This is Gavin Newsom and this is Steve Bannett. Well, Steve, thanks so much for taking the time to be here. And I want to take this opportunity to sort of, you know, go back a little bit and talk about your history, a little bit about your motivations and where you see this country and for that matter, of the
world going. But it's impossible not to note the world that we're living in a relationship to everything happening with the markets, everything happening with the with tariffs, everything happening UH with c R and a potential government.
Don't don't don't be given tariffs think. I don't want to start off with you giving a stink. I already. Well we'll streuss a I'm a tariff guy.
I appreciate that. And well we'll see, we'll see, we'll stress.
The purpose I want to do this is I want to convert you to be a tariff guy. Also, this is this is part of the process to unwind you from being a globalist, to make you a populist nationalist. It's a long journey. It's a long journey. It's a long journey, but I think you'll get there.
This is part of the deprogramming, is it. I appreciate And by the way, for the record, I'm going down your rabbit hole right here. I'm not an absolutists as it relates to being against terrorists by any stretched the imagination. And I thought it interesting where we what I think Biden tripled tariffs on illumined and steel, which is getting a lot of attention in this country today as relates to Canada, and Democrats weren't screaming and yelling about that so well.
I mean, Fetterman, look you've got you know. By the way, thanks Governor for doing this. I really appreciate it. One to have this conversation for a long time. You know, two of the of the three best economic populists in the Democratic Party, who I think are kind of on an island. One of the best is Roquahanna Rose. Economic patriotism, which we always kid him is just ripping off Navarre and my economic nationalism is is you know, he's an
economic populist. So is Fetterman. Fetterman just announced, you know we're here today during the CR. Freederman just announced he would support the CR if it came in as a Fetterman is a populist and then shared Brown. Sharon Brown I think has been an economic populist for a long time. So there are very strong voices in the Democratic Party. I think now unfortunately as a populist, I think they're kind of on an island because it really hasn't been
the center of the conversation with the Democratic Party. But I think those three are are pretty good as far as populist and.
See I mean in terms of populism, then it's a good segue. How do you define that?
Then?
What's I mean? Is it a principle? Is right? Obviously maybe a component part, But how do you define populism, particularly in a relationship to their reflective lens in terms of.
What populism Obviously we believe in subsidiary, We believe in bringing power back to the grassroots level. Right. We're very anti elitist, and one of the reasons is we think the elites in this country, you know, the highly educated elites, the political class, the Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, all of it, have really forgotten the underlying kind of principles of the country and kind of left working class people,
regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference. You know, you pick it, they've kind of forgotten. And that's why such a big push for kind of these populous economic policies that look to put the lens is not just America first, but American citizens first, and goes with tax policy, it goes with tariffs, it goes to bringing manufacturing jobs back.
It's nationalistic in the fact that not isolationists, but understanding that we've got to make it right for American citizens and particularly for the greatest resource we've had or ever had, which is the American working men and woman. So it's to push every decision as down low as possible and to get everything back to a grassroots level. And one of the keys to populism kind of about the sovereign
will is that the use of human agency. That just don't sit there and say, you know, somebody else's got congressman's got to do something, or a senator's got to do something, or governor's got to do something. Of that, you have to use your agency only. And I see this in the Democratic Party now, the people saying do something, do something. I think that's a lesson that we learned
after President Trump. And look, you know, we disagree on this, but President Trump won the twenty twenty election, and we were kind of shattered as a movement when he left Washington, d C. And we had to go back to basics to say, you know, it can't be somebody else do something. You know, we had to do something, and that's where we went back to really a pure populist movement, to go at the grassroots, the precinct strategy and kind of rebuild ourselves from there.
Well, and I appreciate the notion of agency, that we're not bystanders in the world. It's decisions, not conditions that determine our fade in future, and that that that fundamental notion of agency, I think is important more broadly, and I think that goes to some of the issues around, you know, victimization, and I see a lot of that, respectively on the right increasingly, even with Trump often reaching things from that sort of mindset.
Do you what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? For Trump?
I think there's sort of the grievance narrative that comes from Trump, this this notion there is there sort of a victim.
But they did try to they did try they did try to put him in prison for three hundred years right, they did try to bangrupt, So that's a guy it
never had ever had a set of grievances. They did steal according to us, and we're firm believes it is the twenty twenty election, which I think worked out better that providentially that he was able to come back with that gap, because I think you're seeing a a much more uh not just do and improved, but somebody that's much more in command of these decisions and really stepping up in a way that we could have never done before. But no, I don't think it's grievances. I think it's reality.
I mean, they tried to. No one in American history has the system ever come after. And I think that's one of the problems that the Democrats you've got in a position of having to defense. Remember I come from a working class Democratic family.
Kennedy Democratic family, Kennedy a Democrat.
I was telling some people last night, I said, we didn't know any Republicans. There were just we were Irish, Catholic, working class phone company firemen, you know, a navy enlisted people. You didn't know any Republicans. They just weren't in your you know, we were in the South also, which is all you know, machine democratic politics. So you didn't know anybody.
You didn't know anybody then, and so to see what President Trump had to go through and to see how we've actively changed the Republican Party to actually the working
class party in this country. You know, it was a poll done last spring that showed that we as a Republican Party at the working class party and viewed as such, and that President Trump's the leader of that working class party, and the Democrats have become both not just the Wall Street elitist but also kind of the credential class with the poor underneath it, of which we're now trying to obviously recruit not just the working poor, but actually the poor it self to join our broadening coalition.
Well, I appreciate it. I want to and i'll I want to talk more about that because I think it's interesting, just as one of the points of contrast with you, Anne, Frankly, Trump himself right now is on some of the issues of tax policy in relationship this notion of who are you fo And you've been pretty critical about the proposed tax the extension of the existing tax cuts that disproportionately favor the wealthiest, and you were making the point that
it should disproportionately focus on the middle class and work.
