March 11, 2025 • 47 mins
Politician and businessman Gavin Newsom has served as the 40th governor of California since 2019. Prior to his governorship, Newsom was the lieutenant Governor of California and the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco. Now in the final years of his term, Newsom reflects on the challenges and victories of the past seven years, most pressing being the wildfires that destroyed areas of Southern California this past January. A native to San Francisco, Newsom is familiar with the state’s natural wildfires but has seen a dramatic increase in their devastation during his term.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's
the Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today is a politician, businessman,
and the fortieth governor of California. Prior to his governorship,
Gavin Newsom served as the Lieutenant governor of California and
as the forty second mayor of San Francisco. A native
(00:24):
San Franciscan, Newsom began his political career as a volunteer
for Willie Brown's mayoral campaign in nineteen ninety five. California
may be the sixth largest economy in the world, but
it faces some of our country's biggest problems. Most recently,
Governor Newsom has been contending with the wildfires the devastated
(00:45):
areas of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This passed to January.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Wildfires are cyclical and a natural part of the topography
of the area. However, this year's fires were particularly destructive.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I mean, I was just reading a Joan Didion piece.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I'm talking about one hundred mile an hour winds, and
our birds were literally combusting in the sky, and horses
are on fire and being shot, and embers went miles
across the pch and one hundred and ninety seven homes
were burned. So the answer is, yes, this has happened,
and it will continue to happen. And so we'reas dumb
as we want to be if we rebuild without a
different mindset around science, climate resiliency, and redundancy as relates
(01:26):
to emergency management.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Is it safe to say, because obviously these areas where
this happened, and this is I'm assuming, in one sense
a complicating factor and in another sense not really, which
is you just can't go back and build the paliseds
the way it was.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I mean, that's the tension. People want to move back,
They want to move back quickly. Now they want to
move back quickly but safely. So it comes to the
issues of debris removal, soil sampling testing, and now they
want to come back safely. But also recognizing that we
want to have a different kind of level of confidence
that the building materials that we're going to use when
we build are not going to be compustible, that we
(02:04):
got redundancy systems as it relates to water, as it
relates to hydrants, that we have more evacuation routes, better
emergency warnings and the like. And so it's that constant
tension that we're going to have to figure out in
real time and in real time, including quite literally today
down here in La We got through record breaking first
phase to be removal of hazardous waste within three weeks,
(02:26):
and we're trying to move heaven and earth literally and
figuratively to get all the rest of the debris done
in nine months to a year. At the same time
concurrently providing building permits which people are getting today, and
you're going to see homes starting to be rebuilt over
the course of the next few months. So this is
all happening as sort of a rolling process that we
(02:47):
hope will give people some confidence and their ability to
come back home, but to come back home in.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
A much better place.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
We have a writer coming on to do the show
in a couple of weeks who wrote a piece that
I was completely fascinated by, quote when plastic cities burn.
Her name was Zobe Schlanger, and I always remember during
nine to eleven that when thirteen million square feet of
real estate came down and formed a toxic booja baise
on that site, and then it rained the next day
(03:13):
and a lot of that got washed into the harbor. Yep,
and so the problem appear. I'm wondering is is that
a big urgent thing is to get that Malibu crap
out of.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
There as soon as possible going to the ocean.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
No, And it's interesting we work concurrently. I mean, this
is typical California. We had a three year drought that
was the most significant since statehood that was ended with
a three weeks of flooding, the most significant since statehood.
So drought and floods concurrently, and so that was our
mindset after this fire. Once we put out the fires,
we started to get these atmospheric rivers and hadn't seen
(03:44):
any rain in nine months up to this fire. Remember
this fire occurred in January. It was as dry as
it's ever been in modern history. And then of course
we had those floods. So we were working with our
debris crews and immediately moving them to do water management
and to begin to set up barriers, to do what
we could to protect as much infrastructure as well as
(04:06):
the ocean and other watersheds.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We did a decent job, in that you can always
do better.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
We didn't have a lot of time, but we're deeply
mindful to get this stuff out as quickly as possible
because of that concern. But again, in that process, you know,
you got to work through the propane tanks, you got
to work through the EV batteries, and you know we
talk about lexrication. That's a big part of this. And
then no one saw that coming. I made that point
to Trump when I was in the Oval office. I said,
(04:30):
you know, Elon may have some insight on this. So
it's you know, it's this is all challenged, but it's
also familiar.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
And I want to make that point. This is the
tragedy of all this.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
You know, the folks that are working on this debris
removal just finished up, are still marginally working in Maui.
In terms of the wildfire's there. The folks that I'm
working with, the folks I worked with directly at Coffee
Park in northern California. We lost fifty six hundred homes
to wildfire in Paradise, California, the most deadly wildfire California history.
(05:00):
Eighty five people lost their lives there. The same folks
working on this are folks that work there. So in
a rather perverse way, there's a hell of a lot
of experience in this space in terms of prevention suppression
response in terms of the immediate and then obviously long
term commitment to being here, getting the job done, and
not turning our back on this community when the cameras
(05:21):
are gone.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Well, you mentioned Paradise. We had on the show Lucy Walker,
who made the film Bring your Own Brigade. Oh yes,
which is this wonderful doc about Wolsey.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And she just sent it to me and I've got
to open it up. I love, she says, I'm telling you,
the answers to all your questions are right here.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
She's there in Paradise. And there's a scene in the
movie when they have the consultant come in about what
to do to remediate and the guy gives them five
basic things the distance of the plant life and the
vegetation from the house. That no, don't let it touch
the roof, but all these are no wood roofs anymore,
no wood sigles. It gives them a very basic set.
They bring him in, they hire him, he makes his recommendations,
(06:00):
and they reject all of them. Yeah, they want to
go right back and have everything the way it was,
And that's must be one of the toughest things for you.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah. No, And this is it.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean people, you know, I remember in Paradise people said, well,
you can't let them rebuild their I said, well, these
people have been around since California was founded. I mean,
there's some of the original post office boxes in San
Francisco were here before there was millions and millions of California.
And so that's the tension because now obviously different level
of sophistication around what we referred to as the Wuies,
this wild lamb urban interface, and obviously so much in
(06:31):
the new construction that's not since we've got so much nimbism.
Every major state does, but particularly here on the coast,
people don't want density, so they tend to do sprawl,
and that sprawl gets further and further into this forested areas,
creating more challenging conditions in the best of times. But
when you combine that now with the hot's getting a
lot hotter, the dry is getting drier as it relates
(06:52):
to climate change and the more extremes and the weather,
obviously that's combustible in every way, shape or form, and so.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
That's the tension.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Insurance in many ways is taking care of that, even
it's a head of policy, because people are just not
ensuring insurance companies. Capitalism is raining. They're pulling out of
the market. Now you can't get your mortgage, Now you
can't get your home. And so that's the tension that's
happened all across the Western United States and in the South,
these hurricanes the same thing Florida, Florida, I mean, Georgia,
(07:22):
and North Carolina, Louisiana. And so none of this is
necessarily unique to California. We just like everything in California,
the future happens here first, the good and the bad.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
And we're in the tip of.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The sphere, not just to the challenges as it relates
to Mother Nature, but also in terms of our response
and trying to address a lot of the underlying causes
as it relates to the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.
And I'm proud of that leadership. But look, this is
the tension working with the insurance companies who are allowing
now climate modeling in terms of their rate approvals, which
(07:54):
we never did in the past, which is stabilizing that market.
Of course, it's been radically impacted by these recent fires.
We are working with land use experts and we actually
have more aggressive proposals that I just put out quite
literally a few weeks ago in response to these fires,
as it relates not just to defensible spaces, but home
hardening and other strategies around materials. And we're going to
(08:17):
be much more restrictive in terms of those that want
to come back and build in a nineteen thirty style.
We simply cannot afford that structure of structure impacts. You're
impacting the entire community, not just putting your own home
at risk.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
There's an opportunity here to see the future. That as
an opportunity for the people, not just you, because you're
obviously way ahead of the kirk because of your job.
But there's an opportunity here for people to face the
future and design a place. It's gone. It's not some
burn this and that and we have a patch work.
It's all gone. It's a blank slate. What do you
do when the blank slate with what the current information
(08:53):
is and have the modern community?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Well?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
And one thing is with you know, you start with
a framework of humility and grace. That is, it's not
top down, meaning it's not to dictate from Sacramento or Washington, DC.
It's got to be a community led effort, particularly not
just in the Palisades. Remember the Palisades represents you know,
you know it's a diverse community, but certainly the demographics
(09:16):
are so different than Alta Dina, which was even more impacted,
which is profoundly diverse community. And the issues that you
brought up around speculation and price gouging, people coming in
with unsolicit offers to buy out people's property for pennies
on the dollar.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
They were targeting.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Different portions of the around community like Maui, and so
we were aggressive on some early executive orders, and our
Attorney General's been aggressive calling that out addressing some of
those issues. But what I just launched was a new platform. Look,
we want a community engage process, but we don't want
the community to be intimidated by the mob, meaning by
organized interests that have a disproportionate impact on the outcome
(09:54):
of a community design effort. So we created a new
platform called Engaged California. It's actual platform that allows people
to be heard, has a two way framework of conversation
between the state, city partners, federal partners, and the community
where they can design that future and feel heard and
represented in the process. A deliberative process to try to
(10:17):
find consensus to answer your question. Bringing in the best minds,
the best scientists from around the world.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
We already I can't tell you great opportunity for those minds.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
You know, we had Bill and Hillary Clinton reached out.
They said at the Clinton Foundation, We've got some of
these world class architects from Japan and they're sending cell
phone numbers. We're getting all these people, and we're populating
all these folks the best materials, the best designs, prefab
all kinds of new strategies on fire suppression, et cetera.
And so we're trying to bring all that bear to
your point to sort of this is our extraordinary opportunity
(10:49):
with all the ingenuity and creativity and entrepreneurials, resources literal
and resources more broadly defined a resourceful mindset. We have
to take advantage all that. And again we cannot build
it back the exact way that it was.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Less like a movie set. It's a movie. It was
a movie set it was anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
So one more question about that subject, which is I,
you know, beyond people speculating about Trump and strings attached
and all this other stuff, what I'm wondering is are
you confident as the governor of such a huge state,
was such a wealthy state, and yet they need help.
Are you confident the federal Governm's gonna step up and
help county.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
As we you know, roll back the tape in six months,
we'll see at this moment, you know, we had a
very good conversation, you know, at the tarmac with the president,
phone call, follow up conversations in the oval.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You're hopeful.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah, look at the end of and I've been through this.
I remember Paradise, California. I wasn't even governor during Paradise,
but I was lieutenant governor, and I remember tweeting out saying,
you know, the former governor was the worst governor American history.
