And, This Is How To Solve The Climate Crisis With President Clinton

This is Gavin Newsom.

Please welcome to the stage Governor Gavin Newsom and President Bill Clinton.

Morning, everybody. Morning.
Morning.

All right.

20 years.

I saw that video. I was here, I think, for 19 of,

I mean, I've got more clinisms.

I'm going to enjoy this. This is going to be some fun.

The how business. I like that.

I met Gavin Newsom when he was mayor of San Francisco.

And

he looked like he was 12 years old.

And I said, God, I hate this guy. He's so tall.

Taller than I am, younger than I am, better looking than I am.

Here we go.

But what really matters is

he's a really good person

and an extraordinarily gifted public servant.

And he represents

along with his family. Jennifer, where are you? Stand up.
There, ma'am, better.

All right, wife. Thank you.

This is an iHeart podcast.

Guaranteed human.

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So I'm going to start with something

that is easy, but I think it's important because

it's amazing that a lot of people

don't know anything about California.

Except

a lot of the stuff that's said.

Yeah.

And I love it. I went to, California had more problems than you can imagine when I was elected president.
I went there 29 times in my first term.

But

they were good to me.

And what I found was

it was hundreds and hundreds of small towns.

in the cities and certainly beyond.

I've been to the town in America that has the largest percentage of Japanese Americans.

I went to a town

campaigning for Hillary where the mayor,

this little town of Northern California, the mayor was the son of a local judge in Fayetteville, Arkansas when Hillary and I got married and went there to

teach in the law school.

And the old judge was a crusty old guy who let Hillary bring students into the legal aid program for the first time. And I'm standing in Northern California with the mayor.

There's somebody there from everywhere. It's a fascinating place.

So tell us,

and I think it's now the fourth biggest economy in the world. That's right.
Eat your heart out. UK, Germany.

So

tell us what you think

we should know about what's going right in California.

I appreciate the context. Look,

you know, California is

America, but only more so.

We're the most, in the spirit of your introductory remarks,

and just to set the scene, it's a size of 21 state populations combined. It's the most diverse state in the world's most diverse democracy.
27%

of my state is foreign-born.

We practice pluralism. It's a point of pride.
I say that because it needs to be said, and you reinforce it here today.

It's in that diversity that we have achieved so much strength. We dominate in every critical industry.
Yes, we're the fourth largest economy in the world, $4.1 trillion a year, but we dominate.

with more engineers, more scientists, more Nobel laureates, more venture capital, the finest system of higher education, public higher education in the world, in business startups, number one in two-way trade, number one in direct foreign investment in every category.

The dominant manufacturing state, the dominant farming state, the dominant state as it relates to hunting jobs, you didn't know that.

Jobs related in every category. We have no peers.
We talk about the future, you're talking about what's next.

California is in the future business. But we're also in the spirit of the video in the how business.

And so it's not about what and why.

And this notion of the future is what animates California. And the future, as you said, final words you said, word manifest.
Future is not something to experience, it's something to manifest.

It's decisions, not conditions, that determine our fate and future.

And I think that mindset is the thing that defines the game played in California versus the game played many other parts of the country.

How have you used that to deal with the fires and the aftermath of it? It depends which fire you're referring to.

You know,

if you've come in 29 times, I'm just glad Trump has only come one time.

It's a hell of a time for us. Look, as it relates to fires, you know, we talk about the future happens in California first, where America's coming attraction.

Well, that definitely relates to what's going on around us as it relates to the hots getting hotter, the dry's getting drier, the wet's getting wetter.

This notion that you know we're dealing with extreme heat, extreme weather, and as a consequence the challenges that were presented as it relates to large-scale wildfires.

And California had one of its most devastating wildfires earlier this year in the middle of winter.

And I just want to remind people, in the middle of winter in Los Angeles, in the most resourced region in the United States of America, more firefighters per capita in LA County than any other part of the globe.

In a state that has the largest civilian fleet of aircraft for fire suppression anywhere in the world, in a state where I've doubled the budget in terms of the state fire investments and 10x the investments in forest management and vegetation management, and yet still we lost 16,000 structures, homes and buildings, because we had a fire that was attached to 100 mile-an-hour winds in the middle of winter in Southern California.

