¶ Intro
I think I'm most disappointed in Elon. I think divorce is an option when your spouse wants to kill you. Yeah. I was offered forty million dollars which included an NDA and non discouragement into eternity, which I declined.
So, if you've ever wondered about the inner workings of the Mega movement, what actually happens on the group chats? Who's on the group chats? How coordinated is the Mega Movement coming out of the White House, in the political operation to influencers, to right wing media. While I've got the perfect guest for you, Ashley Saint Clair. She spent post to a decade in this movement and now she is speaking out against the thing that she works so hard to advance. This is Gavin.
Newsom and this is Ashley Saint Clair. Thanks for having me, guvnor.
¶ Ashley's MAGA Origin Story
So, Ashley, it's so interesting. Just a lot of clips out there about you, a lot of energy of you know, a lot of conversations and uh, and it's in you know, not I think a lot of you know, feigning praise, not criticism necessarily, but but you're playing to an audience, right, You're sort of emerging out of this MAGA sort of you know, influence space, this surround sound that a lot of us are on the receiving end of, including myself.
So I have some intimate appreciation, uh for what they produce, but I have little knowledge for how they produce it. And so I'm fascinated by this opportunity. I'm very grateful for you be willing to share just your insights without you know, and I'm not looking to tear anybody down, but just to understand the ecosystem that you came out of and why you're coming out of that ecosystem and
what all of this represents to you. So maybe the best way to start is really for you to introduce yourself in the context of this journey to our audience.
I have to preface this too by saying apologies, because I am almost positive I have probably cyberbullied you in my MAGAAE because it's like a prerequisite to being in MAGA, because you're a very popular figure for us to cyberbully. But I got my start very young as soon as I when I started college. Right before I started college, there was a Trump rally on my campus, so I was immediately going to that and seeing this energy around it.
And then I joined college. I had a bit more of a cerebral side because I was homeschooled in high school, so I enjoyed the more political aspects of the Young Americans for Liberty groups that were built on free speech and personal liberties, and then very quickly got involved in the Turning Point apparatus and tweeting into the ether about these conservatisms, these magaisms, and it just snowballed from there. All of a sudden, I'm invited to as a special
guest to my first Turning Point event. I have Charlie Kirk saying, you know, you're doing a good job, and I'm getting praised from downtow and as like a very broken, insecure girl who was looking for some sort of belonging who didn't have that in high school. That was really attractive to me in a harmful way. And then I just I got caught up. I made a lot of very wrong decisions about who I surrounded myself with and the places that I got validation from, which ended up
being MAGA and this influencer culture. And very shortly afterwards, you're in this environment in which they tell you don't need school you don't need college, only listen to you know, truth, social and Twitter and all of this, and you're sequestered from information. You're told not to trust your professors or these points of authority. And I dropped out and just made this my entire identity. So then it's when you leave.
I often say it's not just changing your political beliefs and saying, oh, I'm not as fiscally conservative now, or I'm more socially liberal. You're blowing up your entire life because your your social community, your finances, everything is is structured in this way. So it's indistinguishable from a cult in that aspect.
Yeah, I mean, listening to describe it, I mean you by definition start thinking in those terms. But let me unpack this a little bit. I mean this notion of belonging. I think it's fascinating in this sense of belonging, this identity. And so you you describe a Trump rally, I mean, was it really that moment? Was it just watching that energy, the crowd, this community that inspired you or were you naturally prone? Were you, you know, what was your politics
sort of leaning in that direction? Were you frustrated with the status quo? Uh? And you you know, how did how did how did sort of that? How did Trump ignite in you? Or what was it that ignited?
It was more of this contrarian take. I always liked being a contrarian. And all of the heads of the philosophy department and I went for philosophy at that time, had signed a petition to ban Trump from campus. And in my head, I'm like, oh, that's antithetical to everything philosophy is about. But in retrospect, they were right, because this rhetoric was going down a very dangerous and violent path. But in my head at that time as this, you know,
I hadn't quite turned eighteen yet. I went to this rally at seventeen years old, and I turned eighteen right before I started, and it was, you know, to me, I'm like, wow, there's all this energy and people like me and this is fun. And I didn't have any of that in high school. I didn't go to prom, I didn't do any of that. So it was this validation very quickly that I had never really experienced before.
And were you I'm just curious, were your parents in political were you political necessarily or just you just had that little contrary and beat.
So we moved from South Florida, which was a lot more diverse, and all my families from New York, from Queens and other areas that are more diverse. But throughout my life we also moved to very rural areas such as Alabama and Montana, and so while I wasn't necessarily getting very conservative viewpoints at home, I was surrounded by it. Like in Montana, the most unique sentence ever. My only
friend there was a female Mennonite lumberjack. And so it's like it's a town of two hundred and fifty people. And so I wasn't really exposed to varying viewpoints outside of the Internet.
Right, And so you're you're you have this moment they're trying to silence Trump, You're like, this is wrong. You you buy down. And by the way, and there's you know, you were quick to say maybe they were right, but
maybe they weren't right. And that's a deeper conversation we can have about this notion of free speech and sort of the origin story of a little bit of what you know sort of has created this movement out of anger and frustration of quote unquote being canceled and not having necessarily those platforms that others, frankly it oftentimes take for granted. But I'm curious. You know, you talk about
going feeling some identity energy. You're homeschooled. Now all of a sudden, there's a community that's trying to pull you in. Is it just pull you in on the basis of just the joy of being the contrary and the joy of expressing yourself fully and the sort of diversity of opinion was what was the thing that sort of attracted.
