November 9, 2025 • 33 mins
New CNN host Elex Michaelson joins me on the Brad vs Everyone podcast to discuss bringing civil political debate back to mainstream media to avoid more political violence. Plus, after covering California politics closely for years, he tells us about the REAL Gavin Newsom.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We need to talk to each other. What's the alternative
a civil war where we just constantly fight each other.
I mean, we live in the same country. We have
to start growing in the same direction.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Alex, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you so
much for having me. A big fan of what you do.
Appreciate it. And it's been exciting to watch you launch
your new CNN show. The Story is already doing some
really exciting work with CNN, big interviews with the likes
of Pete. But to Judge, how's it all treating you?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
It's it's been a crazy time. I mean, our shows
about a week old now, but we've already talked with
Gavin Newsom and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown and Pete Buddha,
Judge and Nancy Pelosi and Harmie Dillon and Kevin Kylie.
I mean all these a lot of folks on the
right and left. I mean, part of what we're trying
to do here is have a place to bring everybody together,
(01:00):
especially emphasize some of our friends on the West Coast,
where we have live news finally and primetime, which hasn't
been happening for a long time in cable news and
It's been a wild week to be certainly in the
West Coast, everything that's happened in the last week or so.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
For sure. I mean, you had the big redistricting proposition
in California and so much more bring in coverage hosting
from California, which is a little different because so much
of cable news is, you know, New York City focused
and Eastern Time focused.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
But that's THESS winning the World Series, of course, can't.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, of course I totally pay super close attention to that.
But what interests me about your work and why I
was really excited to see you teaming up with CNN
is I followed you for many years in your time
on Fox eleven in California, hosting debates and discussions and
dialogues and all people all over the perspectives politically, from
(01:57):
Republican to Democrat, left wing to right wing. And I've
already seen you hosting panels and some intense conversations about
redistricting and more on your show. But talk a little
bit about that and what you hope to do, because frankly,
one of my disappointments with cable news is my favorite
shows across multiple networks are the ones that have people
(02:19):
with different perspectives interacting and debating, preferably in person. But that,
while it does right well, does seem to be increasingly rare.
So is that something you hope to focus on even more?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, look, we need to talk to each other. What's
the alternative a civil war where we just constantly fight
each other. I mean, we live in the same country,
we have to gart growing in the same direction, and
so I think it's important for cable news and for
podcasts like this one and other places to sort of
(02:50):
model the behavior that we can actually have a conversation
with each other. That doesn't mean we always agree, that
doesn't mean it's all softball stuff, but I think that
we can show that, yes, you can disagree without being disagreeable.
Not everything has to be a personal attack. And just
because somebody disagrees with you, they're not they're they're your opponent,
(03:13):
they're not your enemy. We've gotten to this point where
we have so dehumanized each other because our media diet
is so algorithmically focused on making us hate each other
and putting all the scent out of our even thought process,
that we can have a conversation. I mean, I remember
(03:35):
hearing a lot of people that say, I don't understand
how Gavin Newsom can win. I don't know a single
person who's in favor of him. Well, that means that
you your timeline is so skewed in one direction you're
not hearing the opposite. And also the truth. Donald Trump
is the worst person ever. He's Adolf Hitler, some people claim,
obviously not true, but but and so how could you
(03:59):
even say anything remotely nice about him? And then you
end up with situations like what we saw with Charlie Kirk,
where that's the logical conclusion of what we're doing. So
I think all of us have a responsibility to pull
that back and not agree fight it out politically, but
do it in a way that can be productive, constructive,
(04:22):
hopefully entertaining, and that hopefully rises the level of dialogue
a little bit in this country.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I was already when
you were talking about what else do we do besides talk?
My mind immediately went to Charlie Kirk, to attacks on
democratic lawmakers that we saw as well several months ago.
And does this horrific uptick we've seen in political violence
that I think that way madness lies and the only
solution is to settle our differences with ballots, not bullets,
(04:52):
and disagreements not violence. And so anybody who's modeling that
in media is somebody who I think is serving the
community and the country on that front. And you raise
such an interesting point about the echo chamber, because this
happens on social media, but unfortunately it's happened somewhat in media,
(05:13):
though shows like yours are working to correct it, where
people are really only exposed to the people that agree
with them. And then what happens is two things. One,
people become more radical right, Like, if you have a
room full of all Republicans just bouncing off of each other,
they're not going to move to the left or to
the middle, They're only going to move further right. Same
thing if you have a room full of progressives, they're
only going to move further and further to the left.
(05:35):
And then two, they also lose touch with what the
other side actually believes. So I've seen really interesting polling
up where you pull Republicans asking them what democratic positions are,
and then you map that next to what they actually are,
and of course they think the media and democrat is
way more to the left than they actually are. Same
vice versa. How do we fix that? How do we
(05:56):
break through people's echo chambers because it's comfortable to stay
in them, and it can be a little uncomfortable to
tune into something that's going to shatter your echo chamber.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, I mean, but that's one of the things about
bringing both sides literally to a table, is it. It
is so like for many years on Fox eleven, I
would do debates with with Brian Tyler Cohen, this big
progressive YouTube star on the left, and Tommy Laren, a
big conservative online star on the right. And so that
(06:28):
was one of the only times when viewers of Tommy
Laren saw a leftist perspective, and vice versa. Because Tommy
Laren's followers are tuning in to see her hopefully dunk
on Brian Tyler Cohen in their forew Bryan's followers are
tuning in to see him do the same, but in
(06:49):
doing so, they're being exposed to another perspective. So this
idea of doing journalism that incorporates multiple perspectives is not
only the right thing to do, the ethical thing to do,
the professional thing to do. It's good business because automatically
you are expanding your potential audience by two because now
(07:11):
there's a home for conservatives and liberals to listen because
they feel like they're being incorporated into the conversation. I
think a big reason why people tune out is when
they feel like their voice isn't represented. They can't see themselves.
