And, This Is Charlie Kirk

According to Saltis Wealth, 41% of high net worth individuals report having been victims of financial crime.

Are you next?

High profile individuals like you need more than off the shelf solutions.

You need Concierge Digital Security from Reputation Defender.

It's not just another app.

It's a team of experts using best in class tools to protect you and your family.

Covering virtually every aspect of your digital life.

Visit reputationdefender.com slash success to learn more. That Visit reputationdefender.com slash success to learn more.

That's reputationdefender.com slash success.

In Mississippi, Yazoo Clay keeps secrets.

7,000 bodies out there or more.

A forgotten asylum cemetery.

It was my family's mystery.

Shame, guilt, propriety. Something keeps it all buried deep.
Until it's not. I'm Larison Campbell, and this is Under Yazoo Clay.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Looking to buy your first car or home? Understanding your FICO score is key to achieving your life goals.

Knowing your FICO scores helps you apply for loans with confidence and avoid surprises.

With MyFICO, you get access to your FICO score, credit reports, 24-7 monitoring, and alerts on the go.

Take the mystery out of your score and get your FICO score for free today.

Visit MyFICO.com slash free. That's MyFICO.com slash free and discover the score lenders use most.
Save on family favorites at Safeway. This week at Safeway, get four to six ounce Yoplait yogurt or 5.6 ounce protein yogurt for the member price of just 39 cents each when you buy 10.
Plus get two pound containers of strawberries for the member price of $4.97 each also this week at Safeway get six to eight ounce lucerne shredded sliced or chunk cheese for $1.97 each with digital coupon limit for items visit safeway.com or head in store for more deals this is Gavin Newsom and this is gavin newsom and this is charlie kirk by the way what brings you to california your favorite state it is my oh this thing's falling um it is my favorite state in the union you're doing such a great job here by the way um no i'm honored to be on the show thank you and you were just down at USC? I was at USC yesterday, drew a big crowd.

By the way, I knew you were at USC early

because my niece, who's graduated-

She was the one with the MAGA hat on.

She was, by the way, I do have to watch.

But she was down there and she was like-

You never know, these kids are going to the right.

I'm aware.

She said, this crowd's crazy.

And the only reason she said it,

she would have said it perhaps otherwise, but she knew you were coming on. The worst part though, Charlie, no BS, true story.
Literally last night, trying to put my son to bed. He's like, no, dad, I just, what time? What time's Charlie going to be here? What time? And I'm like, dude, you're in school tomorrow.
He's 13. He's like, no, no, this morning wakes up at six up.
Then he's like, I'm coming. I'm like, he literally would not leave the house.
Did you let him take off school? No, he did. Of course not.
He's not here for a good reason. But the point is the point.
You canceled school for like two years. Once one, the point is the point, which is you are making a damn dent.
Thank you. I'm kidding.
No, but I know. And I, but I appreciate that.
I mean, it's the reason you're here because I think people need to understand your success, your influence, what you've been up to, and the fact that you're on these college campus doors. And to your point, man, you just open up.
I mean, you're like, ask me anything? Anything. Challenge me? Challenge me, whatever.
When did this whole thing, when did you start putting this together? I've been at this for 13 years, and it's been a wild movement, really accelerated once President trump kind of came on the scene um right around i'd say 2021 uh we had a goal could we move the youth vote 10 points over 10 years and it was it literally you sat down and put that numerical together yeah like can we move it 10 points over 10 years ish you know approximate because our whole hypothesis was and we know, we did this alongside president Trump and his great team was that this demographic is disproportionately to the Democrat side. We believe Democrats were taking them for granted.
We think that your side had no message whatsoever and an ideological monopoly. We saw some of the fault lines there and to president Trump's credit, he also harmonized with the strategy by going on podcasting and using TikTok.
But yeah, I mean, we did it in four years, not 10, large in part, thanks to you guys. And we'll get to that and sincerely get to that because I want to stress test some of those fault lines as it relates to the reality of our party and where we are today, vis-a-vis your ascendancy, not just individually as an organization.
But where was that sort of moment for you? Because it's interesting. I mean, you're such a young guy, so it's not a deep biography here.
It's not like 20 years in the wilderness, writing his first book, getting a TV show that was canceled, coming back. It's more just this immediacy of ascendancy.
Was it, I mean, were you always, you're sort of born and bred with an ideological mindset or were you more open-minded and you started to realize a lot of BS was out there? Yeah, I've always been conservative, obviously grown in that over the last 10-ish years. Was more libertarian, I'd say, in the first couple of years, as to be expected, as I got married and have kids become more conservative.
But no, look, just one of the things we saw in the last couple of years that the Democrats completely ignored, and your side was basically not acknowledging what's happening, was the crisis that young people were experiencing. That, I mean, just one, it's the first time in America's history that a 30-year-old is going to have it worse off than their parents.
It's a breakdown of the social compact. They are the most alcohol addicted, most drug addicted, most suicidal, most depressed, most medicated generation in history.
And the message that was largely being fed to a lot of young people was lower your expectations. You're not going to have the same American dream that your parents would have.
And we saw this as an opportunity, especially with young men. And again, this got ridiculed a lot by the press that, oh, you know, they're creating this manosphere thing.
Look, they're half of the population and necessary for any society and civilization to succeed, which is to have both strong men and strong women. And we went about that in a very unique and creative way.
And again, the president became a cultural phenomenon where no matter what you threw at this guy, he rose above it. And you would even have to give him credit.
I mean, 700 years in federal prison, you know, states tried to kick him off the ballot. I know you spoke out against it, but California did have a faction that tried to kick him off the ballot.
Right. And despite all of that, of course, being shot, and that was kind of the crescendo of all of it, he kind of became this figure of an American comeback story.
So he personified what a lot of young people, especially young men, wanted back in their politics, which was an ascendant rebel attitude against these institutions that have failed them so miserably. It's interesting.
And you keep saying we, which is interesting, and that's the organization that you created. We would be like conservative movement MAGA.
But yes, I have Turning Point, you'll say Turning, Charlie Kirk Show. Yeah.
But when I'm saying we, I mean more specifically kind of those of us that saw this political moment three or four years ago. Right.
But you were at this even before then. Correct.
Yeah. So when did you decide to sort of just shift your gear? I mean, you were working for another Kirk and Furhouse campaign.
Mark Kirk. Yeah.
Mark Kirk. So you had a political, obviously you had strong political leanings, or at least desire to sort of be in the political sphere, but not in elected office necessarily.
You just want to be behind the scenes. Yeah, I mean, like the biography has been written about a million times, but I mean, didn't go to college, wanted to go to West Point, didn't get in.
I'm an entrepreneur. Yeah, love it.
Started this organization and it became far more successful than I ever could have realized. and the the um the the the the the the the the the

