Gavin Newsom - California's COVID-19 Battle & "Ben & Emma's Big Hit"

spike in the delta cases. In fact, we peaked in that first week of January where we were getting body bags from outside of the state. We had one of the best summers of any state in the country, among the lowest positivity rate. In case rates, we start to see an increase, but we're now about the fifth lowest two point two percent positivity in the country. And for one reason. At the end of the day, it's that

we have led with vaccinations and ministered doses. Now of adults have received at least one dose, and the key is to continue to promote these life saving vaccines and boosters. That's the only way out of this. You, um, you've had a a really rocky journey, you know, to say the least in around the pandemic. I mean, California went through a really tough time, you know, and and then

obviously the whole country. So the George Floyd protests, California saw some of the biggest you know, and then then you had the pandemic itself. And then you went to the restaurant when people weren't supported the mentor wildfires. I didn't mention that I was getting to the wildfires. That was your personal wildfire. Yeah that was, Yeah, that was that was certain choices we make. You own them, you know.

Tattoo ookay hardly perfect. And those that are God bless and write a book, I hope they do, but I'm not. And I made it, made a mistake. But you let me ask you this though. Does that mean though, that as a governor you would have the same level of maybe compassion for people who mess up with when they break the rules. I always have, and I mean honestly it goes and without even just jump into the book. I always have. I'm very humble by the nature of the world in life, uh, and my own struggles and

my own mistakes. And of course when you have dyslexa, you have a learning disability. Growing up, you're prone consistently to make mistakes. It's an anomaly when you don't make them steak. And so for me this notion of resilience and grit and determination. But look the key the life, you know, I think it was Churchill another dyslexics and secret of all success moving from failure to failure with enthusiasm. You have to own up your mistakes, don't repeat them, uh,

and learn from him. And at the end of the day, look, I get it. We have to model better behavior as the leaders. But one thing I'm proud of, we've been a model in terms of science and health outcomes. We have had a pandemic, uh, like every state has, but we have not been shy to lean in take leadership. And with that comes a lumps. Let's um talk about the book Ben and Emma's big hits. So they told me Governor Gavin Newson was gonna come on the show.

He's writing a new book. And I was like, well, the last time governor wrote a book, his life didn't go so well. I was like this, this could be risky, but this is different. You wrote a children's book, and I'm not gonna lie it was it was really endearing. You wrote a book about basically your struggles with dyslexia, which I I didn't I didn't know you had. So tell me a little bit about that. I mean, I did find it ironic that the way you discovered your

dyslexia is that you read through documents. But tell me a little bit about this is I just kept seeing my name, and I'm wondering what the stack of documents were, and of course wondering why I was going after school consistently. And I didn't realize for in struggling in school was struggling. I was doing speech therapy. In fact, you look at these I looked. I hadn't looked in twenty years at

these old files. I mean literally doing speech therapy. Uh. Learning disability that including an inability to read completely, an inability uh to spell uh. And I still struggle. This is a lifelong issue, and of course it's not unique

to me. I mean it's jaw dropping. At least we estimate twenty percent of Americans people around the globe have some form of learning disabilities, and think about that numbers usually it's tens of millions of Americans, hundreds of millions of people around the globe, many that have been diagnosed, many that gotten intervention support, many that haven't. And so

I just want to destigmatize this. I just met with a bunch of young kids, all of them that had learning disabilities and differences, and the number one thing they all common self esteem. And they feel demoralized. They feel that they're stupid. And I had terrible self esteem and I was in the back of the classroom and I had terrible grades. And I can't read speeches even today. So what do you do then? Before? How do you? How do you? What do you do if you want

to read a speech? I don't have a speechwriter. I it's all extemporaneous. So you just remember, you just you just got to go up no your material. And that's another thing you learned. And just like you gotta work ten times hard as anyone's using parts of your brain. Yeah, other parts of brain. It's awkward to admit all these things, right because you want to be the guy. This is my book about how great California and I am. And

you know, I had a few setbacks. But let me tell you how the best is yet to come, and it's the opposite. This is a composite of me. It's my mom, a single mom whos passed away almost twenty years ago, and she's missed Kim, and how she didn't give up on me even though she struggled. And I'll tell you it's heartbreaking. I got four kids, A couple

