And, This Is Sean Spicer On Why He Thinks People Want To Be On Team Trump This Time Around

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This is Gavin Newsom.

And this is Sean Spicer.

You're a sub-stacker now, you're a podcaster.

Obviously, you've done some of the networks and continue to be part of that.

But what I'm enjoying and where I'm seeing Sean Spicer, my guest here on the Gavin Newsom show,

every morning is on Two-Way with Mark Halperin.

And you're there battling battling out, but you're doing it in a civil way that, dare I say, provides almost a civic contribution because of your own unique experiences.

Obviously, Mark, Dan, your co-host, tell me how you landed on this new podcast and where the hell have you been, Sean, over the last few years, not just on right-wing media, but what else you've been up to?

I'll take the former first.

So, I mean, obviously, I left the White House in 2017, did a lot of speaking, wrote a book, which I never thought I'd do.

And I don't think any English teacher who had me in high school ever thought that I would

write a book, never mind, read a book.

So I had a lot of fun.

And, you know, I grew up

in Rhode Island.

My dad was a boat, a yacht salesman.

And so we had good years, bad years.

And, you know, we never, we did well.

My parents were amazing.

They provided for us.

But

we definitely, we were a middle class at best.

And so like, I got to do things after I left the White House that I still pinch myself sometimes saying, you know, thinking that I got to do as a kid that grew up, you know,

very blessed with how much love and time and attention my parents gave me.

But we definitely were not

the family with the money in town.

And then I landed a gig at Newsmax.

I did a show there for a few years.

I got an opportunity to go

to sort of create my own show, to own the content.

And one of the things that has really changed in the landscape is the ability to do your own thing, to own your own landscape.

Obviously, you know that now, clearly here.

And I've had a lot of friends that were sort of friends and mentors who sort of had gotten into the space and were like, here's the thing.

It's if you're willing to hustle

and grow your audience, get sponsors, keep them, you can, you know, you own the content then.

It's up to you.

So the sky's the limit, but it's as much as you're willing to put into it.

And that's kind of who I, you know, just that's, you know, I sold everything when I was a kid, greeting cards.

I sharpened skis.

I sold birthday cakes.

I mean, like, I did everything to make a buck.

My dad, as I said, was a salesman, and that was a quality instilled in me early on.

So to me, I was like, okay, I'd rather go this route, own my show, own the content,

be able to decide who I want to have on, the direction of the show.

And then,

you know, this kind of segues into the first part of your question.

When I left Newsmax, every morning we had had a morning call, as every network does.

And Mark Halperin was at Newsmax.

He's been a contributor there.

I think he still is.

And we would dominate the call.

And so they'd get on.

And I mean that because the news director would say, hey, Sean, what do you think the Republicans are going to do on this?

What do you think?

Because it would help shape the reporters and the other hosts.

When we would talk about Congress, I'd spent a number of years in Capitol Hill.

Obviously, the White House, the RNC.

And so then, and Mark would say, well, my sources are telling me that that's right.

Or I've got a couple that say that it's going going to work this way.

So when I left the White House, I said to Mark, what if we could do, like Mark Halperin, by the way, for those who don't know, invented the note.

And so all these morning things that you get in your email every morning, Mark, back when he was at ABC, had a note that he would type up to all of the executives.

And they ended up taking that public.

And it literally was called the note.

And it was a morning, the first morning tip sheet.

And so I said to Mark, what if we actually could do what we do every morning, or we've been doing at Newsmax, publicly, and we let people in.

And so it started off as a thing called debate prep.

And the morning before all of the Republican debates,

we had Scott Walker join us for one of them.

We had a couple other candidates and we would do it and we would take the questions on YouTube.

So I'd weigh in and I'd say, you know, Bob from San Francisco is asking if he thinks that so-and-so is going to ask this question or whatever.

And so

huge response to that.

And we beta tested what I initially, like I said, I wanted to call it the morning prep or something.

And Mark said, what if we call it the morning meeting instead?

And then he said, I'm working on this app called Two Way, where you could actually not read the questions, but we'd be able to take them.

And so this thing's just evolved.

And I think we're on hiatus this week.

We finally took a week off, which just means I get up a couple of minutes later.

You still have that addiction.

I can't stop reading everything every morning.

But anyway.

So we last week, I think we were the number nine podcasts in the country and people loved watching the show because of what you said.

We're not there.

Dan Turntine was Hillary Clinton's finance director for a campaign.

He was Jared Polis' chief of staff when now governor, then Congressman Polis, who was on the Hill.

So he's got the dent side wired.

Mark obviously has tremendous sources.

And we have a conversation every morning to explain what's happening, not to win the day, right?

So I'll gladly say 10 times a day, Dan's got a good point there.

What I think the president's trying to do.

Our goal, and sometimes the audience doesn't want to hear this, is to explain why something's happening.

And that was what we would do, like what morning network calls are, the way they say, you know, this story is important because this, or we think the president's going to make a decision because of this.

And that's how this all evolved, was to give people a place to go where if you just want to understand what's happening, not necessarily like when, I feel like I'm sometimes doing color commentary on

a game.

Like, you know, you can have a team, but you can also say, man, they fumbled that path, you know, they fumbled that play, or he should have been open for that path.

You're not, it doesn't make you any less of a fan, but you're kind of critiquing the system and explaining, you know, he should have run right, not left.

And so I love doing it because,

I mean, I've been in, I did my first race in 1994 in Connecticut.

I obviously six years at the RNC, 26 years in the military,

I think 10 different members of Congress.

So I love to do, you know, to explain this stuff and to say, this is really what's happening or why this person's doing this to the best of my ability.

And Sean, I mean, it contrasts obviously to what's not necessarily happening in many of the networks where it's really about, you know, just putting spokes in the wheel of, you know,

the bike of the other party every single morning or just being a fanboy for whoever's in position of power or influence.

I mean, have you just, I mean, I imagine just reflecting, obviously, you know, from the perspective of, you know, the president, Fox News, and One American News, Newsmax itself,

have favored nation status comparatively to MSNBC and CNN and everything.

But sincerely, on the basis of what you just described and the work you're doing with Mark and Dan every single morning, I mean, what is your over-under in terms of

the health of our democracy in relationship to what appears to be the growing propaganda that's coming from the networks, not necessarily the news coming from the networks?

Well, the funny part about this, I got asked a similar question.

I spoke to a journalism class in Florida,

a Florida university several months back.

Someone said, well, what do you think about the decline of journalism?

And I said, what are you talking about?

It's flourishing.

I would argue that, in fact,

it's much healthier now.

So I stream the morning meeting every day on my YouTube page.

So from 9 to 10 Eastern, you can listen to Mark, Dan, and Sean talk about the analysis.

And then I've got a show, the Sean Spicer Show.

It took a lot of marketing for that one.

Every night, 6 o'clock Eastern on my YouTube channel and across all the other podcasts.

We're on much more red meat.

So I, you know, to your point about, I'm a unabashed, unapologetic Trump supporter.

I'm a strong fiscal and social conservative.

I'm proud of it.

But there's different venues for different things.

So in the morning meeting from 9 to 10, I want you to understand the process.

I want to explain it to you.

And in the evening at 6 o'clock, I'm going to serve up my point of view and tell you why I think that Trump's doing the right thing, why I believe we need a Republican majority, why I think conservative policies are great.

There's room for everything.

But part of the other thing that, you know, you were touching on, there's various things on the news.

Like you got the fanboy, fangirl, you've got the polarization of stuff.

But there's also, to me, what annoys me, and I know you probably have seen this throughout your career, is whether it's Democrat analyst or...

What's the other big name on TV?

And then the Republicans one where I'm like, dude, who do you consult for?

Who do you, I mean, there are people that I'm like, you've never run a race, you've never worked in politics, and this person is a pundit, which again, it's America, you have every right to have your thought.

But what I love about what I do is I'm trying to explain to people, look, I've been in the room, I can tell you what it's like

to why this decision is getting made or what this person's really like in person, whether you agree with me or not.

And I think that's different than watching sometimes people on all of these networks opine with no knowledge of why, how the process works.

And I tell people every once in a while, when I was the assistant U.S.

trade rep, rep, and back in the day, we filed an intellectual property case against China in the World Trade Organization, the WTO.

And we were really proud of ourselves for doing it because we were standing up for intellectual property, which is a huge thing that China steals.

It was funny, though, because the reaction after the fact was not...

the excitement that we had anticipated because China's answer was to say, great, we're banning all U.S.

movies in China under the guise of cultural reasons.

And so sometimes what that taught me and part of the lessons that I can bring to viewers is sometimes decisions aren't as easy as you would think they would be.

You would think, hey, we're standing up for China, we're standing up for our intellectual property here in America.

That should be an easy decision, right?

Why wouldn't Governor Newsom do that?

Why wouldn't President Trump do that?

And then you realize, well, because the industry may not want you to, because they may actually lose money on that decision, which would cost Californians or, you know, whoever jobs in America.

And so what I love to do is to sometimes say, hey, guys, here's a decision that's being made.

I know it seems easy on its face, but let me give you a little bit more context about what's going on in that decision-making process.

So, I mean, it's interesting that you reflect on this current.

media environment as much more nuanced and more complex and perhaps open because not only you're platforming different points of view as it relates to more of an objective frame to a more subjective, more partisan frame in different parts of what you're presenting and putting out in content, but there's more content, I guess is your argument, than there's ever been.

So

if you want to watch MSM, and back when I grew up as a conservative, right, and we're roughly the same age, I'm a little younger,

you had three channels in PBS, and that was it.

And they decided what you read, saw, and heard every day between them and sort of your local paper.

I love the idea that if you want more of a partisan tinge, you know where to go on either side.

If you want straight up news, but also if you really want news on the technology front, front, there's tons of people putting out blogs and sub stacks and newsletters and YouTube channels on AI.

So I like the fact that you have more options now.

You get to decide what you want.

I mean, and I'm one of those people, I look across the spectrum.

I'll read NPR.

I'll read some of the stuff in MSNBC.

Not a lot,

but enough to know what the other side is saying because I want to know the other argument.

I like the idea that I'm not being spoon-fed.

You know, when I grew up in Rhode Island, it was the Providence Journal, either you got the morning edition or the evening edition, and that was it.

If they didn't put it in the paper, it didn't exist.

So I like the idea that I can go now find experts on any subject, dive down, I can find objective ones, I can find on a variety of subjects.

And Sean, what about it finding you, though?

What about the algorithms?

What about our inability to get out of these networks?

I mean, the challenge I think many of us find, once

you dial up,

we can get into some of the particular apps, but anyone that's been, for example, on TikTok, and we don't even need to get to the issues around China and TikTok, but the algorithms are such you can immediately, with two or three searches, all of a sudden now you're off in a completely different direction.

And now, all of a sudden, it's finding you.

It's from search to suggest, or ultimately, now the news, you're being blocked out from more of an objective version or vision of the world.

I mean, what do you make of that in the context of what's being fed to us, not what we're able to actually discover?

Well, clearly, it's a problem, right?

I know you just use that as an example, but that's another warning to stay off TikTok because

I think it's

strong opinions.

I believe it's a national security threat to our country.

What'd you, by the way, what'd you make of Trump then jumping back on?

I'm just, I actually, I get he's trying to do a deal.

I get he's trying to do U.S.

ownership.

And I also understand that right now there's a lot of kids on it.

But that's actually, to me, you know, people ask me all the time, is there an area you disagree with President Trump?

And I would say TikTok is up there.

There's a couple others.

But I do believe it's a threat to not just young people in particular, but to all Americans.

To what China is doing to gather our information is a national security issue.

What they're doing to mold what we, the perceptions that we hold on a variety of subjects, is a national security threat.

That being said, to your original question, I do think that's a problem.

All right.

But I also think, again, remember, the context in which I started where how we grew up.

You had three channels, and depending on where you lived, one paper.

They decided what you saw.

And knowing what I know as a conservative, it never came my way.

I remember going out in my first couple campaigns, governor, and we would always get a call from whatever

the local newspaper was of wherever the campaign that I was.

