This is Gavin Newsom and tune in for more with Doctor Phil. Well, look, I appreciate everything you said, but I also appreciate the spirit, uh that that behind it, and I think, look, it's one of the reasons we started this podcast, and it's been really interesting, doctor Phil. It's really underscored the nature and you've talked a lot about cancel culture and this incapacity to to to be willing to engage people you may disagree with and and as you say, focus on the things we have in common.
But it's interesting how quick people are to judge, and how quickly we are all judged. I imagine just the response you got coming out of that Madison Square Garden rally. I imagine just now you're sort of foray with ice and maybe just a little bit more into the political realm, how quick people are to judge. And so I think
it's incredibly important because divorce is not an option. We're all in this together, and you know, it's becoming more and more exhausting, and as you have rightfully highlighted you
did it in your book. We've got issues the nature of social media and algorithms and what's going on in terms of how things have become weaponized, and how we are increasingly feeling out of control, isolated, disconnected from a larger sense of purpose, Meaning all the things you've been talking about in your show and the work you've been doing, and so just on that, what more can we be doing, What can we be doing to soften the edges of
this discourse and begin the process of being repairs proverbially the breach.
Do you think freedom of speech is under attack?
I think it is. And I've made this point. One of the reasons I have long admired Bill Maher and gone on a show a dozen times since my mayor days is I didn't like the way he was being attacked the freedom of speech, his expression was being attacked in my own UC campuses. I've watched cancel culture, never been a champion of cancel culture. Of course, I've seen it on all sides. We saw with bud Light, we saw it with Target last year. You know, it occurs.
You know there's boycotts all the time, coming from both prisms and the political parties. But I think I think it's out of control, and I think it's something we need to push back again. So we need to own up to.
Yeah, it seems to be worse in California than you know. I've moved back to Texas, and you know, no place is perfect. But I see things like, what was it Berkeley where Ann Coulter got canceled? They said it was for security concerns. You can always have security.
But that my litt guy, I can't remember his name. I remember sort of the peak of that cancer culture.
You know, why do you think that is? When I went to school a long time ago, but we always if somebody was coming that we disagreed with, I always wanted to go here what they had to say, so I had ammunition to debate them with or their positions with. And you never grow until you disprove yourself, until you find something wrong with the way you look at it. But it seems like in California we've got the Heckler's veto. It's like boo them down or block them from coming.
And I see it at Berkeley, U C, L a USC and it just seems like, how are we ever going to broaden our perspectives? If we don't get out of the bubble and at least listen to the other side, you may find out that's exactly why I don't agree with that, sob exactly how to hear them to do it.
I couldn't agree with you. More needs to be called out. I've been trying to do what I can on that.
I mean, be candidate.
That's why I've been calling out all these book bands. Two hundred and forty books and titles were banned last year in this country. I mean, we're censoring, you know, speech in the boardroom, not just in the classroom. You've got folks are rewriting history. You've talked a lot about that, but on both sides of the aisle. I mean they were trying to One textbook in Florida tried to take out Rosa Park's race and said, oh no, she was just a woman who wanted to move, needed to move
her seat. So I think we have to own up to this. And I think again, there's plenty of plenty of fingers point or at least twenty people that we can point to, but all of us need to look in the mirror on this issue.
I agree with you as California taking a position on transgender athletes. I hadn't seen what the latest.
Well it did in twenty and thirteen ind Team Governor Brown signed a bill allowing for people to participate. As you know, that issue is very raw and emotional, and it's obviously very pointed this moment because of some state championships. There was two bills in the California legislature, doctor Phil just a few weeks ago. Neither got out of the committee to change that rule, so it currently is law in the state of California and cif that that does
the innercollegiate founded, you know, does all the sports. They're trying to find some accommodation that addresses the legitimate concerns around fairness and I say legitimate concerns about fairness and make sure that those that may have been displaced because they were outperformed by a transgender athlete I have the opportunity to still participate and be recognized for that participation.
We're also just trying to balance some grace, some humility, some humanity, particularly with transgender youth that just want to survive and don't want to be belittled and demeaned at the same time. So a very tough issue, and I know you've tackled that issue. I think you've done it reasonably thoughtfully. I think you've tried to find the nuances here,
but it's incredibly difficult issue. And I say this as someone who's been an advocate for trans writes, but I do not think it's fair these athletic competitions, and I've made that point of view very very public Well.
This is one of the things where I say that I believe that activists are pushing an agenda. And I've had so many transgender individuals on the show over the last twenty five years, and I can tell you that they have said to me on the air and off mostly off the air, that they'd wish those people would shut up. These shrill activists that are pushing these extreme positions. They're not speaking for us, they're not speaking for the
community at large. And they say, look, we're living our lives and there are enough challenges as it is without them pushing these extreme controversial issues that we don't particularly ascribe to. They're not helping us. That's something that they are just trying to rewrite biology on or they're trying to make a battleground, and they do it effectively. I had Professor Carol Hooven on from university at Harvard University and She didn't even do the research. She was just reporting.