Sort of It's also just having friends, you know, because when you're in such an isolated community, like in the middle of nowhere, Montana, and then you're here and you're being invited as a special guest to Turning Point, and you feel like you're all of a sudden, not this you know, little small girl. You're important and people care what you have to say. That's really validating in a harmful way.
And so you talk about Turning Point, I mean that was a turning point for you. I mean, was that organization you know, that was sort of the beginning of the organization right when Charlie.
Was It was very early on, and it was very campus oriented and again simultaneously, part of it coincides with the content, right, because you're also posting online and there's these stories going up on Fox News of professors who say something that's a little too woke, and so you're
¶ From TPUSA Recruit To Monetizing Activism
going to school, but you're viewing it through this content brain of ooh, am I going to get one, ooh, I can't trust them, and so it really bastardizes your experience in academia because you're viewing it through this, like Charlie Kirk turning point content brain that is really harmful.
And when you were with Charlie, I mean, did what you know, it's interesting we started this podcast with Charlie and you know, obviously tragic what happened to him. And I'm interested in look forward to your thoughts about where the movement is today. But what aspects of that movement?
What was it about Charlie in the beginning of that movement that you really may not have identified with necessarily on the substance, but just the style that there was something here that he was doing that no one else was necessarily doing. What was you know, success leaves clues and he was successful at organizing the campus is I'm curious what examples were cues did you see or clues early on of this sort of genesis of success.
He articulated himself well, but also when you're capitalism brained, you view any mode of success or ambition as a moral good. So ambition and success was equated with morality in my head. So I'm like, Wow, he's so young and successful, and that could be me too. All I need to do is drop out of school and keep
fighting the good fight. And so I think that's But Charlie at times was also encouraging, you know, at times when I had tough times in Republican politics, and so he had this softer side that was captivating to people who were going through a lot. And I don't think he was quite aware of the way in which his organization was and has been used by people much bigger, with a lot more money than him, to utilize it for their own agenda and mobilize this sort of rhetoric across America.
So, Ashley, how old were you at the time, I mean your young twenties this time.
Or twenty seven? Well now I'm twenty seven now I was. This happened right away when I was eighteen going on college campuses. I went to my first turning point event like nineteen twenty and so it was very early on.
And so was this I mean, did this become a profession then for you? I mean you morphed in all of a sudden. What was the first opportunity to monetize where you realize, wait a second, I'm getting paid for this.
So it was actually I had had like normal jobs working in campaigns and cleaning up bad data and volunteering. But I dated a man who was ten years my senior, and I met him at the Young Women's Leadership Conference and within a month of meeting him, he's like, moved to Tampa with me. You can just do maga influencing. He was this big influencer guy DC Dreno, and he's like, here's how you do it. Here's the sign you hold up outside of the iced attention set. This will go viral.
Here's the shirts you can sell, the flags you can sell. And that's when I started learning how to monetize activism and learn that it's it's an industry.
It's interesting, and you made the point earlier and you're reinforcing it now. I mean the connection between the movement and the medium, which is the media and the clips and the virality in the ability quote unquote influence substantively and breakthrough. And so that's interesting. So he sort of he designed in your mind. Yeah, and so you see you're out there and you're feeling a sense of community connection, relationships.
But also fear because what that boyfriend of mine had drove into my head was there were a few times I found myself in controversy for you know, stepping out a line, for having a more reasonable take on reproductive rights or immigration, and he drove into my head he said, never cross the base. Never cross the base, and that's very much prolific throughout MAGA. You're not supposed to do that. So so while it was these good feelings, it was also very quickly a feeling of fear of stepping out
of line and staying within the talking points. And you know you're going to get canceled now you've dropped out of school, you'll lose your income, you're moving to a place far, far away from home, and so so the fear aspect took took a fact very early on as well.
It's interesting and I want to unpack that as well. Particularly, you know, what is the base with the basis, whatever Trump says it is because he seems to shape shift often on issues, and with it, the base seems to move along with him. I guess it's just waiting for that cue. But I'm curious, just back to your first paycheck. Do you remember where you actually, you know, someone said here's a thousand bucks or you know, how did it?
How was what was the what was the formal relationship and role to someone that can write a check?
The boss believe it was just an Instagram message or Twitter DM that was like I'll pay you to retweet this or post this, and then I got, you know, other ones for wearing the T shirts or the deals for hey, make your own T shirts, antisocialist social club, all of the I believe I also had one that set up May California, America. Again, there were a few of those, but it was just through dms and here's a PayPal and I'm like, oh, look at this very quickly, you.
Know, because I've gotten to know some of these folks, and you know, I sort of an interesting history and relationship to a little bit of the Trump passed and which I'm unpacked modestly here on the podcast. But I'm curious. You know, how much of it for you was real versus performative? How much of it was substance versus style? Meaning?
Were these true believers that you were surrounded by, or performers that were just trying to sort of, you know, own the Libs, own that governor in California and just don't you know, don't California, Maya, Montana or mon Texas. I mean, what, you know, what was it about what we're against or but what we're for? Give me a sense of you know, who were the early influences for you? Was it a sense of deep sincerity conviction?
For me? It started out that way. And I think most of these people would tell you that they are true believers, but they're performed. They really are performers who have gotten so deep and their views have oscillated so much within what's acceptable within the base that they're just deeply broken and insecure people who lack any real sense
of identity. What was fascinating is when you go to events or you go to the bar with these people, afterwards, they can't talk about anything else, like it's they're only talking about do you see what Joe Biden did? Did you see this like it's they're not their shells of human beings who are wearing this Maga costume and it's become their entire identity. Nobody's nobody's really talking about things,
and so I do believe that they're all performers. I believe Maga has the deepest issues with identity that I've ever had the displeasure of interacting with.