So not only is that representation in terms of race
(07:32):
and age and all the rest of that stuff, but
it's also representation in terms of diversity of thought. And
I think that that's important and also a smart strategy.
And so I think a lot of these companies would
actually be better served in terms of what they really care about,
which is making money in expanding their base. As Michael
Jordan said years ago, Republicans wear shoes too.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
That's a good one. I hadn't heard that in a while.
But it's interesting you raise that point because I guess
the flip side of this is where do you draw
the line in terms of who is worth talking to?
How do you make sure that you are keeping people
somewhat in check in terms of them not spouting off
just absolute nonsense. Because there is some forms of debate
(08:17):
debate that you'll see that go viral, but essentially devolve
into like political Jerry Springer, and obviously that's not serving
the public either.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Right the former former mayor of Cincinnati, Jerry Springer himself.
So I think that here's my take. When I have
somebody on my show, I believe you should be able
to share your opinion based on fact and it's really
not my place to get in the way of that.
When you start saying things that are factually inaccurate, it
(08:47):
is my job as the referee to step in and
call that out and try to correct the record. It
is my job as a referee to try to also
help people that may don't maybe don't follow this stuff
every single day when people start speaking in acronyms or
start speaking in inside baseball talk, to kind of explain
to them what's what's going on there and and so.
(09:08):
And Also I think that blatant hates speech that targets
somebody is not something worth platforming. But that being said,
if you simply have a different opinion and you're coming
in good faith and arguing it based off of real facts,
I don't think it's my place to step in to
(09:29):
fight you and to get in the way of that.
It's my way, I mean to challenge you, yes, and
to and to provide the opposite perspective, but not do
so in such an antagonistic or condescending way that I
think a lot of cable news descends into.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Like you see, lady, you did say the term hate speech,
which is a little bit of a trigger word for
me in the sense that as somebody who I started
out my career and right leaning media, I have unfortunately
seen most non liberal respectives on all sorts of issues
labeled hate speech at some point or another. I guess
(10:06):
what I would say is, I think there is no
place for like hateful language or slurs. I mean, we
literally have members of Congress just gratuitously saying slurs. Now
to me, that's totally totally anathema to just constructive dialogue.
But some opinions that people think are hateful are a
(10:26):
fair game. I mean, if a Republican's view is that
men cannot become women, right, they just totally flat out disagree.
I mean, some would call that hate speech, say don't
platform that, don't debate that, but like, at least more
than half the country probably holds a perspective closer to
that than the opposite view. So how do you draw
a line between gatekeeping acceptable discourse. We don't want people
(10:48):
shouting slurs at each other, but not allowing a fundamentally
subjective idea like what's hateful and what's not to become
subject to personal interpretation.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah. And I think we saw a lot of that
during COVID, honestly, where so many just different opinions from
good faith were completely science silenced and censored. And now
we look back on it and a lot of those
people were right. So yeah, I think that's that's an
important thing. By hate speech, I mean like Kanye West
(11:19):
coming out and ranting about how horrible Jewish people are, Like,
I don't find that to be constructive. I don't think
that we as a media are helping the dialogue by
platforming that and elevating that. That's sort of what I
mean by that in terms of a disagreement on the issues. Uh,
I think that's fine, and I think we need to
(11:41):
to If we're going to skew towards something, we should
skew towards more free speech, not less free speech. What
I find personally annoying about some cable news coverage is
when it's like, well, we know better than you. So
this person is talking, but we're not going to show
them talking because it could be damaging to hear from them.
(12:02):
So we're going to watch it, and if it's worth it,
will tell you. But I think people are smart enough
for the most part to make up their own minds,
give them the information and let them do with it
with what they can, and then it's part of our
role to provide context, to try to do fact checking
all the rest of that. But this idea, especially as
(12:23):
media itself is being democratized so much with podcasting and
social media and all the rest of it, that you know,
there's one person that knows the truth and we are
going to tell you the truth and we're the arbiter
of that. I think is condescending, patronizing, and really actually
(12:44):
a bad business strategy too.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, no, that makes sense, And it is interesting you
talk about this like gatekeeper role, and I think perhaps
we're living through an overcorrection. Right. Part of why some
people lost faith in traditional media was because they get
too much. They're like, well, we're not going to show
you Trump's speech because it's not accurate, right, So we're
just going to tell you what to think about it.
(13:07):
When in reality, you probably better serve by letting people
hear what the presidential Canada is saying and then providing
your own context and perspective and letting people decide for themselves.
But now I feel like we kind of have the
wild West. I host an independent podcast and YouTube channel
that is opinionated, but is fact based and does cite
real sources. But the most popular ones really don't. I mean,
(13:28):
they just say the most outlandish things, They peddle the
most outlandish conspiracies, and I guess we're seeing the opposite
side of this. At first, I was really excited by
the rise of independent media and the democratization of independent media,
especially as somebody who had a fair number of criticisms
of traditional media. But now it's like, WHOA, maybe we've
gone way too far in the opposite direction. But people
(13:51):
seem to be eating it up.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, and it's a real danger.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I thought about this a lot. You know, here in
La we had these wildfires at the beginning of the
and so I was on the air for twelve hours
at a time doing continuous coverage of this real emergency
when people's lives were on the line. Some people lost
their lives. Thousands of people lost their homes. I mean,
it was a real crisis, and in that moment when
(14:17):
people are scared, people need reliable information to live and
also to emotionally process what's happening. And that was a
moment where it was like, I'm grateful for my journalism training.
I'm grateful to have colleagues on the ground doing real work.
