More Like GONE DeSantis (w/Gavin Newsom!)

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I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
Tommy's out today. He flew to Tallahassee to be with Ron and Casey DeSantis during their time of mourning.

Yeah, you gotta be there.

Gotta be there.

Gotta be there.

On today's show, Nikki Haley questions Donald Trump's mental fitness after he has a few senior moments on the campaign trail.

But he's still about 15 points ahead of her in New Hampshire and winning all kinds of endorsements from Republican politicians.

And later, you'll hear Tommy's interview with our governor, Gavin Newsom, who stopped by the studio last week. But first, on Sunday, Ron DeSantis ended his campaign where it began on Twitter with a forgettable announcement to his tens of fans that after spending $150 million to get about 20,000 votes in Iowa, Lil Ronnie Puddinfingers would be calling it quits and offering his relatively useless endorsement to Donald Trump, the man who accused him of being a pedophile.
Say what you will about Ron's political instincts. He did predict this outcome at an event just six days before he dropped out.
Let's listen. You can be the most worthless

Republican in America, but if you kiss the ring, he'll say you're wonderful. And sure enough, here's Donald Trump on Sunday reacting to the news.
Before we begin, I'd like to take time to congratulate Ron DeSantis and, of course, a really terrific person

but as you know he left the campaign trail today at 3 p.m. And in so doing, he was very gracious and he endorsed me, so I appreciate it.
He just said, will I be using the name Ron DeSancimonious? I said, that name is officially retired. Yeah.
I really, I think would have been awesome if he did it in a high school gym and they just put up the kind of like, when they retire a player's number, and they just brought up DeSanctimonious and he should have that at Mar-a-Lago. There should be like...
Or like Hunger Games style. Oh, yeah.
Just do the boom. Just a picture of Ron DeSantis over the Magic Castle at Disney World.

All right.

So we have been awash in DeSantis pre and post-mortems over the last week.

Dan and I did a little grave dancing on Thursday's pod because we figured this was coming, but

I'll let you join in the fun, love it.

What were your favorite tidbits from the weekend's deep dives about the final days of the DeSantis campaign?

I have three, and I'm building to the finish.

All right.

Each one, I chose three that I thought signified the core problem.

Wow.

You really put some thought into this.

One is the fact that the campaign had no message.

The NBC story of...

There's so many obituaries.

It's like they had them ready to go.

Yeah.

Because there were rumors last week that this was happening,

which I first reported here on Potsdam.

I'm right. Looks like I was right.
A blind mole, you know? So the campaign does a message call with some of their biggest online influencers. Oh, this is good.
And they get hammered. They get hammered.
Like, what is your message? Like that announced that rollout on Twitter spaces was a disaster. They're all fuffering.
They don't seem to have a message. And then Bill Mitchell, our old friend pipes up.
You all remember Bill Mitchell? I hope he was. Yeah.
Bill Mitchell, big Trump guy. Trump guy.
Actually, you know, a bit of a bit of a Cassandra in a way in reality. Yeah.
In 2016, he was like, Trump's going to win. Trump's going to win.
We're like, oh, these Bill Mitchell tweets are so funny. Yeah, that was so funny.
Then he went from Trump to DeSantis. Went to DeSantis.
Anyway, he interrupts the call to ask if they'll call Elon Musk on his behalf because he's shadow banned, which I just like the mess of that. All right.
Next, at a campaign event in Iowa, the first event after the new year, right? People are paying attention. He opened his speech with a lengthy criticism of the accreditation process for universities.
And nobody really seemed to understand it. And afterwards, a middle-aged lady from Johnson, Iowa comes up to him and goes, I don't know what you were talking about.
I think you said the word predators. She's like, I hope you said predators.
And he's like, a creditor. He was talking about the college accreditation process.
Just two online. She was hoping for a QAnon dog whistle.
Right. He gave her some nerdy fucking anti-woke shit that she couldn't know about.
Yeah, because everyone in Iowa is concerned about the tenure process for faculty of University of Florida. Says a lot.
But to me, truly an all-timer from NBC, which is that Scott Wagner, this is now, DeSantis made the innovative decision to try to put most of his campaign apparatus into a super PAC. Scott Wagner is the head of the Never Back Down super PAC.
NBC reports that at the Never Back Down headquarters in West Des Moines, Iowa, Wagner spent a significant amount of time in the precious final few days constructing a plan, an ad campaign, a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a landscape. Everyone at the campaign was taking pictures of this.
He was working on the puzzle for hours, and my favorite part of this is that in a comment to NBC News, Wagner noted that the office puzzle was there when we arrived and became a sense of pride for the entire team, and everyone chipped in a few minutes apiece to get it done. Could you imagine? Can I ask you something? Yeah.
Uh-huh.

Fuck you.

Fuck you.

Say it.

Say it.

It's three names.

What were you doing?

What were you doing in the final days of the Hillary Clinton primary campaign in 08?

It wasn't a puzzle.

I knew that's what you were going to say.

I knew you were going to say that.

Here's why I had to take that side.

I came into this thinking I was going to bring up the puzzle thing. And I thought you were going to say, you know what? It's okay to do a puzzle to relax once in a while in a campaign.
You're pretty busy. I thought you of all people would defend the puzzle.
So now I had to take the other side. No, look, I'm a huge believer in self-care, especially in the final days of the campaign.
But as a campaign manager, you can't be doing a puzzle in the middle even if you're a super pack manager yeah she wasn't even a campaign manager uh and you're in iowa you're not like in tallahassee where nothing's happening go knock on some doors you're in iowa go knock on some doors also i thought the most telling part of that anecdote was that they had it confirmed by two not one but two anonymous staffers. Which means that people were, the larger point of that story, the puzzle story, is everyone in the DeSantis campaign and that super PAC just wanted to shit all over each other and the candidate.
Yeah, I mean, that's been the, like, there were so many breakdowns of what went wrong in the campaign with so many people talking. You and Dan talked about the messenger story, which would have been on the list of, the only reason we're not talking

about the messenger story today

is because this campaign was filled

with so much infighting and disloyalty

that you could have written the obituary

while the campaign was still running.

Like these people fucking hated each other

and had no respect for DeSantis by the end.

This wasn't as much of a colorful, fun detail,

but they had one former campaign staffer

in the NBC story that just said,

what harmed the campaign the most off the bat was that it didn't have a clear purpose and message. I was like, honestly, yeah, you nailed it.
You really didn't need the rest of the story. That was it.
Well, the other thing is, but at least they had a compelling figure. I mean, that's the thing.
It's like bad campaign, bad candidate, no message. What are we doing here? And for people wondering like why it ended when it did, it looks like they ran out of money.
I mean, if that was all the reporting, they ran out of money. He sort of wanted to stay in it till South Carolina.
He's been talking about this with advisors since he came in second in Iowa with just 20,000 votes. They ran out of money.
Yeah, there was one, look, if you cared even a little bit, you could almost even find yourself thinking, like, is there some place to feel compassion for Ron DeSantis in this, which is that he made one final trip. I think I can't remember if it was New Hampshire or South Carolina, but he wanted to talk to voters one last time before he decided to pull out.
Which, yeah, that, you know, Ron DeSantis, he just needs to get in front of the people. He loves people so much.
No, no, no, no.

I'm not saying it's because he wanted to spend time with people.

I'm saying it's because he wanted to go one more time to really accept that he had no chance.

To know that it was over. That it was over.

That it was time to always back down.

In his video.

No, no, no.

Never back down except one time.

Except one time.

One big, one key.

He backed down plenty.

So in his video, DeSantis said that Trump, quote, has my endorsement because we can't go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents. I think we all figured that Ron DeSantis would endorse Trump eventually.
why do it before New Hampshire and Shiv Haley on the way out for the guy who has just been saying

the worst things about you, your campaign, everything you stand for? Again, he did accuse him at the beginning of the campaign of grooming high school students. Yep.
Yep. Why? What's going on there? So I don't know.
I have three pitches. One, if the story is no one could beat Trump and a stronger campaign candidate or message doesn't matter, then the harder and faster Haley loses, the better.
Right. It makes that story more true to can't be me.
It shouldn't be anyone except the guy that insulted me for a year. I had fun doing it.
Second, he's looking to repair his relation with Trump and to make sure that Trump doesn't make the split worse between DeSantis and the base that he needs. And then the final, which I actually think probably explains most of it, would be he's going to do it eventually.
He'd rather do it fast and not make it a whole new cycle and not face pressure and not face antagonism or seeming like he was reluctant and being dragged to it. I don't know.
Those are my guess. Do you have any other guesses? Am I missing anything? No, I mean, first of all,

Nikki, antagonism or seeming like he was reluctant and being dragged to it i i don't know those are my guests do you have any other guesses am i missing anything no i mean first of all nikki calling nikki haley a repackaged form of warmed over corporatism from republicans of yesteryear correct sure i think i think that was a as an accurate description of nikki haley and and all those republicans from before 2016 yeah it's also a fair description of fucking Ron DeSantis.

