Speaker 1: This is Gavin Newsom and this is Steve Bannett. Well, Steve,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for taking the time to be here.
Speaker 1: And I want to take this opportunity to sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, go back a little bit and talk about
Speaker 1: your history, a little bit about your motivations and where
Speaker 1: you see this country and for that matter, of the
Speaker 1: world going. But it's impossible not to note the world
Speaker 1: that we're living in a relationship to everything happening with
Speaker 1: the markets, everything happening with the with tariffs, everything happening
Speaker 1: UH with c R and a potential government.
Speaker 2: Don't don't don't be given tariffs think. I don't want
Speaker 2: to start off with you giving a stink. I already.
Speaker 2: Well we'll streuss a I'm a tariff guy.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. And well we'll see, we'll see, we'll stress.
Speaker 2: The purpose I want to do this is I want
Speaker 2: to convert you to be a tariff guy. Also, this
Speaker 2: is this is part of the process to unwind you
Speaker 2: from being a globalist, to make you a populist nationalist.
Speaker 2: It's a long journey. It's a long journey. It's a
Speaker 2: long journey, but I think you'll get there.
Speaker 1: This is part of the deprogramming, is it. I appreciate
Speaker 1: And by the way, for the record, I'm going down
Speaker 1: your rabbit hole right here. I'm not an absolutists as
Speaker 1: it relates to being against terrorists by any stretched the imagination.
Speaker 1: And I thought it interesting where we what I think
Speaker 1: Biden tripled tariffs on illumined and steel, which is getting
Speaker 1: a lot of attention in this country today as relates
Speaker 1: to Canada, and Democrats weren't screaming and yelling about that
Speaker 1: so well.
Speaker 2: I mean, Fetterman, look you've got you know. By the way,
Speaker 2: thanks Governor for doing this. I really appreciate it. One
Speaker 2: to have this conversation for a long time. You know,
Speaker 2: two of the of the three best economic populists in
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, who I think are kind of on
Speaker 2: an island. One of the best is Roquahanna Rose. Economic patriotism,
Speaker 2: which we always kid him is just ripping off Navarre
Speaker 2: and my economic nationalism is is you know, he's an
Speaker 2: economic populist. So is Fetterman. Fetterman just announced, you know
Speaker 2: we're here today during the CR. Freederman just announced he
Speaker 2: would support the CR if it came in as a
Speaker 2: Fetterman is a populist and then shared Brown. Sharon Brown
Speaker 2: I think has been an economic populist for a long time.
Speaker 2: So there are very strong voices in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: I think now unfortunately as a populist, I think they're
Speaker 2: kind of on an island because it really hasn't been
Speaker 2: the center of the conversation with the Democratic Party. But
Speaker 2: I think those three are are pretty good as far
Speaker 2: as populist and.
Speaker 1: See I mean in terms of populism, then it's a
Speaker 1: good segue. How do you define that?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: What's I mean? Is it a principle? Is right? Obviously
Speaker 1: maybe a component part, But how do you define populism,
Speaker 1: particularly in a relationship to their reflective lens in terms of.
Speaker 2: What populism Obviously we believe in subsidiary, We believe in
Speaker 2: bringing power back to the grassroots level. Right. We're very
Speaker 2: anti elitist, and one of the reasons is we think
Speaker 2: the elites in this country, you know, the highly educated elites,
Speaker 2: the political class, the Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, all
Speaker 2: of it, have really forgotten the underlying kind of principles
Speaker 2: of the country and kind of left working class people,
Speaker 2: regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference. You know,
Speaker 2: you pick it, they've kind of forgotten. And that's why
Speaker 2: such a big push for kind of these populous economic
Speaker 2: policies that look to put the lens is not just
Speaker 2: America first, but American citizens first, and goes with tax policy,
Speaker 2: it goes with tariffs, it goes to bringing manufacturing jobs back.
Speaker 2: It's nationalistic in the fact that not isolationists, but understanding
Speaker 2: that we've got to make it right for American citizens
Speaker 2: and particularly for the greatest resource we've had or ever had,
Speaker 2: which is the American working men and woman. So it's
Speaker 2: to push every decision as down low as possible and
Speaker 2: to get everything back to a grassroots level. And one
Speaker 2: of the keys to populism kind of about the sovereign
Speaker 2: will is that the use of human agency. That just
Speaker 2: don't sit there and say, you know, somebody else's got
Speaker 2: congressman's got to do something, or a senator's got to
Speaker 2: do something, or governor's got to do something. Of that,
Speaker 2: you have to use your agency only. And I see
Speaker 2: this in the Democratic Party now, the people saying do something,
Speaker 2: do something. I think that's a lesson that we learned
Speaker 2: after President Trump. And look, you know, we disagree on this,
Speaker 2: but President Trump won the twenty twenty election, and we
Speaker 2: were kind of shattered as a movement when he left Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. And we had to go back to basics
Speaker 2: to say, you know, it can't be somebody else do something.
Speaker 2: You know, we had to do something, and that's where
Speaker 2: we went back to really a pure populist movement, to
Speaker 2: go at the grassroots, the precinct strategy and kind of
Speaker 2: rebuild ourselves from there.
Speaker 1: Well, and I appreciate the notion of agency, that we're
Speaker 1: not bystanders in the world. It's decisions, not conditions that
Speaker 1: determine our fade in future, and that that that fundamental
Speaker 1: notion of agency, I think is important more broadly, and
Speaker 1: I think that goes to some of the issues around,
Speaker 1: you know, victimization, and I see a lot of that,
Speaker 1: respectively on the right increasingly, even with Trump often reaching
Speaker 1: things from that sort of mindset.
Speaker 2: Do you what do you mean? What do you mean?
Speaker 2: What do you mean? For Trump?
Speaker 1: I think there's sort of the grievance narrative that comes
Speaker 1: from Trump, this this notion there is there sort of
Speaker 1: a victim.
Speaker 2: But they did try to they did try they did
Speaker 2: try to put him in prison for three hundred years right,
Speaker 2: they did try to bangrupt, So that's a guy it
Speaker 2: never had ever had a set of grievances. They did
Speaker 2: steal according to us, and we're firm believes it is
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty election, which I think worked out better
Speaker 2: that providentially that he was able to come back with
Speaker 2: that gap, because I think you're seeing a a much
Speaker 2: more uh not just do and improved, but somebody that's
Speaker 2: much more in command of these decisions and really stepping
Speaker 2: up in a way that we could have never done before.
Speaker 2: But no, I don't think it's grievances. I think it's reality.
Speaker 2: I mean, they tried to. No one in American history
Speaker 2: has the system ever come after. And I think that's
Speaker 2: one of the problems that the Democrats you've got in
Speaker 2: a position of having to defense. Remember I come from
Speaker 2: a working class Democratic family.
Speaker 1: Kennedy Democratic family, Kennedy a Democrat.
Speaker 2: I was telling some people last night, I said, we
Speaker 2: didn't know any Republicans. There were just we were Irish, Catholic,
Speaker 2: working class phone company firemen, you know, a navy enlisted people.
Speaker 2: You didn't know any Republicans. They just weren't in your
Speaker 2: you know, we were in the South also, which is
Speaker 2: all you know, machine democratic politics. So you didn't know anybody.
Speaker 2: You didn't know anybody then, and so to see what
Speaker 2: President Trump had to go through and to see how
Speaker 2: we've actively changed the Republican Party to actually the working
Speaker 2: class party in this country. You know, it was a
Speaker 2: poll done last spring that showed that we as a
Speaker 2: Republican Party at the working class party and viewed as such,
Speaker 2: and that President Trump's the leader of that working class party,
Speaker 2: and the Democrats have become both not just the Wall
Speaker 2: Street elitist but also kind of the credential class with
Speaker 2: the poor underneath it, of which we're now trying to
Speaker 2: obviously recruit not just the working poor, but actually the
Speaker 2: poor it self to join our broadening coalition.
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate it. I want to and i'll I
Speaker 1: want to talk more about that because I think it's interesting,
Speaker 1: just as one of the points of contrast with you, Anne, Frankly,
Speaker 1: Trump himself right now is on some of the issues
Speaker 1: of tax policy in relationship this notion of who are
Speaker 1: you fo And you've been pretty critical about the proposed
Speaker 1: tax the extension of the existing tax cuts that disproportionately
Speaker 1: favor the wealthiest, and you were making the point that
Speaker 1: it should disproportionately focus on the middle class and work.
Speaker 2: You know, Governor, I'm not so sure. Let me get there.
