33:47.520 that are created by loose monetary policy.

01:33:50.540 I think that's what helped lead to the Great Recession.

01:33:52.420 I think it's what also led to the inflationary spiral under Joe Biden.

01:33:55.360 What do you make of Donald Trump?

01:33:58.040 And forgive me, this is, you know, we're zigging and zagging around a little bit, but I still

01:34:03.460 can't get over the fact that he sat down and had dinner with Nick Fuentes.

01:34:07.380 So I think that that was a bad thing to do, obviously.

01:34:11.240 I think that Nick Fuentes is a scumbag.

01:34:13.340 I think that the president has, you know, an unfortunate tendency to make nice with people

01:34:19.640 who want to make nice with him.

01:34:21.520 He did come out this week, by the way, and, you know, in the New York Times said the Republican

01:34:25.660 Party wants nothing to do with people like Nick Fuentes, doesn't want to do with anti-Semites.

01:34:29.760 I'll continue to be critical of Republicans who flirt with this sort of stuff.

01:34:33.300 I wish that the Democratic Party were as critical of sitting Congress members who not only flirt

01:34:37.660 with this sort of stuff, but overtly traffic in this sort of stuff.

01:34:40.800 You know, I mean, I'll ask about Zoram Amdani.

01:34:42.700 Zoram Amdani, literally in the campaign, in the campaign, he was asked on Fox News about Hamas,

01:34:48.060 and he refused to denounce it as a terrorist group.

01:34:49.720 They are a terrorist group, and they should have been announced.

01:34:51.840 I was there, as you know, a few weeks after.

01:34:53.640 October 7th, met with Bibi.

01:34:55.420 Not a big fan of Bibi.

01:34:56.460 This is where we have fundamental disagreements.

01:34:58.940 Quite the contrary, in fact.

01:35:00.060 But staying in domestic politics for a second, it seems to have become a sort of de brigueur

01:35:04.680 requirement for Democrats who are running for office to now suggest, for example, Scott

01:35:10.100 Wiener just did this.

01:35:10.920 He's running for Congress, that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza.

01:35:13.920 That is, forget about anti-Semitism and discussions of it, because I think that those have become

01:35:17.120 really loose, and people don't have a consistent definition of anti-Semitism.

01:35:20.580 Let's just talk about what's true.

01:35:21.640 That's true.

01:35:22.480 I think it's true about the definition.

01:35:24.340 I mean, we, as you know, have been struggling with that in California as it relates to a

01:35:27.900 lot of laws and legislation.

01:35:28.820 Of course, anti-Semitism is a fundamentally different cat than, for example, racism.

01:35:32.580 It's basically a conspiracy theory about Jewish power in the world.

01:35:35.420 And it makes me sick to my stomach, and I say that clearly.

01:35:38.540 But not just of course.

01:35:39.700 I mean, we've tried to lead in terms of our response, and we've called out and called

01:35:43.660 balls and strikes in terms of the outrageous things that have happened and continue happening.

01:35:46.920 I would, you know, in my own framework of anti-Semitism, I think that saying overtly

01:35:50.320 false things about the Jewish state is a form of anti-Semitism.

01:35:55.000 But I don't think that that is really important as much as it is, is it true or not?

01:36:01.520 So Democrats have now been dragged into this conversation, some drag, some run with, you

01:36:07.460 know, flags waving, into the conversation.

01:36:10.160 This notion of genocide.

01:36:10.700 I mean, look, Israel did not commit a genocide in Gaza.

01:36:14.660 There is no standard by which Israel committed a genocide in Gaza, just on a factual level.

01:36:18.400 Just as a legal and factual level.

01:36:20.220 Yes.

01:36:20.580 Yeah.

01:36:21.060 What is your opinion of this?

01:36:22.800 My opinion is, I understand the tendency for people to make that, to assert that.

01:36:32.200 Why?

01:36:32.540 On the basis of the images and the proportionality.

01:36:38.180 Ugly shit doesn't mean genocide?

01:36:39.420 No, no.

01:36:40.140 And by the way, I agree with you.

01:36:41.740 And international, and proportionality doesn't mean that if you kill my child and I then kill

01:36:47.040 seven criminals, that I've been disproportionate.

01:36:49.060 I'm not disagreeing with you.

01:36:50.620 But I think the, but I understand that tendency on the basis of trying to reconcile the proportionate

01:36:59.480 nature of how the war was ultimately conducted and the devastation.

01:37:02.740 I have a question, why do you feel the need to create a permission structure for that sort

01:37:08.760 of stuff?

01:37:09.200 I mean, meaning it's not true.

01:37:11.800 Yeah.

01:37:11.920 Why not just say it's not true?

01:37:13.680 Yeah.

01:37:13.920 Look, I don't know the definition or I don't know the legal threshold.

01:37:16.740 That's not my opinion.

01:37:17.560 So I don't, I don't share that opinion as it relates to genocide.

01:37:20.340 I do not agree with that notion.

01:37:22.900 Right.

01:37:23.020 But you do understand that if you accuse Israel of committing a genocide, that now puts Israel

01:37:27.060 in the position of it should be a pariah state because states that commit genocide should

01:37:30.160 be pariah states.

01:37:31.000 Yeah.

01:37:31.120 So granting legitimacy to that position inherently-

01:37:33.760 I'm not, I'm not granting legitimacy.