the

the

the

the

the

the

the didn't get in. I'm an entrepreneur.
Started this organization and it became far more successful than I ever could have realized. As we started to grow the organization, I recognized that there was an ideological imbalance on a lot of these college campuses.
And we wanted to go about trying to offer a counterpoint of conservative, pro-freedom, pro-liberty, America first ideals. And you saw the college campuses as sort of the underbelly of the opportunity, or is it just more just experiential in terms of your own sort of animus towards the institution? I mean, you have a sitting population of about 20 million kids that are there for four years.
There's that. And also, again, you had nowhere to go but up.
I mean, when we started in 2012, 75% of kids on college campuses would vote for Democrats. Now, fast forward to today, this last election cycle, Democrats lost the youth vote in Michigan, nearly lost it in Wisconsin, nearly lost it in Arizona.
So our goal was, hey, let's move at 10 points. We moved at 13 points.
And this is important for your audience to know and for Democrats to reckon with, of which I see no signs that Democrats care at all that they're losing the next generation. We're drawing record crowds.
Our ranks are expanding. The most support that President Trump has is voters under 30.
60% of voters under 30 support President Trump. That's according to Rasmussen.
You might say that's a little rich. It might be, but it's directionally true.
And one of the main reasons that this has all been happening is that baby boomers have actually seen their wealth increased the last four years. They don't buy into this whole idea that our institutions are broken or that they're in need of massive bottom-up revolutionary change.
And we see that actually Kamala Harris did three points better with baby boomers than she did in 2020. And the number one story that James Carville, who everyone takes, whoever would take seriously for some reason should have been saying is like all Kamala Harris had to do was just do the same with younger voters that Joe Biden did in 2020.
And she would be president right now. And remind us what Joe Biden did in 2020.
It was 13 points better. Again, this is kind of a combination of exit polling.
So it's really, it's a difficult science to pinpoint. So that goes back then.
I mean, to your point, in order to do that, you've got to stand for something. You've got to assert yourself.
You've got to have a strategy and you've got to implement it. You also have to not believe crazy stuff.
And not believe crazy. I mean, and so for you, I mean, it's interesting just, you know, this last week, I guess you were at USC.
You were at University of Florida, thousands and thousands of folks. You get to your point, your crowds are growing.
2012, where were you? You were coming in and people were, I mean, you were taking, I mean, you were like getting threats. I mean, you still get tons of threats.
But it was, I mean, what was it like just to paint a picture of you walking to a college campus? I had no money, no connections, and no idea what I was doing. And yeah, I mean, we were, I didn't even have a social media account.
I mean, it was just the ultimate startup. And what'd you just say, I'm available? And you started at this sort of debate.
No, it was even more scrappy. I would literally show up to UW Madison with a card table and a big cardboard sign saying, debate me, you know, like here's some provocative.
So you're 20 something years old. And I wouldn't even film it.
I was 18 or 19. 18 or 19.
And what, you just, what, by the way, where does that end? And sincerely, to be able to debate anybody at any time, anywhere, and in that environment, it's just, I mean, just, you can, you can say it's just confidence or it's just absolute, I mean, narcissism. What is it? I mean, just, or just.
I hope it's not the other, but no, I mean, I guess it would just be, I mean, at the most charitable reading, it could be confidence. It also just be that I, I wanted to try and challenge the predominant view.
I always loved debate and disagreement. I love the kind of spar.
Yeah. And yeah, I also find it to be exciting.
And I wanted to try to, you know, figure out where my idea is actually that good and to kind of draw. Stress test.
Yeah, exactly. And are you 10X better than you were in 2012 at the format? Probably.
Probably. And do you study it, or are you just participating? I mean, you look at the old great debates, or you're reading debating books, you're watching sort of the best.
I mean, yeah, and I mean, less about debate. I mean, debating is a practice that can really only be refined, you know, with lots of routine and reps and repetition.
Just more about studying, you know, the great books, philosophy, all those. And so you, and you make a point prior to that.
I mean, you, to the point you never, you know, you went to community college and. I didn't even graduate community college.
I didn't even graduate community, which is great. By the way, I was going to college in Marin.
I got lucky. I got a baseball coach that called me and allowed me to get to a four-year university.
I was joking with you before we started, 960 SAT. I asked you about your SAT.
I don't even know. I took the ACT.
You took the ACT, which proves two things, how young you are and how different things were. You grew up in Illinois, right? I grew up in Illinois.
Midwest was traditionally more of an ACT. But this has been a point of pride for you that you didn't do a four-year degree.
Well, yeah, because I represent most of the country. Is that actually still the majority of the country does not have a college degree.
And if I may, you know, bluntly critique the Democrat party, you guys have become so college credentialed and educated that you guys snobbishly look on the muscular class of this country, the people that kept things afloat and running during COVID. And yeah, I mean, the majority of the country didn't go to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Caltech, or Cal Berkeley, right? And the Republican Party has become far more representative of them, large in part thanks to Trump.
But yeah, and look, I say it with some pride also because as an entrepreneur, I tried to build something, not just seek a credential. Love that.
And there are what, 11 million folks, there are 11 million jobs out there. this point all the time oh yeah open jobs that don't require college do not require a college degree so when you say and it's interesting because there's sort of that critique of the democratic party that we are captured by this sort of college elite in what respect i mean stress test that for a second i allow me to what specifically are you referencing in that context.
Well, your voters, your voters have become nearly, I mean, the higher you go up the education ladder, the higher the correlation it is that you vote for the Democrat party. It's almost a one-to-one with PhD.
It's like 75% for master's degrees and it's 65% for four-year-old. Why do you think that's the case? What are the issues that sort of are identified under the line in that respect? The sloppy analysis is like, oh, they're smarter, therefore they must be Democrats.
Yeah, right. And I think that's silly and insane.
Yeah, yeah. And insulting.
I totally agree. The deeper and more profound analysis is that a lot of ideological bubbles that exist on these college campuses, they are homogeneous, not heterodox when it comes to what ideas are expressed.
And then secondly, the value system that you leave on college campuses is high trust of institutions. So the biggest divide in America is not right versus left.
It's whether or not you generally trust institutions or you don't trust institutions. And this has been largely inverted the last 20 years.
So back in the early 2000s, Democrats were low trust of institutions, Iraq war, anti-Bush, anti-NSA, anti-Patriot Act. And that's when you guys had a lot of activist spark and energy that has been completely inverted.
So the right is now low trust of institutions where the left is high trust of institutions. We're the ones that challenge the COVID vaccine.
We're the ones that think that public health authorities might've lied to us during COVID. We're the ones that don't necessarily believe the government when it says that we should keep on sending money to Ukraine.
Again, that's a general rule. There are some exceptions to that.
But when you go to college, you are trained to trust the experts, trust the scientists, trust the people that are leaders of authority. And the Democrat Party is largely the gatekeepers of that kind of ideological and intellectual regime.
It's interesting. And so from your perspective, I mean, as you advocate for people to sort of open up a worldview that is life without a four-year degree and all the opportunities that present themselves anew in that respect.
Are you arguing for the disestablishment, the end of higher education? I think it's going to happen no matter what. I mean, in 10 years, artificial intelligence is going to change everything.
And I don't know what these four-year degrees are actually doing to prepare these kids for that. But no, as far as like, I'm not, I mean, am I advocating for the end of the pursuit of learning? Of course not.
That's one of my big critiques is that at a lot of these schools, they're not pursuing what is good, true, and beautiful. It's become the oppression Olympics and a weaponized complaint seminar of people sitting in the circle and finding out who's been offended the most that day.
That's not doing anybody any good. And in fact, it creates a very weak political movement, which I think plays into one of the reasons why we were able to steamroll you guys back in November, is that once there's a little opposition against a group of people that have never actually had to build the muscle mass of a very difficult and unpredictable world, whereas those of us that are conservatives, we're insulted all the time.

So think about the experience of a kid on a college campus. They say they're graded differently because of their views.
They may or may not be right. I think they are, but they're definitely in the ideological minority, right? You wear a Trump hat on a college campus, at least until we came around, that was like a big sign of cultural rebellion.
So you have two choices. You can either stop fighting for what you believe in, or you become really tough.
And you create that muscle that allows you to then carry and shoulder a heavier burden.

Right. And so just, and I don't want to belabor the issues of the establishment plot called higher education.
Some have, not you, referred to it, though maybe you align yourself. I wrote a whole book called The College Scan.

So it's sort of stress testing that in the context of some would argue the contra argument is a million dollars more in lifetime earnings, more likely to get married, less likely to get divorced, more likely to be civically engaged, and longer life spans with college degrees. And you would say- All of this is true.
It's just not everyone that goes to college graduates, the national graduation rate. 41% drop or something.
Yeah, 41% drop out. Exactly right.
Also, half the kids that graduate college will not even end up using their degree when it comes to the affiliated job. So the numbers are true at the highest income.
So about 10% of kids that go to college stretch out the averages to be really, really high. And so, for example, you go to Cal Tech to study computer engineering and applied AI.
Next level. Man, you're crushing it, right? You go to Cal to go study North African lesbian poetry.
Yeah. Like.
Is that an actual degree there? You tell me, Governor. I don't know.
I mean, we fucked it, but I'm not sure. That's one of the courses.
See, the fact that you don't know. Well, I don't know every single damn course.
I know. It should be like, no way.
But if the fact it's a maybe, we got some problems. Well, the fact that a lot of people have explored different disciplines.
That's fine. It's just the taxpayer shouldn't have to fund it.
Well, yeah. I mean, increasingly, the individuals are funding, as you know, as it relates to the talk about the inversion of how we fund education.
There's a type of soil in Mississippi called Yazoo clay. It's thick, burnt orange, and it's got a reputation.
It's terrible, terrible dirt. Yazoo clay eats everything, so things that get buried there tend to stay buried.
Until they're not. In 2012, construction crews at Mississippi's biggest hospital made a shocking discovery.
7,000 bodies out there or more. All former patients of the old state asylum, and nobody knew they were there.
It was my family's mystery. But in this corner of the South, it's not just the soil that keeps secrets.
Nobody talks about it. Nobody has any information.
When you peel back the layers of Mississippi's Yazoo Clay, nothing's ever as simple as you think. The story is much more complicated and nuanced than that.
I'm Larison Campbell. Listen to Under Yazoo Clay on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, like you've never heard it before.
I want to go back to the first time you ever met. Well, thank you so much for this.
One of the greatest. Thank you.
I'm Selena, but we're watching Disney here. When you're a pop star like she is, and you're a huge entity, and people set up all these walls before, and then the first second, you, like by the way congratulations on your engagement what i felt for benny it was everything about him was honest he'll tell me anything that he's feeling and it made me feel like i could do the same if we would have met each other when we were younger it would have never worked listen to on purpose with jayHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Have you ever wondered if your pet is lying to you? Why is my cat not here? And I go in and she's eating my lunch. Or if hypnotism is real? You will use a suggestion in order to enhance your cognitive control.
Or what's inside a black hole? Black holes could be a consequence of the way that we understand the universe. Well, we have answers for you in the new iHeart original podcast, Science Stuff.