You know, Governor, I'm not so sure. Let me get there. So in seventeen I was a big advocate of that in the first Trump tax plan of actually raising the rates on the upper bracket and doing actually more to the lower bracket of corporations. And it was not just what I thought was right, but also politically expedient at
that time. In the spring of twenty seventeen, it was really Bernie Sanders and the Pocahontas that was going to be the number one in Elizabeth is going to be pocahon as we called going to be the challengers coming from the populace left, and I thought it was very important to nip that in the by the time and raise the brackets. Now, I think history shows that they can show you the math that they're doing. All of that actually worked in Unison and got us that great
you know, twenty nineteen. Today, in President Trump, I think invest in are pretty upfront that this is the last chance we're going to get it. A supply side cut of that four trillion dollars. I think the two point six trillion dollars of joint you know, four hundred thousand below of couples, and I think you add another couple one hundred billion dollars for maybe the pass throughs to
the LLCs. The entrepreneurs get caught up. But that additional trillion dollars unless it's going to be shown mathematically, and I think people are working on this that they consume. You know, right now, I think the top three percent consumer almost fifty percent of what's going to the country. Unless that you're concerned that that would kick you into a major recession of that one away, I am. I'm
pretty adamant about that. You shouldn't the upper bracket shouldn't get it, and even some of the corporations shouldn't get it if they're just going to do stock buybacks. But additional tax cuts should go as President Trump promised, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and particularly no tax on social security. Yeah anything.
His current proposal done that up. Then in that respect well as the deficit and continues those corporate tax cuts and continues the tax cuts to the wealthiest. So it runs.
And I think we're not to be argumentative, no appreciate it we want to have an open dialog. I think when you look at Besson, and Charlie Gasparino had a pretty good piece in the New York Post today about this. If you add in, if you look at the growth
rates and it's predicating on growth. You look at a growth rate two and a half to three percent, right, if you look at what we're trying to do in cutting federal spending in addition doze which is the way frauden abuse, and you look at additional revenues externally from tariffs you can get to and what Besson's trying to do is take the deficit from six and a half percent of GDP down to three and a half percent
of GDP. So this is not this out of control explosion of two trillion dollars in deficits which we as Republicans are about to sign off on today. Just so your audience understands this cr today, the House will approve the Biden Kamala Harris spending for this year, locking it in, locking it in.
And that's how you can't be I mean, how are you out there supporting that?
Then? Well, because right now I think with everything at do and by the way, it's just it's that plus it's a two tran dollar deficit. Okay. I think the reason we're doing it is that the House has not gotten their act together to get these single subject appropriations bills done. They are committed to do that working with Democrats in the spring and some of this year for
fiscal year twenty six. And I think to keep the to keep the government open, to keep President Trump hitting on alls, there's to keep doze at work in federal court overnight, the federal courts are coming after this is on at least information. We expect many more lawsuits about that. But I think in the effort to do it, we're prepared, and you know, we hate, we hate any cr this one we've hated for a long time. We're prepared to
go along with the Presiden says he needs it. What I love about Johnson for the first time, they just announced that they're going to vote on it this afternoon. He thinks he's got the votes in the House to do it. Then they're going on recess. They're send it over to the Democratic Senate with that play me or trade me.
It's right, and they need seven votes on the Senate side in order to get this done. Otherwise we've got a government shut down, it yet another one. What is your over under on the prospects of that.
I think it's interesting. I think the Democrats have to make a decision of whether they think it's better to keep it going and keep the resistance they've got in the legislative part, but also in the courts or let elon musk, you know, the potentially unchaining h with the DOSEE groups, on on who's you know, who's who's a necessary employee versus who's an unnecessary employee. I think it's the first time because traditionally the Democrats have always been
for keeping the government open. I think they put him in a real conjurary, and I think this is Johnson's It's going to be high stakes poker. I think this afternoon. But people should understand this is a this is a bitter pill to swallow for us, because we have argued this is the whole reason. Kevin McCarthy, a guy you know very well from California, we got turfed out his speaker.
It was all over. It was the deal he cut with Biden that gave President Biden two years and unlimited no debt ceiling to spend and run up, and McCarthy then didn't deliver on the single subject appropriations bills and he got turfed out. So your audience understand, these are huge fights on our side of the football all the time about spending.
So locking in the Biden era budget or at least extending it and kicking it out. It's the last thing I expected to see coming from your side of the aisle, or at least in the MAGA movement. But also even you saying something complimentary about Speaker Johnson, you've been pretty critical. I've been very critical.
I think we're I think we're I've been very up until today, I've been very critical about we're in this job because of over promising and underperforming. And I think you've got in leadership, I think now, and I think it's a long way from him being out of the woods. Is that now? Because you got you got only he's got six months now he's got to deliver like a real budget with real cuts. Because just back for your audience,
the doge effort is waste for an abuse. Okay, they're kind of like shock troops or special forces, and people can either say they're great or whatever. I would like to see a little more definition of what they've actually found. Okay, all of us Wouldsparency, I agree with you, more more transparency, but I think but that doesn't to me get to the to the to the the meat of it, because I think you're going to have to have programmatic cuts, and I've been a big proponent that those programmatic cuts
have to start in the Defense department. I was a naval officer for a years. My daughter went to West Points. I'm not a dove, but I think I've been a big critic of the tree. And we're at a trillion dollars now, and that's one of the reasons of this postwar international rules based order. We just can't continue on with NATO. We got to have allies that really pitch
in here. But you got to start in the Defense department program at you have to do programs and bills to get to get the budget deficit to three and a half percent of GDP roughly under a trellion dollars, so that we can start somehow we can begin to finance this because right now that's the driver of inflation, you know, Biden, the they just restated their numbers from
the fourth quarter. And traditionally the Biden thing has always been the labored number has always been different, right, It's been, you know, one thing and then, and we've criticized that for a long time. This one the shocker, and I don't think that. And I've said this that the guys in the economic team did enough for President trumpet pushing this. The inflation number went from two point two percent to four point two percent, and it really didn't even get
mentioned in the Business for US. And I said, that shows you the underlying kind of burning inflation. And the reason that is the finance. You have to finance now essentially a third of the debt every year, so you're talking, I don't know, ten twelve trellion dollars, the government securities you have to sell at higher interest rates. That's what's driving inflation. Plus I think a two loose federal reserves, so you had both a fiscal overspending and a monetary
loose money. We've got an inflation problem that's not going to be easily solved. The way to solve inflation is you have to cut I believe federal spending dramatically. You have a canesy and kind of stimulus all the time, and you have to do it, and that's going to lead to painful conversations. It just is because if dose doesn't find all this waste for an abuse right and they're saying now they think they can get a trellion dollars, which would cut the deficit in half.