01:37:35.460 I'm just saying the, the, the devastation in Gaza at the human level, you're, you've

01:37:41.140 got four kids.

01:37:41.700 Of course it's terrible.

01:37:42.420 No, but, but I think it's also important to absorb that a little bit more just as it

01:37:46.120 was sick and we were clear in our condemnation, these people like me, as it relates to what

01:37:50.920 Hamas did in that act of barbarism and terrorism.

01:37:53.860 Yeah, but there's a difference between deliberate terrorism and wartime collateral damage, of course.

01:37:58.220 And if we refuse to acknowledge that reality, then we end up-

01:38:01.140 Collateral damage, I just, I have stronger opinions.

01:38:03.940 It wasn't just collateral.

01:38:04.940 You know, I-

01:38:05.540 Really?

01:38:05.840 You think that Israel is targeting civilians?

01:38:07.280 I think some of the double tapping issues, I have a lot of issues with how Bibi ultimately

01:38:12.560 conducted the war.

01:38:13.180 I personally do.

01:38:14.180 And I have a lot of issues that are also painted on the basis of the conversation I

01:38:17.140 had a few weeks later, after October 7th, the way he talked about the Palestinians.

01:38:23.220 I kept talking about Hamas.

01:38:24.680 He kept talking about the Palestinians.

01:38:26.520 I kept coming back to Hamas.

01:38:27.760 And then ultimately how the war was conducted.

01:38:30.620 Not saying it was a genocide.

01:38:32.320 I'm not.

01:38:33.120 But I have issues.

01:38:33.800 What is the thing that he said that you particularly-

01:38:35.560 There was a dehumanization.

01:38:36.840 I didn't like the way he talked about the Palestinian people.

01:38:39.120 I just didn't-

01:38:39.660 Well, what is the specific thing he said?

01:38:40.440 They can't govern them.

01:38:41.520 I didn't, I don't want to get into the details of the conversation with the prime minister.

01:38:45.200 Because when you suggest that he is conflating Hamas and the Palestinians-

01:38:48.920 He wasn't conflating-

01:38:49.400 And of course, it does lead to the conclusion that you seem to be avoiding.

01:38:51.040 They were different.

01:38:51.600 It wasn't, no, no, no.

01:38:52.660 It was, I'm just saying the way he ultimately conducted it, I look back at that conversation,

01:38:57.720 I reflect on rather that conversation.

01:39:00.240 It doesn't surprise me.

01:39:02.240 And I did not think it was proportionate.

01:39:04.520 Okay.

01:39:04.700 And I thought it was overwhelming.

01:39:07.280 And the devastation and destruction breaks my heart.

01:39:11.120 Okay.

01:39:11.300 So you're president of the United States.

01:39:13.020 Somebody invades from Mexico.

01:39:15.400 They take several thousand American citizens-

01:39:17.220 I get it.

01:39:17.940 Hostage.

01:39:18.420 By the way-

01:39:18.820 They hold them all the way until the end of the war.

01:39:20.600 Until the end of the war, there are hostages being held.

01:39:22.500 Don't get me wrong on any of this.

01:39:24.140 I'm with you in terms of the ultimate accountability and bringing the hostages home.

01:39:28.540 I like the clarity and conviction as it relates to getting all the hostages dead and alive home.

01:39:32.700 And all of that.

01:39:33.800 I'm not denying that.

01:39:34.780 By the way, Hamas still has not been extirpated in the areas where Israel has left them alone.

01:39:39.320 And clearly this truce and detente is still a work in progress.

01:39:45.440 There's been a lot of destruction.

01:39:46.160 Well, because Hamas was supposed to be disarmed, and they didn't.

01:39:48.160 Look, there's no, I'm crystal clear about Hamas.

01:39:51.120 But the point is that-

01:39:52.120 I'm crystal clear about Hamas.

01:39:53.120 Right, but the point is that I think shifting blame onto-

01:39:56.240 And I'm also crystal clear of my love for Israel and my condemnation of Bibi.

01:39:59.140 And there's a distinction.

01:39:59.980 I condemn Donald Trump.

01:40:01.120 I love my country, and I think that should be easy.

01:40:02.200 I'm just going to point out, listen, anyone is free to disagree with Prime Minister Netanyahu

01:40:05.200 at any time that they want.

01:40:06.220 I will point out that having known-

01:40:07.280 But they're not anti-Semitic when they say-

01:40:08.940 Of course not.

01:40:09.920 But that's also important to say, because some people conflate that.

01:40:12.700 You don't.

01:40:13.600 You don't.

01:40:13.980 No, of course.

01:40:14.300 But others do.

01:40:15.720 I've critiqued Bibi myself, mainly for not being right-wing enough, in my opinion, on many issues domestically,

01:40:20.100 actually.

01:40:20.360 But when it comes to the-

01:40:24.500 I mean, we can get into perceptions of Netanyahu's leadership and all this.

01:40:28.120 I will say this.

01:40:28.960 I know every major politician in Israel.

01:40:31.140 Just I know many major politicians in Ukraine, in Hungary, in a wide variety of places.

01:40:36.400 In Israel, I happen to know the last several prime ministers.

