Today I initiated a lawsuit against the Trump administration on behalf of the people of the state of California, asserting that Trump does not have the unilateral authority to impose one of the largest tax increases in US history. Impacts of these tariffs are disproportionately being felt here in California, the number one manufacturing state in America, state that will be significantly impacted by this unilateral decision by the President
of the United States. I'm looking forward to talking about that more with my next guest. We'll talk trade, we'll talk tariffs, We'll talk about what happened in the last election. Is this two thousand and four all over again? Are Democrats ready for a big comeback? And what does the future hold to My next guest, is he running for president of the United States. This is Gavin Newsom and this is Rob Emmanuel Ron. Thanks for coming on the show.
And before we get started, there's so many issues that I want to get to in a relatively short period of time. We'll talk obviously about the state of the Democratic Party, the state of our union, tariff's issues, obviously
related to your service and time in Asia. But top of mind this week is so much of the attention on Harvard University and their pushback, which generated a lot of interest, including from your old boss, President Obama, who tweeted out a very positive statement on behalf of Harvard, asserting that it's time to assert universities to assert themselves more aggressively as it relates to what Trump's trying to do.
I'm just curious what your thoughts were on Harvard and moreover, what's happening with higher education and respect to the Trump administration.
Well, I'm of a couple of minds on higher education, and one is I mean, I don't think anybody's pointed this out, but you know, Donald Trump started his kind of introduction into public life in one way or another with Roy who is Joe McCarthy's right hand man. And the attack on university is infamous back in the McCarthy era, squashing both the role of the university has played in our book life and also academic freedom. And that's one element.
The second element is, you know, having been in Japan, but I knew this without going to Japan. The American university system, I mean California, you know this firsthand, and it's role that it plays from a research and development on cutting edge technologies, new entrepreneur not only entrepreneurs, but
new entrepreneurship, new ideas with business models. I met somebody from Stanford the other day in the AI space who's now got a company that's an example of what is so unique, and people Japan, israel I can give you all over the world in Europe all admire what we have built year over year over year. And not only is the political freedom happening, but we're actually now billing the goose laid the golden egg for America's economic competitiveness.
And then, third, if you think of the future on the international level as a battle not of a Cold war in the sense of ideological Soviet Universus the free world, but as a technological battle and competition between the United States and China, we are really, you know, latterly disarmed. And then fourth, and finally a governor, I take offense as an American and as a Jewish American, the idea that you're going to use anti Semitism or the what universities had as a culture. And I think there's a
legitimate point to address that and reform that. But using anti semitism to uh literally destroy our academic institutions in university and the and they that's how they're getting the goods through customs. So quote unquote dealing with anti Semitism, and you know, you know, you and I are talking on passover the we could pass over the idea that the Jewish Commune would find any comfort with one person's
opinion as opposed to the rule of law. I got two thousand years of history that tells you that doesn't turn out well. So I said, I can go at this like five different angles. And I'm hoping Harvard and not just Harvard, but other universities, other law firms, other institutions. And I would say that to the Supreme Court, you're going to find out whether that black robe is a Halloween costume or you actually earned it and understand it
because he's challenging you. There's nothing sacred, So everybody's gonna have to decide, you know, and reach deep down. Harvard has other universities are going to have to do the same and decide that, you know what, there's something set of principles here that are more important than accommodation.
And I appreciate the reference on the rule to law, particularly as it relates to Supreme Court. But I'm just curious, I mean interesting, you sort of an origin story with roe coin with Roy that I hadn't really considered. But what I mean is there something?
I mean?
You know, he talks often Trump, doesn't he about how highly educated people are. He's always impressed with people's looks. He's impressed with their education.
Well, looks has nothing to do with how educated you are.
No, no question about that. But what is I mean? So it's an interesting thing to me, just as an observer someone watches obviously Trump closely, this notion that higher education some establishment plot. Is this a political agenda? Is this a total twenty five agenda?
They're getting their goods through customs here? Look, First of all, the whole idea of tenure for professors was built coming out of the McCarthy are so you could not be prosecuted for your political views. That's the orgy of it. That's where ten years as a concept is nurtured. If I'm reading history correctly, that's where it comes from. And professor were given a ability to be protected professionally and
not being prosecuted for any political expression or views. And now were there things that university's got way off track on one hundred percent. Were there reforms that were needed to be done, Yeah, that and there's not a university president or a board revery. They wuldn't tell you that was true. Destroying the academic and only freedom, but also the research elements and trying to coerce their behavior. Now we're going to do the worst of McCarthyism. And I
don't think it's a coincidence. I think it's actually direct. Donald Trump's mentor in public life is Roy Cohne, who was also Joe McCarthy's mentor and sidekick. And so we're living in a period of time, and I don't think I don't think I'm being dramatic or hyperbolic, but that's the period of time. These institutions, not just Ivy League but public university as well, have a history of them having stood up, having their voices heard and pushed back. And I know you want to stay in this area,
and I just so I just say this. I find it offensive that you're using quote unquote anti semitism that was perpetuated on the universities to really deal with your political agenda. So let me just say this, Like the student at Columbia. I disagree with his views on AMAS. I disagree with this what happened on obviously, what happened on October seventh. You want to deal with him in some way? Have him forced him to do community service as an intern at the Holocaust Museum for a year now?
