Speaker 1: This is Gavin Newsom and this is doctor Phil McGrath. Well,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming on, doctor Phil, and it's I've
Speaker 1: been eager to have this conversation because I've been watching
Speaker 1: a number of your conversations. You've been having very public conversations,
Speaker 1: but also just in the media and obviously now with
Speaker 1: your own new Merritt Street media enterprise. It's really interesting
Speaker 1: to read the punditry and try to read between the lines.
Speaker 1: What's doctor Phil up to? Is this a big shift
Speaker 1: to the right or is he just self actualizing a
Speaker 1: little bit more in terms of his personal points of view?
Speaker 1: Or is it completely consistent with the person we watched
Speaker 1: for twenty one years on Daytime TV. What's your overall
Speaker 1: sentiment around the independent analysis of pun entry about all
Speaker 1: things doctor Phil?
Speaker 2: Right now, Well, you know, Governor, I'm glad you asked
Speaker 2: that question because I have to say I'm probably the
Speaker 2: least political person I know, although I have certainly been
Speaker 2: painted with that brush of late and not completely hard
Speaker 2: to understand. But and I say that I'm not political
Speaker 2: because I deal with cultural issues, psychosocial issues, and I
Speaker 2: differentiate that from politics because frankly, I'm not very sophisticated
Speaker 2: in the political arena. I don't know a lot about it,
Speaker 2: you know. I can watch that after school special about
Speaker 2: how a bill becomes a law in all of that,
Speaker 2: and I learned something every time I watch it again,
Speaker 2: and I'm not I'm not. That's not false humility. I
Speaker 2: really don't understand politics. I certainly don't understand geopolitics on
Speaker 2: the international stage, and I really don't seek to. I
Speaker 2: really am focusing on cultural issues, and politicians talk about
Speaker 2: cultural issues a lot, and so that creates an intersection
Speaker 2: of content and values. And to me, when I'm focusing
Speaker 2: on those issues, those values, I could care less whether
Speaker 2: somebody is a Democrat or a Republican. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: there's a whole lot of difference when we really boil
Speaker 2: it down to where people really stand. I don't think
Speaker 2: we're nearly as divided as I think the legacy media
Speaker 2: would lead us to believe we are. And so really,
Speaker 2: I'm of a strong belief that the strength of any culture,
Speaker 2: any society lies in the family. And I think family
Speaker 2: and family values have been under attack in America. I
Speaker 2: wrote a book in two thousand and four called Family First,
Speaker 2: and I said in that book that I thought family
Speaker 2: in America was under attack, and I certainly think family
Speaker 2: values have been increasingly under attack. And admittedly a lot
Speaker 2: of that attack I think is coming from the extreme left,
Speaker 2: from what I think are the what I call the
Speaker 2: tyranny of the fringe. It's not really mainstream America on
Speaker 2: either side of the aisle. I think it's from really
Speaker 2: extreme activists, and I don't think they really represent the
Speaker 2: mainstream on either side of the aisle. So I think
Speaker 2: it's I think we've got the tail wagon the dog
Speaker 2: on a lot of these cultural issues. To tell you
Speaker 2: the truth, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to you your consistency on
Speaker 1: the notion of family and the challenges there. And I'm
Speaker 1: curious just you know, over the last few decades, I
Speaker 1: imagine people tried to pull you in twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: pull you into their campaigns, pull you into their rallies,
Speaker 1: pull you into their point of view. You know, were
Speaker 1: you were you tempted ten years ago to find your
Speaker 1: way into this or if you really always tried to
Speaker 1: sort of maintain a status above and you know, sort
Speaker 1: of separate and above.
Speaker 2: I've always tried to stay out of it. You know,
Speaker 2: people made a lot of it when I went to
Speaker 2: the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, you know, this
Speaker 2: time around. But if people listen to what I said,
Speaker 2: I started my comments and remarks during that appearance by saying,
Speaker 2: I'm not here to endorse President Trump. I don't agree
Speaker 2: with everything he says or everything he does. I said.