And again, identity on the basis of just who I mean as individuals, yes, who that yeah, sort of, and they're in the process of becoming and discovering who they are, but they put this mask on.
They've never had the opportunity to become because they've been plucked and told what to be, and so they don't ever have that opportunity of becoming. And now with this age of the Internet, it's very hard to have that rebirth, to have that reinvention because you have this permanent digital footprint of you being a racist online. So it's very hard to have a rebirth after that. So they're kind of stuck in that as well.
It's interesting, so is this so with your own experience and you know a little bit of with Charlie Kirk and turning point USA you're starting to you know, ex boyfriend and you know, learning how to put ship post as we say, and you know, putting on you know literally physically, you know, showing up with signs and T shirts, et cetera. Is it a loose confederation or has it evolved or devolved? Is it organized? Is it you know, is it become radically different than it was three four
years ago? Trump one point zero versus Trump two point zero. Are there sort of central key figures that are organizing and sharing down a vision or is it again a bottom up but within the dear leader's frame? How would you describe the confederation or lack thereof the brand mega.
So a lot of people will say, you know, they were duped by Trump and it's really evolved from what
¶ MAGA Influencers - Who Calls The Shots?
it was years ago. But what I would say to that is it it did evolve into the form that people warned us it was going to evolve into. Yes, it has changed, but it changed into what I would say now is like this final form of this or tyrianism that we were warned that it was going to evolve into. It was a natural evolution of the things that were being prepped Originally. Yeah, it was more open tent, it was a little more Okay, we don't hate trans
and gay people. Okay, we we love our token block conservatives. And then it really once they gained more of a foothold of power, you saw that section off. And I do believe that was by design.
In design Where I mean, is is this Trump power? Yeah? And the tech for power and that power lies where is it Trump himself? Is it Junior? Is it where? I mean? Who? You know? We can and we'll jump into some names and James more the contemporary names and the political operation. But early on, where did you see the power reside?
You know, four five six years ago, four or five six years ago, the power was really with Trump. And I do believe that Trump as a figure was co opted by the Stephen Millers of the world and the people who are really financially invested and ideologically invested in their own vision for America. And now we're seeing it being co opted further by the tech oligarchs and all of this. That it's the power is really consolidating among this.
I mean, you have Jeff Bezos who won't say a bad thing about Trump now, so they're really aligning with where they see this power Trump was years ago just a figure that they realized we can co opt this guy for our own agenda.
And early on who are who are those early figures and what were what was What was the agenda when you first started. I mean, obviously you talk about I mean, there's issues of reproductive rights, you talk about some those I think there's these are contrarian issues and just you know, anti obviously the elites and you know, all those the Biden and Harris and Obama types myself imagine California included.
But what I mean, what was the uniting construct in the beginning of your experience with Maga.
The uniting construct was mostly these magaisms of free speech and holding the elites accountable, But there was also, particularly within the right wing online sphere, there was a lot of gendered issues. It was very anti feminism. It was the birthplace in the foundations of the Andrew Tates of
the world. And what we're seeing now that has really evolved very anti feminism, very anti me too, like why are you just hating on the white guy type of stuff, and they would utilize people like me, And I remember there was a very large MAGA figure when I first started blowing up online who came to me and said you should speak on this issue. I think it was
a lead of Battle Angel or whatever. They were mad that bre Larsen had said something against white men, straight white men, and so very early on I was co opted to speak on these issues regarding men because it was better for it to come from a woman like me, and so that was very pertinent early on was.
And it's interesting you say co opted, meaning at the time you didn't feel co opted though, right, No.
I thought they were coming to me because I was so such a special snowflake, and so it was smart and I was like, I've been chosen, and you know, I called the pygmisms like I just so wanted to be picked and heard, and so in that moment you don't feel but in retrospect, I'm like, wow, I was I was used by these people for something really, really harmful that I'm scared we're not going to be able to undo.
Did you what was it? Do you remember the post that really where you felt like you're now deep inside this, like now you're actually even surprised you how viral a statement was or an issue was something that for you became more indelible and a consciousness of how powerful this movement is and how powerful even your voice would become.
So for a while, I was like mostly a ship poster. I would pretend to be serious at times, but it wasn't really until I was with Elon that I would see some of these effects of my words or effects of Elon himself, that I'm like, this is actually really consequential. And it sounds not even stupid to say, oh, you didn't realize till then that your actions had so many consequences.
And that's something that I've really had to unpack and unpack the harm that I did for nearly a decade in this movement, saying things in the communities that I hurt women, minorities, the trans community. I just didn't even consider. I was completely unempathetic to how my words and actions
impacted other people. And I've had to do a lot of work making amends for that and really saying, hey, here's where I went wrong, here's where I was lacking, and trying to understand why I made those decisions.
¶ The Real Elon Musk & Big Tech's Unchecked Power
So it's interesting in it, and I don't want to over index our time on Elon, but as someone that knew Elon, you know, back in the day, and seeing him radically change from the person I remember back in early two thousands, particularly politically.
Yeah, I would say he probably didn't change. People just weren't listening to the stories, particularly of women that he was involved with, because when you do read the words that his first wife, Justine wrote, it was always there. We just ignored it.
Yeah, No, well I appreciate that. But he came into the movement it seems a little later, obviously. I mean, he wasn't necessarily part of Team Trump and MAGA as it's described, despite some of those political leanings as you suggest, and those values what you know, you describe what a DM. That's how he reached out to you, just because he was impressed with some of the stuff you were posting.