Needs to rake the forests and basically blaming the governor
for the fire right there, Brown And said, I'm withholding money,
and that money eventually came, and so you know, and
(11:55):
he's done in Puerto Rico. He's done it to other states,
including some red states, and so look, I get the
nature of leverage. He's the master of leverage. He's going
to take advantage of those points of leverage. Any vulnerabilities
in some ways, I don't begrudge that. I get it.
You know, I'm mature, been around and so you know,
we have to work with him, and so far I've
got to say no, bs, it's actual truth. We went
(12:17):
from about seven eight hundred people doing first phase to
pre removal. After we sat down with him, we had
about fifteen hundred. So he stepped out in matters. And
so if it's attached to him, and success is attached,
and I would love all the success to flow his direction,
I think we can produce some pretty smarm result we concerned,
of course, and that's by the way his approach I
(12:37):
had during COVID, there was a democratic governor the United
States America period, full stop, absolute objectivity. I don't say
this from a subjective perch. No democratic governor worked better
with Trump during COVID than I did. Despite the fact
we're involved in one hundred and twenty two lawsuits where he.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Was calling me a clown. I called him penny wise
for caging kids that we're on the border issues.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I remember some of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the
times every now and then.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
So you know, we were able to figure that out,
and I think we're you know, it's a familiar space
for us again.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
We'll see how long it lasts though.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
California Governor Gavin Newsom. If you enjoy conversations about Golden
State politics, check out my episode with former California Congresswoman
Katie Porter.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
You know, I think there is an attitude that you know,
sort of people are entitled to have Republican representation. Here.
What they're entitled to is good representation, right, people who
listen to them, people who fight for them, people who
are not corrupt, and that can come in your Democratic
or Republican forms.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
To hear more of my conversation with Katie Porter, go
to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Gavin
Newsom reveals why he never reads speeches and the challenges
he faced as a child growing up with dyslexia. I'm
(14:07):
Alec Baldwin, and this is Here's the Thing. I had
the privilege of speaking with Governor Gavin Newsom recently in
Los Angeles. Newsom was raised by a hard working single
mother who often worked up to three jobs to support him,
his sister, and their foster children's siblings. Newsom would eventually
help support the family himself, working several part time jobs.
(14:30):
While in high school. I was curious if Governor Newsom
viewed himself as a caretaker as a young man and
in his political career.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, I just I mean my mom, single mom, teenager,
came from no wealth, nothing passed away fifteen eighteen years
ago with nothing, just worked her tail off. Don't complain,
don't explain. You just get up, do your work. And
yet nothing was given to you. You had the paper roots,
you did the construction, you did the janitorial, you went
out there, you were an entrepreneur to pay for a
basketball hoop, just made it happen. And that grit, that
(15:01):
hard work, what a gift. That was the gift of divorce.
And an idealistic dad that wasn't a dad until I
was older.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
He was around.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
He was around and he passed years ago, but he
was around when I was older, and it was amazing mentor.
But he was passionate about the environment, he was passionate
about social justice, racial justice for Getty, and he worked. Yeah,
he was a judge and he was kind of he
was like he was one of those activist judges and
worked a little bit with a Getty family. And that attachment,
of course, is a big part of the narrative of
(15:30):
me that somehow my name is Gavin Getty, not Gavin Newsom.
So people just assumed there was a trust fund, wealth privilege.
But my childhood bears testament to something.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Repizza and asked you to pay for it because there,
thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I know.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, by the way, if there's a trust fund in
my future, let me know, I'm looking forward to it.
But it was yeah, no, so it was shaped by that,
and you never you know, Look, the biggest problem with
me was not having a single mom. Was the problem
for her of having two kids and one that couldn't
read or write. I don't read speeches. I can't audio
as you're preferred.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, well no it's not preferred.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
I have such severe learning disability dyslexia that I you know,
so I'm st childhood, since childhood, so you've never seen
me read a speech in my life. And that's a
hell of a profession to pay.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So you're a skilled actor that you were, like the
Olivia of California politics.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
My point is I have so much empathy for her
that I never was able to express because she passed
so many years ago. But what a you know, what
a gift in hindsight, all this, you know all that,
you know all you can claim your victim whatever. It's
shaped who I am, and it's shaped to work ethic
and that's I'll tell you anything else. There's nothing that
I value more than just the deep appreciation of taking
(16:40):
You have agency. You can shape the future. It's not
conditions that determine your faith in future. It's decisions. And
so I've never had a victim mindset. I've always just
felt just grit, hard work, and humility at the same time.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Now you start in San Francisco your political career. The
reason I say your you're the caretaker thing is because
obviously everybody talks about you're this handsome guy. You could
have driven down the road and gone to LA and
had a movie career, probably in fifteen minutes. But instead
we find you land at the Parking and Parking and
Traffic Commission. Yeah, well, yeah, I did constituent services one
(17:16):
year for Tom Hayden.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Do you did?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Hayden walked into his off He goes, what are you
doing here? I was on a TV show. He goes,
what are you doing? I go, I'm doing constituent services.
These people can't pay their power bill. He goes, come
into my office because I went and volunteered for him,
and they put me in that I did these I mean,
I'm like you in that sense that I just I
wanted to work there. You go and get involved in
the process. But when you get involved why at the polyside.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Degree, Well, I was a small business guy, started right
out of college, putt of small businesses, Yeah, a bunch,
and put pen to paper, got thirteen investors, raised seventy
five hundred bucks each and opened this little the dime
still with us today, a wine store. And it was
inspiration desperation. I thought this one.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Would crush it and it was a disaster.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Two three years, just struggle and you know, couldn't afford
Literally when I say no employees, I had a part
time employee back Kelly. She came in at five every
night because I couldn't affor anyone else. When I did deliveries,
I literally went to my apartment to go to the
warehouse to pick up the case of wine. I had
to lock the door back in twenty minutes and then
drove myself. You made the wine and didn't make it.
(18:17):
Nobody was a wine store. So wine shop, Yeah, wine shop.
And I say that not to impress it impress upon
you sort of. You know that was you know, he
was inspired to open a small business.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Entrepreneurial mind.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Say you have dyslexia, by definition, you a little more
entrepreneur because you're used to making mistakes. You try to earierating,
you're trying new things. You're willing to take risks because
you don't know any other way. You're not wrote, you're
not linear, and you're thinking, so open this business. And
year three had started to work, and then someone said
to you, we should do something more. And I said,
I took those same investors. They doubled down fifteen thousand each.
(18:48):
Open a restaurant, got lucky with a chef, Arnold Rossman,
who knew he was a great chef, three and a
half out of four stars. There's lines people are saying, Europe,
you're a great restaurant.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Try.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I said, I don't know what the hell I'm doing
twenty five years old. Meanwhile, Willie Brown, is the mayor
of San Francisco, calls me, says, I appreciate he did
a fundraiser for me. I know my state status.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
It was.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
I think that's because I did a few fundraisers at
the wine store young people thinks and he goes, hey,
you want to be on the film commission. I said,
that's fantastic, and so I go down to city Hall.
I'm like, this is great, twenty something years old film commission.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
This is amazing.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
And go down and he's swearing a bunch of people
in the same day and he says, Gavin Newsom the
new chair of the Parking and Traffic Commission.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And I'm like, what the hell?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
At first, I didn't even chair met and I swear
to God, I'll never for get crown fo get better than.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
That, get you a better of that.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I was like, film film, I'm into. I go and
they said, what's your vision on parking and traffic? There
was like a camera. I said, I literally, I still
have it. It's on a VHS step. I still have it.
Someone's stressed tested this and I was actually able.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
To find it, and I said, well, I stumbled along.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
I said, I pay my parking tickets, so here I am,
damn President of the Parking and Traffic Commission. And it
turns out it actually was an important job because there
was a freeway that we had to down wild controversy
west side of town. East side of town, and somehow
I'm in the middle of it and I didn't completely
blow it. And as a consequence of that, nine months later,
(20:09):
Willie Brown has a vacancy on the San Francisco County
Board of Supervisors, and he was out there struggling to
find someone. And in Willie Brown's unique way legend in
California politics, he says, I found the perfect affirmative action candidate.
He referred to me as his affirmative of the only
(20:29):
straight white male that he said would take the jobs
he needs one.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
He needs one.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
So I was the I was, at least, based on
his assessment, an affirmative at which you know was some
beared some truth to that. And so he pointed me
to the board supervisor. That's how my political life started.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Now, did you work close, fairly closely with him and
over those usually were?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I mean I drove him crazy because I was still
that entrepreneur. I was still the small business and I
know I didn't understand politics. I understand what being appointed
meant means something a little different than being elected.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Doesn't your wards what?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Well?
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I challenged him a lot, I said, you know, you know,
and I was the business guy. So I would come.
You know, I was the little snotty kid. You know, well,
I take a business like approach to looking at these things.
I need to see the business. And there's exactly whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
So I was the champion. I was the conservative in
San Francisco politics. And and he turns out and and
I guess you know, I was like six people ten
people in the race, and I was thirty four years old,
and you know, I didn't think i'd have a chance
in hell and gotten a runoff and boom, I'm I'm
going to learn from him.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
He's a master. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Everybody ascribes a real heavy political, you know skill to him.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I remember someone describing, I don't know if it was
described accurately, but of the grateful dead of Jerry Garcia.
Someone describing Jerry saying, you don't want to be the
best of the best. You want to be the only
one that does what you do. You don't want to
be the best the best. The only one that doesn't
do that's Willie Brown. He redefined as far they had
(21:59):
to remember termline it's in California, literally were established because
they couldn't get rid of them. And he kept becoming
speaker even when it was the FDR offer, but they
had Republicans in the majority, and they made a Democratic
speaker because he was a deal maker. It's a different era.
Worked with Reagan, he had great bipartisan bona FIDE's, but
he stood on principle, still stands on principle today. He's
(22:19):
alive and he's a fierce critic still to these days,
and the fiercest and most loyal person. And the reason
I'm here, the reason we're having this conversation is Willie
Brownt here.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
When you're on the Board of Supervisors and then you
become the mayor of San Francisco. Everyone that I know,
because I love San Francisco and I've always enjoyed going there.
I haven't spent volumes of time there, but I always
went there with friends and had the best time and
love it there. But it seems to have you know,
the same metronomic kind of problems there about your housing
(22:51):
now because of the tech boom and homelessness and drugs
and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
What shape is it in now? What you say is
it is still struggling. No, it's coming back, perhaps, I
mean by any of people.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I just you know, I think it went through a
very difficult period around COVID, and there was sort of
a you know, people step back. The tents started to
a mass on the streets. We see that across country,
notably in California, more encampments, more tents, and it was
by the way it was directed by the FED saying,
you want to cohort people. We don't want to clean
up the tents and the encampments. During COVID there was
(23:22):
concerns around that, and so after that there was a
mindset of almost additional permissiveness, and that became very dominant,
particularly in San Francisco, where it no longer was concentrated
in this forty to fifty square block area, in this
sort of tenderloin where it's been for thirty forty years,
started to become more prevalent, even into some of the neighborhoods.