of them are struggling when learning differences as well. And as a as a parent, it's my to worse, trust me, than being a kid with the slack is experiencing your own kids with a learning disability. What's the word that freaks you out the most? There's going to be like a word. That's an interesting question. I ever thought about that. I think perfection it's a losory doesn't exist and we're we're consumed by it. And uh, I just I hate

our education system that doesn't incentivize mistakes. It really is damaging. Beyond words, what we need is the creative, We need the innovative. If you don't make mistakes, you can't find a new way of doing things. In politics, I mean, we destroy people from making mistakes. We do and and so as a consequence, well, there's a different store between I think destroying them and holding them accountable. Right, you always gotta found that balance. You've gotta find that balance,

because I don't think you've been destroyed. You're here and you're still the governor. You know, some could say, you know your actions are French laundry. Meant that now you were taken to task, and then the people voted for you. I mean you what thirty points, So clearly people like, all right, you know, government, you said we're gonna roll

with you. But I think there is a balance sometimes in terms of like destroying politicians versus holding them a comunortable Could they have power over people's lives and and and and not only are you right? Let me make a distinction about the point I was making, because I didn't say it effectively enough. It's not being held to account. You need to held us to a higher level of

accountability because of our unique positions. We have not just formal authority, but we should have we should have some moral authority. So I could not agree more. But I think about in terms of policy in terms of good intentions gone awry, not the failings, but trying new things, being willing to take risks as it relates to it. And that's where people say, so what, that's you know, they try to make that investment the basements complete and

embarrassment and failure. And then it's you know, attacking your monofor And that's where in privacy, I have twenty businesses I started as a as an entrepreneur. Restaurants, hotel, wineries. I'm really proud of pend to paper myself. No no, inheritance, no no. And you know all I did, I actually did at every month. Gave an award to the person who screwed up the most. We had a failure award. We've worked in your company. It's never too late, never too late. And the reason you did this is an

incentivized initiative and responsibility. We're not victims. Be accountable. Let me ask you this then, using your entrepreneurial spirit and mind combined with your leadership, let's look at California. And California is not the only place. Please don't get me wrong, but you know, we've seen a spate of like you know, shoplifting and like these mass things where they drive in, they steal a bunch of stuff and they go and then we see some police chiefs now I take what

they say with a pinch of salt. But some of them say like, oh, it's because people know they can go and steal three dollars worth of things. And then because there is you know, no bail anymore for shoplifting, no matter how big the scale, people understand the risk versus reward ratio of what they're doing. So how do you find a creative way to create a safe estate for people whilst also not jumping into the you know, the industrial prison complex and then punishing people who shouldn't

be punished because they can't afford to pay bail. How do you find that balance using that entrepreneurial mind. Well, I'm in any position to answer that for two reasons. When I come from California, which led the nation and the lock them up three strikes in around or the others. I mean, we were on the forefront of that, and we saw prisons increase hundred seventy five thousand people a peak. We had opened dozens of prisons and actually only open up one new you see, in that process, and yet

crime kept going up and up and up. We advanced reforms and we saw crime go down. Let me be specific, these folks particularly on one of those networks. Every single day it's talking about something called Prop. Forty seven in California that was a reform in two thousand fourteen. As it relates to the issue of shoplifting and property crimes, it would be a felony if it was a crime that was committed that was nine dollars of goods, whereas

different four hundred dollars roughly four fifty. The reality is, in two thousand fifteen, property crimes went down, larceny went down, shoplifting went down fifteen eighteen nineteen, So if it's the cause of the spike, it must have been the cause for the decline. Now what's happening with the detail theft is unacceptable. We have to hold people to account and we're doing that, and these are crimes well beyond the

n thresholds. So it's it's rather specious these arguments. Plus thirty nine states thirty nine Republican states, not just democrats state did the same thing that California did. Thirty one states today have higher felony thresholds in the state of California. Interestingly, Texas has higher violent crime rights in California and property crime rights. Why isn't Fox talking about those states? They are scapegoading these reforms because they don't support the reforms.

I'm open argument, interested in evidence. If we find that these reforms are not producing as they were intended, then we will own that. Same time, we have to own the responsibility to dress these organized criminal rings and these retail thefts are being done at scale Minnesota and Shas, not just California, and that's a whole different paradigm and challenge and we are responsible again accountable to addressing that

issue and we're doing that well. Thank you for the time, Thank you for writing a really fun book, and I hope to see you again on the show. Great to see you. Ben and Emma's Big Hits is available now. Watch the Daily Show weeknights at eleven tenth Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast