Speaker 1: This is Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 2: I'm still learning the roads here.
Speaker 1: That's good. And by the way, you're in Springfield right now.
Speaker 2: I wasn't. I just got back this morning. I drove
Speaker 2: back and today DHS announced sixty days and they're gone
Speaker 2: for the Haitians. So the families that I met with,
Speaker 2: who are you know, law abiding? They're working, they fill
Speaker 2: out W two's, they pay taxes, they got Social Security numbers.
Speaker 2: The mayor wants them, the governor wants them, the city
Speaker 2: council wants some business, church leaders. Trump wants them out
Speaker 2: based on a slander of them. And they have sixty
Speaker 2: days and they're hiding in their homes. Governor, they are
Speaker 2: hiding in their homes. And the baby's twelve hundred babies
Speaker 2: born since they've been here. Now the spring Court throws
Speaker 2: their fate into doubt.
Speaker 3: It's, you know, good for you forgive me to selfishly
Speaker 3: stadi it. It's so often and it's so interesting just
Speaker 3: from your prism. Now this this sort of new alignment
Speaker 3: with with where you're where, what you're doing. UH, that
Speaker 3: you're going back to a story that everybody's moved on from.
Speaker 3: UH that was weaponized in a rubric of debates and
Speaker 3: a political campaign. Uh, and now reminding everybody of the
Speaker 3: human side of all this and the impacts. But it's
Speaker 3: what you just said about the mayor and the governor
Speaker 3: and the community. Uh, this only reinforces just the absurdity
Speaker 3: of this moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now you're uh fighting back in a really
Speaker 2: interesting way. I read the suit, I read the claims
Speaker 2: a bunch of questions. But you're suing Fox News. I
Speaker 2: assume everybody's watching at this point, and there'll be more coming,
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 3: So why what's your beef and not well beef is
Speaker 3: you know? You can't maliciously slander someone. You can't defame
Speaker 3: someone by altering facts, editing facts, no, doing that without
Speaker 3: being held to some higher level of ethics and accountability.
Speaker 1: I have no problem.
Speaker 3: Look, we all know Fox is a propaganda network, but
Speaker 3: it's under the guys of being a news organization, being journalists,
Speaker 3: and there's rules of engagement as it relates to that.
Speaker 3: And you know, he Donald Trump and I had a
Speaker 3: phone call on June sixth, early morning, maybe June seventh.
Speaker 3: Four days later, Donald Trump lied and said, well, we
Speaker 3: talked the day before. I highlighted the fact we never
Speaker 3: talked the day before Fox decided to cover up for
Speaker 3: the president's lie. Uh and they knowingly did that in
Speaker 3: a way that defamed and I just think we need
Speaker 3: to call that out now. It's it's one thing to
Speaker 3: be on the receiving en and I've been on the
Speaker 3: receiving that Fox for years and years and years. But
Speaker 3: there's red lines, and on this red line that crossed it.
Speaker 3: And I want a simple apology. I'm not looking. You know,
Speaker 3: you've got to file these in your your own, your
Speaker 3: own individual accord. It's you know, the malice is a
Speaker 3: high bar. But they're dead to write on this. I mean,
Speaker 3: they had a Chiron who said Gavin Lye Trump call.
Speaker 3: I mean, so they've got to apologize that they don't.
Speaker 3: They need to be held to account and we want
Speaker 3: to seek damages.
Speaker 2: Right, you're asking for an apology. And seven hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty seven million dollars you heard.
Speaker 3: That number before. Where'd that number come from? That's the
Speaker 3: that's the dominion lawsuit. And this they reacted to the
Speaker 3: dominion lawsuit with a press release that they put out
Speaker 3: against this lawsuit that almost was you know, you almost
Speaker 3: could have cut and pasted it. And they paid a
Speaker 3: big price there. But what they did do is they
Speaker 3: didn't fundamentally change their practices. And that's the point. That's
Speaker 3: the point of this lawsuit. This money doesn't come to me,
Speaker 3: it's not about any of that. This this is charity
Speaker 3: goes someplace else. But this is about changing these practices,
Speaker 3: these unethical practices.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't do this lightly.
Speaker 3: I got a bunch of calls there, this is actually
Speaker 3: why this happened.
