This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today is a politician, businessman, and the fortieth governor of California. Prior to his governorship, Gavin Newsom served as the Lieutenant governor of California and as the forty second mayor of San Francisco. A native San Franciscan, Newsom began his political career as a volunteer
for Willie Brown's mayoral campaign in nineteen ninety five. California may be the sixth largest economy in the world, but it faces some of our country's biggest problems. Most recently, Governor Newsom has been contending with the wildfires the devastated areas of Los Angeles.
This passed to January.
Wildfires are cyclical and a natural part of the topography of the area. However, this year's fires were particularly destructive.
I mean, I was just reading a Joan Didion piece.
I'm talking about one hundred mile an hour winds, and our birds were literally combusting in the sky, and horses are on fire and being shot, and embers went miles across the pch and one hundred and ninety seven homes were burned. So the answer is, yes, this has happened, and it will continue to happen. And so we'reas dumb as we want to be if we rebuild without a different mindset around science, climate resiliency, and redundancy as relates to emergency management.
Is it safe to say, because obviously these areas where this happened, and this is I'm assuming, in one sense a complicating factor and in another sense not really, which is you just can't go back and build the paliseds the way it was.
I mean, that's the tension. People want to move back, They want to move back quickly. Now they want to move back quickly but safely. So it comes to the issues of debris removal, soil sampling testing, and now they
want to come back safely. But also recognizing that we want to have a different kind of level of confidence that the building materials that we're going to use when we build are not going to be compustible, that we got redundancy systems as it relates to water, as it relates to hydrants, that we have more evacuation routes, better
emergency warnings and the like. And so it's that constant tension that we're going to have to figure out in real time and in real time, including quite literally today down here in La We got through record breaking first phase to be removal of hazardous waste within three weeks, and we're trying to move heaven and earth literally and figuratively to get all the rest of the debris done
in nine months to a year. At the same time concurrently providing building permits which people are getting today, and you're going to see homes starting to be rebuilt over the course of the next few months. So this is all happening as sort of a rolling process that we hope will give people some confidence and their ability to come back home, but to come back home in.
A much better place.
We have a writer coming on to do the show in a couple of weeks who wrote a piece that I was completely fascinated by, quote when plastic cities burn. Her name was Zobe Schlanger, and I always remember during nine to eleven that when thirteen million square feet of real estate came down and formed a toxic booja baise on that site, and then it rained the next day and a lot of that got washed into the harbor. Yep,
and so the problem appear. I'm wondering is is that a big urgent thing is to get that Malibu crap out of.
There as soon as possible going to the ocean.
No, And it's interesting we work concurrently. I mean, this is typical California. We had a three year drought that was the most significant since statehood that was ended with a three weeks of flooding, the most significant since statehood. So drought and floods concurrently, and so that was our mindset after this fire. Once we put out the fires, we started to get these atmospheric rivers and hadn't seen any rain in nine months up to this fire. Remember
this fire occurred in January. It was as dry as it's ever been in modern history. And then of course we had those floods. So we were working with our debris crews and immediately moving them to do water management and to begin to set up barriers, to do what we could to protect as much infrastructure as well as the ocean and other watersheds.
We did a decent job, in that you can always do better.
We didn't have a lot of time, but we're deeply mindful to get this stuff out as quickly as possible because of that concern. But again, in that process, you know, you got to work through the propane tanks, you got to work through the EV batteries, and you know we talk about lexrication. That's a big part of this. And then no one saw that coming. I made that point to Trump when I was in the Oval office. I said,
you know, Elon may have some insight on this. So it's you know, it's this is all challenged, but it's also familiar.
And I want to make that point. This is the tragedy of all this.
You know, the folks that are working on this debris removal just finished up, are still marginally working in Maui. In terms of the wildfire's there. The folks that I'm working with, the folks I worked with directly at Coffee Park in northern California. We lost fifty six hundred homes to wildfire in Paradise, California, the most deadly wildfire California history. Eighty five people lost their lives there. The same folks
working on this are folks that work there. So in a rather perverse way, there's a hell of a lot of experience in this space in terms of prevention suppression response in terms of the immediate and then obviously long term commitment to being here, getting the job done, and not turning our back on this community when the cameras are gone.
Well, you mentioned Paradise. We had on the show Lucy Walker, who made the film Bring your Own Brigade. Oh yes, which is this wonderful doc about Wolsey.
And she just sent it to me and I've got to open it up. I love, she says, I'm telling you, the answers to all your questions are right here.
She's there in Paradise. And there's a scene in the movie when they have the consultant come in about what to do to remediate and the guy gives them five basic things the distance of the plant life and the vegetation from the house. That no, don't let it touch the roof, but all these are no wood roofs anymore, no wood sigles. It gives them a very basic set. They bring him in, they hire him, he makes his recommendations,
and they reject all of them. Yeah, they want to go right back and have everything the way it was, And that's must be one of the toughest things for you.
Yeah. No, And this is it.