Join me, Jorge Cham, as we tackle questions you've always wanted to know the answer to

about animals, space, our brains, and our bodies. Questions like,

can you survive being cryogenically frozen? This is experimental. This may never work for you.

What's a quantum computer? It's not just a faster computer. It performs in a fundamentally different way.
Do you really have to wait 30 minutes after eating before you can go swimming? It's not really a safety issue. It's more of a comfort issue.
We'll talk to experts, break it down, and give you easy-to-understand explanations to fascinating scientific questions. So give yourself permission to be a science geek and listen to Science Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
At Valley Strong Credit Union, we know that local businesses are the backbone of the Central Valley. Investing in our neighborhoods, boosting the economy, making the Valley stronger.
But when it comes to their finances, where can they turn? A big bank that just sees another number? That's not good enough. Valley businesses deserve Valley support.
For payroll, credit, cash flow, and everything in between. Valley business is Valley Strong.
Learn how our cash management services can support your business at valleystrong.com. And by the way, just FYI, having just put together a career master plan, we had a master plan in the state of California that created the UC systems, the CSUs, and the community college system half century ago.
We've applied the same discipline to a career master plan in the state of California. And so I'm completely aligned with you in terms of a focus and energy there and looking at pre-apprenticeships, looking not even at apprenticeships in the traditional sense, but valuing and highlighting and signaling the value of a life without a degree, et cetera.
So I'm not as far off on this as you are. That said, I've got to admire what you've been able to do, not to weaponize, but to organize on these college campuses a different point of view.
And again, let's talk about some of that. When you go to these college campuses, I love watching your TikTok, which is next level.
Clearly that's expressed by my 13-year-old son. I want to meet this guy.
He's coming to a turning point event this summer, Tampa, Florida Student Action Summit. I actually am concerned, by the way, if you should be concerned.
But let me say, here is why i'm concerned because you you have expressed that i should be concerned as a democrat that we're getting oh we're getting clobbered yes that you've you've figured something out it's not me the president first deserves the credit but why no no hold on you were at this before trump was no i know but he was a democrat back in 2011 and 12 the president deserves huge. And I just have to say that as an obligatory thing, because without him, our movement would be small.
And you can appreciate that in politics. You have to appreciate the person who is the catalyst.
For you, that's what you sort of attached an identity with him. It was also just the catalyst.
It was a cultural moment that just opened us up. But go back just on that, because I'm curious.
In 2012, 13, 14, who were you identifying with from the movement perspective? I was more like, as I mentioned, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, libertarian, because that's where the energy really was, right? And then President Trump comes on. Again, I was still very early in my political journey.
So you're looking up a lot. Who's the top voices? What do you believe? Why do you believe it? Yeah.
So more libertarian. And I still have some libertarian leanings on something.
And when Trump came down that escalator, you're like, boom, that's my guy. Not day one.
No, I was, I was mystified at first. Why? Just saying this guy's, there's no chance.
No, it's funny. I actually sent out a tweet very like 2011 when I was in high school saying Trump should run for office, but I was not mystified negatively.
I was like, can this really happen? Can a guy that has no political experience come down an escalator, challenge the whole establishment? Right. But you didn't expect Donald Trump to come down the escalator and start talking about illegal aliens or, you know, rapists and murderers? I didn't disagree with it.
You didn't. Yeah.
I see that coming. And again, this is well documented.
Early in my journey, I underestimated the silent majority that really wanted a rebalancing of the American political landscape. So interesting.
So Trump then became the catalyst. And so Turning Point became sort of next level.
Your events start growing. You organize around that.
Turning Point action becomes what? The political arm. So one is more educational.
One is more political. And we did ballot chasing in Arizona and Wisconsin.
We were successful in that. Alongside the Trump arizona was the best performing swing state and you're not modeling yourself at anything because the flatness of the surrounding terrain meaning we're the democrats are looking at other organizing we were modeling off of some of the ballot chasing ballot harvesting practices of the left yeah um but i mean there's again that's a that's a self-limiting principle you can't ballot chase if no one wants to vote for you.
That's right. So, I mean, you could have the best organizers in the world and you have 2000 people chasing ballots in Arizona and you're running Kamala Harris in Arizona.
What we ended up tracking through our data is that the Democrats were chasing for us, is that they were chasing low propensity Hispanics thinking that they were all for Kamala. And in fact, we were looking at the precinct numbers of areas we didn't hit that moved like 20 points in Trump's direction.
We're like, well, thank you very much, Kamala campaign for getting out and chasing our ballots. And, you know, for all this, these Hispanic men that are mechanics, we appreciate it.
Thanks for making sure that we also won Dave McCormick's Senate seat. Right, right.
So, so again, chasing is only one part of the, like Democrats, of course, are better organizers than us. I mean, it's in your blood.
Barack Obama was a community organizer. We make fun of it.
It's who you guys are. You guys have labor as a backbone, clipboard and tennis shoes.
However, labor less and less. We can talk about that.
For sure. In a moment.
Yeah. But what we always felt that we had is we felt we had better ideas and a better message and all that.

The idea was, can we combo a little bit of organizing practices with a mass movement, which is how you get a national popular vote victory and a overwhelming electoral landslide? And so what do you see just, I mean, I sort of talked about the flatness of the surrounding terrain, meaning the Democratic Party's party in some respect as it relates to, I appreciate your point about organizing, but also coercion versus, you know, sort of forcing people to vote versus an enthusiasm and a desire to actually proactively get out. Eventually that has a backfiring effect too.
I totally, I appreciate that. And so what, what do you see right now? I mean, you know, we, you, I think you talked about it the other day.
A lot of folks were talking about that Carville article where he talked about- Roll over and play dead. Roll over.
In essence, he said that. I think it was a strategic retreat, right? That we need to come back.
Trump's starting to explode. His numbers are getting soft.
And this was even before the tariff issues, et cetera. And then come back and strike went hot.
And immediately, no BS, thought about you, who's just 24-7 flooding the zone back to my 13-year-old, owning this space, every day getting a convert, every day picking up one, two, 10,000 folks, continuing the momentum, coming out of this damn election. And then I'm thinking about, we're going to stand back and watch you run circles around us for six months, the next two or three years, waiting for the moment to finally strike.
Strike struck me as not necessarily the best advice, and it's not a knock on Carville, who I have deep respect for. What's your thoughts? I don't, but that's okay.
So I don't have to. He's read about one thing in the last 40 years, it's economy stupid, and boy, he spent down that one line pretty amazingly.
But yeah, look, I don't want to make this about Carville, but like, yeah, I hope you guys retreat. You kind of like the advice.
More for us. I mean, there's no opposition.
There's no activist, activist spark. If like, you guys are posting these cringe videos on social media.
What are the videos? What are the ones that are most cringy? I don't know. This like harmonious thing of like 22 senators all saying the same thing.
I didn't like that. Yeah.
I didn't like it. Go ahead.
Go do more of that. What do you do? What do you do? Seriously, Charlie Kirk, give us some advice.
Get better ideas, governor. For example, I mean, like, if you want to like, you have an opportunity to like, you know, run to the middle and see this man's obviously you're talking to me about people.
So like you right now should come out and be like, you know what? The young man who's about to win the state championship in the long jump in female sports, that shouldn't happen. You as the governor should step out and say no.
No, and I appreciate. But like, would you do something like that? Would you say no men in female sports? Well, I think it's an issue of fairness.
I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness.
So it's deeply unfair. Would you speak out against this young man, A.B.
Hernandez, who right now is going to win the state championship in the long run? I can see you wrestling with it. No, I'm not wrestling.
I'm not relaxing with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.
By the way, as someone with four kids, I think- And two daughters, right? Two daughters. I have a daughter too.
And a wife that went, God forbid, to Stanford and played on the junior national soccer team. And a guy who got into college only because I was left-handed and could throw a baseball a little bit or hit the ball for a little bit.
So I revere sports. And so the issue of fairness is completely legit.
And I saw that the last couple of years. Boy, did I saw how you guys were able to weaponize that issue at another level.
Not weaponized. Well, weaponized may be pejorative.
You're right. But you were able to- Shine a light on? Highlight it in a way that, frankly, there are not that many.
We're talking about, I think, the NC2A, what, 510,000? No, no. but I just didn't realize.
It's 890 medals and trophies that we know of in the last five years. That's a lot.
No, so I'm going to, let me step back, say completely fair on the issue of fairness. I completely agree.
So that's easy to call out, the unfairness of that. There's also a humility and grace that these poor people are more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression.
And the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with as well. So both things I can hold in my hand.
How can we address this issue with the kind of decency that I think is inherent in you, but not always expressed on the issue? No, I get it. At the same time deal with the unfairness.
You you asked a good faith question, like how do we Democrats get out of the wilderness? Yeah. This one is an 80-20 issue.
New York Times poll, right? No, I agree with you. We're getting crushed on.
Crushed. And you have an opportunity in the state to be like, look, I have a heart for A.B.
Hernandez. I have a heart for the San Jose volleyball player.
Yeah. Let's give them compassion.
What's not fair is just for like a woman's, entire woman's sports. I agree.
You know. By the way, I agree with you.
I agree with you. And it's interesting.
I stress tested this trial. I was wondering, I said, you know, in California, and I've been a leader in the LGBTQ places, as you know, back in 2004 was marrying same sex couples.
And I know we have different opinion on marriage equality. And so I've been at this for years and years.
I take a bad seat to no one. But I was actually on the issue of sports, which in the last few years has just exploded, trying to understand and understand the 10 athletes in the NCAA, 510,000 athletes, but 10 athletes.
But how profound, and even my own friend cohort, people saying, what the hell is going on? Why aren't you calling this out? When did this happen? So in 2000, it turns out in 2014, years before I was governor, there was a law established that established the legal principles that allow trans athletes in women's sports. But the issue of fairness is completely legit.
So I completely align with you. And we've got to own that.
We've got to acknowledge it. I don't say that through the prism of politics because you disagree with same-sex marriage on principle.
And so I'm not, and by the way, I value the fact that you're not trying to walk away from that principle because electorally, that's kind of- I'm in the minority of that. Yeah, in the minority.
And I don't want to walk away from this principle because it's electoral, but it is an issue of fairness. And I think Democrats have lost that.
I think that, I wish that we would have done this podcast last week. Last week? Well, because the U.S.
Senate just vote, every Democrat voted against that bill. And I'm just telling you, like, again, not, I'm not one to give Governor Newsom advice.
You guys are giving us an 80-20 issue that is just permeating the country. And it's such an affront to our senses.
And you look at these videos, Governor, because it's not just that it's, okay, you read an article about it, but these young men that are in these sports, they're throwing around girls and it is an issue of fairness, but it goes to a broader arch narrative, which is important. No, I want to hear this.
Which is this, that the Democrats, you guys will tend to view an incident through an oppressor, oppressed lens. It's your training.
It comes from college. It comes from, and we as conservatives tend to view things through right or wrong or just or unjust.
And the country is going far more in our direction and away from your direction because the problem with oppressor, oppressed is eventually you run out of oppressors and you start creating them out of thin air. Yeah.
And you start trying to say, well, these people must be blamed for all of our problems. And that's where you get a lot of the, let's just say a lot of, for example, there's a Wall Street Journal editorial like, when will the white men shut up or stop complaining? That does no good for anybody, right? So what I'm getting at, though, is it's a worldview difference, right? Yeah, I get it.
So that's why the issue is so much more powerful.

