WEBVTT - And, This is Ezra Klein 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.760 Well, coming up next, I have Ezra Kleine here in 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.720 studio talking about his new book that he co authored 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:10.600 with Derek Thompson called Abundance. In this book, Ezra does 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:15.680 not hold back on taking a very critical look at 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.560 democratic governance all across the United States of America, in 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:32.280 particular in my home state of California. This is Gavin 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:39.400 Newsom and this is Ezra Klein. Ezra is great to 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:40.800 have you here in studio. 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:42.680 Thanks for having me here for this weird inversion. 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.000 Weird inversion, and you've been I mean you've been all 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.040 over the place. You got a new book, Abundance, and 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:48.559 we'll jump right into that, but I want to just 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:50.640 frame a little bit of the relationship that we have 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:52.400 that goes back and you may not even remember this. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.560 I was a new mayor in San Francisco and was 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:58.840 asked by Bill Mahert to go on a show. I 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.360 remember that you were one of the panelist, and I'll 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:05.760 remember forget just sparring with Bill obviously, and then you 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.360 And after the show was done and we were all finishing, 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:10.840 you had left, maher goes up to me and he goes, 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:13.520 who the hell was that? And I'm like, I know 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:16.520 who the hell was that, and it was you. We 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.720 were like whoa, uh, just for both of us didn't 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.000 have a you know, I was I was relatively new, 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:23.160 Bill's been seasoned. 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:25.880 You a lieutenant governor then, I don't think you lieutenant. 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.560 Got wasn't it? You know? It was I still was liet. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.520 I'm pretty sure lieutenant governor. So but I was like, anyway, 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:31.880 I'd been on the show a bunch of times, but 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.600 you were. You had a next level capacity to analyze 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.160 things and to deliver a point of view. And so 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.640 it's not surprising to me that so much of that, 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.520 including that conversation we probably had on that studio and said, 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:48.840 it's reflected in what you've been focused on. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.640 I think about your book from that era, Republic two 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:52.040 point zero. 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.640 It was called right, yeah, Citizenville, Citizenville you had to 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.720 take the town square digital and reinvent government. How about that? 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.240 Yeah, it's something we should thread into this conversation. I 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:03.240 think people have forgotten that era of Gavinism. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.680 Yeah. Well, I think in so many reflects in aspects 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.600 I was reading this book and you're reflected in this. 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:11.800 I mean, this has been my struggle as a former mayor. 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:18.040 You chronicle San Francisco, California disproportionately. But this book is 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.560 fundamentally about the future, and you framing the future in 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:26.680 abundance terms. But it's also a real shot against liberalism 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.760 in many respects, against the world we created now competing 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.640 against us in terms of process and courts and laws 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.920 and rule making and all of that that's created so 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.480 much of this cost of living dynamics. So tell us 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:42.079 what was the inspiration of the book. Tell us a 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:43.560 little bit about what abundance is. 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.200 I mean, the reason the book is so rooted in 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.480 California that I am. I mean, so this book is 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:50.520 co authored with Derk Thompson from the Atlantic, and so 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.400 we both have our own things you bring to it. 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.799 But I grew up in Irvine, as you know. I 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.000 went to the C system that went to d C 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.880 for twelve or thirteen fourteen years, and I spent a 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:04.919 bunch of time in DC covering a political system where 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.920 the problem was Republicans were bad. Oftentimes the things that 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.040 I wanted to see happen were not happening there because 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.920 they were being blocked by the Republican Party. And then 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.240 in twenty eighteen, I moved back here. I moved back 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:19.880 to Oakland and then to San Francisco, and I looked 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:24.280 around and it just wasn't doing well. People were unhappy, 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:26.280 people were leaving. I mean, I mean, you know this, 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.520 you're a retail politician, like you can sense people's anger 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.320 when they find out you have anything to do with politics, 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.160 they tell you real quick. And we could see the 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.720 housing crisis hadn't tastasized into something that was genuinely now 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.960 a crisis. Not just homes are expensive. California high speed 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:44.400 rail has always lit me on fire that, yeah, we'll 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:46.880 get to that. And when I began to and I 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.160 was thinking about clean energy where your I mean, the 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.800 goals that you have set for clean energy in the 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.920 state are remarkable, and in order to achieve them here 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.560 or nationally, because the Inflation Reduction Act was passing around 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:58.720 this time too, that I was thinking. 0:03:58.520 --> 0:03:59.120 About a lot of this. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.520 We have to build faster than we have ever built, 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.360 and the laws don't really permit that. And so the 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.600 thing that I began thinking a lot about was that 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:10.760 there is something liberalism is good at and knows how 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.480 to look for, which is where can we subsidize something 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.840 that people need. But there's something liberalism is bad at 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.080 because it doesn't know how to look for it, which 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.160 is how do we create more? How do we make 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.880 it possible to build more of things people need? And 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.800 not only are we not good at pursuing that, we 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.080 don't even realize how often we are getting in the 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.120 way of it, how often we are the problem. There 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.440 is I think something bracing as a liberal about asking 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:38.920 this question of why, in the places where people who 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:40.760 agree with me govern, you and I don't think have 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.840 that different politics aren't the outcomes what I want to see? 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.880 Why can't I go say to the Texans or the Floridians, No, no, no, no, 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.520 you just have to do our policies from California. And 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:53.279 that's the thing I'm grappling with here. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.159 No, And I appreciate that, and we'll get to that 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.560 question because I think it's a fundamental question, and it's 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:04.600 interesting what you sort of define from that prism. That's 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:09.000 important because what people are actually looking for isn't necessarily 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:15.000 what you are identifying. Specifically, I would challenge, as the 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.760 problem is that said, what you identify as the problem? 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.400 I completely agree that. I was going back to my speech, 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.560 my first speech is governor at the State of California, 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:27.159 it might have well, it's these pages. Yeah, literally said 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.600 if you can build a sports stadium with these new 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.000 rules and fast tack of judicial process and what we 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.880 referred to, we'll get the SEQUA are California rules that 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.000 go back to quite literally Ronald Reagan in nineteen seventy 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.279 as it relates to environmental review. It should work for homelessness, 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:44.880 it should work for housing. And I announced that day 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.880 an effort to sue up to forty seven cities. We 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.360 started with one, Huntingdon Beach, California. Doesn't make you popular 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.120 as governor to announce a lawsuit against Erl City because 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.680 they weren't meeting their zoning requirements under our housing element. 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.680 So much of that again reflected in this friction and 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.719 your own reflected frustration and lived experience in the state 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.480 of California. But my point is this, as a practitioner, 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.640 it's a very different reality. But what you identify, I 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:21.080 completely embrace these labyrinths of rules, federal rules, state rules. 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.080 Absolutely localism though, and I want to talk about that 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:30.000 localism is determinative and you pick on understandably San Francisco, 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.200 but you can look at almost any city, including a 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:38.560 Republican health city like Huntington Beach, and these same rules 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:42.440 and restrictions apply there in the same frustrations. So from 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:45.480 the prism of left versus right, you take the shot 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:50.000 against liberals. But can't we argue that there is sort 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:54.559 of quality of consideration and nimbism that persists in rural 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:55.880 and red parts the countries. 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.080 Well, let me flip this because to shadow box around 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.000 the fact that you know more about California governance than 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:03.800 I ever will in a thousand years ago in this 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.479 would be ridiculous. Why is it easier to build homes 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.160 in Texas and California. 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:09.680 They have Well you established that in the book. In 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:11.400 Houston you make the point I think it was seventy 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.400 thousand permits in twenty twenty three, just seventy five hundred 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:17.960 in a much smaller city, San Francisco, but understandable contract 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:20.560 a city with more demand, more demand, and it's simply 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.440 because they have no zoning. They have land use consideration, 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.000 but Austin has zoning. Yeah, but not Houston. In the 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:26.720 context of that. 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.160 The thing I'm getting it here, which I really would 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:31.880 like your the thing you just said right about localism. 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:34.320 It's so important, and like, this is so much the 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.640 conversation I'd love for us to have here because the 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.400 texture that you have been grappling with of why do 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.200 things that you want to have happen not happen is 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.040 I think a really interesting thing to add to it. 