But that's now coming back. The crime rates are down
(23:46):
near fifty year lows. You're seeing people starting to move
back in the neighborhoods are vibrant as much more than ever.
Downtown is still struggling, but look, it's a city that
shaped me, my.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Great great great grandfather.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
There was a cop and you know, and my dad
used to say, says he didn't know what came first,
the Irish cop or San Francisco, And so I think
it took one hundred and fifty years for the cop
to become a politician.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
And here I am.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
But it's one of the most magical, curious and mystical places.
And one thing it continues to be is a state
of just constant renewal.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
But in that svide between northern and southern California which
I observed for the many years I was here, a
more liberal and progressive quadrant here and a more conservative
quadrant here, in spite of la being part of that.
When I was in California in the early days, I
was here. I came here in eighty three, so it
was the end of the first term of Reagan. He's
heading into his re election. I think Duke Magen was
(24:40):
the governor. The Olympics are coming, so they just scooped
everybody up and put them in busses and took them
to Barstow.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
They were like, clean it up for the Olympics, we
don't want the world to see it. And they took
all the wh I lived in Venice then, and they
just scooped them all up and put them on the
bus and shipped him out of town.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Let's be cana.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
That still happens all across this country and as an
ongoing issue, and that's the tension. Look, I mean out
of side, not out of mind for advocates, and it's understandable.
But right now I think people are on edge all
across this country. People are edge in this state. They've
had it. They don't want to see the encampents anymore.
They're done, They're done with the tents. I'm done with
the tents. I'm done with the encampments. So we've been
very aggressive. We've been very more forceful as a state.
(25:17):
You know, when I was mayor, back to the days
of the mayor, the state of California was nowhere to
be found in homeless policy. There was no homeless plan.
It was the counties and the city's responsibility. Schwarzenegger was
governor at the time. I never thought of calling. And
by the way, we have the highest number of people
on the streets and sidewalks back then, it's not a
new phenomena.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
This twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
It was one hundred and eighty eight thousand people out
on the streets and sidewalks in our point of time
count and it was the dominant issue for me as mayor,
and it was my responsibility, my accountability, had no finger pointing,
and we made real progress for six or seven years,
legit real progress, and we started to see that unwind
in the last decade or so.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Back to again, I think COVID accelerating a lot of that.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Fentanyl issues are street behavior, issues around drug use, mental health,
and again a permissive structure that we have to address
and we are addressing in this state. It just it's
you know, it can't turn it around immediately, but directionally
we're much more aggressive taking responsibility. It's not a laisse
fair attitude. We're again not victims of this. And you know,
(26:17):
I'm a little more heart at it, a little more pragmatic.
Advocates don't always see eyed eye with me, but it's
time that we are held to higher level accountablity, particularly democrats.
We've got to prove we can govern, proven, get out
of our own damn way and permits, get housing done,
get things moving again like we I mean, the world
we invent. It's working against us. Process and SEQUA and
all the bullshit excuse my language, and the lawsuits and
(26:40):
the litigation, and I think it's one of the reasons
Trump's back in the White House. So it's a big
wake up call and all of us own that, I think,
And I'll.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Forget the long winningness.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
No.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
One of the gifts of the Olympics coming in in
twenty twenty eight is it forces a regionalization, forces a
national and state focus on getting big things is done.
And with these fires now a sense of urgency to
do both. And and so I got to tell you
I would never I mean, I'm the biggest prob There's
(27:09):
nothing to do with me is governor. I'm the future
ex governor of California. I am so long la as
a region, So long California as the state's a fifth
large's economy in the world. We dominate in more scientists, engineers,
more rechers of normal laureates, the finances of higher education
in the world, more patents, more venture capital. Thirty two
of the fifty top AI companies in the world all
(27:31):
in California. Most diverse state, a dynamism twenty seven percent
of state four and born a gateway status geographic beauty
unlike any other state, and now, if we can have
a mind that's more aggressive in terms of just addressing
the mistakes in our permissiveness of the past through democratic governance,
I think this state is going to come out, particularly
(27:52):
with all the challenges in Washington, to see in a
really dominant position.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Governor Gavin Newsom. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow Here's the thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we come back, Gavin Newsom details his plan to
increase tax breaks for film production in California in the
hopes of reviving one of the state's most famous industries.
(28:35):
I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is Here's the thing. Gavin
Newsom has served as the fortieth governor of California since
twenty nineteen. His tenure has included tumultuous events such as
the COVID nineteen pandemic and two separate wildfire disasters. Despite
the various difficulties of the past six years, I wondered
(28:57):
what Newsom would consider some of the joys of holding
the office.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
You know, it's been a disaster prone six years. Yeah,
you know, I talked about Paradise. I was lieutenant governor,
but I was also governor elect when I was standing
there in the ashes of Paradise with Donald Trump and
took over, and we had the largest utility in the
United States of America PGN that filed bankruptcy within the
first few weeks I was in office. We were trying
to face the realities of unprecedented drought that I was
(29:23):
referring to a moment ago, all of these wildfires, historic wildfires,
and of course we walked right into COVID and California
was in the you know, leaning and cutting edge of
good policy. Those that judged very bad policy depends on
your perspective policy tough policy, and you know, but for
a state that's larger than twenty one state populations combined,
you know, I mean, it's not a small, isolated state.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Different game here, different game.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
And I also realized in that case, you know, it
was also a different game in mindset. The public looked
to me not as Governor California, but I really felt
like they looked at me as Mayor of California. And
you had to be accountable for now everything in nuanced
and detail, accountable for what was happening in every city,
accountable for every crime that was occurring. Everything not the
traditional role of a governor or dramatically different role. And
(30:09):
I think that mindset continues to this day. And I
think in many ways the office of governors changed since
COVID in terms of that expectation, and that's more challenging
perhaps here because of the diversity of the state, because
of the scale and scope of this state. It's not
an excuse, it's just it's been part of an interesting
journey of recognition of understanding for me in terms of
trying to understand what people expect of their governor that
(30:32):
I never expected of my governor before I got here.
Every day I wake up just to be able to
not scream and yell at the TV set and we
actually do something about it. To be on the forefront,
unprecedented forefront of climate change and addressing that issue head on,
and leading this nation in term policy, climate pangs policy
(30:53):
and low carbon green growth, changing the way we produce
a consumer energy. The work we've done on mental health
at scale no one else's done. I mean, someone said,
you know, you really need baby bonds. We put two
billion dollars up every child three point four million kids
gets a college savings account or a career account up
to fifteen hundred dollars that enters into kindergarten. We create
a brand new grade pre K for all. Swartzenegar City
(31:15):
wanted after school for all. Put one hundred and fifty
million dollars in. We put five billion dollars and made
it happen after school and summer school for all community schools,
reimagining the school day, extending them to nine hours a day.
The ability to do what we've done on policy making,
on homelessness again, I know that's not been felt, but
this new care court, new paradigm to address the issue
(31:36):
of mental and behavioral health, the issues we've done in
terms of reforming our medical system through this thing called CALAIM,
which is nation leading effort I can go through. Honestly, Listen,
universal health care only stay in America, regardless of preexisting conditions,
ability to pay, or immigration status controversial. California has done it.
We're not talking about it. And so in each category,
(31:57):
the ability to effectuate policy at scale has been a
gift and a dream. But at the same time, it's
disaster time over and over, and it eclipses a lot,
and it makes for a lot of situational politics when
I have a sort of policy sustainable mindset around politics.
And of course you had Trump into the mixture. Trump
(32:18):
one point zero his last two years, had Trump two
point zero in his first two years of his second term.
That also requires some adjustments and some tacking and.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Just reality now different reality for me.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Another memory I have of living here and my knowledge
of my awareness of California politics was I thought Gray
Davis was a nice guy. I thought he was a
good guy. He was a decent governor. Still when I
met him, I love Grey Davis. So when that all happened,
darryl Issa decides he's going to do the recall of
Gray Davis. The whole enron thing was involved the brown outs,
and Issa thinks he's going to be anointed. He helps
(32:54):
to put the whole thing together. He produces the recall,
he wins, Davis is gone, and then they turn him
in the tap of the shoulder and they go, it's
not your night, kid, And they bring Arnold in to
become the governor. No political record, no nothing. He becomes
the governor. And I've had a lot of acoustic comments
about that as well. But you had a recall effort
launched against you.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
What was that? I mean was that intense? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Well yeah, because I mean talk about you know, a
little humiliating God. And I got four young kids. I
mean they're going to school there. You know, my oldest
daughter ended up being homeschool because it just didn't work.
The bullying and everything else was going on. And that's hard.
It's you know, hard to explain. You know, we couldn't
get it. I mean, there was I'm not exaggerated, I
say over a year where you couldn't get out the
front door of your house because of protests. You know,
(33:35):
Hitler must the whole thing during that time, and and
and and so it just extended, and you know, and
I think the hardest part I was, you know, it's
strange to say this, but you know, I was working,
you know, I'd written a book called Citizens It's don't
even matter, but I had, you know, knew Kingridge was
talking about, and we were taught, we became you know,
I became friendly with Nude on some ideas and was
(33:56):
able to work with folks on the other side. And
then there's Nude on TV promoting my recall, and there's
you know, Mike Huckleby out there promoting the recall and
then I think getting a few bucks for it as well,
and my friends and the legislature of Republicans I was
working with co chairing the recall, and I'm like, well, okay,
and I thought politics was all local a little old
fashioned there, right, All politics is local, bs, All politics
(34:19):
is national now.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
And they came hard. The RNC put in the first month.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I had to raise eighty four million dollars to defend it,
and there were polls just a few months before that
showed it neck to neck. We were able to pull
away with a twenty plus point margin. And it was
a big mistake for the Republicans because then my reelect,
you know, it was a year later. Yeah, and we
kind of just coated it through. But I'll tell you
it sharpened my muscles, got me focused with a different
(34:45):
there's sense of finality with a recall, in that humility
is a finality. And then my focus, my energy and
also you know, the points of contrast. That's why I
started going out on the road, started this pack That's
Campaign for Democracy because I had a few dollars left
over from my campaign, put twenty million into this pack,
raised more money and started going. I went on Fox
with Sean Hannity, did those debates with DeSantis, started doing
(35:09):
billboards in states across this country, taking on some of
the Republican leadership, calling them out for their hypocrisy, doing
the same thing with full page newspaper ads, did TV
commercials across the country, and then it led me to
sort of getting more involved with the Biden campaign. Was
one of his chief surrogates, was out there doing the
spin room and the debates for better for worse, and
extended a little bit to common meaning I found myself
(35:30):
now recognizing the politics in DC and what's happening across
this country was impacting the state in ways I honestly
I didn't fully understand at the level that I should have.