Speaker 2: So in seventeen I was a big advocate of that
Speaker 2: in the first Trump tax plan of actually raising the
Speaker 2: rates on the upper bracket and doing actually more to
Speaker 2: the lower bracket of corporations. And it was not just
Speaker 2: what I thought was right, but also politically expedient at
Speaker 2: that time. In the spring of twenty seventeen, it was
Speaker 2: really Bernie Sanders and the Pocahontas that was going to
Speaker 2: be the number one in Elizabeth is going to be
Speaker 2: pocahon as we called going to be the challengers coming
Speaker 2: from the populace left, and I thought it was very
Speaker 2: important to nip that in the by the time and
Speaker 2: raise the brackets. Now, I think history shows that they
Speaker 2: can show you the math that they're doing. All of
Speaker 2: that actually worked in Unison and got us that great
Speaker 2: you know, twenty nineteen. Today, in President Trump, I think
Speaker 2: invest in are pretty upfront that this is the last
Speaker 2: chance we're going to get it. A supply side cut
Speaker 2: of that four trillion dollars. I think the two point
Speaker 2: six trillion dollars of joint you know, four hundred thousand
Speaker 2: below of couples, and I think you add another couple
Speaker 2: one hundred billion dollars for maybe the pass throughs to
Speaker 2: the LLCs. The entrepreneurs get caught up. But that additional
Speaker 2: trillion dollars unless it's going to be shown mathematically, and
Speaker 2: I think people are working on this that they consume.
Speaker 2: You know, right now, I think the top three percent
Speaker 2: consumer almost fifty percent of what's going to the country.
Speaker 2: Unless that you're concerned that that would kick you into
Speaker 2: a major recession of that one away, I am. I'm
Speaker 2: pretty adamant about that. You shouldn't the upper bracket shouldn't
Speaker 2: get it, and even some of the corporations shouldn't get
Speaker 2: it if they're just going to do stock buybacks. But
Speaker 2: additional tax cuts should go as President Trump promised, no
Speaker 2: tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and particularly no
Speaker 2: tax on social security. Yeah anything.
Speaker 1: His current proposal done that up. Then in that respect
Speaker 1: well as the deficit and continues those corporate tax cuts
Speaker 1: and continues the tax cuts to the wealthiest. So it runs.
Speaker 2: And I think we're not to be argumentative, no appreciate
Speaker 2: it we want to have an open dialog. I think
Speaker 2: when you look at Besson, and Charlie Gasparino had a
Speaker 2: pretty good piece in the New York Post today about this.
Speaker 2: If you add in, if you look at the growth
Speaker 2: rates and it's predicating on growth. You look at a
Speaker 2: growth rate two and a half to three percent, right,
Speaker 2: if you look at what we're trying to do in
Speaker 2: cutting federal spending in addition doze which is the way
Speaker 2: frauden abuse, and you look at additional revenues externally from
Speaker 2: tariffs you can get to and what Besson's trying to
Speaker 2: do is take the deficit from six and a half
Speaker 2: percent of GDP down to three and a half percent
Speaker 2: of GDP. So this is not this out of control
Speaker 2: explosion of two trillion dollars in deficits which we as
Speaker 2: Republicans are about to sign off on today. Just so
Speaker 2: your audience understands this cr today, the House will approve
Speaker 2: the Biden Kamala Harris spending for this year, locking it in,
Speaker 2: locking it in.
Speaker 1: And that's how you can't be I mean, how are
Speaker 1: you out there supporting that?
Speaker 2: Then? Well, because right now I think with everything at
Speaker 2: do and by the way, it's just it's that plus
Speaker 2: it's a two tran dollar deficit. Okay. I think the
Speaker 2: reason we're doing it is that the House has not
Speaker 2: gotten their act together to get these single subject appropriations
Speaker 2: bills done. They are committed to do that working with
Speaker 2: Democrats in the spring and some of this year for
Speaker 2: fiscal year twenty six. And I think to keep the
Speaker 2: to keep the government open, to keep President Trump hitting
Speaker 2: on alls, there's to keep doze at work in federal
Speaker 2: court overnight, the federal courts are coming after this is
Speaker 2: on at least information. We expect many more lawsuits about that.
Speaker 2: But I think in the effort to do it, we're prepared,
Speaker 2: and you know, we hate, we hate any cr this
Speaker 2: one we've hated for a long time. We're prepared to
Speaker 2: go along with the Presiden says he needs it. What
Speaker 2: I love about Johnson for the first time, they just
Speaker 2: announced that they're going to vote on it this afternoon.
Speaker 2: He thinks he's got the votes in the House to
Speaker 2: do it. Then they're going on recess. They're send it
Speaker 2: over to the Democratic Senate with that play me or
Speaker 2: trade me.
Speaker 1: It's right, and they need seven votes on the Senate
Speaker 1: side in order to get this done. Otherwise we've got
Speaker 1: a government shut down, it yet another one. What is
Speaker 1: your over under on the prospects of that.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting. I think the Democrats have to
Speaker 2: make a decision of whether they think it's better to
Speaker 2: keep it going and keep the resistance they've got in
Speaker 2: the legislative part, but also in the courts or let
Speaker 2: elon musk, you know, the potentially unchaining h with the
Speaker 2: DOSEE groups, on on who's you know, who's who's a
Speaker 2: necessary employee versus who's an unnecessary employee. I think it's
Speaker 2: the first time because traditionally the Democrats have always been
Speaker 2: for keeping the government open. I think they put him
Speaker 2: in a real conjurary, and I think this is Johnson's
Speaker 2: It's going to be high stakes poker. I think this afternoon.
Speaker 2: But people should understand this is a this is a
Speaker 2: bitter pill to swallow for us, because we have argued
Speaker 2: this is the whole reason. Kevin McCarthy, a guy you
Speaker 2: know very well from California, we got turfed out his speaker.
Speaker 2: It was all over. It was the deal he cut
Speaker 2: with Biden that gave President Biden two years and unlimited
Speaker 2: no debt ceiling to spend and run up, and McCarthy
Speaker 2: then didn't deliver on the single subject appropriations bills and
Speaker 2: he got turfed out. So your audience understand, these are
Speaker 2: huge fights on our side of the football all the
Speaker 2: time about spending.
Speaker 1: So locking in the Biden era budget or at least
Speaker 1: extending it and kicking it out. It's the last thing
Speaker 1: I expected to see coming from your side of the aisle,
Speaker 1: or at least in the MAGA movement. But also even
Speaker 1: you saying something complimentary about Speaker Johnson, you've been pretty critical.
Speaker 1: I've been very critical.
Speaker 2: I think we're I think we're I've been very up
Speaker 2: until today, I've been very critical about we're in this
Speaker 2: job because of over promising and underperforming. And I think
Speaker 2: you've got in leadership, I think now, and I think
Speaker 2: it's a long way from him being out of the woods.
Speaker 2: Is that now? Because you got you got only he's
Speaker 2: got six months now he's got to deliver like a
Speaker 2: real budget with real cuts. Because just back for your audience,
Speaker 2: the doge effort is waste for an abuse. Okay, they're
Speaker 2: kind of like shock troops or special forces, and people
Speaker 2: can either say they're great or whatever. I would like
Speaker 2: to see a little more definition of what they've actually found. Okay,
Speaker 2: all of us Wouldsparency, I agree with you, more more transparency,
Speaker 2: but I think but that doesn't to me get to
Speaker 2: the to the to the the meat of it, because
Speaker 2: I think you're going to have to have programmatic cuts,
Speaker 2: and I've been a big proponent that those programmatic cuts
Speaker 2: have to start in the Defense department. I was a
Speaker 2: naval officer for a years. My daughter went to West Points.
Speaker 2: I'm not a dove, but I think I've been a
Speaker 2: big critic of the tree. And we're at a trillion
Speaker 2: dollars now, and that's one of the reasons of this
Speaker 2: postwar international rules based order. We just can't continue on
Speaker 2: with NATO. We got to have allies that really pitch
Speaker 2: in here. But you got to start in the Defense
Speaker 2: department program at you have to do programs and bills
Speaker 2: to get to get the budget deficit to three and
Speaker 2: a half percent of GDP roughly under a trellion dollars,
Speaker 2: so that we can start somehow we can begin to
Speaker 2: finance this because right now that's the driver of inflation,
Speaker 2: you know, Biden, the they just restated their numbers from
Speaker 2: the fourth quarter. And traditionally the Biden thing has always
Speaker 2: been the labored number has always been different, right, It's been,
Speaker 2: you know, one thing and then, and we've criticized that
Speaker 2: for a long time. This one the shocker, and I
Speaker 2: don't think that. And I've said this that the guys
Speaker 2: in the economic team did enough for President trumpet pushing this.