I mean people, you know, I remember in Paradise people said, well, you can't let them rebuild their I said, well, these people have been around since California was founded. I mean, there's some of the original post office boxes in San Francisco were here before there was millions and millions of California.
And so that's the tension because now obviously different level of sophistication around what we referred to as the Wuies, this wild lamb urban interface, and obviously so much in the new construction that's not since we've got so much nimbism. Every major state does, but particularly here on the coast, people don't want density, so they tend to do sprawl, and that sprawl gets further and further into this forested areas,
creating more challenging conditions in the best of times. But when you combine that now with the hot's getting a lot hotter, the dry is getting drier as it relates to climate change and the more extremes and the weather, obviously that's combustible in every way, shape or form, and so.
That's the tension.
Insurance in many ways is taking care of that, even it's a head of policy, because people are just not ensuring insurance companies. Capitalism is raining. They're pulling out of the market. Now you can't get your mortgage, Now you can't get your home. And so that's the tension that's happened all across the Western United States and in the South, these hurricanes the same thing Florida, Florida, I mean, Georgia, and North Carolina, Louisiana. And so none of this is
necessarily unique to California. We just like everything in California, the future happens here first, the good and the bad.
And we're in the tip of.
The sphere, not just to the challenges as it relates to Mother Nature, but also in terms of our response and trying to address a lot of the underlying causes as it relates to the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. And I'm proud of that leadership. But look, this is the tension working with the insurance companies who are allowing now climate modeling in terms of their rate approvals, which we never did in the past, which is stabilizing that market.
Of course, it's been radically impacted by these recent fires. We are working with land use experts and we actually have more aggressive proposals that I just put out quite literally a few weeks ago in response to these fires, as it relates not just to defensible spaces, but home hardening and other strategies around materials. And we're going to be much more restrictive in terms of those that want to come back and build in a nineteen thirty style.
We simply cannot afford that structure of structure impacts. You're impacting the entire community, not just putting your own home at risk.
There's an opportunity here to see the future. That as an opportunity for the people, not just you, because you're obviously way ahead of the kirk because of your job. But there's an opportunity here for people to face the future and design a place. It's gone. It's not some burn this and that and we have a patch work. It's all gone. It's a blank slate. What do you do when the blank slate with what the current information is and have the modern community?
Well?
And one thing is with you know, you start with a framework of humility and grace. That is, it's not top down, meaning it's not to dictate from Sacramento or Washington, DC. It's got to be a community led effort, particularly not just in the Palisades. Remember the Palisades represents you know, you know it's a diverse community, but certainly the demographics are so different than Alta Dina, which was even more impacted,
which is profoundly diverse community. And the issues that you brought up around speculation and price gouging, people coming in with unsolicit offers to buy out people's property for pennies on the dollar.
They were targeting.
Different portions of the around community like Maui, and so we were aggressive on some early executive orders, and our Attorney General's been aggressive calling that out addressing some of those issues. But what I just launched was a new platform. Look, we want a community engage process, but we don't want the community to be intimidated by the mob, meaning by organized interests that have a disproportionate impact on the outcome of a community design effort. So we created a new
platform called Engaged California. It's actual platform that allows people to be heard, has a two way framework of conversation between the state, city partners, federal partners, and the community where they can design that future and feel heard and represented in the process. A deliberative process to try to find consensus to answer your question. Bringing in the best minds, the best scientists from around the world.
We already I can't tell you great opportunity for those minds.
You know, we had Bill and Hillary Clinton reached out. They said at the Clinton Foundation, We've got some of these world class architects from Japan and they're sending cell phone numbers. We're getting all these people, and we're populating all these folks the best materials, the best designs, prefab all kinds of new strategies on fire suppression, et cetera.
And so we're trying to bring all that bear to your point to sort of this is our extraordinary opportunity with all the ingenuity and creativity and entrepreneurials, resources literal and resources more broadly defined a resourceful mindset. We have to take advantage all that. And again we cannot build it back the exact way that it was.
Less like a movie set. It's a movie. It was a movie set it was anyway.
So one more question about that subject, which is I, you know, beyond people speculating about Trump and strings attached and all this other stuff, what I'm wondering is are you confident as the governor of such a huge state, was such a wealthy state, and yet they need help. Are you confident the federal Governm's gonna step up and help county.
As we you know, roll back the tape in six months, we'll see at this moment, you know, we had a very good conversation, you know, at the tarmac with the president, phone call, follow up conversations in the oval.
You're hopeful.
Yeah, look at the end of and I've been through this. I remember Paradise, California. I wasn't even governor during Paradise, but I was lieutenant governor, and I remember tweeting out saying, you know, the former governor was the worst governor American history. Needs to rake the forests and basically blaming the governor for the fire right there, Brown And said, I'm withholding money, and that money eventually came, and so you know, and
he's done in Puerto Rico. He's done it to other states, including some red states, and so look, I get the nature of leverage. He's the master of leverage. He's going to take advantage of those points of leverage. Any vulnerabilities in some ways, I don't begrudge that. I get it. You know, I'm mature, been around and so you know, we have to work with him, and so far I've got to say no, bs, it's actual truth. We went from about seven eight hundred people doing first phase to
pre removal. After we sat down with him, we had about fifteen hundred. So he stepped out in matters. And so if it's attached to him, and success is attached, and I would love all the success to flow his direction, I think we can produce some pretty smarm result we concerned, of course, and that's by the way his approach I had during COVID, there was a democratic governor the United States America period, full stop, absolute objectivity. I don't say
this from a subjective perch. No democratic governor worked better with Trump during COVID than I did. Despite the fact we're involved in one hundred and twenty two lawsuits where he.