All he was expressing his views which I find at port and I think the American people will see it. Killing twelve hundred citizens because they were Jewish is not acceptable. Cutting a fetus out of a woman is not only on acceptable, it's a crime, Okay, And you want to identify with that. We can handle that as a country without having to destroy either Columbia University, Harvard University, or a public university.
Well said, So, No, look, I appreciate that, of course. I'm I'm serving on the UC Regions board as a lieutenant governor governor. No more precious system from my perspective in terms of conveyor belt for talent for this country and the research and development component of that. And you're extending beyond that, I mean the NIH grants and all the other efforts to really wreck the systems, put.
The research aside. Could you reform it? Yes? The universities were skimning some dollars. That's an easy way to reform, but don't throw out the goose that lays the gold
in that. The second is as it relates to academic non academic freedoms, things that were done to Jewish students, Jewish culture, Jewish life on universities that would never be accepted to any other minority group, and that true had to be dealt with, and the university is being forthcoming about that would be helpful, But don't use anti semitism or the attack on the Jewish community at a university to as your way of getting your goods through customs
to actually fulfill a political agenda that was articulated in Project twenty twenty five early before.
That's right, so let's you know, and just sort of segue from Harvard. I mean, there are a number of Harvard graduates that happened to be members of the Supreme Court,
and you reference the Court. And obviously another big story in the last few days has been referenced in the Oval Office visit with President Mukelly of El Salvador and the conversation that was very publicly held in the Oval Office related tissues around the Supreme Court's Nino decision and the defiance apparently the defiance of PAM BEYONDI, the Attorney General and obviously the president himself, including the President of El Salvador as it relates to that ruling. I mean,
how concerned are you? People have talked about a constitutional crisis, They talk about red lines, They talk about the foundational principles of our founding fathers, three independent branches of government. When you defy or apparently defy as Supreme Court ruling, have we crossed that red line? Are we on the other side of this? Are we being hyperbolic?
Well, I don't think you'd be good. But look, I think we're going to find out whether the black robes that the members of the Court where are a Halloween constitule or they represent the dignity of the Court and its opinion as a coequal branch government. They were not ambiguous as related to the individual and that the United States acknowledged they wrongfully sent to the Alsa Ouvadoor prison. Now the Court is either going to show that not
the Court's opinions are the final verdict. An opinion now need to be executed by the executive branch and if he defies them and they take no step in that. Uh, you know, there's a lot of ways to deal with I mean, you know, individual citizens that are held in contempt of the court. There's a lot of different ways to deal with this. And look, I go back to when Chief Justice Roberts was being confirmed by the Senate. He said that judges are like umpires. That was his words,
they call balls and struts. Well you called this one. Now, Either you're going to allow your opinion as an umpire, which I happened. I think is a horrible metaphor, but you used it, and you're going to let your opinion hold the day, or basically it's a fungible opinion. It doesn't matter what you said. Now, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know if you are a governor. But I studied the Constitution and I always understood there were three branches of co equal branches of government, not one above
all others. We're going to find out something about the court, not just the president.
Amen. The best of Roman Republic, Greek democracy, independent co equo branches the government, popular sovereignty, sort of fundamental principles
we've been celebrating for two hundred and forty plus years. Look, we've also been sort of reflecting in the last few weeks the years and years that Donald Trump himself and back to I think the origin story, and I think it's really interesting and insightful how you began the conversation as relates to Roy Cohen in the history of McCarthyism and relationship to this moment, and so much I think about Trump goes back to sort of indelible ideological perspectives
that he's had for years and years and years, and I don't think we give more enough credence to that, including on the issue that connects to you in a more modern term and your ambassadoral time in Japan, and that's the issue of tariff's where Trump, I think, in the eighties put out a full page add if I recall around how unfair trade policy was and how Japan at the time was cleaning our clock. And here we are fast forward with all these terror policies. So are
you surprised that we're where we are? Obviously you have strong opinions about the recklessness of it, but from an historic perspective of that perspective of that prism, is it surprise you he's what he's advancing.
What he's advanced. So let's deal with a couple of things that I think are all in there. One is it doesn't surprise me either he said he was going to do the tariffs. What surprised me is the erraticness, because it was the one constant thing he said in the campaign, one constant thing, as you said, in his public life, and it's been the most erratic, not thought through most I mean as opposed to kind of the Project twenty twenty five stuff that he didn't mention. That's
been unbelievably like there was a strategy. Here is what he did mention, and it's just every day is a new day. Look. It's the largest tax increase in American history. Cool Stoff. Two. It's a corrupt system because whoever goes to Marrow Lago gets a cut, gets a cut, as you're seeing on car.
Pause on that. I think that's the most under reported part of this. The regressive tax side is one thing. What this means for crony capitalism is another.
This is the worst of as I said when he first got elected but wasn't inaugurated. Here he's going to turn the Oval Office into eBay, and it's the highest bidder, and if it ain't nailed down, he's gonna sell it. And it's crony capitals. Here is my another p and it's affecting the dollar. It's affecting this your four one K. But here's the other piece. Twenty years ago, China was
on the rise in America was seen as stagnating to climb. Right, g does a couple of things that is the worst economic damage anyone person to do, and he did it to China. He busts the housing bubble, he busts the municipal debt bubble, He cracks down on the private sector. Foreign investment fleas, foreign entrepreneurs flee, entrepreneurs and stop, and the economy goes into what people were referring to as a Japanese style deflation, and youth unemployment shoots way up.