Either you can't get a tree and back to your point without significant programmatic cuts. And I appreciate the defense frame, which is anathema. I mean the cring increases the defense spending and in a higher rate, but you can't get there without cuts to something that you, to your credit, have said. You know, you can't put a quote unquote mee.
I came, I came to medicaid, I came out of the Pentagon. And this is why I was adamant about Elon Musk what we called crossing the Potomac. There's a point in time that people were saying, well, let Pete Hexath handle the Pentagon. Elie I said no to get if you're going to get prog first off waste fard in reviews. I think everybody has to get everyone, and not just that the Pentagon's got to step up. People have to know that if the way because it's always rumored.
You know this, they can't pass an audit. It's two trillion dollars of.
Two trillion just for the damn F thirty five, which gets programmatically.
But there's two training on the audit. I think there's true training and assets they can't put their hands on. John Stewart was just lighting up one of the Undersecretary's defense I think a couple of weeks ago about this. So you have to do that. But then programmatically, and this is why I think President Trump's hemisphere, the shift to hemispheric defense, which is from Greenland to the Panama canal more of a naval strategy in the It's the three island chains and really the the vast desert of
the Pacific is really the American heartland. That's our defensive barrier. That to me, should restructure the entire Pentagon and armed forces to that. To force structure around that. I think Pete hex has got to move immediately. I think there should be significant cuts to the Defense Department, and then that would give you the political cover to then say on medicaid, you know, we got to be sensible here right now with the economic distress, there's a lot of MAGA on Medicaid and a lot.
Of overwhelming opposition to cut in it, and and.
And I think by you know, the illegal aliens and and and UH and obviously the waste, fraud and abuse and and some of the things about you know, a block granting it back to a governor like yourself in the California UH. To figure it out has to happen. And how the social programs. This is not going to be painless to we've been so out of control and so and it's both parties. The Republican Party has been
controlled opposition. They have not had these tough fights. That's the tough fights we're going to have to happen.
And to be fair, so people understand, and it's not an indictment to your point about both parties. But you know, another eight point four trillion dollars went to the debt under Trump administration. And to be fair, COVID had a huge part of that, but it's three trillion even before COVID hit to your point, And I remember talking by
the way, you'll appreciate this, Steve. I remember being in Marine one talking to Trump, President Trump about the issue of the deficit, and he literally looks at me, and he goes like this with his hands and he said printing press, printing press, and literally dismissed it.
He was kidding, he was kidding.
Yeah, well, I'm not the way he governed the first four years. I'm not sure you know that first.
By the way, the first couple of years, the first couple of years, the deficits were under I think four or five hundred million dollars. We came very close to actually trying to balance it if we went back to pre COVID spending. I mean, Scott Beston says this all the time. We don't have a revenue problem, and this is a verber I would think about having to increase your taxes. We have a spending problem. I mean, post COVID, we've had explosion of some of these programs. I think he
got to get your arms around him. But once again, these are going to be huge fights and they're not going to be painless. What I like about Johnson today for the first time, because I think he's tapped us along and over promise and now we're in a situation that, you know, we have to do a cr which we hate. If you think that the Magabase and our show. We
represent the hardest core of the hardcore. If you think we like sitting here and basically not lighting up the phones and accepting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's budget, it's a tough pill.
And it's a tell of a thing. I mean, I'm enjoying watching this in some respects.
No, but what I liked about what I liked about him. He's voting and going home. He's going to put it right on the Democrats about shutting down the government and not. And I think you're going to have a real firestorm in the Senate, and I think a fascinating debate about the direction of the country. And I think we're going to see that. I think we're going to see that coming. I think we'll see voices like Fetterman and others start to step up and take a much more prominent role
in Democratic Party. Because one thing I keep saying all the time, if you'd watch MSNBC and CNN, you never really see the populist on the economic side. You don't see the Roe Qahannas getting the time. You don't see fetter men really getting the time. Sharon Brown and Shure didn't want to do national TV, But you never see really the economic populist ever really get They kind of roll out Bernie Sanders, who I'm not a fan of, but they don't really ever get to the other guys.
I think that's all going to come quite different in the in the days and weeks ahead.
Well, I think just you know, listening on those of you that that may have some familiarity to you, but never have taken the time to actually listen to you or tune into the war room. I mean the idea that you're even talking about the corporate tax rate and the tax rate for the wealthiest among us and having I mean the fact that you're having this, we're having
this dialogue about your different approach. I mean, in some ways it's the California tax policy as it relates to more progressive tax policy that favors the working class that we.
Would never take any we would never take anything from California.
Understand what I'm just I'm challenging you then.
But you're over you're grossly over taxed in California.
We want to cut we have we have moderate income taxes for middle class working folks. It's the top tax rate which you're arguing for a little higher tax rate, which I appreciate the corporate tax side. I don't know if it's completely dissimilar. I don't want to get you in trouble. But on the issue of terrorists, I want to go back to that because you're a big you know, you're a big supporter of terrorists. I mean, right now this, you know, this tit for tat. What's going on in Ontario.
We doubled another twenty five percent. Uh, back to illuminum steel up in Canada, we're already seeing I think we're increasing.
I think we're increasing aluminum still. I think he said today one hundred percent. There was another truth. So I think it was a true social not that it's tit for tat, but there was a true social right came by the.