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.240 But when you're saying, well, you know, is this really 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.640 a problem for liberals. It's easier to build in Texas 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:54.160 and Florida. They're not just in California, but in California 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.960 or New York. Right, the cost of living crisis is 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:58.600 worse in blue states. And a little bit of that 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:00.280 is Blue states are place a lot of people live, 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.760 but you should be able to in places ent governing 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.280 for the working class and theory, and your point. 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.520 Is a point and just to level set, people are 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.679 listening completely agree this notion of the supply demand imbalance. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.440 I mean, you're making an econ one to one argument. Uh, 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.880 And that supply to imbalance is next level in the 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.520 state of California, Whi're simply not building enough housing and 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:25.640 that goes to I mean, and you correctly identify a nimbiism. Uh, 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.920 and people you know, incumbent protection rackets, so to speak, 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:31.920 not just from a corporate perspective, but someone who's very 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:35.040 satisfied with their backyard and their views and their home 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.360 and their community. They don't want density, they don't want 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.680 other people moving in, they don't want any infrastructure built 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.359 around it. As it relates to transportation, they're very satisfied 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.040 with what they have, and I think and they abuse 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.040 in some respects a lot of these rules that have 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.240 been around decades and decades uh to advance that aim. 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:53.840 So you identified all this, I think pretty well as 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:55.920 a problem for the state and for you. So when 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:57.880 you gave a State of the State a couple years back, 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:00.880 I'm genuinely forgetting the number. What was the housing goal 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:01.240 you set? 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:03.840 We said, well, we had we had an audacious goal 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:08.600 that was a study of studies that identified what the 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.880 state would need in order to address the supply demand 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.080 and ballants. But we made the point we were going 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.160 through a legally binding process what we referred to as 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:22.760 arena goals, and we've established that here is the legally 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:26.360 binding goal two point five million units by twenty thirty, 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.000 and that is the established state policy, and that's the goal. 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.040 So you're not on track for that, not even close 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.560 why for well number of reasons, macroeconomic. I mean, I 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:36.080 think you have to be fair as it relates to 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.840 the realities of what just occurred, as it relates to 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.839 the constraints around the marketing of interest rates or interest 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.400 rates are high. Obviously, we came out of a very 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:52.920 difficult period during during COVID, but fundamentally because of the 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:56.000 inability to get local government to get out of the 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.200 way and allow for more construction. And that's why we 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.520 created a Housing Accountability Unit. That's why we've taken eight 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.679 hundred actions, That's why I've unlocked seventy five hundred units, uh, 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.520 and that's why we have advanced forty two sequel reforms 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.920 in some of the most significant housing reforms in California history. 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.920 As it relates to eighty US, which you identify eighty US. 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.760 Now you can buildinally do in single fami family home 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.600 zoning and duplexus. But at the end of the day, 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:25.360 state visions realized back to. 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:30.320 Localists, why did the ADU effort work and the single 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.520 family housing or multi family housing didn't. I mean, those 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.760 were big bills and we Yimbi's greeted them with delight. 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.880 But I would say everybody would say that what was 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.680 it us be nine yes if the cities have made 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:46.920 it so those don't. Actually it doesn't build as much 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:47.640 housing it and. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:51.280 That's why we created this housing accountability to drive more 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:56.079 responsibility at the local level and providing technical assistance. It's 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.920 not just a stick, it's also a carrot. But no, 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:01.800 look there's the that's the construct, right, I mean, that's 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.760 a classic example. People like their neighborhoods. That's the foundation 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:08.920 of Nimbiaism. And I had look this yimbiism frame, which 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.120 is yes in my backyard. For those wondering the hell 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.079 we're even talking about, I embrace it. I celebrate. I 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.000 don't think there's been a more yemb governor in California's history. 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:19.760 And it's why we've signed so many of these bills 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.800 and supported many of these bills. But you're right that 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.679 application a lot of these are new reforms just in 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.360 the last few years in this high interest rate environment. 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.160 So we'll see how quickly things unlock as interest rates 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.480 dropped down. But fundamentally, it's the Nimbiaism that drags it. 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:36.679 Let me ask you something about the housing reforms. As 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.559 I flipped the whole table this podcast. It's problem with 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:45.040 having a podcast host on. So during the election, when 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:49.240 Kamala Harris and then Barack Obama at the DNC, actually, 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:51.480 by the way, on Barck Obama than Kamala Harris. We're 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:53.760 up there talking about the need to build three million 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.120 new homes, right and really sad in like Yimbi's from 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.800 the stage. I was thinking, man, that is a huge 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.280 intellectual victory for movement that didn't exist like twenty five 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.120 minutes ago. I started thinking and and started running back 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:07.959 the date, and I'm like, Okay, how's it working out? 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.040 And you look in San Francisco and housing starts aren't up. 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:12.720 And you look in LA and they're not up. You 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:16.040 look in California. Not talking here about ADUs, but housing 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:18.280 starts in January twenty twenty five were lower than in 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.040 twenty fifteen. I began thinking to myself, oh shit, we 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.480 actually have won an intellectual argument without winning the policy. 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:28.520 So I began doing some reporting because I knew how many. 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.560 I'm not literally how many, but I knew there's been 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.600 a pretty torrid pace with you and you know, Scott 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:35.480 Wiener and Buffy Wicks and a bunch of other housing 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.560 local and the Last Day bills, and so I began 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:44.360 calling developers in San Francisco and said, what's going on here, 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.360 why don't I see a movement? And how much you're building? 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.600 And what they all told me was I didn't end 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.360 up writing this piece. I just didn't have time, but 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:55.280 I meant to for some time. Was all these fast 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.400 track bills required me to take on a bunch of 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:04.240 new standards and requirements, prevailing wages and environmental standards and 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.920 this and that. That made it more expensive for me 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:08.960 to take the fast track than just do what I'm doing. 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:11.200 It wouldn't pencil out for me to do it right. 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.120 I don't know if that's one hundred percent true. I 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:18.520 could see you. But if that's not it, why do 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.320 you think all those bills didn't lead to Well. 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:23.400 A lot of them have. How we can talk about it, 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.240 you know, I don't want to get into really parochial politics, 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:28.400 but we can talk about a five hundred unit project 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.480 on Stevenson Street in San Francisco was never going to 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.960 get done until the state intervened and compelled the hand 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.760 of the city to actually move forward again. I mean, 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:39.520 and you've got an ideological war that's going on in 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.880 progressive cities. They don't believe in the supply demand framework. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.160 They don't believe in this notion of abundance. Fundamentally, they 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.280 have a d growth mindset, which you talk a lot 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.480 about or at least right around in the book, And 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:54.520 so you're struggling with that ideological spectrum. But San Francisco, 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.839 I mean, it's just infamously just loves its neighborhoods. Doesn't 0:13:57.880 --> 0:13:59.319 want to see it up, so they don't want to 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.280 see the density. So they're constantly pushing back against this, 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.240 and we are as a state finally intervening in the ways 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:07.240 the state is never intervened in the past. So I 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.280 think it's a little too early to sort of assert 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.240 that the sort of fatalist or have a fatalist a 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.880 notion of what hasn't yet occurred, when in fact, we're 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.360 starting now to flex our muscles and the application of 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.400 these laws are now starting to fully go into effect, 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.040 and ultimately we want to see them materialize and manifest. 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.160 But that's I think that's that's the friction. But look, 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.800 let me just stipulate again. We're not arguing here, You're 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:33.600 one hundred percent right. 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:34.840 I was asking I'm curious. 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.320 No, but but also you're not. I'm you know, you 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.080 talk about as a bagel of earth was everything, Yeah, everything, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.240 attack everything together. Even we're a little critical of the 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.720 Biden administration and the Chips and Science Acts and the 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.400 infrastructure stuff because they did the same thing. Look, you 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:49.880 go to the. 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.520 Rural broadband effort. Right twenty twenty one, they passed a 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.880 bi Parson infrastructure bail. We'll say it's the biggest infrastructure 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.560 bill in decades, which is not wrong one point two. 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.600 Turing, but five hundred and five to fifty of. 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.720 New Yeah, And one of the big headline pieces of 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.560 it is forty two billion dollars for World Broadband YEP 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.480 twenty twenty one that passes by the end of twenty 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.920 twenty four. Functioningly nobody's hooked up to Royal Broadband. And 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.440 me and Derek look into it, and there is a 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.200 fourteen stage process. I mean, I'm sure California was going 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.320 through a fourteen stage process of their creating a map, 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:22.440 and then the map can be challenged, and there's these 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:24.320 letters of intent and so on and so forth, and 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.280 by the end of their administration of the fifty six 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.080 states and jurisdictions that were trying to apply for the money, 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.760 three had made it through, which, putting aside the fact 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:34.560 that them, me and all these people didn't get broadband, 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.160 it also meant that they couldn't run on that right. 