Yeah. I was at the Babylon b which he had in affinity for at that time, and he ended up dming me and then we met at Twitter headquarters what have you. But even in his private conversations with me, that's another instance of co opting. I really do believe that he finds these populist movements, whether in the United States or the UK or Germany, and he realizes that They're very easy to co opt and manipulate for his own agenda of basically digitizing these governments and getting an
insurmountable amount of data. And you know, that's one conversation I did want to have with you and just ask you because California was kind of at the forefront of this and allowed for a lot of these Silicon Valley and these tech companies to fester under California. And I guess the question I have for you is, like, Silicon Valley didn't just build software, It's built something that are
the civilizational scale experiment that is unreasonably safe. And so why, at least in California was innovation considered like this sufficient excuse and capitalism considered this sufficient excuse and justification to expose the public to such risk. And the most important question I have for you is did California become so economically dependent on Silicon Valley that it lost the ability
to act as an independent watchdog for these organizations? And why was so much of this allowed to be built? And are there any regrets that you have?
Yeah, no, Look, I think it's a fair question, but I think it lacks any context. California is the dominant leader in privacy, dominant leader in regulation large leguage relates to AI, we led the nation the first safety measures for a large language models, frontier models. We created a Privacy Council six seven years ago, statewide council that focused
on data privacy, first first state to advance. In fact, Connecticut just backed into a similar framework that California laid out as relates to the Delete Act, which California did as relates to our own data and having control over it. We led the nation as it relates to child protections, but we were sued by these same companies. We're in litigation and half dozen lawsuits, but we've led the nation in every one of these categories.
Good you guys have and you've done great work in terms of passing laws that help victims seek justice after the harm occurs. But I guess what gets me is there was also a lot of conditions that were able to be created before the harm was done. And how
do we intervene before the harm is done? Instead of placing this burden on victims now to prove the harm after these products are deployed, instead of telling these companies to stop and placing a really hard stop on these technology companies before they prove safety.
Yeah, and I'm.
Seeing that in the EU too. You know, I have these conversations internationally about the harm and it's like, why don't we just turn the spigot off? Like is it because they're so powerful? Is it because they have so much force behind them? Like? Why can't we turn the spigot off until they prove that it's reasonably safe, just like any other company, Like if a pharmaceutical company has a drug, we make sure it's safe first.
There's no there's no question that the collective we and this well before I was even governor. As it relates to social media in its arms, we failed on that. I had Tristan harris On and others that have been real leaders in this calling this out. We've talked a lot about it extensively, not only on this platform but substantively in terms of our legislative efforts in the state
to not make the same mistakes with AI. And so what you just described are the lessons that we've learned as it relates to adopting safety measures and transparency measures as it relates to AI. In what's happening in terms of how all this is going to be supercharged as it relates to deep fakes, as it relates to privacy, as it relates to child protection. You're talking to. Governor has more receipts than any other governor in the United States of America. We've done more than anyone else. Is
it good enough? No, That's why this year we're going to ban social media for everyone under sixteen. Will be the first large scale a jurisdiction to do that again in the home state of this and we imagine that's going to happen all across the United States because California moves, we tend to see movement all across the country. So not perfect, but no one, but best in class.
Biorelatively, California is one of the only states doing it. And California is in such a weird position because while they're one of the only states doing this legislation, there's also been so much festering within California that it's been built here, and so what is the answer to that.
It's interesting just you know, back to Elon, I mean, we've been battling battling on these issues around deep fakes, around election you know, just the integrity of our elections, and you know, you can look at his you know, just the sewage of tweets that he's put out condemning our, our leadership, and that including by the way, where you and I are aligned as it relates to what happened to you and the litigation. And I appreciate your in litigation against x Ai, but but you may have seen
what was happening to you and others. California led and I directed our ag our attorney general to go after groc and they actually stood down. I think it was a combination of your lawsuit UH and our investigation UH. And I think it was within a few hours after we posted that we're doing the investigation, and after a few days of what you did that, Elon finally acted like you know that. So now look, I think you're right, but but I also think mean in terms of just
the larger meta frame. But but California as a specific example has a lot of credibility at least in trying to balance those things as it relates to the influence. Uh, the influence is usually on the back end. Ashley. It's interesting we're passing these laws, I'm signing these laws, but they're litigating and what they're using is the courts now to slow down the progress. And it's interesting where they don't have the throw with the legislature or maybe the governor.
We'll see what happens to the next governor. Uh, they're counting on the slow system of adjudication with a third branch and yeah, and time is uh, that's you know, that's their ally.
Yes, especially through I mean they're the way in which they've co opted the judicial system to just tie all of this up. How do we fix that? I guess you're a better person, Well, how do we fix that?
How do we get win?
Stop that?
You've got to be ruthless and winning. You can't be winning arguments. You got to win power. You got to get power back. You got to take back the United States Senate, not just the House of Representatives, so you
have oversight in these federal appointees. We've got to take back state houses so that we have governors that are appointing judges at the state level, particularly in states like California, that I have outsized role in regulation that reflect the broader values that I think you and I share in this respect.
So I love that approach too, especially you know if we take it back to the beginning of the conversation too, with the philosophy professors signing that petition to ban Trump right, and whether or not that's that's too hard. I think right now we're at a point where we can't ask if it's if it's too much, or if we need to be centrist or moderate, because they're not, as you're aware, they're fighting very hard and very dirty, to a point that I don't know that we're going to be able
to take that back. And so I hope that nobody gets stuck within this point of like oscillating between playcating both sides and just sticking to the gutting instinct of what is right? Is this wrong? And if it is, we need to fight back with every force that we have instead of placating people who have who have been a part of a lot of harm.