01:40:39.740 If anyone outside of the state of Israel believes that Naftali Bennett or Yair Lapid, who's on the left,

01:40:45.180 would have conducted-

01:40:46.360 Would not have been as forceful in their response.

01:40:47.080 That is nuts.

01:40:48.540 That's nuts.

01:40:49.120 It's not true.

01:40:49.520 No, fair point.

01:40:50.340 And look, hey-

01:40:50.940 And the IDF, by the way, operates largely independently, in some ways, of the prime minister's office.

01:40:56.420 It's kind of a strange dual system that they have over there.

01:40:59.180 And I know too many soldiers, I mean, I talk about one in the book, who had three limbs blown off going door-to-door in Gaza,

01:41:04.220 not using overwhelming air power to eviscerate millions of people.

01:41:08.800 I was in the hospital meeting victims on October 7th in Israel.

01:41:13.840 So I look, you know, and been to memorials and-

01:41:18.060 I want to be clear in the terminology we use about all this stuff, because right now, for example-

01:41:21.740 But the genocide issues-

01:41:23.140 Where are the members of the Democratic Party protesting and wearing pins for the protesters in Iran who are getting mowed down, maybe by the tens of thousands this week?

01:41:31.680 Well, I know where I am.

01:41:32.480 I put out a pretty clear statement this week.

01:41:34.620 You did.

01:41:34.680 I'd like to see more Democrats do that.

01:41:35.840 Yeah.

01:41:36.180 I don't disagree with you.

01:41:37.300 And by the way, I also thought it was, I thought it was the right thing to do, that strike.

01:41:40.480 And I thought it was unbelievably effective and efficient, and had no problem saying that during the strike, not, didn't wait for the outcome.

01:41:49.320 So, yeah, I marched to beat a little bit of a different drum, a little bit more nuance here.

01:41:53.780 But there is, look, there's no, everything's so black and white.

01:41:57.440 It's just, there's nuance here.

01:41:59.060 I mean-

01:41:59.260 For sure.

01:41:59.580 But I think that the point that I'm making back to sort of where we originally departed here was that, you know, I'm trying to call out what I see as bad behavior, untrue, immoral behavior on my own side.

01:42:09.180 I'd like to see that more from a Democratic Party that seemed to be perfectly willing to wrap an arm around Zora Mamdani the minute he got a little bit of momentum.

01:42:15.960 Yeah.

01:42:16.220 The same man who had said that whenever the NYPD boot is on the throat of Americans, the IDF is lacing the boot.

01:42:22.600 You know, that sort of nonsense is terrible.

01:42:25.120 No, I don't associate with those comments at all.

01:42:27.180 I mean, look, he doesn't speak for me in that respect.

01:42:29.300 Yeah, but how would Mamdani? Should Mamdani be the mayor of New York?

01:42:31.320 That's up for people in New York to make that decision.

01:42:33.680 That's not for me to be out here in California, thousands of miles away.

01:42:36.700 You don't believe President Trump should be president.

01:42:38.300 The American people decided he should.

01:42:39.360 Well, that directly impacts me.

01:42:41.140 I mean, New York may indirectly, but I mean, it's a little bit of a different question.

01:42:44.700 We'll see how he ultimately does.

01:42:45.940 I thought he ran an incredibly effective campaign.

01:42:48.040 I think there's a lot of interesting attributes that he has.

01:42:50.220 Incredibly bright, incredibly capable.

01:42:52.180 He's delivered some early-

01:42:53.080 I think there are a lot of terrible people who say bright and capable things.

01:42:55.220 No, I get it.

01:42:55.700 But, and I absolutely disagree with him on a lot of those comments.

01:42:58.700 And I was also, I also maintained that posture pretty consistently over a great period, a long period of time.

01:43:03.840 And no, I was not a Cuomo fan.

01:43:06.360 So, just for the record, and sorry.

01:43:09.320 As it turns out, there weren't a lot of Cuomo fans.

01:43:11.080 And I say this with respect.

01:43:12.740 I mean, you know, the Cuomo family, as a good Democrat, you know, his father, and there's some members of the family I like a lot.

01:43:19.260 But, look, these are tougher issues.

01:43:21.660 And they are tough issues.

01:43:22.760 And look, I appreciate your willingness to call balls and strikes.

01:43:26.420 And a lot of folks, you know, frankly, a lot of folks in your world, as we sort of castigate the right-wing media ecosystem, your willingness to call this stuff out.

01:43:36.420 And-

01:43:36.740 This is the, well, you know, I think in general, this is the way, if we want to have a way forward in American politics, just to get a little general in it, it has to be predicated on certain basic premises about truth.

01:43:47.700 And that's why I keep saying, forget about, you know, categorization.

01:43:51.580 Is it true or is it not true?

01:43:54.000 I think one of the major failings of the Democratic Party in the last election cycle is the unwillingness to say whether it was true or untrue that a boy could become a girl, for example.

01:44:01.140 I think a lot of people looked at that and they said, um, excuse me?

01:44:04.360 How is this?

01:44:04.820 Forget about the political ramifications or the policy ramifications for just a second.

01:44:09.160 Can you say a boy is not a girl?

01:44:11.340 And boys cannot just become girls.

01:44:12.700 And I don't, we can go down, I mean, I feel like a year ago I was with Charlie having this conversation, which is remarkable.

