And, This Is Governor Newsom Live At The DealBook Summit With Andrew Ross Sorkin

Please welcome Andrew Ross Orkin and his guest, Governor of California, Gavin Newsom.

Gavin Newsom is here, everybody. Governor of California,

Governor,

Mr. Beast.
That's following Mr. Beast.
Yeah, I am so glad you're here.

And I just want to say the reason that I wanted you to come here more than anything else right now is I think we're in a moment where the country is trying to figure out the politics of the country, but in particular,

the Democratic Party and the future of the Democratic Party and where it all goes next.

And this governor has become perhaps one of the most vocal critics, frankly, of this president, often mirroring his own language on social media. We'll talk about it.

In his home state of California, artificial intelligence, of course, booming, but you're also dealing with a crowd in Silicon Valley who's moved, I think, in other directions.

And I wanted to discuss all of that and in Prop 50 and everything else. So welcome to Deal Book.
Thank you for being being here. Good to be with you.
Good to be with everybody.

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Let's start there. Let's just start at the beginning here of the Democratic Party.
You recently declared that the Democratic Party of old is no more.

And I wanted to know what you meant by that. I think this was in the wake of Proposition 50's win in California

and, of course, the wins in Virginia and New Jersey. But why do you think the Democratic Party of old is not the same and what it looks like?

Well, I said it in contextual terms that we're finally back on our toes, not our back heels. We're finally on the offense.
We're finally beginning to shape-shift, and we're finally beginning to fight.

We've woken up and as a consequence, we're winning again.

A year ago, we were all there hand-wringing because we were a party that appeared weak, out of touch, a party that was not fighting back, was not asserting itself.

And so from my perspective, I thought November and what it represented in New Jersey and Virginia, what it represented in many respects here, but also in Pennsylvania and Georgia and elsewhere, and certainly with Proposition 50, was demonstrable proof, including last night, that our party is now back on its toes.

And it's a party now that has got more enthusiasm and it's a party that I think is more unified. Okay, but you say unified.
What does that party look like?

So there is a wealth tax proposal in California that I think you are adamantly against. Yes, I am.
And we have a mayor that's coming here in New York who would like to have a wealth tax if he could.

You couldn't be more diametrically opposed. Yeah, well, I want to be a Big Ten party.
It's about addition, not subtraction. But this idea of a unifying theory of the case.

I mean, I think we all want to be protected. We all want to be respected.
We all want to be connected to something bigger than ourselves.

We have fundamental values that I think define our party about social justice, economic justice. I think we recognize it's important to focus on growth, but also focus on inclusion.

We have pre-distribution Democrats, we have redistribution Democrats, and therein lies the dialectic, and therein lies the debate within the Democratic Party.

We also have Democrats that are representative of their districts, representative of the people that they represent. So much punditry has been done about, well, is the future of the party in Mendami

at the same election that occurred, well is the future, hold on, of Virginia, is the future New Jersey, is the future.

So but which is it?

And that's the question about the unifying theory question, which is you could have a big tent, but if the theories of the case are so diametrically opposed, how split and broken is the party? Look,

the party's knitting itself back together. We got shellacked in the last election.

And there's been a lot of forensic analysis, perhaps not enough, about what happened. Donald Trump crushed us in the last election.
And what do you think happened?

I'm up to page 28 in my analysis of what happened.

But at the end of the day,

I think we have to be comfortable. Give us a couple of the pages.
Now, look, I mean,

we could talk about why Kamala lost, which is separate. I mean, it's part derivative of the larger narrative, but issues around inflation scars.
We don't talk enough about interest rates.

We don't talk about incumbency. Issues related, you said, BBON, related to Israeli politics, immigration, the border in particular.

You could talk about all those things, not just 107 days, not just talk about Biden's determination or lack thereof in terms of passing the baton.

But I think there's a broader narrative that we ought to address. That is, we have to be more culturally normal.
We have to be a little less judgmental.

We have to be a party that understands the importance and power of the border substantively and politically.

We have a party that I think needs to design and develop a compelling economic vision for the future where people feel included to reconcile the fact that if we don't democratize our economy, we're not going to save democracy.