Speaker 1: You know, I watched Jesse Waters. I watched John Roberts.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's just straight news John and Jesse tries
Speaker 3: to sort herself in that respect. And I got a
Speaker 3: bunch of calls, said, why'd you lie about the Trump
Speaker 3: call from friends? I said, what do you mean I
Speaker 3: lied about it? Just making that up and say, well,
Speaker 3: that's not what I'm seeing on Fox. And so I'm
Speaker 3: constantly battling that. I'm like, this is doing damage. It
Speaker 3: was not just on the sixty five million people and
Speaker 3: watched Fox and Fox Business, but hundreds of millions on
Speaker 3: social and it was weaponized on the right and it
Speaker 3: started to bleed it and and and so for me,
Speaker 3: that crossed the line.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm pushing back.
Speaker 2: That is the way that's the system works on that side. Look,
Speaker 2: I was obviously in corporate legacy, mainstream media, whatever you want.
Speaker 2: I had a great career, loved it. I have nothing
Speaker 2: bad to say about my colleagues. But it's like they're
Speaker 2: fighting or they're trying to tell the truth blindfolded to
Speaker 2: the reality of what's happening to the truth, is what
Speaker 2: I would say. It was frustrating being in there because
Speaker 2: there Trump has this power of bending reality for people,
Speaker 2: and Fox's sister's whole ecosphere assists him in doing that,
Speaker 2: and kind of both sides are the kind of vocabulary
Speaker 2: that you can use is very difficult to serve the
Speaker 2: people with still.
Speaker 3: And it's it's it's look, it's and that's not news
Speaker 3: worthy in and of itself. What you said, it's spot on,
Speaker 3: but it's really eroding trust and it's hurting our democracy,
Speaker 3: and it's it's code read. And you think Fox, who's
Speaker 3: just the most blatant and you know, I mean just
Speaker 3: notoriously the most blatant as it relates to being a
Speaker 3: propaganda network, would have learned that lesson with that seven
Speaker 3: and eighty seven million dollars settlement.
Speaker 1: With dominion.
Speaker 3: But they haven't, and they continue to cover up for
Speaker 3: the folly and the lies of this president. And it's
Speaker 3: one thing for the president to lie. It did it
Speaker 3: just a few months moments ago, quite literally about water
Speaker 3: in California.
Speaker 1: Again any's obsession. But you don't cover up for that.
Speaker 3: You don't willfully and knowingly and maliciously cover up for
Speaker 3: those lies, edit information and alter what you present as
Speaker 3: fact and defame people.
Speaker 1: You can't do that.
Speaker 2: Is there something about the past few months in this
Speaker 2: second term? And I don't want to post facto rationalize
Speaker 2: what I did. I wasn't thinking it's too much. It's
Speaker 2: the straw that breaks the camel's back. I thought I
Speaker 2: was describing accurately a public figure in America.
Speaker 1: By the way, a few words rung more true than
Speaker 1: those words. Forgive me. That's just my editorial opinion, all right.
Speaker 2: And I actually was worse is it wasn't like a
Speaker 2: drug tweet. I actually looked at it and I read it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's true, it's sin. There you go. But my point
Speaker 2: is that there is this hammer blow, this daily bludgeoning
Speaker 2: of the body politic with cruelty, right and and and
Speaker 2: lies at every point demoralizes people. And I've seen you
Speaker 2: over the past couple of years. It seems one of
Speaker 2: things I really respected and enjoyed you doing was crossing
Speaker 2: over going to Fox and and debating Hannity, you know,
Speaker 2: taking them out of having a good debate with DeSantis.
Speaker 2: People appreciate that. But there is there something about the
Speaker 2: past few months and the Democrats crying out for someone
Speaker 2: to do something that is part of the background to
Speaker 2: you pulling what is in some ways it's done right
Speaker 2: this lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look back to lawsuit.
Speaker 3: But let me go back almost three years ago today,
Speaker 3: because we just celebrated and not celebrated. We lamented the
Speaker 3: anniversary of the Dobbs decision three years ago. And I
Speaker 3: remember being a playing parata in southern California in La say,
Speaker 3: where the hell is my party? And it was an
Speaker 3: indictment of individual leaders. It wasn't even indictment of the
Speaker 3: you know, the DNC. It was sort of, frankly, it
Speaker 3: was dting on my own lack of accountability. At this
Speaker 3: moment that the other side was dominating the narrative on
Speaker 3: CRT and DEI ESG. They were censoring and historic facts,
Speaker 3: rewriting history quite literally rewriting social studies books and places
Speaker 3: like Florida. And I was watching the weaponization and the
Speaker 3: propaganda coming from these networks, not just Fox One, American News, Newsmax,
Speaker 3: and how they're able to shapeshift the conversation, and how
Speaker 3: my party, the Democratic Party, was consistently on the defense.