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.600 So much of the political theory of the Biden administration 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.040 was that if you can show liberal democracy can deliver, 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.960 you will pull people out of wanting these strongmen who 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.040 say they're going to burn the whole thing down and 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.080 give you something out of the ashes. And if you can't, really, 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.120 if the things don't move fast enough, if they don't 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.600 get to the people fast enough, it's much harder for 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.200 liberal democracy to make the case said it delivers. I 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.080 want it to deliver. I like these policies, but the 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.000 speed thing is a real problem. And I'll say one 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:08.840 more thing, because I was talking. I did an event 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:10.560 the other night with John Favreau and we were talking 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:12.440 about we were talking about high speed rail, but I 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.880 was saying that the stimulus bill under Obama that had 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:21.160 three big headline projects for reinvestment. It had high speed rail, 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.760 it had smart grid, and it had a nationwide system 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:27.680 of interoperable health records. 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:29.000 I remember those days. 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:33.240 Yeah, Oh for three. Yeah, at some point we got 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:34.160 to be upset about this. 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:42.800 You know. So you have five core chapters in this book. 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.520 You talk about growth, you talk about governance, you talk 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.040 about deploying, inventing. You know, a lot of language very 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.760 familiar here in the state of California. Again, abundance is 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.680 fundamentally foundationally who we are, at least believe we are 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:59.160 in the state of California. And so in that respect, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.920 I agree this sort of this perception performance is one thing, 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.359 and I would argue a little bit more favorably to Biden. 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.399 I mean, seven hundred and seventy five thousand manufacturing jobs, 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:11.760 just the job growth generally, and I'm not just talking 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.679 about job recovery from the pandemic, but the six plus 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.639 million jobs that you have to stack on that after 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.119 we were back to full recovery. The fact that Chips 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.720 and Science Act is producing real results as it relates 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.639 to private sector investment, and the fact that we finally 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.600 have an industrial policy that is worker center centric. And 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.439 I think that's that worker centricity that you can argue against, 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.159 because that was in you call it out and here 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.480 when you talk to Gina about issues related to childcare 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:40.959 and other aspirational frameworks as it relates to small businesses 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.720 and reaching diversity goals and the like. But there is 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:47.959 the fundamental disconnect, and you're absolutely right as it relates 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:52.440 to these large scale, adacious projects. And I will give 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.440 you your do on high speed rail. I have been 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:59.480 as critical or more than you have about this. In fact, 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:04.239 I appreciate you reference my pivot after I took this 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.320 job as governor, where we called out the status quo 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.919 and now we're trying to level set and get this 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.800 back on track. But at least there's a vision. At 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:17.080 least Obama had a vision. He wanted to be big 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:19.280 and big things, he wanted to do big things. And 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.560 at least progressive states still have a vision and they 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.000 have a design. I mean, and I think that's part 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.920 of an abundance frame and and and while it's difficult 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:32.399 to manifest that vision, I don't think it's an indictment 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.200 necessary it well, it's indictment in terms of our ability 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.879 to deliver on time and under budget. But the vision 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.919 I think is foundational and important. And I give credit 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.600 to the aboveman administration in that respect. For all three, 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:45.640 even if they were over. 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:50.720 Thirsk, I'm all for vision. I upset the point of 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:52.960 this book is that I want the things to happen. 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.760 I mean, we could talk about high speed rally, we 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.680 must talk about high speed draft. But before we before 0:18:58.680 --> 0:18:59.879 we get there for a second, I mean, I do 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.240 the question around this book because it is very critical 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:04.600 of how liberals have governed. Well, then why you're just 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:05.240 a Republican? 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:05.720 Right? 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.080 If Texas is so good at housing? And the thing 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:10.960 that I keep telling people is you've really confused means 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.399 and ends here. Another thing that keeps coming up is like, 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.919 you want deregulation. Isn't that a Republican thing? Well not 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.320 if I'm deregulating the government itself so it can deliver 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.000 on the things you want. What's supposed to matter in 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:26.919 politics is not the means, it's the ends. And what 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.760 I sort of want. What I'm trying to push here 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.200 is for liberals to get a little bit more means 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.520 agnostic and more like ends obsessed. So the thing that 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:39.160 I the place where I probably differ a little bit 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:41.440 in what you just said a second ago, is that 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:43.720 I don't want to give anybody credit for a vision 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.200 that didn't happen. High speed rails you have a great 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:47.359 quote to me in this I use it in the 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.480 book High speed Rails undermined the public's faith and what 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:52.840 can get done? It undermines the next high speed rail? 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:53.160 Right. 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:55.840 And the thing that I want to see happen is 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.040 a kind of reckoning inside the governing I would call 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.840 it a culture. Not just laws. It's not just regulations, 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:04.480 although it is all those things. But it is a 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:08.560 culture of what happens when the Democrats who are setting 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.000 this stuff up getting the room together, and people start 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:12.720 raising their hands and saying, what about this and what 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:15.520 about that? And how about the other thing? And instead 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.199 of here and no, I think it's kind of a 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:20.919 little bit, and it's not the only thing going on, 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:23.359 but there is something wrong in a culture that so 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.199 often fails to deliver what it promises. I mean, not 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.040 just high speed rail, the big dig, the second Avenue subway, 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.240 right these you know, parts of them got done in 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.480 the second Avenue piece or the big dig eventually got done, 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.800 but too much, too expensive. You can't do enough if 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:42.200 you're doing that, and it's not inevitable. Europe builds trains 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:44.199 better than we do. They just do. And they have 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:47.560 governments I checked, and they have unions more than we do. 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.199 So it's not just the lawyers. And you point that 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:50.920 out of the wall. 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:52.560 Well, that's an issue I'd be very curious to hear. 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:54.359 So this is the thing I think people don't know 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:56.160 that I would love to hear it. To your thoughts 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:00.199 on that we do government different in this country than 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.480 they do in Europe, is a qualitative difference between it, 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:07.199 which is they run government through bureaucracies and we restrain 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.480 government through courts, which at the moment with Trump, seems 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:12.280 good in a bunch of ways, and there are ways 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:14.919 in which it's good, and there are also ways in 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:16.840 which it makes it hellacious. 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.760 You got it to deliver, Yeah, and I would say 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.600 that's the central theory of least. The argument that I 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:25.640 would make against the high speed rail is, I mean, look, 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.200 this thing started, and you make the point it started. 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:30.080 There was sort of talk about the vision. The original 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.560 vision was not Obama, it wasn't even necessarily Jerry Brown. 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.080 But you pointed nineteen eighty two when Brown at least 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.359 says former Governor Jerry Brown, we should look at this 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.760 high speed rail thing. And then eventually Arnold Schwarzenegger, a 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:45.119 Republican puts a bond on the ballot in two thousand 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.280 and eight, and the voters approve it. And you're right. 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:49.280 There was a lot of promotion and promise. Thirty three 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:53.000 point six billion dollars, two hours and twenty minutes downtown 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.720 twenty by twenty twenty and the whole thing. And then reality. 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.520 Now I get here later decade plus later and reconcile 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:04.040 the fact that we have to dig our way out 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:06.920 of this. There's a new reality. There's a scarcity of resources, 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:11.560 there's an abundance of delay, there's an abundance of cost overruns, 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:14.040 and we have to level set that we need to 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:18.600 build something or we're left with literally nothing. We're left 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.080 with pieces that go nowhere, that have no utility and 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.360 actually have a long term costs. But let's do it 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:27.840 by telling people what it is and what it's not. 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.359 And so this focus on the Central Valley, which is 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:34.639 recognized was stipulated as a requirement under the Obama grant, 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:37.600 the three billion dollars in one of the fastest growing 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:40.240 parts of the state, an important part of the state, 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:43.159 a state that has deep desire to connect to the 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:45.760 rest of the state, and a state of mind that's 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:49.040 not just about a transportation project, but about upsony about 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:51.480 economic development, which a lot of that has occurred in 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:53.639 and around these new stations that have been built, fifty 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:56.800 large scale projects, the size of three Golden Gate bridges. 