Of course it is, but it's also pattern recognition.

It's pattern recognition of a Democrat party that post-2020 decided to go all in.

We call it woke.

You might call it justice or whatever it is.

But it's so outside of what we would consider traditional Americans' norms and customs. A Democrat strategist would say, oh, Charlie, you're weaponizing stuff.
Not you, but that's a typical thing. But the most effective ad of this election cycle, the most effective ad, you know what it is.
Yeah, and devastating. Trump's for you.
She's for they, them. Devastating.
Again. Devastating.
Devastating. Devastating.
And she didn't even react to it, which was even more devastating. And let's talk about why it was devastating.
Number one, it was the trans issue that was just monopolizing. And this was even more challenging because it's issues of people that are incarcerated.
And illegal. And illegal, incarcerated individuals getting taxpayer funded.
Yes. And gender reassignment searches.
That is a 90-10, not an 80-20. Right.
And then she's like enthusiastically defending it, bragging, being like, I'm all for this. I'm all for this.
And then you had the video that was a validator. Brutal.
Yeah. And so- Tens of millions of people.
Brut brutal. And then the targeted focus from the Trump campaign, next level.
And then Charlemagne comes out on Breakfast Club is like, this is insane. And they ran it on NFL football.
Brilliant. Yes.
And so you're trying to reach men. It's not like, it's not- It's a brilliant campaign commercial.
It was brutal. It was devastating.
It doesn't require- By the way, we were running around just for the what the hell it's worth for you. She was AG at the time.
She was addressing the issue of illegal settlement. The courts were intervening on this topic.
But she had the video where in the video, she was obviously expressed support. And so 100% right.
She was being a cheerleader for a very unpopular thing. It was a great ad.
And I say that lightly. But that lightly this is important political and i want to make sure this it's not just that this was like the willie horton ad of the 2024 it wasn't just like a lee atwater brilliance it's that it reflected truth that the voters felt yeah i appreciate that and that because voters felt as if their country was slipping away yeah now you have the democrats have a choice you could say to those people, you're racist, you're Nazis, you're fascist, you're terrible.
Or you can listen and be like, why is it that a steel worker in Pittsburgh who's voted Democrat his entire life is voting for Trump despite all of the stuff that's been thrown at him? Yeah, and all the rhetoric that he's thrown at us in that context. But it's a pattern.
And the trans thing is just one of those things. But the second element was also what we saw under Joe Biden was if you came to the Southern border from any country and you spoke the magic words, you can go to any city you're choosing, right? CBP one border app.
And all of a sudden that steel worker in Pittsburgh is like, why am I paying all these taxes? I get it. And I'm getting my, I can't afford beer.
I can't afford anything. And so I guess my question is to you, what are the Democrats going to do about it? So I went and let me, I'm going to answer that in a second, but let me just, let me, let me pull a few more threads.
You said 2020 is when you started to see the Democrats sort of advance this notion of wokeism. It's when the awokening really started.
What was it in 2020? You know what I'm talking about. No, but so is it, yes, the Latinx stuff that, by the way, not one person ever in my office has ever used the word Latinx.
So can we finally put that to bed? We agree. No more Latinx, everybody.
Well, just didn't even know where it came from. I'm like, what are people talking about? Was it the pronouns? By the way, once, once.
You'd think California invented the frame of the pronoun. Not, I mean, literally, I had one meeting where people started going around the table of pronouns.
One. There's been a hell of a lot of days between 2020 and today.
And one meeting. So it's not like this is, I'm like, what the hell is, why is this the biggest issue? Well, in corporate America, it's everywhere it's everywhere okay all right and college campuses it must call it see that's where you reside a lot in the college campus you gotta defund these schools if they're doing the pronouns jesus okay and it's a number number three what else i mean did you start it what was also the big wokeism thing i mean i mean first of all it wasn't just it wasn't just the projection of certain narratives which we could obviously go through yeah but it's when policy started to come forward and what kind of policy hiring practices when it was there was we're not going to hire there was dei decades ago yeah i mean it was called it was just called what we saw but we saw mass adoption what we saw and not only that we saw pledging of billions of dollars of donations to racial justice from the biggest types of corporations imaginable and it point.
And it was sort of post-George Floyd. That's what I'm saying.
That's when you had a combustible effect. And was that wrong, I mean, to address the issue of racial inequality? I mean, there's legitimate issues as it relates to past practices.
What was insulting to a lot of people is, number one, where's the money going? Because the top premier BLM charity ended up being a racket, right? With Patrice C with patrice colors like where'd that hundred million bucks go so all of a sudden we learn that and all these pledges of corporate dollars were going to this woman that's like hiring her like brother for personal security right and that like a lot of and you would even agree like that that became right the poster child number two broader movement but number two which i think was most important was that it was it elevated then this scholarly community that was otherwise fringe, like Robin DiAngelo and other people.

And her book, White Fragility, literally the entire premise of her book is that white people need to stop being so fragile about race.

You need to sit down and shut up and hear how racist you are.

And she was brought on tours to corporations across the country.

