This is Gavin Newsom - January 22, 2026


And, This Is The Conversation The Trump Administration Tried To Cancel (Live From Davos!)

Topics
freedom of speech censorship iteration fight fire with immigration
Hosted by
Gavin Newsom
Mentioned
Donald Trump Rakim Questlove Lindsey Graham Chelsea Handler Kumail Nanjiani Ross Matthews Steve Poulter Jesse Mills Doris Day Guy Greg Bovino Mark Carney Elon Musk AP Rocky Biden Camille Stewart-Gloster Joy Harden-Bradford Patrick Bateman Amanda Seyfried Elizabeth Olsen and 17 more
And, This Is The Chaos Within The GOP Featuring Ben Shapiro And, This Is A Country In Crisis With Keith Edwards

Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

176.97

Word count

7,006

Sentence count

671

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

19

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In Davos, Swiss President Donald Trump tried to cancel a speech he was scheduled to give to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Former California Governor Gavin Newsom stepped up to fill in for him, but the White House wouldn t let him speak.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Thank you all for joining us, and I actually wanted to start, you tweeted or posted last night that this was the conversation, and yes, thank you for joining us, Governor, and thank you so much to the WEF for hosting this.
00:00:16.160 This is the conversation that Donald Trump tried to cancel, don't miss it, 11.30 Pacific, thank you to our Pacific Time viewers.
00:00:24.000 In fact, this is a different conversation in the WEF's defense. It was the privately run USA House, which is endorsed by the State Department, funded by big American companies, which did pull an event with you with Fortune yesterday.
00:00:36.840 And I guess I wondered, to begin with, what does that tell you about the way the U.S. private sector, which is really very heavily represented here, is addressing this political moment?
00:00:46.640 I looked at the, I admit, looking at the list, McKinsey and Microsoft and a few California companies.
00:00:53.760 So, if have you, what the hell are you even talking about?
00:00:56.660 But it's indicative, I think, of America, for those of you who are not American.
00:01:00.480 It gives you a sense of what we're up against and what's happening across my country and what happened here in Davos.
00:01:09.820 I was going to speak last night. It was a well-established event at the USA House, a simple conversation, discussion.
00:01:17.700 After Trump's speech, they made sure that I didn't. They made sure it was canceled.
00:01:23.100 And that's what's happening in the United States of America.
00:01:25.560 Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech.
00:01:27.900 Freedom of speech. It's America in reverse.
00:01:30.920 They're censoring historical facts. They're rewriting history.
00:01:34.240 They're censoring books, 4,340 books, libraries, and in schools banned in the United States of America.
00:01:41.960 You're watching institutions.
00:01:43.580 Any institution of independent thinking is under assault and attack by the Trump administration.
00:01:47.980 You're seeing what's playing out in the streets of American cities, what played out in California,
00:01:53.820 the second largest city in the United States of America.
00:01:56.100 4,000 National Guard were federalized.
00:01:59.200 700 active-duty Marines were not sent overseas.
00:02:02.260 They were sent to my largest city in the state of California.
00:02:07.360 Masked men.
00:02:08.980 Guy Greg Bovino, dressed up as if he literally went on eBay and purchased SS Garb.
00:02:16.160 Greg Bovino, secret police, private army, masked men, people disappearing quite literally,
00:02:21.660 no due process, windows being smashed, seatbelts on, being, you know, literally just sort of cut off,
00:02:29.480 people dragged in the streets, kids separated from families, knocking on doors, racially profiling American citizens.
00:02:36.380 So is it surprising the Trump administration didn't like my commentary
00:02:40.880 and wanted to make sure that I was not allowed to speak?
00:02:44.880 Uh, no.
00:02:46.480 It's consistent with this administration and their authoritarian tendencies.
00:02:51.440 Forgive me.
00:02:52.420 These are objective facts.
00:02:54.500 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:02:57.040 Guaranteed human.
00:02:58.840 This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom Podcast.
00:03:02.320 Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken.
00:03:06.660 But what if the real work isn't physical at all?
00:03:08.820 I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.
00:03:16.320 Part of the way through the valley of despair is realizing this has happened,
00:03:19.820 and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward.
00:03:23.100 Our two-part conversation is available now.
00:03:25.340 Listen to the Mailroom on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
00:03:31.020 This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we've got some incredible guests like Kumail Nanjiani.
00:03:37.240 Let's start with your cat. 0.82
00:03:38.540 How is she?
00:03:39.880 She is not with us anymore.
00:03:41.720 Okay, great, great, great way to start.
00:03:44.080 Maybe you will cry.
00:03:45.100 Ross Matthews.
00:03:46.580 You know what kids always say to me?
00:03:47.720 Are you a boy or a girl?
00:03:49.220 Oh my God.
00:03:49.840 All the time.
00:03:50.540 That's so funny.
00:03:51.160 I know.
00:03:51.720 So I try to butch it up for kids so they're not confused.
00:03:54.100 Yeah, but you're butching it up.
00:03:55.400 It's basically like Doris Day.
00:03:58.000 No, I turn into Bea Arthur.
00:03:59.500 Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:04:05.980 Hello, hello, all my people.
00:04:08.980 What's up?
00:04:09.380 It's Questlove.
00:04:10.320 Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with the one and only A$AP Rocky.
00:04:15.120 He reflects on his journey from Harlem roots to global icon status and discovering the hip-hop origin of his name.
00:04:21.500 The ledge was on the TV.
00:04:23.920 Rakim had the Buckethead Kangol join on. 0.94
00:04:26.460 My pops is like, that's Rakim.