01:44:21.680 I'm curious, did you, and this is not, I'm just honestly curious when I'm asking this, I'm not even, it's not, there's not a loaded question.

01:44:28.700 Did you or others in the right condemn the Trump policies as it relates to gender-affirming care for, including reassignment surgeries, in the federal prison system under the Trump administration's first term?

01:44:40.820 I mean, if I'd been aware of them, I would have condemned them.

01:44:42.460 My company was the only company in America, I believe, that on a media level refused to use preferred pronouns for anyone.

01:44:47.640 We use only biological pronouns since 2015, since we launched the company.

01:44:51.260 No, and I say that because it's just not well known, but the Trump administration's policies allowed for gender assignment, gender-affirming care, a bit of hormone treatment, an actual change, you know, the operations.

01:45:02.820 I mean, it was federal policy.

01:45:06.840 Listen, I think that's wrong.

01:45:08.320 And I wish that, frankly, you would go further.

01:45:10.460 You've talked about the unfairness in sports, but to me, the bigger question is not unfairness in sports.

01:45:14.480 The bigger question is whether we should be allowing the administration of chemical or surgical mutilation of minors based on gender dysphoria.

01:45:21.720 Well, we're going to, I mean, the Trump administration has long opinions.

01:45:24.180 They've sued states like California, many other states, 20 plus states, and my position is that's between the physician, it's between the family member, and these patients themselves.

01:45:36.840 Why?

01:45:37.260 Are there any surgical or chemical interventions that you would oppose, even if the patient and doctor weren't?

01:45:42.320 Here we go.

01:45:42.760 I mean, I know exactly where this debate goes.

01:45:44.980 Right, but I'm asking, I mean, it's a real question because it does have public policy implications, meaning in the state of California, there's a judicial ruling.

01:45:51.700 We referenced it earlier.

01:45:52.560 Well, that's a different, that judicial ruling was ridiculous on this basis.

01:45:56.280 Any teacher, and what you're talking about is a law that I signed, as it relates to this idea that you can fire someone for not telling on a child and saying that they're talking about being gay, not just trans issues, any LGBTQ issues, that you can be fired.

01:46:19.760 There's nothing in the law.

01:46:20.880 The law that I signed does not preclude these teachers from telling the parents.

01:46:26.200 No, it precludes school districts from going after them.

01:46:27.860 From mandating and firing someone for not, but it allows the teacher to make that judgment on the basis of seeing someone that's being bullied and the requirements they have under the law to keep people safe.

01:46:38.260 As a parent, don't you believe that a teacher should facilitate the passage of information to you?

01:46:42.120 Why would that?

01:46:42.600 On every basis.

01:46:44.540 I mean, they should somehow just be listening.

01:46:46.620 If your kid has a headache, the teacher's going to call you.

01:46:47.540 I mean, if my kid decides to come out as friends at school.

01:46:49.680 If it's about safety, the law is pretty clear, and the teachers have that ability, and the teachers maintain that ability.

01:46:56.040 We didn't deny that.

01:46:57.080 We didn't say to the teachers, you cannot.

01:46:59.180 No.

01:46:59.500 Quite the contrary.

01:47:00.080 This is critical because there's been a lot of misinformation about this.

01:47:02.880 I'm not misinterpreting the law.

01:47:04.640 I mean, the school, what the law did is a prohibited school district.

01:47:07.540 You shouldn't fire someone.

01:47:08.660 And in many cases, look, anyone that's members of the LGBTQ community, how many stories that you've heard of people that say, I went to my parents with my teacher.

01:47:17.480 That was a safe place for me in school.

01:47:19.260 There's a lot of grace in this space.

01:47:20.720 There's a lot of testimony in this space that I think should just provide a little bit of grace and humility.

01:47:25.080 It's not a black and white issue.

01:47:26.880 Teachers can still, quote unquote, turn in a child.

01:47:30.200 They just can't be fired.

01:47:31.120 I mean, but my question on that, and again, this is a subset of a broader issue, is why does the parent not have an absolute moral ability to receive that information?

01:47:44.860 And why is there not a requirement?

01:47:46.640 There should be a requirement for teachers to turn over that information.

01:47:49.060 Health and safety is a requirement.

01:47:52.380 If a teacher truly believes that a parent is a threat to a child, they can report it to child services.

01:47:56.300 Yeah, so health and safety is still the standard.

01:47:58.540 So you maintain that standard.

01:48:00.000 That standard is the law.

01:48:01.120 There's a lot of wiggle room for a teacher to apply for parents.

01:48:02.940 Well, it's also, but it's a lot of law in terms of the weight of that law and that responsibility to take care of it.

01:48:07.580 Make sure your kids are safe.

01:48:08.820 But this idea that Trump says people are going to public schools and coming back, having surgeries, and coming back the next day is absurd.

01:48:16.900 No, but there are certainly cases in which kids are being, quote unquote, socially transitioned at school without parents knowing about it.

01:48:22.080 I know some of the parents to whom this has happened.

01:48:23.500 I mean, this is the fundamental question that lies at the root of all of this is the question that you're not wanting to answer, which is whether boys can become girls.

01:48:33.380 Yeah, I just don't.

01:48:34.040 Well, I think I'm for the grace of God.

01:48:36.920 Yeah.

01:48:37.100 I mean, I appreciate the sympathy.