Speaker 2: The first things out of my mouth. If you go
Speaker 2: back and listen to what I said, is I'm not
Speaker 2: here to endorse him. I don't agree with everything he
Speaker 2: says and does. What I don't like is people bullying
Speaker 2: those and ostracizing those who do support and say they're
Speaker 2: going to vote for him. And I said, I'll give
Speaker 2: this identical speech at a Harris rally and volunteered to
Speaker 2: do so. And they actually contacted me and talk to
Speaker 2: me about doing exactly that, and I said, absolutely, let
Speaker 2: me know when, let me know where. I gave them
Speaker 2: all the contact information to set it up, and then
Speaker 2: they didn't follow up on it after that. But I
Speaker 2: wanted to speak at that one of those events as well.
Speaker 2: I think we need to talk to each other. I
Speaker 2: think we need a dialogue that we're not having and
Speaker 2: if we stay in our bubble. I don't think we're
Speaker 2: ever going to get a unity in this country.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate that. I will say, having listened to
Speaker 1: the speech, I don't think you would have referred to
Speaker 1: Kamala as a tough old boot.
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't have done that. I would changed that line,
Speaker 2: for sure, change it.
Speaker 1: There'd be a few lines by the way.
Speaker 2: Was that was it?
Speaker 1: Was it the President himself reached out directly to you
Speaker 1: to get you to speak at that rally, or was
Speaker 1: it members of the campaign team. Were they aggressively seeking
Speaker 1: your participation?
Speaker 2: They were? And you know, I had already interviewed President Trump,
Speaker 2: and I've known him for twenty years. I haven't spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time with him, but I've known him
Speaker 2: for a long time, and i'd interviewed him for my
Speaker 2: show in the past and had known him, like I say,
Speaker 2: not well, but had known him personally away from television
Speaker 2: and away from all that. But his team asked me
Speaker 2: to come and interview him. And I had asked to
Speaker 2: interview him when he was during running his campaign, and
Speaker 2: he agreed, And then they asked me to make an
Speaker 2: appearance there and I said I would, but I'll decide
Speaker 2: what I say, and it will probably be different from
Speaker 2: what you hear from everybody else. And they said, that's okay.
Speaker 1: They agree, No, well, it's I mean, it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: the answer is no unless you ask. And I certainly
Speaker 1: appreciate the fact that they were able to diversify the
Speaker 1: number of voices that were participating in not only those rallies,
Speaker 1: but you know, some a little more toxic than others,
Speaker 1: including at that rally sort of infamously.
Speaker 2: But some how about you are you going to run
Speaker 2: in twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Just you're jumping right into that. I want to jump
Speaker 1: first though, into what you just launched, which was Merritt
Speaker 1: Street Media. And so after twenty one ridiculously successful years
Speaker 1: running your own show, you decided to move and did
Speaker 1: this pivot, and you did it as well writing a
Speaker 1: book that goes to a lot of the issues that
Speaker 1: you're raising, including on the issue of family, called We've
Speaker 1: Got Issues. But tell us a little bit more, because
Speaker 1: I'm not sure everybody is fully familiar with this larger
Speaker 1: media company, not just sort of the work you're doing
Speaker 1: as a host yourself, but what you're trying to achieve
Speaker 1: it in Merritt Street.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I did spend twenty one years at CBS,
Speaker 2: and I have to say it's was a wonderful experience
Speaker 2: and I made wonderful relationships at CBS. It'll forever be
Speaker 2: a warm place in my heart. And got nothing but
Speaker 2: good things to say about my experience there. I was
Speaker 2: led their daytime lineup. Of course, it was syndicated, so
Speaker 2: they weren't all CBS stations, but that was my primary
Speaker 2: station group. I had great primetime shows on CBS as well,
Speaker 2: and they're working on some with them now we're still
Speaker 2: in business together. But I wanted to do more than that.