Yeah, well, he's combined the warmed over corporatism with some culture war.

Yeah, it's actually just like, forget this warmed over corporatism.

What about corporatism just fucking ice cold?

It is possible that Ron DeSantis likes or genuinely supports Donald Trump and his politics and policies more than he supports Nikki Haley and her politics and policies. Like, that is possible.
Also, did you hear what happened to Bob Good, Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good? Have you been following this the last couple of weeks? Tell me, what's on Bob Good? Bob Good, Freedom Caucus Chair, right? Chair of the crazies in Congress, endorsed Ron DeSantis, one of his very few endorsements in Congress. In response to that endorsement over the last couple of weeks, the Trump campaign has threatened to support a primary challenge.
Chris LaCivita, the senior advisor on the Trump campaign, basically said, when we get done with Bob Good, he's going to be unelectable anywhere. Marjorie Taylor Greene called him a MAGA traitor.
So I do think there's a little bit of Ron, like you made this point too, that Ron DeSantis is thinking like, I'm term limited as governor. I'm going to be a pariah in the party.
Like I, and if I wait and I just say I'm out and I'm not ready to endorse right now, like Trump's going, they're going to go after him. Right.
And he's going to do it eventually, right before the convention of Trump as the nominee. So if he, if he waits, he doesn't get anything for it.
If he does it now, it's sort of, it's seen as early and it's seen as having, it's worth something right now. Yeah.
Just like stepping back from it though, that video is just such a testament to what a fucking zero Ron DeSantis is. Like you just spent a year of your life dedicated to this project of becoming president.
So did your wife. So did tons and tons of your college's worst young people.
And like, even in that moment, like the reasons he lost are all evident in that video. Like even in that moment, he doesn't have like the grace or judgment or like bigness of spirit to not like, no, but he doesn't.
I'm just saying this is the reason he's not, it's obvious now, but you look at it. He he's like he doesn't understand that this is not a moment to take a cheap little fucking shot at your opponent like make it a little bit bigger make it a little bit grander but he just like doesn't have that instinct he started with this awful little twitter space with elon he ends with a slam on nikki haley and an apocryphal fucking winston churchill quote just a winston churchill quote made up from the fucking easter the most online candidate we've ever had the goodreads candidate not goodreads fucking brainy quotes whatever who cares just fucking bullshit i liked it in the nbc story too it's like and then finally he emerged from a meeting with his wife and he had already written a few lines of the announcement video oh my god announcing the end of his campaign i'm like oh did he, did he? Oh, I'm glad he got credit for that.
Because that sucked. It's nothing.
Just like everything else he said in the campaign. It's just, again, all ideology and politics aside is just fucking boring, trite bullshit from him from the beginning to the end.
Anyway, I think one lesson we can all learn from the DeSantis campaign is that you can't win the presidency if you're missing a personality. Any other lessons you think we can learn from the DeSantis disaster? So I do think this whole thing was overdetermined as we talked about.
Bad campaign, bad message. Who knows what the world looks like if Republicans hadn't spent a year defending and lying for Trump, right? We just have no idea.
I will say, I do think that there are three life lessons that we can draw from the failure of Ron DeSantis. Here are my life lessons from Ron DeSantis.
One, if you don't know who you are, be careful because other people will decide for you. Two, the internet is a wonderful place to visit, but a terrible place to live.
And three, you can persuade people on a variety of fronts, but you can't convince someone to like you. And the harder you try, the more you will fail.
Those are my life lessons from Ron DeSantis. Those are nice commencement speech lessons about Ron DeSantis.
Yeah, that's a good idea. You go down to Florida and just like, here's a commencement address by a self-aware Ron DeSantis.
That can never take place. I have a few just sort of about politics and campaigning.
Too much money in politics. And if you don't have a lot of money, people with a lot of money get a louder voice than you, right? So money's bad.
But money isn't everything anymore in politics. Because just because you have a lot of money does not mean you are going to win.
And that was certainly the case with Ron DeSantis. A corollary of that is there was a concern after Citizens United that like super PACs would start running campaigns and you just have a few billionaires that fund the campaign and that those campaigns.
A super PAC running a campaign is not a very efficient or smart or strategic campaign. Because if the super PAC cannot coordinate with the candidate and the candidate's closest advisors throughout the campaign, were just you need to coordinate together you need to have the similar message you need you can't have a feel you can't outsource your campaign if you're running for office to a super pack if you cannot coordinate with them which you can't by law yeah i do i i was thinking about that so first of all did you see that in one of the obituaries there was was some advisor to some, someone tangentially connected to this whole fucking shit show, basically saying, like hinting that like illegal shit was going on, that these guys were coordinating behind the scenes.
Yeah, it was like a Florida operative, long time Florida operative, so I couldn't tell who it was, but it was like, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump wins and the DOJ comes after them because they were getting very close to coordinating. Yeah, who knows? But I think that's all true.
Probably. I do think that like if you're going to outsource your campaign to the super, by the way, one other problem is the only way they could coordinate was publicly.
You end up with these public fucking spats with these memos going back and forth because the only way they can do it is by doing it in the press. But I do think that like it was especially impossible given that DeSantis had no real clear message.
If you had someone like Obama 2008, any smart operative could write an ad from the super PAC without coordinating because the message is crystal clear. I mean, it'd be true of Bernie Sanders too.
He, he was a uniquely ill suited candidate to try this because the campaign was so unclear and they're, they're, and by the way, there's not just message, their strategy was so unclear that like, of course they weren't going to be able to figure this out. Yeah.
Although I do think over the course of the campaign, I was just, as you were saying that I was thinking like, what if David Axelrod who knew Obama very, very well by the time he ran in 2008, had just like gone over to a super PAC? Well, he knows Obama and he would know the messages. But there were so many times over the course of the campaign where events happened where you needed a back and forth between the consultants and the ad makers and the candidate because there was all disagreement.
And so if that disagreement becomes like, you know, you can't even talk about it because you're you can only talk about it in public. It's just a weird way to.
I don't know. You know, I don't think it's a I mean, I'm not saying it's it's useless.
And I'm sure a lot of people use super PACs to run ads and whatever. But I don't think it's a good way to run it.
Yeah. I also think that running to Donald Trump's right was so dumb.
The guy was president for four years and nearly 100% of Republicans who voted for him liked most of his policies, liked him, even if they had problems with them. No Republican voter thought that Donald Trump was too liberal.
That was not their problem with Donald Trump after seeing him as president for four years. I don't understand why it was so stupid to do that.
Well, it goes to the Santa's life lesson. He thought he convinced people to like him by proving his bona fides as like a right-wing figure.
But then you look at what Donald Trump did as president, deregulation, massive tax cuts for the rich, overturned Roe v. Wade.
He achieved so, like he succeeded for these right-wing voters. Like how are you gonna, like even the, you know, coming out for a six-week abortion ban, all that did was to alienate the people that were interested in something else or a electability argument.
And the last thing, I also thought that DeSantis' anti-woke crusade animated a subset of very online right-wing activists who are the ones who showed up at the school board meetings and protesting the drag and all that kind of stuff. Those issues are simply not high on the list for most Republican voters, even if most Republican voters do agree with his politics there.
I kind of noticed this when I was doing a lot of the wilderness focus groups too. Like in Virginia, I did some with people who had voted for Biden and then voted for Youngkin.
And it's like, they just, some of them actually disagreed with the education stuff and some of the anti-woke stuff. Like you never hear about, I never heard about DEI, critical race theory, trans issues.
You do hear like Trumpy sounding views on immigration, on crime,

on the economy, some on COVID even.

But like you just, it's not,

it's definitely a subset of Republicans

who are very loud about it.

Yeah.

And who are activists.

But I don't think it's,

it's not what animates most of that part.