And so I'm a different guy from that. And of course,
you know, God is my witness. We're sitting here.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yesterday they submitted another one. So do we call you? Yeah?
So here we go. So you know, I'm that may
I don't know, it could happen this time. I don't know.
We'll see. So it's just God, no, hell of hell.
I like that acting thing. You talked about Yeah, that's
his review. Enough Jesus. But you can pivot.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
You could pivot speaking of acting my sense, and you
can fine tune this. And of course you know infinitely
more than I do about this, which is that tax
breaks in a state like this are very fragile because
people are like tax backs for Hollywood. Hell no, we
have so many other things we got to pay for.
We're giving so many things away. There are social programs
in this state unlike any other state that costs millions
and billions of dollars. And so when you come and
(36:27):
say we want more tax backs for Hollywood, a lot
of the population of the state north that southes like
screw you.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Now.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
The problem is many of the jobs have left. And
my friends who used to go out to Atlanta and
rent a house, they don't rent to house.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
They bought a house there. They left here. They've left
this state.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
The business is imploding in Los Angeles, correct, And the
question becomes, is there any chance of increased tax baks
for the movie business.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
We're going to double it, you are, Yeah, it's going
to be higher than New York. I proposed that a
few months ago, and that was right before the fires.
What are the fires only reinforced the imperative and also
working with all our friends, some of you know, the
who's who of Hollywood, saying it's time to double down.
I'm bringing production back to California, particularly this time of
recovery and renewal, and so I want to see them
(37:09):
step up as well.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
But we're going to step up.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
It's in my budget and I'm gonna I said to
my legislative friends, I said, there's no budget, I'll detail
the budget. If we don't get it done, it's going
to get done, and we're going to do other things
to start promoting bringing people back. Look, you know, world
we invented is competing against us in so many ways.
I mean, you know, across the spectrum of industries. And
so I think California started resting on its laurels a
little bit, and we didn't invest in our future like
(37:33):
we did in the past in the fifties and sixties,
And we have to reconcile that. Now we've got one
hundred and eighty billion dollar infrastructure plan that's bigger than
it was during the Pat Brown era in the fifties
and sixties. We're starting to make big investments, bold investments,
and quantum and immunology, new public private partnerships. Again, that
conditions the Silicon Valley continue to thrive. That's why you
(37:54):
have the NVIDIAs out here, and you have so I mean,
the sam For all the people hating on California, they
still seem to have so many of their business imprints
here in this great state. You know, we we have
progressive tax system, but we have an increased state taxes
since twenty eleven Trump administration did with the salt the
state and local salt deductions, which are impacting you in
New York as well. It's hurt the big Blue states.
(38:16):
But I'm mindful of sensitivities around taxes. I'm mindful about
the need to do regulatory reform sequel. I've done forty
two secret reform bills. We've done streamlining on large scale projects. Again,
I watch Fox, I pay attention Newsmax one American News.
I don't turn my back to the critics. But there
is a sort of California arrangement syndrome out there that
(38:37):
is just sort of ridiculous. This notion that this is
the only state that has challenges. It's just comedic, but
it's damaging. We record breaking tourism last year. We have
a surplus again. We have a state with population growing again.
You wouldn't know that that's not prevalent. It's not part
of the discussion golf by the fires. It's been in
golfing the fires. It's you know, it's a failed state,
(38:58):
you know, California, And so it's you know, it's a
whole industry California. It's a man and I get it.
It's like you and so, yeah, buck up. But for me,
you know, it's not just bucking up. It's like it's
a big it's pride for me again, as a guy
lives here who cares about the state, is to make
a case a new for it.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
And I'm a little CLINTONI about it.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
There's nothing wrong with it that can't be fixed with
by what's right with it, And so you know, I
need some boosters out there. Some of the biggest critics,
again are the biggest beneficiaries. Elon Musk, why do you
become a billionaire? His first billion came from California because
of the regulations, not despite them, because of them, because
of our vehicle fuel mandates that helped create that industry.
(39:40):
Billions and billions of dollars of subsidies that the people
of the state of California, not just the federal government,
has provided these guys, and yet they're tech in the state,
even though this state created a state of mind, that
quality of imagination, and a regulatory framework that made risk
taking work for them. God bless our entrepreneurial talents. Thank
you for their entrepreneurship. I don't begrudge their success, but
(40:02):
I do take a little umbrage by their constant drumbeat
of criticism that I just find unbecoming of people that
have enjoyed the benefits and success that have been a
big partner that we've been partners in this state.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Eighty four.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I'm here in this state. I move here. I lived
in Venice for five years. So I drive over the
four h five. You'd hit the top of Mulholland you'd
be going into the valley heading north, and it was
like mustard gas, the band of toxins in the air
in the valley in California in the eighties, it was
I couldn't even believe it. Your eyes were teering if
you had the top down of the car. And of
course California renowned for this making the emissions laws change
(40:41):
and change change. When I lived here, everybody lived on
the west side. Nobody lived Inland, Silver Lake, Los Felis,
Korea Town down to Nobody lived there unless you didn't
have any money, and you all live on the west side.
Now the West side is like the upper east side
of Manhattan. Only old, rich people live there, and all
the young people have moved Inland because of the change
in the air qual and pop'll forget it and change everything.
In the late sixties, La was basically unlivable. The business
(41:04):
community was outraged.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
They went to this guy up in Sacramento, happens to
share a similar office, guy named Ronald Reagan, Governor. They said,
Jesus Reagan, you know this. This smog's out of control
in Los Angeles. We can't recruit employees, let alone businesses,
corporate headquarters, etc. You got to clean this so literally,
modern air quality movements started with Ronald Reagan, Republican created
the California Air Resources Board. Three years later, a guy
(41:28):
named Richard Nixon, Republican, codifies California's waiver with something called
the Clean Air Act. Two Republican leaders that allowed us
to have these established rules every hour.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, I few every once in a while.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
But the point being, those are the rules that are
being vandalized by the current administration. Those are the rules
they are coming after. That are the rules that established
the strategies that ultimately led to some of the improvements
that you rightly notice.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
You know, for me, I would come out here and
when you're in Toronto, when you're in New York, when
you're in Vancouver, when you're in Chicago. Back in the day,
you're going to different places in this country. Orlando where
they had to grow an indigenous crop of people to
work there. De Lamentis apparently was somebody who coaxed people
in the unions to bring furniture makers to come and
build sets in North Carolina. When you build this DDL
(42:14):
studios there, you got to have an indigenous worker base. Now,
there is no indigenous workerbase on the planet that compares
to Los Angeles. And I always say the same story.
You go to New York and the prop guy would
say what kind of watch you want to wear?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
And I would go, well, let's take a look.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
And he opened up a case and there was fifty
watches in there in a case you come to Los
Angeles at the studio, the guy goes, what kind of
watch you want to wear? And you want to know,
let's take a look. He rolls in two steam trunks
with four hundred watches in them. Hollywood is Hollywood. Yeah,
Hollywood is Hollywood and everybody who knows now as I
get a little emotional about this, which is, you only
want to make movies here if you can. I love
working here. It's the best of the best. There's nothing
(42:49):
like shooting a movie in LA and I want to
see that come back one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And just to give me a little bona fidies for
me on this. When Arno was governor, I remember back
to one I I was mayor, he was governor, and
I was very I was very vocal by one critique
of Arnold. There were a few, but one of them
was like, why the hell aren't you doing more to
keep Hollywood production here? You're Arnold's sports the mayor, And
He's like, well, he made the point that you made earlier,
which is interesting, was a legitimate sense. I gotta do this.
I got to then do it. For biotech. We're the
(43:16):
birthplace of biotech and life science. And Nanto technology line
they want, and so it was erased the bottom from
his perspective. But in San Francisco, we became the first
city to do it. So we did it, and I
got an NBC production, which was a big deal, at
least at the time I made it a big deal.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
It was a small ball thing. It was a little
TV show.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But with our tax credits to make the point, and
then of course I ran for governor making a commitment.
We were able to increase the tax credits. A few
years ago. We were able to expand how you can
utilize them a little more flexibility.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
With some questions there.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
But now I said, look we're playing small ball. We
got to double it to the point. So look that's
one way, but I think it's more important than that.
We got to make it. You know this industry, and
I you know, and I appreciate you know this better
than anyone. And with all the labor issues, I mean,
the SAG and everything else that happens, so you have COVID,
these things are shut down, strikes, strikes, social unrest. George
(44:05):
Floyd all this, you stack all that stress and anxiety,
all the burning, but it hasn't come back since the
strikes entered at all, even back to where it was prior.
So this is a this is code read, this is
life support time, and it's a point of deep pride
that first of all, it's the point of pride of
hearing you say how much you love to be down
here movies, because that's that's intangible. There's no legislation for that.
(44:27):
It's spirit pride, and that's the game that should separate
the game played here from anywhere else. But we have
to have more muscle, and we as a state need
to be more supportive and create the conditions to stabilize
and send the signals that we're going to have the
back of this industry. And again, it's not just people
like you with love and respect. It's the person that
rolled up in that car that was showing you those
(44:48):
watches that are the beneficiaries of you.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Beat in town. It's the damn the world.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Yes, and they and they deserve middle class folks, hardworking
folks that are out of work right now.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
My last thing for you is this, which that you're
one of the few people, I mean many people in
your profession everyone, but in life, you're one of the
few people who you know when your job's over.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Except I don't. I mean, these recalls come, I'm a.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Ignoring that twenty twenty four. So the next selection is
in twenty twenty eight in Washington. That'll leave you two
years to kind of focus on. What are you going
to focus on those two years?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah, I'm a milk cart and I got to sell
by date. I get it.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
And it's very sobering, and I'm very mindful of that.
And again with the sense of urgency that I brought
into this job after the recall, and I have no
idea what the hell's.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Going to happen.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
That's some idea is that you know what everybody's like, Well,
what does Democratic Party need to do to get back
on to that? What are the real why did Kamala
Harris loose? So I'm up to nine pages of analysis.
Each page contradicts the prior page. I think, you know,
we're going to have to figure out where the hell
this party is or how we get out of this.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
I think all of.
Speaker 3 (45:50):
Most of it will be shaped by what Trump does
and in reaction too, but I think there's got to
be a little bit of a deeper reflection on this
party and where we'll be in four years, who the
hell knows.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I won't ask you that question, but I will say
as we finish, I don't think your caretaking years are over.
You still have some more work to do to take
care of people, to take care of people, and you
may have to move out of California.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
So we'll say we need another California politician, that we
need a.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
California governor to step up and solve some of the
country's problems.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
God bless You're good to be with you.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
My thanks to California Governor Gavin Newsom. This episode was
recorded at Lime Studios in Santa Monica and CDM Studios
in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice,
and Victoria De Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperio. Our
social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Special thanks to Chris O'Keefe.
(46:47):
I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought to you
by iHeart Radio.