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:59.480 The entire environmental cpearance is now one hundred percent done. 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:01.840 LA to San Francisco, there were two. 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:03.840 Thousand, twenty twelve to twenty twenty five. 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:05.720 I can't I can't make up for that. I can 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:06.440 only deal. 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:08.320 With the quota party, which is crazy. 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:10.800 It's crazy. But the point is we're at the point 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:13.960 where just announced we're doing railhead. We're finally laying the tracks. 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:17.120 I mean we could, we can lament about it. We 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:19.520 absolutely learned from it, and we've stressed test a lot 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.199 of it. You talk about the consulting class versus a 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.040 bureaucratic class, you're absolutely right, and we started to shift 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:29.439 that just a few years ago. But the litigation on 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:33.680 the two thousand, two hundred and seventy parcels that we 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:39.159 had to purchase was next level, and that delay, I 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:41.119 think is the core of this. There's plenty of other 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:44.280 bureaucratic malays and other issues we can identify, but back 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:47.560 to this notion, I think you're right this idea of 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:50.520 so I think liberal litigation. I don't know what phrase 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:53.800 you used in the book, but we were mindful of 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:56.360 that and critical of that, and you mark that as 0:23:56.440 --> 0:23:59.399 a big part of the sort of nineteen seventies construct 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:01.960 in a America and tell us a little bit more about. 0:24:01.920 --> 0:24:05.120 Yeah, we can put a pin in high speed rail. 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:11.760 There are two major liberal movements that happen in the 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:14.800 twentieth century. The one we think about a lot is 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:19.760 New Deal liberalism. That's the one where we build aggressively. 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:22.480 It's a growth orient to liberalism. It's a liberalism of 0:24:22.560 --> 0:24:26.880 material goods. And it's the liberalism that defines the left 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:30.280 right divide in our national narrative. Right liberals believe in big, 0:24:30.320 --> 0:24:37.040 strong government, conservatives believe in small, limited government. In the sixties, seventies, eighties, 0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:39.879 you have real problems that have emerged from this New 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:45.520 Deal order. We have built heedlessly, recklessly, intensely. We are 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:48.160 cutting highways all across the country, many of them, they're 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:51.000 not all of them through marginalized communities, but man, the 0:24:51.080 --> 0:24:53.040 rich communities don't like it when a highway goes through 0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:55.080 either right, and they have a lot of the power 0:24:55.119 --> 0:25:01.159 that leads to this. There is a genuine spoiling of 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:03.879 the environment. My colleague Derek likes to talk about the 0:25:03.880 --> 0:25:05.440 moment in Los Angeles. I think it's in the forties 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:07.560 or fifties where people wake up and think there's been 0:25:07.560 --> 0:25:10.399 a chemical attack from Japanese, but it turned out that 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:12.680 the city had launched its own chemical attack on itself. 0:25:12.960 --> 0:25:17.280 But you'll forget. In California, a lazy pundit could suggest 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:20.639 the modern environmental movement started in nineteen sixty seven in 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:23.679 reaction to that in the business community saying enough and 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:27.600 Governor RONA. Reagan established the California Air Resources Board, of 0:25:27.640 --> 0:25:31.639 which that rights and responsibility were afforded under the nineteen 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:34.199 seventy Clean Air Act, which you also highlight in the 0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:38.680 book Richard Nixon affording California waiver so that we can 0:25:38.760 --> 0:25:42.640 address the unique air quality concerns that you identify them book. 0:25:42.720 --> 0:25:47.439 And then of course everybody forgets it's Reagan who signs 0:25:47.440 --> 0:25:49.119 the California Environmental Quality Activity. 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:53.960 Yeah, this SEQUE issue that you and others and myself. 0:25:53.480 --> 0:25:55.720 It's worth I think taking time, it's worth taking I 0:25:55.760 --> 0:25:59.080 think a minute on SEQUA. So Reagan signs a bill 0:25:59.119 --> 0:26:03.679 into law. From Jake Ambnder's research, it doesn't even merit 0:26:04.119 --> 0:26:06.680 a full article in the La Times. It's interesting nobody 0:26:06.760 --> 0:26:10.840 quite knows what they've done because initially SEQUA it just says, look, 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:13.000 when the government does stuff, it's got to produce o 0:26:13.040 --> 0:26:15.439 report on you know what the likely consequences are. No 0:26:15.440 --> 0:26:20.720 big deal. And then there is a proposed development in Mammoth, which, 0:26:21.359 --> 0:26:24.840 you know, the great ski and snowboard town, which I've 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:25.640 been too many many. 0:26:25.480 --> 0:26:27.000 Times, you Southern Californians. 0:26:27.119 --> 0:26:31.800 Yeah, Math, But there's a mixed use development that's proposed there, 0:26:31.920 --> 0:26:33.879 you know, sort of condos and some shopping at the 0:26:33.880 --> 0:26:38.320 bottom of them, and a bunch of rich Mammothians, I 0:26:38.359 --> 0:26:41.800 don't know what they call themselves. Foul lawsuit, and they 0:26:41.840 --> 0:26:44.920 have a novel argument, which is that this development can't 0:26:44.920 --> 0:26:47.280 go forward because it violates SEQUA. And this gets rejected 0:26:47.320 --> 0:26:49.439 the courts because this is not roughly would this be 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:52.320 I'd want to double check this, but early seven years 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:55.600 these things, but I could be wrong with that. So 0:26:55.600 --> 0:27:00.960 so what happens here is that the courts reject this 0:27:01.040 --> 0:27:04.760 a bunch of times because Seque is about public development, 0:27:05.520 --> 0:27:08.639 and then the Supreme Court rules no no no. Public 0:27:08.680 --> 0:27:11.359 development is anything that requires a permit by the state 0:27:11.359 --> 0:27:15.080 of California. There's a Sierra Club lobbyist who we quote 0:27:15.080 --> 0:27:18.119 in the book. It says after that sequel applies to 0:27:18.200 --> 0:27:20.840 anything where you are rubbing two sticks together in the state. 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:24.320 And so, now, having been as Ambunder puts it in 0:27:24.560 --> 0:27:28.080 his dissertation on this stuff, informed by the courts of 0:27:28.080 --> 0:27:31.080 what the law they passed actually does, the legislature puts 0:27:31.080 --> 0:27:32.680 a pause on it because now everything's in a huge 0:27:32.760 --> 0:27:35.600 legal limbo. But the key thing is at SEQUA. I mean, 0:27:35.640 --> 0:27:37.239 and I'm sure you know all this much better than 0:27:37.240 --> 0:27:43.520 I do. But Sequa's power is amplified a lot by 0:27:43.560 --> 0:27:45.640 courts that interpreted it in a way that was very 0:27:45.640 --> 0:27:48.960 different than anybody initially interpreted it. And this is part 0:27:48.960 --> 0:27:52.200 of a period in liberalism where you have this rise 0:27:52.240 --> 0:27:55.800 of an environmental movement that has legal dimensions and political dimensions, 0:27:55.840 --> 0:27:59.520 and statutory dimensions and cultural dimensions. It's Rachel Carson, It's 0:27:59.600 --> 0:28:03.000 Ralph And the key thing about this period of liberalism, 0:28:03.040 --> 0:28:06.280 the New Left period of liberalism, is it is fundamentally 0:28:06.320 --> 0:28:09.600 skeptical of government action. The New Deal is this alliance 0:28:09.600 --> 0:28:13.240 between the government, the unions and the corporations to build, 0:28:13.600 --> 0:28:17.560 to put people to work, to industrialize America and make 0:28:17.600 --> 0:28:21.040 it into this kind of advanced, globe spanning superpower. And 0:28:21.080 --> 0:28:24.800 the new Left comes in and says, we are destroying 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:29.000 this place, We are turning this country conformists. The term 0:28:29.040 --> 0:28:32.239 tiki Taki comes from a song about Daily City and 0:28:32.280 --> 0:28:34.800 how gross all those homes are. Right, Like, there's a 0:28:34.800 --> 0:28:36.760 whole thing about the esthetic destruction of it. I have 0:28:36.880 --> 0:28:40.480 great quotes from Lyndon Johnson's speeches about we used to 0:28:40.480 --> 0:28:42.520 worry about the ugly American, Now we have to worry 0:28:42.520 --> 0:28:46.120 about the ugly America. Right, there's a whole change. It 0:28:46.120 --> 0:28:49.840 begins to happen. And the way that this moment in 0:28:49.880 --> 0:28:53.120 liberalism tries to square the circle because the new Left 0:28:53.240 --> 0:28:56.320 is part of this era that's very individualistic, right. We 0:28:56.360 --> 0:28:58.600 think about this for Reagan and individuals, but it's happening 0:28:58.640 --> 0:29:01.720 on the left too and wants a highly participatory democracy. 0:29:01.760 --> 0:29:03.120 And the way it tries to square it is create 0:29:03.160 --> 0:29:07.680 a million different ways that individuals or individuals represented by 0:29:08.000 --> 0:29:11.600 nonprofit groups typically can sue the government to stop it 0:29:12.040 --> 0:29:14.040 or force it to think about things that it wasn't 0:29:14.040 --> 0:29:19.480 thinking about before. Sorry, gott a mosquito there, And it 0:29:19.520 --> 0:29:21.920 creates ways to sue the government and force it to 0:29:21.920 --> 0:29:24.360 think about things that it wasn't thinking about or had 0:29:24.400 --> 0:29:27.000 an earlier Get. 0:29:26.840 --> 0:29:27.480 That damn thing. 0:29:28.240 --> 0:29:29.440 If I got it, I'd be like a mom and 0:29:29.520 --> 0:29:34.000 that I remember the time when he truly seems superpowered. 0:29:35.160 --> 0:29:36.720 So the way they do that is they create this 0:29:36.880 --> 0:29:39.680 raft of legislation. Of it is some of it is environmental, 0:29:39.680 --> 0:29:41.800 but not all of it. And what it allows is 0:29:41.800 --> 0:29:45.400 for individuals or individuals represented by groups and a huge 0:29:45.600 --> 0:29:49.120 world of nonprofits emerges to take the best talent out 0:29:49.160 --> 0:29:52.360 of the law schools and set them to suing government 0:29:52.840 --> 0:29:55.320 to sort of enforce this. Ralph Nader, when he runs 0:29:55.320 --> 0:29:58.160 for president in two thousand, is asked what qualifies you 0:29:58.280 --> 0:30:01.600 to be president? Says he has sued more government agencies 0:30:01.640 --> 0:30:06.400 than I have. And yeah, and so this is very 0:30:06.680 --> 0:30:09.640 potent in blue states. It had a strong New Left, 0:30:09.640 --> 0:30:11.520 and we don't think about it. Really, it's not part 0:30:11.560 --> 0:30:13.560 of our national narrative of the left and the right. 0:30:13.680 --> 0:30:16.520 Our national narrative is like the guys who like government 0:30:16.560 --> 0:30:19.160 and the party that likes government and the party that doesn't. 0:30:19.440 --> 0:30:21.240 It's not that way. The right loves a big police 0:30:21.280 --> 0:30:25.080 state and the left has a very divided soul on government. 0:30:25.760 --> 0:30:29.400 It likes some kinds of government, but it hobbles government. 0:30:30.080 --> 0:30:34.120 And that sort of made sense for its time. But 0:30:34.160 --> 0:30:36.160 now we're in a different time where the problems are 0:30:36.160 --> 0:30:39.920 problems of not building enough and environmentally particularly, All of 0:30:39.920 --> 0:30:41.960 a sudden, we've gone from a period where it really 0:30:42.120 --> 0:30:45.040 was environmentally important to stop much of the things that 0:30:45.040 --> 0:30:47.320 were happening, and now we're in one where the environmental 0:30:47.360 --> 0:30:50.040 movement has to build, build, build, build the i ras 0:30:50.080 --> 0:30:53.520 of building approach to climate change, and our laws are 0:30:53.520 --> 0:30:56.800 not set up for that. And this is where I'd 0:30:56.800 --> 0:31:00.360 like to get your perspective. The thing that's also is 0:31:00.360 --> 0:31:03.480 like the Democratic coalition is not set up to revisit 0:31:03.520 --> 0:31:07.800 those laws. You all been doing little carve outs of SIQUA. Yeah, 0:31:07.880 --> 0:31:10.280 but you've not ripped it out and rebuilt it, and 0:31:10.320 --> 0:31:12.360 nor have we done that at the national level. And 0:31:13.040 --> 0:31:15.880 as much as Democrats know this, the environmental groups don't 0:31:15.880 --> 0:31:19.120 want to do that. There's a lot of power and 0:31:19.120 --> 0:31:22.520 incumbents around the legislative architecture we have now, and you 0:31:22.520 --> 0:31:24.000 don't get a huge I mean, you've tell me if 0:31:24.000 --> 0:31:25.239 this is wrong, but I feel like you don't get 0:31:25.240 --> 0:31:29.360 a huge parade for rebuilding legislative process, right zero. 0:31:29.920 --> 0:31:33.040 I mean so it feels like the contrary. It's years 0:31:33.040 --> 0:31:36.120 and years of friction, trial and error. It takes a 0:31:36.160 --> 0:31:39.400 couple of years. You introduce, you socialize, it gets nowhere, 0:31:39.720 --> 0:31:43.280 finally gets through new coalition, new personalities, You finally get 0:31:43.320 --> 0:31:46.080 it done. Then two years later you're actual exercise it. 0:31:46.080 --> 0:31:48.360 I'll give you two specific examples. I have a two 0:31:48.400 --> 0:31:51.560 hundred and seventy day judicial review process that we pushed. 0:31:52.120 --> 0:31:55.360 We worked it for. Its first use case was the 0:31:55.400 --> 0:31:59.760 first above ground storage facility in California, last half century sites. 0:32:00.640 --> 0:32:04.320 It's in an offstream dam in California. At the second 0:32:04.640 --> 0:32:08.680 quite literally a week ago, for three hundred megawatt large 0:32:08.680 --> 0:32:13.520 scale solar facility which we are testing. It hardly perfect, 0:32:14.120 --> 0:32:17.040 but that was three years in the making just to 0:32:17.200 --> 0:32:21.400 have this established rule where I can finally fast track 0:32:21.520 --> 0:32:24.600 large scale projects to start addressing your point. And you're right, 0:32:24.640 --> 0:32:27.360 there was no fundamental coalition for any of that. It 0:32:27.440 --> 0:32:31.120 was a very lonely process until after years and years 0:32:31.120 --> 0:32:33.000 of trial and error, we finally broke through. 0:32:33.080 --> 0:32:34.920 Do you think you benefit from the other side of it, 0:32:35.720 --> 0:32:37.640 from being able to get these projects built, Like if 0:32:37.640 --> 0:32:39.400 you could get them built, do you think like it's 0:32:39.440 --> 0:32:42.720 an intermediate period of pain and then better politics. 0:32:42.760 --> 0:32:44.440 It will be better politics, but I won't be around 0:32:44.480 --> 0:32:46.880 to enjoy the fruits of that. And I think that's 0:32:46.880 --> 0:32:48.520 the great struggle. To your point, I mean you made 0:32:48.520 --> 0:32:50.280 that point about Biden earlier. I mean that's just a 0:32:50.520 --> 0:32:52.960 it's forty eight months. You're in the middle of trying 0:32:52.960 --> 0:32:55.560 to address the pandemic. You've got all kinds of global issues, 0:32:55.560 --> 0:32:59.160 you've got supply train constraints, you've got war in Ukraine, 0:32:59.320 --> 0:33:01.680 You've got all of these issues, and yet he passes 0:33:01.720 --> 0:33:05.360 I refer to as a master class. 