Was calling me a clown. I called him penny wise for caging kids that we're on the border issues.
I remember some of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the times every now and then.
So you know, we were able to figure that out, and I think we're you know, it's a familiar space for us again.
We'll see how long it lasts though.
California Governor Gavin Newsom. If you enjoy conversations about Golden State politics, check out my episode with former California Congresswoman Katie Porter.
You know, I think there is an attitude that you know, sort of people are entitled to have Republican representation. Here. What they're entitled to is good representation, right, people who listen to them, people who fight for them, people who are not corrupt, and that can come in your Democratic or Republican forms.
To hear more of my conversation with Katie Porter, go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Gavin Newsom reveals why he never reads speeches and the challenges he faced as a child growing up with dyslexia. I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is Here's the Thing. I had the privilege of speaking with Governor Gavin Newsom recently in Los Angeles. Newsom was raised by a hard working single mother who often worked up to three jobs to support him,
his sister, and their foster children's siblings. Newsom would eventually help support the family himself, working several part time jobs. While in high school. I was curious if Governor Newsom viewed himself as a caretaker as a young man and in his political career.
Yeah, I just I mean my mom, single mom, teenager, came from no wealth, nothing passed away fifteen eighteen years ago with nothing, just worked her tail off. Don't complain, don't explain. You just get up, do your work. And yet nothing was given to you. You had the paper roots, you did the construction, you did the janitorial, you went out there, you were an entrepreneur to pay for a basketball hoop, just made it happen. And that grit, that hard work, what a gift. That was the gift of divorce.
And an idealistic dad that wasn't a dad until I was older.
He was around.
He was around and he passed years ago, but he was around when I was older, and it was amazing mentor. But he was passionate about the environment, he was passionate about social justice, racial justice for Getty, and he worked. Yeah, he was a judge and he was kind of he was like he was one of those activist judges and worked a little bit with a Getty family. And that attachment, of course, is a big part of the narrative of me that somehow my name is Gavin Getty, not Gavin Newsom.
So people just assumed there was a trust fund, wealth privilege. But my childhood bears testament to something.
Repizza and asked you to pay for it because there, thank you very much.
I know.
Yeah, by the way, if there's a trust fund in my future, let me know, I'm looking forward to it. But it was yeah, no, so it was shaped by that, and you never you know, Look, the biggest problem with me was not having a single mom. Was the problem for her of having two kids and one that couldn't read or write. I don't read speeches. I can't audio as you're preferred.
Yeah, well no it's not preferred.
I have such severe learning disability dyslexia that I you know, so I'm st childhood, since childhood, so you've never seen me read a speech in my life. And that's a hell of a profession to pay.
So you're a skilled actor that you were, like the Olivia of California politics.
My point is I have so much empathy for her that I never was able to express because she passed so many years ago. But what a you know, what a gift in hindsight, all this, you know all that, you know all you can claim your victim whatever. It's shaped who I am, and it's shaped to work ethic and that's I'll tell you anything else. There's nothing that I value more than just the deep appreciation of taking You have agency. You can shape the future. It's not
conditions that determine your faith in future. It's decisions. And so I've never had a victim mindset. I've always just felt just grit, hard work, and humility at the same time.
Now you start in San Francisco your political career. The reason I say your you're the caretaker thing is because obviously everybody talks about you're this handsome guy. You could have driven down the road and gone to LA and had a movie career, probably in fifteen minutes. But instead we find you land at the Parking and Parking and Traffic Commission. Yeah, well, yeah, I did constituent services one year for Tom Hayden.
Do you did?
Hayden walked into his off He goes, what are you doing here? I was on a TV show. He goes, what are you doing? I go, I'm doing constituent services. These people can't pay their power bill. He goes, come into my office because I went and volunteered for him, and they put me in that I did these I mean, I'm like you in that sense that I just I wanted to work there. You go and get involved in the process. But when you get involved why at the polyside.
Degree, Well, I was a small business guy, started right out of college, putt of small businesses, Yeah, a bunch, and put pen to paper, got thirteen investors, raised seventy five hundred bucks each and opened this little the dime still with us today, a wine store. And it was inspiration desperation. I thought this one.
Would crush it and it was a disaster.
Two three years, just struggle and you know, couldn't afford Literally when I say no employees, I had a part time employee back Kelly. She came in at five every night because I couldn't affor anyone else. When I did deliveries, I literally went to my apartment to go to the warehouse to pick up the case of wine. I had to lock the door back in twenty minutes and then drove myself. You made the wine and didn't make it. Nobody was a wine store. So wine shop, Yeah, wine shop.