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Terms and conditions apply. All right, let's talk about New Hampshire.
We got a primary Tuesday night where Nikki Haley is now the last woman standing against this guy. How good did Elise step in at you? And by the way, they don't work well in cold weather, but it's certainly not great for your climb.
Your climb, they call it climate. By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6th.
You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want.
They turned it down. They don't want to talk about that.
Here's Nikki Pelosi's response. You said yesterday hearing this made you question Donald Trump's mental fitness.
Is that the first time you questioned his mental fitness? If you look recently, there have been multiple things. I mean, he claimed that Joe Biden was going to get us into World War II.
I'm assuming he meant World War III. He said that he ran against President Obama.
He never ran against President Obama. He says that I'm the one that kept security from from the Capitol on January 6th.
I was nowhere near the Capitol on January 6th. But Margaret, you don't be surprised if you have someone that's 80 in office.
Their mental stability is going to continue to decline. That's just human nature.
We know that. What would you think? So first of all, I think that's like his worst one yet, by the way, because he really couldn't fix it.
You know, it's funny when he did the one. The climate, climb, climb.
It's like he was like he sort of just like short circuit it. The the one about Obama, a lot of these were like kind of revealing right because in his mind in 2016 he was running against obama in some way uh but like and then it's like he's confusing niki haley nancy pelosi because like the grooves in his fucking brain like women i can't fucking stand it's like they're too close to each other you know like it's just like the cart slid over one groove and then he's fucked can't get out of it he was about he was about to start calling her hillary yeah it's like hillary nicky nancy like he fucking hates these bitches and they got him they gotta stop so yeah i mean i thought it was it was bad it was bad so after a bunch of polls dropped over the weekend the final 538 average in new hampshire is trump 50.8 percent hayley 36.6 percent What do you think? Why couldn't she close the gap with Donnie Dementia over there? First of all, first of all, it's too early for past tense.
All right. It's too early.
Just want to remind you, in 2008, the final real clear politics average had Obama up by 8.3. Hillary Clinton wins by 2.6, right? That's an 11-point swing.
So we can light just one last candle to the patron saint of content. Saint Isidore I believe is the saint of the internet.
Well, we saw it closing though. This has been opening.
His lead's been growing. Yeah, I do think that like, you know, you and Dan talked about this, but they're kind of like they're they're moving.
They're playing the expectations game. Now they're going for a strong second.
But so that's not great. I mean, I like she's running up a down escalator, you know, like there's like she has an electability argument, but she's making it to an electorate that A doesn't believe he lost and B believes he's on track to win.
And there's no other other argument that's really broken through, and she doesn't have a clean one to make. I share the bewilderment of many political observers that she is not running an urgent campaign in New Hampshire.
She's not doing a lot of events. She's not going around the clock.
She's not making any new arguments. I get that.
I think that even if she visited every voter voter in New Hampshire, she talked to every voter in New Hampshire and campaigned like, you know, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I don't know that it would put her over the top.
If you look in, just take the Monmouth poll, for example, that Washington Post Monmouth poll, rated A, high quality poll. So it's got 52-34, right? Trump up 52-34.
It's sort of like the average. They broke out undeclared and Republicans.
Haley is winning these undeclared voters 48-38. She's winning college graduates by a narrower margin, 43-39.
But Trump is winning registered Republicans 64-22, non-college educated voters 60-27, very conservative voters 78-10. She just hasn't made any inroads with the actual Republican base.
And even though 40% of the electorate in New Hampshire is undeclared, 30% is Republican, like that's still, Steve Kornacki was tweeting this today. He said, just playing with scenarios.
He goes, just a sense of what Haley's up against in New Hampshire. Say 47% of the electorate ends up being undeclared.
The previous record in New Hampshire is, for a Republican primary of undeclared voters, is 45% of the electorate. So she blows it out of the water, beats a record.
Say she wins it by 43 points. The previous record is McCain winning undeclared by 42 points.
That's John McCain. In that Monmouth poll, she was up 10.
If she then hits 30% with Republicans, and that poll she's in the mid-20s, low-20s, then she could win by 0.1% with all of that. That's why it's just the math is like not, it's just too hard.
It's too hard and like there's no, there's just no, there's nothing a person can person can do i agree this is like nothing a single campaign or person can do to change like the fundamental dynamics that would have required not by the way not just one campaign could even fix it it would have required an entirely different response to trump for years by the republican party like that that is like the core of this problem she and, is it possible that a figure with like once in a generation political talents could like, and excite that kind of shift in the dynamic? Absolutely. Like that's what great political figures can do.
Nikki Haley, not that figure. If you were her, what would have to happen in New Hampshire for you to keep this thing going through the South Carolina primary, which is a month from now? It's just a win.
It's just a win. I mean, like they can, they can say all they want, like, oh, strong second, which seems like she is inevitably going to be able to say she had, given there's only two people in the race.
I believe, you know, obviously the Axis power is finished in a strong second in World War II as well. But I don't know what the logic is for going on if you can't win outright in i was i was looking at the states to

come like i i think there's an art this is certainly the most favorable state i guess you

could say dc who knows what these electorates would look like but like vermont and dc clean up

there yeah but this is one of if not the most favorable states she's going to face for certainly

for weeks uh the idea that she can then make up ground like again it would just be a person

waiting for some kind of like an exogenous event as tim miller says hamburger from heaven or

I'm just in this. I'm going to see how, she does have...
Unlike DeSantis, she does have some money.

So you could see maybe she's like,

I got the money.

I came in second within...

I was within single digits

if somehow she like

loses by single digits.

I don't know.

I give that like a 20% chance.

I don't think it's going to happen.

I think that's maybe the only...

Like she just...

What has she got to lose?

What has she got to lose?

She's just sitting there a month.

She's going to get embarrassed

in South Carolina.

It's her home state.

It's not getting embarrassed

in your home state.

You're going to...

You come in second in New Hampshire.

The campaign moves to... I think she's technically not even competing for delegates in Nevada for some reason.
She goes to New Hampshire. That's where she's going to make her last stand.
Donald Trump is campaigning across the state with Tim Scott and a bunch of other South Carolina Republicans who've endorsed. She's down in the post midweeks being kind of just sort of attacked mercilessly in her home base.
Like it just seems like a pointless slog. Yeah, that's why I would agree.
I'd love her to stay in because I think, not just for content purposes, which I know of course is top of mind, but also the more she attacks Donald Trump, the nastier this race gets, the better. You see the Biden campaign just clipping all these comments about Donald Trump.

It's great, but I don't know if she'll do that for us.

Do you think there's any chance she doesn't endorse Donald Trump?

She's going to endorse him.

Yeah, she already said she would.

She's basically already given this.

She's already said what she has to say.

I mean, she's going to say some version of, I ran a hard campaign.

You know, this is who we've chosen.

I always said I would get behind the Republican.

I'll tell you what makes me nervous.

What's dangerous for our country is a term of President Kamala Harris, et cetera etc., etc. Disastrous debt.
We got to come together. It's just done.
I'd like to make a case for her for not endorsing Donald Trump. Okay.
At least not publicly right as she drops out. She, like, first of all, she's not getting VP.
Trump said she's not presidential timber. Now, when I say that, that probably means that she's not going to be chosen as vice president he was very clear on that so she's not getting the vp probably the mag she's not getting mag of love they all they all hate her now so she's not going back she does like like being on corporate boards she likes the sort of corporate republican you know she wants to be like you look at kevin mccarthy yeah kevin mccarthy he's not getting invited to Davos and all these places now.
He's not in with that crowd because he went full MAGA, you know? And so I think that Kevin McCarthy is like a man without a home now. Nikki Haley could be like, you know, she could get invited to the Harvard IOP.
She could go to Davos. She could do all these things.
She doesn't have to. She could just step back and say and say I don't like Joe Biden either but I said what I said about Donald Trump and I'm just gonna not say anything I don't know what's I don't know what's the downside of that well yeah I mean look if you could we could figure out what makes these people fucking sell their souls for this I would love to know I mean she's already said like she's already gone to the trouble of saying publicly even if he's convicted which is going to support him wild even if fucking convicted which is like i forgot these people do not have like people are terrible they're terrible and like they don't even have they have said they're so buffeted by events there's such a lack of like a moral center that they can't even understand was in

their own interest. They can't they they do not have perspective.
So even though New Hampshire hasn't voted yet, Republicans are all lining up behind Trump and then humiliating themselves when forced to answer for it. Newly engaged.
Congratulations. Vice presidential hopeful Tim Scott endorsed Trump over the weekend and then said this when asked about Trump going full birther on fellow South

Carolinian Nikki Haley.