Speaker 2: I felt like an hour a day was not enough
Speaker 2: time to really do the things that I felt like
Speaker 2: I wanted to do because I was not comfortable and
Speaker 2: was very troubled by a lot of what I was
Speaker 2: seeing going on in this country. And I'll tell you
Speaker 2: a story. I was sitting in our kitchen in California,
Speaker 2: where we were living at the time, and I was
Speaker 2: flipping back and forth. Robin and I were sitting there
Speaker 2: having dinner, and we were kind of flipping back and
Speaker 2: forth and going from one kind of news channel to
Speaker 2: another news channel to another news channel, and I was
Speaker 2: really frustrated by saying, you know, this is so much propaganda,
Speaker 2: so much spin, you can't really tell. You'd be on
Speaker 2: one channel and flip to another and they're talking about
Speaker 2: the same events or incidents, and you can't even tell
Speaker 2: they're talking about the same thing. Amen, because they're spending
Speaker 2: it so much. Yep. And I said, you know, this
Speaker 2: just drives me crazy. The media is driving me crazy.
Speaker 2: Why won't they just tell you what happened? And without
Speaker 2: even looking up dinner, she said, well, why don't you
Speaker 2: do something about it? You are the media, And she said,
Speaker 2: your ratings are bigger than both of them combined. Why
Speaker 2: don't you do something about it? And that was really
Speaker 2: the genesis of it, because I wanted to own the
Speaker 2: debate lane in America. I wanted to have a platform
Speaker 2: where I could bring two sides together, or three sides
Speaker 2: or four sides if necessary, to give people the facts
Speaker 2: and let them make up their own mind. And you know,
Speaker 2: because it's such a big issue in California, homelessness, for example,
Speaker 2: there are more than two sides to homelessness. People have
Speaker 2: different theories about how to resolve this. You know, why
Speaker 2: is housing so expensive? Do you do home first? Or
Speaker 2: do you work on getting people back on their feet
Speaker 2: and they earn their right to be given housing and
Speaker 2: shelter or is that a fundamental human right? You know,
Speaker 2: there are different sides to those issues. You think, well,
Speaker 2: you know, how could you be debating over that? But
Speaker 2: they're hugely passionate different sides on even that issue. And
Speaker 2: I do give both sides a chance to talk about that,
Speaker 2: and we have great and intelligent decisions. You know. Right now,
Speaker 2: this is Israeli Palestinian conflict. I've taken very bold positions
Speaker 2: on that, and it is astounding to me. I'm hearing
Speaker 2: things on our college campuses that I never thought I
Speaker 2: would hear in my lifetime. The anti Semitism that I'm
Speaker 2: hearing and I have given a platform to. At one
Speaker 2: time it was pro Palestinian, now it's pro Hamas. Is
Speaker 2: just straight up demonstrations in favor of a terrorist group
Speaker 2: that has killed forty eight Americans since its formation in
Speaker 2: the early nineteen eighties. And I find that difficult to understand.
Speaker 2: How we have young American.
Speaker 1: Students violating the two conflating.
Speaker 2: Protesting for Hamas, which is a terrorist group that has
Speaker 2: killed Americans and until recently was holding American hostages. They
Speaker 2: still have four that are not alive, but the last
Speaker 2: American hostage was just released in he Don Alexander and
Speaker 2: I spoke with his parents the next morning on the
Speaker 2: air and had a wonderful celebratory interview with them. And
Speaker 2: I'm hearing things on these campuses that tell me that
Speaker 2: we're just not teaching critical thinking among our young people anymore,
Speaker 2: and that's very troubling to me. So and I've given
Speaker 2: a voice to those and been criticized for given a
Speaker 2: voice to the pro Palestinian pro Hamas side, but I
Speaker 2: think people need to hear what they think and how
Speaker 2: committed they are and how misguided I believe they are.
Speaker 2: But I do give them a voice so people understand
Speaker 2: what we're up against.
Speaker 1: Not that I've stress tested what you've been saying along
Speaker 1: these lines, not specific to the conflict in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: but more broadly about trying to find a lane of
Speaker 1: a little bit more balance. I watched specifically your one
Speaker 1: hundred day analysis of the Trump administration, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was extraordinarily fair. You made some points that were,
Speaker 1: you know, were very not revelatory to me, but I
Speaker 1: thought important to make, particularly on the issue of immigration,
Speaker 1: of which you've received criticism. At the same time, you're
Speaker 1: hardly anti immigrant, but you made a point on that
Speaker 1: One hundred Day show that I think underscores the point
Speaker 1: you're trying to make, and that is what is omitted
Speaker 1: often in our discourse, particularly in some of these platforms
Speaker 1: and these cable shows, is the fact that the Biden
Speaker 1: administration was deporting has been at least through a period
Speaker 1: that marked I think around February more people being deported
Speaker 1: on the Biden administration, even the Trump administration, not something
Speaker 1: you see necessarily on some of these cable shows in
Speaker 1: order to sort of highlight and reinforce the importance of
Speaker 1: not just misinformation or disinformation, but what is omitted from
Speaker 1: our conversation.