Speaker 2: The inflation number went from two point two percent to
Speaker 2: four point two percent, and it really didn't even get
Speaker 2: mentioned in the Business for US. And I said, that
Speaker 2: shows you the underlying kind of burning inflation. And the
Speaker 2: reason that is the finance. You have to finance now
Speaker 2: essentially a third of the debt every year, so you're talking,
Speaker 2: I don't know, ten twelve trellion dollars, the government securities
Speaker 2: you have to sell at higher interest rates. That's what's
Speaker 2: driving inflation. Plus I think a two loose federal reserves,
Speaker 2: so you had both a fiscal overspending and a monetary
Speaker 2: loose money. We've got an inflation problem that's not going
Speaker 2: to be easily solved. The way to solve inflation is
Speaker 2: you have to cut I believe federal spending dramatically. You
Speaker 2: have a canesy and kind of stimulus all the time,
Speaker 2: and you have to do it, and that's going to
Speaker 2: lead to painful conversations. It just is because if dose
Speaker 2: doesn't find all this waste for an abuse right and
Speaker 2: they're saying now they think they can get a trellion dollars,
Speaker 2: which would cut the deficit in half.
Speaker 1: Either you can't get a tree and back to your
Speaker 1: point without significant programmatic cuts. And I appreciate the defense frame,
Speaker 1: which is anathema. I mean the cring increases the defense
Speaker 1: spending and in a higher rate, but you can't get
Speaker 1: there without cuts to something that you, to your credit,
Speaker 1: have said. You know, you can't put a quote unquote mee.
Speaker 2: I came, I came to medicaid, I came out of
Speaker 2: the Pentagon. And this is why I was adamant about
Speaker 2: Elon Musk what we called crossing the Potomac. There's a
Speaker 2: point in time that people were saying, well, let Pete
Speaker 2: Hexath handle the Pentagon. Elie I said no to get
Speaker 2: if you're going to get prog first off waste fard
Speaker 2: in reviews. I think everybody has to get everyone, and
Speaker 2: not just that the Pentagon's got to step up. People
Speaker 2: have to know that if the way because it's always rumored.
Speaker 2: You know this, they can't pass an audit. It's two
Speaker 2: trillion dollars of.
Speaker 1: Two trillion just for the damn F thirty five, which
Speaker 1: gets programmatically.
Speaker 2: But there's two training on the audit. I think there's
Speaker 2: true training and assets they can't put their hands on.
Speaker 2: John Stewart was just lighting up one of the Undersecretary's
Speaker 2: defense I think a couple of weeks ago about this.
Speaker 2: So you have to do that. But then programmatically, and
Speaker 2: this is why I think President Trump's hemisphere, the shift
Speaker 2: to hemispheric defense, which is from Greenland to the Panama
Speaker 2: canal more of a naval strategy in the It's the
Speaker 2: three island chains and really the the vast desert of
Speaker 2: the Pacific is really the American heartland. That's our defensive barrier.
Speaker 2: That to me, should restructure the entire Pentagon and armed
Speaker 2: forces to that. To force structure around that. I think
Speaker 2: Pete hex has got to move immediately. I think there
Speaker 2: should be significant cuts to the Defense Department, and then
Speaker 2: that would give you the political cover to then say
Speaker 2: on medicaid, you know, we got to be sensible here
Speaker 2: right now with the economic distress, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: MAGA on Medicaid and a lot.
Speaker 1: Of overwhelming opposition to cut in it, and and.
Speaker 2: And I think by you know, the illegal aliens and
Speaker 2: and and UH and obviously the waste, fraud and abuse
Speaker 2: and and some of the things about you know, a
Speaker 2: block granting it back to a governor like yourself in
Speaker 2: the California UH. To figure it out has to happen.
Speaker 2: And how the social programs. This is not going to
Speaker 2: be painless to we've been so out of control and
Speaker 2: so and it's both parties. The Republican Party has been
Speaker 2: controlled opposition. They have not had these tough fights. That's
Speaker 2: the tough fights we're going to have to happen.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, so people understand, and it's not
Speaker 1: an indictment to your point about both parties. But you know,
Speaker 1: another eight point four trillion dollars went to the debt
Speaker 1: under Trump administration. And to be fair, COVID had a
Speaker 1: huge part of that, but it's three trillion even before
Speaker 1: COVID hit to your point, And I remember talking by
Speaker 1: the way, you'll appreciate this, Steve. I remember being in
Speaker 1: Marine one talking to Trump, President Trump about the issue
Speaker 1: of the deficit, and he literally looks at me, and
Speaker 1: he goes like this with his hands and he said
Speaker 1: printing press, printing press, and literally dismissed it.
Speaker 2: He was kidding, he was kidding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm not the way he governed the first
Speaker 1: four years. I'm not sure you know that first.
Speaker 2: By the way, the first couple of years, the first
Speaker 2: couple of years, the deficits were under I think four
Speaker 2: or five hundred million dollars. We came very close to
Speaker 2: actually trying to balance it if we went back to
Speaker 2: pre COVID spending. I mean, Scott Beston says this all
Speaker 2: the time. We don't have a revenue problem, and this
Speaker 2: is a verber I would think about having to increase your taxes.
Speaker 2: We have a spending problem. I mean, post COVID, we've
Speaker 2: had explosion of some of these programs. I think he
Speaker 2: got to get your arms around him. But once again,
Speaker 2: these are going to be huge fights and they're not
Speaker 2: going to be painless. What I like about Johnson today
Speaker 2: for the first time, because I think he's tapped us
Speaker 2: along and over promise and now we're in a situation that,
Speaker 2: you know, we have to do a cr which we hate.
Speaker 2: If you think that the Magabase and our show. We
Speaker 2: represent the hardest core of the hardcore. If you think
Speaker 2: we like sitting here and basically not lighting up the
Speaker 2: phones and accepting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's budget, it's
Speaker 2: a tough pill.
Speaker 1: And it's a tell of a thing. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: enjoying watching this in some respects.
Speaker 2: No, but what I liked about what I liked about him.
Speaker 2: He's voting and going home. He's going to put it
Speaker 2: right on the Democrats about shutting down the government and not.
Speaker 2: And I think you're going to have a real firestorm
Speaker 2: in the Senate, and I think a fascinating debate about
Speaker 2: the direction of the country. And I think we're going
Speaker 2: to see that. I think we're going to see that coming.
Speaker 2: I think we'll see voices like Fetterman and others start
Speaker 2: to step up and take a much more prominent role
Speaker 2: in Democratic Party. Because one thing I keep saying all
Speaker 2: the time, if you'd watch MSNBC and CNN, you never
Speaker 2: really see the populist on the economic side. You don't
Speaker 2: see the Roe Qahannas getting the time. You don't see
Speaker 2: fetter men really getting the time. Sharon Brown and Shure
Speaker 2: didn't want to do national TV, But you never see
Speaker 2: really the economic populist ever really get They kind of
Speaker 2: roll out Bernie Sanders, who I'm not a fan of,
Speaker 2: but they don't really ever get to the other guys.
Speaker 2: I think that's all going to come quite different in
Speaker 2: the in the days and weeks ahead.
Speaker 1: Well, I think just you know, listening on those of
Speaker 1: you that that may have some familiarity to you, but
Speaker 1: never have taken the time to actually listen to you
Speaker 1: or tune into the war room. I mean the idea
Speaker 1: that you're even talking about the corporate tax rate and
Speaker 1: the tax rate for the wealthiest among us and having
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that you're having this, we're having
Speaker 1: this dialogue about your different approach. I mean, in some
Speaker 1: ways it's the California tax policy as it relates to
Speaker 1: more progressive tax policy that favors the working class that we.
Speaker 2: Would never take any we would never take anything from California.
Speaker 1: Understand what I'm just I'm challenging you then.
Speaker 2: But you're over you're grossly over taxed in California.
Speaker 1: We want to cut we have we have moderate income
Speaker 1: taxes for middle class working folks. It's the top tax
Speaker 1: rate which you're arguing for a little higher tax rate,
Speaker 1: which I appreciate the corporate tax side. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's completely dissimilar. I don't want to get you
Speaker 1: in trouble. But on the issue of terrorists, I want
Speaker 1: to go back to that because you're a big you know,
Speaker 1: you're a big supporter of terrorists. I mean, right now this,
Speaker 1: you know, this tit for tat. What's going on in Ontario.
Speaker 1: We doubled another twenty five percent. Uh, back to illuminum
Speaker 1: steel up in Canada, we're already seeing I think we're increasing.