And so I take that issue very seriously. Places, lifestyles, traditions being wiped off the map.

If you don't believe in science, you got to believe your own eyes. And this notion, you talk about small towns in California, Grizzly Flats, Greenville, Paradise, California.

Been around 150 years, disappearing. And so I'm here with you, also here, the UN, Climate Week, reasserting California's leadership in this space.

In the absence of national leadership, California once again is reasserting itself on low-carbon green growth, reasserting itself in the work we're doing to address the challenges of climate change.

And fire is a huge part of it.

And if I may just extend, forgive the extended point, we also dominate in innovation in this space. And it didn't feel that way in the aftermath of those fires.
You're like, what the hell?

How did you not prevent these? We had 104 engines that we had pre-positioned down there from the state two days in advance. I told you about the resources, next level.

The world, literally, we have people from around the globe that come to California to learn about the latest technology, the latest innovation.

1,200 AI cameras.

We were the first to demonstrate the benefits of those, a fire assistant, partnerships with Lockheed, the Pentagon, next-level weather strategies and fusion centers and technology that we've integrated.

All of those things, drone technology, all of that.

And yet still we face the realities of these wildfires. And it's not just in California, it's all over the Western United States, for that matter, across the globe.

And I think the issue that is so under-resourced in terms of mind share is the insurance issue.

And I think this issue,

I really believe this, from a global perspective, may be one of the most pressing global issues as it relates to the issues of climate change.

The inability to purchase a home, let alone to get a mortgage on a home, to develop a home with an insurance market that simply is no longer viable.

because people are unwilling to take the risk and make the kind of capital outlays and investments to address that issue. I think this issue requires leadership at the national level.

It is under-resourced, under-focused. It's a challenge for me.
It's a challenge for Ron DeSantis in Florida, for governors in most states.

But it's not, I think, top of mind, and we need to be more focused on it.

Wolf, what do you think should be done about it?

I mean,

I'm not trying to get you into a different

right now, but I don't want people didn't come here to talk about insurance. But I,

you know, we just put out our sustainable insurance strategy. We just had four of our admitted market come back in.

And the last, in fact, two days ago, we had our fourth come back in. We had a lot of folks who were leaving the market.
Simply said, we can't insure folks here.

It's too expensive, and the losses are too significant. We had to address the reinsurance market.

We had to address address the capital needs of these companies, and we also had to address the fact that California, and you wouldn't know this, is among the most affordable insurance markets in the country because the voters initiated a framework on regulation

that denied significant rate increases. As a consequence of that, people started exiting the market.
And the reforms we've just put into place allow for more rapid rate increases.

And that's the pressure point now as we move from about average to below average in our rates. We're now starting to see those tick up.

But the benefit of that now, part of the strategy, is a requirement to come into California market and also to ensure in what we refer to as the WUI, which is the wildland urban interface, and to cover 85% of the WUI in return for those rate increases.

That is not something that on the macro is the solution from the U.S. prism or the global perspective, but at the state level is advancing our reforms.

But this insurance issue is

facing every state in one form or another in the globe. I mean, it's just, it's not sustainable.
And again, it should unite everybody. I mean, there's no Republican, no Democratic thermometer.

I heard, you know, and forgive me, I didn't come up here to take cheap shots, but it's

pretty remarkable what was said by the current president yesterday at the UN about climate.

What the hell is that?

Seriously.

It just, it can't be normalized. It can't be normalized.
This notion that it's a hoax.

I mean, the vandalism, what this guy has done, look, I live in a state, and Mr. President, you'll appreciate this.
You know, former presidents, you know well.

For me, one of them was a governor. Ronald Reagan established the modern environmental movement in 1967, year of my birth with the California Air Resources Board.

And he did so because of the smog in Los Angeles. It was a business-driven decision.
The business community said we simply can't do business in LA, Mr. Governor.

And he established the Air Resources Board. Three years later, it was Richard Nixon.

that codified that under the Clean Air Act and gave California a waiver that allowed us to pursue aggressive environmental policy.

And that's why California has dominated the national debate in this space.

What this president has done in eight months is jaw-dropping.

What he has done to the EPA, what he's done to California's leadership, he's neutralized, he's eliminated under that Clean Air Act our authority to regulate tailpipe emissions.