0:33:08.840 --> 0:33:11.200 You are more defensive of Biden's record than of your own. 0:33:11.560 --> 0:33:15.720 No, I'm more proud of the work they did, breaking 0:33:15.760 --> 0:33:18.800 through actually addressing the issues that Democrats claim they wanted 0:33:18.840 --> 0:33:22.120 to address, including marginally. And I agree with you again, 0:33:22.920 --> 0:33:25.720 there's zero daylight in this book which is markable, including 0:33:25.920 --> 0:33:28.000 its own critique, my own self critique of my own 0:33:28.040 --> 0:33:32.080 state and my own performance. So it's interesting. But he had, 0:33:32.120 --> 0:33:34.880 as I said, industrial policy, there was worker centric and 0:33:35.040 --> 0:33:37.440 there was reforms at the same time, to deal with mansion, 0:33:37.720 --> 0:33:39.240 which you acknowledge in the book. 0:33:39.320 --> 0:33:42.240 Marginal Well, the progressives killed those we just killed. But 0:33:42.360 --> 0:33:44.520 you're talking about the permitting the permanent reforms. 0:33:44.520 --> 0:33:47.040 But that sort of manifested and finally on the Chips 0:33:47.040 --> 0:33:48.680 and Science Act to be a version of that with 0:33:48.760 --> 0:33:51.720 Kelly and Cruz as it relates to. So there was 0:33:51.800 --> 0:33:53.200 some component parts. 0:33:53.080 --> 0:33:55.040 And they learned on this. I mean, Brandiese, who is 0:33:55.080 --> 0:33:57.480 Biden's former a NEC director, has an awesome piece in 0:33:57.520 --> 0:33:59.680 Foreign Affairs about why we need to build faster. Right, 0:33:59.720 --> 0:34:02.000 there's learning here. But I would wish but. 0:34:01.960 --> 0:34:03.920 If we but I'm going to let me stipulate, let 0:34:03.920 --> 0:34:06.040 me make this quickly if we can figure that out. 0:34:06.320 --> 0:34:08.239 If we can, I don't. This is this is the 0:34:08.239 --> 0:34:11.000 most one of the most important books democrats can read. 0:34:11.360 --> 0:34:13.960 Wake up. I sent this to the two leaders of 0:34:14.000 --> 0:34:15.680 my California Assembly and Senate. 0:34:15.760 --> 0:34:16.480 You love to hear it. 0:34:16.520 --> 0:34:18.799 I just know. No, I'm serious, I said, guys, wake 0:34:19.160 --> 0:34:22.200 this is it. I mean, we're being judged here at 0:34:22.200 --> 0:34:25.040 a different level. We've done some good things together. We 0:34:25.160 --> 0:34:28.320 got to get serious. As the spot on on a 0:34:28.360 --> 0:34:30.560 lot of this stuff. There's some you know, we had 0:34:30.800 --> 0:34:32.960 population growth, the last two years. By the way, in 0:34:33.000 --> 0:34:35.759 December they updated all the census numbers. It grew in 0:34:35.800 --> 0:34:38.040 California the last two years. He had red states that 0:34:38.160 --> 0:34:40.640 a population declined in the last few years, with the 0:34:40.640 --> 0:34:43.440 exception of Vermont. There's some QUI I can equivalent some 0:34:43.480 --> 0:34:46.759 of that respect, but fundamentally, these larger trend lines you 0:34:46.800 --> 0:34:50.280 identify and this friction struggle to build more and build 0:34:50.320 --> 0:34:52.399 better and to address I'm with you on the high 0:34:52.440 --> 0:34:55.239 speed rail. It furiates me as a taxpayer. You're one 0:34:55.280 --> 0:34:57.480 hundred percent. It's an indictment of our ability to deliver. 0:34:57.800 --> 0:35:00.760 That said, we are finally doing realized where by train sets. 0:35:00.920 --> 0:35:03.800 We got partnership with the Bright Line and High Desert Corridor. 0:35:03.840 --> 0:35:07.239 We did full electrification of Caltran seven hundred and fourteen 0:35:07.320 --> 0:35:10.120 million dollars fifty one miles. We got all the environmental 0:35:10.160 --> 0:35:13.000 work done, all the hard works now behind us. Now 0:35:13.000 --> 0:35:15.080 we're laying track and we're finally getting that first one 0:35:15.120 --> 0:35:17.960 hundred nineteen miles done. We'll get to one seventy one. 0:35:18.000 --> 0:35:20.200 It's a six point five billion dollar gap. We have 0:35:20.320 --> 0:35:21.640 strategy to address that. 0:35:21.760 --> 0:35:23.799 I don't even want to go I want to hold 0:35:24.040 --> 0:35:25.520 high title for a second. I want to do one 0:35:25.520 --> 0:35:26.400 thing on Biden before we go. 0:35:26.560 --> 0:35:29.160 But the issue with Biden is I don't know what 0:35:29.239 --> 0:35:31.439 the hell more he could have done in a short 0:35:31.480 --> 0:35:34.799 period of time to deliver on a bold vision and 0:35:34.880 --> 0:35:39.200 lay the tracks for benefits that will enjoy. Yes, not 0:35:39.360 --> 0:35:41.480 all in forty eight months, but over the course the 0:35:41.520 --> 0:35:42.440 next four eight years. 0:35:43.200 --> 0:35:46.440 It'll be loving Like. I'm not saying it's all his fault. 0:35:46.640 --> 0:35:49.760 That's not my point here, right, He is inheriting a government, 0:35:49.840 --> 0:35:53.440 although you see in a very dark way with Musk 0:35:53.480 --> 0:35:56.040 and Doge that a lot that was taken as a 0:35:56.080 --> 0:35:58.560 binding constraint actually isn't. So I want to hold that 0:35:58.600 --> 0:36:01.160 because I think there are things as grotesque is what 0:36:01.200 --> 0:36:03.239 that crew is doing to the government. There's also things 0:36:03.280 --> 0:36:04.680 that need to be learned from what they're doing to 0:36:04.719 --> 0:36:05.200 the government. 0:36:05.640 --> 0:36:07.200 But it didn't. 0:36:07.400 --> 0:36:10.200 I really think it's important to hold this in mind 0:36:10.200 --> 0:36:12.200 for all of us, because it's something I really did 0:36:12.200 --> 0:36:15.439 not understand. It did not used to take this long 0:36:15.480 --> 0:36:21.000 to deliver Medicare. Medicare delivered Medicare cards a year after 0:36:21.000 --> 0:36:23.239 they passed that bail. It took the Affordable Care Act 0:36:23.600 --> 0:36:26.200 four years to begin delivering actual insurance to any we 0:36:26.200 --> 0:36:28.799 can talk. It took on the Inflation Reduction Act, which 0:36:28.840 --> 0:36:31.000 is doing the much smaller job of just beginning to 0:36:31.040 --> 0:36:34.400 negotiate prices on some drugs three years to get that started. 0:36:35.520 --> 0:36:38.080 I mean we built I mean, these are the classic examples. 0:36:38.080 --> 0:36:39.919 But we built the Empire State Building in a year. 0:36:40.239 --> 0:36:43.040 The average environmental review takes four and a half years. 0:36:43.080 --> 0:36:45.000 Just a few years ago to get bridge. I agree, 0:36:45.239 --> 0:36:45.520 you know. 0:36:45.480 --> 0:36:48.560 All this The thing that I want to say about this, 0:36:48.600 --> 0:36:51.480 which is not Joe Biden's fault, but it is the 0:36:51.520 --> 0:36:54.400 fault of now. I think a long period of Democrats 0:36:54.440 --> 0:36:59.600 beginning to get accustomed to this slowness. This is not 0:36:59.640 --> 0:37:01.759 going to work politically. I agree with you are not 0:37:01.800 --> 0:37:04.200 going to hold the people you need to hold if 0:37:04.239 --> 0:37:07.319 your answer in every term is he can't feel what 0:37:07.360 --> 0:37:09.319 I did because a government takes too long. If it 0:37:09.360 --> 0:37:12.520 had to take too long, fine, but it doesn't actually right. 0:37:12.560 --> 0:37:14.200 These are man made and it's not. 0:37:14.120 --> 0:37:16.360 Just government, it's also private sector. I mean, there is 0:37:16.360 --> 0:37:19.080 there is another component of this. The markets actually play 0:37:19.080 --> 0:37:23.399 a really significant outsize influence in timing on a lot 0:37:23.400 --> 0:37:25.240 of these things, on investments, et cetera. 0:37:25.400 --> 0:37:27.600 Yeah, but they would build fast. In a lot of cases, 0:37:27.640 --> 0:37:29.360 if we let them build fast, I mean, they're not 0:37:29.400 --> 0:37:31.080 why we didn't get world broadband done. 0:37:31.200 --> 0:37:33.360 That was not that No, but that's just you know, 0:37:33.520 --> 0:37:37.040 I agree, that's fifty states solutions, thousands thousands. 0:37:37.760 --> 0:37:39.560 Think I'm pushing on a little bit here with using 0:37:39.600 --> 0:37:41.880 the example of Biden, not you, But I do think 0:37:41.920 --> 0:37:44.239 this is I think that those of us who want 0:37:44.280 --> 0:37:47.200 to defend liberal democracy from an actual challenge to it. 0:37:47.360 --> 0:37:47.560 Right. 0:37:47.880 --> 0:37:49.840 One of the things Trump is getting the most mileage 0:37:49.880 --> 0:37:52.600 out of, and he says it himself all the time. 0:37:52.640 --> 0:37:54.480 I think it's why he likes what Elon Musk is 0:37:54.520 --> 0:37:57.080 doing for all. The risk of it is the sense 0:37:57.200 --> 0:38:00.480 of constant action. Yeah, all of a sudden government which 0:38:00.520 --> 0:38:03.480 normally you don't feel moving. You feel it moving, maybe badly. 0:38:03.560 --> 0:38:05.560 Maybe what you feel is the heat from it burning 0:38:05.640 --> 0:38:09.719 to the ground, but you feel movement. Right and Populace 0:38:09.840 --> 0:38:12.640 have that. They have a politics of energy almost all 0:38:12.680 --> 0:38:13.040 of the time. 0:38:13.080 --> 0:38:13.239 Right. 0:38:13.280 --> 0:38:15.959 This is something you see across countries, and I think 0:38:15.960 --> 0:38:20.080 that Democrats need to begin to think about speed as 0:38:20.120 --> 0:38:23.279 a thing we are actually tracking and pursuing government. We 0:38:23.320 --> 0:38:26.120 have other things we need to pursue. In track equity right, 0:38:26.400 --> 0:38:27.680 just right. There are a lot of things we need 0:38:27.719 --> 0:38:29.279 to think about and you need to make trade offs 0:38:29.320 --> 0:38:33.080 between them. But speed is one we have just let slip. 0:38:33.200 --> 0:38:36.200 And it's not just like bad, because it's kind of 0:38:36.239 --> 0:38:39.360 sad that we let it slip. Jake Sullivan said about Biden, 0:38:39.800 --> 0:38:43.600 he said, elections are measured in four years, and his 0:38:43.680 --> 0:38:46.120 presidency will be measured in decades. It won't or his 0:38:46.160 --> 0:38:49.239 policy agenda be judged in decades, so much of it 0:38:49.320 --> 0:38:51.480 is going to get undone, including a lot of the 0:38:51.480 --> 0:38:54.880 Transatlantic alliance that he worked so hard to rebuild that 0:38:55.000 --> 0:38:58.360 it won't. One reason that this book is politically important 0:38:58.360 --> 0:39:00.600 to me not just the kind of background, as is 0:39:00.640 --> 0:39:03.000 a policy reporter, and the stuff I like is like 0:39:03.040 --> 0:39:05.480 the details of the policy. But one reason it's politically 0:39:05.520 --> 0:39:09.319 important to me is that Democrats have I think, got 0:39:09.320 --> 0:39:14.360 in a little bit of learned helplessness around not every 0:39:14.400 --> 0:39:16.439 little bit of how gardment moved slowly. People think about 0:39:16.440 --> 0:39:19.440 procurement reforms. You've done a lot on that, but in general, 0:39:19.480 --> 0:39:22.839 the sense that we just can't do what we once did, 0:39:23.000 --> 0:39:24.920 like the way the garment used to work. I was 0:39:24.920 --> 0:39:27.400 reading a great piece by Harold Myerson, who's at the 0:39:27.440 --> 0:39:30.640 American Prospect, and he's a great California reporter too, and 0:39:30.719 --> 0:39:33.239 he wrote this piece was back during the stimulus debate 0:39:33.320 --> 0:39:35.560 under Obomba. He sent it to me the other day 0:39:36.200 --> 0:39:40.759 and he talks about the way the worst progress administration 0:39:40.800 --> 0:39:47.080 started up under FDR and the unfathomable speed at which 0:39:47.320 --> 0:39:50.440 they just cut through everything to put millions of people 0:39:50.480 --> 0:39:52.920 the equivalent today of putting ten million people to work 0:39:53.239 --> 0:39:56.200 in a matter of months. Right, And he was saying, 0:39:56.480 --> 0:40:00.360 you can't do it today, Harold was because you just 0:40:00.400 --> 0:40:02.480 wouldn't have the laws. But I just think it's really 0:40:02.480 --> 0:40:05.720 important to say laws are man made. There are laws 0:40:05.719 --> 0:40:09.400 of physics, there are technical things we don't yet know 0:40:09.400 --> 0:40:13.200 how to do. But the difference between places at construct 0:40:13.200 --> 0:40:17.719 apartment buildings quickly and that don't is that's us. 0:40:17.760 --> 0:40:20.680 One hundred percent. And look and you highlight some of 0:40:20.719 --> 0:40:23.600 those successes. I mean you you talk about what happened 0:40:23.640 --> 0:40:25.600 during the Trump administration in COVID. By the way, a 0:40:25.680 --> 0:40:28.600 lot of innovation happened during COVID. Yeah, including on land use. 0:40:28.640 --> 0:40:30.920 We did something called home key, room key. We changed 0:40:30.960 --> 0:40:33.640 land use and sequel. We did it through a emergency frame. 0:40:34.160 --> 0:40:36.759 You referenced the Eye ninety because risk tolerance went up, 0:40:36.920 --> 0:40:39.719 risk tolance went up, I ninety five and emergency frame. 0:40:39.760 --> 0:40:41.440 It's exact posts of any we had the Eye ten, 0:40:41.480 --> 0:40:43.719 which we got done in eight days. That was even 0:40:43.719 --> 0:40:45.680 more through the ninety five. Yeah, you should have added 0:40:45.719 --> 0:40:47.560 that and one nice thing you could have said about 0:40:47.560 --> 0:40:50.400 our state. But so there was a state of mind though. 0:40:50.440 --> 0:40:52.160 I mean, we're doing it right now in terms of 0:40:52.160 --> 0:40:54.840 the emergency work we're doing on the rebuilding of the 0:40:54.920 --> 0:40:59.600 fire declaration and people are celebrating it and the emergency. 0:40:59.000 --> 0:41:01.879 Structures work better. Yeah, then why is it not making 0:41:01.960 --> 0:41:03.480 the normal structure closer to them? 0:41:03.600 --> 0:41:06.880 No? I look, I this this is why. That's why 0:41:06.920 --> 0:41:08.799 I wanted to do this podcast, is why I love 0:41:08.960 --> 0:41:11.000 don't like your book. That's why I think it's essential 0:41:11.040 --> 0:41:14.200 reading for democrats. This notion of speed, appearing to take 0:41:14.239 --> 0:41:17.360 action but not doing things to people, but with people 0:41:17.400 --> 0:41:19.960 and finding that right balance it's not I think there's 0:41:20.360 --> 0:41:22.680 the stress. And it goes to your opening point about 0:41:22.800 --> 0:41:24.759 some of the questions you're getting sort of this notion 0:41:24.800 --> 0:41:26.920 of a binary that it's one or the other. Why 0:41:26.920 --> 0:41:30.840 aren't you a Republican as opposed to risk taking without recklessness. 0:41:31.040 --> 0:41:33.640 You know what's that right balance? You know? Is the 0:41:33.719 --> 0:41:35.600 right balance of DOGE is the example of the one 0:41:35.640 --> 0:41:38.480 hundred and forty billion dollars that Clinton and Gore saved 0:41:38.680 --> 0:41:40.640 on a one point four trillion dollar government and they 0:41:40.680 --> 0:41:43.000 reduced the size of the workforce by four hundred thousand. 0:41:43.200 --> 0:41:47.320 But they did that again in partnership and did real 0:41:47.360 --> 0:41:50.760 reform versus the recklessness of DOGE. Is it the RFI 0:41:50.880 --> 0:41:53.800 two process. I thank you for recognizing our procurement reforms 0:41:54.000 --> 0:41:56.759 you highlight. We brought in gen Polka to it from 0:41:56.800 --> 0:41:59.080 Code for America to bring in a private sector version. 0:41:59.239 --> 0:42:01.439 We did the original DOGE. We call it ODI, which 0:42:01.480 --> 0:42:03.799 the Office of Digital Innovation, which is now Office of 0:42:03.840 --> 0:42:07.000 Data Innovation. We're trying to change the entire procurement framework. 0:42:07.160 --> 0:42:09.920 We inherited these old Cobalt systems that you highlight from 0:42:09.960 --> 0:42:13.760 nineteen fifty nine and these IBM mainframes in the nineteen eighties. 0:42:13.920 --> 0:42:17.759 All of that creates a stress on the system, and 0:42:17.840 --> 0:42:20.600 so it's not easy overnight to fix it. But the 0:42:20.640 --> 0:42:24.080 emergency mindset and I think the break the glass point 0:42:24.080 --> 0:42:27.359 you're making is for democrats right now, and it's the 0:42:27.400 --> 0:42:29.400 soul searching we have, we got to deliver it. 0:42:35.000 --> 0:42:36.920 Does your legislature want to fix it? 0:42:37.440 --> 0:42:39.799 They all intellectually do. But then you have you have 0:42:39.840 --> 0:42:42.920 every constituency in every group, and they're showing up twenty 0:42:42.960 --> 0:42:46.160 four to seven. Then nimbiism as well established. You've established 0:42:46.160 --> 0:42:48.200 it from the mindset. It's not just by the way Reagan. 0:42:48.840 --> 0:42:51.520 In sequel, it's the NEPA, it's in Dangered Species Act, 0:42:51.560 --> 0:42:54.520 it's the Clean Water Act, all the stuff Nixon did. 0:42:54.560 --> 0:42:57.719 But it's not. But in any reform, people panic, oh, 0:42:57.760 --> 0:43:00.520 you don't care about you You've just turned it conservative. 