And I don't think it's healthy that we have 10% of people that own two-thirds the wealth in this country. I don't think it's sustainable practice.
The folks watching Mr.

Beast disproportionately, 30-year-olds, the first generation in history not doing better than their parents. There's some underlying issues here that have to be addressed.

We have an economy that is broken for too many people. And I say that as someone that doesn't begrudge other people success.

I do that as someone that believes not in redistributive policies, believes in progressive tax policy, but is mindful that businesses can't thrive in a world that's failing.

And I think that's foundationally and fundamentally what Trump understood. It's what people like AOC, Bernie, and Mandami understand from a narrative perspective.

But the policies that shape that, I think, will also shape the comeback for the Democratic Party.

Okay, but let me ask then about wealth taxes, because it's just an easy one to discuss in certain ways. You're not for a wealth tax in the state of California.

You can't isolate yourself from the 49 others. We're in a competitive environment.
People have this simple luxury, particularly people of that status.

They already have two or three homes outside the state. It's a simple issue.
You've got to be pragmatic about it.

Plus, there's some simple questions that haven't been answered very simply, is how the hell do you determine it? Is it your mark to market? Where's your asset base?

How do you make that determination in terms of just what the basic assessment is? We have one individual

that represents one labor union in the state of California that has not collected one signature, that is considering putting on the ballot after he collects signatures, a wealth tax that vast majority of labor opposes and almost everybody I know opposes.

So it's not something to be panicked about, but it's part of the broader concern and narrative that's developed in this country of the haves and have-nots, not just income inequality, but wealth inequality.

And look, it doesn't take much. You go back, read an old Plutarch

quote, two plus thousand years ago, Plutarch was warning the Athenians that the imbalance between the rich and the poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

It's so foundational, and it's off-kilter now, and it has to be addressed. And that's why I talk about growth and inclusion.
And I think that's a- But

how do you address it if it's not for taxes? Well,

I'm around. Well, we can get into many issues related to affordability and reducing costs, not just subsidizing costs.
I'll give you a proof point of that.

This is not an answer, but it is a proof point.

We just came out with $11 insulin. We're not subsidizing the cost of insulin.
We're manufacturing it. Reducing costs, not subsidizing costs.
We just came out with a new strategy to provide $60 billion

of utility rebates in the state of California through our cap and invest program, regionalizing our grid with other Western states to lower costs, deal with curtailment issues, create more stability on our grid to also address that issue.

As it relates to the broader issues for our party, I also believe fundamentally that our interventions come too late.

One of the things that has come too late, but I'm glad its moment is here, interestingly, because I'm rare am I out there promoting what Ted Cruz is promoting,

but Corey Booker and Ted Cruz absolutely right in the big, beautiful bill, these baby bonds. That's good policy.

By the way, I did it four years ago: $1.9 billion for 3.4 million students going into kindergarten, getting child savings accounts up to $1,500.

That's about creating opportunities. Talking about what's called, some people are calling the Trump accounts.
And well, Trump is literally just vandalizing it by putting his name on it.

And we can get into broader issues there. But it's a good idea.
And all these conversations are very familiar. People are now talking about UBI, MinCum, and all that.

Now it's moved to universal basic capital and equity and sovereign welfare. This is the conversation we need to start having because again, we have got to democratize our economy.

Democracy cannot withstand this kind of disparity for long. Let me ask you this.
You're talking in a very national way, so I'm just going to go straight at it. Politico says this about you.

The headline, admitted, Gavin Newsom is the 2028 frontrunner.

For years, Democrats and pundits have rolled their eyes at Gavin Newsom, they say, but he's positioned better than anyone else for the future of politics now. What do you think of that?

I assume you'd like that. Trying to sell links to Politico is what it sounds like.
Look, I'm humbled by that because it's rather remarkable.

You were counted out. Yeah, well, fine.
Most of my life I have been. I'm a 960 SAT guy.

You know.

So used to it.

But you know what?

I'm trying to meet this moment, and I'm trying to be accountable to this moment. I'm not thinking, I know that there's a lot of speculation about the future.