What he continues to do in terms of trying to stop California's global leadership as it relates to our partnerships around not only the country at a sub-national level, but around the globe in relationship to our cap and trade program, in relationship to our other partnerships that we've established as it relates to carbon capture and direct air capture and the technology in the space, cannot be understated.

And so we are, you know, we're the last, we're on a game in town right now as it relates to large-scale environmental leadership. And I'll just close on this.

We have six times more green-collar jobs, green tech jobs, than we do fossil fuel jobs. We're on the other side of the debate.
And I think this is a point that should be emphasized.

You talk about California more than I emphasize it. 67% of our electricity grid is completely green and clean.
And we have run, as of, which is not bad.

But get this, nine out of ten days in 2025, we've run the fourth largest economy in the world at 100% clean green energy 100%

as of last Friday 217 out of 243 days 100% clean energy

We're proving the paradigm that you know the genius of and versus the tyranny of ore and I think you know there's there's power and emulation success Leslie Clues and And I think California has been an interesting and a successful model in this space and And we're just trying to navigate this new space as it relates to the macro headwinds coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tell our audience here a little more about

what the components of your clean energy are.

Well, I think the thing that we've dominated in is

the electricity architecture, and we've dominated in clean cars. I signed the first executive order in the United States to require alternative fuel vehicles by 2035.

That was just taken away by Congress, the supine Congress and the president.

But we created the market. There is no Elon Musk, there's no Tesla without California's regulatory framework.
Period, full stop. It wouldn't exist.

It was because of the regulations,

because of those signals

and the subsidies, over $3.2 billion,

direct subsidies,

that Tesla received, just in my state alone, that built this market. Over a quarter of all new car purchases in California are alternative fuel vehicles.

What Trump has just done, and with respect to some of the automobile manufacturers, is they've ceded this to China. They've ceded our competitiveness to China.

And it's not just the electric vehicles, it's the tech stack that's part of these electric vehicles. It's the mobility space more broadly defined.

It is an act of vandalism on an economic basis, not just an environmental basis, that is deeply alarming. And I hope people wake up to how China is just flooding the zone globally in this space.

And we have doubled down on stupid.

We're trying to recreate the 19th century. We really have.
You talk about what's next. It's not going to be American automobile manufacturers.

Bill Ford

may run contra to that. He seems to get it deeply.
I give him tremendous credit.

Remarkable, iconic brand.

But I cannot impress upon you more how proud I am. 60 headquarter manufacturer of EV companies in the state of California.
Supply chain was one of our biggest exports five years ago.

And it's all about innovation. It's all about that entrepreneurial spirit.
And you see, if any of you have been to San Francisco, half the damn cars are driving themselves.

It's here. It's happening.
All the bi-directional opportunities, the two-way charging, the fact that these cars are little power plants on wheels, all this extraordinary opportunity.

And it's seen it's slipping away because of bad policymaking and short-termism. So we're going to continue to push back against that.

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All rights reserved. Ready for seven days of discovery?

For the first time, South by Southwest brings innovation, film and TV, and music together, running concurrently across Austin March 12th through 18th.

Experience bold storytelling, groundbreaking ideas, and live performances that define what's next. The most unexpected discoveries happen when creative worlds collide at South by Southwest.

Start planning your adventure and register today at sxsw.com slash iHeart.

It's the most wonderful time of the year and Valpak is here to make it even better. This month as you sip through holiday mail, don't miss the blue Valpak envelope.

From dining to holiday shopping, there's a slate full of savings in your mailbox, plus a chance to instantly win $100. That's right, you can find $100 Christmas cash inside.

Want to save even more money on what you love? Go to Valpak.com for local coupons and offers. It pays to open Valpak.
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To say a little bit about

as a practical matter, where you are right now with AI,

and is there...

Has there been any obvious downside? And if so,

what is it and how should we manage it? Well,

and I sound like I'm bloviating and packed and I can get into all the real problems in my state, affordability being number one, two, three.

But we dominate in artificial intelligence. We have no peers.
32 of the top 50 market cap companies on the globe, in the globe, are in California.

And for obvious reasons.

Back to this conveyor belt for talent, the UCs and the CSUs and Caltech and Stanford University, research and development, the Lawrence Livermore Labs and Sendia Labs, and all the investments we're we're making in science.