Speaker 2: Now. Listen, we're embedded with ICE and they've allowed us
Speaker 2: full access at Merit TV. And let me tell you,
Speaker 2: when I say full access, there are no guidelines now there.
Speaker 2: To be completely fair, there are some rules in terms
Speaker 2: of not disclosing certain investigatory techniques that they have, but
Speaker 2: other than not disclosing things that might put agents' lives
Speaker 2: in danger, there are no rules. We can show every case.
Speaker 2: They're not cherry pick cases. And we're able to show
Speaker 2: everything that is going on. And I just watched the
Speaker 2: MISCA characterization, and I've come to know Tom Homan very well.
Speaker 2: This is a very sincere and compassionate man. And they
Speaker 2: have three primary goals. Number one is the worst. First,
Speaker 2: they talk about these cable networks, talk about their going
Speaker 2: in and sweeping neighborhoods and kind of anybody with a
Speaker 2: ten is subject to getting picked up. That is absolutely
Speaker 2: not true. I have seen that they are going after
Speaker 2: the worst. First, that they build a file, they know
Speaker 2: where these people are, they know what they're guilty of doing,
Speaker 2: and they target them. These are targeted arrest warrants that
Speaker 2: they're executing and taking these people out. So that's their
Speaker 2: number one goal. They wanted to close the border. They've
Speaker 2: effectively done that. And then number three is to find
Speaker 2: them missing children, because there are hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 2: children that have gone missing. Many are known to be
Speaker 2: sold into the sex trade or the forced labor trade,
Speaker 2: and those children need to be rescued. Now, some of
Speaker 2: them have found their way to family that is already here,
Speaker 2: but I fear there are probably a couple of hundred
Speaker 2: thousand that are being forced into lives that are horrendous
Speaker 2: and that they don't want to be in, and those
Speaker 2: are their three primary objectives. And I hear they're just
Speaker 2: outright misinformation about what they're doing. And if you've seen
Speaker 2: interviews I've done with Tom Homan, I ask him straight up,
Speaker 2: are you raiding schools and taking children out of school
Speaker 2: so they can be deported? Are you sitting on doctors'
Speaker 2: offices and hospitals to catch these people when they go
Speaker 2: to get healthcare? Or are you going after the worst first?
Speaker 2: And I asked the hard questions and they give me
Speaker 2: straight up answers and the support for those answers. I'm
Speaker 2: very pro immigration. Look, our birth rate has dropped below
Speaker 2: what we need infrastructure wise. I mean to sustain our
Speaker 2: infrastructure here, we need a birth rate of two point
Speaker 2: one and we've dropped to a little below one point six.
Speaker 2: We better get immigrants into this country. We need the talent,
Speaker 2: we need, the diversity, we need the headcount and the
Speaker 2: birth rate. We desperately need immigrants in this country. But
Speaker 2: there's the right way and the wrong way to do it.
Speaker 2: I look at America as my home, and I wouldn't
Speaker 2: let anybody into my house if I didn't know who
Speaker 2: they were, would you. I don't think anybody would. But
Speaker 2: we've done that. We've let millions of people into this
Speaker 2: country without knowing who they are, and clearly some of
Speaker 2: those are on a terror watch list and they're here now.
Speaker 1: And I think everything you said, dark phillis I think
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people would find particularly rational. But
Speaker 1: you have to acknowledge. And I don't say this lightly.
Speaker 1: I say this with intimate familiarity. I mean, we've had
Speaker 1: quote unquote wellness checks in the public schools. We've had
Speaker 1: some folks that are going to immigration courts that are
Speaker 1: being picked up in and around immigration courts. There's been
Speaker 1: a chilling impact across the country, not just in states
Speaker 1: like California, but a lot of day laborers picked up
Speaker 1: in California way a federal judge intervene under a lawsuit
Speaker 1: and actually admonished some of the border patrol for their
Speaker 1: activities and respect to that or or ice. But I
Speaker 1: do I do appreciate there's intensity of anxiety and a
Speaker 1: lot of rhetoric that is thrown around that is not nuanced.
Speaker 1: And I don't know that the president himself is aiding
Speaker 1: and embedding and finding some common ground here uses some
Speaker 1: pretty extreme language, which I think kind of chills the
Speaker 1: conversation and chills I think our capacity to sort of
Speaker 1: find some common ground on legitimate concerns around border security
Speaker 1: and thoughtful and comprehensive strategies to get the best in
Speaker 1: the brightest from around the world.
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's the right way and the wrong
Speaker 2: way to get into the country. And I don't think
Speaker 2: these people are being picked up that are here legally,
Speaker 2: And if they are here legally, then they don't have
Speaker 2: anything to worry about. If they came in illegally, not
Speaker 2: at a point of entry, then they are subject to
Speaker 2: being removed. That in and of itself is a crime,
Speaker 2: is it not?
Speaker 1: No, And I'm not denying that, But are you asked?
Speaker 1: I mean, and again, I'm now looking to get a
Speaker 1: debate about immigration policy. I'm just seeing some nuance in
Speaker 1: terms of the language, and I think some of the
Speaker 1: rhetoric and the reality on the ground. As someone that
Speaker 1: is on the ground addressing some of that reality, it's
Speaker 1: not just the worst first. It may be that may
Speaker 1: be the policy, but that's not necessarily the practice as
Speaker 1: it relates to those that are here without documentation. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got folks from nuke Ingridge that was
Speaker 1: supporting amnesty in nineteen eighty five, Reagan himself that did
Speaker 1: the amnesty bill shortly thereafter, and U And obviously we've
Speaker 1: got to address those that have been here for decades.
Speaker 1: I don't imagine we want to get all of them
Speaker 1: because they're quot on here illegally and send them and
Speaker 1: support them all back. I'm not imagine you're arguing for that.
Speaker 2: Well, but here's the thing if if, and let me
Speaker 2: argue another side of this, We've got an immigration court
Speaker 2: that is horribly dysfunctional. Yeap takes seven eight years. Yeah,
Speaker 2: ridiculous court date, and that is a broken system. We
Speaker 2: need to fix.
Speaker 1: That one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: When you've got somebody that maybe they have a legitimate reason,
Speaker 2: a compelling reason to get out of their home country
Speaker 2: for safety reasons, for fear of violence from gangs or whatever,
Speaker 2: and so they make applications in the United States and
Speaker 2: we say, great, you know, here's a here's a court
Speaker 2: date in twenty thirty two. Well, I'm sorry, I got
Speaker 2: people coming by my house threatening to cut off my
Speaker 2: arms and legs on a daily basis. Twenty thirty two
Speaker 2: doesn't really work for me. We've got to fix that.
Speaker 2: I want one hundred percent acknowledge that. The other hand,
Speaker 2: if we've got people that are here illegally, they're either
Speaker 2: here legally or they're not here legally, and so we
Speaker 2: have to take some ownership in the fact that we've
Speaker 2: got a broken system for getting process into this country.
Speaker 2: Doesn't change the fact that we have people that are
Speaker 2: here illegally, and most of them are not fleeing they're
Speaker 2: here fleeing violence. They're here for economic reasons, and this
Speaker 2: is the greatest country in the world. Of course, if
Speaker 2: I was in El Salvador or somewhere and had a
Speaker 2: dirt floor and pennies a day for wages, would I
Speaker 2: want to be in America? Of course I would want
Speaker 2: to be in America. We've got to do some things
Speaker 2: on our end to make this more functional. But I
Speaker 2: agree with that, and I hate these sanctuary guidelines where
Speaker 2: they will not cooperate with ICE agents to get someone
Speaker 2: that is currently in custody, which means they've broken the
Speaker 2: law and local law enforcement has had reason to pick
Speaker 2: them up and detain them. If you tell ICE about that,
Speaker 2: and they can come get them and take them out.