01:48:38.660 I also feel terrible for anybody who's suffering with any sort of mental or physical condition that's terrible.

01:48:44.580 I mean, I think it's been the case for generations for time immemorial.

01:48:46.980 I mean, you know, God bless.

01:48:48.460 I just, I don't know how-

01:48:49.920 Why is this a hard one?

01:48:50.320 I just don't understand why this is a hard one.

01:48:50.920 Because I don't know why it's such a, why is it such a, I'm curious.

01:48:55.260 I understand the political potency of it.

01:48:57.780 It's not just politically potent.

01:48:58.820 But it's just how, it's so few, we're talking about so few people.

01:49:02.720 It's not about the-

01:49:03.320 That are struggling with gender identity issues.

01:49:08.600 A lot of remarkable people, a lot of wildly successful people.

01:49:12.140 And they've gone on their life, have incredible lives.

01:49:14.420 I just, I don't know.

01:49:15.380 There's so much hate and bigotry, so much condemnation, so much judgment.

01:49:19.460 Okay, so this is the part where I start to object.

01:49:21.100 Okay, the idea that if I-

01:49:22.260 You may not be spewing it.

01:49:23.280 No, no, no.

01:49:23.660 Like some others, trust me.

01:49:25.140 But the apple-

01:49:25.600 This is the business they're in.

01:49:26.880 There are lots of terrible people who say lots of terrible things.

01:49:29.380 But it is not an act of bigotry to say that a boy cannot become a girl,

01:49:32.740 nor should my children be taught in K through 12 public schools

01:49:35.360 that a boy can become a girl.

01:49:36.500 That is not an act of bigotry.

01:49:37.800 That's an act of rationality and biological simplicity.

01:49:40.340 I respect their point of view.

01:49:42.260 And, you know, good people disagree on this.

01:49:46.060 I know, but-

01:49:46.640 And a lot of states, not just California,

01:49:48.460 well-established rules, by the way, that predate me.

01:49:51.640 Again, this is not where I started.

01:49:53.340 We're campaigning and advocating on these issues, as some suggest.

01:49:56.940 And, look, I'm with the governor, Governor Spencer Cox,

01:50:02.900 who said about many of these issues,

01:50:04.680 never so much attention been placed on so few people.

01:50:07.500 The problem is, I do think that on an electoral level,

01:50:10.000 to go to the politics, it is a barrier to entry for a lot of people.

01:50:12.800 I agree with that.

01:50:13.740 When you say, boy, I can become a girl.

01:50:15.260 And then just on a realistic-

01:50:17.320 And by the way, and I respect, if that's your barrier

01:50:19.560 to then listening to people on a myriad of other issues,

01:50:22.720 so be it.

01:50:23.980 It is what it is.

01:50:24.660 I just find it strange that even if you wish to have a public policy

01:50:28.440 that pursues something different,

01:50:29.920 we cannot just admit that boys and girls are two different things

01:50:32.500 and that a boy cannot become a girl.

01:50:34.880 Why is this so difficult?

01:50:36.200 Yeah.

01:50:37.140 I understand your point of view.

01:50:39.260 I appreciate it.

01:50:39.720 And, you know, and I also respect Caitlyn Jenner.

01:50:41.740 You know, I do.

01:50:43.080 It's not that respect for individuals.

01:50:43.960 Well, no-

01:50:44.320 I mean, I can tell you a story.

01:50:45.360 There was a situation in which-

01:50:46.120 No, I mean, I just did.

01:50:46.320 And by the way-

01:50:46.760 I was speaking at university-

01:50:47.760 And this is a harder thing for me, too.

01:50:48.820 As you may know, I probably do.

01:50:51.020 I have a trans godson.

01:50:51.840 And it just-

01:50:52.780 It's a-

01:50:53.440 There's a little more-

01:50:54.060 I just-

01:50:54.420 I find the humanity-

01:50:55.340 I find different aspects of this at different layers.

01:50:57.620 This goes back to my sort of truth trumps-

01:50:59.260 But I know your facts over empathy.

01:51:00.780 Well, I mean, I'll give you-

01:51:01.900 Here's a story.

01:51:02.500 So I was speaking at University of British Columbia.

01:51:04.400 This must have been now five years ago or so.

01:51:06.380 Yeah.

01:51:06.500 And a person who identified as trans got up in the microphone.

01:51:09.880 And obviously, I do a lot of these things on campus.

01:51:11.960 I used to do more of them.

01:51:13.280 And this issue came up.

01:51:14.760 The person started talking about his family's biological male.

01:51:18.960 Again, you can use whatever pronouns you choose to use.

01:51:21.140 It's a free country.

01:51:21.960 But you can't force me to use pronouns that I believe are grammatically incorrect.

01:51:26.220 By the way, I'm not sitting here, you know, trying to browbeat you on pronouns.

01:51:30.400 I'm just putting that out there.

01:51:31.280 So anyway, so this person gets up and starts talking about his family and how they treat

01:51:38.600 him.

01:51:38.720 And I said, you know, I'd really appreciate if we're going to have a conversation on sort

01:51:41.860 of a general and philosophical level about this issue if you didn't invoke your family.

01:51:45.740 Because I don't want to be in a position of having to talk to you about what your family

01:51:49.360 thinks or believes.