And so it's happening there because the human capital is there. It's why Elon talks a big game about Texas, but all his folks are in the Bay Area.
They're all in California.

All those AI folks are there.

His global headquarters for R ⁇ D is in California, which, by the way, is 18% of the globe's R ⁇ D. China, Germany, and California.
18% of the global R ⁇ D in the state of California.

So it's unsurprising we're driving that innovation. But it's all about truth, it's all about trust, promise, peril.

And as a consequence of having so much leadership residing in such a concentrated place, California, we have a sense of responsibility and accountability to lead.

So we support risk-taking, but not recklessness. From a regulatory frame, we're pretty much the only game in town as well.

You're seeing what they're trying to do federally to preempt states from regulating.

Ted Cruz a few days ago doubling down on that, that California needs to be neutered, he says in this space, even though we're dominating in this space.

And so we have worked with Fei Fei Lee, the godmother of AI, we're working with Stanford, MIT, we've worked with Berkeley, and we put out a comprehensive white paper.

that really analyzed where we were from a regulatory frame.

We've signed dozens, I've signed dozens of bills in this space, did the first executive order in the country in this space, but in relationship to the the unwinding of President Biden's leadership in this space and the new focus on just let it rip coming out of the White House that David Sachs and others are promoting.

And we have a bill, forgive me, that's on my desk that we think strikes the right balance. And we worked with industry, but we didn't submit to industry.

We're not doing things to them, but we're not doing things necessarily for them.

And we're trying to answer that question from a policy perspective and find that right balance where we can continue to dominate in this space, continue to support the ecosystem, at the same time, address that peril and the concerns that legitimate people have.

I want to change the subject a minute.

Back to insurance, yes. No,

everywhere in the country,

we read that

young men are alienated, that

they're not going to college as much as they did. They are not necessarily

prepared for other jobs they can have. And you've actually tried to address

this in a fairly comprehensive way.

And I'd be surprised if almost anybody in the audience who's not from California knows anything about it. So tell us a little about what you've tried to do to help young men.

I'm going back to your opening remarks.

Look,

I was here 20 years ago because you tapped me on the shoulder, part of America's promise.

You tapped me on the shoulder in a bipartisan way with General Powell.

And I'll never forget General Powell coming here and said, no one stands taller than when he or she bends down on one knee to lift someone else up. I love that.

I wrote that down, and I repeat it all the time. California now has

a service corps that's larger than the Peace Corps. It's the largest service corps in America.
College Corps, climate corps, in every category, building on your work, building on AmeriCorps.

So we just announced to your question,

in order to address the crisis of men and boys, the crisis of men and boys.

And I say that because it's hard for members of my own party say that

because some feel it's a zero-sum game that we have to address the issues of women and girls and solve for them before we can get to the crisis of men and boys.

And when I say crisis, look at the suicide rates, look at the dropout rates, look at the deaths of despair, look at the issues around loneliness, look at every critical category.

It's just blinking red lights for young men.

And in order to address this, we've been working with Richard Reeves, we've been working at the Institute of of Boys and Men, we've been working with a lot of other folks to develop a framework, a plan to implement that builds on the constructs that you have framed around service, around mentorship, around tutoring, the work my wife has done, who's done a number of documentaries in this space, including one called Mask You Live In, about the crisis of masculinity.

and begin to substantively address these underlying issues and target interventions.

Service is at the core, but it's a component part of a larger strategy that we've just advanced at scale in California. And I'll just end on this.
I know our time's up.

Just as an example, one of the areas that I never fully appreciated was the lack of men educating our kids.

I didn't fully appreciate how few men are in those kindergarten classes, in those second, third grade classes, in middle schools.

And so it begins with just simple interventions, but we also have to acknowledge it. Final word:

I love open hand, not a closed fist.

You know, I got a lot of closed fists when I did a podcast I started a few months ago. My first guest was Charlie Kirk, who flew out and visited with me.

And second was Steve Bannon.

And

the reason I had them on was this issue

Because they have weaponized this grievance. And electorally,

they achieved remarkable results.

Charlie Kirk's ability, what he was able to achieve in terms of organizing the campuses, engaging these young men, addressing their grievances, giving them some sense of hope, that someone cared, that they mattered, that they were seen.