I'm watching rhetoric on all sides of the issues facing becoming president. What I mean by that is the rhetoric from Joe Biden is terrible, but it is and it's salacious.
Nikki Haley questions whether 70 year olds should be allowed to run for president. I think there is so much negativity and toxicity in this aim to becoming president again or for the first time that we should be very clear and look at both sides of the comments made.
Yeah, absolutely. And here's Haley's top endorser, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu responding to Trump's closing argument that he should be able to literally get away with murder as president.
You're going to have to give the president, you're going to have to allow a president, any president to have immunity so that that president can act and do what he feels and what his group of advisors feel is the absolute right thing. Otherwise, you're gonna have presidents that are totally impotent.
And we've had enough of them already. We've had enough of them already.
So having immunity is so important. And I hope the Supreme Court has the courage to do that.
Do you agree should a president have total immunity even for things that cross the line? Of course not. The amazing thing about that clip is he was dead serious.
He wasn't even making one of his ridiculous jokes. He was dead serious about that.
And that should get everybody, I don't care what political party you're from, whether you're an extreme conservative or a socialist liberal, everybody should be concerned with that type of mentality going into the White House. And yet you are saying if he is the nominee, that you are going to support him.
How can you say that you'll support him? At the end of the day, I think most Republicans

are going to get behind the Republican nominee.

I'm hoping that it's obviously Nikki Haley.

There's nothing we can do, Republican politicians.

We can't leave. We can't do it.

The voters are saying they want Donald Trump.

What are we supposed to do?

Tell the voters it's okay by saying that we're also for Donald Trump?

It's the only thing we can do.

There's nothing else we can do.

This guy must be stopped

until he can't be stopped,

at which point we must unite behind him.

Who are we to second guess the voters?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like I saw,

I read about some arcane term,

I believe it's pronounced liator,

and I'm not sure what they are,

but we don't have any.

And until some of these liators show up,

there's nothing we can do.

Another South Carolina politician, Trump also got an endorsement from Nancy Mace on Monday, who said after January 6th that he needed to be held accountable for the insurrection. Nancy Mace, I just want to say, Trump hates Nancy Mace so much that he backed a primary challenge against her.
A primary challenge that Nikki Haley helped Nancy Mace fend off by going to her district to campaign for her. And Nancy Mace said thank you by endorsing Donald Trump just to embarrass Nikki Haley before New Hampshire.
Un-fucking-believable. They're terrible people.
They're terrible people and they've seen this before and if they all had had the courage, they could all stop this. But because none of them does, none of them can do anything other than just get behind them.
If more of them would do the right thing, a few more of them could do the right thing. But because none of them are doing the right thing, none of them can do the right thing.
We could have played clips forever, so I didn't include this one. But did you hear what Elise Stefanik said when they asked her about Trump confusing Nikki Haley and Pelosi? What'd she say? It wasn't a mix-up.
It wasn't a mix-up because Haley is relying on Democrats like Pelosi to win New Hampshire. Elise Stefanik is going to change her name to Elise Stepanek, like what Trump called her just so she can be VP.
I'm convinced. She's She's going to change her name.
You know, look,

we've been in this fucking thing for now eight years.

Nothing has changed

and Marco Rubio

continues to hold

two positions at once,

which is that Donald Trump

cannot be trusted

with the nuclear weapons

and we must give him the codes

as soon as possible.

Like that,

that is the Marco Rubio position.

That is the Republican position.

This guy is unfit

and he has my full support.

That's where they're at.

I do hope that,

I think that it's a lot

of these Trump comments

Thank you. the Republican president.
This guy is unfit and he has my full support. That's where they're at.
I do hope that I think that it's a lot of these Trump comments and the comments from people like Haley and Sununu about Donald Trump. They're going to be useful in the general for sort of independents, moderate voters, swing voters.
The Biden campaign has been clipping them and tweeting them and posting them everywhere. I think that's great putting them in ads I think I think that will be one benefit from this fucking pathetic shit show absolutely I think like the the Trump the the Trump confusions are valuable but even more will be that those Nikki Haley clips even Ron DeSantis saying that if we're bogged down in investigations we're gonna lose uh like Jamie Dimon and Davos being like there's some good things about Donald Trump.
There was a great CNBC headline, Wall Street opposition to Trump collapses. I was like, I love that.
That's great. Oh, no.
Oh, no. We're not going to have Wall Street.
Trump's with Wall Street's with Trump. Oh, because he also said today he's excited to give them another big tax cut.
Yeah, yeah. Collapse is like Tower 7.
Inside fucking job. I don't think we can use that.
I'm just saying Wall Street is collapsing itself in support of him. I think it actually, intellectually, ethically, it actually tracks.
So we can think about leaving it in. But I'll just, yeah, I don't even know what I was going to say.
Oh, what I was going to say is when Biden did his January 6th anniversary speech, one of the points he made, which I think was was was very good, was these Republicans know better. But they that they've stopped telling the truth because of politics and because of money.
And I do think that's like a core of what they're saying, that Republicans know better. And by the way, we don't just need to use the clips of Republicans to come around and endorse Trump.
We need the fucking Republicans that were in his cabinet that have been attacking him in the Atlantic to start showing up. I know.
Sarah Longwell over at the Bulwark has been saying this for a while and there was a good piece that she wrote in the New York Times about it too. But like ads, videos with all of these Trump cabinet officials.
And again, you know, people hear this. Well, it's not going to do anything with his fans.
No, of course not. We're past the fans now.
It is the these these Trump Biden voters or these, you know, Mitt Romney Republicans, these suburban Republicans. And again, those aren't the only swing voters in this election.
But that cohort we definitely need. And I think those voters hearing all of these people who worked for Donald Trump, who supported Donald Trump, even people like Cassidy Hutchinson who supported him right till the very end,

saying like, this guy is dangerous, don't do it.

I think that will have an effect.

Yeah.

All right, before we head to break,

two quick housekeeping items.

On April 25th, love it or leave it,

we'll be coming to Washington DC

for another barn burner of a show at the Lincoln Theater.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, friends of the pod get early access to tickets.

You can subscribe now at crooked.supercast.com

to get the exclusive presale code today.

And in yesterday's episode of our digital series, Political Experts React, Dan Pfeiffer and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki go through a roundup of the best and worst ads from the 2024 Republican primary. This episode of Political Experts React just dropped.
Check it out only on the Pod Save America YouTube channel. When we come back, you'll hear Tommy's interview with Gavin Newsom,

which was recorded on Thursday.

And even though that was right before DeSantis dropped out,

Newsom basically nails why he lost and gives us some behind-the-scenes color

on the great Newsom-DeSantis Fox News debate of 2023.