00:04:28.540 That's who you named after. 1.00
00:04:30.180 I just was like, damn, that ****. 1.00
00:04:32.480 I swear. 0.99
00:04:33.400 Listen to the Questlove show on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:04:39.580 Fourteen years in prison for killing a young woman.
00:04:45.460 A fifteen-year sentence for a crash that caused three deaths.
00:04:49.540 Twelve and a half years for killing a child and critically injuring her mother.
00:04:54.520 All true stories.
00:04:56.180 All caused by marijuana-impaired drivers.
00:04:59.360 No matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different.
00:05:04.100 So, if you're high, just don't drive.
00:05:09.140 Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.
00:05:11.860 But I would say, just to be clear, this was a private enterprise endorsed by the State Department.
00:05:18.160 But these are a lot of decisions that are being made by private companies right now.
00:05:21.760 This is a capital.
00:05:23.620 This is probably the central global gathering of CEOs.
00:05:27.100 And I guess I wonder if you can give me a review of how you see these folks.
00:05:30.720 And you know your way around this world.
00:05:32.380 How do you see those people behaving?
00:05:34.100 Society becomes how we behave.
00:05:36.940 We are our behaviors.
00:05:38.440 We're not bystanders in this world.
00:05:40.320 The world we're experiencing happened on our watch.
00:05:43.080 So, in the relationship to your question, yeah.
00:05:46.800 They're complicit in some respects to this moment.
00:05:50.040 You know, and forgive me, you brought up a tweet.
00:05:52.180 But part of my approach has been a little more aggressive than perhaps a lot of American politicians.
00:05:57.540 I created a Patriot site.
00:06:00.600 On the site, you can go.
00:06:03.060 There are knee pads that are available to purchase.
00:06:05.520 The last round of knee pads sold out, just as our law firms are selling out.
00:06:13.440 Many American universities are selling out.
00:06:15.840 And yes, many corporate leaders are selling out to this administration.
00:06:20.360 Selling out our values.
00:06:21.620 Selling out our future.
00:06:23.860 Selling out what makes America great.
00:06:26.560 Selling out what makes America great.
00:06:27.560 And it breaks my heart.
00:06:29.520 And people need to stand up. 1.00
00:06:32.800 People need to, you know, courage in their damn convictions. 0.98
00:06:36.080 We're the 250th anniversary of the United States of America this year. 0.99
00:06:39.660 It's the 250th anniversary.
00:06:41.080 The best of the Roman Republic, Greek democracy.
00:06:43.860 Co-equal branches of government.
00:06:45.400 The rule of law, popular sovereignty.
00:06:47.700 Tell me that that reflects the America you read about today.
00:06:52.080 There's no rule of law.
00:06:53.960 It's the rule of dawn.
00:06:55.480 I hope it's, hoping for Europeans, it's dawning on you.
00:07:00.780 It's not the rule of law.
00:07:02.420 You don't have co-equal branches of government.
00:07:04.420 You have a supine Congress.
00:07:05.860 You don't have a Speaker of the House.
00:07:07.760 It doesn't exist.
00:07:09.140 Popular sovereignty being challenged every single day by voter suppression.
00:07:12.900 Trying to rig elections.
00:07:14.640 I mean, heck, Donald Trump tried to steal the election, the last election.
00:07:18.420 Tried to light democracy on fire.
00:07:20.080 And then pardoned everyone that participated in that.
00:07:23.600 Is anyone paying attention to what the hell is going on in the United States of America?
00:07:28.260 So my state of mind is a little different, perhaps, than many others.
00:07:32.260 I won't be complicit at this moment.
00:07:35.280 I won't.
00:07:35.980 I can't.
00:07:36.460 I can't look my kids in the eyes.
00:07:38.580 And so I'm just blessed that I get to represent a state that's larger than the size of 21 U.S. states combined,
00:07:47.460 where 27% of us are foreign-born.
00:07:49.400 We practice pluralism.
00:07:50.620 That's a word you haven't heard in America in a year.
00:07:52.300 Where we dominate in every critical category in terms of energy and daring and entrepreneurialism and innovation.
00:08:00.780 Look, give me a category.
00:08:02.100 California outperforms, fourth largest economy in the world.
00:08:05.660 And so we can punch above our weight.
00:08:07.820 We can come here with formal authority and a little moral authority.
00:08:10.420 And I tell you, we need a little moral authority in our body politic in the United States of America today.
00:08:15.540 Governor, how do you balance?
00:08:17.380 Good morning, everybody.
00:08:18.240 Sorry.
00:08:19.420 I figured we would...
00:08:21.260 Yeah.
00:08:21.900 You're a tough interview, Governor.
00:08:28.440 No, I figured it out.
00:08:29.440 And I think you have chosen a sort of, if you can't beat him, join him, strategy to the way you're talking about this stuff.
00:08:38.520 You talk, you know, you're running around distributing knee pads to CEOs.
00:08:43.280 And I think it does...
00:08:44.360 I'm not handing them out.
00:08:45.120 And it does...
00:08:45.720 Though I do have a few, if you'd like.
00:08:46.860 I don't know.
00:08:47.700 And honestly, it sounds...
00:08:48.960 By the way, I'm not kidding.
00:08:50.380 They're the new Trump Signature Series knee pads.
00:08:53.460 Yeah.
00:08:53.960 And they are available online.
00:08:55.320 I told you, the last one's sold out.
00:08:56.760 And I just want to sort of...
00:09:00.300 But this is a serious moment.
00:09:01.420 It actually...
00:09:02.060 We laugh.
00:09:03.540 Anyway, these are available and in bulk, too.
00:09:06.680 But I want to read you a couple of things the U.S. government has said about you in the last 24 hours or so.
00:09:11.740 The U.S. government.
00:09:12.840 The Treasury Secretary...