0:43:00.560 --> 0:43:02.239 You can't even I mean, we've had a podcast here. 0:43:02.320 --> 0:43:04.279 You talked to Republicans. You're like, geez, what the hell 0:43:04.360 --> 0:43:07.480 is going on? Guys selling out sold his soul. So 0:43:07.560 --> 0:43:11.480 you have reforms around process. In sequel, people panic said, what, 0:43:11.560 --> 0:43:13.719 you just want to destroy the environment. So there's a 0:43:13.719 --> 0:43:16.600 political price you pay for that reform. But you're right, 0:43:16.640 --> 0:43:19.600 there's a political price for not reforming, which is where 0:43:19.600 --> 0:43:23.319 the Democratic Party is today. So speed decision making, the 0:43:23.360 --> 0:43:27.000 sense of action and purpose. By the way, a lot 0:43:27.000 --> 0:43:30.640 of what this president is celebrating is what the last 0:43:30.640 --> 0:43:34.480 president did, and a lot of the investments, I mean 0:43:34.520 --> 0:43:37.239 the AI investments that Sam and others were making and 0:43:37.280 --> 0:43:38.600 that we're making. 0:43:40.360 --> 0:43:41.880 I want to get the credit. That's one of the 0:43:41.920 --> 0:43:43.760 reason I think the speed thing is actually so important. 0:43:44.160 --> 0:43:47.400 You want to shorten. Look, the policy feedback loops are 0:43:47.440 --> 0:43:50.480 broken because people don't know who did the policy. When 0:43:50.480 --> 0:43:52.759 you said a second a couple of minutes ago that 0:43:53.040 --> 0:43:56.640 these projects that can only exist because of your fast 0:43:56.640 --> 0:43:59.520 tracking will not exist while you are in office, right, 0:43:59.719 --> 0:44:03.760 that a breakdown of the way the voters can maintain 0:44:03.760 --> 0:44:06.080 accountability right when they don't know who did what. It's 0:44:06.080 --> 0:44:09.840 actually a big problem. One thing that I think about 0:44:09.880 --> 0:44:11.480 with what you were just saying on the politics of 0:44:11.520 --> 0:44:13.520 it is that and I see it very clearly in California. 0:44:13.560 --> 0:44:17.600 I'm sure it's true in other places. You can you 0:44:17.600 --> 0:44:20.840 should tell me if this is facile. You can avoid 0:44:21.080 --> 0:44:24.280 short term pain in a way that ultimately creates almost 0:44:24.400 --> 0:44:26.720 unsolvable long term pain. And so you know you obviously 0:44:26.760 --> 0:44:30.279 used to be mayor of San Francisco London Breed said 0:44:30.280 --> 0:44:32.520 a lot of the right things on yimbiism and all 0:44:32.560 --> 0:44:36.200 the rest of Itancisco, but couldn't get it done and 0:44:36.680 --> 0:44:39.160 lost reelection. Not the only reason, but a big reason. 0:44:39.200 --> 0:44:42.839 People are furious about the homelessness problem there, and that's 0:44:42.920 --> 0:44:45.239 in large part of a housing problem. It's not the 0:44:45.280 --> 0:44:46.239 only reason, but. 0:44:46.120 --> 0:44:48.400 A large problem. You make that point, and you're spot on. 0:44:48.680 --> 0:44:52.600 In Oakland, they were called the mayor in Los Angeles. 0:44:52.640 --> 0:44:54.000 I mean, there's a lot of reasons for what's going 0:44:54.040 --> 0:44:56.120 on there, but Crusoe ran a much stronger campaign than 0:44:56.160 --> 0:44:58.560 people have expected at the beginning, and. 0:44:58.840 --> 0:45:01.279 Former Republican we're out performed a. 0:45:01.239 --> 0:45:03.279 Lot of Yeah, and so you have this sort of 0:45:03.320 --> 0:45:05.960 thing happening where there's almost I think, I don't want 0:45:05.960 --> 0:45:07.320 to say a ceiling. We'll see what you do in 0:45:07.320 --> 0:45:08.920 a couple of years. I don't want to say a 0:45:08.960 --> 0:45:12.560 ceiling on where California politicians can go. But it is 0:45:12.800 --> 0:45:16.840 very hard to be successful when people are angry of 0:45:16.920 --> 0:45:19.759 our problems that maybe you didn't cause, right, but you're 0:45:19.760 --> 0:45:21.520 also not willing to take the pain out assault. 0:45:21.560 --> 0:45:23.040 Well, I'm trying. I am taking the pain and I'm 0:45:23.080 --> 0:45:25.120 taking the political I mean, I can give you proof 0:45:25.160 --> 0:45:27.400 points of the work we've done in the political capital 0:45:27.400 --> 0:45:30.200 We've used to get a lot of these reforms advanced, 0:45:30.200 --> 0:45:32.920 and that's I think that's That's where I struggle a 0:45:32.920 --> 0:45:36.200 little bit with the book. Just again, the book that 0:45:36.239 --> 0:45:39.080 I celebrate and I'm handing out to folks, is it's 0:45:39.400 --> 0:45:42.920 not a lot of that is acknowledged the actual policy 0:45:43.000 --> 0:45:46.440 reforms that we are advancing, that we are marching and 0:45:46.520 --> 0:45:49.960 moving towards, and how we're actually starting to see some 0:45:50.040 --> 0:45:53.759 progress in that respect. But with that in mind, I 0:45:53.840 --> 0:45:56.799 get the speed and the scale, but I also want 0:45:56.840 --> 0:45:59.440 to make a case. Look, this is a state, you know, 0:45:59.560 --> 0:46:02.680 where we're aiming population again, We're running budget surpluses. We 0:46:02.840 --> 0:46:08.280 dominate in every innovative category you talk about the future 0:46:08.320 --> 0:46:13.319 of abundance in the context of invention and deployment, that's California. 0:46:13.520 --> 0:46:16.360 Eighteen percent of the world's R and D is in 0:46:16.400 --> 0:46:19.480 the state. No other state comes close. Only two countries 0:46:19.760 --> 0:46:23.160 have more R and D, and that's that's Germany and China. 0:46:23.400 --> 0:46:26.360 This is a state with forty one percent more manufacturing 0:46:26.400 --> 0:46:29.480 output than the state that tends to get a lot 0:46:29.520 --> 0:46:33.480 of credit in Texas. Texas, by the way, takes seventy 0:46:33.520 --> 0:46:37.480 one point one billion dollars of federal money from the taxpayers. 0:46:37.520 --> 0:46:40.120 We give eighty three point one billion dollars. We have 0:46:40.120 --> 0:46:43.959 more scientists, engineers, more, Nobel laureates, more venture capital. Half 0:46:43.960 --> 0:46:46.840 of the unicorn companies in the country are in California. 0:46:46.880 --> 0:46:48.800 There's a lot going right. They just get a survey 0:46:48.840 --> 0:46:52.440 of the top ten happiest cities. I would respect Houston 0:46:52.480 --> 0:46:57.640 went on that list, but Santa was very Irvine was 0:46:57.680 --> 0:47:02.360 on that list. Fremont interesting, number one, San Diego. So 0:47:02.719 --> 0:47:05.759 you know, I don't know, we dominate in AI. The 0:47:05.800 --> 0:47:09.440 world again, we're inventing the future happens here. By the 0:47:09.440 --> 0:47:11.960 way you saw in homelessness, the numbers through the roof 0:47:12.000 --> 0:47:14.840 across the rest of the country stabilized here in California. 0:47:14.880 --> 0:47:19.080 The housing crisis not unique to Blue states, any larger, longer, 0:47:19.640 --> 0:47:24.920 lower taxes in this state than in many many states. 0:47:24.920 --> 0:47:28.120 People talk about the high taxes in California. It's just BS. 0:47:28.160 --> 0:47:33.200 Sixteen states. Sixteen states tax their poorest residents more than 0:47:33.239 --> 0:47:36.640 we tax our top one percent. Forty percent of our 0:47:36.680 --> 0:47:39.760 residents pay lower taxes than in Florida and Texas. Eighty 0:47:39.800 --> 0:47:44.040 percent of our residents pay slightly above average taxes. So 0:47:44.400 --> 0:47:47.000 this notion of even being a high tax state is BS. 0:47:47.200 --> 0:47:51.120 This notion that everyone's leaving is complete BS. We dominate 0:47:51.239 --> 0:47:54.520 in so many of these categories because I think of 0:47:54.520 --> 0:47:57.400 our values, but we're not build enough damn housing, and 0:47:57.440 --> 0:48:00.439 that's led to this homeless crisis. Not exclusively, you said, 0:48:00.440 --> 0:48:04.560 but it's contributed. And yes, we had a vision decades ago. 0:48:04.640 --> 0:48:07.400 The taxpayers advanced it on a high speed rail and 0:48:07.440 --> 0:48:10.080 we watched China clean our clock. You highlight that in 0:48:10.719 --> 0:48:13.080 miles and numerics that are depressing. Don't you want you 0:48:13.080 --> 0:48:15.520 to repeat them? I can for everybody, but I'm not 0:48:15.560 --> 0:48:17.799 going to. But we're going to get the damn thing done. 0:48:17.840 --> 0:48:20.239 They complained about the Erie Canal, they complained about the 0:48:20.239 --> 0:48:24.600 Panama Canal, they complained about the trans Continental Railroad right 0:48:24.640 --> 0:48:27.840 before it finally started, uh to start to start to 0:48:27.880 --> 0:48:29.680 see real progress. And I feel like we're at that 0:48:29.760 --> 0:48:32.600 tipping point with this damn high speed rail. But nonetheless, 0:48:32.800 --> 0:48:33.960 you're right speed. 0:48:33.840 --> 0:48:38.759 Rail for a second. So I, for instance, I will, 0:48:38.800 --> 0:48:42.080 I will, I will say, first look, I love California. No, 0:48:42.239 --> 0:48:45.640 I have redwoods tattooed on my shoulder, like no joke, 0:48:46.400 --> 0:48:49.920 and like and leaving the state to go live in 0:48:49.920 --> 0:48:51.360 New York City was like the right thing for a 0:48:51.360 --> 0:48:54.560 bunch of reasons. But but you know, a difficult personal 0:48:54.640 --> 0:48:58.400 choice for me because this is my soil. So every 0:48:58.520 --> 0:49:01.680 you live through a tough time, though, Francis, you know 0:49:01.719 --> 0:49:03.239 what I would still I mean it was that was 0:49:03.360 --> 0:49:06.080 that was im That was a tough time in the pandemic. 0:49:06.160 --> 0:49:07.960 And by the way that city is coming around, it's 0:49:07.960 --> 0:49:12.560 turning around. Objectively, I love s F two objectively. 0:49:12.719 --> 0:49:14.920 You know, as I say, what is a criticism is 0:49:14.960 --> 0:49:15.560 an act of love. 0:49:15.800 --> 0:49:18.160 Yes, bless you. There's a lot of love, a lot 0:49:18.200 --> 0:49:18.640 of love. 0:49:18.520 --> 0:49:20.319 In this book, man, a lot of love in this book. 0:49:20.880 --> 0:49:24.240 But and then this is I think always the great 0:49:24.640 --> 0:49:30.760 uh paradox of California. California is the frontier of the future. 0:49:31.200 --> 0:49:35.160 It always has been. And technologically as you said, but 0:49:35.200 --> 0:49:37.480 also culture right. You go to northern California, we're inventing 0:49:37.480 --> 0:49:40.759 everybody's technology. You go to southern we're given the whole world. 0:49:40.760 --> 0:49:46.400 It's culture right, It's a wild place. And the to me, 0:49:47.320 --> 0:49:49.480 the reason the housing thing matters here, the reason I 0:49:49.520 --> 0:49:51.799 structure the housing chapter the way that that I do 0:49:51.880 --> 0:49:56.680 with Derek, is that you need to make it possible 0:49:57.560 --> 0:50:02.319 for people to be and and and prosper from that 0:50:02.400 --> 0:50:07.239 prosperity right, it is good for people. 0:50:07.000 --> 0:50:08.120 To be near the AI boom. 0:50:08.760 --> 0:50:11.560 I have friends. I mean they fought fires in the 0:50:11.600 --> 0:50:13.520 city of San Francisco, couldn't afford to live there. 0:50:13.920 --> 0:50:14.120 Right. 0:50:14.719 --> 0:50:19.000 The point of California's riches is that they should be shared, 0:50:19.280 --> 0:50:22.319 not shared necessarily just through taxation and reistribution, but through 0:50:22.320 --> 0:50:24.600 the ability to people to go live in these super 0:50:24.640 --> 0:50:27.520 high productivity places. Where has happened with like a young 0:50:27.520 --> 0:50:30.960 Steve Jobs and Wosniak, you sort of fall into this 0:50:31.040 --> 0:50:33.560 world where maybe if you have a genius for something, 0:50:33.960 --> 0:50:35.720 you have the connections to make it matter. 0:50:36.920 --> 0:50:37.080 You know. 0:50:37.200 --> 0:50:38.520 I have this sort of line in the book that 0:50:39.160 --> 0:50:41.800 in making these cities so expensive, we did the real gating. 0:50:42.120 --> 0:50:45.439 We really closed the frontier, because the true frontier isn't land. 0:50:45.440 --> 0:50:48.640 Its ideas you frame it with Horace Greeley, go west, 0:50:48.680 --> 0:50:51.600 young Man, go west, and then you create that new construct. 0:50:51.680 --> 0:50:54.600 Yeah, so I want to pull that. It's actually everything 0:50:54.600 --> 0:50:57.040 you say about California. And you know this I'm not telling, 0:50:57.040 --> 0:50:59.759 but I'm sanding for the audience that that makes it 0:50:59.760 --> 0:51:02.960 so important that like the working class families can be 0:51:03.040 --> 0:51:05.480 here are not driven out but on my speed rail. 0:51:05.600 --> 0:51:06.759 Let me because by. 0:51:06.640 --> 0:51:10.279 The way, just beg the housing crisis in this state 0:51:10.360 --> 0:51:13.200 explains more things and more ways on more days, that 0:51:13.280 --> 0:51:18.279 affordability issue is the core of ninety percent of California's 0:51:18.440 --> 0:51:22.400 real and structural problems. This is foundational. Again, you could 0:51:22.400 --> 0:51:26.560 not be more right. It is at the core of 0:51:26.600 --> 0:51:29.640 the issues that define the challenges not just to this state, 0:51:29.680 --> 0:51:32.880 increasingly all over the United States. We talk about the 0:51:32.880 --> 0:51:35.960 future happening here first, where America is coming to traction. 0:51:36.239 --> 0:51:39.160 That's all those wonderful things. Then you and I were 0:51:39.200 --> 0:51:43.160 just discussing, but obviously all of these perilous issues that 0:51:43.280 --> 0:51:45.800 you have been discussing, and the reason you wrote. 0:51:45.600 --> 0:51:47.400 This book so high speed rail. So when I went 0:51:47.400 --> 0:51:49.560 on and did the reporting on that, and I went 0:51:49.640 --> 0:51:51.120 up and down the track with the people building it 0:51:51.239 --> 0:51:53.759 and the people from the rail authority, and they told 0:51:53.800 --> 0:51:55.399 me a couple things that have stuck in my head 0:51:55.440 --> 0:51:56.799 that I don't try to resolve in the book, but 0:51:56.800 --> 0:51:59.000 I'd be careious for your thoughts. So one was that 0:51:59.520 --> 0:52:02.160 the said Bakersfield Leg, which is the leg that is 0:52:02.200 --> 0:52:05.359 currently being tried. I think they said they had something 0:52:05.440 --> 0:52:08.120 like line of sight either had spent or head line 0:52:08.120 --> 0:52:09.960 of sight on something like it was in the range 0:52:09.960 --> 0:52:11.440 of eleven to fifteen billion dollars. 0:52:11.520 --> 0:52:16.200 We thirteen point four billion dollars of which ten point 0:52:16.200 --> 0:52:18.200 eight from the state and two point six from the feds. 0:52:18.200 --> 0:52:20.759 All right, and that the estimate on finishing was said 0:52:20.760 --> 0:52:22.360 to Bakersfield was thirty six billion. 0:52:22.600 --> 0:52:26.319 Yeah, well, there's there's currently our estimates and this plus 0:52:26.440 --> 0:52:29.719 or minus and this moving target about six point five 0:52:29.760 --> 0:52:33.520 billion dollars that we based upon what we have the 0:52:33.600 --> 0:52:36.600 current commitments. We had additional three billion dollars from the 0:52:36.640 --> 0:52:39.920 federal government. Obviously, the term of administration is trying to 0:52:39.960 --> 0:52:42.279 analyze that as they did in the last time. And 0:52:42.320 --> 0:52:46.120 then cap and trade proceeds that will continue to accrue 0:52:46.200 --> 0:52:48.920 if we extend cap and trade. Can you bond against that? 0:52:48.960 --> 0:52:50.560 There's a lot of variations. 0:52:50.600 --> 0:52:52.319 So you're saying you think you have line of sight 0:52:52.360 --> 0:52:54.239 on the money we have with a delta six point 0:52:54.280 --> 0:52:57.439 five billion roughly, And what a bunch of the people 0:52:57.440 --> 0:52:59.000 working on set is like, look, in the end for 0:52:59.040 --> 0:53:00.799 this to really work, needs to be LA to San 0:53:00.800 --> 0:53:02.920 Francisco and now would cost one hundred and ten billion dollars. 0:53:03.080 --> 0:53:05.440 Yeah, well we're looking at and I don't you know, Look, 0:53:07.680 --> 0:53:10.879 we've extended high speed rail the idea is to get 0:53:10.880 --> 0:53:13.040 it in these density and population quarterors, which is the 0:53:13.040 --> 0:53:17.000 point you make in the critique, and get Ta Fresno, 0:53:17.160 --> 0:53:19.920 for example, to Gilroy where Caltran is, and we can 0:53:20.160 --> 0:53:23.239 we can then connect to San Jose and into San Francisco. 0:53:23.360 --> 0:53:26.120 We have the existing infrastructure in place. That's about an 0:53:26.160 --> 0:53:30.120 hour you get into Palmdale. Now you're connecting with the 0:53:30.239 --> 0:53:32.640 new Bright line that's going all the way to Vegas 0:53:32.640 --> 0:53:34.239 and one of the fastest growing parts of the state 0:53:34.239 --> 0:53:37.120 in Palmdale, where middle class families can still afford a home. 0:53:37.760 --> 0:53:40.400 And so those are component parts and that's where I 0:53:40.440 --> 0:53:44.120 think that thirty six million billion dollar number came from. 0:53:44.360 --> 0:53:47.759 Those three component parts. Roughly add up to that now 0:53:47.760 --> 0:53:51.040 that to Hatchpee Mountains, getting them over all of those 0:53:51.120 --> 0:53:55.200 larger issues. Those are issues that obviously are component parts of. 0:53:55.120 --> 0:53:57.440 This larger and that'll be you know, over the course 0:53:57.480 --> 0:53:58.320 of many minuters. 