The United States is on the rocks, money is flowing in, unemployment is down, manufacturing is coming back. And China's strategy in that scenario is We're going to export our problems through manufacturing all across the globe. Chile lose its only steel plan, South Africa is about to lose their steel plan. Countries that are aligned with China, Brazil, Mexico file wto cases against China. We're the safe harbor. We're the adult,
that is the United States. What happens we do these tariffs are erratic and then all of a sudden, China looks like a place of stability, and we look like the chaos agent. Rather than China being isolated in the world, aligning with the United States, the United States gets isolated and we have turned. We had China and they knew it. They said, this doesn't require interpretation. China said, you're isolating us.
We took advantage of China's on goal they did to themselves economically through their mercantilism, what their wolf warrior was on the diplomatic front, and we used it strategically better than we actually assumed we could do. And we just committed the worst on goal and snapping the literally ripping the victory from the jaws at the feet. And now
we're the isolated party. And what's worse. And let me say this is a father with two children, one full time and the other reserve enlisted in the armed forces. Nineteen seventy nine, Governor was the first time the United States deployed a sanctioned it was on Iran and used its economic power and the power of the dollar, so we didn't have to do something kinetic Milternally, we refined this and really become experts going through the War on Terror,
and we had built up the capacity. And one of the things that China and Russia hated was the United States through the dollar, could economically punish you in a way that it didn't have to require the US military to do it, but we could use our economic power and our power of our dollar. We have destroyed, destroyed, not inhibited, one of the most important tools we have developed over fifty years to punish an adversary without putting men and women in the United States uniform at risk.
This is, as my grandfather would say, a shanda. It's a crime committed against ourselves. It is ridiculous. Now, most importantly the American people, I give them a lot of credit. It took them. They didn't go to Harvard, they didn't go to Columbia.
They didn't they didn't even get a four year degree.
Most of all, we knew that a tariff was a taxed on day one, and they knew they were going to get hosed right, figured it out without going to business school, knew it up front, rejected it, and he is showing political the political peril of his own position.
Yeah, we completely betrayed them, right, I mean by definition number one, day one bringing down prices, number one promise.
Look the one look, we have our own problem with Democrats. Will get to that and the rest of this podcast. But the one thing you can say about Donald Trump, He'll portray you insteady in the back and he's doing it all and the American people are going to punish the Republicans for this, and you saw it in the election.
So let me and I definitely would look forward to talking about the political implications. But let's just talk about the practical. I mean, because you've yeah, I mean you've you've experienced firsthand, up close, our efforts, particularly during the Biden administration. I really applaud those eforts, particularly with Japan and Korea, and in relationship to China. You were very vocal, very vocal, more than any ambassador, which took some courage,
I thought. Against China, you've seen this sort of geopolitical shuffle. I mean, what are they saying? You know, Trump's now saying We're respected around the world. What are they saying in the halls with our allies? I mean, how consequential is this to trust? And how long is this wound?
Going to festiv I would say to you Governor, first of all, in eighty days he's destroyed eighty years of credibility in the United States, a big hit on our credibility. You can look at into Pacific, you can look at the Middle East. You can do in Europe, if can look at Africa. No one reason is more outweighs another. The most important thing post Donald Trump is somehow restoring trust and credibility to the United States. Work. People are ridiculing the I say, I said, if you don't just
then word. But also indeed I worked tirelessly and I give the President and the Nationality Apparatus credit. With my colleague in South Korea in the historic coming together at Camp David between the President, the President of South Korea, and the Prime Minister of Japan, we all three countries have a complicated history. We came together saw the future is more important than the past, and embraced it and shaped it. Two weeks ago, China brought together the foreign
ministers of Korea and Japan. With them, they announced an economic partnership to the ground and develop Korea that was essential to the our export controls against the semiconductor industry in China. Samsung, the shining corporate semi conductor company in Korea, announced an agreement with the Chinese company. Now nobody's respecting the United States, nobody's trusting the United States. They're looking
out for their own self interests. That meeting China, Korea and Japan never would have happened on the kind of level it happened with the outgrowth that happened, and we not committed and isolated ourselves with the tariff policy that hit ally and adversary with equal force. So it's an end goal. It's no other way to describe.
It, would you extend? I mean, obviously there's a lot of talk now in South Korea about the prospect of a Korean peninsula where everyone is a nuclear power. Obviously there's now renewed conversations, which is remarkable to me. You would understand it better than anyone in Japan even I mean, do you think that's an outgrowth of this moment or is that a more complicated question that may pre date, the recklessness of Trump's tariff announcements.
So one is everybody used to say, oh about non proliferation, it was expensive what we did. You're about to get sticker shock on proliferation. You're here. We spent the year and a half. I was having more on the sidelines than this one vincent Korea not to go nuclear, but divide with the United States and a whole process of that fast forward. What happens is I think Korea is going to look at the United States as an untrusted
ally and they're going to make a decision. With North Korea's possession of nuclear capacity, China's capacity, they're going to go nuclear and they're not going to put their faith in the United States anymore. And if Korea does it, Japan, So just close your eyes. Pakistan, India, China, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan all in that region will be nuclear. What could go wrong? It's insane. I want to go double back on some of my skips, and I want
to say something about the tariffs. Heet asked if I could governor. We're treating textiles, toys and technology as equals, and I don't know the idea that we're going to see technology or semiconductors, and I'm not saying they're more, but they are slightly more valuable than a T shirt
from our economic capacity and strength. So if you're going to have a policy making sure that America's own economy is secure in slightly more self sufficient than where it was, you don't treat toys manufactured in China, textiles manufactured in Southeast Asia, and technology like semiconductors as if they're equal economic capacity. And lastly, what's also lost in the spate. Almost forty five percent of all imports into the United States are things that go into our own manufacturing base.