And by the way, just so you understand, this was a phenomenon over months and months, and it didn't quite catch up in time for the 2020 election. I do believe that if you guys would have been a little less insane on crime in the summer of 20, you would have completely clobbered us in November of 20.
It was like, it was the riots that even made 2020 close. But then it was the extension of all of the, what we would call woke stuff.
Right. Defund police.
Yeah. I mean, Minneapolis literally had to hold a special vote saying like, should we still have a police department? Yeah.
That's, I mean, that's, that was lunacy. I mean, but Governor, I don't want to- By the way, you're talking to someone who's never supported the defund police movement.
I know, but- It was explicit. But also- You did support Prop 16 in 2020, which would have legalized racial prejudice, right? Prop 16 literally would.
And it got to go back to my, you know, you're smart. No, no, no, no.
I taught 960 SAT. So a little humility.
You're the governor of the largest state in the country. No, no, no.
I saw your debate against DeSantis. You're good at this stuff.
You know what I'm talking about? Prop 16 would have had legalized racial prejudice, which got defeated by 16 points despite all the institutions. So you're asking me, what did wokeism look like? When California, when all the institutions, yourself included, with all due respect, embraced this insane ballot measure, guess what? Even the people of California didn't want racial discrimination.
Well, I remember California since 1996 has had Prop 209. So the affirmative action case came from the Supreme court as relates to institutions of higher learning had no impact on California.
So we've actually, it's an interesting California also codified as a constitutional amendment marriage between a man and a woman. And that was in the 2000s.
So California runs an interesting. I found it to be illuminating though that despite, I mean, there was really like no opposition.
It was like a couple hundred, like Asian activists. Honestly, I have to go back to, but I just want to say, you asked the question, what did wokeism look like? Prop 16 in California that would have had legalized racial discrimination.
That was not a major, there was a broader national narrative. I'm just bringing it home to you because there were hundreds of such ballot referendums, right? There was, you know, city council meetings where they said the white people aren't allowed here, right? That's not good.
No, it's not good. That kind of stuff, yeah.
And so what ends up happening is a broader question of sensible, not racist suburban moms that are like, wait a second, I have an eight-year-old white son. Are you trying to say he's a racist? Yeah, nuts.
And it creates a backlash that then bubbles up right i appreciate i appreciate the perspective and you know i appreciate not just the perspective i totally appreciate what you just said as an explicit statement of fact to make an eight-year-old feel like they're racist is absurd but but governor with all the respect that's happening right now in california public schools well we but well and i'm not trying to drill you on I'm just being honest. Like you could say that, but like maybe you should like convene a special session and say like, no more, you know, race-based teaching against white people in the schools of California or Asians.
I'm just saying though that like, this is not a conjecture. It's not a hypothetical.
It is embedded into the DNA of the Democrat party. Yeah, okay.
I appreciate it. I mean, that whole, how the CRT stuff.
Yes. I mean, where I was trying to find it.
Where is it? You think we have CRT and K through 12 education? You have the principles of it. I mean, of course, critical theory is like a PhD level.
That's a different thought by Derek Bell and Kimberly Crenshaw. But the same way that you have advanced physics and the theories of physics in eighth grade, it's like saying like, you don't have the elements of it.
But it's, but for example, I mean, it's very simple. But at least that explains why, because I'm just, I was trying to find it.
We know of over at least 50 schools in California that do things called privilege walks. Do you know what privilege walks are? What are privilege walks? Where they make kids walk ahead based on certain questions and they try to make a point saying, well, you see, the white people are ahead.
They must have white privilege. Okay.
I get it. Yeah.
No. All right.
I got to get back into the classroom. I got 6 million kids.
You got to get your educations. 1,050 school districts, the largest school system.
I know that. No, but no excuse because these things are important.
And by the way, it's the reason we're having this conversation. This is very illuminating and helpful to me to understand sort of the animus.
What is it about, you know, that animus?

I joke with people.

I said, you guys don't like DEI, CRT, ESG, DOJ, FBI, IRS.

It's all the acronyms.

It's all the damn three-letter acronyms.

What the hell is the issue?

What's going on with all that?

You know, you missed some.

Which ones?

Which others?

What have I missed?

EPA?

The EPA.

Yeah, you can't stand EPA.

The Employment Prevention Agency. Jeez.
Oh, okay. You're about to get that that 65%.
That's what Lee is calling for. Yeah.
I mean, look, I mean, so it's not just acronyms that we dislike for the record, but it's what they- It feels like that sometimes. I mean, how about the book ban stuff? On a serious note, 4,240 books or titles, libraries and schools are banned in 2023.
Is that not as a conservative? Well, it depends. I mean, like, I think we can both agree pornography should not be taught to nine-year-olds.
Fair point. Okay.
So that's a book ban. All right.
Well, there are some other books. Hold on, no, no, no, no.
Bill O'Reilly's got this ban. That was the Moms for Liberty contention.
Time out. Yeah.
Like, I agree on Bill O'Reilly. The Moms for Liberty movement that you made a big thing of was just no porn to 10 year olds.
We agree. So those books should be banned.
So what we should do right now is every California school that has porn in their library should be kicked out. Does that include the Bible? Well, I wouldn't say the Song of Solomon is porn.
No, but I mean, some have made that point. Is that a fair point or is it offensive? I don't think that's fair at all.
And as a man of faith, and I deeply admire that about you. Thank you.
Yes, but no, I mean, again, the Song of Solomon is rather risque. No, it's very.
But what we're talking about in these books is not just the words, it's also the images. And again, your audience can look at the images themselves.
It's highly graphic. But again, what I- But it seems a banning binge.
I mean, at next level, sort of cancel culture. But why do you think moms are doing that? Do you think it's because they want to have mind control or do you think that they have come across incident of incident of highly provocative material? I love moms, but this moms, I mean, we don't have to get into Moms for Liberty.
It seems deeply organized for a larger agenda, but that's my humble opinion. No, but let me just kind of complete the point is that it's easy to just call it kind of a book ban, but when you actually have to read some of these books, it will take your breath away of some of this stuff, right? You're like, okay, you know, we're teaching a 10 year old how to put a condom on.
I know. I just have a problem with, you know, who the hell is going to decide that government? I mean, Doron DeSantis is going to decide what I can read or say in the boardroom in the classroom.
This is the exercise of politics though. The exercise of politics is the highest form of community because it blends morality and sociability.
So what we do is we have discussion and elections, and we have boards and commissions, right? And we as a people say, okay, no porn for 10-year-olds. And that's politics, right? I mean, I'm not saying that there's like some sort of- We got a stress test where the Bible's included in that.
I don't even want to go forward anymore on this. No, it's tough, but this becomes a dialectic.
I have heard a lot. I've never heard.
That's interesting, though. No, I mean, it's a provocative.
I don't mean to offend. I don't think it's fair.
Again, I deeply don't mean to offend. By the way, Father Kaz would be offended with me.
If you think the Bible's pornographic, we have a whole. Most of these books are quote-unquote, not pornographic.
There's sections that are some kind of... Of images that are very violent to young kids.
Some, we would agree on that. I don't think 4,000 books.
If you want to learn, Governor, and I'm happy that there is a movement of moms that is not, that's growing where they feel as if our kids are being hyper-sexualized. And I agree with them that they are being, that they have to hear topics.
Social media? Well, both in the social media and the classroom. In particular.
And I mean, look, again, you signed a law where school districts can't even tell parents if their kids are trans. Not true.
Okay, then. No, they can.
They just can't get fired for not doing that. And it wasn't just trans.
They can't get fired for not doing that. The law was explicit, said you can't be fired for not snitching on a kid not just for being trans for being gay

and my point is how in the hell but shouldn't the parents know they have every telling parents

snitching no the the the teachers themselves have the right they the law is they can do that they

can do that we're not saying you can't do that we're saying you shouldn't be fired if you choose

not to say johnny was talking about uh you know liking some other boy or something. That's a charitable reading.
It's not charitable. It's actually the freedom not to snitch.
Let me tell you the other way to say this, that a teacher, of course, should be fired if you don't notify a parent of what's happening to their kid. Of course, they should be terminated for that.
I want these teachers to teach And by the way, they feel like the health or safety of the kid, they have a responsibility to communicate. They still can.
By the way, we're not selling these teachers. They can't.
We're saying they won't be fired if they don't look around and say in the recess, there were two boys. Why didn't you see that? You're fired.
You should have said something because they're talking about two different things what you're but there of course should be a penalty measure whether it be termination or whatever if a teacher withholds information from a parent because what you're saying is that there's no way to hold them accountable so you're saying you're accountable to what though the parents are two kids talking about the fact that this is a talking about subject matter all of a sudden now we have to have teachers policing i think speech or kids are having. I think you would even agree, Governor, that is an over-extreme example.
What we're talking about— No, but the extreme example—this was a solution in search of a problem. What we're talking about is if, which happens a lot, unfortunately, is if a young girl says that, hey, I want to transition, and the teacher accommodates and affirms it, and the parent doesn't even know.
I have met parents like that in this state. I heard Trump, and then they come back, and they're away.
There's so much extreme work in this space. I will say, and we don't have to wrestle too much on this topic, but you guys will lose on these topics.
And you might disagree. But I'm one of those guys, and, Gerald, I appreciate it.
And I, by the way, appreciate the civility, which we're engaged in this conversation sincerely. I don't mind losing.
Sometimes you lose on principle. It's one of those things.

Everything's not political is the point. And sometimes the principle, and by the way, mad respect for you, abortion and same-sex marriage, you feel the same way.
American people don't agree with me. Exactly.
And I admire that on principle. But for me, it's not just political.
And I appreciate you making that point. I deeply am mindful of the politics of this, which are very unhelpful.
Personally, it's unhelpful.

More broadly, professionally, the democratic party and our brand. And one of the reasons to your point, the democratic party brand has just been crushed.
And so as your self-awareness is, is helpful to know because it is deeply unpopular. And I think that that is, that is an ascendant political force.
Right. That is not going away.
No, I appreciate. But I also appreciate you hold deeply unpopular beliefs as well.
Of course I do. But you're not running for office.
I'm not going to run for president as a moderate. What are you running for office? I'm not running for anything.
I saw a poll in Arizona that you were like one or two. You have the highest name ID and a favorability.
When are you running? Is being, is that what this is all about?

No,

it's definitely not.

You're not even old enough to be president.

You're only 31 years old.

You gotta be,

you,

I mean,

you and AOC.

I'm not running for anything.