Speaker 3: And that's where I woke up. I said, you know what,
Speaker 3: the world we're living in has happened on our watch.
Speaker 3: Society becomes how we behave take some responsibility, man, and
Speaker 3: so I decided I needed to actually not just complain
Speaker 3: about something. I needed to do something. And that's when
Speaker 3: I started to reach out and went on Fox and
Speaker 3: I had Hannity.
Speaker 1: I said, let's go.
Speaker 3: Let's go into Ronald Reagan's old building, the old governor's mansion,
Speaker 3: where Reagan was ask me anything you want. Let's do
Speaker 3: an unedited hour hour and a half interview. We did that,
Speaker 3: and I started to go back on Fox, and that's
Speaker 3: why I ended up. And I appreciate your reference to
Speaker 3: the debate with Rondo Santis, and so I think that's healthy.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a point.
Speaker 3: A lot of my members of my party were critical, saying,
Speaker 3: why do you even indulge those guys.
Speaker 1: It's all fake news, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But I thought it's important to meet people where they are,
Speaker 3: so I sail that in the context of this lawsuit,
Speaker 3: I have a high threshold for the bullshit on Fox.
Speaker 1: Is the point, all right.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't do this unless I felt they really did
Speaker 3: cross the line, and I don't. It's not about money
Speaker 3: for a nonprofit, it's about accountability. I really did hope
Speaker 3: and expect after that dominion lawsuit they would stop, but
Speaker 3: they haven't. And right now, if you're covering up for
Speaker 3: the cruelty, God bless you, that's the right word, not
Speaker 3: just the chaos, for the abject lies in mistruths of
Speaker 3: this administration, you can't lay claim to being a news
Speaker 3: organization any longer. That's what this lawsuits about.
Speaker 2: I think that is exactly the conundrum that my former
Speaker 2: colleagues and across the establishment legacy, corporate, mainstream media, whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call it. They are doing their best.
Speaker 2: I love my respect them. They're doing great work. But
Speaker 2: there's something that's changed in this moment. It is a
Speaker 2: moment in history where it requires a different response. I
Speaker 2: think I'm discovering that in myself, and I do think
Speaker 2: that I wonder if one of the things you're trying
Speaker 2: to do is give heart to people who see this,
Speaker 2: who are bludgeoned and either on the sidelines, I don't
Speaker 2: want to get involved. They may have even voted for
Speaker 2: Trump don't like it, or certainly the people who didn't
Speaker 2: vot for Trump feeling in despair. He is all powerful,
Speaker 2: controlling the narrative, and now just bring the hammer down
Speaker 2: in every walk of life.
Speaker 3: I wish I could show you a video I just
Speaker 3: got right before we went on from a friend of
Speaker 3: mine down in San Diego. In this young woman torn
Speaker 3: away from her car by mass men, screaming and yelling,
Speaker 3: turns out to be a housekeeper at a well known
Speaker 3: hotel in southern California, a member of Local eleven unit
Speaker 3: here just ripped off the streets by mass men. This
Speaker 3: is the moral moment. This is happening in America. Have
Speaker 3: five thousand federalized troops, the US military in the streets
Speaker 3: of Los Angeles in twenty twenty five. Today, I mean,
Speaker 3: this is to your point, things have radically changed. You
Speaker 3: can't operate with the old constructs people talk about. I heard,
Speaker 3: you know, there's been some punitry. You know, we're moving
Speaker 3: towards authoritarianism, and it depends which lens, which set of
Speaker 3: eyes you have. How About to that young woman on
Speaker 3: the street, We're already there. For some of us that
Speaker 3: have more privileged we're not there yet. And so I
Speaker 3: want to speak for those folks to your point. Yeah,
Speaker 3: for things to change, you've got to change. It's not
Speaker 3: what happens, it's how we respond to what happens. And
Speaker 3: I need to be held to a higher level of accountability.
Speaker 3: And so I appreciate the frame of your question. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I've changed. I've changed.
Speaker 1: I've changed when those National Guard were federalized.