And they'd say, hey, the environmental working group just put out a scorecard.

Your candidate, because you're a Republican, sucks.

And the Democrat's great.

And so what is your comment?

And I'd say, you know, we care about the environment.

We love clean air, clean water, blah, blah, blah.

And then I'd call the same reporter back a week later and say, hey, the Chamber of Commerce just put out a scorecard.

We're great.

The Democrat sucks.

And they'd say, like, well, that's really not an issue that we think is important.

And I'd say, I mean, so which would you rather have?

The ability to go out, search for more information, or your local current media outlets deciding that we're only going to show you a certain things.

It's kind of the same thing, except now I'm aware of the fact that certain social media outlets and algorithms are going to try to go down rabbit holes,

I think informed people know to search further, to search farther, to question what they're hearing and seeing and look for other sources, which is why, you know, I was doing a project the other day on wellness.

And I was like, let me just go through Substack and see who some of the big Maha type newsletters are.

And it was great because I found people on both sides of issues, pros and cons on a variety of subjects.

And I was like, okay, I feel like I'm getting a nice, but yeah, you've got to be careful and cognizant of the fact that you're going to get served up certain things, but I don't know how that's any different than, you know, if you just limit it to, you know, if we were in a world that was limited to cable.

Yeah, I get it.

And speaking of cable, I'm curious, just your assessment.

I think every year for the last many years, I don't even remember the last time it wasn't the case, but it seems 14 out of the top 15 most watched cable shows are Fox.

I think Rachel Maddow is the one exception, and she's just one one day a week on Monday night.

I mean just right-wing is dominating the nightly cable networks or cable more broadly.

Why do you think that's the case?

A couple things.

As I said, like when I grew up, like you, we don't, I think it was almost like living in a world where you didn't realize that

you wondered why issues didn't get attention or covered.

And when Fox came along, it filled a void.

But if you think about what's on your cable dial right now, like with the, I mean, Fox is the 800-pound gorilla, but it's alone.

So you've got ABC, MBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, all sort of focused on,

at best, a left-of-center view of the world.

And Fox kind of consolidates the right-of-center view of the world.

And so I think for people who are going there,

they're tired of getting one perception of the world in the news, and they've all consolidated around Fox.

You look at a show like The Five, it's the most popular show, Gutfeld in the evening.

But I think part of it is a consolidation of viewership, right?

So if you look at what they get, there's not a ton of competition on the right when you look at what's on the cable dial.

We saw, I mean, obviously,

News Max, I mean, obviously,

one American news trying to sort of capture some market share.

Well, I think, just as a side note, because full disclosure, I do contribute to News Nation.

That's probably the most straight down the middle

outlet that's out there.

But I would also argue that cable in itself faces this existential crisis where the average viewer, I think, of MSNBC, CNN, even

I think Fox is like 69, 70 years old.

So part of the reason why I jumped into independent media, why I think this is the future, is because,

and I'm sure you see this all over when you're out talking to folks, like Most people now are cutting the cord.

Maybe YouTube TV, where they're kind of still getting traditional outlets.

But even so, you're seeing more and more people streaming programs, not watching it as much anymore.

I mean, there are days, I said to my wife a couple weeks ago, we were up in Rhode Island, and I was like, God, I can't remember the last time I watched television.

You know, because I'm on, not that I'm online probably more than I should be, but I think we've just, we're pushing away from that world as well.

It's interesting.

What I am curious, when you came out of the White House, and, you know, for those that wanted to tune in and have me go back to every single Sean Spicer press conference,

there's a hundred other channels, a hundred other interviews with Sean.

So I don't even want to tread on a lot of that.

But I am curious, just coming out of the White House and just being attached to Trump and trying to be your own person, I imagine.

I mean, that said, also taking advantage of that because there's a lot of doors open up in that Trump world, et cetera.

I mean, as, you know, sort of unpacking where we started.

as you've on you've been on your own journey as now podcaster sub-attacker and consulting also doing some political consulting work as well on the side but was that more daunting or more opportunistic uh than you expected meaning having that trump brand on the resume being uh that spokesperson for trump did it open more doors or did it close more doors for you

it's a great question um

both so it opened a lot of like i said earlier like look i i

I'm blessed by what my parents provided for me and my brother and sister, but like

it was love and support, not, not money and gifts.

And so the ability to do things,

like, I mean, I opened the Emmys out

in your neck of the woods.

I mean, the idea, I mean, listen, I didn't even make my high school, my junior high

Philadelphia trip or something.

We didn't have the money to do it.

So to be like, hey, do you want to go open the Emmys?

There were things that I got to do that are mind-boggling to me that I, as a kid growing up in Rhode Island, like, if I told that to my 18-year-old self,

that you were going to be having these, traveling to these places, meeting these people.

So yes and no.

So

the yes part is there's no way in God's earth that I would have done or had the opportunity to do any of the things had it not been for the opportunity that President Trump gave me.

That being said,

the environment then and the environment now

is night and day.

I was personally attacked.

My house was put up for sale on Zillow.

We had cameras outside.

We faced all sorts of threats.

I got attacked in multiple Apple stores.

I know there's only one that really got a lot of attention, but there's others.

A grocery store.

And it's not just me, by the way.

I mean, I've kids.

I've tried to keep them out of my public life.

But it's not easy when you're with them and you're at dinner and someone's standing outside giving your family the finger or chanting something and they're asking daddy why are they doing that.

so

you know it like i said it's both i got some amazing opportunities that i would have never gotten but at the same time

there there were places um who would say to me hey we want to work with you because we're looking to get some insight in the trump administration but can you sign five ndas and can we run this through like a swiss shell company so no one knows that we're actually talking to you um there were plenty of events where we started down a path and then they'd get canceled you know an opportunity would get canceled um it was a lot of like cloak and dagger, like we'd love to have you come talk to our board, but you have to come in a back door.

No one can know that you're here.

People, so the first iteration of Trump was fairly vicious.

And obviously the Mueller report was going on.

People were making all sorts of false allegations.

So

I will say this.

This second term,

I mean, it's like a night and day.

People are excited to work with you.

It's the opposite.

Can we promote that we're working with you?

Can you talk to us openly about Trump?

I think the President 2.0

is in such a different place than he was in the first term for a variety of reasons.

And a lot of it was just a learning curve, et cetera.

I mean, I'm glad to go into it.

But I think there is so much that is different between the first term and the second term.

No, I love that.

It's a great segue because I wanted to talk about that.

I mean, I've, you know, had my own experience with Trump, obviously, as governor for two years, involved in, you know, we were involved as a state with 122 lawsuits with the Trump administration.

That said, and you may recall this, during COVID, we had a very good working relationship.

Right.

As a Democratic governor, we were constantly on the phone working through issues.

There may have been a lot of noise on True Social or Twitter, but we were actually constructive.

But I will acknowledge things are radically different this second term.

And I've found them to be very different as well.

And that's on the basis of a lot of interpersonal engagement, an hour and a half in the Oval Office.

I think I was the first Democratic governor to spend that kind of time with them in the Oval Office.

Phone calls since.

And obviously we're going back and forth now.

But I'm curious.

You've seen a few of those.

You've seen a few.

There's lots of different things.

I'm wondering, how are hat sales going?

By the way,

the most extraordinary sales we've ever seen, just as our most beautiful maps that are out there.

But I will say the biggest selling item is that picture of Tucker Carlson and the late, great Hulk Hogan, and of course, Kid Rock himself blessing me, which is limited edition, Sean.

If you want to pick up one, I do it now.

By the way, before I put my crypto coin out, which I also think will be a hot secret.

Well, I didn't want to get ahead of this, but you do know that we're going to tariff all of that.

Yes, you're right.

Well, we'll get to the tariffs in a minute.

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I'm Dr.

Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast.

Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential.

I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills, and I get eye-rolling from teachers, or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face.

When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy, which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you.

Because it's easy to just say like like go your go blank yourself, right?

It's easy.

It's easy to just drink the extra beer.

It's easy to ignore, to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way.

Avoidance is easier.

Ignoring is easier.

Denial is easier.

Drinking is easier.

Yelling, screaming is easy.

Complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort.

Listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I just think the process and the journey is so delicious.

That's where all the good stuff is.

You just can't live and die by the end result.

It's scary putting yourself out there, especially when it's something you really care about and something that you hope is your passion in life and you want people to like it.

Let's get delicious and put ourselves out there.

I'm Simone Boyce, host of The Bright Side, and those were my recent guests, comedian Phoebe Robinson and writer Aaron Foster.

On this show, I'm talking to the brightest minds in entertainment, health, wellness, and pop culture.

And every week, we're going places in our communities, our careers, and ourselves.

It's not about being perfect.

It's about going on a journey and discovering the bright side of becoming.

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But look, Trump 1.0, 2.0, I've heard you talk a lot about it.

You've talked about the discipline.

You've talked about the fact that this is a more prepared second-term presidency, that people around them have more prepared.

They're more quote unquote professional, from Susie Wiles as chief of staff to what they're doing at the OMB.

They had a playbook.

They're executing on it.

They're unified, a word you often I hear use.

Give us a sense.

I mean, you know, without going too deep into the well of what was wrong in that first term, do you maintain that as we sit here in month seven, going into month eight, that this is a well-oiled machine and that he's excelling in terms of advancing his stated goals?

Oh, absolutely.

Look, so I'll just start with this.

If you are a supporter of President Trump and the America First Agenda, which I proudly am,

the amount of accomplishments, I don't think

is questionable.

Like you look at what he has done

on trade, what he has done on taxes, what he has done on the border, what he has done on the Make America Healthy Again movement.

Like check, check, check.

Now you may not, now one may not agree with that, but I would argue as I love watching these cabinet meetings, and I know some of these, some people have issues with them, but I feel like everyone's getting called to account.

Like everybody has to list off, what did you do?

And there's one every 30 days so you know when i was in college i hid in the back row tried to make sure i didn't get called on now if you look at a trump meeting you hear from every single one of those folks what have you gotten done in the last 30 days and i i mean sean duffy at the department of transportation looking at our our air traffic control systems what we're doing to keep our our highways safe with uh cdl licensing everyone's got something to say i love it lee zeldon talking about the environment what they're doing to uh help reduce the regulatory burden on small businesses so again if you're maybe some folks on your side of the aisle party, you may not agree, but I would think that regardless of where you are, you've got to admit that he's got a lot done.

And Sean, just on that, I'm curious, and forgive me, I do want you to continue to expand on the point, but also you hear at those cabinet meetings, I mean, there's a lot of dear leader vibe.

I mean, every single one of those folks starts out with this sort of unctuous compliments.

Is that, I mean, honestly, does that, does, do you cringe about that?

Or you think that's that's also part of the charm or part of, I mean, what do you make of that?

I mean, yesterday's cabinet meeting was

extraordinary in that respect.

No?

Here's what I'll say.

I think delivery matters.

Some people pull it off better than others.

But I think that, look, the president deserves credit for the people he's picking and the ability to allow them to do that.

Now, how some of them choose to express their gratitude, again, I think delivery matters.

But I get it.

It's part of the,

I don't know.

I sort of personally, like I said,

if you heard what I said, I love the focus on results.

Like, so no one can get up there and just BS and say, dear Mr.

President, I love you.

You're amazing.

And okay, who's next?

They have to then go into what did you get done.

And I am a believer as someone who's been a commanding officer, who has been in charge of groups and organizations.

Like, I don't, the fluff, great, say it, but then get to what you did.

I want results.

And I like the fact that you can't hide.

Yes, you might start off by saying something very laudatory, but at the end of the day, you have to get to what did I do to deliver for the American people.

And that goes into what I believe is different.

There's three things, the people, the process, and the policies.

And look, when we got brought into Trump 1, and again,

he's not a politician.

The guy was picking people, some of them he knew, some of them he didn't.

And people would recommend him.

I think the best person to be the ambassador to, you know, France is so-and-so.