0:53:58.400 --> 0:53:58.960 Right. Oh. 0:53:59.000 --> 0:54:01.359 But I think the I think the big question people 0:54:01.400 --> 0:54:03.359 have about it, and you hear people asking us all 0:54:03.400 --> 0:54:04.319 the time, is that And. 0:54:04.280 --> 0:54:05.719 I'm just write I inherited this. 0:54:09.000 --> 0:54:11.919 I'm not blaming governors on the dog. 0:54:12.239 --> 0:54:13.359 I'm just trying to think that. 0:54:13.440 --> 0:54:16.799 Question is if there is not a line of sight 0:54:16.880 --> 0:54:19.120 on that thirty six to one ten billion, right, that 0:54:19.239 --> 0:54:21.280 doesn't exist, and that's a very hard. 0:54:21.040 --> 0:54:23.120 Thing when you're trying to get revenue generation. Once you 0:54:23.160 --> 0:54:25.560 start getting the large population corridors, if you could connect 0:54:25.600 --> 0:54:28.400 Silicon Valley to Central Valley, which is the foundational argument, 0:54:28.800 --> 0:54:31.440 and you can start sharing. We're looking at train sets 0:54:31.520 --> 0:54:34.960 that have interoperability not just with bright Line, but a 0:54:35.040 --> 0:54:37.960 high desert corridors. You have two private sector partners and 0:54:38.000 --> 0:54:41.960 we're actually procuring train sets very very shortly, as I 0:54:42.000 --> 0:54:44.160 say we did the railhead. We're starting to lay track. 0:54:44.400 --> 0:54:46.799 This thing is starting to get very very real. Some 0:54:46.840 --> 0:54:49.799 of the projects you did see are projects that will 0:54:49.800 --> 0:54:52.480 have profound impacts economically in terms of the up zone, 0:54:52.640 --> 0:54:55.879 particularly in the Fresno corridor, and Fresno is a very. 0:54:55.840 --> 0:54:57.960 Important I think the big the big worry I heard 0:54:57.960 --> 0:55:01.680 from transportation types is that the ridership in those quarters, 0:55:01.719 --> 0:55:04.279 as fast growing as they may be, is not enough 0:55:04.320 --> 0:55:05.959 to throw off money. It's not even enough to handle 0:55:06.000 --> 0:55:08.440 that operating budget very likely, and it's definitely not going 0:55:08.520 --> 0:55:10.040 to throw off money that's going to complete one hundred 0:55:10.040 --> 0:55:12.760 and ten billion dollar train, and that we're finishing something 0:55:12.800 --> 0:55:15.040 that in the end is going to be a monument 0:55:15.080 --> 0:55:17.279 to not being able to Well there's the thing we 0:55:17.320 --> 0:55:17.520 want it. 0:55:17.600 --> 0:55:18.919 Yeah, we're not going to be able to build a 0:55:18.960 --> 0:55:21.400 new airport. We're not, you know, I mean the end 0:55:21.400 --> 0:55:23.759 of the day, we've got these constraints that are well 0:55:23.840 --> 0:55:27.120 established already, these pre existing constraints. There's not a high 0:55:27.160 --> 0:55:30.080 speed railing system that's not enjoying some popularity and success. 0:55:30.160 --> 0:55:33.920 Most at least are wildly popular. It's an experience no 0:55:33.960 --> 0:55:36.560 one's had in the United States of America. At least, 0:55:36.600 --> 0:55:41.560 we're out there daring and we're trying to it can be. 0:55:41.520 --> 0:55:44.680 Made that would make the next pieces just easier. I mean, 0:55:44.719 --> 0:55:47.319 I was always interested that, Like it wasn't exempted from 0:55:47.320 --> 0:55:49.800 sequel in the first place. It's a pro environmental project, 0:55:49.880 --> 0:55:52.040 I know. You know, are there things like that? 0:55:52.080 --> 0:55:54.160 Oh my god, I mean, I wish you wrote this 0:55:54.239 --> 0:55:56.759 damn book in two thousand and seven. Wow, Where the 0:55:56.800 --> 0:55:59.160 hell were you? It's a good question, seriously, by the way, 0:55:59.160 --> 0:56:02.880 where were you? I was in Washington, man in Washington, 0:56:03.000 --> 0:56:05.640 was in Washington. I mean, but you're right, no, look, 0:56:05.239 --> 0:56:07.960 and I don't see it's the art of the possible, 0:56:08.080 --> 0:56:10.280 and I know that back to that's a practitioner framework. 0:56:10.320 --> 0:56:12.080 I mean, I love to intellectualize all these things what 0:56:12.160 --> 0:56:15.080 could have, should have, would have, but there's certain foundational facts. 0:56:15.080 --> 0:56:17.759 And interestingly, you made the point in the book that 0:56:17.840 --> 0:56:20.399 I have to over and over make to people, why 0:56:20.440 --> 0:56:23.880 did we start in the Central Valley? It was a requirement, 0:56:24.160 --> 0:56:27.720 federal requirement for federal dollars. Now it's not the worst idea, 0:56:27.960 --> 0:56:29.520 I mean the Intercontinental. 0:56:29.160 --> 0:56:31.560 Just to say it was a requirement because the federal 0:56:31.640 --> 0:56:34.240 program wasn't just for high speed rail. It's his start 0:56:34.440 --> 0:56:38.359 where you had air pollution for marginalized communities, which is 0:56:38.719 --> 0:56:41.080 both Like, I just want to say this because it's 0:56:41.080 --> 0:56:42.480 part of why I'm saying this in the book is 0:56:42.520 --> 0:56:46.440 that that all sounds great and there's you can come 0:56:46.560 --> 0:56:49.239 up with reasons starting Central Valley, but it's the part 0:56:49.320 --> 0:56:52.240 of the state that will generate the least political capital 0:56:52.320 --> 0:56:55.000 to keep going because it has the least danse ridership. 0:56:56.600 --> 0:56:58.480 But it's also part of the state that does have 0:56:58.719 --> 0:57:00.640 I mean, you know, you talk about it ignorance, poverty, 0:57:00.640 --> 0:57:03.040 and disease. You talk about the issues of air quality 0:57:03.040 --> 0:57:06.919 and life expectancy, you talk about the economic opportunity. 0:57:06.440 --> 0:57:09.080 But as air quality is the whole track. 0:57:09.000 --> 0:57:13.520 Well, ultimately fully electrified track. I mean that ultimately will This. 0:57:13.600 --> 0:57:15.200 Is just to me, it's an example. This one wasn't 0:57:15.239 --> 0:57:18.200 California's fault. This was the Obama administration. But it's an 0:57:18.240 --> 0:57:21.480 example of they should have given I want to say 0:57:21.480 --> 0:57:23.720 what I think should have happened here. They should have 0:57:23.760 --> 0:57:27.480 given you whatever three some billion dollars that's what that 0:57:27.520 --> 0:57:30.600 grant was, and just said use it for high speed rail. 0:57:30.960 --> 0:57:31.120 Right. 0:57:31.200 --> 0:57:33.560 It shouldn't have been a stacked series of ideas. Right, 0:57:33.560 --> 0:57:35.760 it doesn't all need to be a triple axle. Right, 0:57:35.800 --> 0:57:38.120 high speed rail is hard enough, as you know better 0:57:38.120 --> 0:57:38.560 than I do. 0:57:38.800 --> 0:57:42.040 It's you know, representative democracy is a tough thing. Dictatorships 0:57:42.040 --> 0:57:42.760 are a little easy. 0:57:43.760 --> 0:57:45.480 Representative Tom knew that. 0:57:45.520 --> 0:57:47.400 You know, a lot of folks in the Central Valley, 0:57:47.440 --> 0:57:49.160 a lot of the elected officials, a lot of the 0:57:49.200 --> 0:57:50.480 blue dog Democrats a lot. 0:57:50.600 --> 0:57:54.080 But the Obama administration when they created those programs, right, yeah, 0:57:54.120 --> 0:57:55.800 that's a lot happening. I really, this isn't. 0:57:56.160 --> 0:57:59.960 There were a lot of representatives, Democrats, representers that still 0:58:00.000 --> 0:58:04.480 sipulated their support for that bill in those dollars that 0:58:04.520 --> 0:58:05.160 it go to the center. 0:58:05.240 --> 0:58:06.600 There is a lot to be politics in that. I 0:58:06.880 --> 0:58:08.760 don't want to take that away, but I do want 0:58:08.760 --> 0:58:10.360 to say because this comes up a lot when I'm 0:58:10.360 --> 0:58:12.600 talking about this book. It's like, oh, do you hate democracy? 0:58:13.080 --> 0:58:15.760 People have no fucking idea what is happening in these 0:58:15.800 --> 0:58:21.360 regulatory processes, Like I cover this professionally, and when I 0:58:21.440 --> 0:58:23.680 dig into what is happening after these bills pass, I'm like, 0:58:23.720 --> 0:58:27.680 oh my god, really that is not democracy. That is, 0:58:27.760 --> 0:58:29.520 we have created things that were supposed to a lot 0:58:29.520 --> 0:58:32.200 of participation and they are often very captured. Maybe they're 0:58:32.200 --> 0:58:35.400 captured by interests. You like, that's fine, but that is 0:58:35.440 --> 0:58:38.720 not the thing that you know, the massive Californians have 0:58:38.800 --> 0:58:40.960 voted for Prop one A knew they were getting. And 0:58:41.040 --> 0:58:42.960 even those of us covering the stimulus bill, we're not 0:58:43.480 --> 0:58:47.680 looking at the precise requirements in the notice of funding 0:58:47.720 --> 0:58:50.600 opportunity in the grant program. So there is this thing, 0:58:50.680 --> 0:58:53.960 I think where a lot of this highly technocratic governance, 0:58:54.040 --> 0:58:58.680 which is very much a negotiation between different interests, is 0:58:58.720 --> 0:59:01.680 in this like King's Cup Way being justified as democracy. 0:59:02.120 --> 0:59:05.240 That's not what democracy looks like. I'll use that chant here, right, 0:59:05.640 --> 0:59:07.760 I mean, it's not SHP. Nobody knows about you. 0:59:08.440 --> 0:59:10.960 Look, I mean you're you're very adjacent to the arguments 0:59:10.960 --> 0:59:14.120 that Elon Musk is making with Doge, this clay layer 0:59:14.120 --> 0:59:17.000 of bureaucracy. This is not representative. Who the hell are 0:59:17.040 --> 0:59:19.560 these people to make these rules? Who are these people 0:59:19.560 --> 0:59:22.840 making these decisions? And the opacity of these decisions? And 0:59:22.840 --> 0:59:25.320 I've made in sunshine and daylight and a lot of 0:59:25.320 --> 0:59:26.120 these three levels. 0:59:26.440 --> 0:59:29.960 Supposed to Nicholas Bagley, the more liberal law professor, making 0:59:29.960 --> 0:59:32.440 these rules. But I think I'll take the head. 0:59:32.600 --> 0:59:34.200 No, it's well, it's not even a hit. But I mean, 0:59:34.200 --> 0:59:37.080 I think it goes to the sentiment, it goes to 0:59:37.600 --> 0:59:39.360 I think it goes to the thematics of your book. 0:59:39.360 --> 0:59:41.080 It goes to what you're trying to stress test and 0:59:41.120 --> 0:59:43.840 what you're trying to stress upon us as Democrats, that 0:59:43.880 --> 0:59:47.080 we need to be more accountable. Here's anything. But let 0:59:47.080 --> 0:59:48.360 me make this point. I say this all the time, 0:59:48.360 --> 0:59:50.560 my legislative friends. Right when I sign a bill, I said, 0:59:51.240 --> 0:59:54.000 this happens so obviously not indictment of any individual legislature. 0:59:54.000 --> 0:59:57.160 It's in sort of institutionalized. They think the process is done, 0:59:57.320 --> 0:59:58.480 process just begun. 0:59:58.520 --> 1:00:00.880 Just beginning program again not problem. 1:00:00.640 --> 1:00:04.120 Solving, and then that implementation application goes through exactly what 1:00:04.200 --> 1:00:07.680 you're saying. What's an You mentioned no foes in in 1:00:07.680 --> 1:00:10.280 in the book, we have no fuzz, which I notice 1:00:10.360 --> 1:00:14.320 a funny availability, not opportunity. And then you stack all 1:00:14.320 --> 1:00:17.000 those things up with all these rules and requirements along 1:00:17.000 --> 1:00:20.320 the lines you suggest that was never part of anyone's understanding. 1:00:20.320 --> 1:00:22.280 Your vision is what you just saw this, And I 1:00:22.280 --> 1:00:23.680 think there's absolutegitimacy. 1:00:23.720 --> 1:00:25.800 I have this joke that everybody knows a schoolhouse rock 1:00:26.560 --> 1:00:28.600 song of like how a bill becomes a law, but 1:00:28.640 --> 1:00:30.360 what they don't know is how a law becomes or 1:00:30.400 --> 1:00:33.800 does not become like a reality, right, like the things 1:00:33.800 --> 1:00:35.800 that happened after actually much more complicated. But I want 1:00:35.840 --> 1:00:38.040 to say one thing about Elon Muskandoje And at this 1:00:38.120 --> 1:00:40.560 point I was just I just referenced Nick Bagley, who 1:00:40.680 --> 1:00:43.200 is a great administ of law professor of Michigan. He 1:00:43.360 --> 1:00:47.240 was Gretchen Whitmer's your your gubernatorial colleagues, chief counsel. He 1:00:47.280 --> 1:00:49.720 wrote this piece it's very influential these days and very 1:00:49.760 --> 1:00:52.520 influential for me, called the procedural fetish, And one of 1:00:52.560 --> 1:00:54.200 the things he says in that that I think is 1:00:54.240 --> 1:00:59.040 really wise is that the Democotic Party is very legalistic. 1:00:59.080 --> 1:01:01.840 It's got a lot of lawyers in it. Between Tim 1:01:01.920 --> 1:01:06.040 Walls was the first person on a Democratic ticket since 1:01:06.120 --> 1:01:09.440 Mondell to not go to law school. We're very legalistic 1:01:10.160 --> 1:01:14.400 and lawyers and constitutional lawyers and administrative procedure lawyers. They 1:01:14.480 --> 1:01:16.400 grapple a lot with a very hard question, which is 1:01:16.440 --> 1:01:19.560 what makes government action legitimate? And the answer they often 1:01:19.560 --> 1:01:22.160 come to his procedure right is following the procedures set 1:01:22.160 --> 1:01:23.760 out in the laws and the rules and the court orders, 1:01:23.800 --> 1:01:26.200 et cetera. It's not that there's nothing to that. But 1:01:26.240 --> 1:01:28.200 the point Bagley makes, which I think is the right 1:01:28.280 --> 1:01:30.040 counter or the way to think about the point Elon 1:01:30.120 --> 1:01:33.240 Musk is making, is it, to most people, what makes 1:01:33.280 --> 1:01:36.720 government legitimate in a democracy is it they are getting 1:01:36.760 --> 1:01:38.840 what they think they voted for. When they vote for 1:01:38.920 --> 1:01:40.200 you and you say you're going to do X, Y 1:01:40.240 --> 1:01:42.320 and Z, they got X, Y and Z. And if 1:01:42.360 --> 1:01:44.600 they don't feel like they got that, they vote you 1:01:44.640 --> 1:01:47.600 out right. They see you as illegitimate failure. And the 1:01:47.720 --> 1:01:51.080 problem with Musk and Doge, in addition to its lawless nature, 1:01:51.880 --> 1:01:55.880 is that its ends are terrible, and the people did 1:01:55.880 --> 1:01:59.120 not vote for, you know, not to be able to 1:01:59.200 --> 1:02:02.280 reach anybody at Social Security Administration or the IRS. Ever 1:02:02.320 --> 1:02:04.680 again on the phone, right, that wasn't part of the pitch, 1:02:05.400 --> 1:02:09.920 But it's I think really important that liberals have a 1:02:09.960 --> 1:02:12.080 little bit more of the sense not the procedure is meaningless, 1:02:12.080 --> 1:02:16.200 because it isn't you need procedure. But what really connects 1:02:16.240 --> 1:02:20.000 government to people is outcomes, the lived experience of government 1:02:20.120 --> 1:02:23.880 acting in their life. And if you are letting endless 1:02:23.960 --> 1:02:26.400 levels of not just process but process, you have created. 1:02:26.440 --> 1:02:28.600 I mean when we're talking about no foes and no fas, 1:02:28.640 --> 1:02:31.200 and I mean that is the work of men and women. 1:02:31.600 --> 1:02:33.880 You know, we are writing that shit down on the computer. 1:02:34.040 --> 1:02:37.320 Yeah, and when we lost everyone, we opened up with sequences. 1:02:36.840 --> 1:02:39.040 And this is this is going to be a very high, 1:02:39.160 --> 1:02:43.160 high audience podcast. But when you do that, I think 1:02:43.160 --> 1:02:46.240 that that actually is a cultural change. The thing I 1:02:46.280 --> 1:02:49.520 respect about Elon Musk there's a lot these days I 1:02:49.520 --> 1:02:52.440 don't like about the guy, but there is a relentlessness 1:02:52.520 --> 1:02:55.200 to the way he pursues his objectives, a real sense 1:02:55.240 --> 1:02:58.080 it in between here and the end he is seeking 1:02:58.480 --> 1:03:00.920 might be a lot of pain a lot of disappointment, 1:03:00.960 --> 1:03:03.120 might be a lot of angry people. But if this 1:03:03.280 --> 1:03:06.120 is worth it, which on Tesla and SpaceX it was, 1:03:06.200 --> 1:03:08.280 and on destroying the federal government, in my view it isn't, 1:03:09.320 --> 1:03:12.240 then this is worth it, And that I think has 1:03:12.280 --> 1:03:14.520 not been the culture of liberal governance. The culture of 1:03:14.520 --> 1:03:18.120 liberal governance has actually been to try to generate political 1:03:18.160 --> 1:03:21.320 support by giving things to interest groups in the middle 1:03:21.320 --> 1:03:24.160 of the process. Right, you pass the bill, then there's 1:03:24.160 --> 1:03:26.680 a regulatory thing. Nobody's really paying attention to that, and 1:03:26.720 --> 1:03:28.800 you do a bunch of payoffs there, and then the 1:03:28.840 --> 1:03:31.000 thing doesn't work as well, or it's slower, or it's 1:03:31.000 --> 1:03:33.440 more expensive, and then people think you don't do a 1:03:33.480 --> 1:03:38.840 great job, and like that's actually undermining the legitimacy of government. 