You're going to run against AOC.

I'm running for,

you know,

head of,

you know,

most popular TikToker.

But,

no,

I'm not running for anything.

By the way,

should we ban TikToker?

No,

we should not.

I used to say that.

And then I started this.

Yeah,

why'd you change your position?

Because it's politically expedient or Trump told you to? Well, no, it definitely Trump. I sent out a tweet and I'm perfectly honest about this.
I think you'd respect this is that I was so mad at them because they would ban me all the time. And I sent out a tweet saying like, hey, if you guys are really for free speech as a creator, like, let's see it.
Get a call from TikTok a couple hours later. We're going to show you that we're for free speech.
We're going to show you the power of the platform. And I saw real changes where our campus interactions went from being banned to now well over two and a half billion views on TikTok.
And so I wouldn't say expedient, I'd say impact. And also they now have changed some of their speech codes.
They've changed some of their rules. Hey, enough for your son.
Your son finds my content somehow. I look, I used TikTok.
I, I used TikTok. I wasn't out there trying to champion the band.
I just love this conversion. It's a hell of a conversion.
Hey, I'm open about it. I appreciate it.
Back to the Democratic Party. We talk about just that we're not aligned with them.
They don't trust us. I think we have 31 favorability, 57% on favorability.
I'm surprised it's that high, Governor. And by the way, thank you.
31% favorability is not good enough. So, I mean, back to just the basics.
So you talked about wokeism, broadly defined. We talked about some specific examples of that.
You began on the transport, which is interesting, and I respect and appreciate. I want you to speak out against that one, Governor.
I appreciate it. Well, we just did, of all of you.
And I've been, by the way, I've been saying that. So interestingly, it gets picked up.
And that maybe goes to the question. We live in these filter bubbles.
We're talking to ourselves. We're in these sort of, yeah, it's Newsmax, One American News, Fox, and then it gets into all the stuff that you guys are doing and everybody else.
And meanwhile, I'm safe over here at MSNBC and CNN, reading the New York Times, feeling really great about things and having a nice glass of Chardonnay, listening to Rachel Maddow, self-medicating and just going, Yes, yes. At the French Laundry, of course.
Yeah, at the French. That's, of course, the only place I eat.
And, you know, great takeout and the whole thing. Well, I should have been at Applebee's.
I get it. Applebee's America.
I read the books. Come on, man.
Come on. In-N-Out Burger.
Be with the people. And here's a guy that makes 25 times more money than I do.
And sitting here with a jacket and I'm sitting here with a senior t-shirt.

That's right.

And you control the fifth largest economy on the planet.

We don't control the people control

the fifth largest economy.

And by the way, proud that you know

it's a 3.89 trillion dollar economy.

With a declining population.

No, the population went up last year.

The population went up last year.

Yeah, because of the illegal border.

We'll talk about that later.

I got a whole thing.

That's just factually and true in that respect.

290,000 net last year. Anyway, 394 National Guard that I put down at the border six years ago.
You should be championing that as governor of California. 394 we have down at the border.
We've been focused on Fennel. I've been working on this.
But anyway, you're getting somewhere complimentary. Yeah, I was.
Going back to- You're talking about your whining and dining at French Laundry. Yes, I was talking about the importance of never.

Well, I... back to you're talking about your uh you're whining and dining at french laundry yes that was talking about the importance of of of never uh well like i can't help you with a reservation i get such a kick out of this whole shtick i gotta be honest very nice by the way we couldn't have this conversation with that conversation dumbest bonehead move my life okay own it move on grow up uh and i'm is that you talking to yourself i'd be talking to myself just looking, I'm staring, I'm looking right at you in the eyes as I say that, just to get your reaction.
That said, we are, we're losing, we have, I feel it's asymmetry of Donald Trump and Elon Musk sending out tweets or you doing social media and then me doing a three minute hit at three o'clock in the afternoon on CNN. I mean, how the hell do we compete? We're toast.
Well, I mean, I'm part of it, and credit to you for doing long-form podcasting, because long-form podcasting does penetrate different audiences, right? And our show does very well. But part of the problem of the Democrat Party that for the health of the country would be great to change is that Democrats cannot survive in long form podcasting environments.
Why? It's too unscripted. It's too masculine, honestly.
And the Democrat party's become too feminine. What is masculine about a podcast? Honestly, because I get the whole manosphere that's bro podcasting.
To go into the wilderness with no rules and duel it out and see who's better or who's stronger. No, seriously.
I mean, like what? Democrats can't. No, mean, like we don't do it.
You're right. We, for whatever reason, don't do it.
You can laugh, but like who in the Democrat party or not, you're right. We'll go.
I mean, maybe Bernie Sanders, but he only worked like when he was a Democrat, Bobby, who's now HHS. But like, there's something to be said that if you want to earn the respect of forgotten America, you have to show them that you can intellectually joust with no script, no hard breaks, no producers in the ears, no teleprompters.
That's where new media is going. Now, I will only challenge one thing you say.
I am reaching new audiences. I'm not talking to my bubble because our content is so appealing.
It goes in a decentralized way. And it's not just political.
No, it's not political. But again, our conversation here conversation here is going to go far and wide, right? A lot of people are going to see it.
A lot of people are going to consume it because it's also politics and entertainment have begun to overlap, right? And the old adage is, well, politics is downstream from culture. I think politics and culture are indecipherable from one another now.
Donald Trump became a cultural phenomenon, in to, you know, inner city Compton, you'll see guys with Trump shirts with, you know, the hand up, you know, fight, fight, fight. So what Democrats are doing is you're still playing in a very old hyper sanitized media environment.
And my advice is you got to go where it's unpredictable, where it's treacherous, where it's dangerous. Now I would make a more provocative argument that you wouldn't necessarily resonate with, which is that you guys have not built the intellectual muscle over 30 years because you all agree with each other all the time.
Well, not like conservatives are massively disagreeing at the moment. Trump has completely collapsed the conservative movement.
I would push back a little bit. I would disagree.
We have a robust discussion. Well, it Congress is really doing great oversight of Trump right now.
They're holding him to account. That's an important but separate issue.
I just want to finish the point and we could talk about Congress, which is that in the Republican Party, we have immense and vocal and public spats all the time. I think you would agree.
We fight about foreign policy. Look at Ukraine, right? We're talking about primary challenging some of these senators that were meeting Zelensky last week.
The Democrat party would never do that. Now, I think that is a symptom of an underlying thing.
We're constantly trying to find the approximation of what truth is. We're trying to use dialogue towards, hey, who's right? What do you believe? Why do you believe it? And it's by no coincidence that out of the long-form podcasting genres, the top 10, eight of them are conservative or center-right.
Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Theo Vaughn, the Paul brothers, our program, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh. There's a singular one on the left, which is Pod Save America, which is just like a bunch of Obama bros agreeing with each other for 90 minutes and saying that we're not very smart.
And, you know, and so anyway, but I appreciate it. No, but it's objective truth, right? I mean, you just dominate this media.
I mean, it's medium, but what, so what, I mean, but it's interesting. You're, you're making a deeper argument that we're not, and you didn't say it again in a, in a, in a, in a maligning way, but that we're just not capable because we're not hardwired to be able to participate in this.
Well, I think that it's two things. Number one, your upbringing in college campuses does not foster debate like it used to.
It just doesn't. It's that it's about silencing the critic and the elevation of the victim.
So you do not have the practice of robust having to defend your position. It's very monolithic.
It's very centralized. It's very top-down.
It's quasi-authoritarian. And then secondly, I would just say that the philosophy on the worldview, as I mentioned earlier, that you guys have adopted is that thou which is oppressed will get the most points.
You guys don't have thou that has the best idea wins. And because of that, you guys have an elevation of like, hey, we're going to eventually, we're just going to have a small subset of a minoritarian, hectoring, hall monitor assistant principal vibe of people telling you that you're not allowed to say these words and you can't say that.
And we call that political correctness, which in and of itself is hyper authoritarian. So if you seek to understand why young men are rebelling, it's like, no, I'm not going to go along with this anymore.
Like maybe I'm going to say, for an example, maybe I'm going to send out a stupid tweet when I'm 17 years old. When I'm 26, I shouldn't have to get fired because of that, right? 100%.
I've never liked this cancel. I mean, I remember back when I was a lieutenant lieutenant governor i think bill maher was trying to get on the uc campus or something they were saying bill maher was too conservative voice and we called that out at the time it completely but it's equally insane that people are boycotting bud light i mean how is that not called out i don't drink but yeah i mean like you don't drink at all i mean no by the way i'm just that's interesting yeah you don't never have i have yeah a couple what happened a couple years ago you stopped I stopped there.
Why'd you all? I mean, no. By the way, I'm just, that's interesting.
Yeah. You don't? No.
Never have? I have, yeah. A couple years ago.
What happened? A couple years ago, you stopped? I stopped, yeah. Why'd you stop? I just wanted to be more successful.
I love that. What were you drinking? Napa Valley wine.
Oh, Jesus Christ. Here we go.
Right? Are we going to get a little- I'm going to stop using my Lord and Savior in vain like that, man. By the way, forgive me.
I deeply respect, and by the way, do respect your faith. I'm serious.
It's like the fourth time. I've been coming out.
No, I don't drink. But yeah, I mean, look.
But first of all, we have the agency to boycott whatever we want. But understand.
No, but I mean, in that cancel culture in reverse. I mean, a lot of cancel culture on the right right now.
It's something completely different. First of all, cancel culture is someone in power using their power to cancel somebody that doesn't have power.
That's cancel culture. Time out.
Hold on. Bud Light was people that don't have a lot of power, consumers using their agency to say, no, powerful corporation, I'm not going to voluntarily associate with you.
But cancel culture has always been the incumbent person with power, a governor, a principal, a boss, a CEO, a corporate board going against the weaker. What we did with Bud Light was just a bunch of decentralized folks doing a good old-fashioned boycott.
Completely different.

But a boycott is not—I mean, well, there's boycotting speakers.

There's boycotting.

That is a derivative of cancel.

But the culmination of cancel culture is somebody who has a power position wrongly canceling, violently.

I appreciate that perspective.

So let's go back to Democrats being totally incompetent, incapable of spending 30, let alone 45 to an hour having a conversation broadly on podcasts. I said you're becoming the exception.
The process of becoming. You're not there yet.
It's like becoming Gavin, like becoming Michelle, right? But so what, I mean, who do you, are the Democrats you do, literally, any Democrats you admire out there right now? I mean, even the podcast thing that you look and say jesus there's hope gotta stop saying um forgive me there's um we can edit that out no i don't care you can keep it um i used to have respect for bernie on his anti-war stance and now he's a complete i was gonna ask you about bernie he's a complete neocon now now so he's he's not there democrats i respect oh yeah i mean bobby kennedy i respect tulsi gabbard why are you laughing why are you smiling because like they're on our team now because you guys kicked out like your best people it's like the people that were into this is a great point though governor is that bobby kennedy was a heterodox opinion on a thing that a lot of people were concerned about get him out he's an anti an anti-vaxxer. Tulsi Gabbard, who is anti-war.
Get her out. She's a Russian agent.
You guys see how you have an unhealthy purification process where eventually you're left with just a 31% approval rating and a bunch of people that are talking to each other. And meanwhile, we're the ones that have Democrats in our cabinet winning the electoral majority vote because there needs to be said where if Democrats are serious about being a majority party ever again, when somebody has a disagreement, for example, if there's a pro-life Democrat, is there a place for a pro-life Democrat in the Democrat party? I mean, there should be.
Okay. On principle, there should be.
Absolutely. That's a big stuff.
That's a deeply held personal point of view. God bless.
I agree. Not every party or Democrat official would say that, right? And and so certain states have different opinions on that and i say this is one of the biggest champions for reproductive freedom on the planet yeah trust me i know uh that i know but like the the the issue though is that that is like a that is a one-stop purity test like we have pro-choice republicans there was a sister collins is a pro-choice republican no and trump himself Yeah, he's more pro-choice than I am, like for sure.
But what I'm saying though is what you see in the Republican Party is the best, in my opinion, culmination of modern politics and doesn't get appreciated. Look at that ideological diversity.
We have people that, you know, geez, they want to go to war with every country that says something bad against us. And then we have people that are far more dovish, you know, like Rand Paul.
But that is a better, more, dare I say, diverse picture. You could say diversity is our strength.
Oh, look at you. Look at Charlie Kirk.
Diversity is strength. I mean, I want to end the podcast right there.
But first- I said you could say. You could say.
I want to, do we have ultimate editing here? I'm going to- No, you better not edit any of this for the record. We're not going to edit any of this.
And by the way, no reason to edit any of this, despite my use of inappropriate words here and there.

let me ask you just on the on the democratic party side forgive me i do want to just look where so our effort to get out of the wilderness you know on the woke culture wars on some of these issues on providing a more diverse uh campus dare i say of opinion uh and pulling people in but what what else do you, I mean, do you feel this party, I mean, you point that the Republican party is now going to be the dominant and Senate party. I'm not saying that.
I don't have that kind of pride. I'm not saying, I'm saying right now we are the ascendant worldview, but we could screw this up easily.
You have to have the humility to say that. But like, as of the recording of this podcast, we have a majority approval rating, won the electoral, I mean, all that stuff.
Right. And you both have, I mean, technical points.
But we could screw it up. And you guys could adjust or adapt.
Of course that could happen. This was the question that I'm not articulating very effectively.
But I remember so many of the similar contours of this conversation we were having in 2004 and 2005. You just got shellacked both houses of Congress, Republicans.
You had a Republican president that won the popular vote, the last Republican president to win the popular vote. And two years later, you had Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Four years later, you had 53% of the vote, the highest since 19, what, I don't know, 64. It's conceivable that could happen now.
I don't say that's impossible. So what if you were in my camp? What is that? I'm not going to give you give you my best advice.
I want your best advice. I'll give you like the B or C level advice.
Okay, give me the B plus advice. All right, because the secret stuff, I'm not sharing.
No, what is your secret stuff? Why don't we go right to there? That's secret for a reason. What is it? Is it technical or is it a substance? Oh, it's all of it.
I could design your presidential run in a way where you would win. I'm not talking about a president.
We're not talking about a presidential run. This is not about that.
No, no, no. You got, by the way, you guys are so obsessed with the idea that every goddamn thing I do, I said it again.
Again with the invoking. Yeah, I said it again because I needed your emotional reaction.
That everything I do is framed in that context. Talk about Trump derangement syndrome.
I think you got one with California and me. First of all, it's not new to have someone from california run for the presidency we just beat someone from california presidency california is california is to politics to the democrat party as florida is our party you guys have the speaker the former speaker of the house nancy pelosi right you have you have a lot of the ascendant political voices come out of the state so it's not derangement syndrome it's no it's knowing your enemy and looking at the horizon and understanding what's coming but, if I were to give you or somebody advice, I'll give you the B and C level stuff,

which is very simple. You have to go to war with your own party on three major things.

You got to say, we are not going to do this illegal immigration thing anymore, which includes,

like, are you going to work with ICE? We do work with ICE. I want to make sure I hear that.
We have been. I, in fact, directly, we actually put out the data.
I actually reached out to the administration saying, are you not aware that California coordinates and cooperates with all CDCR releases over 10,000? That's great. So explain the sanctuary state thing then.
What is the difference? You've got the statewide sanctuary state. Which Governor Brown signed it, not you.
Yeah. which in the statewide framework allows us to work as it relates to issues of criminals and

coordinating the release of criminals from our state prison system. We coordinate with ICE on the deportation.
We've done that over 10,000 times since I've been governor. We're not denying access.
We're not denying coordination for criminals. I'm glad to hear that.
That's why I asked. For criminals.
Sanctuary policy was never- I would say if you break into the country illegally, 8 USD 1325 is breaking a federal law, right? I get it. It's civil, not criminal.
But it is a federal law. I get it.
So by the way, if you're serious about moderating the party, 8 USD 1325, the vast majority Americans- So we got that. Let me just go through.
No, no, I get it. no no majority americans want mass deportations it's just the thing until until they don't well

okay that's my humble opinion until they don't okay uh someone has been here 10 years you might

you might be right taxes i don't buy it you you might well but at the moment you're right you

might be right the numbers we'll see number two we mentioned the trans stuff it's in a front to

all of our senses it's out of control i i you might don't believe in it fundamentally it's not

just sports it's not stuff you just don't i mean get back to living. Charlie Kirk's views are separate than the political advice I'm getting.
But if you'd like me to do a whole Charlie Kirk asked me anything and you could show up to Cal State Northridge on Thursday. I've got 25 TikToks of what your feelings are.
So actually that was a question I didn't need to ask. If you want it, it's fine.
I just don't think that's the best use of our time. But on the political advice is that Americans increasingly believe that their good heartedness and charitable nature towards the LGBT issue has on overblown, especially with youth sports, youth curriculum, and the chemical castration of our kids when it comes to this medical therapy.
And you seem that you want to really, I encourage you, governor, to learn about some of the butchery under the guise of health care that is happening under chemical castration in this state and in other states.

We don't spend a lot of time on that, but the American people are overwhelmingly against it.

They're overwhelmingly against it.

I think we have to be more sensitized to that.

Youth should be off limits.

I think that's the political direction things are going.

You might be right on deportations.

I know I'm right on this.

I know that this issue is picking up steam. There is no good counter to it.
the cast report,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, That's the political direction things are going. You might be right on deportations.
I know I'm right on this.

I know that this issue is picking up steam.

There is no good counter to it. The CAST report, the United Kingdom CAST report,

the NHS came out and said,

there's no good reason to ever operate surgically

on a young person.

Puberty's not the problem.

Puberty's the solution.