I tend to agree with you, and we manifested, quite literally a frame that I think is appropriate to reference Prop. Fifty fighting fire with fire. We did redistricting, you know, and I agree with you our way back into powers
through the fight, not necessarily through the center. But that said, you know, I also think and the reason I started this podcast with guys like Bannon and Kirk and people I deeply disagree with, and you know, having people on there that have been attacking me and doing everything to take me down, not professionally but personally. But I you know, I still believe divorce is not an option. That's the framework of this podcast. That we have to live together
and advance together across our differences. And you know that's you know, back to sort of my comment. It's about you know, Trump, but you know I'll still talk to him open hand, not a closed fist. At the same time, you know, we'll do Prop fifty of you know, we've had sixty three or four lawsuits against Trump. We're going to go hard back in terms of love that of you know, pushing back against you know, all this bes.
Though I would disagree. I think divorce is an option when your spouse wants to kill you. I think that's what That's absolutely not.
Yeah, well, you know, and I just so that's why I want to unpack with you a little bit more, because I just you know, everyone wants to be loved, Everyone needs to be loved. We all want to be you know, the old frame protected, connected, respected, and we want to be respect No one wants to be talked down to a past too. We want to be part
of something bigger than ourselves. And and so you know this, I think all that matters, that sense of belonging, and I get that at a Trump rally, people feel connected to something bigger than themselves. You talk in terms of relationships and friends. You know that relationship you know with Elon led to a beautiful child. It's and that's life and we all live it. And I don't want to go that we breathe the same air. Nonsense, except we do, and so well, some.
People breathe air that is polluted by data centers, you know, So we don't breed the same air. Actually, some people's air is being polluted by Mega corporation.
I get it, and we got to call that out. You're talking to the fiercest environmentalists in the country right here. Despite the fact that I believe in a transition that works, we're getting That's another subject, about the fact that I drove here today and so yes, I went to the gas station. Forgive me. So I'm hardly a purist, and sometimes.
I probably feel a little more cynical than some about MAGA but it's because I saw them when they were alone. I saw them when they were drunk. I saw the things that they did and they said. And I don't think a lot of these people, particularly in power, are interested in some unif fight front. I don't. And we have to consider if you're letting the barbarians into the.
Gate and let me into the gate. I had zero followers. Actually you can appreciate this as an influencer. I had zero when I when Charlie platformed me, when Ben platformed me, when all of these guys, you know, Ben and others. Yeah, I'm not platforming anyone. They already have huge platforms. I just you know, I can't just turning our back doesn't
mean they turn off. And I think, you know, trying to understand what motivates people, trying to understand, you know, the why, what's the burning why allows us to be able to position ourselves and you know, and and fight back in a different way with a deeper sense of understanding. You got to know your enemy, as they say, but you also have to understand, you know, I come from the prison, not everyone's an enemy that underneath all of it.
I don't know. I just I find I'm a little bit more hopeful, and I appreciate you're a little more I'm optimistic.
I'm optimistic that we can fight back, but I realize that the optimism has to be based on a really difficult fight where a lot of people are going to have to make material sacrifices. You know, I don't want to hear about how much money someone made anymore. I want to know about the money they turned down. I want to know what they've sacrificed, and not enough people
talk about that. I want to hear what people regret, you know, I want to know what you regret as governor things that you could have done differently, or because as we're building the system that aggregates humanity, I think it's just as important that we speak about the regrets so that whatever they're building knows what to avoid. And if nobody's nobody's being honest about that, that's going to be incredibly difficult to overcome.
I I agree with you on that, and we can we can go back to my one thousand page COVID report and we can do that list.
And he's got all his way on a list.
I love how much you know you're with no well, that's why we put so I couldn't agree with you more. You got to own up. You got to and as the hell, I wrote a whole book on on that and you and but that's what you're doing right now. And I appreciate that you're just being honest and transparent and you know, and and you're not dream of regretting. I mean the fact that you're willing to confront you know.
You know, it's well known that you, you know, wrote a children's book that you regret writing, and the sort of anti trans children book, and and and but also the things you posted, and so I want to talk
¶ The Trump Influencer Group Chats & How The Left Responds
to just a little bit more about that because you know right now, you know, I'm here, you know, stone throw away where I first learned about this person, Laura Lumer. She was dressed up in a costume. She jumped over the fence here at the Governor's mansion and she, you know, she broke, you know, sort of that barrier of privacy. And she did it online and you know, got a bunch of followers, and she's a I'm no fan of hers. I don't know over adeeming quality. I thought she was.
I was a little embarrassed for I thought she needed a little help, but that was the beginning and then she blew up. Now she's a damn in as seems like real influence with Trump, and I'm trying to sort of unpacked. I mean, that's to me madness that she somehow has the ear of the president. But you know, you have all these folks in this sort of right wing influence spare. You got the ones like Laura that people seem to know about, Candice Owens that people seem
to know about. Obviously, Tucker Carlson people know about. But you have also these other characters. This Jack I can't even remember his name, you know, Pasobic. I mean, these are the guys and this Mike guy shure Up, whatever the hell his name is. Yeah, these guys, I mean, these are the Pizzagate guys. I mean literally, these are the people that were talking about sexual predators and they were They did nothing when you were being unmasked on Grock the.
Same they did not, especially these people who claim to care about women and children. And the only time they claim that is when they're targeting the trans community. Yeah, and a section of the population that's less than one percent of the population. And what I can say, especially as the Democrats try to navigate and they say, well,
maybe we went too far on the trans issue. No, you didn't, because these people are targeting less than one percent of the population, and that's really cruel and evil. And if we ignore that cruelty that they've done to this very marginalized group of people, it's going to be done to you. But what I can say about these influencers is we fixate on the caricatures and not the system in the architecture that has allowed them to prosper.