I'm grateful to have sources in the government. I'm grateful
(14:37):
to be able to provide this public service. In that moment,
it was a public service. We're doing a commercial free
because that information is needed. And I was thinking, Okay,
if a few years down the line, the trends continue
and we start losing local news or we don't have
that source there, then what happens If you're in a
(14:58):
real crisis, you don't have the quote unquote mainstream media
or people with real training, real sources, real experience, and
you need somebody to give you clear information. Where do
you go? And what does that mean for us? If
God forbid, we have another nine to eleven and we're
you know, at war as a country. What happens in
(15:19):
that situation? So this idea that we just abandon, you know,
cable news, abandon mainstream media, abandon all gatekeeping, abandon all
quote unquote you know, establishment or legacy or whatever word
we do. I think is a scary reality. And even
so much of independent journalism is so often quoting legacy
(15:43):
journalism to then start a conversation. So I think it's
important that we all collectively as a people, support good
fact based work so that we keep a lot of
this stuff in business so that it's there when we
really need it.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, So I do commentary at analysis, so I'm often
citing mainstream reporting. Maybe it's CNN, maybe it's New York Times,
maybe it's Wall Street Journal, maybe it's Fox News, and
then building and adding my perspective. But one thing I
don't know. Do you use TikTok at all?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Sure, a little bit. I use more Instagram reels.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
But well, there's these breaking news content creators who make
these videos straight to camera saying breaking news stuck, this
just happened at the White House, blah blah blah, and
they just rip off the associated press with no credit,
and yet their videos are getting like ten million views
and so they're making probably know three or four grand
from that single video. But they are literally just loosely
(16:39):
adapting a script from the associated Press or from another
breaking news outlet. And as much as I am very
sympathetic to a lot of the critiques of mainstream media
over the years for a lack of debate, of diversity
of perspectives, or maybe falling into its own echo chambers,
not accurately representing the whole diverse country and gun owners
and religious people and more perspectives, I mean, at some
(17:03):
point there's not going to be the underlying mainstream media
that new meat, or as much of it as the
new media relies on. And people don't seem to understand that,
And I just I think that's an interesting dynamic at play.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And there's the whole creator economy of stealing our videos
and then making their living off of that, right, ripping
the videos online, putting often an inaccurate caption on it
to try to juice engagement, and then not giving credit,
not explaining the source, and then just making their money
(17:37):
off of ads on X or whatever it is. And
that's frustrating sometimes from the person that did the reporting,
that did the interview, and they're making all the money
off of it, oftentimes with the wrong spin. And I
don't know how we put that genie back into going to.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Say, how do you solve that?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I don't know. I don't know if that's something that
Elon Musk even thinks of as a problem. I don't
think he does so, But I mean, that is a
very frustrating reality that I see almost every day.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, but it is interesting. You talked about California, and
you've probably, at least on my radar, covered it more
closely California politics and it's effect on the national level
than anybody else I'm familiar with in the business, and
in particular, one figure I want to get your thoughts
on is Gavin Newsom. You've covered him for years and
years at this point, you've interviewed him so many times,
(18:31):
and I'll just tell you my perspective, and then I'm
curious for yours. I have no idea who the real
Gavin Newsom is because I have watched him at the
state level enact, whether you agree with them or not,
very left wing policies on issues like gender identity or
different policies in schools, or trans athletes or other things.
(18:52):
And then I'll watch him get on a podcast with
a more conservative leaning host and suddenly he is like
agreeing with them on different issues and saying, yeah, when
did I ever say latin X. Of course he said
it like a bunch of times on camera and in
speeches and in tweets and other stuff. And on one hand,
Trump has shown us that that is a huge political
(19:14):
asset when you can rebrand and readapt your position.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Shamelessness works in politics.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
It does, unfortunately. But I guess the question is, if
he is to run for president or just to elevate
to a further position of prominence, who is he actually
at heart?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, it's interesting. My colleague Ron Brownstein has written about
this really effectively. He's pointed out that Gavin Newsom is
essentially trying to do two things at once. He's trying
to show that he's the best online fighter of Trump
and trump Ism, and he's trying to show that he's
much more of a centrist than you think he is.
(19:52):
So he's trying to get the online left fired up
with the memes and the attacks and everything's against him,
all of that, and then at the same time, if
you actually look at what he's doing policy wise, he's
strongly going towards the middle on things like transports on
you know, some of the stuff he's doing around homelessness
(20:14):
and criminal justice reform and race based stuff, all of it.
If you look at what he's actually doing, he's heading
towards the middle. What is Gavin Newsom at the At
his core, he's really good at reading polls, So, unlike
a lot of his Democratic colleagues, when he sees like
the trans issue at eighty twenty, he says, let's go
(20:36):
with the eighty. That's better politically than going with the twenty.
And so that's I think where he is right now.
Does he have core convictions and some of that based
in progressivism, Sure, and but does he usually tend to
do the thing that is good for the constituency that
he has.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I mean he was way ahead of everybody on mayor
ring same sex couples, you know, decades ago. But he
also was the mayor of San Francisco, where there's more
same sex couples than just about anywhere else. That's smart politics,
in addition to something that I do think he genuinely
believes in. But so I to your point, Yeah, I mean,
(21:18):
there aren't necessarily the clearest These are my absolute one
hundred percent principles in a way you see with other politicians.