00:09:13.540 It sounds ominous when you put it in those...
00:09:14.900 The Treasury Secretary described you as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken, the White House communications director.
00:09:21.500 Hold on.
00:09:21.700 That was the U.S. Secretary of Treasury.
00:09:25.600 I have a couple more.
00:09:26.360 And then you can respond.
00:09:28.000 The White House communications director called you Gavin Newsom and a...
00:09:32.540 Newsom.
00:09:33.220 And an official White House account, you know, federal government account, described you with a, I'd say, very online sexual slur that people here probably don't want to hear at 8.30 in the morning.
00:09:42.780 And you're, in some sense, responding in kind.
00:09:45.320 Well, I fight fire with fire.
00:09:47.300 Do you think...
00:09:48.120 Should you?
00:09:48.600 I mean, is that kind of discourse from you, from them, good for America?
00:09:51.600 No, it's deeply unbecoming.
00:09:53.620 Come on.
00:09:53.960 Of course it is.
00:09:54.660 It's not what we should be doing.
00:09:56.280 But you've got to point out the absurdity.
00:09:58.300 You've got to put a mirror up to this.
00:09:59.800 This is madness.
00:10:01.420 President...
00:10:01.800 You see what he's saying about European leaders, you talking down to people, talking past people.
00:10:07.800 I mean, look, the comments he made yesterday, we're not even discussing.
00:10:10.560 Because you're discussing all the other comments about windmills or whatever else that was happening.
00:10:15.660 Well, he talked about Somalia's community.
00:10:18.160 This is not normal.
00:10:19.960 It's a deviation of normalcy.
00:10:21.760 We've got to call it out.
00:10:22.780 So I put a mirror up to Trump and Trumpism, in all caps.
00:10:25.980 And it was ironic because Pravda, Fox News in America, others, they got offended by it.
00:10:31.700 They said, well, where's his mother to wash his mouth out with soap? 1.00
00:10:35.320 I said, well, where the hell have you been?
00:10:37.380 You've never said a word about Trump dressing up as the Pope, tweeting out and cosplaying on the world stage.
00:10:44.840 And so, look, the Treasury Secretary talked about a Barbie doll.
00:10:48.520 It was as if he was reading a diary and had just broken up with someone.
00:10:53.240 I mean, that was the Secretary of Treasury using valuable time yesterday on the world stage.
00:10:57.740 Some sexual, thank you for not sharing that on the official White House account.
00:11:02.900 We're deeply in their head.
00:11:04.420 I think the affordability agenda appears to be I'm living rent-free in the Trump administration's head.
00:11:12.480 The most talked about speech here in Davos actually isn't, what wasn't Donald Trump's address yesterday.
00:11:18.880 It was the Canadian Prime Minister.
00:11:21.100 Forgettable speech.
00:11:21.860 It was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney the day before who talked about, I don't know, in large terms,
00:11:29.240 the middle powers, everybody except for China and the U.S., 0.52
00:11:33.400 really had to adapt permanently to a world without American leadership.
00:11:37.400 I guess I wonder, I mean, that's in some sense a pretty anti-American point of view.
00:11:40.960 That's a view that America is gone from the world stage,
00:11:43.520 that whether the next president is J.D. Vance, Gavin Newsom, somebody else,
00:11:46.740 this isn't a deviation, as you said.
00:11:48.160 This is permanent.
00:11:48.920 Well, that breaks my heart.
00:11:49.740 Do you buy Carney's money bill?
00:11:51.180 I was, you know, I felt there was moments, and forgive me,
00:11:54.060 I should be cautious making this statement.
00:11:56.500 I don't want it to be overanalyzed.
00:11:58.400 But when I was listening to the EU president speak,
00:12:01.860 there were moments where I said, that used to be us.
00:12:05.620 I used to, I remember that.
00:12:08.340 So am I surprised by what Carney did?
00:12:10.660 Quite the contrary.
00:12:11.480 I thought it was, I had more leaders from the United States quietly send me,
00:12:15.600 not publicly, not necessarily sending up publicly.
00:12:18.040 The transcript of that speech saying, wow.
00:12:22.400 They were, I mean, got in Trump's head yesterday, he brought it up.
00:12:25.960 You know everything about Trump because it's what's not in the teleprompter.
00:12:29.260 It tells you everything you need to know about where Trump's head is on things.
00:12:33.060 It was incredibly effective.
00:12:34.680 The markets were more effective.
00:12:36.660 Markets.
00:12:37.760 It's not Mother Nature, thought of most powerful force on earth with Mother Nature, 0.99
00:12:40.920 but it's the markets, particularly the Trump administration.
00:12:43.800 Combine that with the comments of Macron, combine that with the EU commissioner,
00:12:47.340 but the clarity that came from Prime Minister of Canada.
00:12:51.340 But the fact that he went to China, came back with a deal,
00:12:56.200 started introducing low-cost, high-quality electric vehicles,
00:12:59.920 not made in Michigan, Detroit, but overseas into Canada.
00:13:05.000 It says everything you know about the recklessness of America's foreign policy.
00:13:11.260 Everything you need to know.
00:13:12.820 You know it intimately.
00:13:14.580 But it's a remarkable thing to break down 80-plus years of alliances.
00:13:18.980 It takes decades and decades to build trust in organizations to architecture that.
00:13:23.740 It takes weeks, tweets, hours, minutes sometimes to destroy it.
00:13:28.460 Destruction is not strength.
00:13:31.440 The Trump administration is weakness masquerading as strength.
00:13:35.720 And people need to understand that.
00:13:37.860 That's reflected in the tweets.
00:13:39.660 That's reflected in canceling people.