So we're going to affect manufacturing, but not the way that Donald Trump said. It will have an impact on manufacturing. It will actually lead to unemployment in the manufacturing. I don't know if you know this, and I'm sure you do because you have your own industrial base in California. There's five hundred thousand manufacturing jobs today with the help want it signed around it. Yep, we're short workers. You know this and I know this is going around. I
used to have CEOs come through here. I talked to them in this today you do too. Biggest item besides this regulation or that, that's biggest item, a workforce that they can't find. Right, So if we started at home, we would be Actually, there's five hundred thousand manufacturing jobs today. We could have done something about with it before we hit the tear off kaas.
Look, I appreciate it. Also speaking of kids, I've got four kids and they still love toys. I think eighty percent of the toys under the Christmas Tree come from China. They've doubled the cost of that. Obviously, if you're got your four to one K as you said earlier, and I think the focus on four to one K more than the markets. I think even Carvo brought that up in a recent op ed I thought was very wise and connects with people on more a much more personal way.
But I want to highlight what you just said. California is the biggest manufacturing state in America. People forget that. Californiumber one and two way trade, number one and direct foreign investment, and number one manufacturing state in America. Forty percent of the goods movements in this country come through two ports of entry in California, about fifty percent of
that from China itself. No state has more to lose, more to gain as it relates to ag as it relates to all of these industries and tech as you noted AI, etc. So that's, by the way, why we just filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, and we did it on I think very sound grounds and it's an interesting lawsuit for many different reasons. But we've got to push back much more aggressively on the consequences of this.
Let me say this without trying to go into a witness protection plan, which.
By the way is hyperbole but not necessarily in this day and age. So I appreciate the cabin Yeah, do you know a lawyer before? By the way, none at SCAT and ARBs, none at Paul Weiss, none of all these firms that have capitulated. You brought that up at the top.
Here's the thing is the analysis that we have a problem where America did not invest in America or Americans and it led to our economic independence being adversely not only affected, but it also affected our civic life because people lost confidence in America by Americans. That is not a wrong analysis going about that. Terifs are the most beautiful word in the English language and hitting everything ally and adversary the same, not thinking to it through strategically,
not understanding the difference between toys and technology. From an economic standpoint is actually the cure is worse than the illness, and it's going to be affect people's family budgets, can affect their employment, It's going to affect a whole host of things and their economic security, their retirement security, their education for their children. And so to me, your first question kind of was I get the analysis of what it ailes America or one of the things that ails America.
It's not wrong, but like all things Trump, he makes the problem much more severe than address it. There you go, yep, in every aspect. Take the academic institutions. Were there things that they had done over the years that got them off kilter one hundred percent? But using anti semitism to execute a political strategy to silence universities and academics.
No, that's exactly right. And so I know I'm with you on what you're saying is you're not an anti tariff absolutist. Do you believe in targeted terriffs?
And along the lines of way, No, I didn't say that, actual I know I want to be. I want to speak what.
Are you But you've been But you've been. You haven't been opposed to tariffs in the past. I mean you've you know the Biden administration triple them on Chinese steel and aluminum.
Here's my thing is, if we've got a problem, what does it take to address and build an industry? Now, look, my analysis going back then as a massive China is the one that came up with self sufficiency as an economic model. That's why there's exporting their mercantilism and crushing all these countries around the world. They've decided how to isolate themselves from the world rather than interact with the world.
And it's only on China's term. If you want to apply a tariff, my view is, okay, what are the things that we are going to do that tariff give us a window of time. What are our investments, what's our training? What are we going to do from a research standpoint in semiconductors, in steel, or pick your industry. I'm not for tariffs. They are a tool in a toolbox. But tell me what we're doing with all the tools in the toolbox. So you have an integrated cohesive comprehend
of strategy. If we don't train the workers for the five hundred thousand jobs, I don't care what terrafs you do. Yeah, okay. And if you're not going to fund some research, that's take a look. You know. I'll just say this, fracking as a technology came out of our universities. Look we're now we went from a four hundred billion dollar import to a forty five billion dollar export. That's a big swing. Tell me what we're going to now. People are thinking
of using that hydraulic technology to do geothermal. Tell me what we're doing, what the worth, the end line, and what are all the pieces that fit into that. We're just going by gut instincts of one guy who failed seven businesses.
So what you're saying I mean, And to be to be more clear than the basis of that reaction, targeted tariffs with an industrial policy, with a policy to back it up, with a rationale to use it as a tool for strategic national security issues or for legitimate questions around imbalance of trade or unfair present People like the Secretary of Commerce and the President who believe tariffs are the economic toolbox, they're not.
They are a tool in the toolbox, But you tell me each sector, what is the strategy. What are we going to do for training? What are we going to do for infrastructure? What are we doing for research and development? How are we going to take certain US companies and build them up or invite foreign investors to build those up? And I'll give you example. Take the shipbuilding industry Japan and Korea unbelievably capable of coming in and investing in
helping build that domestic industry in the United States. Are they banned? Are they part of that? Are they allies that we're going to invite in to help us jump start something that we've lost our muscle memory on. That's a strategy. I want to I just what it is we're going to do. What's the roadmap here? So everybody knows how to contribute and knows what the goal line is or what the end point is.