And I said to someone who asked me directly, he said, have you ever thought about it? I said, I'd be lying. I hate those politicians.
Say I haven't thought about the future in that respect.

Okay, so how much are you thinking about it then?

Not to the degree that you think,

and perhaps others that are more cynical.

I really, I'm serious about this.

For me, it was all about 2025.

It was about fighting fire with fire. It was about being accountable, not just rhetorically, but substantively, to address what Donald Trump is trying to do to this country.

He's trying to wreck this country. He tried to do that on January 6th.
Tried to light democracy on fire. He dialed for votes down there.

He said, find me 11,000, 12,000 votes with the Secretary of State in Georgia. He did the same thing when he said he's quote unquote entitled to five seats when he called Greg Abbott.

He's trying to rig the midterm elections in 2026 before one vote is cast.

And what he expected is California would sit back, maybe work to write an op-ed, hoping that the New York Times would run it to say what a terrible thing this is.

They did not, and he did not expect us to go out and raise $118 million over a 90-day period and put our Independent Redistricting Commission on a new status for three-year temporary and transparent new maps in order to counter what happened in Texas.

That is critical. What's also critical is 2026.
You will not have, and I don't, you know, I imagine half of you may just roll your eyes. I believe this in my core of my heart.

You will not have a free and fair election as we know them today in the United States of America if Speaker Jeffries is not sworn in a year plus from now. I really believe that.

Sure, there will be elections. Competitive authoritarians love elections.

Putin, I think, got 87.3%.

The runner-up was 4.3%.

That's what I mean by competitive authoritarianism. Ask folks in Hungary and Orban what's going on in Turkey.
That's the model for Trump. I don't think that.

I know that on the basis of a lot of evidence in fact.

I saw, in fact, examples of that the day of our election, just a few weeks ago, where Donald Trump set out Bortak teams, Border Patrol tactical units to Dodger Stadium to chill free expression, to chill election turnout.

He said the day of the election, before one vote was cast, he said this was a rigged election, sent out his DOJ with no basis, no business to be in there for a state ballot.

He sent Greg Bovino and his secret police that seemed to have taken an oath in office to him, not the Constitution of the United States, to our campaign kickoff at the Democracy Center to chill participation in our rally.

And he federalized 4,000 National Guard and sent 700 active duty Marines not overseas but to the second largest city in America and they're still

our federalized guard still

there

wake up to what is going on in this country it is code red and I'm sure a lot of you are fine with it because a lot of people have figured it out they know the game state capitalism crony capitalism the great grift.

A lot of you are doing extraordinarily well.

But one of the things I'm trying to do better is express my concern, highlight that with more conviction and clarity, and also reinforce that we're about to walk into the 250th anniversary of the best of Greek democracy in the Roman Republic, this historic values of our founding fathers in 2026.

And it's all on the line. And so I'm standing on that line and we're trying to push back.
Let me ask you this. And I think we're making progress.

I'd

asked readers of Deal Book if they had questions for you and here's a good one that came in that actually matches the conversation I think you were just having and this relates to Prop 50.

This question came in and said, how is California's gerrymandering exercise with the full support of the governor anything but a slippery slope? Aren't there other solutions?

Are there?

We can hold hands, have a a candlelight visual.

I mean, that's the damn Democratic Party. That goes to your point of view.
But I assume you're against gerrymandering.

Not only am I against it, I was one of its champions for independent redistricting, and that's why I required in this ballot initiative that we affirm our desire to have national independent redistricting.

And by the way, the voters overwhelmingly supported that. But a temporary response to an emergency of Donald Trump's making was appropriate.
We maintained the Independent Redistricting Commission.

We still maintain the independent districts for everything but three

elections for Congress. And then it reverts back to its original form.
Final point. These were the first maps in U.S.
history to go on the ballot. Talk about transparency.
Talk about democracy.

Compare that to the maps were drafted and are currently being drafted in Mar-a-Lago.

up there in Indiana and Missouri and North Carolina and will be done quite literally in Mar-a-Lago when DeSantis gets his arms around them. That's the contrast.