And I say that not to impress it impress upon you sort of. You know that was you know, he was inspired to open a small business.
Entrepreneurial mind.
Say you have dyslexia, by definition, you a little more entrepreneur because you're used to making mistakes. You try to earierating, you're trying new things. You're willing to take risks because you don't know any other way. You're not wrote, you're not linear, and you're thinking, so open this business. And year three had started to work, and then someone said to you, we should do something more. And I said, I took those same investors. They doubled down fifteen thousand each.
Open a restaurant, got lucky with a chef, Arnold Rossman, who knew he was a great chef, three and a half out of four stars. There's lines people are saying, Europe, you're a great restaurant.
Try.
I said, I don't know what the hell I'm doing twenty five years old. Meanwhile, Willie Brown, is the mayor of San Francisco, calls me, says, I appreciate he did a fundraiser for me. I know my state status.
It was.
I think that's because I did a few fundraisers at the wine store young people thinks and he goes, hey, you want to be on the film commission. I said, that's fantastic, and so I go down to city Hall. I'm like, this is great, twenty something years old film commission.
This is amazing.
And go down and he's swearing a bunch of people in the same day and he says, Gavin Newsom the new chair of the Parking and Traffic Commission.
And I'm like, what the hell?
At first, I didn't even chair met and I swear to God, I'll never for get crown fo get better than.
That, get you a better of that.
I was like, film film, I'm into. I go and they said, what's your vision on parking and traffic? There was like a camera. I said, I literally, I still have it. It's on a VHS step. I still have it. Someone's stressed tested this and I was actually able.
To find it, and I said, well, I stumbled along.
I said, I pay my parking tickets, so here I am, damn President of the Parking and Traffic Commission. And it turns out it actually was an important job because there was a freeway that we had to down wild controversy west side of town. East side of town, and somehow I'm in the middle of it and I didn't completely blow it. And as a consequence of that, nine months later, Willie Brown has a vacancy on the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors, and he was out there struggling to
find someone. And in Willie Brown's unique way legend in California politics, he says, I found the perfect affirmative action candidate. He referred to me as his affirmative of the only straight white male that he said would take the jobs he needs one.
He needs one.
So I was the I was, at least, based on his assessment, an affirmative at which you know was some beared some truth to that. And so he pointed me to the board supervisor. That's how my political life started.
Now, did you work close, fairly closely with him and over those usually were?
Yeah.
I mean I drove him crazy because I was still that entrepreneur. I was still the small business and I know I didn't understand politics. I understand what being appointed meant means something a little different than being elected.
Doesn't your wards what?
Well?
I challenged him a lot, I said, you know, you know, and I was the business guy. So I would come. You know, I was the little snotty kid. You know, well, I take a business like approach to looking at these things. I need to see the business. And there's exactly whatever.
Yeah.
So I was the champion. I was the conservative in San Francisco politics. And and he turns out and and I guess you know, I was like six people ten people in the race, and I was thirty four years old, and you know, I didn't think i'd have a chance in hell and gotten a runoff and boom, I'm I'm going to learn from him.
He's a master. Yeah.
Everybody ascribes a real heavy political, you know skill to him.
I remember someone describing, I don't know if it was described accurately, but of the grateful dead of Jerry Garcia. Someone describing Jerry saying, you don't want to be the best of the best. You want to be the only one that does what you do. You don't want to be the best the best. The only one that doesn't do that's Willie Brown. He redefined as far they had to remember termline it's in California, literally were established because
they couldn't get rid of them. And he kept becoming speaker even when it was the FDR offer, but they had Republicans in the majority, and they made a Democratic speaker because he was a deal maker. It's a different era. Worked with Reagan, he had great bipartisan bona FIDE's, but he stood on principle, still stands on principle today. He's alive and he's a fierce critic still to these days,
and the fiercest and most loyal person. And the reason I'm here, the reason we're having this conversation is Willie Brownt here.
When you're on the Board of Supervisors and then you become the mayor of San Francisco. Everyone that I know, because I love San Francisco and I've always enjoyed going there. I haven't spent volumes of time there, but I always went there with friends and had the best time and love it there. But it seems to have you know, the same metronomic kind of problems there about your housing now because of the tech boom and homelessness and drugs and stuff like that.
What shape is it in now? What you say is it is still struggling. No, it's coming back, perhaps, I mean by any of people.
I just you know, I think it went through a very difficult period around COVID, and there was sort of a you know, people step back. The tents started to a mass on the streets. We see that across country, notably in California, more encampments, more tents, and it was by the way it was directed by the FED saying, you want to cohort people. We don't want to clean
up the tents and the encampments. During COVID there was concerns around that, and so after that there was a mindset of almost additional permissiveness, and that became very dominant, particularly in San Francisco, where it no longer was concentrated in this forty to fifty square block area, in this sort of tenderloin where it's been for thirty forty years, started to become more prevalent, even into some of the neighborhoods. But that's now coming back. The crime rates are down
near fifty year lows. You're seeing people starting to move back in the neighborhoods are vibrant as much more than ever. Downtown is still struggling, but look, it's a city that shaped me, my.