But maybe that's actually really beneficial for him as he
moves forward. The question is if he indeed runs for president,
as it clearly certainly seems like he is already, will
he be able to do what he has done in
(21:38):
recent elections in California and make it a referendum on Trump,
trump Ism and the Republican Party failures in his view,
or will it be a referendum on his record? Will
it be about the streets of San Francisco with homeless
people on them and potential crime and people moving out
because of regulations and all the rest of it. In
(21:59):
his re elections here he is able to make it
about Trump, not about him, And if he can do
that nationally, he may win. If it becomes about all
the progressive craziness of California and the land of fruits
and nuts and all the rest of the stuff that
people say about our state, it may be tough for him,
as it was tough for Kamala Harris, who was the
(22:21):
first Democratic nominee ever from California.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Well, and I think that it's interesting. I was already
going to bring her up in my next question. Because
Kamala Harris is somebody who, in fairness to her, she
only had a few months because of what happened with
Joe Biden. But she tried to pivot to the middle
on some of her issues. But then essentially her long
record as very significantly progressive came back to haunt her
(22:45):
when you look at one of the most effective ads
against her was talking about her past support in an
ACLU survey for taxpayer funded transgender surgeries for immigrants, illegal immigrants,
I believe, and prisoners. And so I'm not sure that
when you have somebody with Gavin Newsom's extensive record, because
(23:06):
as a governor you actually have to do things unlike
a senator where you just mostly bloviate or go on
television and occasionally pass legislation. As a record of the
pandemic of the French laundry, right, getting caught breaking your
own rules, of some of the things that have happened
around gender issues, and his policies that allowed people born
(23:28):
biologically male to be put in women's prisons. It's like,
I think that stuff will come back to haunt him,
and maybe Trump will suck all the oxygen out of
the room. But I don't know. Can you Maybe in
California it worked, but nationally, do you really think he
could just get away with a rebrand?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
We'll see. I mean, look, he went to South Carolina
a few months ago, and I wasn't there, but I
talked to a lot of the reporters who were on
the ground, and I said, were the people asking about
California homelessness or some of these issues? He said, nobody
about that. They were just focused on how much Trump sucks,
and they were thrilled that somebody was fighting and that
somebody showed up to make that point. So we'll see.
(24:07):
I mean, sometimes he has not always reacted great when
reporters press him on some of these things. And so,
you know, the national press is a little more aggressive
than my friends in the California press, in part because
you know, we have a one party state and we
deal with a lot of the same people all the time.
(24:28):
And I think the national press would not have as
much of an issue of burning a bridge that maybe
some folks here would and just sort of launching in
an attack. And so could there be a moment not
like what happened with Katie Porter, maybe to that extent,
but where we could we have seen outbursts from him
sometimes when he's challenged on some things that he doesn't
like to talk about in the past, you know, could
(24:48):
that happen? Who knows? I think we're a long ways
away from from that. We've still not clear who the
field is. But his fundamental operating philosophy, which I think
he also was thinking in twenty twenty two when I
covered him when he thought that Joe Biden was not
going to run. I think and he started this play
(25:08):
back then if you look back at it, and I
traveled with him to the White House at the time,
is he believes that the Democratic Party is weak, that
the Democratic base is angry, that Democratic politicians have been
rolled over, that the online space craves confrontation, and that
nobody is giving them what they want. And so he
(25:28):
is giving them what they want. And to his credit politically,
at least right now, it is working for him. His
pull numbers are up dramatically in a potential race. His
social media followers are way up. He used Prop fifty
as a way to expand his donor base and create
a national list that rivals any other candidate. So and
(25:52):
he is being talked about more in the conversation nationally,
both on cable news and online than anybody else. And
he's kind of made himself the Democratic front runner in
a period of a few months. So right now it
appears that that strategy is working. Will that get tired
as you keep going? Will there need to be another moment?
(26:14):
You know, who knows, what's something people like from your
time with him? Right you've traveled with him, you've interviewed him,
a moment that stands out or something about him that
might surprise people. Well, I think a lot of people
may not know that he's dyslexic, and so he doesn't
He can't read speeches, he doesn't use a teleprompter, he
(26:36):
doesn't even walk up with notes. Everything that he does
is off the top of his head. And that dyslexia
I think also really informed how he grew up as
a kid. He really struggled in school. He didn't even
know he was dyslexic, but he couldn't read and he
was bullied and he was made fun of for that.
He talks about the fact that, you know, sports kind
(26:58):
of gave him a place to go where he didn't
have to be in the classroom, and he was big
guy and athletic and all the rest of that. He
kind of found his own there, but a lot of
his sort of childhood trauma was being bullied for being
a kid who people thought was stupid. And so he still,
I think, has this chip on his shoulder of the
(27:20):
guy that was underestimated, the guy that people was mocking,
and the guy who's got something to prove to people.
And I think that is kind of at his core
who Gavin Newsom actually is. And I think that people
see him as sort of the handsome, wealthy, well spoken
guy with the hot wife and the whole thing, and
(27:41):
they think of him as one way, but in reality,
a lot of who Gavin Newsom actually is and he
said this to me is that third grader who was
mocked by his classmates.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
That's really interesting. I didn't know that he had dyslexia.
And I've followed him for many years. I think he's
a formida candidate. I've been obviously very critical of him,
coming from my perspective over the years, but he does
have the charisma. He has the good looks, and good
looks are important in politics. I think I don't know.
My early soft bet would be Newsome Ocasio Cortes in.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I don't know if he would do that. I mean, look,
here's the other thing that I think Gavin Newsom does
that makes him effective in this environment. Kind of coming
full circle with what we were talking about. Gavin Newsom
watches Fox News Channel every night. He looks at social
medium metrics every day. He knows he can tell me
more about how my tweets are performing than I can.
(28:43):
He is so aware of where the conversation is and
is so aware, especially of where the right is, in
a way that very few people on the left are.
Gavin Newsom's father in law, Jennifer Siebel, Newsom's parents are
prominent Republican donors who are like buddies with Ron DeSantis
(29:04):
and people like that. I mean, he is a rich
guy who has hung out with a lot of rich
people who also are Republicans. So this idea that Gavin
Newsom is living in some sort of information silo in
San Francisco and not understanding where the other side is
is not true. I mean, it's part of the reason
(29:24):
that he has more effectively than anybody else, copied Donald
Trump's secret to success to win over the Democrats. I mean,
and a lot of times he's realized that that simply
just you know, condescending and talking about Trump doesn't work,
but copying seems to be working. So that's the other
thing I don't think people understand about him. He's very
(29:46):
aware of what's being said on the right, and that's
not true of most Democratic congress members who do not
engage with the other side.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, I think it's notable that Newsom did that debate
with Ron Desantas a few years back. I don't know
any other Democratic governor that would have agreed to something
like that. I think it's notable. He has a personal
relationship with Sean Hannity, I believe, and he does, I
think have that awareness in a way that makes him
(30:16):
more formidable politically.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
But Charlotte be the first guest on his podcast, you know,
I mean, he's aware of that and then and then
obviously and now he's like trying to figure out the
politics of that. So there was a moment when I
asked him on my show, our first show, about the
fact that he said to Charlie Kirk that his son
was so excited and wanted to stay at home and
wanted to meet him, And I said, your son was
(30:39):
obviously a fan of Charlie Kirk, and then he sort
of didn't want to admit that, which was really kind
of strange.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
So, I mean, I thought he kind of flip flopped
on that.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, so he's also aware of the politics of this
is dicey. The idea of trying to be a good
general election candidate that could potentially appeal to people where
you think maybe he isn't that, but then also be
somebody that's appealing to the Democratic base. And as we know,
the Democratic base has a lot more purity tests than
(31:10):
the Republican base do. I mean, the Republican base for
the most part is like, are you with Trump? Great?