This is an opportun unity to pivot a little bit, but pivot with a little bit of self reflection. And one of the things I really appreciated.
It that's going to be hard for an e manual.
That's well, I don't know, you've been pretty I was about to compliment you as an emmanual.
Self reflection on the podcast too. Yeah.
No, I mean, well, you know we could we could get in a deeper conversation. Yeah, all two of your two other brothers. Yeah, we could talk about as well. You already think you brought up the family in the context of what was the word you used, wasn't misschi gosh? What was it?
Shonda? It's a it's a. It's an embarrassment. It's a shonda.
I like it. I'm going to steal that.
It's it's half sin, half comparison.
It's good. It's the moment. But let me talk about a different moment. I mean you and you were part of it, and frankly, I think all of us where a lot of us were parroting it to be Canada, you know, as I sort of a Clinton Democrat back in the day nafta the WTO. You know, people talk a lot about the WTO sort of as a point of emphasis that sort of led to this point, not just an op ed in the nineteen eighties or add by Trump as it relates to his positions on trade.
You know, what do you make of the Democratic Party and our culpability for this moment and the hollowing out of our industrial base and the need to jump start. I mean what, Just take their arguments, the ban and arguments. Take the arguments of Trump and the accolytes around him that it's time to reindustrialize, it's time to bring those supply chains home, it's time to really start focusing. Yes, dare I say it on America first?
Rom Look, I don't so I agree with that on both America and Americans first, as a person who first city to ever create free community college and make sure high school isn't the endpoint of a public commitment to education. And so, Governor, here's what I would say, And I'll talk to both both NAFTIN and WT and WTO meaning China into WTO, and they're slightly different, but of single spirit.
The mistake, it's a mistake, and we own a polity American people, is we allowed Lacrosse, Wisconsin, Peoria, Illinois, Youngstown, Ohio, Saginaw, Michigan, or Battle Creek, Michigan, or Terre Hoo, Indiana, to navigate the world market on their own against China and much
bigger forces. We didn't. We didn't. If you go back to NAFTA, President Clinton had proposed a billions and billions of dollars of investment that was turned down by Congress, ended up with like a job training program, like about you, and basically said here, you're on your own. And the truth is you and I and our kids we're going to get the rewards of the system that we built.
That's not true for everybody. The American dream is not has been unaffordable and inaccessible every year after every year, and it's down now to about temper sent the children of American families have access. All American people want is a simple thing, a shot in the American dream, and they got the shaft. And he left communities unprotected against China. Peoria is not set up, and the people who live in Burea to fight China on their own. And that's
just an observation. That's just a fact. And while trade had benefits, the benefits were not equally shared and the risk was not equally shared. And that's a fact. And for too long it was ignored as a scream and a yell. And you can explain something of Donald Trump in that now on wto I same analysis, except for I would say one coveyat when China was brought in. It was part of in the same way that Russia was brought into NATO and Russia was brought into the
G seven. It was a theory of the case. And it's a kind of a sixty forty issue. It's better to have him in the tent pissing out than outside the ten person And to use an LBJ term not it's not you know this as governor. I know as a mayor's chief staff. Nothing's one hundred zero. That's what you have AI for. These are judgment calls. It was better to think that you can make China had invested in the system we had. By twenty twelve, when she becomes president of China, it's very clear they go from
strategic competitor to strategic adversaries much different. And it was actually also very clear, and I say this as Congressmant represented many companies as chief of staff, dealing with CEOs China. Intellectual property theft and economic espionage is core to the business model in a way that patents and rule of law are core to ours. And in twenty twelve we held out strategic competitor, ignoring things that we knew were happening, and they went to strategic adversary and core to their idea.
You have Google based in California. Only one country was stealing AI secrets from them. It's called China. They do it all over our universities, they do it all over our companies. It's core to them, and we ignored it. Now twenty twelve, we should have blown the whistle, called
the game and said this is a different game. And the only thing I would say is that we woke up on Wolf Warrior the economic coersion ten years earlier than trying to expected us, and we started making use of that kind So was it a mistake in nineteen ninety nine? I got to be honest, if it was a sixty forty sixty five thirty five call, do you let them stay out or you bring them in? And when they started changing and not playing by the rules they agreed to, they should have gotten called out earlier
and not just called out. The whistle should have been blown and they should have been forfeited the game and being dealt with differently. They're not a developing economy. They were cheating and stealing their way to economic secrets. And not only cheating and stealing, we permitted American companies to give away research and development to get access to a market. Well,
I'm sorry, taxpayers pay for that research and development. We own that as much as anyone company owns that R and D. When we give you a tax credit, we're an equity investor. We gave away our family jewels because a bunch of company CEOs, all of us did. D are most side of Pennsylvania, avenue governors everywhere, because what they wanted access to the market. And the biggest mistake, we commercialized our forms and national security policy. We commercialized it.
The business community had way too big a vote, a big mistake, and now we have to make up for that lost time. We were in the process of doing that. And I think what we're doing treating allies is if their adversaries adversaries, is the one day they become allies. And as a total mistake, because we don't know friend from foe.