Way, I think there were one hundred, literally one hundred true social posts. Uh. And you know, with respect on terror policy, it seems a little chaotic. There's no stability. The markets are reflecting that. I used to say the most powerful force in the world was mother nature. Now I say the markets. I mean, people, there's this now you're seeing even well, I will trust session you're seeing Trump.
I say that the bond market, the bond market more than the stock market. The bond market has turfed out more governments than Howartzer's. If you look over the last couple of years, Liz Trust in England, really the Assembly in France on the Macrone, the Germans right, the Italians are probably close to a sovereign debt crisis. Spain, England's been to a couple of governments even starmers under under real pressure. So no, the global copple markets, particularly when
you have to borrow this much money. The ten year treasury is you know, Bob Rubin used to run the country on the Clinton and this is why Carvel said, I want to come back. As I come back, I want to come back as as a ten year bond or the bond market those set that that ten year bond sets everybody's economic you know, underpinnings, and so it's very important. But I think with President Trump it's it's
both a gross strategy and part of his tariffs. You know, Governor, it shouldn't be lost that the tariffs have many different aspects to a number one. He wants to get back at least some back to more of the American plan. From Alexander Hamilton McKinley. Before the early nineteen hundreds, driven by the earthquake in San Francisco. In the fire, we had a massive financial panic and that led to really the internal revenue service and people focusing more on getting
off American domosile companies and American citizens. President Trump wants to go back to more external revenue. That's part of the terriffs. He looks at the US as a premium market, and so you would pay a premium to get access to here, like you would get a skybox at a sporting event or sit in the front row of a concert.
And he's got a but he's got an out if you want an out, because the tariffs are going to be substantial, right and particularly in Mexico and Canada, so you can't game the system manufacturing, manufacturing wise and against China. Just look over the last you know, he's been there forty days. I think over the last three or four weeks,
you've had almost a trillion dollars. I think it's eight hundred million dollars from Honda, from Siemens, from app if a five hundred bion dollars taiwan A semiconductor, you know, one hundred billion dollars in four years. These are massive capital investments in top grade. This is not some sovereign wealth fund saying I'm a coming. It's not mascles on it's soft bank saying I'm going to throw one hundred million dollars. These are companies that are relocating here, and
a big part of that is the terriffs. They say, look, we want to get into the United States, we want to manufacture domestically. It's got a logistics supply chain we can control. It's got you know, it's got the rule of law. But most importantly done half terriffs, and it's got lower energy costs. That's the new economic model, and it's going to go through some choppy water to get there. So these are just not twenty five percent tariff on an avocado coming from Mexico or some part under the
hood from from Canada. It's much more systematic. Now I understand the way it was rolled out because of the emergency nature of it. The focus was on fentanyl and this chemical warfare.
Yeah, which is a little a little bs, isn't it. I mean you a larger economic populism frame here. Let's just be honest with folks that had nothing to do with the tyrannical nature of prime minister or fifty first governor of America. Uh, justin Trudeau's no, no, but but hold it.
The Canadians have been The Canadians are one of the tough. This is why I recip when he talked about reciprocy on August. On April second, you're going to have reciprocity and tariffs in India and Canada.
Is that any you think that's going to go in effect in April? You think you mean with all the uncertainty, the market uncertainty, the Trump slump, all of the stress and the anxiety that people are feeling all the day.
I don't call it the I don't call it the Trump slump.
Listen, others.
No. Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett's who's a big Democrat and a supporter of many Democratic politicians, cause you know him very well. He went to cash. He's sitting on three hundred and fifty bion dollars in cash. A couple months ago. I think he realized that a lot of the market, particularly equity markets, were driven by Navidia and other a. All this Ai first kind of stage, there was a
lot of fluff in that. So I think with President Trump, I do think they're coming in because I think he's he's changing the geostrategic model of the United States back to a hemispheric defense, away from the post war international rules based order, which has really gut at the United States. It was great for a while.
Eighty years of relative peace and prosperity in America dominated. I mean, I mean, there's a lot of to do.
But it got it. But he got it the middle class, remember, in the working class, and at the end of the day, we had allies that were taking advantage of it. Let's give me a second.
This.
If you take the rim of the Eurasian landmash, you got Western Europe, the Persian Gulf, the Golf emer It's Middle East. Then you've got the Straits of Malacca, the South China Sea, and then up to Korea and Japan. Those four nodes we have commercial relationships, trade deals, capital markets, integration, some cultural interface, but it's it's an American security guarantee. This is how whether it's NATO or the Middle East or a South China or are up with Japan and Korea.
We have combat troops there. You know, we have one hundred and fifty thousand troops deployed today and I think one hundred and fifteen countries. This is one of the reasons people talk about foreign aid with usaid, which I'm against a lot of this stuff going on, but it pales in comparison to what we're underwriting for countries that were upside down on every trade deal. Our trade deficit in I think in January low was a record trade deficit.
I think it's one hundred billion dollars, so not to so we have budget deficits, we have trade deficits, and are kind of inter strictly link because we've got it all the manufacturing jobs, we've all shored those. And I think Trump's geoeconomic strategy is a massive rearshuring process. And I think you're seeing this now. And I might note,
and I don't want to take a cheap shop. A lot of those tradition would go back to California, but they're going to Arizona and Texas because I think they're looking at red states now as having lower regulation, lower taxes, and people are going there. And I think this is going to change a massive the demographic change in the United States, as you have Trump's reshowing come back to the United States, and so you'll be fair tied to that's tied to getting unwinding the post war international rules
based order. We're going to tell people that, hey, we're not going to be everywhere. Kids from California are not going to be on carry battle groups. You know, guys deployed from San Diego and kids that live in the Inland Empire are not going to be deployed in the Red Sea with two carry battle groups. They keep the Suez Canal open so that Europe can get you know, can get energy resources from the Persian Gulf. I think
those days are kind of over. We'll pick and choose as we as we as we pull back and look at hemispheric defense, not retreat from the world, not be isolationists, but kind of take care of the homeland first, and particularly take care of the people in the homeland, the working class, in middle class.