They also talked about democratic messaging, culture wars, and housing. Finding the music you love shouldn't be hard.
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Terms and conditions apply. I am thrilled to welcome to Pots of America, the governor of the great state of California, Gavin Newsom.
Even if you're lying, thank you. I love living here.
Do you? All right. I like to hear this.
Not that I'm defensive. No, no, no.
When you grew up on the East Coast, you get filled with anti-California propaganda. People are like, oh, the traffic and Hollywood and all this bullshit.
And I think it's to keep people like me out of the state because you don't want too big of a population. Is that correct? Well, I'm not going to stipulate that, but think about it.
By the way, this state is larger than, people don't fully appreciate this, including California. The state of California is larger than 21 state populations combined.
It gives you a size and magnitude of California, just shy of 40 million people. And of course, it's the 10th wall of the U.S.
economy. And so it is interesting, just the sort of the constant deluge of negativity that comes from the anger industry and the anger machine.
That full-time bashing sort of the new Trump derangement syndrome is the sort of California derangement syndrome. That they're bashing, truly, the innovation capital of the world, the entrepreneurial capital of the world.
Have you been to Boston in January? That's where I'm from. Well, I love Boston.
Yeah, but you don't want to live there then. In the spring.
You want to live in Los Angeles there then. But I digress.
So thank you again for being here. So we're recording this on Thursday, January 18th.
So we're after the Iowa caucuses, but before the New Hampshire primary. Just wondering, I mean, you are, I imagine, paying close attention to what's happening.
Any takeaways from the election results so far or thoughts on how it might inform a general election strategy for Joe Biden? Well, I thought it was predictable. What wasn't necessarily predictable or predicted was Trump's relative strength.
And I know it's been debated. Everybody has an opinion whether or not it was weakness masquerading as strength because he didn't get 49% of the party as a de facto incumbent.
But same time, you know, a week going into that election, we were thinking he may not cross the 50% threshold. So, you know, it depends what argument you want to make.
Look, I think this guy is strong and getting stronger. I think in a Republican primary, he's a T-Rex.
You're either going to mate with him or he's going to devour you. In a Republican primary, that is.
And And so good luck. I mean, you know, when the headline today is, you know, DeSantis closes in on Trump because he picked up one percentage point in New Hampshire.
He's only down 44 percent in New Hampshire primary. It gives you a sense of the status of the race.
And I just can't honestly, no BS. I don't know one state if DeSantis stuck it out that he can win, not one.
And maybe Haley has a chance in New Hampshire, though. I thought you get one chance first impression coming out of a state.
She seemed to trip up a little bit. She's losing the news cycle a little bit, a little of the momentum.
And I know, and I mean this sincerely. I mean, she had some, you know, with her father and I really respect and appreciate the humanity of that.
You know, you have to deal with her family. But even that being questioned and challenged, that is, she's sincere about this.
What's the closing argument? What's the narrative? Is she now positioning or looking to run for VP or something? But that just reinforces my notion. This is Trump.
And that means we need to gear up and get ready here and just stop consuming ourselves who's up, who's down in the Republican primary and focus on the stakes of a general. Do you have thoughts on the best message to run against Donald Trump if he's the nominee? Well, I mean, we could talk about liberalism, a guy who lost the election and tried to vandalize democracy and tried to light it on fire.
I mean, that's pretty powerful and compelling. But I also think it's remarkable that we're allowing this guy to walk away on Dobbs.
He created it. I mean, the idea that he can even lay claim.
I mean, it's interesting. I'm applauding DeSantis and Reynolds, at least making the argument Democrats need to make that he's sort of running away a little bit from the abortion issue and trying to appear to be more centrist when in fact, he created the conditions that led to the decision itself so this is if we can't allow that democrats can't allow that i i was hearing elizabeth warren i texted her right after an msnbc a couple nights ago and and she nailed i mean she's making that point we need to quadruple down on that point because it's still a dominant issue you add those two together uh i like our chances i'm not just saying that because i'm a paid spokesman for the democratic party i'm not uh but i really feel very very confident about november if we compare and contrast and keep that frame and keep that messaging intensity yeah you're the only democrat at the moment who has actually debated one of the republicans running ron deantis.
It really was a two-on-one debate. It was you versus Sean Hannity and DeSantis.
Yeah. Any takeaways from that experience about the process from DeSantis itself, himself? Well, you know, I don't want to talk out of school and, you know, I try to say some nice things at the end because I actually meant them.
Like, it seems like a good father and husband loves his kids. so there's a humanity to all this and you sacrifice and you put yourself out there but there's a there's a there's he's uh he's wound up there's no joy and it comes across it really does and he comes across in commercial breaks and and that was what really surprised me like you know like when you walk up and say hello or goodbye uh you know his was like well how much time do we have how much time he's like it's just there's there's this this energy this can it's just there's you gotta at least express some joy at least trump looks to be enjoying himself he's having a blast there's a performative quality to it this guy doesn't have that and so you know that becomes the it thing there's a stiffness there's a physical.
I mean, it literally, it manifests. There's a physiology.
And it's just, there's no likability, like none. And again, I went on Fox.
I don't dislike anybody. All of us need to be loved.
All of us want to be loved. We all want to be protected, connected, respected.
None of us want to be talked down to. The reason I go on Fox is, you know, with Hann because i see that humanity i'm married into a republican family i love my father-in-law i love you know i just i don't i don't i don't like i don't like that side of the the political frame and so i was trying to find some of that and i'll be just damn honest with you didn't find any of it and it doesn't surprise me that it's accruing negatively obviously to his chances and in and the outcome of this election for him.
I had a similar experience, albeit not the same level. I mean, I interviewed Vivek Ramaswamy out in Iowa.
When you see someone with their spouse, with their kids, it humanizes them instantly. And then I interviewed him and he just felt like he was wound up and ready to fight.
And I was like, I don't know, man. I'm just trying to have a conversation.
I watched all that and I saw that. It was awkward.
It was awkward. And you were trying to be, you were trying to find that space.
And look, it's interesting. I mean, you go on with, you know, what's the old phrase? You're dukes up.
You know, my grandfather said, come in with the dukes up, young man. You know, but, and so I get everybody puts a mask on when they come into the environment where they feel like they're about to be you know judged and criticized particularly when i go on networks like fox or try to at least approximate trying to find some common ground uh when i enter in that lion's den uh but you know once you put on those errors you get them back uh and and that's i think what's missing sometimes without some of these folks.
And at the same time, Vivek at least attempts to at least associate him sometimes with some at least rhetoric around finding some kind of ground. This guy DeSantis doesn't.
No. DeSantis said Nikki Haley is more liberal than you.
Is that accurate? That's a new talking point that he's used, I think, 30 or 40 times. no but I think DeSantis said Nikki Haley is more liberal than you.
Is that accurate? Yes. That's a new talking point that he's used, I think, 30 or 40 times.
No, but I think DeSantis is in some respects. I mean, he was out there first on the anti-fracking ban in Florida.
I applauded him for that. Sierra Club did as well.
He also came out very aggressively to his credit against offshore oil drilling. And I applauded him for that.
That sounds pretty good. Yeah.
He campaigned on that and he signed an executive order right when he got in office. So, I mean, the guys, you can't make this up.
I mean, these guys just running away from their record, the sort of fraudulent nature of their current arguments based on their own records. So he may want to look in the mirror if he's going to attack Nikki Haley for being quote unquote a progressive.
Yeah. Maybe I'll tell him about the green new deal if he comes on.
I know you, you consume a lot of conservative media, uh, especially Fox news. I know you, I went down a rabbit hole, listened to Steve Bannon's podcast for a while.
So I've been there with you, but you also go on these shows. You challenge these guys.
What did you learn from that experience? Why do you watch a lot of Fox? Why do you want to go on? Well, I was really worried before the midterms and we could take different lessons from the midterms. I mean, we all felt we outperformed the midterms just like we did in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023.