01:51:50.620 And the person continued to invoke their family and said, well, you know, my family keeps saying

01:51:54.920 that I am a woman, that I'm a woman.

01:51:56.560 And finally, after about seven, eight minutes of this, I said, listen, you've now forced

01:52:01.360 me into the corner where I have to give my opinion.

01:52:02.720 My opinion is that your family is treating you with sympathy, but they don't actually

01:52:05.280 believe that you're a woman because they care about you and they love you.

01:52:07.840 But they will fib to you because they believe that it is better for you or that you will

01:52:12.820 not hurt yourself if you say this thing that is not true.

01:52:16.200 The person got very upset, rushed out of the room.

01:52:18.180 Now, normally, that's the kind of thing that ends up online as a, you know, destroys video

01:52:22.220 kind of thing.

01:52:22.780 I went to the people who were in charge of the event.

01:52:24.600 I had them cut it from the tape because I was worried about the person's mental health

01:52:27.800 status.

01:52:28.260 I appreciate that.

01:52:28.760 I called up a person who I knew who knew the person because they'd mentioned it to me.

01:52:33.060 And I actually had breakfast with the person the next morning to make sure that he was

01:52:36.240 okay.

01:52:36.720 Good for you.

01:52:37.080 So my only point here is not what a wonderful person I am.

01:52:40.080 It's that sympathy does not preclude truth telling.

01:52:42.100 And when you're making public policy, it is very important that sympathy not preclude truth

01:52:46.200 telling.

01:52:46.940 And I think that, again, it's not just the trans issue.

01:52:49.900 You know, if the idea is that I have to protect my friends and I have to attack my enemies

01:52:53.780 in politics, things get really squirrely really quickly because, again, public policy is for

01:52:58.860 everyone.

01:52:59.320 It is not just for subgroups.

01:53:00.480 Yeah.

01:53:01.780 I hear you.

01:53:03.520 We just see the world with a different set of eyes on this.

01:53:05.700 I appreciate your sort of intellectual argument and the sort of soundness and the firmness

01:53:09.640 in that space.

01:53:10.280 I can't help but unpack the relationship to families and people and lives lived and the

01:53:18.040 grace and, you know, people's lives that are lost and people that are struggling and going

01:53:23.300 through this.

01:53:23.840 I just, that's how.

01:53:27.000 And to me, that does shape the way I make policy because it is, it's not just science,

01:53:34.900 it's art.

01:53:35.780 It's, it's lived experience.

01:53:37.240 It's reality.

01:53:38.660 And it goes back to the sanctuary thing.

01:53:40.420 There's certain lived realities.

01:53:42.720 And, and, and one has to sort of deal with the cards that are dealt as imperfect as things

01:53:47.260 are and life is.

01:53:48.220 And as you know, you know, I don't know.

01:53:49.680 But you're, you're, you're one of these, that's why you got the, what, 180 IQ?

01:53:53.260 What was it?

01:53:53.720 No, I do not have 180 IQ.

01:53:55.100 You were that kid skipping high.

01:53:55.540 It's high, but in 180, yeah.

01:53:56.660 Jesus.

01:53:57.180 I mean, you can read your book to learn more.

01:53:58.720 By the way, when I was listening, reading Lions and Scavengers, this notion of,

01:54:05.300 victimization and envy, the scavenger mindset, I thought you were writing about Donald Trump.

01:54:11.580 Well, I mean, listen, when I was on with Ezra, Ezra said, it feels like you're talking about

01:54:15.220 a lot of people on both sides.

01:54:16.300 And I said, that is true.

01:54:17.820 I am talking about a lot of people on both sides.

01:54:20.520 I think that, you know, one of the points I make in, in the book, you know, is that the

01:54:24.980 model of Lions and Scavengers, it's really about kind of people who build versus people

01:54:28.040 who wish to destroy.

01:54:29.720 And the point that I make is that's actually an internal battle inside of all of us.

01:54:33.540 If you go back to the book of Genesis and the story of Cain and Abel, it's a fascinating

01:54:39.440 story, obviously, for a variety of reasons, which is why it's lasted for several thousand

01:54:42.680 years.

01:54:43.380 But what happens is that Cain actually initiates the idea of let's give sacrifices to God.

01:54:48.760 And then God takes Abel's sacrifice, but not Cain's.

01:54:50.980 And it doesn't say in the Bible why that is.

01:54:52.540 That's just what happens.

01:54:54.100 And Cain gets angry.

01:54:55.500 And God actually goes to Cain and he says, listen, you have the ability to fix yourself,

01:55:00.920 right?

01:55:01.580 Sin crouches at your door.

01:55:03.500 But, and the word in Hebrew is timshel, you can overcome that.

01:55:05.860 You have the capacity to overcome that.

01:55:07.860 And so in every human heart is the capacity to be the person who builds, makes things

01:55:12.040 stronger, makes, you know, if you're a politician, better policy, makes the country stronger

01:55:16.540 in terms of its social fabric, or the person who's going to grift, or the person who's

01:55:21.100 going to engage in conspiracy theories, or the person who's going to tear things down

01:55:24.280 because they're unhappy with their life and therefore have decided, falsely, with no

01:55:28.240 evidence, that the system is to blame for all that.

01:55:30.900 I see politicians who do both of those things.