Great great great grandfather.
There was a cop and you know, and my dad used to say, says he didn't know what came first, the Irish cop or San Francisco, And so I think it took one hundred and fifty years for the cop to become a politician.
And here I am.
But it's one of the most magical, curious and mystical places. And one thing it continues to be is a state of just constant renewal.
But in that svide between northern and southern California which I observed for the many years I was here, a more liberal and progressive quadrant here and a more conservative quadrant here, in spite of la being part of that. When I was in California in the early days, I was here. I came here in eighty three, so it was the end of the first term of Reagan. He's heading into his re election. I think Duke Magen was
the governor. The Olympics are coming, so they just scooped everybody up and put them in busses and took them to Barstow.
Yep.
They were like, clean it up for the Olympics, we don't want the world to see it. And they took all the wh I lived in Venice then, and they just scooped them all up and put them on the bus and shipped him out of town.
Let's be cana.
That still happens all across this country and as an ongoing issue, and that's the tension. Look, I mean out of side, not out of mind for advocates, and it's understandable. But right now I think people are on edge all across this country. People are edge in this state. They've had it. They don't want to see the encampents anymore. They're done, They're done with the tents. I'm done with the tents. I'm done with the encampments. So we've been
very aggressive. We've been very more forceful as a state. You know, when I was mayor, back to the days of the mayor, the state of California was nowhere to be found in homeless policy. There was no homeless plan. It was the counties and the city's responsibility. Schwarzenegger was governor at the time. I never thought of calling. And by the way, we have the highest number of people on the streets and sidewalks back then, it's not a new phenomena.
This twenty years ago.
It was one hundred and eighty eight thousand people out on the streets and sidewalks in our point of time count and it was the dominant issue for me as mayor, and it was my responsibility, my accountability, had no finger pointing, and we made real progress for six or seven years, legit real progress, and we started to see that unwind in the last decade or so.
Back to again, I think COVID accelerating a lot of that.
Fentanyl issues are street behavior, issues around drug use, mental health, and again a permissive structure that we have to address and we are addressing in this state. It just it's you know, it can't turn it around immediately, but directionally we're much more aggressive taking responsibility. It's not a laisse fair attitude. We're again not victims of this. And you know, I'm a little more heart at it, a little more pragmatic.
Advocates don't always see eyed eye with me, but it's time that we are held to higher level accountablity, particularly democrats. We've got to prove we can govern, proven, get out of our own damn way and permits, get housing done, get things moving again like we I mean, the world we invent. It's working against us. Process and SEQUA and all the bullshit excuse my language, and the lawsuits and the litigation, and I think it's one of the reasons
Trump's back in the White House. So it's a big wake up call and all of us own that, I think, And I'll.
Forget the long winningness.
No.
One of the gifts of the Olympics coming in in twenty twenty eight is it forces a regionalization, forces a national and state focus on getting big things is done. And with these fires now a sense of urgency to do both. And and so I got to tell you I would never I mean, I'm the biggest prob There's nothing to do with me is governor. I'm the future ex governor of California. I am so long la as a region, So long California as the state's a fifth
large's economy in the world. We dominate in more scientists, engineers, more rechers of normal laureates, the finances of higher education in the world, more patents, more venture capital. Thirty two of the fifty top AI companies in the world all
in California. Most diverse state, a dynamism twenty seven percent of state four and born a gateway status geographic beauty unlike any other state, and now, if we can have a mind that's more aggressive in terms of just addressing the mistakes in our permissiveness of the past through democratic governance, I think this state is going to come out, particularly with all the challenges in Washington, to see in a really dominant position.
Governor Gavin Newsom. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Gavin Newsom details his plan to increase tax breaks for film production in California in the hopes of reviving one of the state's most famous industries. I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is Here's the thing. Gavin Newsom has served as the fortieth governor of California since
twenty nineteen. His tenure has included tumultuous events such as the COVID nineteen pandemic and two separate wildfire disasters. Despite the various difficulties of the past six years, I wondered what Newsom would consider some of the joys of holding the office.
You know, it's been a disaster prone six years. Yeah, you know, I talked about Paradise. I was lieutenant governor, but I was also governor elect when I was standing there in the ashes of Paradise with Donald Trump and took over, and we had the largest utility in the United States of America PGN that filed bankruptcy within the
first few weeks I was in office. We were trying to face the realities of unprecedented drought that I was referring to a moment ago, all of these wildfires, historic wildfires, and of course we walked right into COVID and California was in the you know, leaning and cutting edge of
good policy. Those that judged very bad policy depends on your perspective policy tough policy, and you know, but for a state that's larger than twenty one state populations combined, you know, I mean, it's not a small, isolated state.
Different game here, different game.
And I also realized in that case, you know, it was also a different game in mindset. The public looked to me not as Governor California, but I really felt like they looked at me as Mayor of California. And you had to be accountable for now everything in nuanced and detail, accountable for what was happening in every city, accountable for every crime that was occurring. Everything not the traditional role of a governor or dramatically different role. And
I think that mindset continues to this day. And I think in many ways the office of governors changed since COVID in terms of that expectation, and that's more challenging perhaps here because of the diversity of the state, because
of the scale and scope of this state. It's not an excuse, it's just it's been part of an interesting journey of recognition of understanding for me in terms of trying to understand what people expect of their governor that I never expected of my governor before I got here. Every day I wake up just to be able to not scream and yell at the TV set and we
actually do something about it. To be on the forefront, unprecedented forefront of climate change and addressing that issue head on, and leading this nation in term policy, climate pangs policy and low carbon green growth, changing the way we produce a consumer energy. The work we've done on mental health at scale no one else's done. I mean, someone said,
you know, you really need baby bonds. We put two billion dollars up every child three point four million kids gets a college savings account or a career account up to fifteen hundred dollars that enters into kindergarten. We create a brand new grade pre K for all. Swartzenegar City wanted after school for all. Put one hundred and fifty
million dollars in. We put five billion dollars and made it happen after school and summer school for all community schools, reimagining the school day, extending them to nine hours a day. The ability to do what we've done on policy making, on homelessness again, I know that's not been felt, but this new care court, new paradigm to address the issue of mental and behavioral health, the issues we've done in terms of reforming our medical system through this thing called CALAIM,
which is nation leading effort I can go through. Honestly, Listen, universal health care only stay in America, regardless of preexisting conditions, ability to pay, or immigration status controversial. California has done it. We're not talking about it. And so in each category, the ability to effectuate policy at scale has been a
gift and a dream. But at the same time, it's disaster time over and over, and it eclipses a lot, and it makes for a lot of situational politics when I have a sort of policy sustainable mindset around politics. And of course you had Trump into the mixture. Trump one point zero his last two years, had Trump two point zero in his first two years of his second term. That also requires some adjustments and some tacking and.
Just reality now different reality for me.
Another memory I have of living here and my knowledge of my awareness of California politics was I thought Gray Davis was a nice guy. I thought he was a good guy. He was a decent governor. Still when I met him, I love Grey Davis. So when that all happened, darryl Issa decides he's going to do the recall of Gray Davis. The whole enron thing was involved the brown outs, and Issa thinks he's going to be anointed. He helps
to put the whole thing together. He produces the recall, he wins, Davis is gone, and then they turn him in the tap of the shoulder and they go, it's not your night, kid, And they bring Arnold in to become the governor. No political record, no nothing. He becomes the governor. And I've had a lot of acoustic comments about that as well. But you had a recall effort launched against you.
What was that? I mean was that intense? Yeah?
Well yeah, because I mean talk about you know, a little humiliating God. And I got four young kids. I mean they're going to school there. You know, my oldest daughter ended up being homeschool because it just didn't work. The bullying and everything else was going on. And that's hard. It's you know, hard to explain. You know, we couldn't get it. I mean, there was I'm not exaggerated, I say over a year where you couldn't get out the
front door of your house because of protests. You know, Hitler must the whole thing during that time, and and and and so it just extended, and you know, and I think the hardest part I was, you know, it's strange to say this, but you know, I was working, you know, I'd written a book called Citizens It's don't even matter, but I had, you know, knew Kingridge was talking about, and we were taught, we became you know, I became friendly with Nude on some ideas and was
able to work with folks on the other side. And then there's Nude on TV promoting my recall, and there's you know, Mike Huckleby out there promoting the recall and then I think getting a few bucks for it as well, and my friends and the legislature of Republicans I was working with co chairing the recall, and I'm like, well, okay, and I thought politics was all local a little old fashioned there, right, All politics is local, bs, All politics is national now.
And they came hard. The RNC put in the first month.
I had to raise eighty four million dollars to defend it, and there were polls just a few months before that showed it neck to neck. We were able to pull away with a twenty plus point margin. And it was a big mistake for the Republicans because then my reelect, you know, it was a year later. Yeah, and we kind of just coated it through. But I'll tell you it sharpened my muscles, got me focused with a different there's sense of finality with a recall, in that humility
is a finality. And then my focus, my energy and also you know, the points of contrast. That's why I started going out on the road, started this pack That's Campaign for Democracy because I had a few dollars left over from my campaign, put twenty million into this pack,
raised more money and started going. I went on Fox with Sean Hannity, did those debates with DeSantis, started doing billboards in states across this country, taking on some of the Republican leadership, calling them out for their hypocrisy, doing the same thing with full page newspaper ads, did TV commercials across the country, and then it led me to
sort of getting more involved with the Biden campaign. Was one of his chief surrogates, was out there doing the spin room and the debates for better for worse, and extended a little bit to common meaning I found myself now recognizing the politics in DC and what's happening across this country was impacting the state in ways I honestly I didn't fully understand at the level that I should have. And so I'm a different guy from that. And of course, you know, God is my witness. We're sitting here.