And that gives me again, some confidence, momentum and directionally in terms of where we'll be in 2024. We keep winning.
I mean, it is remarkable and we're winning in places large and small, Jacksonville, Florida, Republican, with stronghold and a Democratic mayor, just another example. But that said, I didn't think we're necessarily winning on the messaging.
And I was sick and tired of being on the receiving end of the Republican Party talking points. And after Dobbs, I particularly felt concerned about our party being on our heels, not on our toes, and express that very publicly in a way that wasn't necessarily universally well-received by the party, where I mentioned Planned Parenthood after Dobbs, where the hell's my party? And it wasn't an indictment of any individual.
It wasn't an indictment of the DNC. Quite the contrary.
Jamie's a friend. I respect and really appreciate the work he's doing.
It was an indictment of all of us at all levels, governors, mayors, local leaders, that we need to be more aggressive and stop being on the receiving end of CRT or DEI or ESG or the anti-gay, anti-trans agenda and this banning and cultural purge that was going on and continues to go on and the book bans and everything else. Like, come on, like, how are these guys framing the debate on these issues? And so that that's why i went on true social i was the first democrats to do that i forgot you did that as when i did a fourth of july ad saying seriously freedom you're trying to make an argument about patriotism and freedom ron de santis as you literally signed a bill denying women that were raped or incidents of incest that could not access their reproductive rights that was first bill he signed, remember, before the six-week ban.
And so I did that little 4th of July ad in Florida, make the case, spare me the notion of freedom, and try to recast that a little bit and did the same thing with billboards in a bunch of states on reproductive freedom. Texas, right? And then I did ads in Texas against Abbott.
And it was iteration. You're boosting their economy.
Yeah. Look, I just, I don't know.
In most of my life, Democrats, I just feel like we, there's a little timidity here. We think there's sort of an intellectualization of the argument we're going to win, but facts don't matter.
Narrative matters. Ship-safety is in the narrative.
These guys, it's illusion that dominates. I watch this anger industry, this propaganda network, and the bullshit and misinformation 24-7.
And it's not just Fox. You get it on One American News.
I never heard of that until they tried to recall me. And then obviously Newsmax, and then all the residual and the derivative media in that space.
And they literally, I don't get angry with people that that are misinformed because i know why i watch it i totally sincerely understand why they say what they say and believe it and can't believe the facts because they think we're making it up as an alternative to the bs that these performative folks um and particularly fox primetime yeah throw out in the evening and so i just felt it was important to go on Hannity. I did it a few times, got in the lion's den at the Reagan library during the Republican debate.
That was some fun on behalf of the Biden campaign. I was honored to do that.
And I had fun doing it and felt like- Sean seems to like you. Yeah.
Are you guys friends? Do you talk? Do you text? Yeah, we do. We did.
The debate. Did you do too well? too well well no he just yeah he uh i don't know how fair and balanced uh for those old enough to remember the whole second hour yeah it was uh it was anyway i like sean and uh still like sean um you know uh it was uh not everything that was represented uh before that debate was uh manifested at the debate let's just leave it at that.
Is truth social a good time? Are you still on it? It's so much fun. I mean, it's just, if you really are feeling down and out and you need some good feedback to close out your day, you may have a drink.
I just look at the threads in my feed. It's wonderful.
I bet. So it turns to California news.
So on March 5th, voters here in California will get to vote on Prop 1, which can provide billions of dollars for housing for veterans, for people with mental illnesses, addiction issues, who are living on the streets. I want to dig into the specifics of Prop 1 in a minute, but first we're just hoping to start with some basics.
What do you think, in your opinion, are the biggest drivers of homelessness nationally and in California? Well, affordability, it's the original sin. And you're seeing the housing crisis manifest everywhere, not just here in the state of California, though.
California, we've led the nation in terms of high costs and nimbyism that's led to low production and led to a supply-demand imbalance that is quite literally strangling the ability for middle class to make it in the state and impacting the dream. Remember, there's two dreams, the American dream and the California dream.
And it's predicated on social mobility. And it's fundamentally at the core of this.
Now, more broadly, so were reforms that were made not just in the 80s when Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, but going back in the 50s and 60s and 70s, particularly as it relates to the issues of mental health. And that's coming home to roost.
And I'll just give you some proof points in that. It's interesting.
In California, in 1959, I know this is Black and White movie days, but we have 37,000 mental health units and beds in this state. Last year, 5,500.
We're down about 85% now. You look at that historically, a lot of people attach it to then Governor Reagan, who significantly cut the state hospitals and mental institutions, but it was also a bipartisan effort.
It wasn't just Reagan leading that charge, just from a budgetary perspective. People didn't want people to be incarcerated against their will.
There was an infamous 1975 decision, O'Connor versus Donaldson, that literally said you cannot exclusively incarcerate someone for just having a mental illness. It has to be for broader issues.
So there was a push, bipartisan push. But in the 80s, when President Reagan became president, he started to block grant a lot of the funding and the promise, the vision of the community alternatives never was realized.
So look, in California, it's a 50-year sin, a process that unfolded over the course of decades that led to so much of the stress and travails that we experience when we see people literally with their pants down in the middle of the street screaming and you're like what the hell are we doing why can't we help this person and and so it's the acuity of it what's happening the street population has really shifted in the last decade or so the encampments the tents people that are self-medicating with drug or alcohol addictions with bipolar disorder schizophrenia uh paranoia and the like and and And we're at a point where we can't play in the margins. And that's what Prop 1 is about.
It's about quite literally advancing the vision that was laid out a half century ago, but never realized for community alternatives. 11,150 new treatment beds and units, new zoning and siting reforms so we can deal with the regulatory thickets, so we actually could deliver on the promise.
Accountability, which is key here. I'm a progressive, but more is not better.
Better is better. We need to hold ourselves to a higher level of accountability.
And reforming the old Mental Health Services Act, which is a point of pride in California, but no longer is relevant to the world we're living in. It was designed in 2004 and never included the Mental Health Services Act, housing and substance abuse.
So we want to incorporate the reform to require a billion dollars a year of ongoing money focused on housing and focusing on those that are struggling with bipolar disorder, again, as well as those who are self-medicating. So this is an exciting reform.
It's scaled. No other state in history has ever advanced.
It's a unity issue, bipartisan support and the legislature to get it on the ballot. And it's a chance really to make a real dent and address the issue that defines more other issues in the state.
And that's our failure to address what's happening on our streets. You mentioned the encampments.
There's a Supreme Court case that the Supreme Court's going to hear out of Oregon that could determine what authority cities have to clear homeless encampments. I know your administration filed an amicus brief urging the court to take up the case to clarify these laws.
Can you talk about why you think the court needs to step in? And are you concerned at all that this very conservative court could come down with, you know, more draconian ruling, like saying homelessness is criminalized? Well, right now there's nothing more draconian than the status quo. I don't know what the compassion is stepping over people on the streets and sidewalks and allowing people literally, I mean, how many days go by and you read it or watch another story in the news about someone that was found dead in a homeless encampment.
I do homeless encampment cleanups. This is not, I did it once.
I do it all the time. I go out all over the state personally.
I'll never forget, I was in San Diego with their mayor and we went to an encampment right off the freeway. And there was this young guy and self, you know, he said, I'm a meth addict.
Came here a few months ago. I was trying to get clean and sober.
And right right when i got off the bus i was like i immediately went back out on the streets and he said thanks for coming out i'm not happy but he goes thanks i said well why are you thanking me and inside the encampment was his girlfriend and a brand new baby brand new baby i mean we could just turn our blind eye and talk about the way the world should be