01:55:33.160 I think that sometimes I look at what President Trump says, and I think, you know, that's a

01:55:36.440 real lion thing to do.

01:55:37.360 I think that sending the, you know, sending the B2s to Florida was a lion thing to do.

01:55:41.260 I think that grabbing Maduro was a lion thing.

01:55:43.660 And then sometimes he says things, and I'm like, that is a scavenger thing to do.

01:55:46.700 So, you know, this week, for example, you know, he's doing some populist things on economics

01:55:50.980 that probably some members of the left would agree with.

01:55:52.920 10% caps on credit cards?

01:55:54.480 I think that that's silly.

01:55:55.220 I think that that is, again, externalizing people's debt problem to a place that does

01:56:02.040 not solve the problem, and in fact, is more likely to lead to people not being able to

01:56:05.480 get credit cards, because obviously, if you-

01:56:08.120 Sound like the head of JP Morgan.

01:56:09.660 What about rolling up all the corporate purchases of private single family owns?

01:56:14.480 I think that that's, I think that that is a ridiculous misdirect, okay?

01:56:18.380 The fact is that in the state of California, for example, exorbitantly low percentage.

01:56:23.060 Yeah, relative to other states.

01:56:24.220 Yeah, relative to other states, for sure.

01:56:25.940 Yeah.

01:56:26.140 Okay, and guess what?

01:56:27.140 Real estate here, really, really expensive.

01:56:29.120 And meanwhile, if you go over to Charlotte, North Carolina, where the real estate prices

01:56:32.080 actually have been diving, you actually do have pretty significant corporate ownership.

01:56:36.020 And here we're talking about large corporations, not like small mom and pop operations, where

01:56:39.140 you own a second home to rent it out.

01:56:40.640 Typically speaking, when a corporation invests in an area, like say Phoenix,

01:56:44.160 and then builds up an enormous number of rental units, because that's what happens.

01:56:48.420 They buy, let's say, a single family home, now they rent it out, okay?

01:56:50.800 So they just increased the stock of rent, right?

01:56:53.740 Which means that the rental prices go down.

01:56:55.680 And then corporations typically are investing in areas where it's easier to buy and easier

01:56:59.980 to renovate and easier to build.

01:57:02.000 Renovating is very difficult in places like New York and in certain parts of California.

01:57:05.080 It's a lot easier in, say, Austin or Phoenix or Florida.

01:57:08.080 And so what you've seen is actually there is not only zero correlation between corporate

01:57:12.020 ownership of real estate assets and price of rent, for example.

01:57:17.140 In many cases, there's a reverse correlation.

01:57:19.380 And so trying to refocus on, look at this terrible, it isn't BlackRock.

01:57:24.040 BlackRock doesn't own real estate assets in this fashion.

01:57:26.340 But if you look at Blackstone, it's Blackstone's fault that the real estate prices are going up.

01:57:32.720 No, it isn't.

01:57:33.740 And again, I think that that is-

01:57:35.300 So why is he pursuing two policies that you vehemently disagree with?

01:57:39.380 Because I think that it is-

01:57:40.240 Flailing on the issue of the economy with the American people?

01:57:42.580 Governor, I think that it is politically beneficial for politicians to tell people

01:57:46.320 that their problems are easily solvable with the stroke of a pen,

01:57:49.620 and by blaming somebody who's richer than they are.

01:57:51.400 I think that is a very easy way to get away with really bad public policy.

01:57:55.620 All right, let's talk about it.

01:57:56.740 We're in limited time here, Ben.

01:57:58.940 My gosh, we've covered so much.

01:58:01.320 And I know everyone's like-

01:58:01.900 That's been fun.

01:58:02.340 Wait, why haven't we gotten into politics in Nigeria?

01:58:05.860 Or we can talk about Somaliland and we can get into some more interesting, nuanced issues.

01:58:11.580 And we didn't even get to Xi.

01:58:13.140 And there is legitimately a lot of issues that I think are fascinating that will define more

01:58:17.960 things in more ways on more days.

01:58:19.140 But what do you make of, I mean, Republicans have no chance in this midterm, right?

01:58:23.780 I think that they are in for a world of hurt right now in the midterms.

01:58:27.740 I mean, they're the incumbent party.

01:58:30.060 They have a bare majority.

01:58:32.860 That alone would put them behind the eight ball.

01:58:35.620 There are not a lot of swing districts that are kind of left because of all the redistricting.

01:58:39.220 But the swing districts that are left seem to be trending more blue.

01:58:42.660 President Trump isn't on the ballot, so he doesn't really have coattails among the low

01:58:45.780 propensity electorate.

01:58:46.800 But so, yeah, I think that Republicans are going to are going to have a rough ride.

01:58:50.880 On the scale one to 10, how big a mistake was not expanding the health care subsidies

01:58:55.300 or extending them?

01:58:56.300 So I have made the case that on just a raw political level.

01:58:59.540 And again, I will say that what I do is different than what you do.

01:59:02.200 Right.

01:59:02.340 I mean, like you're in the podcast space now, so this is my ballgame.

01:59:04.520 But the reality is that you're in the policymaking space.

01:59:07.140 And I've said this to Republican and Democratic politicians.

01:59:09.280 That's why I have to bring the human element into this, Ben.

01:59:11.980 The human element.

