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.
00:00:00.000Thank 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.
00:00:16.160This is the conversation that Donald Trump tried to cancel, don't miss it, 11.30 Pacific, thank you to our Pacific Time viewers.
00:00:24.000In 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.
00:00:36.840And 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?
00:00:46.640I looked at the, I admit, looking at the list, McKinsey and Microsoft and a few California companies.
00:00:53.760So, if have you, what the hell are you even talking about?
00:00:56.660But it's indicative, I think, of America, for those of you who are not American.
00:01:00.480It gives you a sense of what we're up against and what's happening across my country and what happened here in Davos.
00:01:09.820I was going to speak last night. It was a well-established event at the USA House, a simple conversation, discussion.
00:01:17.700After Trump's speech, they made sure that I didn't. They made sure it was canceled.
00:01:23.100And that's what's happening in the United States of America.
00:01:25.560Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech.
00:01:27.900Freedom of speech. It's America in reverse.
00:01:30.920They're censoring historical facts. They're rewriting history.
00:01:34.240They're censoring books, 4,340 books, libraries, and in schools banned in the United States of America.
00:09:33.220And 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.
00:09:42.780And you're, in some sense, responding in kind.
00:18:30.900I'm not naive about what I've said this morning and how that will be reflected in the official White House account.
00:18:37.800I'm not naive about the fact that he threatened to prosecute the Fed chief in the United States of America.
00:18:44.640That'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.
00:18:57.180I'm not naive about the corruption and the graft at a scale we've never seen in American history.
00:19:03.180I'm not naive about folks writing billion-dollar checks to Wyckoff, to Jared Kushner for this new peace deal they're announcing today.
00:19:12.220I'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.
00:19:19.960How the hell are we putting up with this?
00:19:49.140I 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.
00:19:57.600I have a couple of questions about that.
00:21:07.400Do you just reject the idea that these blue states have trouble, you know, are spending more for less results?
00:21:12.200I 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.
00:21:33.040That was a taker state of $73.1 billion.
00:21:36.400So we're producing more, and people are, I think, creating more opportunities.
00:24:20.320I just was like, damn, that **** got swag.
00:24:23.660Rocky offers a window into not only a boundary-breaking artist, but as a man committed to fusing creative ideas, community, and remaining unapologetically himself.
00:24:33.640Have you ever gotten roasted for any of your outfits?
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00:25:02.640Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast.
00:25:12.960Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions.
00:25:16.300Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken.
00:25:19.120But what if the real work isn't physical at all?
00:25:21.720To 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.
00:25:31.820In 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.
00:25:43.180Guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved.
00:25:47.900Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy as in compassion.
00:25:52.000If 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.
00:26:03.160The moments that shape us often begin with a simple question.
00:26:10.000What do I want my life to look like now?
00:26:12.740I'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.
00:26:27.980We are in a divisive time where our comments are weaponized against us.
00:26:33.600And so what we find is a lot of Black women are standing up and speaking out because they feel the brunt of the pain.
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00:27:00.080And probably the biggest governance issue, policy issue, fueling right-wing parties in the United States around the country is immigration.
00:27:08.680And 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.
00:27:20.940It'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.
00:27:30.620And I guess I wonder, do you think that your party went too far or that you went too far?
00:27:36.340And I think, for instance, in extending Medi-Cal to the California health care program to undocumented immigrants.
00:27:57.760We're one of 16 states to provide care to people, regardless of their immigration status.
00:28:01.640By 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.
00:28:09.620But the issue of immigration, Donald Trump is very unpopular on immigration.
00:28:22.920And yes, I put our own National Guard on the border the day I got elected into office in 2019.
00:28:28.840Sent 394 National Guard down to the border.
00:28:31.380And we were very, very pointed with the Biden administration that we were failing to deliver border security for a number of years.
00:28:38.440On 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.
00:28:51.960What distinguishes America from the rest of the globe?
00:28:54.500He talked about Lady Torch, Lady Liberty's torch.
00:28:58.140And 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.
00:29:08.060And 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.
00:29:15.980It'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.