and just say is excuse and accept that and watch him perish and pass away and be another stat but at least we give this kid a chance now we gave him a chance he said i'm probably going to be back out he was so kind and so decent and it was so tragic i mean this guy just the deep diction i mean that's meth not fentanyl i'm in the fentanyl christ all another thing and so look I put seven when I got here there guy, just the deep diction. I mean, that's meth, not fentanyl.
I'm in the fentanyl crisis, all another thing. And so, look, I put seven, when I got here, there wasn't one, the state of California was not focused on the issue of homelessness.
It was completely consigned to cities and counties. I was a former mayor.
I get it. When Schwarzenegger was governor, they didn't focus on homelessness.
They talked about it. By the way, we had a larger homeless population in 2005 when I was mayor of San Francisco.
That was decades ago. It was 188,000 in the pick count.
It's about that now. So this has been going on for decades.
My point though is the state needed to get involved at $15.3 billion later. That's our three-year commitment to address this issue.
We now need to see accountability. And the problem we're having is that accountability is being hindered by the inability to address what's happening in the encampments because we're being sued and the courts have provided some very confusing guidance on what you can and can't do as it relates to cleaning up the encampments.
And here I am, a progressive Democrat that I'll put up against in terms of my progressive record, against pretty much any governor in this country now asking this republican supreme court for help just to clarify that we can actually clean up the encampments and do it with our values doing a way where we actually we're not whack-a-mole we're not trying to get people just throw them around the corner i have encampment resolution grants 750 million i put up that require us to have a solution to the individuals before we allow them to clean up the encampments right now we may have all that and the courts may say no you can't do it can you explain what that means i mean sort of guaranteed housing uh it's custom whatever this whatever the service is i mean it's a panoply of we want flexibility in what the services, as some people say, no, it just needs to be a permanent supportive housing unit. Okay.
Uh, in a perfect world. Sure.
But let's have an honest conversation about that. Some say, no, no, just, I mean, if I have a shelter bed and you know, and it'll, you know, and it's as appropriate conditions and supportive services that should do.
And, and some judges are saying ninth circuit, we have some judges that say, no, no, no, you have to have certain staffing ratios. And you're like, okay, you know, I can't help this person.
I got empty shelter beds. They're out on the streets and sidewalks.
People are angry. They're frustrated.
These encampments, you know, we had a lot of issues with, you know, some of these things. people dying in these encampments because of fires and other issues right near the freeways and cars.
And so just trying to find some balance. That's it.
And some common sense. And I think we've lost a little common sense.
Again, I want to hold hands. I want to have a candlelight vision.
I want to talk about the way the world should be. I'm into that.
But you know what? I got to deal with cards that are dealt, the pragmatism of this job. And we need to deal with what's happening on the streets in the state.
We just do. And as Democrats, we have to perform.
We can't just talk about issues. We got to actually deliver results.
Prop 1 is about real results and delivering the support and services and the housing, 11,150 units and 27,000 outpatient units, so that grants pass allows us clarity, we have unprecedented opportunities for support we've never had in the past. So it's both and, both and.
If you could wave a magic wand and have all the funding you need and get rid of all the NIMBY bullshit that happens in this state to solve the problem in one fell swoop what would that look like well we're doing that i mean i i did we did some conservatorship reform i did something called care court which is a nation-leading effort as relates to court-ordered care where it's self-directed it's not coercive uh and it's in in and it's done uh with a frame of due process that allows more tools i'm'm reforming the Medi-Cal system. It's called CalAIM, which is, I mean, nothing's happening in the Medicaid system like we're doing in California in terms of reforming that system.
I have $4.7 billion legislature supported. Thank you.
$4.7 billion new additional dollars focused on children, zero to 26, to focus on brain health early before we punish it later. So it's not just homelessness.
It's also taking care of our kids, our youth. All those are component parts, but what it's been missing, the magic wand, the thing that is the answer to your question, honestly, is prop one.
And I'm not just here promoting it. I'm here really sort of, I think it demands attention at least, that it is the missing piece.
It's the 50-year missing piece. It's what we promise.
It's what we pray for. And we have the opportunity to deliver in just a matter of weeks.
And that's why I'm excited. And then it's about accountability.
Look, I'm not the mayor of every city and county in California. Localism is determinative, and local government has to deliver.
Switching gears a little bit. So I saw that you vetoed a bill that would have banned tackle football for kids under 12.
Now you were an athlete growing up, right? Were you a football player? Is it obvious? Yes. Baseball? Baseball.
I don't look like a football player to you, really. Okay.
I don't know. Yeah.
All right. I made a little more baseball, basketball.
Not bad. Baseball, basketball.
Yeah. I mean, I'm just curious why you feel this bit.
Look, full disclosure, I read about it. I thought, this seems a bit off to me.
Yeah. Football isn't the only contact sport, right? There's hockey, there's lacrosse.
My kids are playing soccer, and there's not a game where there's not someone that is not looking at a concussion protocol. There's a lot of research about high concussion rates among girls, high school soccer teams in particular.
That's hard, yeah. So yeah, so I'm just wondering, you know, you have kids who play sports, you play sports yourself, you're dealing with the legislature.
What is the right balance between keeping kids safe and not denying them opportunities that come from sports? Well, that's it. i'm i'm sitting here with you literally no bs you wouldn't have had any interest in me whatsoever if it wasn't for sports saved my life i'm a kid i you know i'm a 960 sat kid and that's not to knock someone i got 930 okay i mean i don't mean to diminish anyone uh i was on my way proudly to community college and i got a.
I said, hey, are you interested in coming to a four-year college and playing baseball? And we'll give you a literally partial scholarship. It wasn't even the money.
It was literally the ticket to a four-year university. Changed my life, my trajectory.
Struggled with dyslexia. Couldn't read right.
You don't see me reading speeches today uh i've i'm still working to overcome it um sports saved my life so i i revere it and i also revere the unit the unity around it you know i think about the mental health issue i think that's a unity agenda but there's also something beautiful about entire community coming together and not someone looking hey are you a trump guy are you a biden guy it's like man hey we hey, we're just Eagles fans or in this case, we're Niner fans or Charger LA. I don't know.
I don't want to get in trouble. Now I have to go through every team.
Everyone's going to be upset. You didn't mention the Rams.
Jesus Christ. I didn't mention the Dodgers either.
But the point being sports are important and it's an important outlet, particularly in a lot of diverse communities, particularly football. And I've seen that firsthand as a former mayor who was deeply involved in some of the Pop Warner and the Brown Bombers in San Francisco and others.
But at the same time, you know, I'm close. I put Ronnie Lott on this youth sports committee.
Ronnie's a friend. He's working with my wife who was a college athlete.
Legendary football player. Legendary football player.
And we're tasking Ronnie and others to, we have to keep this safe. I worry about these kids.
I mean, the concussion protocols are real. And a lot of these kids don't know how to tackle correctly, et cetera.
So here's the answer to your question. Sorry about all that preamble.
But in 2019, I signed a bill that answered that question in detail, which was a youth sport tackle football framework and new regulation went into effect just two years ago. And it requires certain training and protocols and EMS workers to be on site in certain events, et cetera.
What we're going to do is strengthen that. We're going to look to see if it was effective.
And this is, I appreciate the author of this bringing this issue back up, but but our outright ban, come on. I didn't think it was the right thing to do, but we have to protect our kids because it's legitimate.
But to deny them that and to say, you have to do flag football, which is amazing and it's growing and it's great. And I love to see that my son plays flag football.
It's really great to have that as an alternative, but we shouldn't mandate what that alternative looks like. Yeah, and I guess where do you draw the lines between where the parents make these decisions and a state? A little old-fashioned.
And meanwhile, what are we dealing with on the other side, this cultural purge and this banning binge? I mean, we're dealing with a party, guys like you brought up, DeSantis and Trump and everyone else, banning books, 3,362 last calendar year, banning speech in boardrooms, private speech as it relates to issues related to race and gender and sexuality, not just in the classroom. They're banning travel.
If you're trying to access reproductive care as a minor in a place like Idaho, these guys are banning bitch that includes Bud Light, not just Disney and Target. I mean, they're banning abortion.
They're banning fundamental freedoms and choice. They're rolling back hard on rights, voting rights, not just LGBTQ rights.
They're coming after contraception. Don't think twice about that.
We already know it in the courts. Mifo, Miso and other things.
I mean, this is, this is, I mean, I'd like to, we need a little compare and contrast. I know they got a little upset that we were mandating mask wearing and they all think everything goes back to COVID.
But I do believe in parental choice. And I find it, the hypocrisy on the right, just to be glaring and extraordinary.
And I also think that's a point of contrast. It's important.
People like you, Dr. Fauci, like anyone in a leadership position during COVID had to make decisions on the fly about a virus that literally didn't exist.
No, we're all, we're experts and we knew every play every day. I mean, I just, I just wonder what that was like and what it's like now watching these recriminations.
I mean, people are calling Dr. Fauci a traitor.
It's complete revisionist history and they're getting away with it. And we've allowed them to get away with it.
I mean, Ron DeSantis, at that debate, I reminded everyone, he did an emergency declaration before I did. Right.
He closed his beaches. He closed his bars and restaurants.
Right. All these other Republicans did.
I mean, yeah, you had DeSantis himself out there visiting with Trump with a mask on outside. And all of a sudden, it's as if these guys all of a sudden were soothsayers and they saw the future and none of this was true.
They were out there celebrating Fauci. They were out there promoting vaccines.
By the way, they promote vaccines now. Everyone knows this.
I assume the mandates on vaccines in states like Florida, red states are legendary. You can't get a childcare unless you have 15 vaccination shots.
You can't even get them to schools without six vaccines mandating in states like four. But all of a sudden with COVID, now we're not for vaccines.
And all of a sudden it's a revisionist anti-public health and anti-science frame purely because of the ideology and the politicalization of this issue. Well, and DeSantis today said, every booster you take, you're more likely to get COVID as a result.
It's disgraceful. What he's doing, hurting people, people's lives.
Tens of thousands of people died unnecessary. Tens of thousands of human beings are dead today because he lied to folks and he fell to the far right of his own party.
The equivalent of 10 9-11s, if you compare and contrast California's per capita death rate, is this a 32% higher without the density of place.