And again, we had to fight fire with fire. It's not one hand tied behind our back.
We're trying to win an argument. These guys are consolidating.
Let me ask you about fire with

fire with fire. You have taken to trolling Trump and really using his words.
I want to just read you. This is a post on November 28th from you.
From me.

Happy holidays to everyone except the seriously demented piggy who turned the Oval Office into a revolving door for grifters and crooks.

You go on to say this clown slapped tariffs, attacks on the working man.

You go on to say that his dimwit avengers, including cash money Patel, dumb-dumb Pete, co-splay Christie, and you go on and on and on.

And my question to you is about this rhetoric because you have been very critical of the way the president has spoken, the rhetoric of this president.

And here you are

using the exact same rhetoric. I need to wake everybody up.

There's this normalization of deviancy. And it was becoming socialized, normalized.
You got Pravda, the propaganda networks out there, the primetime lineup at Fox just going on and on and on.

Call someone the R-word or piggy, and somehow it's just Trump being Trump. There's nothing normal about this.
He's a man-child. It's unbecoming of the President of the United States.

He's dressed up as the Pope. He's acting like he's Superman.
This is not normal. He's putting his face on Mount Rushmore.
He sends these alt tweet caps. These are verbatim, what he's doing.

I tried to put a mirror up

to what the hell is going on in this country. This is not normal behavior.
And you know what?

I appreciate that.

And it's working in this respect. You know what was most offended? I think there were 11 to 15 Fox News pieces on this.
Disgusted they were. Newsom's wife, who's here, thank you, Jen,

she should wash his mouth out with soap saying about me for these tweets without any situational awareness. They haven't said a damn word about the President of the United States.

So, look, I think you had Mr. Beast on.
I love that he was just on. He's all about communication, he's all about attention.
Trump is an exceptionally gifted communicator, terrible order,

exceptionally gifted communicator. And repetition matters.
And what I'm trying to parrot is an iterative style. Put that mirror up, but also test some theories.

And I,

forgive me, I think it's working a little bit. And not all of these,

there's a kill switch for me. Not everyone I want.
Well, I was going to say, what is the kill switch? Not all of them. I've sometimes, yeah, I don't know.

You're selling, you said coming soon, you're selling new knee pads for all CEOs, universities, and GOP bending the knee to Donald Trump. And you're actually selling these knee pads.
Well, we've

raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. By the way

they're available today.

By the way some of you may need to buy them in bulk

but we have the the new Trump signature series knee pads on my Patriot site which is an actual real site. I encourage you if you're bored to Google it right now and

And they were sold out just like our universities were selling out, just like our law firms were selling out, just like a lot of CEOs were selling out, selling out this country, our future, our republic, selling out my kids, your grandkids.

So there's method to it. And I mean, it breaks my heart to see these law firms sell out like this.
Breaks my heart to see, I mean, President Xi is out there going, my gosh,

Trump's

flattery. I mean,

10% of Intel? 15% at AMD, 15% at NVIDIA, MP Materials, golden shares at U.S. Steel.

What the hell happened to free enterprise, a healthy horse pulling a sturdy wagon? What's going on with this country? What's going on with the country?

The President of the United States shows up, but the one group that shows up before him are members of his family to make sure they get the golf course approved, to use the tariffs as leverage to get personal deals done.

Towers, three or four different countries. What is the one thing it has in common? All his trips overseas.

This meme coin, the crypto scam. World live that pardons on a daily basis, it seems.

This is not America. It's not the America I grew up in.
It's not the America I want my kids growing up in. So we got to call this out.
And I know it's painful for some because, you know,

to be called out. And I don't mean to be a fan.

I don't want to be this guy. But it disgusts me.
And so I thought the knee pads were appropriate.

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Let me ask you a related question.

President Trump on his website is selling hats that say 2028 on them.

Do you believe that he has any ambition to be the president beyond 2028? Well, ambition, yes.

But I think he recognizes time of life

is catching up with him, even though he can't remember exactly why he went in for an MRI.

And so I think his regime will be measured in years, not decades. God forbid, he was 10, 20 years younger.
That would, I don't believe, be the case. I take Steve Bannon quite literally.