And that is Twitter, that is X and it is being manipulated in a way that I believe is really dangerous to the future of our democracy and elections. That we don't have transparency into how this data is being analyzed for elections, which people are being boosted in this algorithm, which people are You know that these characters are able to amass millions of followers despite being previously banned everywhere,
and that is what needs to be fixated on. And so often the caricature of these people on the right get the headlines as opposed to governing the infrastructure that's allowing this, and that is really important.
I love what you're saying, and I don't I don't want to lose this thread, but I do want to sort of illuminate that their component parts. These guys are knitting these things together. This guy Jack and Mike and these others that people don't know about it, and these are so these are the influencers that are dialing up the rage, dialing up the anger. They were dialing you up, right, they were sort of building your platform and they're still
at it, right. I mean, these guys are you know, they're part of you know, these guys you've described, and I'd love to you illuminate further. These are folks on group chats consistently trying to help weaponize grievance. They've got the president's right hand person, potentially James Blair, the political operation.
No, potentially James Blair is in these group chats. Members of the administration are in these group chats. They operate through group chats and have for many years, in which they coordinate these messaging campaigns on what they're going to respond to, how they're going to respond to it or not respond to it. It is incredibly coordinated and sophisticated in the way in which they coordinate this via group chats, via signal, via calls with the administration and members of
the campaign. So it is and again this primarily festers on Twitter.
And back to that then, so the idea that Elon has Twitter, idea that Elon ran one of the largest super PACs in US history America Pack, idea that he invested hundreds of millions of dollars that we know of directly, that he ran their field campaign a big part of it, and that data collection, the fact that we do have someone as powerful as him was about to be exponentially more powerful when this IPO Starlink, which you know, I
call a Starlink IPO more than a SpaceX IPO. That's the one profitable side of it at least, you know, And it's amazing that Rocket company you want to ask to acknowledge that, butrox part But.
Even that, why do we acknowledge it? Why is it? You know? I used to think the same way. I'm like, it's it's beautiful to go to the moon, to Mars and expand consciousness and you get involved in this Elon Moscovital. But at the same time, it's like, why don't we leave the moon alone? Why do we need the moon, you know, Like why do we have to bastardize something so beautiful that everyone can look up and see something
so pure? You know? My older son, he says, Mama, if you're ever not with me, just look at the moon and I'll be there.
Philosophy coming.
It's so pure and something that every human can look at and see something so pure. And it's like, I don't want to look at the moon and think of American colonialism. I don't.
Well, he was supposed to be skipping it to Mars, but it seems that I don't want to look at Mars.
You think of that either. I don't want American colonialism on Mars. And it's like why if we just accepted that, yes, let's let's expand, Like do we deserve to expand we haven't even taken care of what we have now? Like why do we deserve? Do we have the credit score for the moon?
Do I know? I'm in California? Go west, young man, Go west. This notion of the frontier, that's you know, that's part of the rugged individualism the history of our country, and I think a big part of who we are as a species.
Maybe we can go to Mars speakers and then leave Earth alone. So that's all of the life here is untouched. You know, there's not other life on the other planets, So maybe we just put our diabolical species there are and it'll be okay, and then we leave Earth alone. But you know it's it's some.
But the power of these algorithms, the power that Elon himself has to dialing uprage, to determining what we see, what we hear, how we think, who we vote for. That seems disproportionate the power of James Blair to connect and coordinate with all these influencers, to have the daily messages. You see it weaponized on Fox, the primetime line up there, which is Pravda. You see it on the right all
all cross the right wing spear. I watched a New York Post, the California Post, the Daily all this stuff, this stuff and just the connective tissue, and you were part of all that. I mean, we're not overstating this.
No, No, I wasn't part of that. I saw it, and you're not being hyperbolic, and I don't I don't think there's an underdiscussed aspect of this as well. Yes, they have the power to influence what you think who you think about. But they also have the data on what's going to be the most useful and the best way to exploit that. If Cambridge Analytica was bad, this is Cambridge Analytica on meth amphetamines and steroids at this point. And so it's the how they know exactly how you think.
They're creating this behavioral inference model, that they know exactly which part of you to exploit, which vulnerability. It is like being in an abusive relationship where they know exactly where you're vulnerable and how to exploit that vulnerability to make you act in a certain way.
So what I mean is there any Do you see anything on the left that's comparable or you don't want to see anything on the left that's comparable, but.
Do you No, I don't want to see anything comparable. And that's what really terrifies me is when I speak about these things, I see people on the left and the democratic side saying we need this, and no, you don't. It's ontologically evil to have such unfettered capitalism and the effects of citizens United so prolific that we don't have
these disclosure laws. No, the left needs to be going hard and making sure that you cannot post anything, you cannot be paid to post anything, whether it's an opinion, an idea, a philosophy that you like. We're so without disclosing that, and that's what needs to change, rather than building this evil apparatus for yourselves. I think that's if I think it's bad on the right, it's also bad on the left. But you can stop them from doing it with laws and regulations.
Actually, let me ask you about that, because it's interesting. We have a governor's race and literally determine the primary today are as we're taping this, and there's been a lot of reporting about influencers have gotten hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. No one was aware of it. There was no nothing transparent about it. So that's just
a space that's the wild West, isn't it? For candidates and causes where influencers are paid and we think it's their voice, but there's no political even in a political sense, there's no rules necessarily for transparency.