I appreciate how you laid all that out. What you know, I think there's risk in the context of the argument to move into multipolar world and obviously the security umbrellas that will radically reorganize themselves. You've already seen now with Mertz in Germany, in the relationship with obviously Britain and France, but also I worry about Japan and South Korea and that relationship. I worry about the nature of our broader influence.
But I want to step back. There was a lot that influenced a lot of those companies you said that are coming back to the United States of America. Do you not agree that the industrial policies of the Biden administration as it relates to the Infrastructure Bill, aspects of the IRA, aspects of the Chips and Science Act, were they not determinative from an industrial worker center policy perspective?
Were they not also influential in the decision for people to begin into quote unquote reshore or they pray.
It might have been at the beginning, but it was President Trump they announcedore in President Trump's term. If President Trump had not won this election, he just had common those companies.
Now, I mean, do you know record does but there was record investments in coming back during the.
I think about it, correct me if I'm wrong. I think Biden in the tire four years is one point seven trillion dollars of capital investment back here from I think companies, not just private.
Ectory from the private sector, from the private sector.
Right, not just saying but Trump's almost at a trillion dollars in four weeks. And these are Apple because they understand that Trump represents a populist nationalist that's only growing and only going to expand, right, And and people are now focused on this. And that's why I think you have Honda, you have Siemens, you have you know, the semiconductor company is huge, you know, the most advanced, I
would say, semiconductor manufacturer in the world. The other thing, I think it's quite interesting that traditionally our tech area in one twenty eight in Boston, in Silicon Valley are built around great engineering schools built around Berkeley and Stanford, are built around Harvard and MIT. You know, when you start relocating to Arizona on something that's both an art and a science like advanced chip design, and you know, I love my crow at Arizona State. He's a buddy
of mine in Universey. Arizona's a great square. I love Arizona. They're not exactly m I, t or Or or Stanford. And I think it's showing you that the Red States have done such a great job. Texas being the lead of actually making these amenable to people's needs as companies. That they're coming back there and I think is going to have a huge political impact and a huge demographic But they didn't come in Biden Harris, and if Kamala Harris won, certainly they wouldn't have come because she's still
a globalist. It's not prepared to disrupt the global supply chains. President Trump's prepared to do that because reashoring. They're not going to come back here unless you incentivize them to come back here. And part of that's a carrot, which is what uh, But you know Trump's Trump's better with a stick, and you need to You need a carrot and a stick a those.
And I appreciate the stick, but let's talk about those red states. Aren't they disproportioned the ones impacted by these tariffs. I mean, there's to your point, there's going to be some tears here. And I appreciate the larger geopolitical and what you're trying to argue for ultimately coming out on the other side, but this transition is not overnight. The transition will come at real cost and consequence. Let's just
be pragmatic up in Minnesota, Michigan, in New York. They're looking at one hundred dollars more a month on electricity bills as it relates to reality nature.
Look, but that's a threat that's if it goes through something.
That's just one example. I mean there's not every economist looks at the impacts of these TIFFs, but California will be disproportion held.
We did this, Governor. We did the most significant terrorists we've ever done on the Chinese Comties Party in President Trump's first term, and and and.
Biden held the line on a lot of this that.
Held the line one number one because I think geopolitically he realized that, you know, you've got to stand up to the CCP. And I think although you wouldn't have you wouldn't have heard it from the media that what President Trump did was the beginning stage of something that had to be done to get the attention to the Chinese Congress Party that you just can't continue to game the system. And President Trump went out of his way.
By May of nineteen Lightheiser Navarro had that deal that went to every seven of the categories they had to resolve to really integrate with the Western economy of really the world's economy, including the state owned industries, and they just tore the deal up and walked away right and said screw you. And so that's when these terriffs, and the terriffs didn't increase prices. So when people say they
increased prices, I don't actually think. You have some economists saying theoretically, but when we look at practically back to the golden year of twenty nineteen, you don't actually see it. And I think there may be some dislocations in the short term, but in the intermediate term, I think it's really the way you get to the sunlit uplands of really having back to the American plan of remember world class industrial manufacturing. So many other operas.
Think it's a mutual goal for all of us. But industrial policy, which I think is missing a little bit from the Trump agenda. With targeted tariffs, I understand, but broad tariffs without an industrial policy where I start.
To loss sustain The key is broad sustained. If you have broad and sustained tariffs and people can make capital allocation decisions, particularly small and medium manufacturers. Remember in the Chicago area, I think between nineteen ninety eight and two thousand and five we lost five thousand small manufacturers and a couple of million jobs because we shipped it all to China, and those guys are bigging all the time. These are not the apples and it's not the Taiwan
manufacturing some are manufacturing. These are small, you know, the companies employed under one hundred people, which I think is the life run. In fact, there's a guy in Laguna Beach, John Gardner, who's kind of the leader of this effort to bring the small manufacturing folks back to more craftsmanship type of of manufacturing. We have to do that. We have to become a manufacturing powerhouse again. Uh, we have
to do it quickly. And it's Wall Street is not going to love it because they're all neoliberal, neo cons They want to be they want to be invading everywhere and the and they and they they hate populism. One of the reasons people should understand is the is the is the is a blowback among the donor class in Wall Street. Is not just that the they perceive the economics and not to their benefit because they've concent you've concentrated well so dramatically here since the financial crash of
two thousand and eight. But they hate the fact, and this shows you the Democratic Party. They hate the fact that they're empowering the populist. If we start to win on these tariffs, and we start to win on bringing these back, our movement is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Remember we got thirty nine percent of African American men. I think first time we've got uh
majority of near majority of Hispanics. Because working class people see the opportunities there, and Wall Street understands this, and the corporatis understands. I can't. Corporate America is my enemy number one. They're the leader in the woke movement in this country, but they're also the greed and avarice has
always been for the leaders. In fact that the tax cuts they take, and one of the reasons I hate allowing them to do stock buy backs is they gained the system to drive up stock prices to dry the warrant package and the thing, and they don't put in a capital equipment. Thank you to me.