Speaker 2: I think we're increasing aluminum still. I think he said
Speaker 2: today one hundred percent. There was another truth. So I
Speaker 2: think it was a true social not that it's tit
Speaker 2: for tat, but there was a true social right came
Speaker 2: by the.
Speaker 1: Way, I think there were one hundred, literally one hundred
Speaker 1: true social posts. Uh. And you know, with respect on
Speaker 1: terror policy, it seems a little chaotic. There's no stability.
Speaker 1: The markets are reflecting that. I used to say the
Speaker 1: most powerful force in the world was mother nature. Now
Speaker 1: I say the markets. I mean, people, there's this now
Speaker 1: you're seeing even well, I will trust session you're seeing Trump.
Speaker 2: I say that the bond market, the bond market more
Speaker 2: than the stock market. The bond market has turfed out
Speaker 2: more governments than Howartzer's. If you look over the last
Speaker 2: couple of years, Liz Trust in England, really the Assembly
Speaker 2: in France on the Macrone, the Germans right, the Italians
Speaker 2: are probably close to a sovereign debt crisis. Spain, England's
Speaker 2: been to a couple of governments even starmers under under
Speaker 2: real pressure. So no, the global copple markets, particularly when
Speaker 2: you have to borrow this much money. The ten year
Speaker 2: treasury is you know, Bob Rubin used to run the
Speaker 2: country on the Clinton and this is why Carvel said,
Speaker 2: I want to come back. As I come back, I
Speaker 2: want to come back as as a ten year bond
Speaker 2: or the bond market those set that that ten year
Speaker 2: bond sets everybody's economic you know, underpinnings, and so it's
Speaker 2: very important. But I think with President Trump it's it's
Speaker 2: both a gross strategy and part of his tariffs. You know, Governor,
Speaker 2: it shouldn't be lost that the tariffs have many different
Speaker 2: aspects to a number one. He wants to get back
Speaker 2: at least some back to more of the American plan.
Speaker 2: From Alexander Hamilton McKinley. Before the early nineteen hundreds, driven
Speaker 2: by the earthquake in San Francisco. In the fire, we
Speaker 2: had a massive financial panic and that led to really
Speaker 2: the internal revenue service and people focusing more on getting
Speaker 2: off American domosile companies and American citizens. President Trump wants
Speaker 2: to go back to more external revenue. That's part of
Speaker 2: the terriffs. He looks at the US as a premium market,
Speaker 2: and so you would pay a premium to get access
Speaker 2: to here, like you would get a skybox at a
Speaker 2: sporting event or sit in the front row of a concert.
Speaker 2: And he's got a but he's got an out if
Speaker 2: you want an out, because the tariffs are going to
Speaker 2: be substantial, right and particularly in Mexico and Canada, so
Speaker 2: you can't game the system manufacturing, manufacturing wise and against China.
Speaker 2: Just look over the last you know, he's been there
Speaker 2: forty days. I think over the last three or four weeks,
Speaker 2: you've had almost a trillion dollars. I think it's eight
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars from Honda, from Siemens, from app if
Speaker 2: a five hundred bion dollars taiwan A semiconductor, you know,
Speaker 2: one hundred billion dollars in four years. These are massive
Speaker 2: capital investments in top grade. This is not some sovereign
Speaker 2: wealth fund saying I'm a coming. It's not mascles on
Speaker 2: it's soft bank saying I'm going to throw one hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars. These are companies that are relocating here, and
Speaker 2: a big part of that is the terriffs. They say, look,
Speaker 2: we want to get into the United States, we want
Speaker 2: to manufacture domestically. It's got a logistics supply chain we
Speaker 2: can control. It's got you know, it's got the rule
Speaker 2: of law. But most importantly done half terriffs, and it's
Speaker 2: got lower energy costs. That's the new economic model, and
Speaker 2: it's going to go through some choppy water to get there.
Speaker 2: So these are just not twenty five percent tariff on
Speaker 2: an avocado coming from Mexico or some part under the
Speaker 2: hood from from Canada. It's much more systematic. Now I
Speaker 2: understand the way it was rolled out because of the
Speaker 2: emergency nature of it. The focus was on fentanyl and
Speaker 2: this chemical warfare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is a little a little bs, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I mean you a larger economic populism frame here. Let's
Speaker 1: just be honest with folks that had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the tyrannical nature of prime minister or fifty first
Speaker 1: governor of America. Uh, justin Trudeau's no, no, but but
Speaker 1: hold it.
Speaker 2: The Canadians have been The Canadians are one of the tough.
Speaker 2: This is why I recip when he talked about reciprocy
Speaker 2: on August. On April second, you're going to have reciprocity
Speaker 2: and tariffs in India and Canada.
Speaker 1: Is that any you think that's going to go in
Speaker 1: effect in April? You think you mean with all the uncertainty,
Speaker 1: the market uncertainty, the Trump slump, all of the stress
Speaker 1: and the anxiety that people are feeling all the day.
Speaker 2: I don't call it the I don't call it the
Speaker 2: Trump slump.
Speaker 1: Listen, others.
Speaker 2: No. Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett's who's a big Democrat and
Speaker 2: a supporter of many Democratic politicians, cause you know him
Speaker 2: very well. He went to cash. He's sitting on three
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty bion dollars in cash. A couple months ago.
Speaker 2: I think he realized that a lot of the market,
Speaker 2: particularly equity markets, were driven by Navidia and other a.
Speaker 2: All this Ai first kind of stage, there was a
Speaker 2: lot of fluff in that. So I think with President Trump,
Speaker 2: I do think they're coming in because I think he's
Speaker 2: he's changing the geostrategic model of the United States back
Speaker 2: to a hemispheric defense, away from the post war international
Speaker 2: rules based order, which has really gut at the United States.
Speaker 2: It was great for a while.
Speaker 1: Eighty years of relative peace and prosperity in America dominated.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, there's a lot of to do.
Speaker 2: But it got it. But he got it the middle class, remember,
Speaker 2: in the working class, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: we had allies that were taking advantage of it. Let's
Speaker 2: give me a second.
Speaker 1: This.
Speaker 2: If you take the rim of the Eurasian landmash, you
Speaker 2: got Western Europe, the Persian Gulf, the Golf emer It's
Speaker 2: Middle East. Then you've got the Straits of Malacca, the
Speaker 2: South China Sea, and then up to Korea and Japan.
Speaker 2: Those four nodes we have commercial relationships, trade deals, capital markets, integration,
Speaker 2: some cultural interface, but it's it's an American security guarantee.
Speaker 2: This is how whether it's NATO or the Middle East
Speaker 2: or a South China or are up with Japan and Korea.
Speaker 2: We have combat troops there. You know, we have one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand troops deployed today and I think
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifteen countries. This is one of the
Speaker 2: reasons people talk about foreign aid with usaid, which I'm
Speaker 2: against a lot of this stuff going on, but it
Speaker 2: pales in comparison to what we're underwriting for countries that
Speaker 2: were upside down on every trade deal. Our trade deficit
Speaker 2: in I think in January low was a record trade deficit.
Speaker 2: I think it's one hundred billion dollars, so not to
Speaker 2: so we have budget deficits, we have trade deficits, and
Speaker 2: are kind of inter strictly link because we've got it
Speaker 2: all the manufacturing jobs, we've all shored those. And I
Speaker 2: think Trump's geoeconomic strategy is a massive rearshuring process. And
Speaker 2: I think you're seeing this now. And I might note,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to take a cheap shop. A
Speaker 2: lot of those tradition would go back to California, but
Speaker 2: they're going to Arizona and Texas because I think they're
Speaker 2: looking at red states now as having lower regulation, lower taxes,
Speaker 2: and people are going there. And I think this is
Speaker 2: going to change a massive the demographic change in the
Speaker 2: United States, as you have Trump's reshowing come back to
Speaker 2: the United States, and so you'll be fair tied to
Speaker 2: that's tied to getting unwinding the post war international rules
Speaker 2: based order. We're going to tell people that, hey, we're
Speaker 2: not going to be everywhere. Kids from California are not
Speaker 2: going to be on carry battle groups. You know, guys
Speaker 2: deployed from San Diego and kids that live in the
Speaker 2: Inland Empire are not going to be deployed in the
Speaker 2: Red Sea with two carry battle groups. They keep the
Speaker 2: Suez Canal open so that Europe can get you know,
Speaker 2: can get energy resources from the Persian Gulf. I think
Speaker 2: those days are kind of over. We'll pick and choose
Speaker 2: as we as we as we pull back and look
Speaker 2: at hemispheric defense, not retreat from the world, not be isolationists,
Speaker 2: but kind of take care of the homeland first, and
Speaker 2: particularly take care of the people in the homeland, the
Speaker 2: working class, in middle class.