Yes, because the mechanism, as I'm sure you know, is the consulting houses. The consulting houses, they are advantaged by a degree of privacy that they shouldn't have. I think if you were a consulting house who's on these FEC reports, you should have to disclose everything in your books as well. Shouldn't disappear once it hits a consulting house. That's so easy. I can start an LLC tomorrow. You pay me a million dollars for your campaign, and I disperse it to
my secret influencers and nobody will ever know. That should not be allowed to occur.
I think this, I could agree with you more of this in an area that we're going to have to significantly, I mean aggressively and quickly tighten up. So what you
¶ Elon's 10,000 Space Lasers & The $40 Million NDA
mentioned the other day, and you know, I got a lot of attention. You posted something about ten thousand late. I mean, what, what, what? What the hell did you post ten thousand layers? I did the implication the election was stolen, all the conspiracy theories, and I knew it. I had my friends. I told you, so I'm like, oh God, what's going on here?
I think people people really need to And I want to preface this by saying people should vote, and they should vote loudly. There is something to say about the right saying you know, too big to rig everyone should turn out, and I don't want to discourage vote or turnout when I talk about this experience. But shortly before the election in October, Elon had texted me and said, you know, I'm feeling more optimistic about the election, and tomorrow I'm going to release my anomaly in the matrix.
I have lasers in space. And then he quantifies it. He says, I have over ten thousand lasers in space, which is nearly identical to the number of satellites he has. And I told him, I said, I'd ask more, but I don't want to be deposed, and he said wise. But something else I had said, I said, you know, if this ends up being your lasers in space end up being the reason that Trump wins, this would be like a sci fi drama. And you know, he replied
and agreed with that. So those are important aspects. What that means, I'm not entirely sure. I also have other information that you know, I came across during my time with him and speaking to his engineers that is incredibly uncomfortable. But this again goes back to the governing architecture. Does anybody know is there any regulations or laws in it? Right now saying you cannot use your data from your
satellites for elections or for a proprietary data. Is all of this being hid under proprietary data in intellectual property that is not okay? And right now we don't have the infrastructure. There's not infrastructure or laws against using data from your space company, whose ever space company it is, for whatever purpose you want. If it's private, We've had so much hidden under private capital and that needs to be addressed.
Why did actually, why do you feel the need to share that and why now?
Because I'm speaking about my entire experience as honestly and openly as I can, including moments that made me really raise an eyebrow and say, this is concerning As someone who you know throughout my time in this relationship with Elon, he had also sent me data of real time Delta vote metrics in October from Pennsylvania and information from his pack And as someone who was cleaning bad door knocking data from Whatt's canvassing since I was eighteen, I looked
at that and said, there's no apparatus that I know of that can create that data. So your what are your inputs? What inputs are you using? And that's the question that other people need to ask. And when people ask them, and hopefully governing bodies who come to me for this information, I can tell them what I know and what I think, and the individuals who I spoke to as well. But what inputs create that level of certainty that nobody else had previously about when the election
results were in. Those are the questions that need to be asked.
And when you start to I mean, you've expressed literal concern, But for sharing this information publicly you even suggested, didn't suggest, I think you stated, and maybe you can clarify that there was an opportunity effort to say, hey, you don't need to share this. Actually it will take care of you. I'll take care of you, right, A big, big damn check.
Yeah. I was offered forty million dollars with which included an NDA and non discouragement into eternity, which I declined. Part of this information is why because I do believe him and his companies and everything that's being built to be incredibly consequential for the future of our country, the future of the country that my children will have to live in, the digital landscape that they'll have to live in and I think there's a lot worse than being,
you know, middle class in America, and that's okay. I'm comfortable with that to keep my integrity and at least when push came to shove that I was able to turn that down. And I also think women need to speak up. I think a lot would not be allowed to happen if women stopped keeping a lot of secrets for men.
And is that because you're uniquely positioned, because you have a voice, because you have enough resourcefulness, if not the resources. I mean, what do you say to those other women? I mean, what about all these folks that are sort of trapped in this mindset?
I think particularly the women of privilege, like I have a level of privilege having some sort of platform, and even if there's material hardship, I do have access to resources and educated individuals and people who are well networked that I can utilize. And there are many women within those Maro Lago in the magaspheres that have that same access who can do something. And I'm very concerned about
the proliferation of this privatized legal system through NDAs. I don't think with most NDAs that there is any meaningful consent when people are signing them to pay their bills, feed their family or whatever. So I do think that's another aspect that needs to be addressed because it's how
so much evil has been allowed to occur. And if we're supposed to be building a system to aggregate humanity and the honest version of it, but the honesty about the most powerful people cannot be said because of NDAs and this proliferation of this industry of silence, then we have a problem.
Yeah, well said, by the way, I couldn't agree with you more So, look, Ashley, as we you know, as you move forward, as we move forward, as we move into midterm elections, not making everything electoral, as we move
continue to move forward with this letter. Rip attitude of the of the Trump administration as it relates to AI regulation or lack thereof, sort of the David sassification of regulatory policy, and you know, highlighted by the fact that Elon and a few others Zuckerberg made calls to Trump to stop them from even a modest executive order to begin to do something. By the way, all they're trying to do is preempt California and our leadership on this.
They've tried to neutralize California. We saw Governor Hokeel and now Pritzker back into aspects of what California did to lead on some of the safety issues on AI's still not enough. I get it, and we have more work to do, but the contrast with Trump is pretty illuminating. How worried are you about fair and free elections? How worried about you you know your son's father is going to be likely the first trillionaire in a matter of week,
a couple of weeks. How concerned are you about capture and these algorithms and just a handful of people deciding our fate and future in terms of what we read, see here and believe.