Yesterday they submitted another one. So do we call you? Yeah? So here we go. So you know, I'm that may I don't know, it could happen this time. I don't know. We'll see. So it's just God, no, hell of hell. I like that acting thing. You talked about Yeah, that's his review. Enough Jesus. But you can pivot.
You could pivot speaking of acting my sense, and you can fine tune this. And of course you know infinitely more than I do about this, which is that tax breaks in a state like this are very fragile because people are like tax backs for Hollywood. Hell no, we have so many other things we got to pay for. We're giving so many things away. There are social programs in this state unlike any other state that costs millions
and billions of dollars. And so when you come and say we want more tax backs for Hollywood, a lot of the population of the state north that southes like screw you.
Now.
The problem is many of the jobs have left. And my friends who used to go out to Atlanta and rent a house, they don't rent to house.
They bought a house there. They left here. They've left this state.
The business is imploding in Los Angeles, correct, And the question becomes, is there any chance of increased tax baks for the movie business.
We're going to double it, you are, Yeah, it's going to be higher than New York. I proposed that a few months ago, and that was right before the fires. What are the fires only reinforced the imperative and also working with all our friends, some of you know, the who's who of Hollywood, saying it's time to double down. I'm bringing production back to California, particularly this time of recovery and renewal, and so I want to see them step up as well.
But we're going to step up.
It's in my budget and I'm gonna I said to my legislative friends, I said, there's no budget, I'll detail the budget. If we don't get it done, it's going to get done, and we're going to do other things to start promoting bringing people back. Look, you know, world we invented is competing against us in so many ways.
I mean, you know, across the spectrum of industries. And so I think California started resting on its laurels a little bit, and we didn't invest in our future like we did in the past in the fifties and sixties, And we have to reconcile that. Now we've got one hundred and eighty billion dollar infrastructure plan that's bigger than it was during the Pat Brown era in the fifties and sixties. We're starting to make big investments, bold investments,
and quantum and immunology, new public private partnerships. Again, that conditions the Silicon Valley continue to thrive. That's why you have the NVIDIAs out here, and you have so I mean, the sam For all the people hating on California, they still seem to have so many of their business imprints
here in this great state. You know, we we have progressive tax system, but we have an increased state taxes since twenty eleven Trump administration did with the salt the state and local salt deductions, which are impacting you in New York as well. It's hurt the big Blue states. But I'm mindful of sensitivities around taxes. I'm mindful about the need to do regulatory reform sequel. I've done forty
two secret reform bills. We've done streamlining on large scale projects. Again, I watch Fox, I pay attention Newsmax one American News. I don't turn my back to the critics. But there is a sort of California arrangement syndrome out there that is just sort of ridiculous. This notion that this is the only state that has challenges. It's just comedic, but it's damaging. We record breaking tourism last year. We have a surplus again. We have a state with population growing again.
You wouldn't know that that's not prevalent. It's not part of the discussion golf by the fires. It's been in golfing the fires. It's you know, it's a failed state, you know, California, And so it's you know, it's a whole industry California. It's a man and I get it. It's like you and so, yeah, buck up. But for me, you know, it's not just bucking up. It's like it's a big it's pride for me again, as a guy lives here who cares about the state, is to make a case a new for it.
And I'm a little CLINTONI about it.
There's nothing wrong with it that can't be fixed with by what's right with it, And so you know, I need some boosters out there. Some of the biggest critics, again are the biggest beneficiaries. Elon Musk, why do you become a billionaire? His first billion came from California because of the regulations, not despite them, because of them, because of our vehicle fuel mandates that helped create that industry.
Billions and billions of dollars of subsidies that the people of the state of California, not just the federal government, has provided these guys, and yet they're tech in the state, even though this state created a state of mind, that quality of imagination, and a regulatory framework that made risk taking work for them. God bless our entrepreneurial talents. Thank
you for their entrepreneurship. I don't begrudge their success, but I do take a little umbrage by their constant drumbeat of criticism that I just find unbecoming of people that have enjoyed the benefits and success that have been a big partner that we've been partners in this state.
Eighty four.
I'm here in this state. I move here. I lived in Venice for five years. So I drive over the four h five. You'd hit the top of Mulholland you'd be going into the valley heading north, and it was like mustard gas, the band of toxins in the air in the valley in California in the eighties, it was I couldn't even believe it. Your eyes were teering if you had the top down of the car. And of course California renowned for this making the emissions laws change
and change change. When I lived here, everybody lived on the west side. Nobody lived Inland, Silver Lake, Los Felis, Korea Town down to Nobody lived there unless you didn't have any money, and you all live on the west side. Now the West side is like the upper east side of Manhattan. Only old, rich people live there, and all the young people have moved Inland because of the change in the air qual and pop'll forget it and change everything.
In the late sixties, La was basically unlivable. The business community was outraged.