Speaker 1: I appreciate how you laid all that out. What you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's risk in the context of the argument
Speaker 1: to move into multipolar world and obviously the security umbrellas
Speaker 1: that will radically reorganize themselves. You've already seen now with
Speaker 1: Mertz in Germany, in the relationship with obviously Britain and France,
Speaker 1: but also I worry about Japan and South Korea and
Speaker 1: that relationship. I worry about the nature of our broader influence.
Speaker 1: But I want to step back. There was a lot
Speaker 1: that influenced a lot of those companies you said that
Speaker 1: are coming back to the United States of America. Do
Speaker 1: you not agree that the industrial policies of the Biden
Speaker 1: administration as it relates to the Infrastructure Bill, aspects of
Speaker 1: the IRA, aspects of the Chips and Science Act, were
Speaker 1: they not determinative from an industrial worker center policy perspective?
Speaker 1: Were they not also influential in the decision for people
Speaker 1: to begin into quote unquote reshore or they pray.
Speaker 2: It might have been at the beginning, but it was
Speaker 2: President Trump they announcedore in President Trump's term. If President
Speaker 2: Trump had not won this election, he just had common
Speaker 2: those companies.
Speaker 1: Now, I mean, do you know record does but there
Speaker 1: was record investments in coming back during the.
Speaker 2: I think about it, correct me if I'm wrong. I
Speaker 2: think Biden in the tire four years is one point
Speaker 2: seven trillion dollars of capital investment back here from I
Speaker 2: think companies, not just private.
Speaker 1: Ectory from the private sector, from the private sector.
Speaker 2: Right, not just saying but Trump's almost at a trillion
Speaker 2: dollars in four weeks. And these are Apple because they
Speaker 2: understand that Trump represents a populist nationalist that's only growing
Speaker 2: and only going to expand, right, And and people are
Speaker 2: now focused on this. And that's why I think you
Speaker 2: have Honda, you have Siemens, you have you know, the
Speaker 2: semiconductor company is huge, you know, the most advanced, I
Speaker 2: would say, semiconductor manufacturer in the world. The other thing,
Speaker 2: I think it's quite interesting that traditionally our tech area
Speaker 2: in one twenty eight in Boston, in Silicon Valley are
Speaker 2: built around great engineering schools built around Berkeley and Stanford,
Speaker 2: are built around Harvard and MIT. You know, when you
Speaker 2: start relocating to Arizona on something that's both an art
Speaker 2: and a science like advanced chip design, and you know,
Speaker 2: I love my crow at Arizona State. He's a buddy
Speaker 2: of mine in Universey. Arizona's a great square. I love Arizona.
Speaker 2: They're not exactly m I, t or Or or Stanford.
Speaker 2: And I think it's showing you that the Red States
Speaker 2: have done such a great job. Texas being the lead
Speaker 2: of actually making these amenable to people's needs as companies.
Speaker 2: That they're coming back there and I think is going
Speaker 2: to have a huge political impact and a huge demographic
Speaker 2: But they didn't come in Biden Harris, and if Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris won, certainly they wouldn't have come because she's still
Speaker 2: a globalist. It's not prepared to disrupt the global supply chains.
Speaker 2: President Trump's prepared to do that because reashoring. They're not
Speaker 2: going to come back here unless you incentivize them to
Speaker 2: come back here. And part of that's a carrot, which
Speaker 2: is what uh, But you know Trump's Trump's better with
Speaker 2: a stick, and you need to You need a carrot
Speaker 2: and a stick a those.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate the stick, but let's talk about those
Speaker 1: red states. Aren't they disproportioned the ones impacted by these tariffs.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's to your point, there's going to be
Speaker 1: some tears here. And I appreciate the larger geopolitical and
Speaker 1: what you're trying to argue for ultimately coming out on
Speaker 1: the other side, but this transition is not overnight. The
Speaker 1: transition will come at real cost and consequence. Let's just
Speaker 1: be pragmatic up in Minnesota, Michigan, in New York. They're
Speaker 1: looking at one hundred dollars more a month on electricity
Speaker 1: bills as it relates to reality nature.
Speaker 2: Look, but that's a threat that's if it goes through something.
Speaker 1: That's just one example. I mean there's not every economist
Speaker 1: looks at the impacts of these TIFFs, but California will
Speaker 1: be disproportion held.
Speaker 2: We did this, Governor. We did the most significant terrorists
Speaker 2: we've ever done on the Chinese Comties Party in President
Speaker 2: Trump's first term, and and and.
Speaker 1: Biden held the line on a lot of this that.
Speaker 2: Held the line one number one because I think geopolitically
Speaker 2: he realized that, you know, you've got to stand up
Speaker 2: to the CCP. And I think although you wouldn't have
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have heard it from the media that what
Speaker 2: President Trump did was the beginning stage of something that
Speaker 2: had to be done to get the attention to the
Speaker 2: Chinese Congress Party that you just can't continue to game
Speaker 2: the system. And President Trump went out of his way.
Speaker 2: By May of nineteen Lightheiser Navarro had that deal that
Speaker 2: went to every seven of the categories they had to
Speaker 2: resolve to really integrate with the Western economy of really
Speaker 2: the world's economy, including the state owned industries, and they
Speaker 2: just tore the deal up and walked away right and
Speaker 2: said screw you. And so that's when these terriffs, and
Speaker 2: the terriffs didn't increase prices. So when people say they
Speaker 2: increased prices, I don't actually think. You have some economists
Speaker 2: saying theoretically, but when we look at practically back to
Speaker 2: the golden year of twenty nineteen, you don't actually see it.
Speaker 2: And I think there may be some dislocations in the
Speaker 2: short term, but in the intermediate term, I think it's
Speaker 2: really the way you get to the sunlit uplands of
Speaker 2: really having back to the American plan of remember world
Speaker 2: class industrial manufacturing. So many other operas.
Speaker 1: Think it's a mutual goal for all of us. But
Speaker 1: industrial policy, which I think is missing a little bit
Speaker 1: from the Trump agenda. With targeted tariffs, I understand, but
Speaker 1: broad tariffs without an industrial policy where I start.
Speaker 2: To loss sustain The key is broad sustained. If you
Speaker 2: have broad and sustained tariffs and people can make capital
Speaker 2: allocation decisions, particularly small and medium manufacturers. Remember in the
Speaker 2: Chicago area, I think between nineteen ninety eight and two
Speaker 2: thousand and five we lost five thousand small manufacturers and
Speaker 2: a couple of million jobs because we shipped it all
Speaker 2: to China, and those guys are bigging all the time.
Speaker 2: These are not the apples and it's not the Taiwan
Speaker 2: manufacturing some are manufacturing. These are small, you know, the
Speaker 2: companies employed under one hundred people, which I think is
Speaker 2: the life run. In fact, there's a guy in Laguna Beach,
Speaker 2: John Gardner, who's kind of the leader of this effort
Speaker 2: to bring the small manufacturing folks back to more craftsmanship
Speaker 2: type of of manufacturing. We have to do that. We
Speaker 2: have to become a manufacturing powerhouse again. Uh, we have
Speaker 2: to do it quickly. And it's Wall Street is not
Speaker 2: going to love it because they're all neoliberal, neo cons
Speaker 2: They want to be they want to be invading everywhere
Speaker 2: and the and they and they they hate populism. One
Speaker 2: of the reasons people should understand is the is the
Speaker 2: is the is a blowback among the donor class in
Speaker 2: Wall Street. Is not just that the they perceive the
Speaker 2: economics and not to their benefit because they've concent you've
Speaker 2: concentrated well so dramatically here since the financial crash of
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight. But they hate the fact, and
Speaker 2: this shows you the Democratic Party. They hate the fact
Speaker 2: that they're empowering the populist. If we start to win
Speaker 2: on these tariffs, and we start to win on bringing
Speaker 2: these back, our movement is going to get bigger and
Speaker 2: bigger and bigger. Remember we got thirty nine percent of
Speaker 2: African American men. I think first time we've got uh
Speaker 2: majority of near majority of Hispanics. Because working class people
Speaker 2: see the opportunities there, and Wall Street understands this, and
Speaker 2: the corporatis understands. I can't. Corporate America is my enemy
Speaker 2: number one. They're the leader in the woke movement in
Speaker 2: this country, but they're also the greed and avarice has
Speaker 2: always been for the leaders. In fact that the tax
Speaker 2: cuts they take, and one of the reasons I hate
Speaker 2: allowing them to do stock buy backs is they gained
Speaker 2: the system to drive up stock prices to dry the
Speaker 2: warrant package and the thing, and they don't put in
Speaker 2: a capital equipment. Thank you to me.