I take him at his word on this. By the way, I had Steve on my podcast.
I was in the Oval Office, incidentally, just as an aside, with President Trump a few months ago.

I think I was one of the first Democrats to sit down with him, almost 90 minutes. And one of the things, I'm sitting there at the resolute, he turns and he says, hey, who's that? behind you?

I said, I thought it was someone who walked in. It was a beautiful oil painting of FDR.
And I literally looked and I went, oh, God, here here we go. I said, three terms.
He goes, no, what about four?

He's trolling everybody, but he's also bringing world leaders in to give them the 2028 hat. Heck, this is how serious he was about avoiding the government shutdown.

That he not only canceled the meetings with Jeffries and Schumer, felt pressure to get the meeting back on. And what did he do? He didn't invite the press in.

He just had a photo with the 2028 hat to troll them on the desk. So I take him more seriously than most.

But for me,

what I worry about, again, is his ability to manipulate the 2028 election, even though

2028, even though he's not on the ballot.

And that's why it's so important that we win the House of Representatives in 2026.

It is foundational. What do you think he's going to do?

What is he going to do?

Pay attention.

We've seen him. He's put America in reverse.
He wants this to bring us back to pre-1960s world.

We've seen it across the spectrum and that's not atypical and Republicans broadly have been in support of that agenda, but he's doing it with more ferocity and voting rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, women's rights and the like.

But when it comes to the issues of voter ID, when it comes to the issues of voter integrity, when it comes to the issues of masked men being in and around polling places, when it comes to the issue, as he's doing in January, quick response teams, did you pay attention to this?

He announced quick response teams in every state in the United States of America so that he can federalize the National Guard. Think about that as we come to the elections in 2026.

It's a series of things. It's not one thing he's doing, getting rid of vote by mail.

It's a series of things that concern me. And that stacking creates a lot of stress from my perspective.

Let me ask you a different question, which is for a very long time, people, specifically actually in Silicon Valley were very supportive of you and they were very supportive of Democrats and they were very supportive of California.

And there has been a big move afoot, as you know, out of the state,

either out of the state or at least their politics have shifted markedly. So you may have Sam Altman or Mark Zuckerberg in your state, but effectively

They are also at the state dinner with this president. What do you think has has happened here? Well, they all have moved back into the state.
I mean,

I live in a state with 32 of the top 50 market cap AI companies. I mean, in the Bay Area, almost dominantly, disproportionately.

We dominate in fuse and quantum, we dominate in robotics, we dominate in space, we dominate in all these future technologies, including RD and nuclear.

And of course, we have 18% of the world's RD in my state. Germany, about 21%, China, 22%.
We're 18% of the world's RD.

You saw Tesla move their world R D headquarters into Silicon Valley HP Enterprise's old headquarters.

This is after Elon had left originally. But all he left with was a bag of cash so he can avoid capital gains.

I mean, he continued to grow Tesla.

In fact, you can go and watch the press conference we had a few months later when he brought the R D headquarters back, where he made the case we've added 10,000 jobs from Tesla since we quote unquote moved the company.

So what is your relationship, by the way, what's your relationship with like with with these people now?

And how do you keep them in your state and yet they're on the other side of your own politics?

They are and they aren't.

It's very situational with a lot of these guys. A lot of the folks that well described move towards Trump, sort of the sax types, watch that space.

You say watch that, what do you mean New York Times did a masterpiece.

It was a master class analysis. Talk about just self-dealing.
Come on. I mean, crypto's, I mean, all-in podcasts, by the way, is, you know, great podcast, not a knock,

but his, you know, one of his co-hosts is in business with Trump Jr., who's in business with Laura Ingram on a new SPAC. They go so well.

None of this is normal. They announced...
the big AI deal at the all-in podcast. I mean,

this is a different level of griff than we've ever experienced in our lifetime.

Let me ask you one question

those guys were already on the spectrum libertarian spectrum already. A lot of these guys were already there.

Most of the other folks, I think it's a little bit more. I don't want to say the word transactional.

But as fiduciaries, I guess I'll be kind. Okay, let me ask you.
They are doing what they feel they need to do. So I don't see it as a big shift as perhaps others do.