Did a meta analysis on I think it was fifty plus studies of others that had looked at the biological markers to see whether or not you could balance the playing field among elit athletes. And she looked at if you have testosterone blockers, if you have hormone suppression therapy, and for the required two years before and after poverty, looked puberty, looked at every possible way, and the meta conclusion for good methodology, with good in right number of subjects,
and they concluded you just can't get there. You, I mean, even if it's ten percent difference in swimming competition among the lead athletes as you know everything, they measure that by hundreds of a second off a fingernail touching the wall. Uh, and in a four lap race ten percent. They can be down there kicking off the wall and they're standing there with their arms crossed waiting for him to make the last lamp.
Now, it wasn't one of the what wasn't, And forgive me, it wasn't. She admonished by the administration over there as well for just concluding.
Those completely driven down of the university. Yeah, they're transphobic, Yeah, spawning hate speech.
Yeah, we had well, doctor, I trust me, I know a thing or two about this. I expressed my point of view. I lost a few. I don't need to went on the public therapy session here, but I lost some good friends. I mean they're just then won't talk to me. They're done, And you know, I appreciate they felt hurt. They felt that point of view was, you know, somehow diminishing. I I someone has been an advocate that I put up against any other elected official. I mean,
I have a very strong record, as you know. I think the first time I was on your show, it was was on the issue of lgbt rights, and I've been an advocate for decades and decades, but on the issue of sports and and what you just you know, you laid out as it relates to many different factors that are unique and regardless of puberty blockers. I just think this issue we have to address and h and to not address, we are in denial.
Well that's a good point, because I remember when you were there and you and I agreed on that we were both advocates for LGBTQ rights. But this is this is a bridge too far. This is you have these these elite athletes. These are kids that get up oftentimes an hour or two before school. I mean they're up at four and five o'clock in the morning working out before school four years oh yeah, and then all of a sudden somebody steps in and bumps them out of
the competition, and it's I hate to see that. Yeah.
Well, which I got four young kids, all athletes, wife who has played for the junior national soccer team. I got into college, only got into a four year college because of sports. And it's many ways the reason I'm here. So I deeply appreciate how resident this issue and passionate this issue is. At the same time, you know, it's I humbly submit doctor that I think it's been weaponized by some groups. I'm not suggesting by any stretch you have.
I think I've listened to you on this topic, and I think you've tried to be very thoughtful on it. Other though, are a little less thoughtful and have used this in a way that I don't think advanced the larger call that I think you and I are calling for. Just that's just finding our common humanity and try to unify with as you suggest common sense.
Yeah, And the sad thing is, I think you've it's kind of identity politics. If you don't agree with everything, you're immediately labeled transphobic. And I think they lose some very strong advocates by throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Well, and I'd be in that category. And anyone who suggests that that is they don't know who I am, what I've done, And so I'm very sensitive the point you just made, and I certainly appreciate it, just on the issues of broader issues that I think just in the spirit of this conversation, you know, when you wrote this book, We've Got issues, what was was this was this sort of the gateway to the new media a company?
Was this sort of the transition book? What I mean, you haven't transitioned on your passion for family as sort of the core unit. Uh and and faith as well, which I appreciate your commitment to faith, including your new role under the Trump administration. Just tell us a little bit more in the spirit of of of that book, what we what we were trying to achieve.
You know, I I've I've always thought, you know, it's funny they they talk about the general category of talk show, and it's it's really interesting that it's if you're going to be successful, they really should probably call it listening show, because if you don't listen to your audience and let them tell you what you need to focus on, you're not going to last very long. And we always refer to Hollywood is a thirteen week town, and if you
get thirteenth weeks in Hollywood, you're lucky. And you know, I was on for twenty one years, and they wanted me to renew for three more. When I said no, I'm going to go do my own thing, and there was a difference because a cross those twenty one years. Very unusually, I owned my own show, which is you probably know that's very rare in Hollywood. The network likes to own the show. But I owned my own show.
So I did thirty eight hundred shows and I owned them lock Stock and Beryl, so that whole library is something I own, and most of those shows are pretty evergreen and across time. I had a great staff, and for the whole twenty one years, I had one executive producer. I had you know, five supervising producers that were there pretty much the whole time. I had the same seven cameramen for twenty one years. For god, I've had the same secretary or they changed what they call them across
the years. She's been with me forty five years, So I mean I've had the same team around me. I'm so blessed to have them. And things change, Governor, think about this. I started in two and the first text message had never been sent when I started. And think how much things have changed in like nine is when they started dropping smartphones on all of us. And I think that's the biggest change in our civilization since the
Industrial Revolution. And I know there were kind of four industrial revolutions kind of jammed together there, but I think this was the biggest change since mechanization.
And by the way, just speaking of jam together, I remember being jammed together right there at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in January of two thousand and seven when Steve Jobs comes out with some damn device. Little did we know, but what hit I'll never forget. It wasn't the device. It was that damn app store in July of two thousand and eight, that, to your point, changed everything in more ways.
On more days, well, you know, kids were going through life like this, and then all of a sudden, they were going through like this.
And.
I and we listen, and for example, the words cyber and bully had never been used together in the same sentence because there was no such thing. And then all of a sudden, I had to start dealing with cyber bullying.