I think that so-and-so would be great for the department of the interior and he would trust people great you think that person's good okay i i know you you think they're great

i was in the room plenty of times where those conversations occurred i don't think every single person in fact a lot of them did not come in for the right reasons meaning they weren't coming in to advance his agenda in some cases they were coming in uh to advance their own or to actually stand in the way of it and to oppose it.

This time, what the media gets wrong about the people in the room, in his cabinet in particular, in the sub-cabinet, and this is where, again,

they just say, oh, they're all loyal.

A dog is loyal.

My dog is loyal.

It's sitting right there.

And she will follow me everywhere.

But that's great.

That doesn't do anything.

Every one of these people.

From the Secretary of Defense to the Attorney General to the Secretary of Treasury and Commerce, is a doer.

They're getting things done.

They're a disruptor.

And that's what they're missing.

Anyone can be loyal.

That doesn't mean you're getting things done.

So the people are vastly different.

And then the policies, they know, they four years out of office, I always tell people, it's like when you, if you grew up playing a team sport and you play the same team later in the season, your coach will likely say, remember they came up strong on the right and we didn't block them well, so we got to prevent that.

Four years out of office has allowed these guys to think through how to get things done properly,

what the opposition force is going to look like.

And I keep contrasting the sort of the firing of Lisa Lisa Cook at the Fed this week with how we handled Comey.

When we fired Comey, the president called me into the Oval and said, Sean, put out a statement.

We're firing Jim Comey.

And I literally sat there and said, Mr.

President, we need to inform congressional leaders.

We need to do this.

Because I just had been around

long enough that I was like, here's what's going to happen.

I'm going to get asked as press secretary.

I'm going to get asked, did you inform Leader Schumer?

Did you call the Speaker of the House?

Did you do this?

And I said, so we just need to go through some of these processes.

But admittedly,

it was not probably done the best in terms of rollout um i think how they've handled things like that between the policies and the personnel rollouts they get the process a lot more now they are you arguing that what they're doing with cook is a better process in that respect

she's she's guilty of something without due process and she should be removed i don't know if she's guilty or not but that's not what the law says the federal reserve act of 1913 section 10 says that the president has the ability to remove anyone for cause.

Cause now, you've been a governor, a mayor, like

you, you've let people go, I'm sure, at some point, and not because they were guilty of something or were convicted in a court of law.

You said, hey, Susie, you've shown up five days late from work.

You're not getting it done.

You don't represent me well.

You're a nuisance.

This woman

signed documents that are public that she declared her primary home in two residents.

That's mortgage fraud.

Now, whether she gets convicted or not, an employer, I've had to fire people before.

They don't, none of them were convicted of anything.

In fact, a lot of times it's like, hey, we're going to let you go

so that, you know, and Sean, just on, no, and I appreciate that.

And it certainly is,

the frame is for cause, but you don't, you don't find anything curious about that coincidental, that Adam Schiff and Tish James

have the same

accusations and they're just sort of coincidental.

And Paxton, who's got accusations against him in Texas, there's been no consideration and criteria for a similar investigation.

This is just professionalism at the highest levels of the Trump administration, weeding out corruption, and they just happened to fall on these three people coincidentally.

Well, again, first of all, it's not like Adam Schiff, Tiff James.

I mean, you're his governor.

I think that's not just a mortgage fraud issue, but it's an electoral problem.

The guy by the Constitution is required to live in your state.

He has signed a document saying that Maryland is his primary residence.

You should probably be entitled to a senator that represents California and lives there.

So I would argue that this is probably more of your-ish problem.

By the way, Sean, I'm trying to go to an event where Schiff

has not already left because he was there before I was there.

I did think that this morning, and I thought this is going to be interesting.

But I'm just saying, it's up to you.

But honestly, you can't in good conscience say that's just, that's just, I mean, this is just a professionally well-ordered machine doing everything right.

Wait, wait, why is it coincidental?

Just contrast.

So for example,

there's two things.

Number one, contrast, one, I honest to God, and I say this like in all honesty, because I don't, I'm not aware.

I know that there's some

issues that have brought up with the attorney general.

I didn't know about the mortgage fraud, to be honest with you.

Maybe that I, so if that's true, I'd be willing to look at it.

But I would also say one, two things.

One, the first question was, was the process different than the first term?

And as I said with Comey, they did, we just fired them, announced it, like, you're gone, and then built the plane in midair

to explain why later.

With Cook, they've made the predicate very clear.

She did this.

Here are the receipts.

That is a much better process, right?

So I, as a consumer of the news and as a citizen, I go, okay, I know what you're accused of.

If that's cause, and which I believe a judge would argue is cause,

because again, it doesn't mean you have to be guilty of it, which I actually, from what I can see, I'm no judge.

I haven't been to law school, but

I would say that if you sign two pieces of paper claiming two different states are your primary residence to get a lower interest rate, neither one that you've actually lived in and used for rental purposes.

I have a rental property.

Well, I didn't get a, I had to get the higher interest rate and a bigger down payment because it, I wasn't going to lie on a form.

But it's, and electorally, it's also a lie.

Like, as I said, I mean, Tish James had a property here in my state of Virginia saying, and she's the New York Attorney General claiming that Virginia is her primary residence.

That's a problem.

And so,

And let me just say this, Governor, the one last thing is: I would say, and this is why after watching the four years of what they did to Trump, especially, especially in New York, claiming that misdemeanors, bookkeeping misdemeanors that pass the statute limitations somehow all roll up into a fake felony and then telling the jury, you don't even need to come up with a crime, just convict the guy.

And then we've actually got receipts on these folks.

I don't know.

I mean, you know,

one could argue that was selective prosecution.

I think any objective observer would have to maintain these three cases seem to be rather selective and curious.

And I guess the deeper problem that I have, and I appreciate your framework around this being a better process than Comey, and I do appreciate your framework on that.

But this idea that it's better because the DOJ is now being weaponized in a very overt way, perhaps, I mean, Pam's standing right behind the president.

These guys are just winding up on that that retribution list.

It just doesn't feel like he's raising the bar and elevating the.

Let's just say for a second, I accept your premise.

It's all retribution.

If I accept that premise, I just,

okay.