This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's
the Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today is a politician, businessman,
and the fortieth governor of California. Prior to his governorship,
Gavin Newsom served as the Lieutenant governor of California and
as the forty second mayor of San Francisco. A native
(00:24):
San Franciscan, Newsom began his political career as a volunteer
for Willie Brown's mayoral campaign in nineteen ninety five. California
may be the sixth largest economy in the world, but
it faces some of our country's biggest problems. Most recently,
Governor Newsom has been contending with the wildfires the devastated
(00:45):
areas of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This passed to January.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Wildfires are cyclical and a natural part of the topography
of the area. However, this year's fires were particularly destructive.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I mean, I was just reading a Joan Didion piece.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I'm talking about one hundred mile an hour winds, and
our birds were literally combusting in the sky, and horses
are on fire and being shot, and embers went miles
across the pch and one hundred and ninety seven homes
were burned. So the answer is, yes, this has happened,
and it will continue to happen. And so we'reas dumb
as we want to be if we rebuild without a
different mindset around science, climate resiliency, and redundancy as relates
(01:26):
to emergency management.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Is it safe to say, because obviously these areas where
this happened, and this is I'm assuming, in one sense
a complicating factor and in another sense not really, which
is you just can't go back and build the paliseds
the way it was.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I mean, that's the tension. People want to move back,
They want to move back quickly. Now they want to
move back quickly but safely. So it comes to the
issues of debris removal, soil sampling testing, and now they
want to come back safely. But also recognizing that we
want to have a different kind of level of confidence
that the building materials that we're going to use when
we build are not going to be compustible, that we
(02:04):
got redundancy systems as it relates to water, as it
relates to hydrants, that we have more evacuation routes, better
emergency warnings and the like. And so it's that constant
tension that we're going to have to figure out in
real time and in real time, including quite literally today
down here in La We got through record breaking first
phase to be removal of hazardous waste within three weeks,
(02:26):
and we're trying to move heaven and earth literally and
figuratively to get all the rest of the debris done
in nine months to a year. At the same time
concurrently providing building permits which people are getting today, and
you're going to see homes starting to be rebuilt over
the course of the next few months. So this is
all happening as sort of a rolling process that we
(02:47):
hope will give people some confidence and their ability to
come back home, but to come back home in.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
A much better place.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
We have a writer coming on to do the show
in a couple of weeks who wrote a piece that
I was completely fascinated by, quote when plastic cities burn.
Her name was Zobe Schlanger, and I always remember during
nine to eleven that when thirteen million square feet of
real estate came down and formed a toxic booja baise
on that site, and then it rained the next day
(03:13):
and a lot of that got washed into the harbor. Yep,
and so the problem appear. I'm wondering is is that
a big urgent thing is to get that Malibu crap
out of.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
There as soon as possible going to the ocean.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
No, And it's interesting we work concurrently. I mean, this
is typical California. We had a three year drought that
was the most significant since statehood that was ended with
a three weeks of flooding, the most significant since statehood.
So drought and floods concurrently, and so that was our
mindset after this fire. Once we put out the fires,
we started to get these atmospheric rivers and hadn't seen
(03:44):
any rain in nine months up to this fire. Remember
this fire occurred in January. It was as dry as
it's ever been in modern history. And then of course
we had those floods. So we were working with our
debris crews and immediately moving them to do water management
and to begin to set up barriers, to do what
we could to protect as much infrastructure as well as
(04:06):
the ocean and other watersheds.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We did a decent job, in that you can always
do better.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
We didn't have a lot of time, but we're deeply
mindful to get this stuff out as quickly as possible
because of that concern. But again, in that process, you know,
you got to work through the propane tanks, you got
to work through the EV batteries, and you know we
talk about lexrication. That's a big part of this. And
then no one saw that coming. I made that point
to Trump when I was in the Oval office. I said,
(04:30):
you know, Elon may have some insight on this. So
it's you know, it's this is all challenged, but it's
also familiar.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
And I want to make that point. This is the
tragedy of all this.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
You know, the folks that are working on this debris
removal just finished up, are still marginally working in Maui.
In terms of the wildfire's there. The folks that I'm
working with, the folks I worked with directly at Coffee
Park in northern California. We lost fifty six hundred homes
to wildfire in Paradise, California, the most deadly wildfire California history.
(05:00):
Eighty five people lost their lives there. The same folks
working on this are folks that work there. So in
a rather perverse way, there's a hell of a lot
of experience in this space in terms of prevention suppression
response in terms of the immediate and then obviously long
term commitment to being here, getting the job done, and
not turning our back on this community when the cameras
(05:21):
are gone.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Well, you mentioned Paradise. We had on the show Lucy Walker,
who made the film Bring your Own Brigade. Oh yes,
which is this wonderful doc about Wolsey.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And she just sent it to me and I've got
to open it up. I love, she says, I'm telling you,
the answers to all your questions are right here.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
She's there in Paradise. And there's a scene in the
movie when they have the consultant come in about what
to do to remediate and the guy gives them five
basic things the distance of the plant life and the
vegetation from the house. That no, don't let it touch
the roof, but all these are no wood roofs anymore,
no wood sigles. It gives them a very basic set.
They bring him in, they hire him, he makes his recommendations,
(06:00):
and they reject all of them. Yeah, they want to
go right back and have everything the way it was,
And that's must be one of the toughest things for you.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah. No, And this is it.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean people, you know, I remember in Paradise people said, well,
you can't let them rebuild their I said, well, these
people have been around since California was founded. I mean,
there's some of the original post office boxes in San
Francisco were here before there was millions and millions of California.
And so that's the tension because now obviously different level
of sophistication around what we referred to as the Wuies,
this wild lamb urban interface, and obviously so much in
(06:31):
the new construction that's not since we've got so much nimbism.
Every major state does, but particularly here on the coast,
people don't want density, so they tend to do sprawl,
and that sprawl gets further and further into this forested areas,
creating more challenging conditions in the best of times. But
when you combine that now with the hot's getting a
lot hotter, the dry is getting drier as it relates
(06:52):
to climate change and the more extremes and the weather,
obviously that's combustible in every way, shape or form, and so.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
That's the tension.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Insurance in many ways is taking care of that, even
it's a head of policy, because people are just not
ensuring insurance companies. Capitalism is raining. They're pulling out of
the market. Now you can't get your mortgage, Now you
can't get your home. And so that's the tension that's
happened all across the Western United States and in the South,
these hurricanes the same thing Florida, Florida, I mean, Georgia,
(07:22):
and North Carolina, Louisiana. And so none of this is
necessarily unique to California. We just like everything in California,
the future happens here first, the good and the bad.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
And we're in the tip of.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The sphere, not just to the challenges as it relates
to Mother Nature, but also in terms of our response
and trying to address a lot of the underlying causes
as it relates to the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.
And I'm proud of that leadership. But look, this is
the tension working with the insurance companies who are allowing
now climate modeling in terms of their rate approvals, which
(07:54):
we never did in the past, which is stabilizing that market.
Of course, it's been radically impacted by these recent fires.
We are working with land use experts and we actually
have more aggressive proposals that I just put out quite
literally a few weeks ago in response to these fires,
as it relates not just to defensible spaces, but home
hardening and other strategies around materials. And we're going to
(08:17):
be much more restrictive in terms of those that want
to come back and build in a nineteen thirty style.
We simply cannot afford that structure of structure impacts. You're
impacting the entire community, not just putting your own home
at risk.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
There's an opportunity here to see the future. That as
an opportunity for the people, not just you, because you're
obviously way ahead of the kirk because of your job.
But there's an opportunity here for people to face the
future and design a place. It's gone. It's not some
burn this and that and we have a patch work.
It's all gone. It's a blank slate. What do you
do when the blank slate with what the current information
(08:53):
is and have the modern community?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Well?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
And one thing is with you know, you start with
a framework of humility and grace. That is, it's not
top down, meaning it's not to dictate from Sacramento or Washington, DC.
It's got to be a community led effort, particularly not
just in the Palisades. Remember the Palisades represents you know,
you know it's a diverse community, but certainly the demographics
(09:16):
are so different than Alta Dina, which was even more impacted,
which is profoundly diverse community. And the issues that you
brought up around speculation and price gouging, people coming in
with unsolicit offers to buy out people's property for pennies
on the dollar.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
They were targeting.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Different portions of the around community like Maui, and so
we were aggressive on some early executive orders, and our
Attorney General's been aggressive calling that out addressing some of
those issues. But what I just launched was a new platform. Look,
we want a community engage process, but we don't want
the community to be intimidated by the mob, meaning by
organized interests that have a disproportionate impact on the outcome
(09:54):
of a community design effort. So we created a new
platform called Engaged California. It's actual platform that allows people
to be heard, has a two way framework of conversation
between the state, city partners, federal partners, and the community
where they can design that future and feel heard and
represented in the process. A deliberative process to try to
(10:17):
find consensus to answer your question. Bringing in the best minds,
the best scientists from around the world.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
We already I can't tell you great opportunity for those minds.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
You know, we had Bill and Hillary Clinton reached out.
They said at the Clinton Foundation, We've got some of
these world class architects from Japan and they're sending cell
phone numbers. We're getting all these people, and we're populating
all these folks the best materials, the best designs, prefab
all kinds of new strategies on fire suppression, et cetera.
And so we're trying to bring all that bear to
your point to sort of this is our extraordinary opportunity
(10:49):
with all the ingenuity and creativity and entrepreneurials, resources literal
and resources more broadly defined a resourceful mindset. We have
to take advantage all that. And again we cannot build
it back the exact way that it was.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Less like a movie set. It's a movie. It was
a movie set it was anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
So one more question about that subject, which is I,
you know, beyond people speculating about Trump and strings attached
and all this other stuff, what I'm wondering is are
you confident as the governor of such a huge state,
was such a wealthy state, and yet they need help.
Are you confident the federal Governm's gonna step up and
help county.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
As we you know, roll back the tape in six months,
we'll see at this moment, you know, we had a
very good conversation, you know, at the tarmac with the president,
phone call, follow up conversations in the oval.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You're hopeful.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah, look at the end of and I've been through this.
I remember Paradise, California. I wasn't even governor during Paradise,
but I was lieutenant governor, and I remember tweeting out saying,
you know, the former governor was the worst governor American history.
Needs to rake the forests and basically blaming the governor
for the fire right there, Brown And said, I'm withholding money,
and that money eventually came, and so you know, and
(11:55):
he's done in Puerto Rico. He's done it to other states,
including some red states, and so look, I get the
nature of leverage. He's the master of leverage. He's going
to take advantage of those points of leverage. Any vulnerabilities
in some ways, I don't begrudge that. I get it.