Speaker 2: At that point, you're going to have a whole lot
Speaker 2: less of the people you're talking about get arrested when
Speaker 2: they go into the community. Then you have one ice
Speaker 2: agent on one bad actor and they're gone. If they
Speaker 2: have to go into the neighborhood, they're going to arrest
Speaker 2: that person and they're going to check everybody that's around them.
Speaker 2: And that's as.
Speaker 1: You knew, doctor Phil. I mean in California, I can
Speaker 1: only speak for myself as governor. We've cooperated in that
Speaker 1: respect with folks that are in custody in state prisons.
Speaker 1: Over ten thousand specific gamples of that kind of cooperation.
Speaker 1: So not a lot of daylight on that. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm just more concerned about the larger rhetoric that everyone's
Speaker 1: here quote unquote illegally, which I get on the technical terms,
Speaker 1: but the notion of what the heck we do about it.
Speaker 1: I agree with you on comprehensive need for a comprehensive reforms.
Speaker 1: I think the asylum system is broken. There's been all
Speaker 1: kinds of bills rejected by both parties to address this issue.
Speaker 1: There was a bipartisan immigration package that Rubio himself many
Speaker 1: others support it to deal with immigration backlogs and judges
Speaker 1: and address some of those concerns, but they seem to
Speaker 1: get just watered down or eliminated because of the toxicity
Speaker 1: of our politics. And that's my concern now is how
Speaker 1: the hell do we soften that edge, which I think
Speaker 1: you want so we can find unity and common ground
Speaker 1: and unify the country, which you talk a lot about.
Speaker 1: But how do we begin to do that in a
Speaker 1: more rational way? I mean, I think rhetoric still matters,
Speaker 1: does it not.
Speaker 2: Words are powerful, Yeah, words are absolutely powerful. And you
Speaker 2: know when I see things happening, and I see a
Speaker 2: lot with the death threats and hate speech and rhetoric
Speaker 2: that I get when I come out and condemn what
Speaker 2: happened on October seventh in Israel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and by the way, just for the record, I
Speaker 1: flew to Israel right after the seventh and met with leadership.
Speaker 1: We actually brought a hospital, a field hospital with us,
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that condemnation. I want to make that clear.
Speaker 2: Well, and I know you made that trip, and I
Speaker 2: was so glad to see you do that. I spent
Speaker 2: twenty one years in California, and I was proud to
Speaker 2: see you take the initiative to do that because you
Speaker 2: didn't have to do that. And when I say words
Speaker 2: are powerful, but thank you for doing that, I didn't
Speaker 2: finish my sentence thank you for doing that. I think
Speaker 2: the rhetoric has gotten way out of control. When you
Speaker 2: shoot two people on the street in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: A museum. You know Milgram, the young woman, she grew
Speaker 2: up in over in Park, Kansas. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: not an activist that is really out driving the story here.
Speaker 2: And the young man was an Israeli Christian, for God's sakes,
Speaker 2: and they kill these two people and then start yelling
Speaker 2: free Palestine, Free Palestine. Can I say that that those
Speaker 2: shootings were due to out of control and fiery rhetoric.
Speaker 2: I have no proof for that, and I don't make
Speaker 2: claims that I don't have empirical evidence to support it.
Speaker 2: But common sense suggests that this kind of rhetoric that
Speaker 2: people that maybe were deranged to begin with, marginalized to
Speaker 2: begin with, looking for a cause celebrate. Uh. The same
Speaker 2: individual was active with b l M before this, so
Speaker 2: you know it was that the cause at the time.
Speaker 2: Now this is the bandwagon that he that he's jumping on.