00:13:41.780 That's reflected in sending masked men into the American cities.
00:13:45.220 It's reflected at this moment.
00:13:46.980 So I respect what Carney did.
00:13:49.760 Because he had courage of convictions.
00:13:51.440 He stood up.
00:13:52.840 And I think we need to stand up in America and call this out with clarity.
00:13:56.620 We can lose our republic as we know it.
00:13:59.320 Our country can be unrecognizable in a matter of months, just not years.
00:14:04.320 It is code red, blinking red, in the United States of America.
00:14:09.460 So forgive me, I feel this with passion, some indignancy,
00:14:14.720 as someone, frankly, has taken it for granted all of these years.
00:14:17.780 And it's why I came here to Davos to call it out.
00:14:20.560 And I wish there were more of us doing the same, because there are more of us.
00:14:25.000 And on that, I just, forgive me.
00:14:27.860 I want you to know, Donald Trump is an historic president.
00:14:30.880 That's absolutely correct.
00:14:32.520 He's historically unpopular in the United States of America.
00:14:37.040 In every category.
00:14:38.580 He's underwater.
00:14:40.780 He will be remembered in years, not decades.
00:14:44.420 He's not going to run again.
00:14:45.700 Time of life denies that.
00:14:47.380 Not his state of mind, but time of my life.
00:14:49.740 But we need to manifest that.
00:14:54.420 And we need to do the hard work.
00:14:56.800 And that hard work includes the difficult work of coming to Davos and calling that out.
00:15:01.520 This is not where I want to be spending, I love you all, my time.
00:15:06.280 And so, anyway, it's an extension of the conviction I feel about this moment.
00:15:11.480 You're talking to a lot of people who, among other things, aren't American, maybe be concerned for America,
00:15:14.560 but are making decisions about their own politics, their own countries.
00:15:17.420 And Carney's core point was, this is a rupture.
00:15:20.620 This isn't an anomaly.
00:15:21.760 Yeah.
00:15:22.120 And there's no going back.
00:15:23.820 And do you think that, I mean, do you think a different American leader can bring...
00:15:27.480 I think these relationships are in dormancy.
00:15:30.320 They're not dead.
00:15:31.560 I don't use those binary terms.
00:15:34.020 Don't fall prey to that.
00:15:36.380 That's a bit hyperbolic, and I'm prone to a little of that at times.
00:15:41.240 Dormancy.
00:15:42.760 We can... 0.96
00:15:43.320 Look, he's an invasive species, Donald Trump.
00:15:47.120 He's not.
00:15:47.920 He is.
00:15:49.000 He took over the Republican Party.
00:15:50.760 They're just, I mean, he's got, you know, a few of them.
00:15:55.080 Lindsey Graham.
00:15:55.960 I mean, speaking of the knee pads.
00:16:00.060 I'm sorry.
00:16:01.400 This is tough stuff.
00:16:03.420 It's tough stuff.
00:16:05.160 I don't recognize these people any longer.
00:16:07.500 I used to respect Lindsey.
00:16:09.920 I mean, Lindsey, you think what I'm saying about Trump's tough.
00:16:13.400 How about what Lindsey Graham said about Trump?
00:16:15.580 How about the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio?
00:16:18.240 Do you think...
00:16:18.800 I mean, this is, these are the same people.
00:16:21.860 And this is why we, for things to change, we need to change.
00:16:25.880 Do you think...
00:16:26.380 And that's why I'm changing my approach.
00:16:28.280 And again, I'm grateful you all took the time.
00:16:29.560 I mean, I suppose, do you think post-Trump there's a path back?
00:16:32.160 Because you see this everywhere, the kind of insult politics that you're doing here,
00:16:35.600 which you, I see, you said you don't really enjoy it.
00:16:37.580 You kind of seem to.
00:16:38.180 I'm just putting a mirror up.
00:16:39.620 No, I just, you gotta...
00:16:41.520 I was doing my 10-point plans before, and I don't think any of you would have been here this morning
00:16:46.120 had I done that.
00:16:47.020 Oh, they would have been here.
00:16:47.940 No.
00:16:48.880 Because it just, it wasn't working.
00:16:50.980 Everyone's trying to figure this guy out.
00:16:52.360 This is like a Mark Carney crowd.
00:16:53.720 Yeah, no, but it's how do you, how do you, how do you communicate?
00:16:56.600 How do you respond to this moment?
00:17:02.120 And it's, for me, it's about iteration.
00:17:04.000 It's an entrepreneurial spirit.
00:17:05.000 It's a very California mindset.
00:17:07.080 You gotta keep increasing the number of tries.
00:17:08.800 And I was trying everything.
00:17:09.780 It wasn't working.
00:17:10.260 It wasn't breaking through.
00:17:10.860 Democratic Party, writ large, wasn't breaking through.
00:17:14.060 And we decided the only way to address Trump is, quite literally, to fight fire with fire.
00:17:18.280 I did an initiative, Prop 50, in California.
00:17:20.260 It was to reflect the fact that Donald Trump called an American politician
00:17:24.080 and said, in the middle of the decade, to the governor of the state of Texas,
00:17:29.540 I am entitled, Greg Abbott, to five seats.
00:17:33.380 And I need you to redraw district lines, mid-year redistricting,
00:17:37.400 to rig the 2026 election before one vote.
00:17:40.860 What the Trump administration expected we were going to do, as good Democrats do,
00:17:45.760 we might write an op-ed.
00:17:48.300 And we may, you know, all go out and just say, this is just so wrong.
00:17:52.000 And all of us would be applauding and say, yes, yes.
00:17:55.460 You know, as he's consolidating power.
00:17:57.560 Instead, we went out and we redraw our maps.
00:18:00.520 And we also drew a line in the sand.