01:59:13.080 See, this is where I would say you need to remove the human element, Governor.

01:59:15.220 But, you know, I would say that one of the things that I hope that people appreciate

01:59:21.200 about the difference is that in the podcast space, you can be a purist.

01:59:24.120 And in the political space, you try to get 70 percent of the pie.

01:59:27.480 And so when you are looking at, for example, extending the Obamacare subsidies, it is a

01:59:32.600 political loser, obviously, for Republicans not to extend the Obamacare subsidies and to

01:59:36.020 let it hit a cliff, clearly.

01:59:37.380 Then the question becomes, what can you do that shortens the duration?

01:59:41.200 If you're a conservative, if you're a Republican, what can you do that creates

01:59:45.200 a softer landing for people who are reliant on those subsidies and a transition to policies

01:59:50.360 that you believe will, in general, bend the cost curve down in the meantime?

01:59:54.240 Because if you have kind of a hard stop, then that's going to affect a lot of people.

01:59:57.940 There's a reason why purple state Republicans, purple district Republicans are trying to cut

02:00:01.800 deals right now with Democrats in order to extend those health care subsidies.

02:00:05.400 Hopefully, in return, they will get some provisions on fraud, maybe some release of certain regulations

02:00:10.840 around Obamacare.

02:00:12.100 I think the health care system is so complex.

02:00:14.040 It's so mixed.

02:00:16.940 Let's put it this way.

02:00:17.740 If you and I were sitting and designing a health care system and there was none, then

02:00:21.980 I think that we might have very differing ideas of where it goes.

02:00:24.740 But trying to extricate ourselves from what is an incredibly difficult situation, I think

02:00:30.480 that the easiest and dumbest way to do policy is to just keep tossing money at it.

02:00:33.760 But I also think that on a political level, if you never have the power to do the better

02:00:38.760 things, then you never have the power to do the better things.

02:00:41.240 You got to get as much of the pie as you can.

02:00:42.620 And that's the nature of pragmatism, as you are constantly talking about.

02:00:45.500 Well said.

02:00:46.700 Well, I agree, rather your sentiment.

02:00:49.020 It's interesting.

02:00:49.960 On the issue of subsidy, it's an important point.

02:00:51.980 I mean, we'd have to lower the cost of health care.

02:00:53.600 That's why we're very proud of California.

02:00:55.100 We created our own insulin-branded drug under CalRx.

02:00:58.780 We're just lowering costs, not subsidizing costs, which means socializing that cost on

02:01:03.840 the rest of the rate payers, more broadly, or premium payers.

02:01:08.560 But on the issue of Vance and Rubio, Vance or Rubio, Ben?

02:01:14.900 I mean, in terms of who I am.

02:01:16.000 2028, what's going to happen?

02:01:17.140 I mean, so I think that, look, J.D. Vance has already sort of been deemed by Marco Rubio

02:01:22.640 as the presumptive nominee, barring some sort of cataclysmic circumstance.

02:01:26.580 In terms of who I tend to agree with more politically, obviously, I would think that

02:01:29.580 the Secretary of State, Rubio, on foreign policy, I tend to be more aligned with.

02:01:34.300 Yeah, I think that the vice president, obviously a very high IQ guy.

02:01:37.580 There are certain areas of policy I agree with him on.

02:01:39.620 There are certain areas of policy I strenuously disagree with the vice president.

02:01:42.860 Right now, if you have to lay odds, then J.D. is the most likely nominee.

02:01:46.980 Things can change, obviously.

02:01:47.880 It's very early.

02:01:48.620 Who leaves first, Hexit or Pam Bondi?

02:01:54.200 You know, again, yeah, in terms of, this is where you get into sort of the personality

02:01:57.600 side of the business that I care less about.

02:01:59.700 But I think that it is significantly more likely that Pam Bondi is out before the Secretary

02:02:03.380 of Defense.

02:02:04.800 Interesting.

02:02:06.740 Thanks for coming all the way out.

02:02:08.040 Hey, thank you.

02:02:08.620 Thanks for having me.

02:02:09.160 I appreciate it.

02:02:09.580 This has been fun.

02:02:10.040 Ben Shapiro, you're always welcome back home.

02:02:13.660 Thank you so much.

02:02:19.940 Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally.

02:02:21.900 And I'm Hari Kondabolu.

02:02:23.080 It's a new year.

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02:02:40.040 Health Stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

02:02:44.340 Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

02:02:50.280 This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom Podcast.

02:02:53.700 Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken.

02:02:58.040 But what if the real work isn't physical at all?

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02:03:21.260 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers.

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02:03:31.360 The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

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02:03:46.080 Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

02:03:51.420 Hey, everyone, it's Ed Helms.

02:03:56.780 And I'm Cal Penn, and we are the hosts of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

02:04:02.700 This week on the podcast, I am talking to film and TV critic, radio and podcast host, and

02:04:08.900 Harry Potter superfan, Rihanna Dillon, to discuss Audible's full cast adaptation of Harry Potter

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02:04:18.360 What moments in this audiobook capture the feeling of the magical world best for you,

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02:04:58.200 Guaranteed human.

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02:05:05.040 Sony.

This is Gavin Newsom - January 16, 2026

And, This Is The Chaos Within The GOP Featuring Ben Shapiro

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