He was able to produce and organize around that in a deeply meaningful way. And the Democratic Party was nowhere to be found on the issue.
And Bannon as well.

And so I say that to say this: we need to address the issue because it's the right thing to do, but it's also the smart thing to do.

We have to wrap up, but

if you were to say to this crowd,

you have lots of concerns, you know a lot about everything, which is why I like talking to you.

But

a group like this, if we could emphasize one thing

that we could do in America in the midst of all this political BS that we're dealing with every day,

what would you ask us to do? What do you think the most important thing in terms of citizen action is that we could be doing?

I remember Justice Brandeis had a wonderful quote. He wrote a lot about citizenship.

He said, in a democracy, the most important office, Brandeis said, is not the office of presidency, with respect, certainly not governor or mayor, but it's the office of citizen.

This notion of active, not inert citizenship.

And I think at the core of that that is this idea that we have agency that we can shape the future that we're not bystanders in the world and I think back to the spirit of your opening remarks

is this notion

that

we have the capacity to shape our future and we also have to recognize that we have to reconcile each other's futures in relationship And forgive me, I'm closing with my deep CGI,

absorbing what you've been been about for all these years.

This idea that divorce is not an option, as you say all the time. We have to define the terms of our future.
And I think that spirit of grace and humility is also part of that as well.

And so I just, I thank you. And final words,

you know, two decades of preaching this gospel, but also practicing it.

And I just think at this precious moment in our life, we need to be reminded that we all want to be loved, we all need to be loved. We all share, as you said, this same short moment in life.

We all want to be protected. We all want to be respected.
We all want to be connected to something larger than ourselves. And

I think in that space,

we find the answer to your question.

A long time ago,

when I met the mayor of San Francisco,

I came home and told Hillary, I said, You know,

I wanted to just like this guy.

I mean, he's good-looking and he's tall, and

he's younger than I am,

But there's something special about him.

I still believe that.

And I thank you for your service and I thank you for being here. It's given me.
Thank you.

Did you know Microsoft has officially ended support for Windows 10? Upgrade to Windows 11 with an LG Gram laptop. Voted PC Mag's Reader's Choice Top Laptop Brand for 2025.

Thin and ultra-lightweight, the LG Gram keeps you productive anywhere. And Windows 11 gives you access to free security updates and ongoing feature upgrades.

Visit lgusa.com slash iHeart for great seasonal savings on LG Gram laptops with Windows 11. PC Mag Reader's Choice used with permission.
All rights reserved. Ready for seven days of discovery?

For the first time, South by Southwest brings innovation, film and TV, and music together, running concurrently across Austin March 12th through 18th.

Experience bold storytelling, groundbreaking ideas, and live performances that define what's next. The most unexpected discoveries happen when creative worlds collide at South by Southwest.

Start planning your adventure and register today at sxsw.com slash iHeart.

It's the most wonderful time of the year and Valpak is here to make it even better. This month as you sip through holiday mail, don't miss the blue Valpak envelope.

From dining to holiday shopping, there's a slate full of savings in your mailbox, plus a chance to instantly win $100. That's right, you can find $100 Christmas cash inside.

Want to save even more money on what you love? Go to Valpak.com for local coupons and offers. It pays to open Valpak.
No purchase necessary for instant win, VoIP were prohibited.

Prices are randomly inserted. See specially marked Valpak envelopes for details.
This holiday season, give the gift to everyone will gather around. A Visio Smart TV, now available at Walmart.

From a supersized 100-inch TV to Q-LED TVs of all sizes, Visio delivers breathtaking color and crystal clear picture quality that takes entertainment to the next level.

Plus, with Watch Free Plus built-in, they can enjoy free live and on-demand TV right out of the box. Have a music lover on your list?

They can stream their favorite music on the iHeartRadio app, ready to go on every Visio TV. The perfect gift is waiting.
Head to Walmart.com and discover Visio TVs today.

10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points.

You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an iFit contract for $250,000.
This is when mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated.
Pressure is coming down.

Trainer Games on Prime Video, January 8th. Watch the trailer on TrainerGames.com.
This is an iHeart podcast.

Guaranteed human.