1:03:38.920 --> 1:03:46.919 Could agree more. By the way, sort of going back 1:03:46.960 --> 1:03:50.560 to that book, Citizen literally talks about this in the 1:03:50.560 --> 1:03:54.000 context of it's not inputs, it's outcomes. This pyramids inverting 1:03:54.040 --> 1:03:56.880 more choice, more voice. I talk about government being a 1:03:56.960 --> 1:04:01.760 vending machine where you put in your taxes, you get police, fire, healthcare, education. 1:04:01.800 --> 1:04:03.840 If you don't like what you get, you kick the machine, 1:04:03.840 --> 1:04:07.160 you shake the machine. And shifting that paradigm and not 1:04:07.200 --> 1:04:11.000 just government efficiency, but how government works. Moving away from 1:04:11.080 --> 1:04:14.640 you vote, I decide more of a participatory framework in 1:04:14.720 --> 1:04:18.400 between elections. We're finally starting to see the fruits of 1:04:18.440 --> 1:04:20.600 that vision, and near the end of my term in 1:04:20.640 --> 1:04:24.040 the context of these new models we've created, Engaged California, 1:04:24.240 --> 1:04:27.360 our new procurement platforms, the work that Jen Polka helps 1:04:27.400 --> 1:04:29.560 seed in the reforms we're doing as it relates to 1:04:29.560 --> 1:04:35.360 our large scale IT reforms. But look, this is this 1:04:35.480 --> 1:04:39.240 notion of being accountable. Society becomes how we behave we 1:04:39.280 --> 1:04:41.960 are behaviors. All this, to your point, happened on our watch. 1:04:42.360 --> 1:04:45.760 We own it. Democrats, we own it. Can't point fingers. 1:04:45.800 --> 1:04:46.880 You got to look in the mirror. You got to 1:04:46.880 --> 1:04:51.120 take responsibility. I think foundationally that's at center of this book, 1:04:51.120 --> 1:04:54.280 and I think it's very helpful and it's humbling as well, 1:04:54.560 --> 1:04:57.680 but it's critically important this time not only that we 1:04:57.720 --> 1:05:02.120 focus on situational politics, but how we're governing and how 1:05:02.160 --> 1:05:05.360 we're delivering real results, because I mean, if I have 1:05:05.400 --> 1:05:07.960 another press conference about how much money we're spending almost this, 1:05:08.080 --> 1:05:10.280 they're gonna take my head off. They want to see 1:05:10.400 --> 1:05:13.480 encampments off the damn street that's what they're measuring by. 1:05:13.600 --> 1:05:16.240 They want more housing so that the cost of that 1:05:16.280 --> 1:05:19.760 housing goes down because there's more supply. They don't give 1:05:19.760 --> 1:05:21.520 a damn about the process. They don't know what a 1:05:21.600 --> 1:05:24.040 nofa is or a no foe. They don't care about 1:05:24.080 --> 1:05:26.240 any of that stuff. You're one hundred percent right, it 1:05:26.320 --> 1:05:29.560 does matter. I think there's a balance that we have 1:05:29.640 --> 1:05:32.200 to find. We're trying to find that balance. We're iterating. 1:05:32.560 --> 1:05:36.240 But this notion of relentlessness is very resonant. What you 1:05:36.320 --> 1:05:39.400 just said. To be seen doing what you said about 1:05:39.440 --> 1:05:42.520 Trump a minute ago, we've got to be seen not 1:05:42.680 --> 1:05:47.040 defending the status quo, defending the high speed rail. This 1:05:47.120 --> 1:05:48.000 went really well for. 1:05:48.040 --> 1:05:51.240 Me, but defends into our breef. 1:05:53.360 --> 1:05:58.680 Sort of dynamic expectations that taxpayers rightfully are placed on us. 1:05:58.680 --> 1:06:01.240 But let me just end with that, because you and 1:06:01.640 --> 1:06:06.160 this book making that case from an abundance frame, back 1:06:06.240 --> 1:06:10.800 to this nomenclature around abundance. But you talk about DARPA, 1:06:10.960 --> 1:06:15.520 you talk about CRISPER, you talk about ARPA, NEET, going 1:06:15.520 --> 1:06:18.160 back in nineteen sixty nine, the origins of the Internet, 1:06:18.320 --> 1:06:22.080 you talk about the nih the NSF, you talk about 1:06:22.360 --> 1:06:24.880 all of these things. That few people that are listening 1:06:25.040 --> 1:06:28.360 even know, but that are important, and it relates to innovation. 1:06:28.480 --> 1:06:31.800 It's not an act that occurs, it's a process contradicting 1:06:31.840 --> 1:06:34.040 a little bit of what we just said that unfolds 1:06:34.040 --> 1:06:34.520 over time. 1:06:34.600 --> 1:06:36.480 Tell me a little bit, Well, everything's a process, so 1:06:36.520 --> 1:06:38.760 we don't want to say all processes are bad, just 1:06:38.800 --> 1:06:41.960 like all regulations are not good or bad. Yeah, this 1:06:42.040 --> 1:06:43.919 is the other piece of the book that we haven't 1:06:43.920 --> 1:06:47.200 talked that much about. But abundance is not just like 1:06:47.400 --> 1:06:49.680 me banging my fist on the table about how high 1:06:49.680 --> 1:06:54.439 speed relting get finished. It's also motivated in part by 1:06:55.280 --> 1:06:58.880 a belief that Democrats have developed a dysfunctional relationship with 1:06:58.920 --> 1:07:00.920 technology and in way of the future. Sure, and I 1:07:00.960 --> 1:07:03.080 sort of date this back in my own reading of 1:07:03.120 --> 1:07:06.920 it to around twenty sixteen, when I think the harms 1:07:06.920 --> 1:07:10.120 of social media became really salient to people. I think 1:07:10.120 --> 1:07:12.280 it got over blamed for the twenty sixteen election. I've 1:07:12.280 --> 1:07:15.240 never been a believer that misinformation was like the driver there. 1:07:15.600 --> 1:07:18.280 But it is rotting our brains and it's not making 1:07:18.320 --> 1:07:20.600 us better people, and it's fucking up our kids. Right, 1:07:20.800 --> 1:07:23.520 And it's represented by like a small crew of tech 1:07:23.560 --> 1:07:25.680 billionaires who you know, in the years since, have turned 1:07:25.720 --> 1:07:29.920 you know, more and more both right and weird, and 1:07:30.000 --> 1:07:33.960 I think the left got to become very skeptical of it. 1:07:34.520 --> 1:07:35.960 And one of the things that we're trying to say 1:07:36.520 --> 1:07:39.080 is that a huge amount of social progress, a huge 1:07:39.080 --> 1:07:40.959 amount of what makes it possible of the life better 1:07:41.000 --> 1:07:43.280 than the one we live now, is not just new 1:07:43.320 --> 1:07:46.080 social insurance programs, though those are very important and I 1:07:46.080 --> 1:07:50.160 would like to see some of them, or redistribution. It's technology, 1:07:50.800 --> 1:07:54.680 and it is also being thoughtful about the government's ability 1:07:55.080 --> 1:07:59.760 to organize resources and rules and manpower to pull technology 1:07:59.760 --> 1:08:02.720 from the future into the present. Right, the canonical example 1:08:02.720 --> 1:08:05.280 here is a Manhattan Project, But you can think of 1:08:06.320 --> 1:08:08.200 the Internet, which, as we talked about, you know, comes 1:08:08.200 --> 1:08:10.800 from the arpinnet. You can think about Operation warp Speed, 1:08:10.840 --> 1:08:13.480 like the one truly great success of Aalen Trump's first term, 1:08:13.480 --> 1:08:16.720 which is now disowned very much by him and and 1:08:17.000 --> 1:08:20.200 to some degree by the Democrats to some credit to 1:08:20.400 --> 1:08:23.920 a little bit. And so there is a There are 1:08:24.000 --> 1:08:26.760 a lot of problems like the only reason we have 1:08:26.920 --> 1:08:31.080 any shot on preventing a world of three or four 1:08:31.080 --> 1:08:35.240 degrees of warming Celsius is because we have created miracles 1:08:35.439 --> 1:08:43.200 through government policy in solar winds. 1:08:41.360 --> 1:08:46.800 Would not exist for the regulatory of. 1:08:45.680 --> 1:08:48.800 One of the great one of the great shames of 1:08:48.840 --> 1:08:51.400 what Elon Musk has become is that guy is a 1:08:51.439 --> 1:08:55.120 walking advertisement for the power of public private partnership. He 1:08:55.240 --> 1:08:57.600 is just like every major company he has done, is 1:08:57.600 --> 1:09:01.559 built on government subsidies, government loan guarantees. 1:09:02.200 --> 1:09:04.520 Government demand. In the original. 1:09:05.680 --> 1:09:08.000 Now guys just pulling the ladder up after him. It 1:09:08.080 --> 1:09:12.439 drives me fucking crazy, but I guess. 1:09:12.840 --> 1:09:16.080 But also it's a principle that you lay out as 1:09:16.120 --> 1:09:19.160 it relates to Dartha and which gave us GPS, gave 1:09:19.240 --> 1:09:22.519 us the self driving car he's now promoting that gave 1:09:22.600 --> 1:09:23.719 us so much of this innovation. 1:09:23.800 --> 1:09:26.360 Yeah, and certainly that seated it. See and you know, 1:09:26.479 --> 1:09:29.519 look like I'm a big believer in universal healthcare. A 1:09:29.560 --> 1:09:31.439 lot of my career has been, you know, about trying 1:09:31.479 --> 1:09:34.520 to expand health insurance. But where health insurance. 1:09:34.120 --> 1:09:37.320 In the only state that does that, regardless of ability 1:09:37.320 --> 1:09:39.559 to pay in their resisting conditions and immigration. 1:09:39.680 --> 1:09:43.479 But there's a reality to this that for the people 1:09:43.520 --> 1:09:46.439 who have health insurance, which is most people, what really 1:09:46.479 --> 1:09:48.840 matters is when you get sick. Is there a cure? 1:09:49.360 --> 1:09:51.720 My wife is kept alive by shots of Vinceland. She 1:09:51.800 --> 1:09:56.040 just is. Right, at another age she wouldn't be. There 1:09:56.200 --> 1:09:58.840 is so much that we do not yet know how 1:09:58.880 --> 1:10:01.320 to cure, right, there is so much. I mean, what 1:10:01.400 --> 1:10:04.160 Medicare or Medicaid can offer, or private health insurance because 1:10:04.160 --> 1:10:07.280 they don't yet cover it for most people with GLP 1:10:07.400 --> 1:10:09.800 ones is just more valuable than what it could offer 1:10:09.840 --> 1:10:13.320 before GLP ones. These are going to be transformational medications 1:10:13.320 --> 1:10:17.280 for people they already are. And so getting really serious 1:10:17.640 --> 1:10:21.680 about what we want the government to do technologically and 1:10:21.760 --> 1:10:25.559 having a vision of the future that is an abundant one, right, 1:10:26.040 --> 1:10:28.200 a vision of the future that is not just about 1:10:28.280 --> 1:10:31.000 like how cheap consumer goods are. That's fine, but it's 1:10:31.040 --> 1:10:33.519 about the things we need to build or better a 1:10:33.560 --> 1:10:39.120 life right, cheap energy, cheap healthcare right, abundant housing, education. Right. 1:10:39.120 --> 1:10:40.600 There's a lot of things we only touch on in 1:10:40.640 --> 1:10:43.760 the book that are really important here. I think that 1:10:44.240 --> 1:10:46.759 one of the shames of politics in the last couple 1:10:46.760 --> 1:10:49.200 of years is it got to be a really bitter 1:10:49.360 --> 1:10:52.960 argument over our past, right, with the r right. 1:10:52.880 --> 1:10:55.840 Notion of American reverse pre nineteen. 1:10:55.520 --> 1:10:59.280 Sex the right that is gripped by a deep nostalgia 1:10:59.400 --> 1:11:02.200 for an America. I think that never really was, and 1:11:02.280 --> 1:11:06.280 the left was really focus, really focused on the injustices 1:11:06.360 --> 1:11:08.400 of our history, which I think are very real. So 1:11:08.439 --> 1:11:11.800 I'm not trying to undermine that as a thing worth confronting, 1:11:12.439 --> 1:11:14.880 but I think visions of the future, for different reasons 1:11:14.880 --> 1:11:18.160 on both sides, became really degraded. Cole and one thing 1:11:18.200 --> 1:11:20.400 that did change with Trump between his first term and 1:11:20.439 --> 1:11:24.320 the second is Elon Musk Mark Andriesen. In a way RK. Junior, 1:11:24.360 --> 1:11:27.600 they changed his meaning. Trump was the defender of the 1:11:27.600 --> 1:11:30.639 past America in twenty sixteen, Make America Great Again. All 1:11:30.680 --> 1:11:33.960 these futurist influencers and you know, rocket makers and so on. 1:11:34.320 --> 1:11:36.600 They sort of made him into something that represented a 1:11:36.760 --> 1:11:39.160 kind of future. I think it's quite dark one, but 1:11:39.240 --> 1:11:41.960 it is, but there is around him. JD. Vans right, 1:11:42.080 --> 1:11:45.720 It changed what he meant and I think to compete 1:11:45.720 --> 1:11:48.320 with that, and given that they're going to destroy the present, 1:11:49.120 --> 1:11:50.240 I don't think it's going to end up being a 1:11:50.280 --> 1:11:52.360 very attractive vision to people. But to compete with that, 1:11:52.400 --> 1:11:54.799 I think Democrats need to figure out how to represent 1:11:54.800 --> 1:11:57.840 a future again. I think Obama represented the future. I 1:11:57.880 --> 1:12:01.840 think Bill Clinton represented the future. And like both that 1:12:02.000 --> 1:12:04.519 sort of ability to grab reform, which is part of 1:12:04.560 --> 1:12:07.479 what abundance is about, reform of government, and that ability 1:12:07.560 --> 1:12:10.080 to grab the high ground of the future, which is 1:12:10.120 --> 1:12:12.000 the other part of what it's about. This ability to 1:12:12.080 --> 1:12:16.040 integrate a theory of technology and an optimism about it, 1:12:16.080 --> 1:12:19.320 and the ability to sort of rapid in policy. Those 1:12:19.320 --> 1:12:22.080 things are really important. We haven't talked about AI. There's 1:12:22.080 --> 1:12:24.040 a lot coming here that's going to be very important, 1:12:24.560 --> 1:12:27.240 and the party that medical frame and the party and 1:12:27.240 --> 1:12:29.160 the thinkers in it are going to have to be 1:12:29.240 --> 1:12:33.000 alert to this side of it too, because it is 1:12:33.040 --> 1:12:35.280 a mistake to think of politics as a separate sphere 1:12:35.280 --> 1:12:38.200 from technology. You know, if we could do more modular housing, 1:12:38.240 --> 1:12:40.360 it would change what is possible in housing policy. 1:12:40.439 --> 1:12:40.639 Right. 1:12:40.840 --> 1:12:44.160 These things are bi directional, they're intertwined, and like, I 1:12:44.160 --> 1:12:46.559 would like to see a liberalism that isn't just angry 1:12:46.920 --> 1:12:48.439 about a bunch of things that government is failed to do, 1:12:48.520 --> 1:12:50.840 as I am, but it is also optimistic about what 1:12:50.960 --> 1:12:53.360 is possible. And that's where that vision between red and 1:12:53.360 --> 1:12:55.880 blue states really diverges. I mean Trump and them, they're 1:12:55.880 --> 1:12:58.040 trying to destroy winded solar. They don't want this vision. 1:12:58.080 --> 1:13:00.439 They don't want more trade, they don't want more people. 1:13:00.520 --> 1:13:03.400 Right there, it's all scarcity, and that leads a pretty 1:13:03.439 --> 1:13:05.880 big opening for the Democratic Party to capture both reform 1:13:05.920 --> 1:13:06.960 and abundance from them. 1:13:07.160 --> 1:13:09.240 I love that and it's a great way to end 1:13:09.240 --> 1:13:11.360 because it's a framework of optimism, of course, you know, 1:13:11.479 --> 1:13:13.840 and I appreciate just I'm thinking about Clinton, don't stop 1:13:13.880 --> 1:13:16.960 thinking about tomorrow. I mean, obviously there was language around that, 1:13:17.200 --> 1:13:20.560 and you know, talking about your tomorrow's not his. Yesterday's 1:13:21.040 --> 1:13:23.280 obviously the journey that we were on in the nineteen 1:13:23.320 --> 1:13:26.840 sixties with the vision that was JFK. But I will 1:13:26.840 --> 1:13:28.679 say about our state, and it's a point of pride 1:13:28.680 --> 1:13:30.920 and in principle for me as governors said, or as 1:13:30.920 --> 1:13:33.839 the future ex governor, as a fifth generation California future 1:13:33.880 --> 1:13:36.839 happens here first. And I talked about this being America's 1:13:36.880 --> 1:13:40.160 coming attraction. But that's that's the game that separates, I 1:13:40.160 --> 1:13:43.519 think our game from the game played everywhere else. It's 1:13:43.520 --> 1:13:45.960 the reason we went from the seventh largest economy to 1:13:46.040 --> 1:13:48.400 the sixth largest economy in the world, and we dominate 1:13:48.479 --> 1:13:51.800 in so many spears even today. But you're absolutely right. 1:13:51.840 --> 1:13:53.920 We now have to dominate on that reform agenda and 1:13:53.920 --> 1:13:56.200 we have to deal with the original sin and that's 1:13:56.240 --> 1:14:00.160 housing and again being accountable to these larger visions as 1:14:00.160 --> 1:14:02.680 well and deliver and level set with folks. And so 1:14:03.080 --> 1:14:07.439 it's in that spirit of an abundant mindset that Ezra, 1:14:07.560 --> 1:14:10.280 I'm glad you took the time to be here. I'm 1:14:10.360 --> 1:14:13.400 really moreover pleased you took time to write this book, 1:14:13.439 --> 1:14:16.040 which is an essential reading for everybody listening. Thanks for 1:14:16.080 --> 1:14:17.760 being with us, Thank you so much for having me. 1:14:17.920 --> 1:14:18.240 Thank you