And that's on the basis of very close relationships, as you suggest, going back decades. So let me ask a question.
Because you mentioned David Sachs.

The New York Times had a big piece about David Sachs. A lot of folks in the valley thought that David Sachs is doing a great thing by being in this role.
And this is one of these roles.

I'm just going to give you the position. I'm curious what your take is.

The argument is that if you're going to have experts in these fields, invariably there are going to be some kinds of conflicts. Do you think it's been done better before?

I ask because there are people who go back and look at people who were Democrats, by the way, a lot of people in Google Land and lots of other parts of Silicon Valley that were very close to the Obama administration years ago, and people had said that they were too close.

And I don't know if you think that that's a fair question or you think that they're even in the same league.

I'm not going to, look,

if you're suggesting that

I just want to be careful about this notion of sort of

equivalency, there's nothing equivalent about what's going on in the United States right now as it relates to crony capitalism and self-dealing. Period, full stop.

And I mean, we can get into the $230 million demand on the DOJ.

We can get into the $400 million Qatari jet that includes a billion dollars of your money, where we cut food stamps to pay for a billion dollars to retrofit that $400 million plan.

We can get to the cryptos and the Min coins. We can get to the resorts and the towers and the golf courses.

We can get into the children of all of these guys from, I mean, from Witcoff, 32-year-old AI czar, who had no experience and rather crypto czar in his own right, the $2 billion, the Binance part in all this.

This is a different level.

If you want to compare that to someone who resigns or takes a leave of absence from Google to work on open source for the Biden administration or the Obama administration, I think that's not the same thing.

What I'm arguing for, David's a very bright guy, I'm not naive about that, but what the New York Times highlighted was the conflicts at a scale.

He hasn't done a blind trust, he hasn't pulled away from all of these investments. And I just think there needs to be levels of ethics

that are demanded of these leaders. I want that expertise.
I'm with you on that.

That said, there's so much self-dealing, and that entire ecosystem has benefited from it.

California has benefited from it, but I do not think it's healthy for capitalism and I do not think it's healthy for free enterprise.

Let me ask you a question about your own prospects outside of California. California, like New York, is not always the most beloved state by the rest of the country.
No.

And they look at some of these states as aberrations or on the ends. They physically are on the ends of the country.
And I wonder when you look at your own prospects,

I think it's clear that your ability to communicate is one of your great attributes. But there's a lot of people who would look in California and they look at the debt in California.

They look at some of the issues that have taken place with

homeless, which you know about

Prop 47, housing costs and the like,

and companies and others leaving the state.

And they look and go, you know if we're gonna have a guy managing the country California is not the example we want to follow well I mean we're went from the sixth largest economy to the fourth largest economy 4.1 trillion dollars a year we have more Fortune 500 companies than we've ever had in the last two decades went from 48 to now or 49 now to 58 Fortune 500 companies you brought up Sam Altman a moment ago the largest market cap private company in world history he decided just a few weeks ago where to headquarter in the state of California.

More scientists, engineers, more Nobel laureates, venture capital, over $106 billion this year, 68% of that invested back into the state of California.

The finest system of higher education in the world, a conveyor belt for talent like no other. I mentioned the RD investments.
The future happens in my state first. We're America's coming attraction.

That said, I also will reinforce the obvious. We're also the dominant manufacturing hub in the United States of America, $405.6 billion,

13.9% of the U.S. manufacturing.
Compare that to Ron DeSantis, 2.8%

in Florida. We're the dominant ag state, $62.1 billion, forestry, hunting jobs, ag jobs.
You talk about farmers and ranchers. You're talking about my home state of California.

The state of California has seen population increase. We had a Treasury Secretary here who needs to actually get some facts.
You challenged him on some.

California saw population increase last year of 108,000, 105,000 the prior year, 49,000 the prior year before that. You've got to update your talking points.
There's California derangement syndrome.

It really is. And I'm pretty proud of it.

And I'm also proud of the fact that in the spirit of the New York Times and the abundance agenda and the good work that Ezra's doing, we've never tackled our housing crisis more aggressively than we tackled it this last year.