Speaker 2: It just makes it easy for people to get involved
Speaker 2: in and we've got to tone down the rhetoric. And
Speaker 2: when you see you know, Harvard and Upin and Columbia University,
Speaker 2: the leadership there not only con condoning but in some
Speaker 2: ways I think enabling and empowering this. I think we've
Speaker 2: lost our way. I mean, these people, these young people,
Speaker 2: I think are being agitated from the outside as well
Speaker 2: as the inside. And this isn't free speech, Governor, this
Speaker 2: is this has gone beyond that when they're I was
Speaker 2: on the UCLA campus when they took down the encampment
Speaker 2: there and I talked to those protesters there and was
Speaker 2: their hate speech, yes, but it was still speech. But
Speaker 2: I also saw them surrounding Jewish students and not allowing
Speaker 2: them to move across campus. Some were assaulted, they occupied
Speaker 2: in defense, and vandalized buildings.
Speaker 1: And by the way, doctor Phil, just for the record,
Speaker 1: out of so much frustration, we had to send the
Speaker 1: California Highway Patrol in because they were not enforcing these
Speaker 1: laws and they were not protecting those students. So we
Speaker 1: were very critical and I appreciate your critique of what
Speaker 1: was happening on the UCLA campus. You're absolutely spot on.
Speaker 2: Well, we were with law enforcement as they were staging
Speaker 2: to go in and take them down. And I will
Speaker 2: say this about all of the law enforcement agencies that
Speaker 2: were doing this. I was speaking with them moments. You know.
Speaker 2: They were staging a couple of miles away from the campus,
Speaker 2: and they had their buses there and all the troops there,
Speaker 2: and we were speaking the leadership over there at two
Speaker 2: thirty three o'clock in the morning. That was I always,
Speaker 2: trust me.
Speaker 1: I was up at two thirty three in the morning
Speaker 1: when we finally pulled the orders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was asking them, tell me what your plan
Speaker 2: is and what your number one objective is. And there
Speaker 2: was nobody there but us, and they allowed me to
Speaker 2: be there because they know how pro law enforcement I am,
Speaker 2: how much I support their sacrifices that they make to
Speaker 2: keep the rest of us safe. And every single one
Speaker 2: of them, and I talked to them individually, you know,
Speaker 2: forty fifty yards away from each other, they all said
Speaker 2: the same thing. Our number one objective is that everybody
Speaker 2: gets home safe tonight. You see LA students, the protesters,
Speaker 2: all all of our officers, even these protesters that were
Speaker 2: hurling these insults at them and calling them every name
Speaker 2: in the book. Their number one objective was that those
Speaker 2: people get home safe. They weren't say, oh, well, we're
Speaker 2: going to win in there and kick some ass. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: They said, with great sincerity, we just want everybody to
Speaker 2: get home safe tonight. You know, tomorrow's another day. Let's
Speaker 2: get everybody home safe tonight. And I said, will that happen?
Speaker 2: They said, well, that depends on them. If they follow
Speaker 2: our directions, then they'll get home safe tonight. The second
Speaker 2: worst thing is we'll detain them and cite them and
Speaker 2: then they'll get home safe. But we want everybody to
Speaker 2: get home safe tonight. And I had such great respect
Speaker 2: for them that there's number one, even the protesters. They
Speaker 2: absolutely wanted them to get home safe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know they did it. They did a really
Speaker 1: admirable job that night. And while there was a few
Speaker 1: modest in sentences, they conducted themselves extraordinarily well in terms
Speaker 1: of how they reacted to those incidents. It only reinforced
Speaker 1: their stewardship, and not just on the UCLA campus, on
Speaker 1: many other campuses, not just in California, of course, all
Speaker 1: across this country. One of the things that you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's the conversation we're having here around how
Speaker 1: you work through these things and how we work through
Speaker 1: our differences and how we find commonality. You began with
Speaker 1: you opened up by saying you don't think our politics
Speaker 1: is you think, you know, mainstream media sort of you know,
Speaker 1: it sort of exacerbates the conditions this divisions that we're
Speaker 1: not as far apart as we may appear. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit more about what you're thinking. Is in
Speaker 1: that respect you mean that more broadly about sort of
Speaker 1: universal values of being loved and need to be loved,
Speaker 1: being protected, connected, respected, or do you mean that on
Speaker 1: issues like immigrat issues like human rights and social justice
Speaker 1: are on what topics?