You know, I'm mature, been around and so you know,
we have to work with him, and so far I've
got to say no, bs, it's actual truth. We went
(12:17):
from about seven eight hundred people doing first phase to
pre removal. After we sat down with him, we had
about fifteen hundred. So he stepped out in matters. And
so if it's attached to him, and success is attached,
and I would love all the success to flow his direction,
I think we can produce some pretty smarm result we concerned,
of course, and that's by the way his approach I
(12:37):
had during COVID, there was a democratic governor the United
States America period, full stop, absolute objectivity. I don't say
this from a subjective perch. No democratic governor worked better
with Trump during COVID than I did. Despite the fact
we're involved in one hundred and twenty two lawsuits where he.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Was calling me a clown. I called him penny wise
for caging kids that we're on the border issues.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I remember some of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the
times every now and then.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
So you know, we were able to figure that out,
and I think we're you know, it's a familiar space
for us again.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
We'll see how long it lasts though.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
California Governor Gavin Newsom. If you enjoy conversations about Golden
State politics, check out my episode with former California Congresswoman
Katie Porter.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
You know, I think there is an attitude that you know,
sort of people are entitled to have Republican representation. Here.
What they're entitled to is good representation, right, people who
listen to them, people who fight for them, people who
are not corrupt, and that can come in your Democratic
or Republican forms.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
To hear more of my conversation with Katie Porter, go
to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Gavin
Newsom reveals why he never reads speeches and the challenges
he faced as a child growing up with dyslexia. I'm
(14:07):
Alec Baldwin, and this is Here's the Thing. I had
the privilege of speaking with Governor Gavin Newsom recently in
Los Angeles. Newsom was raised by a hard working single
mother who often worked up to three jobs to support him,
his sister, and their foster children's siblings. Newsom would eventually
help support the family himself, working several part time jobs.
(14:30):
While in high school. I was curious if Governor Newsom
viewed himself as a caretaker as a young man and
in his political career.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, I just I mean my mom, single mom, teenager,
came from no wealth, nothing passed away fifteen eighteen years
ago with nothing, just worked her tail off. Don't complain,
don't explain. You just get up, do your work. And
yet nothing was given to you. You had the paper roots,
you did the construction, you did the janitorial, you went
out there, you were an entrepreneur to pay for a
basketball hoop, just made it happen. And that grit, that
(15:01):
hard work, what a gift. That was the gift of divorce.
And an idealistic dad that wasn't a dad until I
was older.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
He was around.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
He was around and he passed years ago, but he
was around when I was older, and it was amazing mentor.
But he was passionate about the environment, he was passionate
about social justice, racial justice for Getty, and he worked. Yeah,
he was a judge and he was kind of he
was like he was one of those activist judges and
worked a little bit with a Getty family. And that attachment,
of course, is a big part of the narrative of
(15:30):
me that somehow my name is Gavin Getty, not Gavin Newsom.
So people just assumed there was a trust fund, wealth privilege.
But my childhood bears testament to something.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Repizza and asked you to pay for it because there,
thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I know.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, by the way, if there's a trust fund in
my future, let me know, I'm looking forward to it.
But it was yeah, no, so it was shaped by that,
and you never you know, Look, the biggest problem with
me was not having a single mom. Was the problem
for her of having two kids and one that couldn't
read or write. I don't read speeches. I can't audio
as you're preferred.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, well no it's not preferred.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
I have such severe learning disability dyslexia that I you know,
so I'm st childhood, since childhood, so you've never seen
me read a speech in my life. And that's a
hell of a profession to pay.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So you're a skilled actor that you were, like the
Olivia of California politics.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
My point is I have so much empathy for her
that I never was able to express because she passed
so many years ago. But what a you know, what
a gift in hindsight, all this, you know all that,
you know all you can claim your victim whatever. It's
shaped who I am, and it's shaped to work ethic
and that's I'll tell you anything else. There's nothing that
I value more than just the deep appreciation of taking
(16:40):
You have agency. You can shape the future. It's not
conditions that determine your faith in future. It's decisions. And
so I've never had a victim mindset. I've always just
felt just grit, hard work, and humility at the same time.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Now you start in San Francisco your political career. The
reason I say your you're the caretaker thing is because
obviously everybody talks about you're this handsome guy. You could
have driven down the road and gone to LA and
had a movie career, probably in fifteen minutes. But instead
we find you land at the Parking and Parking and
Traffic Commission. Yeah, well, yeah, I did constituent services one
(17:16):
year for Tom Hayden.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Do you did?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Hayden walked into his off He goes, what are you
doing here? I was on a TV show. He goes,
what are you doing? I go, I'm doing constituent services.
These people can't pay their power bill. He goes, come
into my office because I went and volunteered for him,
and they put me in that I did these I mean,
I'm like you in that sense that I just I
wanted to work there. You go and get involved in
the process. But when you get involved why at the polyside.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Degree, Well, I was a small business guy, started right
out of college, putt of small businesses, Yeah, a bunch,
and put pen to paper, got thirteen investors, raised seventy
five hundred bucks each and opened this little the dime
still with us today, a wine store. And it was
inspiration desperation. I thought this one.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Would crush it and it was a disaster.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Two three years, just struggle and you know, couldn't afford
Literally when I say no employees, I had a part
time employee back Kelly. She came in at five every
night because I couldn't affor anyone else. When I did deliveries,
I literally went to my apartment to go to the
warehouse to pick up the case of wine. I had
to lock the door back in twenty minutes and then
drove myself. You made the wine and didn't make it.
(18:17):
Nobody was a wine store. So wine shop, Yeah, wine shop.
And I say that not to impress it impress upon
you sort of. You know that was you know, he
was inspired to open a small business.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Entrepreneurial mind.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Say you have dyslexia, by definition, you a little more
entrepreneur because you're used to making mistakes. You try to earierating,
you're trying new things. You're willing to take risks because
you don't know any other way. You're not wrote, you're
not linear, and you're thinking, so open this business. And
year three had started to work, and then someone said
to you, we should do something more. And I said,
I took those same investors. They doubled down fifteen thousand each.
(18:48):
Open a restaurant, got lucky with a chef, Arnold Rossman,
who knew he was a great chef, three and a
half out of four stars. There's lines people are saying, Europe,
you're a great restaurant.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Try.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I said, I don't know what the hell I'm doing
twenty five years old. Meanwhile, Willie Brown, is the mayor
of San Francisco, calls me, says, I appreciate he did
a fundraiser for me. I know my state status.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
It was.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
I think that's because I did a few fundraisers at
the wine store young people thinks and he goes, hey,
you want to be on the film commission. I said,
that's fantastic, and so I go down to city Hall.
I'm like, this is great, twenty something years old film commission.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
This is amazing.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
And go down and he's swearing a bunch of people
in the same day and he says, Gavin Newsom the
new chair of the Parking and Traffic Commission.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And I'm like, what the hell?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
At first, I didn't even chair met and I swear
to God, I'll never for get crown fo get better than.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
That, get you a better of that.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I was like, film film, I'm into. I go and
they said, what's your vision on parking and traffic? There
was like a camera. I said, I literally, I still
have it. It's on a VHS step. I still have it.
Someone's stressed tested this and I was actually able.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
To find it, and I said, well, I stumbled along.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
I said, I pay my parking tickets, so here I am,
damn President of the Parking and Traffic Commission. And it
turns out it actually was an important job because there
was a freeway that we had to down wild controversy
west side of town. East side of town, and somehow
I'm in the middle of it and I didn't completely
blow it. And as a consequence of that, nine months later,
(20:09):
Willie Brown has a vacancy on the San Francisco County
Board of Supervisors, and he was out there struggling to
find someone. And in Willie Brown's unique way legend in
California politics, he says, I found the perfect affirmative action candidate.
He referred to me as his affirmative of the only
(20:29):
straight white male that he said would take the jobs
he needs one.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
He needs one.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
So I was the I was, at least, based on
his assessment, an affirmative at which you know was some
beared some truth to that. And so he pointed me
to the board supervisor. That's how my political life started.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Now, did you work close, fairly closely with him and
over those usually were?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I mean I drove him crazy because I was still
that entrepreneur. I was still the small business and I
know I didn't understand politics. I understand what being appointed
meant means something a little different than being elected.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Doesn't your wards what?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Well?
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I challenged him a lot, I said, you know, you know,
and I was the business guy. So I would come.
You know, I was the little snotty kid. You know, well,
I take a business like approach to looking at these things.
I need to see the business. And there's exactly whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
So I was the champion. I was the conservative in
San Francisco politics. And and he turns out and and
I guess you know, I was like six people ten
people in the race, and I was thirty four years old,
and you know, I didn't think i'd have a chance
in hell and gotten a runoff and boom, I'm I'm
going to learn from him.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
He's a master. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Everybody ascribes a real heavy political, you know skill to him.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I remember someone describing, I don't know if it was
described accurately, but of the grateful dead of Jerry Garcia.
Someone describing Jerry saying, you don't want to be the
best of the best. You want to be the only
one that does what you do. You don't want to
be the best the best. The only one that doesn't
do that's Willie Brown. He redefined as far they had
(21:59):
to remember termline it's in California, literally were established because
they couldn't get rid of them. And he kept becoming
speaker even when it was the FDR offer, but they
had Republicans in the majority, and they made a Democratic
speaker because he was a deal maker. It's a different era.
Worked with Reagan, he had great bipartisan bona FIDE's, but
he stood on principle, still stands on principle today. He's
(22:19):
alive and he's a fierce critic still to these days,
and the fiercest and most loyal person. And the reason
I'm here, the reason we're having this conversation is Willie
Brownt here.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
When you're on the Board of Supervisors and then you
become the mayor of San Francisco. Everyone that I know,
because I love San Francisco and I've always enjoyed going there.
I haven't spent volumes of time there, but I always
went there with friends and had the best time and
love it there. But it seems to have you know,
the same metronomic kind of problems there about your housing
(22:51):
now because of the tech boom and homelessness and drugs
and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
What shape is it in now? What you say is
it is still struggling. No, it's coming back, perhaps, I
mean by any of people.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I just you know, I think it went through a
very difficult period around COVID, and there was sort of
a you know, people step back. The tents started to
a mass on the streets. We see that across country,
notably in California, more encampments, more tents, and it was
by the way it was directed by the FED saying,
you want to cohort people. We don't want to clean
up the tents and the encampments. During COVID there was
(23:22):
concerns around that, and so after that there was a
mindset of almost additional permissiveness, and that became very dominant,
particularly in San Francisco, where it no longer was concentrated
in this forty to fifty square block area, in this
sort of tenderloin where it's been for thirty forty years,
started to become more prevalent, even into some of the neighborhoods.
But that's now coming back. The crime rates are down
(23:46):
near fifty year lows. You're seeing people starting to move
back in the neighborhoods are vibrant as much more than ever.
Downtown is still struggling, but look, it's a city that
shaped me, my.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Great great great grandfather.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
There was a cop and you know, and my dad
used to say, says he didn't know what came first,
the Irish cop or San Francisco, And so I think
it took one hundred and fifty years for the cop
to become a politician.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
And here I am.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
But it's one of the most magical, curious and mystical places.