If you tell your president that, Steve, you got to tell your president that the president presend the status president.
The president knows this already his tax but he go after the carried interest now as he going after corporate subsidies. I'm going to I'm going to break some news here, Governor. I believe that one of the leading things you're going to see in President Trump's tax bill when it comes out, that he's going to take on carried interest and President Trump is finding how.
To be that's a that's it. That's my kind of doge. That's one point three billion dollars small ball, but it's symbolic and subsidence. What about the three billion dollars in oil gas subsidies. I mean, that's ultimate corporate welfare.
What do you mean. We've gotta we gotta drill, baby drill, and we need to.
We're already were thirteen and a half billion barrels a million.
Yes, today we have we need we have to have lower energy costs. And one of the reasons all these companies are coming back. We're never What we got to do is stop. Look you see this in Germany. Germany had this maniacal and you and I are not going to agree on this or even close, but they had this this fetish. They made a mistake carbon zero. They've de industrialized themselves on the Greta Thunberg model, they're three five percent.
They get pretty Gretath of Thumberg, she wasn't even bored. But I appreciate your friend, you know.
But they didn't. There's deindustrializing Germany. We don't want that to happen here in the nice Now we're.
On the same page on that. It's just how we achieve the goal. And by the way, one hundred percent a line on industrial policy bringing manufacturing back, that's workers centered one hundred percent. By the way, I say that as governor of the largest manufacturing state in America, a state that has more corporate headquarters God bless forgive me than any other state in America, more than we've had in over a decade, and that dominates in the innovative space in terms of scientists and researcher.
Hang hang out. You've allowed alcohol. But hang on second, Hang a second. You've also allowed and this you've also allowed the oligarchy of Silicon Valley. And let's talk about Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is on apartheight state, Okay, within within you're one of the most progressive leaders in this country.
Right we disagree probably on everything on the cultural side, but you're you're one of the leaders, you're on the leaders elected officials of the most progressive state, and you're, you know, the leader of that element of the democratic.
Techno feudalism and feudalism. What do you mean by that exactly?
Well, here's what I mean is that two things happen around two thousand and eight to two thousand and ten.
By the way, that's sort of the Tea Party. That's the Wall Street the bailout.
So the bailout, the financial crash of two thousand and eight. And this is why I considered President Obama kind of a tragic figure. Right. He came in as an anti war populace, and I'm opposed to the war in Iraq and every in Afghanistan. My daughter served after West Point in Iraq. And I can tell you as a parent, you realize that you have no control over anything when your kid goes over for you know, defending their country,
represent their country. It's you understand, you know, how insignificant you are. But the financial crash, you know, Geidner and BERNANKI went to a classic Wall Street bailout. You know, we didn't let capitalism, you know, Goldman Sacks got b held at AIG. No corporate guys ever went to prison
on the worst bailout. We had the greatest concentration of wealth until the pandemic happened with the one percent, because you know, the Federal reserves balance sheet went from eight hundred and eighty bion dollars to I think four and a half, right, and and all that liquidity went to bailout real assets and corporate stocks at the same time with Obama when they when they you know, when Obama got this heads up kind of I think it was on Facebook the San Francisco airport, this briefing about how
social media his his weapon to take on the Clinton mafia because he was a relatively unknown guy taking on the most embedded political apparatus in the Democratic Party in modern history. And he took it all with using social media. That was his first thing. And there was a deal, kind of made a Faustian bargain that we wouldn't pursue anti trust, we wouldn't pursue FTC or the Justice Department.
We would allow the the tech oligarchs in the age of the algorithm, the algorithmic age, to to basically dominate and dominate in every one of these these verticals, right, with no real anti anti trust, and what we allowed him to become the most powerful people on earth. Uh And And but what proved out is that both on social media with TikTok, uh and and then with Deep Seek in the AI space, that the Faucian bargain that as a hedge of mind, we said, just give us
the commanding heights, and that didn't happen. In fact, you say it's kind of an utter failure that that the social media is all kind of clunky. It's very dominant, right, but as clunky compared to TikTok. If you look at Ai and whether Deep Seek you think it's a Chinese
syop or it's a spot Nick moment. We clearly we clearly you know, you don't hear a lot of talking about that carbon zero when this thing needs ten times more on the data center, sid it in the in the in the in the in the thing because it's kind of brute force computing.
Has it has resuscitated the nuclear question, which is interesting. So they're exactly because they're still in command, they haven't completely thrown out, uh fully, the commitment to low carbon green growth. But your point.
Direction governor don't get there, you know, because they don't have the power, they don't have their business model. Now for that epic fail, what's the and they've gotten away from capitalism is about markets and profits. Okay, they are now about digital platforms in rent their rent seekers, and they don't believe in even open borders. These guys are techno feudalists. That you have a digital platform, you had kind of digital serfs that that serve that, uh, and
you add it to AI. And what they want to do in advanced AI of cutting out all the you know, entry level managerial, administrative, low tech work we're going to have. We're gonna have a massive problem about unemployment. And they're just on the merry way. And here's what Just like the lords of easy money on Wall Street came to the Federal Reserve and the Treasury for a bailout, and no working class or middle class people you know this in California got a bailout. They paid for the bailout
through the taxes. What's the first thing to do? Silicon Valley comes. The first thing they come for is we need a new Marcury program, we need a Marshall program, we need five hundred billion dollars, and they need to turn over the Lawrence Livermore weapons lab in California, San Dia. We need to take control of all the national labs, and we need a five hundred billion dollar bailout because of the spot Nick moment, so they come back to
the taxpurs this way. I think these guys are very dangerous and it's created in the Silicon Valley, and I understand the beginning there was rationale for this, but now it's not and it's got to be And I think you've got to be one of the leaders of it for ever to get a control of the oligarchs. You, as Governor and as quite frankly the leader of that wing of the party, have got to work with us to say, hey, this can't go on any longer. We first thing we need is Lena Kahan, and I we.