00:18:02.760 And I think that's what's required at this moment.
00:18:05.300 And he cusses out weakness like no one else.
00:18:09.560 That's his great strength.
00:18:10.560 That's his gift.
00:18:13.080 But you punch back.
00:18:15.740 You fight fire with fire.
00:18:17.760 You display conviction and strength.
00:18:19.840 It's a different relationship.
00:18:21.860 And so my relationship to this moment is reflected in that.
00:18:25.360 I'm not naive.
00:18:26.880 These guys are going to try to take me down.
00:18:29.600 Not just my state.
00:18:30.900 I'm not naive about what I've said this morning and how that will be reflected in the official White House account.
00:18:37.800 I'm not naive about the fact that he threatened to prosecute the Fed chief in the United States of America.
00:18:44.640 That's had subpoena against another sitting governor, Tim Walts, who's literally going after his enemies with the FBI and the DOJ and these power ministries.
00:18:54.400 I'm not naive about any of this.
00:18:57.180 I'm not naive about the corruption and the graft at a scale we've never seen in American history.
00:19:03.180 I'm not naive about folks writing billion-dollar checks to Wyckoff, to Jared Kushner for this new peace deal they're announcing today.
00:19:12.220 I'm not naive about the fact that the President of the United States made a billion and a half plus dollars in the last 12 months personally.
00:19:19.960 How the hell are we putting up with this?
00:19:23.780 We have to call this out.
00:19:26.240 Unprecedented in American history.
00:19:29.020 Happening in real time on our watch.
00:19:32.600 We have to be held to a higher level.
00:19:34.980 All of us.
00:19:35.840 Myself notably.
00:19:37.160 To a higher level of accountability at this moment.
00:19:39.780 And, um...
00:19:41.780 You know, one of...
00:19:49.140 I think one of the main reasons that, you know, that he has been successful is because the Democratic Party is so discredited in the eyes of so many voters.
00:19:57.600 I have a couple of questions about that.
00:19:59.240 One is big picture about California.
00:20:01.520 People, you know, you are in the midst of a, you know, enormous economic boom right now.
00:20:06.140 And yet the state is on one hand running deficits and on the other not always delivering services that it's, you know,
00:20:13.500 from education to health care that your citizens are delighted with.
00:20:16.860 And I guess I wonder how can, you know, how are voters looking at California, looking at New York, looking at Chicago, you know,
00:20:25.040 supposed to say, yeah, this is the model we want.
00:20:27.180 Well, I'm proud of my state.
00:20:29.240 We have more Fortune 500 companies than any other state in America.
00:20:31.740 More scientists, engineers, more Nobel laureates.
00:20:34.700 My state than any other state in America.
00:20:36.660 The finest system of higher public education in the world.
00:20:40.780 We have 18% of the world's R&D.
00:20:42.920 China, 22%. 0.88
00:20:44.020 Germany, 21%.
00:20:44.920 California, 18% of the world's R&D.
00:20:48.080 With the center of the universe as it relates to AI.
00:20:50.680 I mean, California is wonderful, but what about the governance?
00:20:53.640 Well, the governance, we're one of the lowest uninsured rates in America.
00:20:57.220 You mentioned health care.
00:20:58.540 We just did our state of education report, which showed in every category, every classroom,
00:21:02.960 making progress with our test scores.
00:21:05.140 Our investments are paying off.
00:21:06.300 Just did a big state of the state.
00:21:07.400 Do you just reject the idea that these blue states have trouble, you know, are spending more for less results?
00:21:12.200 I don't know, higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, lower gun death rates, more productivity, higher wages, higher quality of life.
00:21:24.480 $83.1 billion, that was the net contribution that we provided to the federal government versus red state like Texas.
00:21:33.040 That was a taker state of $73.1 billion.
00:21:36.400 So we're producing more, and people are, I think, creating more opportunities.
00:21:41.040 So, look, are there problems?
00:21:42.740 For instance, you're supporting the mayor of L.A. for re-election after these terrible fires that a lot of, you know,
00:21:48.080 a lot of your citizens do feel was part and part because of government mismanagement.
00:21:52.220 Do you just reject that narrative that the government isn't anything to you at these times?
00:21:54.740 I absolutely accept that we all should be held to a higher level of accountability in terms of our governance,
00:22:00.660 and I think there's many areas of reforms that are necessary, so many areas of reforms that were underway.
00:22:05.300 We can get into the specifics of any one of these issues,
00:22:07.700 but the general notion that in the middle of winter with 100-mile-an-hour winds were attached to a fire that somehow,
00:22:14.860 by the way, there were 16 major fires in Southern California over a two-week period,
00:22:21.600 that somehow that had to do with fire hydrants is rather preposterous. 0.98
00:22:26.740 It was shapeshift because of the complete bullshit that came from Donald Trump and Elon Musk, 0.98
00:22:32.200 saying somehow the sprinklers didn't work and the fire hydrants didn't work 0.99
00:22:36.740 because we didn't turn on a valve in Northern California.
00:22:39.940 These are literal words from the Trump administration, so I do reject that.
00:22:45.980 Do I reject this notion of being self-critical about governance and management across the spectrum?
00:22:50.920 No, that's fair game.
00:22:52.140 This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we've got some incredible guests like Kumail Nanjiani.
00:22:58.840 Let's start with your cat. How is she?
00:23:01.320 She is not with us.
00:23:02.900 Okay, great, great, great way to start.
00:23:05.540 So this is a great beginning, and hopefully you'll be able to, I don't know, maybe you will cry.
00:23:10.520 Amanda Seyfried.
00:23:11.780 Life is so short.
00:23:14.300 If you feel something like that, you have that fire in you for this experience.