Speaker 1: If you tell your president that, Steve, you got to
Speaker 1: tell your president that the president presend the status president.
Speaker 2: The president knows this already his tax but he go
Speaker 2: after the carried interest now as he going after corporate subsidies.
Speaker 2: I'm going to I'm going to break some news here, Governor.
Speaker 2: I believe that one of the leading things you're going
Speaker 2: to see in President Trump's tax bill when it comes out,
Speaker 2: that he's going to take on carried interest and President
Speaker 2: Trump is finding how.
Speaker 1: To be that's a that's it. That's my kind of doge.
Speaker 1: That's one point three billion dollars small ball, but it's
Speaker 1: symbolic and subsidence. What about the three billion dollars in
Speaker 1: oil gas subsidies. I mean, that's ultimate corporate welfare.
Speaker 2: What do you mean. We've gotta we gotta drill, baby drill,
Speaker 2: and we need to.
Speaker 1: We're already were thirteen and a half billion barrels a million.
Speaker 2: Yes, today we have we need we have to have
Speaker 2: lower energy costs. And one of the reasons all these
Speaker 2: companies are coming back. We're never What we got to
Speaker 2: do is stop. Look you see this in Germany. Germany
Speaker 2: had this maniacal and you and I are not going
Speaker 2: to agree on this or even close, but they had
Speaker 2: this this fetish. They made a mistake carbon zero. They've
Speaker 2: de industrialized themselves on the Greta Thunberg model, they're three
Speaker 2: five percent.
Speaker 1: They get pretty Gretath of Thumberg, she wasn't even bored.
Speaker 1: But I appreciate your friend, you know.
Speaker 2: But they didn't. There's deindustrializing Germany. We don't want that
Speaker 2: to happen here in the nice Now we're.
Speaker 1: On the same page on that. It's just how we
Speaker 1: achieve the goal. And by the way, one hundred percent
Speaker 1: a line on industrial policy bringing manufacturing back, that's workers
Speaker 1: centered one hundred percent. By the way, I say that
Speaker 1: as governor of the largest manufacturing state in America, a
Speaker 1: state that has more corporate headquarters God bless forgive me
Speaker 1: than any other state in America, more than we've had
Speaker 1: in over a decade, and that dominates in the innovative
Speaker 1: space in terms of scientists and researcher.
Speaker 2: Hang hang out. You've allowed alcohol. But hang on second,
Speaker 2: Hang a second. You've also allowed and this you've also
Speaker 2: allowed the oligarchy of Silicon Valley. And let's talk about
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is on apartheight state, Okay, within
Speaker 2: within you're one of the most progressive leaders in this country.
Speaker 2: Right we disagree probably on everything on the cultural side,
Speaker 2: but you're you're one of the leaders, you're on the
Speaker 2: leaders elected officials of the most progressive state, and you're,
Speaker 2: you know, the leader of that element of the democratic.
Speaker 1: Techno feudalism and feudalism. What do you mean by that exactly?
Speaker 2: Well, here's what I mean is that two things happen
Speaker 2: around two thousand and eight to two thousand and ten.
Speaker 1: By the way, that's sort of the Tea Party. That's
Speaker 1: the Wall Street the bailout.
Speaker 2: So the bailout, the financial crash of two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: And this is why I considered President Obama kind of
Speaker 2: a tragic figure. Right. He came in as an anti
Speaker 2: war populace, and I'm opposed to the war in Iraq
Speaker 2: and every in Afghanistan. My daughter served after West Point
Speaker 2: in Iraq. And I can tell you as a parent,
Speaker 2: you realize that you have no control over anything when
Speaker 2: your kid goes over for you know, defending their country,
Speaker 2: represent their country. It's you understand, you know, how insignificant
Speaker 2: you are. But the financial crash, you know, Geidner and
Speaker 2: BERNANKI went to a classic Wall Street bailout. You know,
Speaker 2: we didn't let capitalism, you know, Goldman Sacks got b
Speaker 2: held at AIG. No corporate guys ever went to prison
Speaker 2: on the worst bailout. We had the greatest concentration of
Speaker 2: wealth until the pandemic happened with the one percent, because
Speaker 2: you know, the Federal reserves balance sheet went from eight
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty bion dollars to I think four and
Speaker 2: a half, right, and and all that liquidity went to
Speaker 2: bailout real assets and corporate stocks at the same time
Speaker 2: with Obama when they when they you know, when Obama
Speaker 2: got this heads up kind of I think it was
Speaker 2: on Facebook the San Francisco airport, this briefing about how
Speaker 2: social media his his weapon to take on the Clinton
Speaker 2: mafia because he was a relatively unknown guy taking on
Speaker 2: the most embedded political apparatus in the Democratic Party in
Speaker 2: modern history. And he took it all with using social media.
Speaker 2: That was his first thing. And there was a deal,
Speaker 2: kind of made a Faustian bargain that we wouldn't pursue
Speaker 2: anti trust, we wouldn't pursue FTC or the Justice Department.
Speaker 2: We would allow the the tech oligarchs in the age
Speaker 2: of the algorithm, the algorithmic age, to to basically dominate
Speaker 2: and dominate in every one of these these verticals, right,
Speaker 2: with no real anti anti trust, and what we allowed
Speaker 2: him to become the most powerful people on earth. Uh
Speaker 2: And And but what proved out is that both on
Speaker 2: social media with TikTok, uh and and then with Deep
Speaker 2: Seek in the AI space, that the Faucian bargain that
Speaker 2: as a hedge of mind, we said, just give us
Speaker 2: the commanding heights, and that didn't happen. In fact, you
Speaker 2: say it's kind of an utter failure that that the
Speaker 2: social media is all kind of clunky. It's very dominant, right,
Speaker 2: but as clunky compared to TikTok. If you look at
Speaker 2: Ai and whether Deep Seek you think it's a Chinese
Speaker 2: syop or it's a spot Nick moment. We clearly we
Speaker 2: clearly you know, you don't hear a lot of talking
Speaker 2: about that carbon zero when this thing needs ten times
Speaker 2: more on the data center, sid it in the in
Speaker 2: the in the in the in the thing because it's
Speaker 2: kind of brute force computing.
Speaker 1: Has it has resuscitated the nuclear question, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: So they're exactly because they're still in command, they haven't
Speaker 1: completely thrown out, uh fully, the commitment to low carbon
Speaker 1: green growth. But your point.
Speaker 2: Direction governor don't get there, you know, because they don't
Speaker 2: have the power, they don't have their business model. Now
Speaker 2: for that epic fail, what's the and they've gotten away
Speaker 2: from capitalism is about markets and profits. Okay, they are
Speaker 2: now about digital platforms in rent their rent seekers, and
Speaker 2: they don't believe in even open borders. These guys are
Speaker 2: techno feudalists. That you have a digital platform, you had
Speaker 2: kind of digital serfs that that serve that, uh, and
Speaker 2: you add it to AI. And what they want to
Speaker 2: do in advanced AI of cutting out all the you know,
Speaker 2: entry level managerial, administrative, low tech work we're going to have.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have a massive problem about unemployment. And they're
Speaker 2: just on the merry way. And here's what Just like
Speaker 2: the lords of easy money on Wall Street came to
Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve and the Treasury for a bailout, and
Speaker 2: no working class or middle class people you know this
Speaker 2: in California got a bailout. They paid for the bailout
Speaker 2: through the taxes. What's the first thing to do? Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley comes. The first thing they come for is we
Speaker 2: need a new Marcury program, we need a Marshall program,
Speaker 2: we need five hundred billion dollars, and they need to
Speaker 2: turn over the Lawrence Livermore weapons lab in California, San Dia.
Speaker 2: We need to take control of all the national labs,
Speaker 2: and we need a five hundred billion dollar bailout because
Speaker 2: of the spot Nick moment, so they come back to
Speaker 2: the taxpurs this way. I think these guys are very
Speaker 2: dangerous and it's created in the Silicon Valley, and I
Speaker 2: understand the beginning there was rationale for this, but now
Speaker 2: it's not and it's got to be And I think
Speaker 2: you've got to be one of the leaders of it
Speaker 2: for ever to get a control of the oligarchs. You,
Speaker 2: as Governor and as quite frankly the leader of that
Speaker 2: wing of the party, have got to work with us
Speaker 2: to say, hey, this can't go on any longer. We
Speaker 2: first thing we need is Lena Kahan, and I we.