I think people should be incredibly concerned about the elections just because of the new landscape we're creating. I often describe the Internet as we built this new planet. We're demanding that people inhabit it and live on it, and we have no idea if there's enough oxygen for people here, and so we really need to be critical of this digital landscape and terrain that we've built and how that
impacts our elections, from data to manipulation to perception. This is very important do I think that maybe there's lasers beaming down from space to change the vote on the dominion miss machines? Probably not. But do I believe that very powerful technology from very powerful individuals is being exploited to create outcomes that they want. Yes, That's happened throughout all of human history, and to say that that's not happening would be incredibly ignorant to these levers of capitalism.
And one thing I want people to know is that the Silicon Valley bros. Would be very proficient in plantation accounting. And these are systems that we've seen before, just at a much larger scale.
So do you and forgive me, I'm just sort of belaboring this and diving deeper. How embedded from your perspective are the operations on the inside MAGA and those operations with some of these elite tech titans in the context of being even more deliberative in terms of of hardwiring.
They are intimately intertwined. This is why big tech was at the forefront of all of these issues within MAGA, especially in twenty twenty, and then Mark Zuckerberg changes course and just look at who was front and center at the inauguration you had showing up.
I mean, there's benefit just showing up, But that doesn't mean you're I mean, is it your perspective that by showing up, you're I mean that they're taking there. They're not just dipping their toe of support, They're they're swimming.
Yes, they changed the algorithms. Some of these people who were previously banned or not allowed to monetize on these platforms, the floodgates have been opened and they are allowed to do this. And you know, there is an important distinction to make because I was very much on the free speech absolutism. And that's different when you're the audience, you're speaking to his local or you're making local change or
national change. But now you're demanding to be on this global platform and your words have global consequences, and to pretend like the rules of the Inn and these influence operations and speech can be comparable to that within your
¶ St. Clair's Biggest Regrets
local town square is asinine.
You're going to law school, Ashley, Yes, and so what's the what's the I mean is there there's got to be a book? Come on, you're telling me you're not working on a book.
It's impossible, You're i do write a lot. I write enough that if I wanted to make a book, I could publish it tomorrow.
So you're writing a book.
I do write. I write, and I do a lot of like aid memoir. But it's not the right time for me to sell anything to anybody right now. It's just not I have a lot of work that I need to do in financial amends that I need to make to the communities that I contributed harm to, and there's there's gonna be a lot of backlash for a while. I think there's also this this effect where I'm the most accessible MAGA figure to many people now, so they
like to take it out on me. And that's okay, and I understand, but there is when you leave, you realize the vast amounts of harm that you contributed to and the very real harm that I was ignorant to because of my own privilege, Like I just didn't have these experiences. And there's so much happening. They talk about the transfer of wealth, it's not really a transfer wealth.
It's a transfer of losses. Even if we take the space X I p O right, there's a lot of people who are going to lose in their four A one case, and this is their pensions. In their four to one case, the losses are being transferred to them because the big banks don't want to take the losses. It's this transfer of losses onto the lesser people that I think we really need to consider and start demanding that people in positions of privilege take more losses on themselves.
Yeah, I mean making me think of Trump and Millennia's are Donald and Millennia's meme coins and they come to trate all the losses or absorbed by the base of the party, And yes, we're betefitan them. What, by the way, I did ask you the obvious question, what was the trigger that made you say I got to get the hell out of here?
There were many things. I always say it was cumulative, like I saw so much harm, but I didn't I didn't have the coconuts to leave. I didn't have the courage to leave. But then once you're given an offer, like a forty million dollar NDA, and you're looking at your two kids, who you want nothing but the best for, and you have to say, like what, am I gonna have integrity right now? Or am I gonna have a burken And so I had to make that decision. I'm like, am I going to buy a house for my kids?
Or am I going to struggle and do the right thing? And I decided to struggle and do the right thing. So that was the moment that I'm like, Okay, well, once I say no to this, because once you say no to a man like Elon, it's as if you never said yes. You know, so I knew what the effects of telling him no, we're going to be.
Are you been surprised by people in the movement that have remained loyal to you, that are quiet, have your back, that are cheering.
You on no, And there's a lot I've been surprised by more of the people who have resonated with what I'm saying and and said they really want to speak out. But I'll tell you a lot of these people can't because of NDAs, because of their employment agreements with Fox, because of their agreements with various companies, And that needs to be addressed. If we want more people to speak out, there has to be this has to be addressed, this proliferation of NDAs, and we have to protect them.
Who's been the most vicious to you, Who's who are you really disappointed that you're, like, I mean, they are really taking it out on you for a quote unquote selling out or something or you know, turning your back to the movement.
I think I'm most disappointed in Elon.
Yeah, well, on that note, it's a good stuff that spots to many questions.
But but no, actually, you know, I will say, I'm most disappointed in myself.
I must disappointed to regret who you were.
I most disappointed that I didn't have courage sooner, and I would encourage anyone who's still in that to to not let a decade of regret pile up.
I mean, it's a it's a mature thing to say, and and uh and it's and it look it's you know, I I wish you the best, and I hope you don't feel exploited by folks like myself on the other side of this that will obviously be chasing you to exploit the other side.
You really believe having an open conversation, because I could have come on here and just been you know, thank you, governor. But there were things that I want to ask you about that just with my personal experience with tech and AI that I've come to the understand that okay, if you're going to do it, make sure that you're honest and you don't hold anything back. So I appreciate you for being open with those conversations and concerns as well.
I appreciate it. I appreciate highlighting I mean, just a new age of transparency and accountability, but also what's so opaque and we're not even looking at in terms of the rules and regulations and truth and trust and so this has been a fun conversation, Ashley. I really appreciate you taking the time, and good luck with everything, and thanks again for joining us.
Thank you, thank you.