I mean, again, I don't think, like, I've always felt like at some point, you know, we're dealing with this in gerrymandering.

At what point does it stop?

Okay, who started it?

Dan Turntine and I in the morning meeting had this long argument about who started it and when.

Okay, well, we can go back to Elbridge Jerry and say, okay, it started in Massachusetts in whatever that was, 17 something.

But the bottom line is, if we're going to claim that what's going on now is bad, then where were all these voices for the last four years?

I mean, what happened to Trump in New York in particular is complete and utter BS.

Like, no one with a law degree or having ever watched Law in Order could argue what happened to him in New York was fair.

That's just, that was the ultimate weaponization of the digital system.

The misdemeanors were expired.

There is no such, it's the first time this has ever happened.

There was no crime.

He paid the mortgage back.

In the case of

James, Schiff, and Cook, they lied on a form to get a lower interest rate.

In the case of Cook, she is, by the way, on the board of the Federal Reserve, which oversees interest rates.

I mean, this is, you can't have something more entangled than

what she did.

Well, I hope we still have due process, and I hope those facts are presented and not just asserted on a truth social.

But

it begs the question.

I hope that we have a system where senators live in the state that

they want to be.

And I don't think anyone listening would disagree that people need to be held to account.

And I just think the selective prosecution

is a little dark and a little ominous.

And without even

getting back in the merits or demerits of your point about what you perceive happened at the state level in New York and Georgia, what they attempted to do to Trump when he was out of office.

But just moving off, if I may, just because I think, you know, it does beg the question of the Fed.

I mean, are we better off with the President of the United States having the ability to change on whims members of the board and have those members get rid of the presidents of the regional bodies?

Are we better off as a nation having a president put their thumb on that scale?

I mean, it seems the last time we had a United States president do it was Richard Nixon.

Didn't seem to end so well with inflationary pressures in the 70s.

People have equated similar actions in places like Argentina and Turkey.

Are those fair, unfair?

Is this just Trump has, you know, he's not,

are we just, I'm in a blue bubble.

Am I just making all this up and we have independence of the Fed and I'm just, but we have corruption at the highest level and finally he's calling it out on mortgage fraud?

Well, I think there's two separate issues.

You're the Fed in itself and then the overall issue.

I don't mean to make it personal, but I am a named plaintiff in a case called Spicer v.

Biden that was decided.

President Biden fired me from the U.S.

Naval Academy board.

That's right.

First time in history, in the history of the United States, that a president has dismissed anyone for no cause.

Was Russ Voigt part of that as well?

He was a few of you, right?

So is Spicer Vogt v.

Biden.

And the Biden administration went to court up through the appeals process, arguing that the President of the United States has the absolute authority to fire anyone without ever explaining it, by the way.

That is the case law now.

Okay, when I was fired, and again, it just wasn't about me.

He fired every service academy.

H.R.

McMaster, by the way, a West Point grad that had taught at West Point, was scheduled to get the Distinguished Alumni Award that Thursday.

They fired us on a Tuesday.

Okay, so they fired everyone, Air Force, West Point, Naval Academy, for no cause.

We went to court, obviously intempting to lose,

where we made them argue in the affirmative that the President of the United States has the absolute authority to fire anyone.

They did that.

And again, this is why, you know, this goes back to the same question you were asking before.

When that happened, there was no outrage, none to say, why are we firing?

By the way, they fired me on like September 8th.

My board, my term expired 60 days later.

They could have named an entirely, I mean, so.

And for no reason, no cause.

And the thing was, not one person said, this is not right.

This is ridiculous.

It's never happened.

In fact, it was the Democratic congressional chairman of the board at the time, Dutch Ruthesberger, who called me and said, this is ridiculous.

Like, I don't know.

I didn't get informed about this.

They didn't explain why.

And so when Trump comes into office, they go, oh, my God, I can't believe he's firing people.

I'm sorry.

When they did this under the Biden administration, no one said a damn thing.

And then it goes, well, but this is different.

Well, when I got fired, there was no cause, no excuse, no reason.

When Lisa Cook was fired it's because she committed mortgage fraud and and everyone goes oh this is unbelievable it's the fed now with respect to the fed alone i don't have a problem with the again i am a believer that the president has the authority as now affirmed by spicer v biden to decide who he wants to serve

even the independent fed which is held to even the supreme court has adjudicated the unique standing of the independent fed first and second bank and a recent decision you think and well even if they have regardless of the merits you think it's uh healthy for a democracy that a president

in this case,

I do believe, I mean, as I've stated, this isn't like conjecture.

The documents are out there for everyone to see.

She committed mortgage fraud.

She signed two documents that state in the affirmative that two different states at the same time are her primary residents, neither of which she ever lived in.

She used them both rental.

That is fraud.

Okay.

I appreciate Sean on that, but just I'm talking about just the Fed chairman in this case, even Even the pressure games, it seems to me.

Look, go back to

the early days of America.

The President of the United States has always put pressure on the Fed to do what it wants.

This is not a singular.

Now, you may think the tactics of President Trump are more vocal, but presidents of the United States have put pressure on the Fed going back to some of our earliest founders.

There's no doubt about that.

It didn't always go so well, I guess, is more of the objective observation.

And that's perhaps.

And the president will be judged.

And President Trump will be judged as most presidents are to either on safety or

the economy.

And

it's clear what he wants, a cut in the rate.

I think that's, frankly, for a specialty.

Regardless, it was already going to happen.

He's going to get maybe, I think, 25 basis points.

But the bottom line is...

He'll claim credit for something that was already going to happen, which is.

Well, maybe not.

I don't know that he'll claim credit at 25.

He wants way more than that.

And I think, by the way, there's an issue that I know you had Charlie Kirk early on in your show that he has been championing, which is the inability of young Americans to have home ownership in their reach.

And I think, again,

and so part of it is that these interest rates, I think, would be a great thing, not just for

the debt of our country, frankly, but also for home ownership.

I couldn't agree more in that respect.

And look, no, I just don't think politicians should be making monetary policy at our peril and the professionals should, but all of us are very eager to see that happen.

I think the market's obviously starting to,

you know, they baked that cake already in anticipation.

And so it would be a big surprise and setback if we didn't see that move.

But look, moving beyond just sort of the independence of the Fed and the merits or demerits of whether or not you think his influence, this particular Trump's influence, is any greater or lesser than prior administrations.

I'm curious, just the overall

sense that truth and trust

is being frayed.

Now, you made a great argument there that I think is important.

Democrats, we need to listen.

I appreciate you bringing up your own standing in relationship to those firings.

And Democrats, many of them unfamiliar with the details of that.

And to be candid with you, Sean, until I was preparing for this conversation, I wasn't even aware of that.

To be able to even have your back and to call that out.

And I think it's important.

It's one of the reasons we started this podcast because I think it's critical that we have a little grace and understanding of one one another in relationship to the fights that we're having.

But I got to be honest, the BLS decision chilled me a little bit, and it chilled a lot of objective observers.

This notion that if we don't like the facts that are being presented, that we just fire the person that's presenting them and we put someone in who's perhaps suggestive.

not as loyal to the facts, but more loyal to the person that's appointing that individual.

I mean, what was your sense of that decision?

Do you feel comfortable with that?

Is that elevating things?

Or am I, again, just maybe overreading this and that's typical?

Well, first, I do think the two subjects that we're discussing, the Fed and BLS, you've got a guy, you got a D in economics answering both of them.

So

issues with economics are probably not my strongest wheelhouse.

But look, I will say that I asked a bunch of people a similar question, just sort of because

I'm familiar with BLS and I did some work with Commerce years ago.

But there have been problems from economists and actuaries on both sides who said the way the BLS calculates numbers is wrong, especially the revisions.

So

I know EJ not well.

I think the proof is going to be in the pudding how he does his job and what we hear about that.

But I do think the president has a right to have people serve him.

I mean, he is the elected, you know, highest elected person in our country.

He has a right to have people serve him to

do the work and advance his agenda.

Now, the proof will be in the pudding.

How EJ does this, there will be plenty of scrutiny on it in terms of the numbers, the revisions, the frequency.

So we'll see.

And so I look, I think it's healthy to be skeptical, but the proof will be in the pudding and see what he does.

For all of the whining, you know, that we've seen a lot of people share about concerns, some of the people that have come into government, they've turned out to be a pretty adept group of folks getting the agenda moving forward.

So I've been extremely proud of President Trump's cabinet and sub-cabinet.

And then obviously we'll see how EJ does as director of BLS, which is, I don't even know at the sub-cabinet level, but.

Yeah, so I'm curious, just and I know I'm sensitive to our time.

And

as we sort of battle this notion of Fed independence and talk about the issue of just basic data collection and presidential authority.

Some would suggest overreach and we can battle that back and forth.

But your overall assessment just on what he's doing for the economy, are you pleased that we had a cabinet meeting this week and the Commerce Secretary said, hey, we may be taking over.

defense companies or at least investing in defense companies.

Are you pleased that we now are getting involved in Silicon Valley and owning 10% of Intel?

Are you happy that they're doing tithings or set asides at AMD and NVIDIA 15%?

Are you pleased that the president's deciding who should be a CEO, shouldn't be?

Says the Intel CEO should be fired before they decided to take 10% of the company or deciding on what logos people should have or not have, cracker barrel.

I mean, is this

capitalist?

I don't know if that decision.

I mean, maybe I know the president weighed in on it, but I don't know that.

I just want to take credit.

I took credit for it as well as part of my

social media.

Of course I did.

Check that out.

I've been

you know anyway i'm in a

decision i said coming out with my own crypto soon but first of all you the way you make maps maybe you're pretty good at the logos too i don't know christopher columbus didn't make i know i was gonna i wasn't gonna go there

but honestly i you know i'm a free enterprise guy yeah i believe what churchill said a healthy horse pulling a sturdy wagon i don't like crony capitalism i don't like corruption i don't like backroom deals i don't like people making calls and then getting exemptions on tariffs i don't like people sending family members out getting deals before tariffs are even negotiated.

I get a little nervous about this.

I don't like the crypto stuff.

I don't like all the cronyism and corruption that I see is taking shape.

I don't like it, Democrats or Republicans.

But

is this normal?

Is that a Commerce Secretary saying we're going to own a portion of Lockheed?

Is that what we signed up for?

Is that what Mega is for?

You're a conservative

guy.

It's a little late for you to be coming out criticizing the Bidens, but I appreciate it.

I think it's good.

Well, if Biden ever tried to take over Intel, I don't recall that.

I don't know any kind of

logos.

No,

I don't remember.

Honestly,

I don't remember any of that.

But is this good for America?

I will say this is the one thing about the companies, the stake in the companies.

I get he is a businessman at heart, and I get what he's trying to do, right?

Because

America owns these shares.

I do, as a free enterprise guy,

what concerns me is the long term, right?

So, God forbid your party gets back back into power.

I wonder, you know, do you guys buy, do you take a 10% stake in Smith Wesson and say, hey, you can't sell guns anywhere, right?

I worry about that.

The precedent that it sets does concern me

because at some point,

you know,

there is a decent odds that a Democrat gets back in.

And what do they do with a stake in a private company?

And what do they say and say, well, Trump did it.

So that part does worry me.

I will say, one of the things that, you know, and Dan Turntine, I've gotten this on the morning meeting, is that where I think that there's potentially a balance on this is if the government's going to make an investment in a company.

So you're, you know, in the case of defense contractors, you're procuring something.

Is there something that the taxpayer should benefit from?

In the case of Pharma, where all of our financial resources are laying the ground for the research, and then a major pharmaceutical company profits off of it tremendously, when we, the taxpayer, our money has been used to sort of till the field.

I do think that there is a place for the government, for the taxpayer to reap a benefit.

As I said, I got a D in economics, so I'm probably not the best person to answer on this.

I like the way that President Trump approaches it, where he's saying, what can we get out of this as a country if we're doing some of the investing?

I don't know that I want us voting on, you know, having voting shares in a company.

Because Let's just say hypothetically you have a 10% stake in Intel and B company comes along.

Is the government going to award contracts to Intel versus another company because it says, hey, we benefit more if we give them the contract?

So, I do think that there's, you know, I appreciate the president's approach on this as a businessman, saying, Hey, if we're going to be investing, what do we, the taxpayer, get out of it?

What does the country get?

I think that the actual approach, and I get Secretary Lutnick's comment on defense contracting, but again, I do worry

because, as somebody who has seen what this sort of consolidation in the defense industrial complex has really hurt our ability to produce enough munitions.

And so what, you know,

we want to encourage more innovation.

If a company says, well, they're going to favor another company because the government owns stakes in it, that will make that difficult.

So I'm a little,

to me,

how this manifests itself is going to be very important because, again, I think the short term, I'm concerned about that.

And in the long term, I am worried about what another potential Democratic president would say.

What companies do they want to take a stake in?

And how would they then argue those profits or that company must act to stay in the goodwill of that administration?

Well, all this is pretty familiar.

I mean, President Xi has put on a masterclass in China.

on strategic industries and making sure that there was national ownership and oversight.

I mean, this is right out of his playbook.

And you're going to invest in incumbents and not ecosystem and startups.

We're going to invest in where the great American economies come, which is through research and development and IH and NSF.

That means you're basically socializing most of Silicon Valley

in these great American economies.

Again, I don't,

again, I don't know where the balance is.

Like, I think somebody should look at this and say, if the American people are going to fund all of the research, And then a pharma company comes and takes it, brings it to market and says, now we're going to make billions of dollars off of that.

I think the taxpayers should potentially have some role in reaping some benefits on it.

But look, when you talk about President Trump,

bringing back the manufacturing, all of these chips back to the America, making sure that we create an incentive for American manufacturing, it kills me post-COVID that we have a country that sent us a disease, a virus, and then we then turned back to them and said, hey, by the way, can we buy our PPE and our pharma from you to solve the problem that you started?

I think independence from China has got to be our number one, number two, and history problems.

And then, Sean, forgive me, you must have really been offended by the the H2O chip deal with NVIDIA and the 15% set aside to be able to get that green light.

That must have, on so many levels, offended the core.

Well, it goes back to this point that I was making.

What I worry about is the long-term consequences of,

in the case of that, you had an export license.

Again, the devil to me is really going to be in the detail and the precedent it sets.

Because I do worry about how a future president uses this.

And that's what concerns me more than anything else.

If we start taking stakes in companies, especially if we're not going to be able to...

Well,

there's a president right now who seems to be on a roll of socializing and nationalizing great American companies.

A lot of them happen to be in my home state.

Final thing, I'm curious, because you said it,

and I don't mean this to be argumentative, I really, and thank you, Sean, for doing this.

I've enjoyed the conversation.

I enjoy the spirit of it as well.

You talked, and I, you know, I'm...

I spent a lot of time, as you know, in Sacramento, Ronald Reagan's old house.

I walk into Ronald Reagan's old office, former governor of California.

People revere sort of the fiscal conservatism, the free enterprise, the free market, supply side, economics that

was Reagan.

But you said you're conservative and you're worried.

What the hell happened to debt and deficits?

Just think $4.1 trillion stacking.

I mean, our kids are going to be buried.

And for honestly, what?

So tell me, give me a program you want to cut and I'll advocate for it.

Well, wait, I mean, that's the job of the people that are in Congress.

No, no, no, no, no, legitimately the president of the United States.

Look, and I wish, and I wish I could.

And by the way, talking to the wrong person because governors, we have to balance budgets.

So we do this every single year.

Look,

I make no bones about it.

The debt and the deficit to me is one of the, it is probably up there with China because it's actually tethered to it.

They own so much of it.

We're at $37 trillion in debt.

Our deficit is out of control.

I didn't agree with every way that Doge rolled out some of its stuff, but my God, the idea that we are not looking at our spending in a responsible way is insane.

And so then what was the, why did you guys support a bill that is the most insane spending bill

in American history?

I will tell you, as a guy, I spend a lot of time talking to folks.

The proof will be in the pudding, but I have been convinced through some of the models that I've been shown that this will actually reduce the deficit.

And you look at what President Trump's done on tariffs, $4 trillion, the CBO says that we're going to bring in for deficit reduction and debt reduction on the tariffs alone.

That's a significant chunk of money.

$4 trillion.

Not a bad start.

All right.

We don't have time to get in the tariffs.

We could do Kennedy Center.

We could talk.

Oh, I love the Kennedy Center.

Can we please?

Oh, my God.

But we need

to have a barrel in there.

Oh, I love Rick.

If you need tickets, Governor, I know Rick Rinnell lives in California.

Oh, Rick is, Rick loves me.

I think, yeah, I'm one of his favorite.

I forgot.

forgot he runs that runs recovery in california venezuela isn't he solving for kim jon un up there too rick i don't know well look it's it's full and play

so well i don't know what we solve but hopefully we solved uh uh

for at least this that uh we all should be solving uh for the the fact that divorce is not an option we've got to define the terms of our future together and and so i'm really grateful we have this chance to be together today sean and i appreciate what you're doing with Mark and Dan.

I'm an avid listener sincerely.

And I hope people, there's a reason you guys have blown up in the charts.

And I think those morning meetings are, I didn't know the origin story.

I really appreciate it.

No, you know, the funny thing is, you're the first person that's ever asked.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So if anyone, they're both on my YouTube page.

Go sign up, take a listen.

But I appreciate it.

We're dark this week.

We're back Tuesday after Labor Day, live at 9 a.m.

Eastern, 6 a.m.

your time, and then everywhere in between.

But it's live.

And the cool part, I forgot, that's the one cool thing.

We take questions for the last 30 minutes from anyone around the world, and literally we've taken them from everywhere around the world.

I love it.

And

it's the one Sean Spicer show that we should all tune in on.

I appreciate it.

Those evening ones, you know, that's a different thing.

God bless you.

Thanks, Governor.

Hey, I appreciate you.

Thanks for taking the time.

I don't know.

Thanks for having me.

It's been fun.

This is an iHeart Podcast.