I mean, compare the density in a place like LA to a place like Miami.

It's significantly higher here.

And then he caved.

He was right.

He started on the right foot, and then he caved to the far right extreme.

And it's really sad.

Again, if people didn't lose their lives, it's one thing.

By the way, they also did worse on education. They had more learning loss in a place like Florida than compared to California.
Absolute fact. In three of the four categories, they had worse learning loss, and their economy didn't particularly form any better.
They contracted at about the same rate, and we grew about the same rate the year after COVID. So for what? For political expediency.
And again, they've been aided and abetted by a laziness on here where we've all sort of fallen prey a little bit, acting like this thing wasn't a big damn deal. I was getting body bags from other states because we were running out of body bags at the morgues.
We had mobile morgues I had to put up. I mean, this was serious.
People have forgotten all about this. And I know we don't want to come back to it because we're stacked with stress.
And it's like the last thing we want to talk about. It's like, oh, God, I can't deal with this.
I get it. But I don't think we've learned objectively our lessons.
The lessons we're learning are through the prisms of ideology. You get these right-wing think tanks to say, well, here's what really happened.
Or with respect, some others on the other side that are a little bit loosey-goosey of the facts as well um and i think we need to really come to grips with an objective hard-earned look i've tried to be self-critical what we could have done better etc because i don't think we're absolutely i don't think i know we're not more prepared now uh for the next pandemic i think we're less so because all of a sudden science is now partisan, just like democracy has somehow become partisan. When the hell did that happen? Yeah, that seems like a problem too.
Yeah. Before COVID, right, there was certainly some communities that were scared about debunked research that vaccines could cause autism, but the amount of vaccine hesitancy and disinformation and fear mongering and general fear among well-meaning people, people I know and love deeply who are scared that vaccines are going to harm them or their kids.
It seems like something has been unleashed during COVID. And I'm wondering if you have thoughts on how we can fix that and get people the right information.
Well, I don't know. I mean, look, the information came out of Yale.
18.5 million people avoided hospitalizations. 3.2 million people's lives were saved because of the vaccines.
You look back historically on what vaccines have saved in terms of human lives. Globally, it's off the charts.
It's not even comparable. And by the way, perhaps that's why vaccines are still mandated in all these red states to get into schools and to get in child care facilities i mean even these guys recognize uh the impacts of that that said because they've vandalized the confidence uh you're starting to see diseases we haven't seen in years and years start to increase at least numeric terms percentage wise it's significant not yet numerically in terms of total numbers but the concerns are raised and they're there and look i'm i'm i'm'm deeply, I got in the middle of the whole anti-vax thing before COVID.
So I understand it. There was some changes to our rules and I get it.
I get there's some good well-meaning, to your point, I don't disrespect people that disagree. And I certainly understand people's rights and concerns.
But there was a lot of intentional disinformation, not just misinformation, that was out there and promoted and weaponized. And it cost people's lives.
And so I'm a public health guy. I can lay claim to being the only governor in U.S.
history to provide universal health care, regardless of pre-existing condition, ability to pay, or immigration status, which has been weaponized in terms of grievance on the other side. California is doing that.
It's a point of pride. Infant mortality, maternal mortality compared to blue states compared to red states.
Not even comparable. Life expectancy.
Blue states, red states. Death of despair.
Blue states, red states record uh i like uh i like team blue uh in terms of science and facts and health and evidence i don't want us to lose that yeah i don't want us to either uh last question is a very dumb one no um i was informed by our younger cooler team here at crookie media that the 2024 coachella lineup is pretty mid oh man um pretty mid do i have to look that up really it means it's not great okay do you have a dream of that coachella lineup is there a concert you really want to see right now or have seen recently you know i i thought it was um i i i don't know if this is cool, but I thought it was cool.

My wife just sent me a selfie with Wycliffe.

And I'm like, wait, that's kind of cool.

That's cool.

What's my wife doing with Wycliffe?

They're talking about gender equality.

I didn't know Wycliffe was into gender equality.

There we go.

So he's up there now.

Anyway, she wants to now put him in that California Hall of Fame.

I'm like, really?

Just like that?

Just because you met him?

Is that how it works?

I'm going to get in trouble, by the way.

We're going to have to edit this out. That's not just that's not how it works there's a process but maybe he deserves i don't know i love white cliff i mean as a singer uh look i'm i'm old school man i'm a bay area kid i'm like a green day metallica kid oh that's great i mean like that's green day was reporting performing in the subway the other day uh how cool was that with right yeah that was next level cool okay so those guys are the best they would that'd be a great i could absolutely see them doing a coachella headliner thank you and large i mean these large is a buddy metallic come on metallica like come on and you know and then i'm you didn't expect metallica did you see no you're like you're like he doesn't seem like a metallica guy he seems like maybe he just learned about taylor swift or something yeah who we who we do love.
We love Taylor Swift. We do, of course.
I don't mess with Taylor Swift. Someone told me the other day, and this could be total disinformation, that Metallica is one of the only bands to stay together because they saw a group therapist.
Fact. That's true.
Well, they did a whole documentary on it. Okay.
No, they're like, these guys are the real deal. They deal with real issues, and they've stayed together across their differences.
They talk it out. They hug it out.
and that means're like, these guys are, these guys are the real deal. They deal with real issues and they've stayed together across their differences.
They talk it out, they hug it out. And I mean, but it's, these guys are next level successful.
These are, you know, these are the guys that still fill in stadiums around the globe and could do that every single damn day. There's only a handful of them, but they're also remarkable guys.
They says human beings, individually committed. I mean, I bring up Lars.
He's just a perfect example. Talk about a guy who's deeply in our lane of values, cares about people, growth, and inclusion across the spectrum on every issue, inclusion, and recognizes that we need to right wrongs and take some accountability in his own life in terms of his own time, not just his own contribution financially to these causes.
Anyway, I love those guys in Green Day. Come on, man.
Look what they did on New Year's. Yeah.'s yeah they changed they well you know they just did a little mega shot i was like i like it and they all went all crazy i'm like they still do it they got guts man i love that people have guts that express themselves i like that too so okay so we got like friday fujis or maybe just wyclef i don't know yeah friday future they might need a band therapist if we're being honest yeah well i want to get into all this i need all the friends I can get.
I'm not going to... Green Day Saturday, Headliner Sunday, closing it out, Metallica.
I would sell out that heartbeat. Yeah, that's not mid anymore, is it? That's not mid at all.
No, exactly. That's more Lollapalooza vibes, maybe? Lollapalooza vibes.
No, yes, no. I got Bottle Rock up north.
You know, we got Napa, which is... That's starting to blow up.
That's getting good, right? That is always fun. I never went just, I don't know why.
And Outsides Land. Yeah, Outsides Land is great.
When I was mayor, I got that done in Golden Gate Park. I was like, first year I got that done.
Outsides Land is a blast. The only thing I will say, my only complaint living in San Francisco is it would be August 20-something and you walking around in a fucking parka.
Really? Because it was freezing cold. Are you doing the whole Mark Twain, the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in san francisco i'm not doing that shot man that's just like a southern california dude giving a shot to northern california that's yeah listen you know that's a lot of shade man or a lot of fog it gets cold yeah it gets cold by the way i love to say you can only say i say about the de santis's policies they have the form and substance of fog uh because you know only a san francisco kid can lay claim to that claim to that.
And Trump, we don't even want to lay claim to any. He doesn't even have any policies.
I was trying to call him Jan DeSantis, but it didn't really catch on. Jan DeSantis? That's pretty good.
They didn't even get a chuckle. I don't know.
The other mics are off. Everyone else left.
The Sanctimonious, I guess, still is the default best. I don't think that would be well.
I know, but it's default. You have a better one? No.
But it doesn't even matter anymore it doesn't matter he's toast he's yesterday four percent or something yeah he's six he's six he's surging sorry he went up one point yesterday come on be respectful governor newsom thank you so much for doing the show and for uh setting up the 2025 coachella lineup i think that's it that's what we're talking about yeah there we go I want to commission Metallica and Green Day. Those are good answers.
Get out of here with this PR anxiety shit. All right.
Thanks to Governor Newsom for joining us. Everyone have a great day.
And we're going to be recording Tuesday night after the results.

And you'll be hearing that on that pod will come out on Wednesday.

So we'll talk to you then.

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Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira Joachim is our senior producer.
Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Lambert. Thank you.
Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kirill Pellaviv, and Molly Lobel. The history of HIV and AIDS is the history of people who were told to stay out of sight and who refused to do so.
Gay men, but also injection drug users, women, and yes, children who contracted the virus. Join host Kai Wright for Blindspot, The Plague in the Shadows, a new series that seeks to answer the question of how much pain could have been avoided had we paid attention sooner.
You'll meet people

who demanded that they and their illness be seen, mothers and children, doctors and nurses,

nuns and sex workers, all leading to a woman who literally helped change the definition of AIDS.

From the History Channel and WNYC Studios, Blindspot, The Plague in the Shadows.

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Did you know 39% of teen drivers admit to texting while driving? Even scarier, those who text are more likely to speed and run red lights. Shockingly, 94% know it's dangerous, but do it anyway.
As a parent, you can't always be in the car. Transcription by CastingWords