00:23:18.300 It's not for a guy. It's for the experience of being in love, and it's bigger than a guy.
00:23:22.700 Elizabeth Olsen.
00:23:24.200 I love swimming naked so much, and I know you love taking pictures of yourself naked. 0.86
00:23:29.500 I love to be naked. 0.88
00:23:30.980 I just want to be in my brown underwear all the time. 0.80
00:23:32.920 Ross Matthews.
00:23:34.500 You know what kids always say to me?
00:23:35.700 Are you a boy or a girl?
00:23:37.180 Oh my God, that's so funny.
00:23:39.080 I know, so I'm always like, hi.
00:23:41.120 I try to butch it up for kids, you know, so they're not confused.
00:23:43.900 Yeah, but you're butching it up is basically like Doris Day.
00:23:47.420 Right? No, I turn into Bea Arthur.
00:23:49.380 Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:23:58.240 Hey, what's up, y'all? This is Questlove.
00:24:00.160 Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with A$AP Rocky ahead of his album release, Don't Be Dumb.
00:24:05.060 He reflects on his journey from his Harlem roots to global icon status, discovering the hip-hop origin of his name.
00:24:11.840 The ledge was on the TV.
00:24:14.060 Rakim had the bucket hat Kangol joined on. 0.61
00:24:16.320 And Pops was like, that's Rakim.
00:24:18.660 That's who you named after. 1.00
00:24:20.320 I just was like, damn, that **** got swag. 0.99
00:24:23.660 Rocky offers a window into not only a boundary-breaking artist, but as a man committed to fusing creative ideas, community, and remaining unapologetically himself. 0.99
00:24:33.640 Have you ever gotten roasted for any of your outfits?
00:24:35.780 For sure.
00:24:36.680 Some people don't be getting the vision.
00:24:38.500 Look, they can roast me. 0.79
00:24:39.580 They can cook me.
00:24:40.600 They can deep-fry me.
00:24:41.740 They can sauté whatever they want.
00:24:44.160 It's nobody who can **** with my fashion sense and my taste is impeccable.
00:24:49.380 I'm just like, I impress myself a lot.
00:24:53.160 It's an amazing conversation.
00:24:54.880 One you definitely don't want to miss.
00:24:56.360 So listen to The Questlove Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:25:02.640 Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast.
00:25:12.960 Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions.
00:25:16.300 Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken.
00:25:19.120 But what if the real work isn't physical at all?
00:25:21.720 To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years' experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name.
00:25:31.820 In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others.
00:25:43.180 Guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved.
00:25:47.900 Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy as in compassion.
00:25:52.000 If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath, listen to The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
00:26:03.160 The moments that shape us often begin with a simple question.
00:26:10.000 What do I want my life to look like now?
00:26:12.740 I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, and on Therapy for Black Girls, we create space for honest conversations about identity, relationships, mental health, and the choices that help us grow.
00:26:24.560 As cybersecurity expert Camille Stewart-Gloster reminds us,
00:26:27.980 We are in a divisive time where our comments are weaponized against us.
00:26:33.600 And so what we find is a lot of Black women are standing up and speaking out because they feel the brunt of the pain.
00:26:41.820 Each week we explore the tools and insights that help you move with purpose.
00:26:46.080 Whether you're navigating something new or returning to yourself.
00:26:49.660 If you're ready for thoughtful guidance and grounded support, this is the place for you.
00:26:53.880 Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:27:00.080 And probably the biggest governance issue, policy issue, fueling right-wing parties in the United States around the country is immigration.
00:27:08.680 And I think liberal parties, again, in the U.S. and around the world had a posture of welcoming immigrants that it just turned out a lot of Americans, a lot of Californians, but more Americans, are unhappy with.
00:27:20.940 It's illegal immigration, the out-of-control border, but also it's the last issue on which Trump, though his numbers have been sliding, remained somewhat popular.
00:27:30.620 And I guess I wonder, do you think that your party went too far or that you went too far?
00:27:36.340 And I think, for instance, in extending Medi-Cal to the California health care program to undocumented immigrants.
00:27:44.000 Well, two different questions.
00:27:45.280 I guess on the big picture and the small picture, do you feel like you went too far?
00:27:48.640 Two different questions.
00:27:49.380 Do I believe in universal health care?
00:27:51.060 Yes, regardless of pre-existing conditions, ability to pay, and your status.
00:27:54.720 I campaigned on that.
00:27:55.980 We delivered on that.
00:27:57.100 And I'm proud of that.
00:27:57.760 We're one of 16 states to provide care to people, regardless of their immigration status.
00:28:01.640 By the way, we have universal care in emergency rooms, and you pay the price on the back end, at least Americans, for that, regardless of your immigration status. 0.98
00:28:09.620 But the issue of immigration, Donald Trump is very unpopular on immigration.
00:28:14.160 He's successful on the border.
00:28:15.920 Separate issue, connected.
00:28:17.160 And yes, the Democratic Party failed in the last few years on the border.
00:28:21.220 And yes, I was critical of that.
00:28:22.920 And yes, I put our own National Guard on the border the day I got elected into office in 2019.
00:28:28.840 Sent 394 National Guard down to the border.
00:28:31.380 And we were very, very pointed with the Biden administration that we were failing to deliver border security for a number of years.
00:28:38.440 On the larger immigration issue, I happened to share the same old office of Ronald Reagan, governor of California, who decided in his last day in office at the White House, and he gave a love letter to immigrants from around the world.
00:28:50.740 It was a love letter to America.
00:28:51.960 What distinguishes America from the rest of the globe?
00:28:54.500 He talked about Lady Torch, Lady Liberty's torch.