Got rid of her. So I was going to ask you, I had someone who was actually starting to deal with some of these issues and then truck threw him out throughout correct me.
If I'm wrong, Governor. I don't think Kamala Harris, I don't think Lena Khan's name ever crossed the lips of Kamala Harrison. I don't recall, but they never had her back. She's the first one to say that they never had her back. She's a neo Brandeisian after Louis Brandeis, which always warrant against the concentration of private power.
Also celebrated citizenship, which I appreciate, active non inert citizenship, exact most human powerful office.
And he was he was a big believer in human agency. And with Gil Slater, gil Slater's deputy, with with Andrew Ferguson, also Mike Davis and Rachel On Beauvart on the outside, we are the most we want to break up. In fact, you've see the suits right now in Northern Virginia and d C against Google. I mean, the hardcore, populous wing of the Mega movement really wants to target them up.
And look, I appreciate that, and you've been consistent on that for years and obviously goes to you know, I imagine some of your issues with with Elon and we haven't even gotten to that. And I know that's all.
Have any issues, have any issues?
I know what you called him evil, You called him a racist. Uh, you have a inherent parasitic illegal alien. I think was your exact phrase. Your phrase, not mine, though we may share some commonality in terms of concern about what he's doing. But that said, let me.
Just hold it. No, hang on, hang concern. You guys loved to see you loved all the oligarchs in particularly Elon until they flip. And remember all the rest of these oligarchs were all progressive Democrats until eleven people they're progressive liberty.
I would I refer to him as libertarian. And I know these guys intimately known them for decades.
So you know the danger we're dealing with, you know, knowing.
Look, but what why doesn't Donald Trump? Why doesn't President Trump the leader of the movement? Trump isn't without Trump. I don't mean maybe maybe it's MAGA, it's the work you're doing in that populist base. But why isn't he pushing back? He brings someone in from Trump Treasury puts a Commerce secretary and only reinforces.
The first off at Treasury. I think you're seeing a very smart analysis about M and A and about the oligarchs. I think look with Gil Slater Andrew Ferguson, I mean, these are one notch down and maybe not as well known as Lena Khan, but they're in the same they're in the same Uh, they're in the same uh school of thought of Neo brandeisian of this concept of concern about the concentration, the tremendous concentration of private power. I
think in prison, Trump's working through this right now. Look, all these guys just became their damna scene moment was eleven pm Eastern Standard time on the fifth of November, when Pennsylvania was called for Trump. Once that all of them, Zuckerbergh and they all moved. They became maga, you know, Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg started growing the hair, working out doing.
Elon was there a little bit before, it seemed. Lelon was there before after he dumped DeSantis.
Elon I think, very smartly, this goes back to the precinct, and I get I give him Trenda's credit. He saw the math of what we were doing as grassroots of this precinct strategy canvassing. He backed to play. I mean, and look, no one's ever written a two hundred and fifty million dollar check when they tell me, you know, I.
Think it's more, but I but that's just my humble opinion.
It may be more eventually. I think it's up to two eighty. But he backed it on the least sexy aspect, which is backing grassroots, going door to door, and particularly he would go up and campaign in Pennsylvania, Michigan and wascond just.
And forgive me. But what's his end game? I mean, you know, I know, you look, he wants to be the first trillion air in the world. I mean, what's his endgame here?
Well, you know it. You guys created a governor. I mean, you got a way.
In many respects California did. It was our regulatory process and our subsidies to create this market. You're one hundred percent right. I think you're right about He.
Left Canada to come to California. That was, you know said, and.
Then a big and then a big check from the federal government from everybody watching that backed his play early on when he was in deep need. He paid it back relatively quickly. But he's been the beneficiary of billions and billions and billions of dollars.
Thirty loans, thirty thirty eight loans, I think thirty.
What do you seriously want him to take over the starlink to take over the FAA and the air traffic control system.
Here's is that. Here's where listen. I late at this concept at SEAPAC in seventeen that that was going to be you know, populous economics and the economic nationalism America. First, national security, and the third was a deconstruction the administrative state. What Elon Musk has done. And I think this is the engineer, you know, the best angels of Elon, that engineer's brain. I think he kicked in when he saw the strategy of how we actually win and building a
coalition of working class people. He supported that in President Trump, I think now and this is why I think he jumped on it. He sees that we have an apparatus, and I think you'd be the first amit the administrative state that's kind of anti democratic. It's there, and I don't care if AOC or Gavin Newsom or Bernie Sanders walks into the oval office president United States. The deep state and the apparatus is going to do what they're
going to do. They're going to look at you as just passing through.
Now we refer to it in you know, in non Pejorita. But there's a clay layer of bureaucracy, and you're right, unaccountable folks making a lot of decisions. And I don't think that's wrong, but your yours is a much you know.
What, I just had an idea we should invite Elon because you know these guys better your personal friends with you, guys, Elon ought to take a California Doge sit down with you so you can get the guard.
And we've been doing it for going but going, But our approach, Steve, is more like rego. We already did this one hundred and forty billion dollars of saving on a one point four trillion dollars budget. That was real savings, and we did it the right way, not to people with people fo one hundred thousand positions the administry.
Let let your favorite, let Elon come out. Let Elon come out and verify that. I think for the nation to be good. And because he.
Has done, let's just a restlessness to let's go back.
Let's go back to do. What he's trying to do is get the waste, fraud and abuse and identified. He has identified USAID, which people have been working on for years. But he's done a good job there. The others is twenty billion dollars in city corps. You know where it went. I think people are going to, you know, eventually need more details. I think he said he's going to provide more details. They just went to federal court last night. A judge ruled.
And I love Steve. I love that you're defending him now. By the way, he's been knocked on you, hang on, hang on. He hasn't attacked you back, which is interesting to me. He's marginally attacked you back. You must be muted. I'm curious your private thoughts on that. Why do you think he's a little scared of you?