We've never tackled our homeless and mental health crisis more than we have in the last few years. 0.45% increase, less than 1% in unsheltered homelessness.

40 other states saw significantly higher increases in homeless. I'm not happy about that, but we're finally making progress.

So in many ways, I think there's a story to tell, and I'm not arguing for my own case, but it's a story that I think a lot of Californians are proud to tell.

I wanted to go back to your, you've mentioned GRIFT a couple of times and corporate leaders doing things to placate what you think of as this administration. You mentioned law firms and others.

I talked to Secretary Scott Besson earlier this morning. We're talking about David Ellison and Paramount.

It's a deal, by the way, that would likely happen in your state, depending on what ultimately happens. I don't know if you want to go see Rush Hour 4 or not, if that's on your.

I liked 1, 2, and 3, so I'm a Chris Tucker fan. But my question to you

is: do you blame the businesses for trying to curry the favor?

Or do you blame the administration or the other political party for incentivizing or creating this opportunity if you think that's the case?

Look, I think Trump is doubted up. You got to kiss the ring.
The fealty to the dear leader. It's the likes of which we've never seen.
This guy sees himself as a kid.

But if you were Tim Cook, and I'm serious, if you were Tim Cook,

and he's in your state, under the circumstances he is in, which is

he manufactures a lot of stuff in China,

worried about the tariffs. He was able to make a phone call that no small business in my state could have made.
I mean, how about my farmers and ranchers in California?

How about all these small and medium-sized businesses that can't pick up the phone and get an exemption on their tariffs?

So, yeah, it breaks my heart a little bit.

That's a version of crony capitalism. That is, by definition, crony capitalism.
It is the definition of it.

but what is he back to the generous analysis

that's called being a fiduciary doing what he needs to do on behalf of his shareholders that's his job so do I begrudge that yes but do I begrudge him not as much

but what I do begrudge is

the tone and tenor that this administration has set and the expectations they've set that if you don't do the bidding, you don't write the check, you don't get the contract.

Directing contracts, changing procurement, sole source on this, sole source that, this is a different level than we've ever seen in the past. Some would argue, okay, it's just more transparent, BS.

It's at a different scale than we've seen in the past. And for those that are complicit and participatory in that beyond their fiduciary responsibility, that's where I have a real problem.

We talked to Dario Mode today, and we also talked to Mary Barra, and you're going to see a connection between the two in just a moment.

One of the things that's fascinating in the AI space is that there are states, including California, that would like to regulate

artificial intelligence, as you know.

And for a very long time, California regulated fuel standards, efficiency standards. Oh, well done.
You see how we're connecting these two? I'm impressed with you, man.

That's why you're interviewing me. And

here we are, and it's interesting. I think if you're the governor of the state, you might say to yourself, states' rights, we want to do this this way.

If you become the president of the United States,

do you want to do it federally? Well, there was a president of the... And what's the better approach?

There was a president of the United States by the name of Ronald Reagan whose approach was in 1967 to advance

an effort to regulate tailpipe emissions, created the California Air Resources Board. It was codified by the Clean Air Act in 1970 by Republican Richard Nixon.

Did so in response to the smog crisis in Los Angeles, businesses leaving, people leaving, they couldn't do business in my home state.

And so they began the modern environmental movement, particularly as it relates to issues of emissions.

What Mary did, with respect, I say this, because I've worked with her in the past, she worked behind our back

to work with Republicans in Congress and Trump to gut that leadership going back to Ronald Reagan through a process called CRA with Senator Thune.

And she lied about it.

She worked behind our back to gut that. Today, she or her representatives are back in the Oval Office today

celebrating the fact they're going to increase costs

for fuel

and increase

subsidies for polluters by rolling back Joe Biden's fuel efficiency standards, celebrated by big oil, that just got $18 billion in subsidies, big oil and gas, in the big beautiful bill,

that will put us further behind our number one competitor, China, in terms of a global market.

And so I am not happy about that as a Californian, but as someone who just came back from Belm, came back from COP,

and everywhere you went there was a BYD. I mean, these guys are flooding the zone.
China understands the opportunity. It's about markets, it's about supply chains, and it's about influence.