I think I encourage you-

I'm not an expert in this,

but I appreciate your broader-

But I'm saying politically,

it's a super turbocharged issue

that is kicking the tail of Democrats. The third one though is quality of life.
Is quality of life. I agree with you on this one especially.
But like, I mean, look. No, I know you do.
Homeless and encampments out of control, unacceptable. Yes.
Issues of just quality of this race to crime. You know where I'm going with this.
Why is it you were able to clean it up for Xi Jinping but you can't clean it up? Oh, that was you guys. That was the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life.
By the way, you guys weaponized that things that was that was that you know what i will happily happily revert back to your counterpoint as weaponized in this case weaponized can i in this case can i weapon can i guess it was ridiculous give me a break but yeah governor with all due respect i saw a beautiful picture of san francisco that looked like singapore by the way and then j Xi Jinping leaves and the Walking Dead comes back. By the way, it was AIPAC who had dozens and dozens of foreign leaders.
And California is not San Francisco, but I'm the governor of California, not the mayor of California, not the mayor of San Francisco. You were the mayor, but I just want to understand, why is it that we have to clean it up? 20 years ago.
But you have to admit, it's emblematic of something that if enough important people show up, it can get clean. So why not make it clean all the time? That's exactly my, by the way, that's my energy.
I think you've missed a lot of my press conferences. I've been saying that to all these mayors.
State vision is realized at the local level. It's about accountability, transparency.
If you can't clean up the streets, we're going to redirect the money. I hope the new mayor can do that.
We have been crystal clear. He seems to be more moderate than the other.
Great progress is being made. By the way, what's going on with homelessness in all these red states? You're seeing it through the roof.
Went up 18% across the country. I'm not here defending every red state or what we're doing, right? No, but I'm making the point.
This is hardly unique to California. I'm sure there's a lot of governors and mayors.
Quality life's huge, right? Yeah. And then like, look, the number one thing, which I know you're going to agree with, and I'm sure you'll have a super slick response, right? That's about half true.
But which is the cost of housing, average home in California, $850,000. I like what you said about BlackRock.
So yeah, I mean, I- But that was interesting to me. I think that is, but again, that's not a majority of house purchasing.
About one in four houses are bought by private equity. Would you agree to say that BlackRock should not be able to own homes in California? I think, and then turning around and renting them? It's insane, right? This is a huge problem across the country.
You should propose a bill in the California state house. We've had one.
It didn't get very far last year. And there's more conversations.
A $10 trillion fund shouldn't be able to come in and buy homes. But it's not just BlackRock specifically.
I mean, it's what's happening in this space. Mass asset managers that have a billion dollars, $50 billion asset under management are now competing against our college grad from Cal State Fullerton.
I love that you say this. By the way, just in that spirit, don't you agree one of the Doge things should be dealing with the $1.5 billion of subsidies on carried interest? Oh, carried interest, I think, is a huge problem.
And by the way, you know, President Trump has proposed in his tax bill to get rid of- I know he proposes it all the time, but in that one, I mean, Joe Biden didn't get rid of carried interest. That is the holy grail of private equity.
You know that, right? Carried interest. I mean, I get it, but let's go back to housing.
And by the way, you're going to have a revolt in Palo Alto if you get rid of carried interest. They're going to light torches and like run to Sacramento.
On the issue of housing, you couldn't be more right. It's the original sin in the state of California, affordability, period, full stop.
And it has more impact on the issue of homelessness than any other issue because of the cost of living. By the way, we had 188,000 people in 2005, 20 years ago, on the streets and homeless and our point in time count.
So this is hardly unique to modern California, but it's been a long long-term issue and housing is at the core. We agree on the problem, but here, help me understand this.
You guys control the house, the Senate with super majorities, you control everything. Why can't you fix it? You said you were going to build three and a half million homes.
You're building like 111,000 a year. Well, there was something called a pandemic that may have had a little impact.
Issues of interest rates may have had a little impact on housing production across the country. You guys are still outpacing every other state.
But hold on, hold on. Except Hawaii.
We've done 42 CEQA reform bills, created a housing accountability unit. Has it worked? And we're making big progress.
We've done all the rezoning. I don't see any of it, but yeah.
We've been pounding in this space. There's no administration in modern California history that's done more to reform the housing space and the regulatory space as it relates to the issue of housing.
The biggest challenge right now is NIMBYism. The biggest challenge we have is local planning and zoning.
And that's why we've been very aggressive. NIMBY is a disaster.
We agree on that. And so I have a YIMBY mindset on all this stuff.
I'm in the front lines of this. Your friends, and they are your friends down in Huntington Beach that I'm suing.
Which ones? Pastors or what? city council. They love you.
They literally, you're 99.9%. Who's living who in rent free and who's headed? One of those smaller towns? We're suing them because of their rank nimbyism.
We have been very aggressive in this space. I'm waiting for one big thing we all are waiting for.
And I think it had a biggest, perhaps one of the biggest impacts that we don't focus on enough in the last election. That was interest rates.
As interest rates, that environment- I believe they will come down. And you're going to see an explosion of housing production.
Well, I'm very confident in that in California. Yeah, but you also might see an increase in housing prices, of course.
Well, to me, it's- It's all about supply, right? ECO 101, supply demand. Yeah, it's just the biggest issue.
It's been our biggest- California and Hawaii have the two highest housing prices in the country. Hawaii has an obvious excuse.
They only have so much land. You guys don't have a lack of land.
By the way, I haven't been governor for a century, okay? I mean, Jesus. I mean, we've been six years.
And by the way, no excuse. I get it.
You can't take credit for all the assets. You know, number one AI, number one nanotechnology.
But you also got to take responsibility for some of the problems. I'm going to take a little more credit on the general.
Yeah. 32 of the top 50 market companies.
But I'm saying you have to balance both the credit and the blame. No, I appreciate it.
But quality of life, right? 100% agree. So when I talk to a college kid, one of the reasons they saw Trump as a vessel for a better life is that under President Trump, those first four years, we saw a material increase in their livelihood, wages, easier to buy a home, four years.
Four years, just the facts are, the average wage to be able to own a home in LA, to be able to own a home. Oh, yeah, insane.
It used to be $75,000 a year. Now it's $145,000 a year.
So what it does, and this is, again, it's creating this kind of belief system of Russian serfs of a generation that will never have the material American dream that their parents once enjoyed. Yeah, no.
And look, I think it's a full circle on this conversation where you began by identifying. We'll circle back.
No, but it's a point. The point you're making, Scott Galloway and others have been making as it relates to this generational theft.
Yes. He's spot on on this.
And I think there's so much validity to you recognizing that problem. So diagnosing is one thing.
And President Trump as well. He deserves credit.
And I mean, I think, yeah, he deserves credit. I mean, I'm gonna get you to say the words.
By the way, I just spent almost 90 minutes with him in the Oval Office a couple of weeks ago. Isn't he the greatest? And I think it was the first Democrat invited in in Trump 2.0.
I mean, you got to admit, there's something magical to that guy. Joe Biden couldn't do five minutes with you.
By the way, I did almost 90 minutes with Biden right before he left in the Oval. Do you remember? By the way, that'd be a hell of a book.
You know, 180 minutes. I should do a book of that bookmark.
Was he sent you? By the way, he 100% was. Oh, come on, Governor.
Just a fact. It's it's just you can do you think there was any mental there's okay no no seriously you went around the country being like he's i'll take him at 100 there was one exception and i and it was that no no no before the debate i was about to say uh and that was the big fundraiser down in la where i saw a different person the clooney and clooney called jack black right but it Jack Black, right? But it was not, that was, but you know, so much of that focus was, all right, he just got back from Europe.
But that was the one, one time we don't need to get it. But I just say, Governor, just on that one topic, we saw with our own eyes for three years and the media told us, no, no, he's perfectly fine.
And then we saw the debate and look, it makes us not trust our leaders when we say everyone is perfectly fine. The emperor is fine.
Have you seen any mental decline in Donald Trump right now? No, I see the more sharp acuity. You tell me you sat with him in the Oval Office for 90 minutes.
The guy has a memory of an elephant. No, I'm just asking.
I mean, I know. I'm just asking your personal perspective.
No, of course not. How often do you talk to Trump, by the way? Once or twice a week.
Is he checking for advice or is he you give him advice? A little bit of both. It depends if there's something I want to talk to him about.
But I mean, he's just the machine. He'll take every call.
You got to give him credit for that. Isn't it amazing? Right? Every call thing's big, right? It's amazing.
And he'll listen to every idea. He'll joust it out.
He'll talk about it. He always goes back to what did I promise the voters? What was the last idea you gave him uh the last idea yeah it was like mr president

here's here's what you need or here's the thought i said you actually it was interesting i said

i don't think canada should be the 51st state we already have california and we have enough

libs in our country jesus on that charlie kirk thou shall not take the lord's name in vain

no on that that i just want to thank you this was gavin newsom this has been

this is gavin newsom for uh thank you. Governor, this is Gavin Newsom.
This has been a Gavin Newsom production.

Thank you.

This was fun.

Thanks, Matt.