Isn't he?
No?
I don't think he.
I think he is. That's my personal opinion.
I'm just I'm just a mick that yells into a microphone. But but Governor, No, here's I think it's important and any and this is why I think, let's get back to why President Trump won again. You have basically working class people, in middle class and particularly lower down the change. They've seen the bailouts on Wall Street, they've seen the
oligarchs be made. They don't think they have agency. And in a global, you know, global supply chain, they think they're just a cog in the machine, that their voice is not heard. Right, they're kind of dismiss culturally. They're considering and I don't care if you're black, Hispanic or white working class. It's not a race thing. It's it's ethnicity.
It's you're just dismissed as not being important. Now, with AI coming up, they see that even their children that went to college in that in that important ten years that you get out of school, administrative, tech, managerial, are probably not going to be there or be there in some dramatically different way than you came up and your dad came up, and my dad and myself. So I think they see that in the institutions that were supposed to be there to be protective people questioning. The polling
shows this categorican. That's why a guy like Trump. Trump comes up and he says, look in DC, not in the room, not in the deal, and I'm going to put you in the room. And people feel comfortable. That's why they love this kind of days of thunder and every day flood the zone. What President Trump is doing. And President Trump and you know, because you know him very well, he has a visceral connection with working class people that people in politics haven't had, you know, for generations.
He just has this work working class in middle class. They trust him and they believe in him, and he's designated Elon. I've got a lot of problems with Elon, and you know that Elon knows it. But what I do admire is that he is trying to get this situation to get the waste, fraud and abuse out. I hope it gets to a trillion dollars. I'm his biggest support of that. I don't think we're going to get there now.
And I think back to your point, that's deep programmatic cuts.
We're going to end your consequences and people this summer, and I keep telling people like all these corporacy as it come to Tront to mar Lago in the tech bros and the brologarchs and all of them came to the all of them came to the inauguration. They're all party in their tux sis. I said, this is all great celebratory, but we're going to go through a firestorm. And I think part of this firestorm is not this CR.
I think the CR gets kicked down, but this summer, when you start to go through the programmatic changes that you have to have. We have to get control of federal spending. If we don't, we're never going to get rid of inflation. That is going to be the acid test. When you talk about defense, you're going to have the Hawks and a lot of other people in the neo kons in your grill. When you talk about what has
to happen to medicate, you know are going there. When you talk about the social programs, you talk about SNAP, you talk about these, we are about to have a national conversation that we've never had. We've never and there's no easy alternatives. All the easy alternatives we left, you know, a decade or a couple of decades ago. This is going to get down to say, hey, we need to get the deficit to under tree and dollars or like three and a half percent. We're never going to People
should in this, your audience should understand something. We will never pay off one penny of the face amount of the debt as we increase this now about every hundred days of another tree and dollars. It's just the interest right now, it's the gross interest charge. I think a tree and four, which is the way it's got to be looked not net because they kind of take the they take the interest on the bonds we sell ourselves, and they net it out, which I think is unfair account.
And you got to look at the gross right now. It's significantly over the Defense Department. And I would tell people too, as we kind of wrap up or get close to wrap up. In the history of countries, no countries ever come back economically that it's GDP, that its debts above its GDP, and we are now at that at that space. In additional, no nation a national security has ever survived as a major power when the interest payments on their debt go above what they pay for
national security. The tree and dollars we are now over our national security right now is one trellion dollars. You're thinking about a tree in two to train four an interest payments alone. Yeah. Money.
But Steve, that's why this tax cuts, extending the tax cuts is reckless in this respect.
I don't agree with that. I think, if if you want to have.
A governor, where how do you by definition, if you want to get out, if you want to have.
A shot, if you want to have a shot to get to three and a half four percent, growth. You've got to have a supply side tax Hutch. You just and by the way, for people, it's just keeping the tax cut they have today for for people.
This is that's the frame. Though you want to see it increased on corporations in the one percent.
I want to see corporations stay. I don't want to see a cut, but on the upper on the upper brackets, I don't want to say. I don't want to see extension. I want them to go back to the old rates and they have to pay the old rates. And then additionally, if they can't help us get this under control, I'm all for increasing taxes on the They will have a
tax increase if President Trump doesn't extend it. But then I think we'll have another, have another tax increase the one percent, the top three percent, unless because they control Washington d C. Unless they work together with working class and middle class people to get this spending out of control and get all the corporate welfare out of this, because we hate corporate We hate crony capitalism and corporate welfare.
Except for oil and gas. Apparently, Steve, that's not three billion right there.
You've got to generate. You've got to generate lower energy costs their exceptions. First off, you finally admitted for the first time, the net carbon fetish is admitted.
I've been I've been pretty pletty clear on this whole frame, but I'm not naive about it. But also, by the way, we're not I don't know what more evidence you guys need of Mother Nature's fury and then we've had in the last year. But that's another conversation for another thing, and that's not fanaticism. Eventually, pragmaticially, eventually.
Eventually, uh, you work with roe Quahanna and Feederman, you'll become You'll become more of a populous nationalist, and then you'll probably have a bright future.
Hey, Steve, I really enjoy this conversation. I think is incredibly valuable. And I appreciate the spirit to which we were able to engage and and I hope we can continue the conversation and and uh, and I hope we get out of this week without any further disruptions. It's been a hell of a hell of a beginning of administration. And I appreciate your your advocacy. I also appreciate that you call balls and strikes as it relates to what you're seeing, uh, with administration.
I also think that for your audience. You know, there's a saying that there are decades in which nothing happens in there are weeks in which decades happen. We're living in that time right now. So whatever happens this week, next week is going to be quite intense. We have a mate, we have an economy turn around. Geostrategically, the beginning of the kinetic part of the Third World War has got to be stopped. So it's we're we're living
history every day. And uh, I'm just honored you had me on here, and uh, you know we were able to conduct this in some level of decency.
I appreciate Steve, thanks for joining us.
Thank you, Governor, appreciate you. The Bangaga the song of podm