Here here and you say we start and this is segue then to the Biden years, And you know, I've been very vocal. I thought it was a master class of policy making. I thought it was extraordinary legislative accomplishments. Three hundred and sixty nine billion dollars in the IRA
fifty two to three. In the chips and science hack one point two trillion, I think five hundred and fifty billion more that new in the infrastructure, I mean the punchline aside of Trump, I mean literally three hundred weeks of infrastructure bloviation, and the Biden administration delivered seemed to me an industrial policy that was worker centered to begin to substantively address these trend lines and address these headlines
of today. Do you agree with that? And I'm not looking you as as a former ambassador of the administration, it's difficult to know. I'm not looking to get it create any wedges, but it seemed to me a pretty robust response to the concerns around the working class, to the concerns around what's happening in the heartland. By the way, the heartland includes California, which again the largest manufacturing state.
That is more hunting jobs, more fishing jobs, and more forestry jobs, not just ag jobs than any other state.
So I would say to you, look, it started dealing with the fact that both of the industrial policy and key sectors of the economy that were going to produce
both jobs and economic independence. We started to make investments in America making up for we just the other question, which is things that we didn't invest in, and we allowed the the freedom of the market to take place, and it affected both our competitiveness and most importantly, the American people and their confidence in America because we lost face with them. I do think there's you know, it was robust, but what was one of the principal things
that undermined the president was inflation. And that was an outgrowth of the robustness of the first Act, which is and how big it was and you were.
Which I neglected to reference. I referenced three of.
The helpline point was the infrastructure.
And not exclusively that, I mean it was partially. I mean, to be fair, you had international.
Out of COVID, there's a lot coming out.
Of COVID, supply chains, the WORL in Ukraine issues, and obviously international inflation that impacted the globe. But yes, partially impacted America more than.
The first bill. Everybody was, oh, it's big and bold, and look I can say this, and a lot of it was we were going to show president you know about the competitiveness. We were going to show President Obama the right way to do this.
You think, meaning that Obama's bill wasn't big enough, your bill, and we needed to show we could go bolder and bigger.
I always now you're going to deal with talk about self awareness. Nobody ever offered an amendment to make it bigger. Everybody that's rewriting history, you know, some of us were there. Nobody for a trillion dollars. It wasn't going to pass. Okay, so nobody offered it. Everybody that's walking around all it was too small, too timid. Okay, where was your amendment? Call you for a trillion dollars? Okay, nobody did. Number two. It was big. It was bold because we were having
a problem. Part of it was all there was a political piece to this, and we should just be honest. It was to show that, oh, we were different than the timidness, which I don't think was timid. President Obama dealt with on the heels of having this dealt with TARP of what President Bush passed and signed, implementing that, but also the Recovery Act, that was what the political
system could bear. Now, the inflation that kicks off under President Biden is one of the pieces, not the only, but is a result that big and bold came with a price, not just economic, it came with a political price, because inflation kicked off and it was known at the time it would warned. But there was something considerations done
where politics was to be honest, more valuable. And I think sometimes also if I could in the rewrite less is more, it became a giant appropriation bill rather than a strategically thought through and you can that criticism also applies to certain things we did under President Obama's first bill, also the recovery bill, which is became too big of an funding bill rather than a strategic approach to either the recession and or post COVID A present bien so.
Rom is your point then that it then clouded over some of the accomplishments on those other bills. There's sort of three legged stool that I was arguing, we're not insignificant the chips and Science ACKed and the Infrastructure bill, and in making those investments intentionally in the IRA that have benefited disproportionately rural and read parts of this country.
There's no look, look, you got three or four. In my view, there's telling people that the economy is great when they're feeling stressed as if you're like tone deaf. That's wrong.
Two, that's on the politics.
Okay. Ye Second, people ready breaking news, people like order versus disorder. You're talking to the guy in clinton White House who put together Operation Gatekeeper on San Diego and the border looked totally out of control. I think American people are actually more receptive on immigration, but they don't like the law being broken and being so flavingly disregarded. And we allowed it to happen. And then Third our party, and I've spoken about this, got into a cultural cul
de sact. You know, Look, we weren't good on the kitchen table issues. We weren't really good in the family room. The only room we really did well in the house was a bathroom. And I don't know if you know this, Governor, but the bathroom is the smallest room in the house, and that's the only place we were good. Okay. And my view is we not only looked like we were on the cultural purphery, we looked like that's what was front and center for us. And I'm sorry, I've written
about this, I've talked about it. Stop the bathroom in the locker room. It's not more important than the classroom and the kitchen table. A lot of things get discussed at that kitchen table. What's going on in the neighborhood, who are the kids hanging with? How does technology affect our children's isolation. They're in the basement. I can't get them off off the telephone. There's a whole host of
issues that happened that happened in your kitchen table. They happened at my kidchen table, and they go from the kitchen table to the family room to night when you have five minutes to talk to your loved one and your partner about what we're going to do. So we actually got totally sidetracked into a discussion. Now, as a party,
we're an accepting party, but we started becoming advocates. And I'm sorry when two thirds of our kids can't read at grade level the worst than thirty years, two curiods that our kids can't do math at the worst level in thirty years, that's the priority. You make it for your own children, and we didn't make it for the American children. And this really like, Yes, I was in Japan, I couldn't have been a happier, but I was like I was watching America from did I say, what do
you guys? And we lost our mind. This is a p The Democratic Party is about the American dream, owning a home, save you for your retirement, save you for your kids' education, and making sure that grandma wasn't one mills away from the chapter eleven and moving into the house you wanted her blocks away. Okay, And the American
dream is not accessible, it's not affordable. That's the That is what should motivate us as Democrats to speak to now the opportunity for us, if I can go on in a tirade here, By the.