And one thing it continues to be is a state
of just constant renewal.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
But in that svide between northern and southern California which
I observed for the many years I was here, a
more liberal and progressive quadrant here and a more conservative
quadrant here, in spite of la being part of that.
When I was in California in the early days, I
was here. I came here in eighty three, so it
was the end of the first term of Reagan. He's
heading into his re election. I think Duke Magen was
(24:40):
the governor. The Olympics are coming, so they just scooped
everybody up and put them in busses and took them
to Barstow.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
They were like, clean it up for the Olympics, we
don't want the world to see it. And they took
all the wh I lived in Venice then, and they
just scooped them all up and put them on the
bus and shipped him out of town.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Let's be cana.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
That still happens all across this country and as an
ongoing issue, and that's the tension. Look, I mean out
of side, not out of mind for advocates, and it's understandable.
But right now I think people are on edge all
across this country. People are edge in this state. They've
had it. They don't want to see the encampents anymore.
They're done, They're done with the tents. I'm done with
the tents. I'm done with the encampments. So we've been
very aggressive. We've been very more forceful as a state.
(25:17):
You know, when I was mayor, back to the days
of the mayor, the state of California was nowhere to
be found in homeless policy. There was no homeless plan.
It was the counties and the city's responsibility. Schwarzenegger was
governor at the time. I never thought of calling. And
by the way, we have the highest number of people
on the streets and sidewalks back then, it's not a
new phenomena.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
This twenty years ago.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
It was one hundred and eighty eight thousand people out
on the streets and sidewalks in our point of time
count and it was the dominant issue for me as mayor,
and it was my responsibility, my accountability, had no finger pointing,
and we made real progress for six or seven years,
legit real progress, and we started to see that unwind
in the last decade or so.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Back to again, I think COVID accelerating a lot of that.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Fentanyl issues are street behavior, issues around drug use, mental health,
and again a permissive structure that we have to address
and we are addressing in this state. It just it's
you know, it can't turn it around immediately, but directionally
we're much more aggressive taking responsibility. It's not a laisse
fair attitude. We're again not victims of this. And you know,
(26:17):
I'm a little more heart at it, a little more pragmatic.
Advocates don't always see eyed eye with me, but it's
time that we are held to higher level accountablity, particularly democrats.
We've got to prove we can govern, proven, get out
of our own damn way and permits, get housing done,
get things moving again like we I mean, the world
we invent. It's working against us. Process and SEQUA and
all the bullshit excuse my language, and the lawsuits and
(26:40):
the litigation, and I think it's one of the reasons
Trump's back in the White House. So it's a big
wake up call and all of us own that, I think,
And I'll.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Forget the long winningness.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
No.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
One of the gifts of the Olympics coming in in
twenty twenty eight is it forces a regionalization, forces a
national and state focus on getting big things is done.
And with these fires now a sense of urgency to
do both. And and so I got to tell you
I would never I mean, I'm the biggest prob There's
(27:09):
nothing to do with me is governor. I'm the future
ex governor of California. I am so long la as
a region, So long California as the state's a fifth
large's economy in the world. We dominate in more scientists, engineers,
more rechers of normal laureates, the finances of higher education
in the world, more patents, more venture capital. Thirty two
of the fifty top AI companies in the world all
(27:31):
in California. Most diverse state, a dynamism twenty seven percent
of state four and born a gateway status geographic beauty
unlike any other state, and now, if we can have
a mind that's more aggressive in terms of just addressing
the mistakes in our permissiveness of the past through democratic governance,
I think this state is going to come out, particularly
(27:52):
with all the challenges in Washington, to see in a
really dominant position.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Governor Gavin Newsom. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow Here's the thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we come back, Gavin Newsom details his plan to
increase tax breaks for film production in California in the
hopes of reviving one of the state's most famous industries.
(28:35):
I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is Here's the thing. Gavin
Newsom has served as the fortieth governor of California since
twenty nineteen. His tenure has included tumultuous events such as
the COVID nineteen pandemic and two separate wildfire disasters. Despite
the various difficulties of the past six years, I wondered
(28:57):
what Newsom would consider some of the joys of holding
the office.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
You know, it's been a disaster prone six years. Yeah,
you know, I talked about Paradise. I was lieutenant governor,
but I was also governor elect when I was standing
there in the ashes of Paradise with Donald Trump and
took over, and we had the largest utility in the
United States of America PGN that filed bankruptcy within the
first few weeks I was in office. We were trying
to face the realities of unprecedented drought that I was
(29:23):
referring to a moment ago, all of these wildfires, historic wildfires,
and of course we walked right into COVID and California
was in the you know, leaning and cutting edge of
good policy. Those that judged very bad policy depends on
your perspective policy tough policy, and you know, but for
a state that's larger than twenty one state populations combined,
you know, I mean, it's not a small, isolated state.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Different game here, different game.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
And I also realized in that case, you know, it
was also a different game in mindset. The public looked
to me not as Governor California, but I really felt
like they looked at me as Mayor of California. And
you had to be accountable for now everything in nuanced
and detail, accountable for what was happening in every city,
accountable for every crime that was occurring. Everything not the
traditional role of a governor or dramatically different role. And
(30:09):
I think that mindset continues to this day. And I
think in many ways the office of governors changed since
COVID in terms of that expectation, and that's more challenging
perhaps here because of the diversity of the state, because
of the scale and scope of this state. It's not
an excuse, it's just it's been part of an interesting
journey of recognition of understanding for me in terms of
trying to understand what people expect of their governor that
(30:32):
I never expected of my governor before I got here.
Every day I wake up just to be able to
not scream and yell at the TV set and we
actually do something about it. To be on the forefront,
unprecedented forefront of climate change and addressing that issue head on,
and leading this nation in term policy, climate pangs policy
(30:53):
and low carbon green growth, changing the way we produce
a consumer energy. The work we've done on mental health
at scale no one else's done. I mean, someone said,
you know, you really need baby bonds. We put two
billion dollars up every child three point four million kids
gets a college savings account or a career account up
to fifteen hundred dollars that enters into kindergarten. We create
a brand new grade pre K for all. Swartzenegar City
(31:15):
wanted after school for all. Put one hundred and fifty
million dollars in. We put five billion dollars and made
it happen after school and summer school for all community schools,
reimagining the school day, extending them to nine hours a day.
The ability to do what we've done on policy making,
on homelessness again, I know that's not been felt, but
this new care court, new paradigm to address the issue
(31:36):
of mental and behavioral health, the issues we've done in
terms of reforming our medical system through this thing called CALAIM,
which is nation leading effort I can go through. Honestly, Listen,
universal health care only stay in America, regardless of preexisting conditions,
ability to pay, or immigration status controversial. California has done it.
We're not talking about it. And so in each category,
(31:57):
the ability to effectuate policy at scale has been a
gift and a dream. But at the same time, it's
disaster time over and over, and it eclipses a lot,
and it makes for a lot of situational politics when
I have a sort of policy sustainable mindset around politics.
And of course you had Trump into the mixture. Trump
(32:18):
one point zero his last two years, had Trump two
point zero in his first two years of his second term.
That also requires some adjustments and some tacking and.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Just reality now different reality for me.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Another memory I have of living here and my knowledge
of my awareness of California politics was I thought Gray
Davis was a nice guy. I thought he was a
good guy. He was a decent governor. Still when I
met him, I love Grey Davis. So when that all happened,
darryl Issa decides he's going to do the recall of
Gray Davis. The whole enron thing was involved the brown outs,
and Issa thinks he's going to be anointed. He helps
(32:54):
to put the whole thing together. He produces the recall,
he wins, Davis is gone, and then they turn him
in the tap of the shoulder and they go, it's
not your night, kid, And they bring Arnold in to
become the governor. No political record, no nothing. He becomes
the governor. And I've had a lot of acoustic comments
about that as well. But you had a recall effort
launched against you.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
What was that? I mean was that intense? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Well yeah, because I mean talk about you know, a
little humiliating God. And I got four young kids. I
mean they're going to school there. You know, my oldest
daughter ended up being homeschool because it just didn't work.
The bullying and everything else was going on. And that's hard.
It's you know, hard to explain. You know, we couldn't
get it. I mean, there was I'm not exaggerated, I
say over a year where you couldn't get out the
front door of your house because of protests. You know,
(33:35):
Hitler must the whole thing during that time, and and
and and so it just extended, and you know, and
I think the hardest part I was, you know, it's
strange to say this, but you know, I was working,
you know, I'd written a book called Citizens It's don't
even matter, but I had, you know, knew Kingridge was
talking about, and we were taught, we became you know,
I became friendly with Nude on some ideas and was
(33:56):
able to work with folks on the other side. And
then there's Nude on TV promoting my recall, and there's
you know, Mike Huckleby out there promoting the recall and
then I think getting a few bucks for it as well,
and my friends and the legislature of Republicans I was
working with co chairing the recall, and I'm like, well, okay,
and I thought politics was all local a little old
fashioned there, right, All politics is local, bs, All politics
(34:19):
is national now.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
And they came hard. The RNC put in the first month.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
I had to raise eighty four million dollars to defend it,
and there were polls just a few months before that
showed it neck to neck. We were able to pull
away with a twenty plus point margin. And it was
a big mistake for the Republicans because then my reelect,
you know, it was a year later. Yeah, and we
kind of just coated it through. But I'll tell you
it sharpened my muscles, got me focused with a different
(34:45):
there's sense of finality with a recall, in that humility
is a finality. And then my focus, my energy and
also you know, the points of contrast. That's why I
started going out on the road, started this pack That's
Campaign for Democracy because I had a few dollars left
over from my campaign, put twenty million into this pack,
raised more money and started going. I went on Fox
with Sean Hannity, did those debates with DeSantis, started doing
(35:09):
billboards in states across this country, taking on some of
the Republican leadership, calling them out for their hypocrisy, doing
the same thing with full page newspaper ads, did TV
commercials across the country, and then it led me to
sort of getting more involved with the Biden campaign. Was
one of his chief surrogates, was out there doing the
spin room and the debates for better for worse, and
extended a little bit to common meaning I found myself
(35:30):
now recognizing the politics in DC and what's happening across
this country was impacting the state in ways I honestly
I didn't fully understand at the level that I should have.
And so I'm a different guy from that. And of course,
you know, God is my witness. We're sitting here.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yesterday they submitted another one. So do we call you? Yeah?
So here we go. So you know, I'm that may
I don't know, it could happen this time. I don't know.
We'll see. So it's just God, no, hell of hell.
I like that acting thing. You talked about Yeah, that's
his review. Enough Jesus. But you can pivot.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
You could pivot speaking of acting my sense, and you
can fine tune this. And of course you know infinitely
more than I do about this, which is that tax
breaks in a state like this are very fragile because
people are like tax backs for Hollywood. Hell no, we
have so many other things we got to pay for.