Speaker 3: I changed when I started to see members of our
Speaker 3: community torn asunder, terrorized by these raids, and people in
Speaker 3: masks and things that I've never thought i'd see in
Speaker 3: this country, to see people deported, disappeared. I was with
Speaker 3: a twelve year old boy, same age as of my kids, crying,
Speaker 3: who lost his mother and father they disappeared. They went
Speaker 3: to the same job site they've been going to twenty
Speaker 3: years in Ox's, California, and he had no one, he
Speaker 3: didn't even know get back in his own house. That's
Speaker 3: Trump's America. So when you say those words terry about
Speaker 3: Stephen Miller, you were goddamn right. Excuse my language, you
Speaker 3: were right, and he is wrong, and it's wrong for
Speaker 3: us to operate under the old rules. Forgive me for
Speaker 3: being intense about this, but a lot of people are
Speaker 3: counting us to do more and be better.
Speaker 2: I respect that intensity. That's where we have to find
Speaker 2: our courage, right, we have to find it there, and
Speaker 2: I appreciate what you're saying about that. I will say that,
Speaker 2: having just gotten back one of the things, if you
Speaker 2: don't mind a personal note, the outpouring of people signing
Speaker 2: up for this and actually very very kind and genuine
Speaker 2: support for some I didn't, you know, from one perspective,
Speaker 2: really screwed up.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: This is not the way I'd recommend leaving a job.
Speaker 2: But as I say, I'm kind of exhilarated and excited
Speaker 2: by the possibilities and by the work ahead, the good
Speaker 2: work that you're talking about ahead. But I do feel
Speaker 2: that it became for a lot of people a galvanizing moment, right,
Speaker 2: They a sense that, Okay, whatever you think of what
Speaker 2: he said, including some of my neighbors, I live in
Speaker 2: a kind of a purple neighborhood in Frederick, Maryland, closer
Speaker 2: to Antietam and Gettysburg. Then at Washington, d C. And
Speaker 2: a lot of my neighbors voted for Trump, and one
Speaker 2: of them in particular, you know, very strong for Trump.
Speaker 2: He told my wife, he said, tell your husband, you know,
Speaker 2: I really respect him. I though what he did was brave.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, look at us at his social feeds.
Speaker 2: He loves that. It was very encouraging for me. I
Speaker 2: feel very encouraged. But the point of it is, I
Speaker 2: think the point the cruelty is the point to dishearten people,
Speaker 2: make them amenable to more and more authority. And just
Speaker 2: one more note. In Springfield, one of the young Asian
Speaker 2: men that I spoke with, he had a brain tumor
Speaker 2: in Haiti. They couldn't help him. Came to the United States,
Speaker 2: started working, got on Obamacare, got the brain tumor operated on.
Speaker 2: But they had to remove his pituitary glands. So he
Speaker 2: needs to regulate his hormonal system. If they send him back,
Speaker 2: he'll die. And he said, I don't go out of
Speaker 2: the house because anyone can wear a mask. Memories from Haiti.
Speaker 2: Anyone can wear a mask and put ice on them.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they're kidnappers or if they're the law.
Speaker 1: So there are.
Speaker 2: Thousands of people hiding in their homes from the federal
Speaker 2: government who are were until a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 2: here lawfully good employees. You go ask the businesses down there,
Speaker 2: the dole plant, automachining plants. You ask the mayor and
Speaker 2: the city council. These are good people, the vast majority
Speaker 2: of them, and they're hiding from our government. That's to
Speaker 2: me a disgrace. It is a disgrace.
Speaker 3: But you've reinforced this point, and I want to amplify
Speaker 3: the point I think you're making that the cruelty is
Speaker 3: the point, but the point being that that demoralization just
Speaker 3: completely neuters us, and we become numb, and we no
Speaker 3: longer are active. We're inert, and that is exactly what
Speaker 3: he wants. He wants to crush us into submission. He
Speaker 3: wants to overwhelm. The shock in eyes about overwhelming us,
Speaker 3: and so we cannot maintain neutrality at this time. It
Speaker 3: was Dante said, the hottest place in Hell is reserved
Speaker 3: at a time more christis for those that maintain their neutrality.