Speaker 1: Got rid of her. So I was going to ask you,
Speaker 1: I had someone who was actually starting to deal with
Speaker 1: some of these issues and then truck threw him out
Speaker 1: throughout correct me.
Speaker 2: If I'm wrong, Governor. I don't think Kamala Harris, I
Speaker 2: don't think Lena Khan's name ever crossed the lips of
Speaker 2: Kamala Harrison. I don't recall, but they never had her back.
Speaker 2: She's the first one to say that they never had
Speaker 2: her back. She's a neo Brandeisian after Louis Brandeis, which
Speaker 2: always warrant against the concentration of private power.
Speaker 1: Also celebrated citizenship, which I appreciate, active non inert citizenship,
Speaker 1: exact most human powerful office.
Speaker 2: And he was he was a big believer in human agency.
Speaker 2: And with Gil Slater, gil Slater's deputy, with with Andrew Ferguson,
Speaker 2: also Mike Davis and Rachel On Beauvart on the outside,
Speaker 2: we are the most we want to break up. In fact,
Speaker 2: you've see the suits right now in Northern Virginia and
Speaker 2: d C against Google. I mean, the hardcore, populous wing
Speaker 2: of the Mega movement really wants to target them up.
Speaker 1: And look, I appreciate that, and you've been consistent on
Speaker 1: that for years and obviously goes to you know, I
Speaker 1: imagine some of your issues with with Elon and we
Speaker 1: haven't even gotten to that. And I know that's all.
Speaker 2: Have any issues, have any issues?
Speaker 1: I know what you called him evil, You called him
Speaker 1: a racist. Uh, you have a inherent parasitic illegal alien.
Speaker 1: I think was your exact phrase. Your phrase, not mine,
Speaker 1: though we may share some commonality in terms of concern
Speaker 1: about what he's doing. But that said, let me.
Speaker 2: Just hold it. No, hang on, hang concern. You guys
Speaker 2: loved to see you loved all the oligarchs in particularly
Speaker 2: Elon until they flip. And remember all the rest of
Speaker 2: these oligarchs were all progressive Democrats until eleven people they're
Speaker 2: progressive liberty.
Speaker 1: I would I refer to him as libertarian. And I
Speaker 1: know these guys intimately known them for decades.
Speaker 2: So you know the danger we're dealing with, you know, knowing.
Speaker 1: Look, but what why doesn't Donald Trump? Why doesn't President
Speaker 1: Trump the leader of the movement? Trump isn't without Trump.
Speaker 1: I don't mean maybe maybe it's MAGA, it's the work
Speaker 1: you're doing in that populist base. But why isn't he
Speaker 1: pushing back? He brings someone in from Trump Treasury puts
Speaker 1: a Commerce secretary and only reinforces.
Speaker 2: The first off at Treasury. I think you're seeing a
Speaker 2: very smart analysis about M and A and about the oligarchs.
Speaker 2: I think look with Gil Slater Andrew Ferguson, I mean,
Speaker 2: these are one notch down and maybe not as well
Speaker 2: known as Lena Khan, but they're in the same they're
Speaker 2: in the same Uh, they're in the same uh school
Speaker 2: of thought of Neo brandeisian of this concept of concern
Speaker 2: about the concentration, the tremendous concentration of private power. I
Speaker 2: think in prison, Trump's working through this right now. Look,
Speaker 2: all these guys just became their damna scene moment was
Speaker 2: eleven pm Eastern Standard time on the fifth of November,
Speaker 2: when Pennsylvania was called for Trump. Once that all of them,
Speaker 2: Zuckerbergh and they all moved. They became maga, you know, Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg started growing the hair, working out doing.
Speaker 1: Elon was there a little bit before, it seemed. Lelon
Speaker 1: was there before after he dumped DeSantis.
Speaker 2: Elon I think, very smartly, this goes back to the precinct,
Speaker 2: and I get I give him Trenda's credit. He saw
Speaker 2: the math of what we were doing as grassroots of
Speaker 2: this precinct strategy canvassing. He backed to play. I mean,
Speaker 2: and look, no one's ever written a two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty million dollar check when they tell me, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Think it's more, but I but that's just my humble opinion.
Speaker 2: It may be more eventually. I think it's up to
Speaker 2: two eighty. But he backed it on the least sexy aspect,
Speaker 2: which is backing grassroots, going door to door, and particularly
Speaker 2: he would go up and campaign in Pennsylvania, Michigan and
Speaker 2: wascond just.
Speaker 1: And forgive me. But what's his end game? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I know, you look, he wants to be
Speaker 1: the first trillion air in the world. I mean, what's
Speaker 1: his endgame here?
Speaker 2: Well, you know it. You guys created a governor. I mean,
Speaker 2: you got a way.
Speaker 1: In many respects California did. It was our regulatory process
Speaker 1: and our subsidies to create this market. You're one hundred
Speaker 1: percent right. I think you're right about He.
Speaker 2: Left Canada to come to California. That was, you know said, and.
Speaker 1: Then a big and then a big check from the
Speaker 1: federal government from everybody watching that backed his play early
Speaker 1: on when he was in deep need. He paid it
Speaker 1: back relatively quickly. But he's been the beneficiary of billions
Speaker 1: and billions and billions of dollars.
Speaker 2: Thirty loans, thirty thirty eight loans, I think thirty.
Speaker 1: What do you seriously want him to take over the
Speaker 1: starlink to take over the FAA and the air traffic
Speaker 1: control system.
Speaker 2: Here's is that. Here's where listen. I late at this
Speaker 2: concept at SEAPAC in seventeen that that was going to
Speaker 2: be you know, populous economics and the economic nationalism America. First,
Speaker 2: national security, and the third was a deconstruction the administrative state.
Speaker 2: What Elon Musk has done. And I think this is
Speaker 2: the engineer, you know, the best angels of Elon, that
Speaker 2: engineer's brain. I think he kicked in when he saw
Speaker 2: the strategy of how we actually win and building a
Speaker 2: coalition of working class people. He supported that in President Trump,
Speaker 2: I think now and this is why I think he
Speaker 2: jumped on it. He sees that we have an apparatus,
Speaker 2: and I think you'd be the first amit the administrative
Speaker 2: state that's kind of anti democratic. It's there, and I
Speaker 2: don't care if AOC or Gavin Newsom or Bernie Sanders
Speaker 2: walks into the oval office president United States. The deep
Speaker 2: state and the apparatus is going to do what they're
Speaker 2: going to do. They're going to look at you as
Speaker 2: just passing through.
Speaker 1: Now we refer to it in you know, in non Pejorita.
Speaker 1: But there's a clay layer of bureaucracy, and you're right,
Speaker 1: unaccountable folks making a lot of decisions. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that's wrong, but your yours is a much you know.
Speaker 2: What, I just had an idea we should invite Elon
Speaker 2: because you know these guys better your personal friends with you, guys,
Speaker 2: Elon ought to take a California Doge sit down with
Speaker 2: you so you can get the guard.
Speaker 1: And we've been doing it for going but going, But
Speaker 1: our approach, Steve, is more like rego. We already did
Speaker 1: this one hundred and forty billion dollars of saving on
Speaker 1: a one point four trillion dollars budget. That was real savings,
Speaker 1: and we did it the right way, not to people
Speaker 1: with people fo one hundred thousand positions the administry.
Speaker 2: Let let your favorite, let Elon come out. Let Elon
Speaker 2: come out and verify that. I think for the nation
Speaker 2: to be good. And because he.
Speaker 1: Has done, let's just a restlessness to let's go back.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to do. What he's trying to do
Speaker 2: is get the waste, fraud and abuse and identified. He
Speaker 2: has identified USAID, which people have been working on for years.
Speaker 2: But he's done a good job there. The others is
Speaker 2: twenty billion dollars in city corps. You know where it went.
Speaker 2: I think people are going to, you know, eventually need
Speaker 2: more details. I think he said he's going to provide
Speaker 2: more details. They just went to federal court last night.
Speaker 2: A judge ruled.
Speaker 1: And I love Steve. I love that you're defending him now.
Speaker 1: By the way, he's been knocked on you, hang on,
Speaker 1: hang on. He hasn't attacked you back, which is interesting
Speaker 1: to me. He's marginally attacked you back. You must be muted.
Speaker 1: I'm curious your private thoughts on that. Why do you
Speaker 1: think he's a little scared of you?
Speaker 2: Isn't he?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I don't think he.
Speaker 1: I think he is. That's my personal opinion.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm just a mick that yells into a microphone.