Way, you sound very much like I have lately. So keep going wrong, keep going.
Well, the Democratic Party. Look between now in twenty twenty six, this is gonna be a referendum on Donald Trump, and there's gonna be a lot of energy. It's not gonna be about us. It's gonna be about him.
But you're not arguing for that. You're arguing for something bolder and bigger, beyond me.
Here's what I'm arguing because with the day twenty twenty six is over.
Yeah, got to turn that page.
But and if you want the American people to give you the keys to the car, you got to know how to drive. Yep, you got to know that you have more. You have a Google map to the American dream that you know how to share that car, not get it off onto the shoulder of the road, and you know how to take it. So not just new some children and the emmanual children can one day own a home. You have kids graduating college with thirty five thousand dollars in debt and they're living in the basement
till the thirty five. This is not how you and I grew up. Then you got grandma living upstairs and where the kids used to live because she can't afford to live on Social Security and Medicare, and she's skipping medication and you're skipping doctor visits. This is insane. And if we're gonna get the keys to the car between twenty twenty six and twenty twenty eight, we got to tell people you're not going to get the shaft anymore.
And I may not solve this problem, and I may have my tongue hanging out of my mouth at the end like a dog racer, but I am going to work every day to make sure that more and more American children and more American families have access to that dream, and it has been and the reason our politics are where they are and the reason we have Donald Trump is that trust between the American people, the American dream, and those of us who are stewards of it has
been broken, and we need to repair it. And that's our number one goal.
Well, I appreciate everything you said, and I also appreciated your courage of saying which I was right there with you calling our party brand, which was not very well received, at least with my inbox. When I called our party brand a toxic, I mean when you're twenty seven percent and that you know we have a high water market twenty nine percent on a CNN poll, only to see twenty seven percent a few days later at NBC poll.
Where people don't trust us, they don't think we're we have their backs on issues that are core to them, which are these kitchen table issues.
It is both the kitchen table issue and the family issues.
And you mean family brought broadly defined in what in what contexts done when we.
Say, let me say a couple of things. Now, I'm a product my experiences. President Clinton is infamous in the ninety two election for the economy stupid, But there were a set of issues coming on the heels of both Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and then Dacaucus where he talked about ending welfare as we know it, a shorthand in
your state. Coming out of the Rodney King Sister Soldier moment, that he was centered on a set of values that all of us collectively had a consensus around, so that the economic message about the middle class first could be heard. And for President Obama it became deal with Father Wright, his pastor who's made some very ugly comments. For President Kennedy, it was going to Texas to give a speech and say I'll be a president who's Catholic, but not a
Catholic president. There were threshold issues that were important on the cultural front that allowed the rest of what we had to say a permission slip to get hurt. That's a political analysis. And I would say to you the kitchen cable and the family room are of one piece, and we got stuck as a party in the bathroom, which I say jokingly but as serious it is the smallest room in the house, and we're not going to be heard on a set of issues. And you say
twenty seven percent. We earned that twenty seven percent the old fashioned way. We turned our back on the American people and they had they had hope in us, they put their confidence in us, and we walked away from that contract with them.
Ron, what you just said, I think is really powerful and important, and because in order for people to hear the other message, they had to hear that what you I mean, they had to hear that we were connected on some of those other issues, meaning it's not just an economic message. I mean, that was I think Biden's frustration. He was talking about Bill back better. He was talking about an ECONO message. He was talking about his worker
centered industrial policy. But it wasn't necessarily breaking through because we couldn't break out, as you point, of the bathroom debates, the pronoun debates, and all these other debates.
I've said this before, so I'll say it here in his Last State of the Union, if my theory of the case is right. In the Last State of the Union, when he was not reading off script, he said, when he went off script, he said illegal immigrants people. All of Washington's immigration groups started yelling at the white number and they went to undocumented. Now, to me, that was the slowest pitch over the center plate.
He just said, look, no one's illegal. I remember it. I remember it well, right, yeah.
And he switched to the voices on K Street of Washington. And to me, that was the easiest way of showing, as I showed Kennedy, Clinton and Obama head different footprints on this area of what I call a cultural landscape, where he could have said, look, uh h, I said what I said. I'm sticking by what I said. If you don't like it, you can use whatever term you want. And this is I find ironic from a bunch of people yelling at you when you say, don't say defund
the police. They say it doesn't mean what it says. Well, don't use English language. Set okay. If it doesn't mean, I use English ariage convey what I mean, not what I don't mean. So to me, we put ourselves in a position where we're not seen or heard by the American people because we disappointed them.
So you're and I look, I appreciate the specific example as it relates to Biden in that particular moment, as relates to legal immigration versus undocumented, but broadly, how do you sort of reflect there's a lot of dialectic within
the party or not within the party, within punditry. More broadly than that, it's the weaponization of grievance the other side so much more effective, making CRT D I E S, G I R S, you know, DOJ anything with three letters the issue of the day, and that they're able to surround sound Sinclair Media, not just Fox Newsmax, not just One American News, not just the Bogga sphere and the manisphere, but their ability to shape shift and constantly we're on the defensive in that respect, and they color
things in and even if we're trying to run away from those issues, we don't even want to adult indulge in those issues. We have an almost impossible time in that media landscape of breaking out and getting back on our message. How do you reflect on that? Is that a component part or is it still we're not victims and we need to take more accountability.