Speaker 3: This is not a neutral moment, and I think, look,
Speaker 3: this lawsuit, I hope represents just an expression of that
Speaker 3: I want both to know we're not just going to
Speaker 3: roll over, that We're gonna have people's backs, people that
Speaker 3: may not have a voice, people that may not have
Speaker 3: the privilege that you and I have to even be
Speaker 3: able to go on substack, to be able to have
Speaker 3: this conversation, to reach a few people that are kind
Speaker 3: enough to take the time to listen to know that
Speaker 3: they matter and we care. There are people out there
Speaker 3: that give a damn. You gave a damn to go
Speaker 3: back to Springfield and checking with people that that that
Speaker 3: were used purely as a political you know, political fodder,
Speaker 3: that were used as subjects, not human beings, and to
Speaker 3: humanize them. Uh, that's important, and it's more important now
Speaker 3: than ever. So Look, I think it's in that same
Speaker 3: spirit that that that we initiated this lawsuit and same
Speaker 3: spirit to which we're pushing back against, uh, these authoritarian
Speaker 3: and tendencies and uh and in Trump.
Speaker 2: Isn't can I ask you before before we move on
Speaker 2: the the New York May Old primary, mc donnie winning
Speaker 2: winning and and Cuomo going down to defeat a lot
Speaker 2: of Democrats are seeing that as as a signal of
Speaker 2: a new direction. A lot of other Democrats are saying
Speaker 2: that this is maybe New York City, but it would
Speaker 2: not work in other parts of the country. How do
Speaker 2: you read that politically?
Speaker 3: I think my my experience in this respect is we
Speaker 3: tend to overstate in the short term lessons learned, or
Speaker 3: we extrapolite the lessons that frankly just reinforce our own
Speaker 3: pre existing biases of.
Speaker 1: What this means or what this doesn't mean.
Speaker 3: But to the credit of man Donnie, this was a
Speaker 3: hell of a campaign. I mean, you know, you could
Speaker 3: distinguish the message from the messenger, but his ability to
Speaker 3: galvanize and to organize, to use the tools of technology.
Speaker 1: And new media to create a.
Speaker 3: I thought, a personality that even if you disagreed, you
Speaker 3: kind of had a little more trust and was rather extraordinary.
Speaker 3: And so from that perspective, in the power of emulation
Speaker 3: success leaves some clues. Now what this means ultimately for
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party, was this really apprediation of Cuomo came
Speaker 3: out with a lot of baggage. Was this more parochial
Speaker 3: politics in the context of just one American city, though
Speaker 3: the largest is to be to turn.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a one thing.
Speaker 3: I think it is is a giant wake up call
Speaker 3: that democracy is still alive and well bottom up. And
Speaker 3: if you're looking at this for the prism, I think
Speaker 3: particularly U Speaker Johnson, you're recognizing you got eighteen months left.
Speaker 3: And if you're looking at this, as Susie Wiles, the
Speaker 3: chief of staff of the President, your administration ends in
Speaker 3: eighteen months. We're going to take back the house. Where
Speaker 3: you're seeing young people reawaken here. They haven't gotten the
Speaker 3: message about the cynicism yet, they're still engaged. And for me,
Speaker 3: that was maybe the most compelling takeaway from what occurred
Speaker 3: last week.
Speaker 2: Well that that is a great positive, hardening end because
Speaker 2: people people are looking for something to look forward to,
Speaker 2: the good hard work of saving the country, right.
Speaker 3: Saving the kind of look at you know, if it's
Speaker 3: what cannot overstate, that's that's simple statement that you just
Speaker 3: made Supreme Court, Maate.
Speaker 1: It more challenging today.
Speaker 3: Look, we just cannot live in the divided States of
Speaker 3: America any longer. Uh you know, I'm sort of paraphrasing
Speaker 3: Bill play. You can't divorce is not an option. We're
Speaker 3: going to have to find the terms of the future
Speaker 3: to live and advance together across our differences. And and
Speaker 3: and I think you know, one thing people need to
Speaker 3: see is other people's courage. And and for those people
Speaker 3: that turned out and voted, uh, that's that's an active citizenship.
Speaker 3: And the office of citizen right now is the most
Speaker 3: important office of all. And and I think for all
Speaker 3: the assaults on institutions, that's the institution that will endure.
Speaker 1: And that's what gives me hope and optimism.
Speaker 2: All right, well, great, thanks, thanks very much. It was
Speaker 2: just fun.
Speaker 1: This was fun.
Speaker 3: Terry, thanks for having me on and Congress on everything.
Speaker 3: Keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, good luck, good luck in court.
Speaker 1: Thank you with them