00:28:58.140 And he talked about the vibrancy of newcomers, people coming all over the globe for riches and new beginnings, becoming Americans, and what defines our great nation.
00:29:08.060 And that's the spirit that defines my mindset, getting first-round draft choices around the rest of the world, is what makes California so vibrant.
00:29:15.980 It's because of that diversity, and it's because of people's willingness to dare and to match up with ideas and perspectives and backgrounds to come in to make a go of it, that has made California the fourth largest GDP in the world.
00:29:28.880 But we have failed on the border, and Donald Trump is failing on immigration.
00:29:34.700 His economic policy is not complicated.
00:29:37.460 It's tariffs, which is a regressive tax.
00:29:42.200 It's mass deportations, which is having a major impact on supply chains.
00:29:48.220 And you've seen the American jobless rate.
00:29:51.080 You're seeing it growing, the unemployment rate in America.
00:29:53.700 Besson didn't talk about this.
00:29:55.640 They had the worst jobs numbers in the first year of the Trump administration outside a recession since 2003.
00:30:01.720 49,000 jobs a month.
00:30:03.440 The Biden administration last year was averaging 168,000 jobs a month.
00:30:09.460 Inflation is not lowering.
00:30:11.880 It's still at 2.7%.
00:30:13.580 Ask folks what a pound of beef costs in the United States of America or a brand-new car.
00:30:18.440 Everything you heard yesterday was B.S.
00:30:20.640 And it's impacted by these policies of tariffs that are impacting ranchers and farmers and small business folks, a major tax that they celebrate, a tax that they celebrate collecting, which is ironic from the Republican Party.
00:30:37.040 And the third leg of the stool is a massive tax cut away from the wealthy and the privileged, taxing now the burden on small businesses and working folks.
00:30:48.580 That's the policy easily described of America's economic strategy.
00:30:54.800 And it's a failed strategy.
00:30:57.180 And the impacts of that strategy are being felt all throughout the United States of America, including my state, that has been disproportionately impacted by these policies.
00:31:07.340 So I'm very critical of those.
00:31:09.960 I'm critical of our assault on institutions, the higher learning, research, institutions that have literally been part of that formula for success.
00:31:19.320 The rest of the world gets that.
00:31:21.620 And he's putting sand in the gears across that spectrum.
00:31:24.240 And California, again, is fighting and pushing back.
00:31:29.720 And some of those first-round draft picks got incredible contracts and are now made quite a lot of money and are now very freaked out, threatening to leave California over a proposal that, just to be clear, you oppose to tax for a sort of one-time tax on the wealth of the very, very, very wealthy Californians.
00:31:49.840 And I guess I want to ask you two questions.
00:31:51.000 One is I was talking to somebody progressive here who said, you know, this guy's basically a fake populist.
00:31:55.740 He talks a good game about the billionaires.
00:31:57.520 Here is an actual proposal that they're unhappy about.
00:32:00.340 And you're on the other side.
00:32:01.460 You're standing with, you know, Elon Musk and David Sachs on this.
00:32:04.280 Why is that?
00:32:06.060 Well, one-time wealth tax at a state level that almost exclusively goes to solve one problem, health care, and not solving for larger issues like education, supporting police officers.
00:32:21.000 And firefighters, and starves the rest of the general fund that has had already the impact of people moving out of our state and impacting, then, the annual income tax collection is not something I support.
00:32:36.460 And by the way, vast majority of labor does not support as well.
00:32:42.040 And that's reflected in my opposition.
00:32:45.140 What's not reflected in my opposition, quite the contrary, is my advocacy for progressive taxes.
00:32:50.940 That does tax the wealthy disproportionately.
00:32:53.620 Do you have a theory for how to tax these?
00:32:54.800 I've been a strong advocate for that.
00:32:56.200 Do you have a theory on how to tax this particular group who often kind of live in this company?
00:33:00.740 And I'm sure, you know, there are people in this room who do this, but who live on debt, you know, who have no income and live on these sort of giant revolving loans.
00:33:07.640 Yeah, I mean, you could have that conversation.
00:33:10.220 Because I think the wealth tax is sort of an attempt to get at that.
00:33:12.540 Yeah, but at a national level, we're competing with 50 states.
00:33:16.820 Capital flows and move.
00:33:18.140 That's real.
00:33:18.720 It's not imagined.
00:33:19.920 It's very, very real.
00:33:20.840 So we have a progressive tax structure, the most progressive in the country.
00:33:24.900 By the way, states like Texas and Florida have the most regressive tax structures.
00:33:28.340 They tax their lowest wage earners more than we tax our highest wage earners.
00:33:32.620 They are the high-tax states.
00:33:34.740 We have the highest tax rate for the 1%.
00:33:37.140 But for working folks and middle class, it's a very different tax structure.
00:33:41.580 That's the approach we promote.
00:33:43.600 That's the approach that we advance in our state.
00:33:46.280 But again, our state of mind as it relates to the issue of a state-by-state wealth tax,
00:33:51.660 the impact of that has to be considered in the context of how freely capital can move
00:33:57.440 and how that's already occurred.
00:33:59.800 It's not just an assertion.
00:34:01.260 It's an evidence already in the state of California as it relates to a proposal that hasn't gone on the ballot,
00:34:07.000 a proposal that has never gotten through the legislature,
00:34:09.540 and a proposal that likely, if it did get on the ballot, will lose.
00:34:12.760 Would you campaign against it?
00:34:14.040 I'm opposed to it.
00:34:15.060 It's already had, I think, a very negative impact on the state.
00:34:18.320 And it's a badly drafted initiative.
00:34:22.080 Again, that literally takes teachers and takes our educational system out of any consideration of support
00:34:30.360 and impacts other parts of our general fund.