We're giving so many things away. There are social programs
in this state unlike any other state that costs millions
and billions of dollars. And so when you come and
(36:27):
say we want more tax backs for Hollywood, a lot
of the population of the state north that southes like
screw you.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Now.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
The problem is many of the jobs have left. And
my friends who used to go out to Atlanta and
rent a house, they don't rent to house.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
They bought a house there. They left here. They've left
this state.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
The business is imploding in Los Angeles, correct, And the
question becomes, is there any chance of increased tax baks
for the movie business.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
We're going to double it, you are, Yeah, it's going
to be higher than New York. I proposed that a
few months ago, and that was right before the fires.
What are the fires only reinforced the imperative and also
working with all our friends, some of you know, the
who's who of Hollywood, saying it's time to double down.
I'm bringing production back to California, particularly this time of
recovery and renewal, and so I want to see them
(37:09):
step up as well.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
But we're going to step up.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
It's in my budget and I'm gonna I said to
my legislative friends, I said, there's no budget, I'll detail
the budget. If we don't get it done, it's going
to get done, and we're going to do other things
to start promoting bringing people back. Look, you know, world
we invented is competing against us in so many ways.
I mean, you know, across the spectrum of industries. And
so I think California started resting on its laurels a
little bit, and we didn't invest in our future like
(37:33):
we did in the past in the fifties and sixties,
And we have to reconcile that. Now we've got one
hundred and eighty billion dollar infrastructure plan that's bigger than
it was during the Pat Brown era in the fifties
and sixties. We're starting to make big investments, bold investments,
and quantum and immunology, new public private partnerships. Again, that
conditions the Silicon Valley continue to thrive. That's why you
(37:54):
have the NVIDIAs out here, and you have so I mean,
the sam For all the people hating on California, they
still seem to have so many of their business imprints
here in this great state. You know, we we have
progressive tax system, but we have an increased state taxes
since twenty eleven Trump administration did with the salt the
state and local salt deductions, which are impacting you in
New York as well. It's hurt the big Blue states.
(38:16):
But I'm mindful of sensitivities around taxes. I'm mindful about
the need to do regulatory reform sequel. I've done forty
two secret reform bills. We've done streamlining on large scale projects. Again,
I watch Fox, I pay attention Newsmax one American News.
I don't turn my back to the critics. But there
is a sort of California arrangement syndrome out there that
(38:37):
is just sort of ridiculous. This notion that this is
the only state that has challenges. It's just comedic, but
it's damaging. We record breaking tourism last year. We have
a surplus again. We have a state with population growing again.
You wouldn't know that that's not prevalent. It's not part
of the discussion golf by the fires. It's been in
golfing the fires. It's you know, it's a failed state,
(38:58):
you know, California, And so it's you know, it's a
whole industry California. It's a man and I get it.
It's like you and so, yeah, buck up. But for me,
you know, it's not just bucking up. It's like it's
a big it's pride for me again, as a guy
lives here who cares about the state, is to make
a case a new for it.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
And I'm a little CLINTONI about it.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
There's nothing wrong with it that can't be fixed with
by what's right with it, And so you know, I
need some boosters out there. Some of the biggest critics,
again are the biggest beneficiaries. Elon Musk, why do you
become a billionaire? His first billion came from California because
of the regulations, not despite them, because of them, because
of our vehicle fuel mandates that helped create that industry.
(39:40):
Billions and billions of dollars of subsidies that the people
of the state of California, not just the federal government,
has provided these guys, and yet they're tech in the state,
even though this state created a state of mind, that
quality of imagination, and a regulatory framework that made risk
taking work for them. God bless our entrepreneurial talents. Thank
you for their entrepreneurship. I don't begrudge their success, but
(40:02):
I do take a little umbrage by their constant drumbeat
of criticism that I just find unbecoming of people that
have enjoyed the benefits and success that have been a
big partner that we've been partners in this state.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Eighty four.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I'm here in this state. I move here. I lived
in Venice for five years. So I drive over the
four h five. You'd hit the top of Mulholland you'd
be going into the valley heading north, and it was
like mustard gas, the band of toxins in the air
in the valley in California in the eighties, it was
I couldn't even believe it. Your eyes were teering if
you had the top down of the car. And of
course California renowned for this making the emissions laws change
(40:41):
and change change. When I lived here, everybody lived on
the west side. Nobody lived Inland, Silver Lake, Los Felis,
Korea Town down to Nobody lived there unless you didn't
have any money, and you all live on the west side.
Now the West side is like the upper east side
of Manhattan. Only old, rich people live there, and all
the young people have moved Inland because of the change
in the air qual and pop'll forget it and change everything.
In the late sixties, La was basically unlivable. The business
(41:04):
community was outraged.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
They went to this guy up in Sacramento, happens to
share a similar office, guy named Ronald Reagan, Governor. They said,
Jesus Reagan, you know this. This smog's out of control
in Los Angeles. We can't recruit employees, let alone businesses,
corporate headquarters, etc. You got to clean this so literally,
modern air quality movements started with Ronald Reagan, Republican created
the California Air Resources Board. Three years later, a guy
(41:28):
named Richard Nixon, Republican, codifies California's waiver with something called
the Clean Air Act. Two Republican leaders that allowed us
to have these established rules every hour.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, I few every once in a while.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
But the point being, those are the rules that are
being vandalized by the current administration. Those are the rules
they are coming after. That are the rules that established
the strategies that ultimately led to some of the improvements
that you rightly notice.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
You know, for me, I would come out here and
when you're in Toronto, when you're in New York, when
you're in Vancouver, when you're in Chicago. Back in the day,
you're going to different places in this country. Orlando where
they had to grow an indigenous crop of people to
work there. De Lamentis apparently was somebody who coaxed people
in the unions to bring furniture makers to come and
build sets in North Carolina. When you build this DDL
(42:14):
studios there, you got to have an indigenous worker base. Now,
there is no indigenous workerbase on the planet that compares
to Los Angeles. And I always say the same story.
You go to New York and the prop guy would
say what kind of watch you want to wear?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
And I would go, well, let's take a look.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
And he opened up a case and there was fifty
watches in there in a case you come to Los
Angeles at the studio, the guy goes, what kind of
watch you want to wear? And you want to know,
let's take a look. He rolls in two steam trunks
with four hundred watches in them. Hollywood is Hollywood. Yeah,
Hollywood is Hollywood and everybody who knows now as I
get a little emotional about this, which is, you only
want to make movies here if you can. I love
working here. It's the best of the best. There's nothing
(42:49):
like shooting a movie in LA and I want to
see that come back one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And just to give me a little bona fidies for
me on this. When Arno was governor, I remember back
to one I I was mayor, he was governor, and
I was very I was very vocal by one critique
of Arnold. There were a few, but one of them
was like, why the hell aren't you doing more to
keep Hollywood production here? You're Arnold's sports the mayor, And
He's like, well, he made the point that you made earlier,
which is interesting, was a legitimate sense. I gotta do this.
I got to then do it. For biotech. We're the
(43:16):
birthplace of biotech and life science. And Nanto technology line
they want, and so it was erased the bottom from
his perspective. But in San Francisco, we became the first
city to do it. So we did it, and I
got an NBC production, which was a big deal, at
least at the time I made it a big deal.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
It was a small ball thing. It was a little
TV show.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
But with our tax credits to make the point, and
then of course I ran for governor making a commitment.
We were able to increase the tax credits. A few
years ago. We were able to expand how you can
utilize them a little more flexibility.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
With some questions there.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
But now I said, look we're playing small ball. We
got to double it to the point. So look that's
one way, but I think it's more important than that.
We got to make it. You know this industry, and
I you know, and I appreciate you know this better
than anyone. And with all the labor issues, I mean,
the SAG and everything else that happens, so you have COVID,
these things are shut down, strikes, strikes, social unrest. George
(44:05):
Floyd all this, you stack all that stress and anxiety,
all the burning, but it hasn't come back since the
strikes entered at all, even back to where it was prior.
So this is a this is code read, this is
life support time, and it's a point of deep pride
that first of all, it's the point of pride of
hearing you say how much you love to be down
here movies, because that's that's intangible. There's no legislation for that.
(44:27):
It's spirit pride, and that's the game that should separate
the game played here from anywhere else. But we have
to have more muscle, and we as a state need
to be more supportive and create the conditions to stabilize
and send the signals that we're going to have the
back of this industry. And again, it's not just people
like you with love and respect. It's the person that
rolled up in that car that was showing you those
(44:48):
watches that are the beneficiaries of you.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Beat in town. It's the damn the world.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Yes, and they and they deserve middle class folks, hardworking
folks that are out of work right now.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
My last thing for you is this, which that you're
one of the few people, I mean many people in
your profession everyone, but in life, you're one of the
few people who you know when your job's over.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Except I don't. I mean, these recalls come, I'm a.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Ignoring that twenty twenty four. So the next selection is
in twenty twenty eight in Washington. That'll leave you two
years to kind of focus on. What are you going
to focus on those two years?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah, I'm a milk cart and I got to sell
by date. I get it.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
And it's very sobering, and I'm very mindful of that.
And again with the sense of urgency that I brought
into this job after the recall, and I have no
idea what the hell's.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Going to happen.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
That's some idea is that you know what everybody's like, Well,
what does Democratic Party need to do to get back
on to that? What are the real why did Kamala
Harris loose? So I'm up to nine pages of analysis.
Each page contradicts the prior page. I think, you know,
we're going to have to figure out where the hell
this party is or how we get out of this.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
I think all of.
Speaker 3 (45:50):
Most of it will be shaped by what Trump does
and in reaction too, but I think there's got to
be a little bit of a deeper reflection on this
party and where we'll be in four years, who the
hell knows.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I won't ask you that question, but I will say
as we finish, I don't think your caretaking years are over.
You still have some more work to do to take
care of people, to take care of people, and you
may have to move out of California.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
So we'll say we need another California politician, that we
need a.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
California governor to step up and solve some of the
country's problems.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
God bless You're good to be with you.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
My thanks to California Governor Gavin Newsom. This episode was
recorded at Lime Studios in Santa Monica and CDM Studios
in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice,
and Victoria De Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperio. Our
social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Special thanks to Chris O'Keefe.
(46:47):
I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought to you
by iHeart Radio.
Host
Alec Baldwin
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
This is Gavin Newsom
I’m Gavin Newsom. And, it’s time to have a conversation. It’s time to have honest discussions with people that agree AND disagree with us. It's time to answer the hard questions and be open to criticism, and debate without demeaning or dehumanizing one other. I will be doing just that on my new podcast – inviting people on who I deeply disagree with to talk about the most pressing issues of the day and inviting listeners from around the country to join the conversation. THIS is Gavin Newsom.