00:29:28.880But we have failed on the border, and Donald Trump is failing on immigration.
00:29:34.700His economic policy is not complicated.
00:29:37.460It's tariffs, which is a regressive tax.
00:29:42.200It's mass deportations, which is having a major impact on supply chains.
00:29:48.220And you've seen the American jobless rate.
00:29:51.080You're seeing it growing, the unemployment rate in America.
00:30:13.580Ask folks what a pound of beef costs in the United States of America or a brand-new car.
00:30:18.440Everything you heard yesterday was B.S.
00:30:20.640And 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.
00:30:37.040And 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.
00:30:48.580That's the policy easily described of America's economic strategy.
00:30:57.180And 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.
00:31:09.960I'm critical of our assault on institutions, the higher learning, research, institutions that have literally been part of that formula for success.
00:31:21.620And he's putting sand in the gears across that spectrum.
00:31:24.240And California, again, is fighting and pushing back.
00:31:29.720And 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.
00:31:49.840And I guess I want to ask you two questions.
00:31:51.000One is I was talking to somebody progressive here who said, you know, this guy's basically a fake populist.
00:31:55.740He talks a good game about the billionaires.
00:31:57.520Here is an actual proposal that they're unhappy about.
00:32:06.060Well, 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.
00:32:21.000And 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.
00:32:36.460And by the way, vast majority of labor does not support as well.
00:32:42.040And that's reflected in my opposition.
00:32:45.140What's not reflected in my opposition, quite the contrary, is my advocacy for progressive taxes.
00:32:50.940That does tax the wealthy disproportionately.
00:32:53.620Do you have a theory for how to tax these?
00:32:56.200Do you have a theory on how to tax this particular group who often kind of live in this company?
00:33:00.740And 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.
00:33:07.640Yeah, I mean, you could have that conversation.
00:33:10.220Because I think the wealth tax is sort of an attempt to get at that.
00:33:12.540Yeah, but at a national level, we're competing with 50 states.
00:34:55.700You know, how do you, I mean, you actually, you talk to these folks, some of them support you, some don't.
00:34:59.780But, like, what are you saying, as you call people up and say, hey, please don't leave California, what's your...
00:35:05.320Well, California's population, three years in a row, continues to grow.
00:35:08.540And so does our footprint as it relates to more Fortune 500 companies than we've had in over two decades.
00:35:13.920And our innovation ecosystem and startup ecosystem is second to none.
00:35:17.040We have half of the country's unicorns in our state.
00:35:19.420The largest market cap private sector company, OpenAI, just headquartered in San Francisco.
00:35:25.020They could have chosen any other state in the country.
00:35:26.920Look, I don't begrudge other people's success.
00:35:29.560I've never been that kind of Democrat.
00:35:31.720But I also recognize in a world, businesses can't thrive in a world that's failing.
00:35:36.480Ten 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.
00:35:54.740So this concentration, it's a very real issue, and we're going to have to address that.
00:36:00.060But 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.
00:36:06.280What 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.
00:36:14.120And again, it's transferred the tax burden to small businesses, farmers, and ranchers.
00:36:20.200It is an abomination, and it's a policy, unfortunately, the Trump administration is very proud of.
00:36:26.460Do you think a national reform is enough?
00:36:28.040I mean, a lot of this capital is really global.
00:36:30.300I mean, this is a challenge for all of us across the globe.
00:36:34.080And so the challenge is, do you have a redistribution mindset or a predistribution mindset?
00:36:38.640Do you have a progressive tax structure that can balance these things?
00:36:41.820And this is the iteration in the state of California, and this is our approximation.
00:36:45.740And I think California has figured it out in many respects.
00:36:48.840I mean, our entire entrepreneurial system is thriving in our state.
00:37:14.340This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom Podcast.
00:37:22.520Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken.
00:37:26.880But what if the real work isn't physical at all?
00:37:29.020I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.
00:37:36.420Part 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.
00:37:43.300Our two-part conversation is available now.
00:37:45.540Listen to the Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
00:37:51.240This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we've got some incredible guests like Kumail Nanjiani.