00:34:33.020 It is a flawed initiative.
00:34:34.560 And then I think conversely, these folks who control a ton of capital,
00:34:37.980 and as you said, some are actually already leaving, have been leaving.
00:34:40.740 How do you, you know, over this, but I think also over a sense that California,
00:34:45.680 that Democratic leadership broadly, you know, complains about billionaires a lot,
00:34:49.880 doesn't, is not, does not give them the, you know, love and respect that they feel that they're entitled to.
00:34:55.500 I know.
00:34:55.700 You know, how do you, I mean, you actually, you talk to these folks, some of them support you, some don't.
00:34:59.780 But, like, what are you saying, as you call people up and say, hey, please don't leave California, what's your...
00:35:05.320 Well, California's population, three years in a row, continues to grow.
00:35:08.540 And so does our footprint as it relates to more Fortune 500 companies than we've had in over two decades.
00:35:13.920 And our innovation ecosystem and startup ecosystem is second to none.
00:35:17.040 We have half of the country's unicorns in our state.
00:35:19.420 The largest market cap private sector company, OpenAI, just headquartered in San Francisco.
00:35:25.020 They could have chosen any other state in the country.
00:35:26.920 Look, I don't begrudge other people's success.
00:35:29.560 I've never been that kind of Democrat.
00:35:31.720 But I also recognize in a world, businesses can't thrive in a world that's failing.
00:35:36.480 Ten percent of the wealth is concentrated, or rather two-thirds of the wealth in the United States is concentrated in the hands of just ten percent.
00:35:41.800 Ten percent of our consumer spending.
00:35:44.060 The imbalance, I mean, it was Plutarch who said it to the Athenians 2,000 years ago.
00:35:48.280 The imbalance between the rich and the poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
00:35:53.880 Fast forward today.
00:35:54.740 So this concentration, it's a very real issue, and we're going to have to address that.
00:36:00.060 But we have to address it, I think, very thoughtfully and systemically, and I think we have to have it through the lens of a national reform.
00:36:06.280 What we've done is the exact opposite with H.R. 1, which is going to explode deficits in the United States of America and debt.
00:36:14.120 And again, it's transferred the tax burden to small businesses, farmers, and ranchers.
00:36:20.200 It is an abomination, and it's a policy, unfortunately, the Trump administration is very proud of.
00:36:26.460 Do you think a national reform is enough?
00:36:28.040 I mean, a lot of this capital is really global.
00:36:30.300 I mean, this is a challenge for all of us across the globe.
00:36:34.080 And so the challenge is, do you have a redistribution mindset or a predistribution mindset?
00:36:38.640 Do you have a progressive tax structure that can balance these things?
00:36:41.820 And this is the iteration in the state of California, and this is our approximation.
00:36:45.740 And I think California has figured it out in many respects.
00:36:48.840 I mean, our entire entrepreneurial system is thriving in our state.
00:36:53.800 We have, I think, found that balance.
00:36:55.260 We had the highest contribution of venture capital last year in our history, $106 billion.
00:37:00.560 68% of it went back into the state of California, despite our progressive tax structure.
00:37:06.420 Well, you know, from the tweets to Plutarch, thank you so much, Governor.
00:37:10.920 Thank you, guys.
00:37:11.600 Thank you, everybody, for being here.
00:37:12.680 Thank you.
00:37:13.320 Thank you.
00:37:13.800 Thank you.
00:37:14.340 This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom Podcast.
00:37:22.520 Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken.
00:37:26.880 But what if the real work isn't physical at all?
00:37:29.020 I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.
00:37:36.420 Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward.
00:37:43.300 Our two-part conversation is available now.
00:37:45.540 Listen to the Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
00:37:51.240 This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we've got some incredible guests like Kumail Nanjiani.
00:37:57.580 Let's start with your cat. 0.82
00:37:58.900 How is she?
00:38:00.060 She is not with us anymore.
00:38:01.920 Okay, great, great, great way to start.
00:38:04.260 Maybe you will cry.
00:38:05.300 Ross Matthews.
00:38:06.760 You know what kids always say to me?
00:38:07.940 Are you a boy or a girl?
00:38:09.420 Oh my God.
00:38:10.040 All the time.
00:38:10.740 That's so funny.
00:38:11.360 I know.
00:38:11.920 So I try to butch it up for kids so they're not confused.
00:38:14.300 Yeah, but you're butching it up.
00:38:15.600 It's basically like Doris Day.
00:38:17.880 Right?
00:38:18.240 No, I turn into Bea Arthur.
00:38:19.700 Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:38:26.180 Hello, hello, all my people.
00:38:29.180 What's up?
00:38:29.580 It's Questlove.
00:38:30.500 Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with the one and only A$AP Rocky.
00:38:34.960 He reflects on his journey from Harlem roots to global icon status and discovering the hip-hop origin of his name.
00:38:41.920 The ledge was on the TV.
00:38:44.120 Rakim had the bucket hat Kangol join on. 0.96
00:38:46.700 My pops is like, that's Rakim.
00:38:48.600 And that's who you named after. 1.00
00:38:50.380 I just, damn, that f***, I swear. 0.99
00:38:53.620 But listen to the Questlove show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 0.99
00:39:01.840 I actually drop better when I'm high.
00:39:04.240 It heightens my senses, calms me down.
00:39:07.540 If anything, I'm more careful.
00:39:10.440 Honestly, it just helps me focus.
00:39:13.320 That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself.
00:39:16.680 And now, he's in prison.
00:39:19.020 You see, no matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different.
00:39:24.840 So, if you're high, just don't drive.
00:39:29.020 Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.
00:39:32.040 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:39:34.440 Guaranteed human.