And in fact, I went to Capitol Hill. They asked me to come testify on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and a lot of my testimony was about, you have to start allocating some funds to dealing with cyber bullying because it's become Bullies used to be in the lunch room or the gym or the bus docks, but now these bullies follow the children home. They can't
get away from it. And we have to start educating our teachers and start making preparations to deal with this because kids are killing themselves and online predators are getting to our children. And so, you know, it started evolving and changing, and and I had to evolve and change with it. And I remember the first interview I ever gave about the doctor phil Show, Roger King, who was,
you know, the biggest force in syndication. He asked me one day, without giving me any warning, he's going to make a sizzle reel to go out and sell the show. And he said, okay, Doc, what's the show going to be about? And I'm like a little caught short. And I remember saying, I'm going to talk about things that matter to people who care. And I wanted to deliver common sense, usable information to people's homes every day for free.
And ir'd argue with that, if that doesn't work, then I was busy when you when you called me, you know, I have and and I followed that formula all along, and when I got when I sat down to write We've Got Issues, it was in reaction to hearing my audience move. I think that's my eleventh book or tenth book. I said I was going to write another book, and then I wrote that one, and it was from listening to them, and they were becoming much more socially conscious.
Whereas you know, early on I was focusing on marriage and family and individual psychological functioning and all of those sorts of individual issues. But I saw it changed to start to include things like cyberbullying and predators and online scams and things like that. And then of late I saw him start to really become much more socially conscious about psychosocial issues. And I think it's because they were
on the internet all the time. They were reading things that, you know, eight nine years earlier, they just weren't available to read. And that's when I say, I started being aware that like some let's say you had some crazy conspiracy theories some guy in Omaha or something, well, that wouldn't spread very far because he didn't have the ability
to reach anyone. But it's estimated right now that there are between five and ten thousand cults acting in the United States of America because they operate online, they solicit money online, they get follows online. Then they might have an annual meeting and recruit people in the real world to come to some compound or whatever. And so I started seeing how people were concerned about what was going on at school and what was being taught at school.
Was critical race theory being taught, should it be taught, Should parents be notified if their children were wanting to change their pronouns? And there were pros and cons about that. I think parents know their kids the best and deserve to know what's going on with them. But people react to that, like there's this massive movement in the schools to recruit people children into transgenderism. That's just not true. It is a minuscule number of cases in which is happening,
and they talk like there's this huge recruitment. It isn't true. I do think parents should be involved, and those on the other side of the issue say, well, there are a lot of parents who don't react well to that, and so the kids can get kicked to the curb or whatever if they take that home. Well, that's why we have the Department of Child and Family Services, That's why we have these social services to support that if they got some mouth breather parent who doesn't stand by
their child or whatever. So there are two sides to the issue. I get that. But they weren't talking about these things before for and now they were, and that's that's what moved me to us. We've got issues. We've got issues and what's going on in the school. We've got issues regarding our economy, and people talk about we have this inequality of income. I think the problem is
we have a quality of income. If you look at all the giveaway programs and I hear people talking about they want a quality of outcome, the quality of opportunity.
Yeah no, those are things that found me out on the outcome side. Yeah No, it's about the opportunity. We can talk about some of the tax breaks as well, some of the carried interest is on those subsidies as well. Look, there's so much doctor to talk about, and I appreciate the spirit to which you've engaged with me in our eyes. And one of the things I loved about your book, which I did have a chance to read. But more importantly,
there's a lot of good life lessons in there. And one of the one of those statements that you made in the book that sort of spoke to me is be who you are on purpose, which is a good way to describe you, this notion of intentionality. But I think that's an important life lesson is to be authentic, learn from don't follow others, have some humility and grace, but stand on your ground, but also recognize we need
to find common ground. And I hope we found a little bit today and I appreciate your efforts to try to find more of that with Merritt Street Media.
Well, I appreciate having the opportunity to talk about these things. I think, like I say, you and I might be on the different side of certain issues and the same side on certain issues, but I think if people could sit down and have civil conversations like this, I mean, that's what it's all about. To me. I think it's important to do and I'm I'm glad you're doing this podcast.
I think people get to hear from you and get to know you better, and I think it's I think people are interested in doing that and in knowing you, and I think it's a courageous thing to do, because when you open up an unscripted conversation like this, that's a that's a courageous thing to do. It's not campaign speak, it's it's just it's just letting people get to know you. And you dodged my question. Are you going to run in twenty.
Eight that's face will determine that. But we'll see doctor. I'mse you know better than anybody as a former California residence. I got my hand full in the next year and a half couple of years.
You're not ruling it out, I don't.
I mean, you're not rolling anything out out about your future either, So we'll leave it at that. I appreciate you spend any time and UH, and I'm very grateful, particularly uh, particularly considering where the heck you are, UH and all the other folks that are there that are buying for your time and attention. So thank you.
Anytime, anytime I can spend time with you, I'm I'm proud to do it, on here to do it and UH. I'll be inviting you to be on my podcast soon and we'll talk about that and UH and have you weigh in on some uh some big issues. And I hope we can do I hope we can do this again and do it soon.
I look forward to it.
Thank you so much, Governor, Thank you best to you