Look, they do have a very powerful ecosystem, but you know, even with the ecosystem, they lost Wisconsin. They lost they lost over every special lection. So I mean one of the things that you and I both know this, don't over don't overinflate your opponent's power, and don't underestimate it either. That have a powerful ecosystem? Yes do we sometimes? Are we our worst marketers? Latin x one hundred thousand? You know, defund the police? I can give you chapter in versu
of terminology. We you know, I'm not. I actually appreciate the spirit. Okay, So don't get me. I appreciate the spirit of those that are going around on protest calling oligarchs. You're all over California. How many people in your you've been to lieutenant governor, governor? How many times did somebody come up to use that oligarch rather than or big, big, big fat special interests? Okay? Why don't we use terms that.
People diners understand?
Okay, well I didn't know we were applying for our ten year position. Okay, give me a break. So are we our worst? Are we our worst victims? Yes? Do they have a more sophisticated ecosystem? Yes? Do people like his tariffs? No? Did we win in Wisconsin? Yes? Did they lose a Scambia county where Pensacola is and it's fourteen percent veterans, double the national average. The first time since five decades a Democrat won that in a national election.
Trump wanted by nineteen, we wanted by three. Yeah, So I don't overestimate the power of it. I think I like to have that ecosystem, and I like to be more strategic and more sophisticated about how we talk about what's cord us. I wouldn't want to be a better talker about the locker room in the bathroom. I'd rather be a better talker and have a good ecosystem about this is what we're going to do to improve readings course, Here's how we're going to make sure that kids can
do math at math level. Here's how we're going to do with the chronic apps and teism rate. So I'd like to have that ecosystem if I was focused on the right things, if I was saying, you know, there's not to tout it, but you know, we created universal pre king in Chicago. Never had it, universal kindergarten never had it. Free community college for Bee students never had it.
So I like to have the ecosystem that tells that story and why it's important that two thirds of the twenty thousand kids that went to college for community college for free for the first in the family ever went that passport, that education. That's your visa and your passport to the future. I think there's other ways you So I want the ecosystem and I want the way to talk about what we're doing in a strategically focused way.
Not that makes me feel better about me, but makes them feel better that I'm actually in their sleeves, rolled up like a beaten dog. Worker for.
Rob are you. We'll segue a little bit off that you you had deep experience with all things tactical in political particularly not and you've had a remarkable career in so many remarkable roles, working for three presidents too, in sort of more lead and established stablished status. What but the Congressional Committee what you were running that what nineteen two thousand and six? Right, Yeah, And I bring up two thousand and six in this context because after two
thousand and four, I remember everybody we got slacked. They won the popular vote, the electoral vote. Democratic Party was toast. Everyone was running saying we got to go to Applebee's read you know what's wrong with Kansas. This is before hillbilly elegy, the whole thing. And you know, we're too elite, we're two out of touch and then all of a sudden, two years later, you successfully went back the House, overwhelming
someone by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. And in two thousand and eight, you guys went with the biggest landslide since nineteen sixty four or fifty three percent of the vote, And all of a sudden, you're on transition team and chief of staff of some guy named Obama. Is this two thousand and four all over again? If we do it right? Or are we in a deeper, darker wilderness at this moment from your perspective?
So on an anecdote. So the day after we win O six, you'll appreciate this. This is the day of President Trump. A President Bush rather given that press conference, said we took a thumping.
Yeah.
I'm in my uh teat Democratic Congressional campaign community. I love this story. Uh. And it's President Bush. And he called to say, I want to congratulate you on a great rate. You know, the racer ran etcetera, etcetera. And I said, uh, I said, uh, mister President, I said I want to thank you, and he goes, what do you hear? I said, you did We did everything we needed to do, and you did everything we wanted you
to do. That was he wouldn't fire Rumhall. It was also that, you know, he goes, you know what, You're as big a prick as they see. We started to laughing our asses off. I said, here to serve, mister President, and we were actually we're very respectful because I you know, two years later, as you said, I'm chief of staff, etcetera. I think this gets back to what I said to you. Between now and two twenty twenty six, it's all about
Trump and it's a referendum him and the Republicans. But we better do the intellectual work right now on that window of time between twenty twenty six and twenty twenty eight is going to come fast and furious, and we're not going to be living off the fumes of Donald Trump. We got to be livinged. We're not going to just fight Donald Trump. We're going to fight for America. And I'm spending my time intellectually. What is that fight for America?
I love it so rob. So there's a simple question. It's the last question. And I don't want any bullshit from politician.
I don't like this.
Oh are you or are you not running for president of the United States? Rom I want to know right now, noneother bs the American people decide what is the answer.
Here's here's the answer, which is if I think I know the answer to that question, which is the question I said, which is what is the fight for America? And I haven't I have something to contribute to that, I'll throw I'll deal with that. But if I don't think I have something that over yourself, governor, my governor, here are other governors that I think they're doing what I would do and enunciating that because being Trump ain't
gonna get you squat in twenty twenty seven. If I have something to say and I've never been shy about saying it, and I don't think anybody else is saying it, and I thought through my head how to do it, I'll deal with that. I got a thought for something first that I think the American people need to hear.
Well, we heard a lot today and I really appreciate it.
Like the record of show Comnor you were the first to swear on this show, not me.
I don't Bullshit's not even a swear word. Jesus.
I mean, come on, I love you said, see you brother back