They're doing in Latin America, South America, increasingly in Europe. And we are doubling down on stupid here in the United States.
70%

of the EV market is coming out of China now. They're 3x the manufacturing of automobiles that we are in the United States of America, about 31-plus million vehicles to our 10.

And it's the tech stack where they're dominating. It's batteries, it's software, it's the future, it's mobility.

And so, yeah, I'm a little ticked off that these guys want to pave over the old cow path as opposed to transform the industry and the technology and lower costs for consumers and not have the socialized cost of pollution and lousy health as a byproduct of it.

We've only got a minute and I have a final question and it's from a longtime deal book reader who asked this.

If you are not the Democrats' presidential nominee, why is so much focus on this in 2028?

Who does he want to be the nominee, assuming they can win the election?

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Someone who's a hard-headed pragmatist, someone that understands we all need to be loved and all need to love, meaning someone who's a repair of the breach and you know spirit of father cause Isaiah.

Someone needs to be a repair of the breach. We're polarized and traumatized.
This is exhausting. The guy literally calling people the R-word.

Piggy, it's just not.

This is We're better than this.

The reason I started my podcast and my first guest was Charlie Kirk.

It's just to show respect. People I disagree with.
Bannon, who I had on. Newt Gingrich, who led my recall campaign.
Divorce is not an option. We have to define the terms of our future.

And so this notion of all being better off, we're all better off,

is the kind of attributes that

I pray that our nominee brings. There's not a name.
You think Kamal Harris could do it?

Again,

there's literally... This year, Westmore.
All of them. They're all, yeah.

And they'll be the surprise. Mr.
Beast may run.

You know, we'll see.

What's the moment? I think right now the obstacles the way, in sort of the stoic frame, the impediment to action becomes the action. Trump is so dominant situationally.

Getting back to 2026, I know we all want to paint that positive alternative beyond Trump. And everybody's right to have that conversation.
Is that J.D. Vance, by the way, in your mind, too?

I'm not a huge fan of his.

No, no, I'm saying, is J.D. Vance the person you think that you'd be running against? Well, I think Trump's not sure.
Trump will determine that.

I mean, Trump, he doesn't care if he's the heel or the hero. He cares that he's the star.
And he's not going to walk away. He's going to rig that nomination.

And you heard him yesterday, even in the Oval Office or in the cabinet meeting, he was saying, well, is it Rubio? Is it Vance? Is it Vance? Rubio? I mean, he's already playing around with this.

But he'll make that determination ultimately.

An extension again of his third term if because of time of life he can't extend it and the Supreme Court can't extend it for him.

What, you got one more? I got one more. I got a fine.
No. It's always the last question.
I guess. No, it's actually not that.
It's not that hard.

The question is, if you are not the governor and you're not the presidential candidate, what do you actually want to do? Oh, my God. Look at me.
I'm physiologically, I'm changing.

I've got my arms crossed. Well, remember,

people don't know this about me, don't know much about me.

It is remarkable that what's perceived versus reality. And God forbid, I sound like a politician.
I actually have a book coming out, young man in a hurry. I know.

Again, speaking of purchasing, you can buy it in bulk.

It's be out in February. But to sort of demystify all this, February 23rd.

But

I say that to

make this point,

that

I'm a small business guy. I started right out of college, penned to paper, one part-time employee, Pat Kelly.
Opened a little business with literally $175,000, 13 investors.

I built that restaurants, hotels, wineries. We've got about 1,000 employees, 23 little businesses.

I say that not to impress any of you, but to impress upon you my passion for entrepreneurialism, my passion for risk-taking, free enterprise. And so I'm still that guy.

So for me, you answer that question.

That's my backup plan. That's my default.
But I'm also deeply committed to public service and deeply committed, however that manifests, even if it's not an elected office.

And I'll close with a Justice Brandeis quote. Why not? When in doubt, Justice Brandeis.
He said, in a democracy, the most important office is not governor, mayor, president.

In a democracy, the most important important office is office of citizen. So it's in that spirit of citizenship that I look forward to the future as well.
Governor Newsom, thank you.

Thank you very, very much.

Thank you very, very much. Really appreciate it.

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