Speaker 2: Look Conflict sells tickets. You know, if you're doing the
Speaker 2: news and your lead headline is today at third and L,
Speaker 2: nothing happened, that just doesn't sell tickets, right. But if
Speaker 2: you can say today at third and L, chaos broke out.
Speaker 2: Throw to the throw to the video. Now, everybody turns
Speaker 2: around and looks, and that's just kind of how we
Speaker 2: have been shaped and fashioned into following the news. But
Speaker 2: the truth of the matter is, I believe anytime I'm
Speaker 2: negotiating with somebody, the first thing I do is say, look,
Speaker 2: we've got differences. I agree with that. I think you
Speaker 2: and I have some differences in the way we look
Speaker 2: at things. But if we were going to try to
Speaker 2: find some common ground, the first thing I would do
Speaker 2: is say, you know, Governor, let's first talk about everything
Speaker 2: we agree about. Let's talk about the things that we
Speaker 2: agree about, because I think if we do that, we're
Speaker 2: going to find that we're not near as divided or
Speaker 2: different as we might think we are. And let's look
Speaker 2: at it on a from a broad standpoint. If you
Speaker 2: sit down with the most polarized folks and say, let's
Speaker 2: talk about what we agree about. In America, everybody wants
Speaker 2: a safe and healthy country. Nobody would just disagree with that.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to leave a good, green, clean, prosperous country
Speaker 2: for our children. Nobody would disagree with that. Everybody wants
Speaker 2: us to have a strong economy. Everybody would agree with that.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants us to be a good leader in the
Speaker 2: world and set a good example for other countries. Everybody
Speaker 2: would agree with that. Now we might disagree about how
Speaker 2: we go about achieving those things, but everybody would agree
Speaker 2: with where we're trying to get and I think one
Speaker 2: of the most critical days in this country's history was
Speaker 2: nine to twelve, not nine to eleven. Nine to eleven
Speaker 2: was one of the darkest days in our history, of course,
Speaker 2: but on nine to twelve, everybody woke up and we
Speaker 2: were Americans first. There weren't Democrats, there weren't Republicans. We
Speaker 2: were all Americans. And I just pray that something like
Speaker 2: that doesn't have to happen again for people to remember that, Hey,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, we're all wearing the same color jersey.
Speaker 2: We may have some differences on issues, but we're all Americans,
Speaker 2: and we all love this country and we all want
Speaker 2: fundamentally the same things. And if we remember that first,
Speaker 2: then I think we have a foundation to work from,
Speaker 2: a foundation to build on. And I pray we don't
Speaker 2: need to be reminded of that by being under attack.
Speaker 2: And I I think if we do remember that, if
Speaker 2: we do take that approach and we go, hey, well,
Speaker 2: we've really got something here to work on. You know, people,
Speaker 2: I've I've followed you for a long time and there
Speaker 2: are things that you know, people look at you and
Speaker 2: you have kind of an affluent image, and all people
Speaker 2: don't know that, and I learned one of the things
Speaker 2: that you and I have in common is we both
Speaker 2: come from pretty poor backgrounds. I've had to work real
Speaker 2: early in our lives, and we shared some common difficult
Speaker 2: experiences early in life of trying to make it and
Speaker 2: and get by and find this job and then that job.
Speaker 2: And when I learned those things about you several years ago,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, I said, you know, I understand
Speaker 2: how he's gotten where he is because this guy understands
Speaker 2: hard work and putting the time in to get where
Speaker 2: he's going. And my whole opinion changed when I learned
Speaker 2: some of those things. And there are things that I
Speaker 2: disagree with you on. I disagreed with you on some
Speaker 2: of the things you did concerning COVID and shutting things
Speaker 2: down and how long and this, that and the other.
Speaker 2: But I didn't have questions about your intention, your choices.
Speaker 2: And I always knew that this was something I could
Speaker 2: sit down and talk to you about because I knew
Speaker 2: that you knew the value of hard work and what
Speaker 2: families put in and how important it was. I felt
Speaker 2: like people don't take time to find out who they're
Speaker 2: talking to, what there and what their values
Speaker 1: Are and tune in for our continued conversation with doctor
Speaker 1: Phil