They went to this guy up in Sacramento, happens to share a similar office, guy named Ronald Reagan, Governor. They said, Jesus Reagan, you know this. This smog's out of control in Los Angeles. We can't recruit employees, let alone businesses, corporate headquarters, etc. You got to clean this so literally, modern air quality movements started with Ronald Reagan, Republican created
the California Air Resources Board. Three years later, a guy named Richard Nixon, Republican, codifies California's waiver with something called the Clean Air Act. Two Republican leaders that allowed us to have these established rules every hour.
Yeah, I few every once in a while.
But the point being, those are the rules that are being vandalized by the current administration. Those are the rules they are coming after. That are the rules that established the strategies that ultimately led to some of the improvements that you rightly notice.
You know, for me, I would come out here and when you're in Toronto, when you're in New York, when you're in Vancouver, when you're in Chicago. Back in the day, you're going to different places in this country. Orlando where they had to grow an indigenous crop of people to work there. De Lamentis apparently was somebody who coaxed people in the unions to bring furniture makers to come and build sets in North Carolina. When you build this DDL
studios there, you got to have an indigenous worker base. Now, there is no indigenous workerbase on the planet that compares to Los Angeles. And I always say the same story. You go to New York and the prop guy would say what kind of watch you want to wear?
And I would go, well, let's take a look.
And he opened up a case and there was fifty watches in there in a case you come to Los Angeles at the studio, the guy goes, what kind of watch you want to wear? And you want to know, let's take a look. He rolls in two steam trunks with four hundred watches in them. Hollywood is Hollywood. Yeah, Hollywood is Hollywood and everybody who knows now as I get a little emotional about this, which is, you only want to make movies here if you can. I love
working here. It's the best of the best. There's nothing like shooting a movie in LA and I want to see that come back one hundred percent.
And just to give me a little bona fidies for me on this. When Arno was governor, I remember back to one I I was mayor, he was governor, and I was very I was very vocal by one critique of Arnold. There were a few, but one of them was like, why the hell aren't you doing more to keep Hollywood production here? You're Arnold's sports the mayor, And He's like, well, he made the point that you made earlier, which is interesting, was a legitimate sense. I gotta do this.
I got to then do it. For biotech. We're the birthplace of biotech and life science. And Nanto technology line they want, and so it was erased the bottom from his perspective. But in San Francisco, we became the first city to do it. So we did it, and I got an NBC production, which was a big deal, at least at the time I made it a big deal.
It was a small ball thing. It was a little TV show.
But with our tax credits to make the point, and then of course I ran for governor making a commitment. We were able to increase the tax credits. A few years ago. We were able to expand how you can utilize them a little more flexibility.
With some questions there.
But now I said, look we're playing small ball. We got to double it to the point. So look that's one way, but I think it's more important than that. We got to make it. You know this industry, and I you know, and I appreciate you know this better than anyone. And with all the labor issues, I mean, the SAG and everything else that happens, so you have COVID,
these things are shut down, strikes, strikes, social unrest. George Floyd all this, you stack all that stress and anxiety, all the burning, but it hasn't come back since the strikes entered at all, even back to where it was prior. So this is a this is code read, this is life support time, and it's a point of deep pride that first of all, it's the point of pride of hearing you say how much you love to be down here movies, because that's that's intangible. There's no legislation for that.
It's spirit pride, and that's the game that should separate the game played here from anywhere else. But we have to have more muscle, and we as a state need to be more supportive and create the conditions to stabilize and send the signals that we're going to have the back of this industry. And again, it's not just people like you with love and respect. It's the person that rolled up in that car that was showing you those watches that are the beneficiaries of you.
Beat in town. It's the damn the world.
Yes, and they and they deserve middle class folks, hardworking folks that are out of work right now.
My last thing for you is this, which that you're one of the few people, I mean many people in your profession everyone, but in life, you're one of the few people who you know when your job's over.
Except I don't. I mean, these recalls come, I'm a.
Ignoring that twenty twenty four. So the next selection is in twenty twenty eight in Washington. That'll leave you two years to kind of focus on. What are you going to focus on those two years?
Yeah, I'm a milk cart and I got to sell by date. I get it.
And it's very sobering, and I'm very mindful of that. And again with the sense of urgency that I brought into this job after the recall, and I have no idea what the hell's.
Going to happen.
That's some idea is that you know what everybody's like, Well, what does Democratic Party need to do to get back on to that? What are the real why did Kamala Harris loose? So I'm up to nine pages of analysis. Each page contradicts the prior page. I think, you know, we're going to have to figure out where the hell this party is or how we get out of this.
I think all of.
Most of it will be shaped by what Trump does and in reaction too, but I think there's got to be a little bit of a deeper reflection on this party and where we'll be in four years, who the hell knows.
I won't ask you that question, but I will say as we finish, I don't think your caretaking years are over. You still have some more work to do to take care of people, to take care of people, and you may have to move out of California.
So we'll say we need another California politician, that we need a.
California governor to step up and solve some of the country's problems.
God bless You're good to be with you.
My thanks to California Governor Gavin Newsom. This episode was recorded at Lime Studios in Santa Monica and CDM Studios in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Victoria De Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperio. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Special thanks to Chris O'Keefe. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.