Speaker 2: But but Governor, No, here's I think it's important and
Speaker 2: any and this is why I think, let's get back
Speaker 2: to why President Trump won again. You have basically working
Speaker 2: class people, in middle class and particularly lower down the change.
Speaker 2: They've seen the bailouts on Wall Street, they've seen the
Speaker 2: oligarchs be made. They don't think they have agency. And
Speaker 2: in a global, you know, global supply chain, they think
Speaker 2: they're just a cog in the machine, that their voice
Speaker 2: is not heard. Right, they're kind of dismiss culturally. They're
Speaker 2: considering and I don't care if you're black, Hispanic or
Speaker 2: white working class. It's not a race thing. It's it's ethnicity.
Speaker 2: It's you're just dismissed as not being important. Now, with
Speaker 2: AI coming up, they see that even their children that
Speaker 2: went to college in that in that important ten years
Speaker 2: that you get out of school, administrative, tech, managerial, are
Speaker 2: probably not going to be there or be there in
Speaker 2: some dramatically different way than you came up and your
Speaker 2: dad came up, and my dad and myself. So I
Speaker 2: think they see that in the institutions that were supposed
Speaker 2: to be there to be protective people questioning. The polling
Speaker 2: shows this categorican. That's why a guy like Trump. Trump
Speaker 2: comes up and he says, look in DC, not in
Speaker 2: the room, not in the deal, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: put you in the room. And people feel comfortable. That's
Speaker 2: why they love this kind of days of thunder and
Speaker 2: every day flood the zone. What President Trump is doing.
Speaker 2: And President Trump and you know, because you know him
Speaker 2: very well, he has a visceral connection with working class
Speaker 2: people that people in politics haven't had, you know, for generations.
Speaker 2: He just has this work working class in middle class.
Speaker 2: They trust him and they believe in him, and he's
Speaker 2: designated Elon. I've got a lot of problems with Elon,
Speaker 2: and you know that Elon knows it. But what I
Speaker 2: do admire is that he is trying to get this
Speaker 2: situation to get the waste, fraud and abuse out. I
Speaker 2: hope it gets to a trillion dollars. I'm his biggest
Speaker 2: support of that. I don't think we're going to get
Speaker 2: there now.
Speaker 1: And I think back to your point, that's deep programmatic cuts.
Speaker 2: We're going to end your consequences and people this summer,
Speaker 2: and I keep telling people like all these corporacy as
Speaker 2: it come to Tront to mar Lago in the tech
Speaker 2: bros and the brologarchs and all of them came to
Speaker 2: the all of them came to the inauguration. They're all
Speaker 2: party in their tux sis. I said, this is all
Speaker 2: great celebratory, but we're going to go through a firestorm.
Speaker 2: And I think part of this firestorm is not this CR.
Speaker 2: I think the CR gets kicked down, but this summer,
Speaker 2: when you start to go through the programmatic changes that
Speaker 2: you have to have. We have to get control of
Speaker 2: federal spending. If we don't, we're never going to get
Speaker 2: rid of inflation. That is going to be the acid test.
Speaker 2: When you talk about defense, you're going to have the
Speaker 2: Hawks and a lot of other people in the neo
Speaker 2: kons in your grill. When you talk about what has
Speaker 2: to happen to medicate, you know are going there. When
Speaker 2: you talk about the social programs, you talk about SNAP,
Speaker 2: you talk about these, we are about to have a
Speaker 2: national conversation that we've never had. We've never and there's
Speaker 2: no easy alternatives. All the easy alternatives we left, you know,
Speaker 2: a decade or a couple of decades ago. This is
Speaker 2: going to get down to say, hey, we need to
Speaker 2: get the deficit to under tree and dollars or like
Speaker 2: three and a half percent. We're never going to People
Speaker 2: should in this, your audience should understand something. We will
Speaker 2: never pay off one penny of the face amount of
Speaker 2: the debt as we increase this now about every hundred
Speaker 2: days of another tree and dollars. It's just the interest
Speaker 2: right now, it's the gross interest charge. I think a
Speaker 2: tree and four, which is the way it's got to
Speaker 2: be looked not net because they kind of take the
Speaker 2: they take the interest on the bonds we sell ourselves,
Speaker 2: and they net it out, which I think is unfair account.
Speaker 2: And you got to look at the gross right now.
Speaker 2: It's significantly over the Defense Department. And I would tell
Speaker 2: people too, as we kind of wrap up or get
Speaker 2: close to wrap up. In the history of countries, no
Speaker 2: countries ever come back economically that it's GDP, that its
Speaker 2: debts above its GDP, and we are now at that
Speaker 2: at that space. In additional, no nation a national security
Speaker 2: has ever survived as a major power when the interest
Speaker 2: payments on their debt go above what they pay for
Speaker 2: national security. The tree and dollars we are now over
Speaker 2: our national security right now is one trellion dollars. You're
Speaker 2: thinking about a tree in two to train four an
Speaker 2: interest payments alone. Yeah. Money.
Speaker 1: But Steve, that's why this tax cuts, extending the tax
Speaker 1: cuts is reckless in this respect.
Speaker 2: I don't agree with that. I think, if if you
Speaker 2: want to have.
Speaker 1: A governor, where how do you by definition, if you
Speaker 1: want to get out, if you want to have.
Speaker 2: A shot, if you want to have a shot to
Speaker 2: get to three and a half four percent, growth. You've
Speaker 2: got to have a supply side tax Hutch. You just
Speaker 2: and by the way, for people, it's just keeping the
Speaker 2: tax cut they have today for for people.
Speaker 1: This is that's the frame. Though you want to see
Speaker 1: it increased on corporations in the one percent.
Speaker 2: I want to see corporations stay. I don't want to
Speaker 2: see a cut, but on the upper on the upper brackets,
Speaker 2: I don't want to say. I don't want to see extension.
Speaker 2: I want them to go back to the old rates
Speaker 2: and they have to pay the old rates. And then additionally,
Speaker 2: if they can't help us get this under control, I'm
Speaker 2: all for increasing taxes on the They will have a
Speaker 2: tax increase if President Trump doesn't extend it. But then
Speaker 2: I think we'll have another, have another tax increase the
Speaker 2: one percent, the top three percent, unless because they control
Speaker 2: Washington d C. Unless they work together with working class
Speaker 2: and middle class people to get this spending out of
Speaker 2: control and get all the corporate welfare out of this,
Speaker 2: because we hate corporate We hate crony capitalism and corporate welfare.
Speaker 1: Except for oil and gas. Apparently, Steve, that's not three
Speaker 1: billion right there.
Speaker 2: You've got to generate. You've got to generate lower energy
Speaker 2: costs their exceptions. First off, you finally admitted for the
Speaker 2: first time, the net carbon fetish is admitted.
Speaker 1: I've been I've been pretty pletty clear on this whole frame,
Speaker 1: but I'm not naive about it. But also, by the way,
Speaker 1: we're not I don't know what more evidence you guys
Speaker 1: need of Mother Nature's fury and then we've had in
Speaker 1: the last year. But that's another conversation for another thing,
Speaker 1: and that's not fanaticism. Eventually, pragmaticially, eventually.
Speaker 2: Eventually, uh, you work with roe Quahanna and Feederman, you'll
Speaker 2: become You'll become more of a populous nationalist, and then
Speaker 2: you'll probably have a bright future.
Speaker 1: Hey, Steve, I really enjoy this conversation. I think is
Speaker 1: incredibly valuable. And I appreciate the spirit to which we
Speaker 1: were able to engage and and I hope we can
Speaker 1: continue the conversation and and uh, and I hope we
Speaker 1: get out of this week without any further disruptions. It's
Speaker 1: been a hell of a hell of a beginning of administration.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate your your advocacy. I also appreciate that
Speaker 1: you call balls and strikes as it relates to what
Speaker 1: you're seeing, uh, with administration.
Speaker 2: I also think that for your audience. You know, there's
Speaker 2: a saying that there are decades in which nothing happens
Speaker 2: in there are weeks in which decades happen. We're living
Speaker 2: in that time right now. So whatever happens this week,
Speaker 2: next week is going to be quite intense. We have
Speaker 2: a mate, we have an economy turn around. Geostrategically, the
Speaker 2: beginning of the kinetic part of the Third World War
Speaker 2: has got to be stopped. So it's we're we're living
Speaker 2: history every day. And uh, I'm just honored you had
Speaker 2: me on here, and uh, you know we were able
Speaker 2: to conduct this in some level of decency.
Speaker 1: I appreciate Steve, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Governor, appreciate you. The Bangaga the song of
Speaker 2: podm