Come on in? At the Democratic base, by a large part,
are do you check every single box on every issue
that we believe in? Okay? And if you're not on
one of them, maybe not. I mean that's obviously a
little bit of an oversimplification, but there is a bit
(31:31):
of a difference in the two parties on that.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Front, for sure. And I think some of the things
we're talking about that would make Gavin Newsom a formidable
general election candidate as the Democratic nominee would make it
difficult for him to get through a Democratic presidential primary,
because the primary system gives a lot of weight to
the most involved participants on either side who tend to
be more extreme, so hardcore progressives. That's why we saw
(31:56):
the Democratic twenty twenty presidential primary them putting their hand
ends up for things that we now look back at
as like, well, those were really out there lefty positions.
But that's the nature of a primary, right, is that
the most diehard people get to decide who the nominee is,
but they their tastes don't neatly map on to the
tastes of a general elector always.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
But he's aware that the one thing that unifies Democrats,
the only thing that unifies Democrats is they hate President Trump.
So he's trying to be perceived as the person who
is most exemplifying that hatred of President Trump, and he
thinks that that's a smart policy position. But to your
(32:37):
point about the primary, the danger for Gavin Newsom, who,
like many politicians, but I think even more so than
many politicians, likes to be liked by the room that
he's in and can shape shift a little bit depending
on where he's at. Not the only politician to do that.
We know everybody's do that over the years, but he
seems to really do that. The danger is you say
(33:00):
something in front of one of these democratic interest groups
that gets the room on your side, but then comes
back to bite you down the line, and it takes
a lot of discipline to not do that, and that's
potentially problematic for him and frankly for everybody.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Well, Alex, I will be waiting with eager ears for
more of your coverage as Newsome and other figures that
you've been covering closely take up a bigger and bigger
spotlight and with great interest for the debates and conversations
you'll be hosting now on CNN. Thank you so much
for coming on the podcast and keep up the good work.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
We got to get you there for some of these debates.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
We want to feature you, telling you I'll come out,
but maybe I'll have to line up a couple other
things and make a trip out of it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Please do. Thank you very much and great to talk
with you and your audience.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Thanks
We need to talk to each other. What's the alternative
a civil war where we just constantly fight each other.
I mean, we live in the same country. We have
to start growing in the same direction.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Alex, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you so
much for having me. A big fan of what you do.
Appreciate it. And it's been exciting to watch you launch
your new CNN show. The Story is already doing some
really exciting work with CNN, big interviews with the likes
of Pete. But to Judge, how's it all treating you?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
It's it's been a crazy time. I mean, our shows
about a week old now, but we've already talked with
Gavin Newsom and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown and Pete Buddha,
Judge and Nancy Pelosi and Harmie Dillon and Kevin Kylie.
I mean all these a lot of folks on the
right and left. I mean, part of what we're trying
to do here is have a place to bring everybody together,
(01:00):
especially emphasize some of our friends on the West Coast,
where we have live news finally and primetime, which hasn't
been happening for a long time in cable news and
It's been a wild week to be certainly in the
West Coast, everything that's happened in the last week or so.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
For sure. I mean, you had the big redistricting proposition
in California and so much more bring in coverage hosting
from California, which is a little different because so much
of cable news is, you know, New York City focused
and Eastern Time focused.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
But that's THESS winning the World Series, of course, can't.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, of course I totally pay super close attention to that.
But what interests me about your work and why I
was really excited to see you teaming up with CNN
is I followed you for many years in your time
on Fox eleven in California, hosting debates and discussions and
dialogues and all people all over the perspectives politically, from
(01:57):
Republican to Democrat, left wing to right wing. And I've
already seen you hosting panels and some intense conversations about
redistricting and more on your show. But talk a little
bit about that and what you hope to do, because frankly,
one of my disappointments with cable news is my favorite
shows across multiple networks are the ones that have people
(02:19):
with different perspectives interacting and debating, preferably in person. But that,
while it does right well, does seem to be increasingly rare.
So is that something you hope to focus on even more?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, look, we need to talk to each other. What's
the alternative a civil war where we just constantly fight
each other. I mean, we live in the same country,
we have to gart growing in the same direction, and
so I think it's important for cable news and for
podcasts like this one and other places to sort of
(02:50):
model the behavior that we can actually have a conversation
with each other. That doesn't mean we always agree, that
doesn't mean it's all softball stuff, but I think that
we can show that, yes, you can disagree without being disagreeable.
Not everything has to be a personal attack. And just
because somebody disagrees with you, they're not they're they're your opponent,
(03:13):
they're not your enemy. We've gotten to this point where
we have so dehumanized each other because our media diet
is so algorithmically focused on making us hate each other
and putting all the scent out of our even thought process,
that we can have a conversation. I mean, I remember
(03:35):
hearing a lot of people that say, I don't understand
how Gavin Newsom can win. I don't know a single
person who's in favor of him. Well, that means that
you your timeline is so skewed in one direction you're
not hearing the opposite. And also the truth. Donald Trump
is the worst person ever. He's Adolf Hitler, some people claim,
obviously not true, but but and so how could you
(03:59):
even say anything remotely nice about him? And then you
end up with situations like what we saw with Charlie Kirk,
where that's the logical conclusion of what we're doing. So
I think all of us have a responsibility to pull
that back and not agree fight it out politically, but
do it in a way that can be productive, constructive,
(04:22):
hopefully entertaining, and that hopefully rises the level of dialogue
a little bit in this country.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I was already when
you were talking about what else do we do besides talk?
My mind immediately went to Charlie Kirk, to attacks on
democratic lawmakers that we saw as well several months ago.
And does this horrific uptick we've seen in political violence
that I think that way madness lies and the only
solution is to settle our differences with ballots, not bullets,
(04:52):
and disagreements not violence. And so anybody who's modeling that
in media is somebody who I think is serving the
community and the country on that front. And you raise
such an interesting point about the echo chamber, because this
happens on social media, but unfortunately it's happened somewhat in media,
(05:13):
though shows like yours are working to correct it, where
people are really only exposed to the people that agree
with them. And then what happens is two things. One,
people become more radical right, Like, if you have a
room full of all Republicans just bouncing off of each other,
they're not going to move to the left or to
the middle, They're only going to move further right. Same
thing if you have a room full of progressives, they're
only going to move further and further to the left.
(05:35):
And then two, they also lose touch with what the
other side actually believes. So I've seen really interesting polling
up where you pull Republicans asking them what democratic positions are,
and then you map that next to what they actually are,
and of course they think the media and democrat is
way more to the left than they actually are. Same
vice versa. How do we fix that? How do we
(05:56):
break through people's echo chambers because it's comfortable to stay
in them, and it can be a little uncomfortable to
tune into something that's going to shatter your echo chamber.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, I mean, but that's one of the things about
bringing both sides literally to a table, is it. It
is so like for many years on Fox eleven, I
would do debates with with Brian Tyler Cohen, this big
progressive YouTube star on the left, and Tommy Laren, a
big conservative online star on the right. And so that
(06:28):
was one of the only times when viewers of Tommy
Laren saw a leftist perspective, and vice versa. Because Tommy
Laren's followers are tuning in to see her hopefully dunk
on Brian Tyler Cohen in their forew Bryan's followers are
tuning in to see him do the same, but in
(06:49):
doing so, they're being exposed to another perspective. So this
idea of doing journalism that incorporates multiple perspectives is not
only the right thing to do, the ethical thing to do,
the professional thing to do. It's good business because automatically
you are expanding your potential audience by two because now
(07:11):
there's a home for conservatives and liberals to listen because
they feel like they're being incorporated into the conversation. I
think a big reason why people tune out is when
they feel like their voice isn't represented. They can't see themselves.
So not only is that representation in terms of race
(07:32):
and age and all the rest of that stuff, but
it's also representation in terms of diversity of thought. And
I think that that's important and also a smart strategy.
And so I think a lot of these companies would
actually be better served in terms of what they really care about,
which is making money in expanding their base. As Michael
Jordan said years ago, Republicans wear shoes too.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
That's a good one. I hadn't heard that in a while.
But it's interesting you raise that point because I guess
the flip side of this is where do you draw
the line in terms of who is worth talking to?
How do you make sure that you are keeping people
somewhat in check in terms of them not spouting off
just absolute nonsense. Because there is some forms of debate
(08:17):
debate that you'll see that go viral, but essentially devolve
into like political Jerry Springer, and obviously that's not serving
the public either.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Right the former former mayor of Cincinnati, Jerry Springer himself.
So I think that here's my take. When I have
somebody on my show, I believe you should be able
to share your opinion based on fact and it's really
not my place to get in the way of that.
When you start saying things that are factually inaccurate, it
(08:47):
is my job as the referee to step in and
call that out and try to correct the record. It
is my job as a referee to try to also
help people that may don't maybe don't follow this stuff
every single day when people start speaking in acronyms or
start speaking in inside baseball talk, to kind of explain
to them what's what's going on there and and so.
(09:08):
And Also I think that blatant hates speech that targets
somebody is not something worth platforming. But that being said,
if you simply have a different opinion and you're coming
in good faith and arguing it based off of real facts,
I don't think it's my place to step in to
(09:29):
fight you and to get in the way of that.
It's my way, I mean to challenge you, yes, and
to and to provide the opposite perspective, but not do
so in such an antagonistic or condescending way that I
think a lot of cable news descends into.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Like you see, lady, you did say the term hate speech,
which is a little bit of a trigger word for
me in the sense that as somebody who I started
out my career and right leaning media, I have unfortunately
seen most non liberal respectives on all sorts of issues
labeled hate speech at some point or another. I guess
(10:06):
what I would say is, I think there is no
place for like hateful language or slurs. I mean, we
literally have members of Congress just gratuitously saying slurs. Now
to me, that's totally totally anathema to just constructive dialogue.
But some opinions that people think are hateful are a
(10:26):
fair game. I mean, if a Republican's view is that
men cannot become women, right, they just totally flat out disagree.
I mean, some would call that hate speech, say don't
platform that, don't debate that, but like, at least more
than half the country probably holds a perspective closer to
that than the opposite view. So how do you draw
a line between gatekeeping acceptable discourse. We don't want people
(10:48):
shouting slurs at each other, but not allowing a fundamentally
subjective idea like what's hateful and what's not to become
subject to personal interpretation.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah. And I think we saw a lot of that
during COVID, honestly, where so many just different opinions from
good faith were completely science silenced and censored. And now
we look back on it and a lot of those
people were right. So yeah, I think that's that's an
important thing. By hate speech, I mean like Kanye West
(11:19):
coming out and ranting about how horrible Jewish people are, Like,
I don't find that to be constructive. I don't think
that we as a media are helping the dialogue by
platforming that and elevating that. That's sort of what I
mean by that in terms of a disagreement on the issues. Uh,
I think that's fine, and I think we need to
(11:41):
to If we're going to skew towards something, we should
skew towards more free speech, not less free speech. What
I find personally annoying about some cable news coverage is
when it's like, well, we know better than you. So
this person is talking, but we're not going to show
them talking because it could be damaging to hear from them.
(12:02):
So we're going to watch it, and if it's worth it,
will tell you. But I think people are smart enough
for the most part to make up their own minds,
give them the information and let them do with it
with what they can, and then it's part of our
role to provide context, to try to do fact checking
all the rest of that. But this idea, especially as
(12:23):
media itself is being democratized so much with podcasting and
social media and all the rest of it, that you know,
there's one person that knows the truth and we are
going to tell you the truth and we're the arbiter
of that. I think is condescending, patronizing, and really actually
(12:44):
a bad business strategy too.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, no, that makes sense, And it is interesting you
talk about this like gatekeeper role, and I think perhaps
we're living through an overcorrection. Right. Part of why some
people lost faith in traditional media was because they get
too much. They're like, well, we're not going to show
you Trump's speech because it's not accurate, right, So we're
just going to tell you what to think about it.
(13:07):
When in reality, you probably better serve by letting people
hear what the presidential Canada is saying and then providing
your own context and perspective and letting people decide for themselves.
But now I feel like we kind of have the
wild West. I host an independent podcast and YouTube channel
that is opinionated, but is fact based and does cite
real sources. But the most popular ones really don't. I mean,
(13:28):
they just say the most outlandish things, They peddle the
most outlandish conspiracies, and I guess we're seeing the opposite
side of this. At first, I was really excited by
the rise of independent media and the democratization of independent media,
especially as somebody who had a fair number of criticisms
of traditional media. But now it's like, WHOA, maybe we've
gone way too far in the opposite direction. But people
(13:51):
seem to be eating it up.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, and it's a real danger.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I thought about this a lot. You know, here in
La we had these wildfires at the beginning of the
and so I was on the air for twelve hours
at a time doing continuous coverage of this real emergency
when people's lives were on the line. Some people lost
their lives. Thousands of people lost their homes. I mean,
it was a real crisis, and in that moment when
(14:17):
people are scared, people need reliable information to live and
also to emotionally process what's happening. And that was a
moment where it was like, I'm grateful for my journalism training.
I'm grateful to have colleagues on the ground doing real work.
I'm grateful to have sources in the government. I'm grateful
(14:37):
to be able to provide this public service. In that moment,
it was a public service. We're doing a commercial free
because that information is needed. And I was thinking, Okay,
if a few years down the line, the trends continue
and we start losing local news or we don't have
that source there, then what happens If you're in a
(14:58):
real crisis, you don't have the quote unquote mainstream media
or people with real training, real sources, real experience, and
you need somebody to give you clear information. Where do
you go? And what does that mean for us? If
God forbid, we have another nine to eleven and we're
you know, at war as a country. What happens in
(15:19):
that situation? So this idea that we just abandon, you know,
cable news, abandon mainstream media, abandon all gatekeeping, abandon all
quote unquote you know, establishment or legacy or whatever word
we do. I think is a scary reality. And even
so much of independent journalism is so often quoting legacy
(15:43):
journalism to then start a conversation. So I think it's
important that we all collectively as a people, support good
fact based work so that we keep a lot of
this stuff in business so that it's there when we
really need it.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, So I do commentary at analysis, so I'm often
citing mainstream reporting. Maybe it's CNN, maybe it's New York Times,
maybe it's Wall Street Journal, maybe it's Fox News, and
then building and adding my perspective. But one thing I
don't know. Do you use TikTok at all?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Sure, a little bit. I use more Instagram reels.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
But well, there's these breaking news content creators who make
these videos straight to camera saying breaking news stuck, this
just happened at the White House, blah blah blah, and
they just rip off the associated press with no credit,
and yet their videos are getting like ten million views
and so they're making probably know three or four grand
from that single video. But they are literally just loosely
(16:39):
adapting a script from the associated Press or from another
breaking news outlet. And as much as I am very
sympathetic to a lot of the critiques of mainstream media
over the years for a lack of debate, of diversity
of perspectives, or maybe falling into its own echo chambers,
not accurately representing the whole diverse country and gun owners
and religious people and more perspectives, I mean, at some
(17:03):
point there's not going to be the underlying mainstream media
that new meat, or as much of it as the
new media relies on. And people don't seem to understand that,
And I just I think that's an interesting dynamic at play.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And there's the whole creator economy of stealing our videos
and then making their living off of that, right, ripping
the videos online, putting often an inaccurate caption on it
to try to juice engagement, and then not giving credit,
not explaining the source, and then just making their money
(17:37):
off of ads on X or whatever it is. And
that's frustrating sometimes from the person that did the reporting,
that did the interview, and they're making all the money
off of it, oftentimes with the wrong spin. And I
don't know how we put that genie back into going to.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Say, how do you solve that?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I don't know. I don't know if that's something that
Elon Musk even thinks of as a problem. I don't
think he does so, But I mean, that is a
very frustrating reality that I see almost every day.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, but it is interesting. You talked about California, and
you've probably, at least on my radar, covered it more
closely California politics and it's effect on the national level
than anybody else I'm familiar with in the business, and
in particular, one figure I want to get your thoughts
on is Gavin Newsom. You've covered him for years and
years at this point, you've interviewed him so many times,
(18:31):
and I'll just tell you my perspective, and then I'm
curious for yours. I have no idea who the real
Gavin Newsom is because I have watched him at the
state level enact, whether you agree with them or not,
very left wing policies on issues like gender identity or
different policies in schools, or trans athletes or other things.
(18:52):
And then I'll watch him get on a podcast with
a more conservative leaning host and suddenly he is like
agreeing with them on different issues and saying, yeah, when
did I ever say latin X. Of course he said
it like a bunch of times on camera and in
speeches and in tweets and other stuff. And on one hand,
Trump has shown us that that is a huge political
(19:14):
asset when you can rebrand and readapt your position.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Shamelessness works in politics.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
It does, unfortunately. But I guess the question is, if
he is to run for president or just to elevate
to a further position of prominence, who is he actually
at heart?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Well, it's interesting. My colleague Ron Brownstein has written about
this really effectively. He's pointed out that Gavin Newsom is
essentially trying to do two things at once. He's trying
to show that he's the best online fighter of Trump
and trump Ism, and he's trying to show that he's
much more of a centrist than you think he is.
(19:52):
So he's trying to get the online left fired up
with the memes and the attacks and everything's against him,
all of that, and then at the same time, if
you actually look at what he's doing policy wise, he's
strongly going towards the middle on things like transports on
you know, some of the stuff he's doing around homelessness
(20:14):
and criminal justice reform and race based stuff, all of it.
If you look at what he's actually doing, he's heading
towards the middle. What is Gavin Newsom at the At
his core, he's really good at reading polls, So, unlike
a lot of his Democratic colleagues, when he sees like
the trans issue at eighty twenty, he says, let's go
(20:36):
with the eighty. That's better politically than going with the twenty.
And so that's I think where he is right now.
Does he have core convictions and some of that based
in progressivism, Sure, and but does he usually tend to
do the thing that is good for the constituency that
he has.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I mean he was way ahead of everybody on mayor
ring same sex couples, you know, decades ago. But he
also was the mayor of San Francisco, where there's more
same sex couples than just about anywhere else. That's smart politics,
in addition to something that I do think he genuinely
believes in. But so I to your point, Yeah, I mean,
(21:18):
there aren't necessarily the clearest These are my absolute one
hundred percent principles in a way you see with other politicians.
But maybe that's actually really beneficial for him as he
moves forward. The question is if he indeed runs for president,
as it clearly certainly seems like he is already, will
he be able to do what he has done in
(21:38):
recent elections in California and make it a referendum on Trump,
trump Ism and the Republican Party failures in his view,
or will it be a referendum on his record? Will
it be about the streets of San Francisco with homeless
people on them and potential crime and people moving out
because of regulations and all the rest of it. In
(21:59):
his re elections here he is able to make it
about Trump, not about him, And if he can do
that nationally, he may win. If it becomes about all
the progressive craziness of California and the land of fruits
and nuts and all the rest of the stuff that
people say about our state, it may be tough for him,
as it was tough for Kamala Harris, who was the
(22:21):
first Democratic nominee ever from California.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Well, and I think that it's interesting. I was already
going to bring her up in my next question. Because
Kamala Harris is somebody who, in fairness to her, she
only had a few months because of what happened with
Joe Biden. But she tried to pivot to the middle
on some of her issues. But then essentially her long
record as very significantly progressive came back to haunt her
(22:45):
when you look at one of the most effective ads
against her was talking about her past support in an
ACLU survey for taxpayer funded transgender surgeries for immigrants, illegal immigrants,
I believe, and prisoners. And so I'm not sure that
when you have somebody with Gavin Newsom's extensive record, because
(23:06):
as a governor you actually have to do things unlike
a senator where you just mostly bloviate or go on
television and occasionally pass legislation. As a record of the
pandemic of the French laundry, right, getting caught breaking your
own rules, of some of the things that have happened
around gender issues, and his policies that allowed people born
(23:28):
biologically male to be put in women's prisons. It's like,
I think that stuff will come back to haunt him,
and maybe Trump will suck all the oxygen out of
the room. But I don't know. Can you Maybe in
California it worked, but nationally, do you really think he
could just get away with a rebrand?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
We'll see. I mean, look, he went to South Carolina
a few months ago, and I wasn't there, but I
talked to a lot of the reporters who were on
the ground, and I said, were the people asking about
California homelessness or some of these issues? He said, nobody
about that. They were just focused on how much Trump sucks,
and they were thrilled that somebody was fighting and that
somebody showed up to make that point. So we'll see.
(24:07):
I mean, sometimes he has not always reacted great when
reporters press him on some of these things. And so,
you know, the national press is a little more aggressive
than my friends in the California press, in part because
you know, we have a one party state and we
deal with a lot of the same people all the time.
(24:28):
And I think the national press would not have as
much of an issue of burning a bridge that maybe
some folks here would and just sort of launching in
an attack. And so could there be a moment not
like what happened with Katie Porter, maybe to that extent,
but where we could we have seen outbursts from him
sometimes when he's challenged on some things that he doesn't
like to talk about in the past, you know, could
(24:48):
that happen? Who knows? I think we're a long ways
away from from that. We've still not clear who the
field is. But his fundamental operating philosophy, which I think
he also was thinking in twenty twenty two when I
covered him when he thought that Joe Biden was not
going to run. I think and he started this play
(25:08):
back then if you look back at it, and I
traveled with him to the White House at the time,
is he believes that the Democratic Party is weak, that
the Democratic base is angry, that Democratic politicians have been
rolled over, that the online space craves confrontation, and that
nobody is giving them what they want. And so he
(25:28):
is giving them what they want. And to his credit politically,
at least right now, it is working for him. His
pull numbers are up dramatically in a potential race. His
social media followers are way up. He used Prop fifty
as a way to expand his donor base and create
a national list that rivals any other candidate. So and
(25:52):
he is being talked about more in the conversation nationally,
both on cable news and online than anybody else. And
he's kind of made himself the Democratic front runner in
a period of a few months. So right now it
appears that that strategy is working. Will that get tired
as you keep going? Will there need to be another moment?
(26:14):
You know, who knows, what's something people like from your
time with him? Right you've traveled with him, you've interviewed him,
a moment that stands out or something about him that
might surprise people. Well, I think a lot of people
may not know that he's dyslexic, and so he doesn't
He can't read speeches, he doesn't use a teleprompter, he
(26:36):
doesn't even walk up with notes. Everything that he does
is off the top of his head. And that dyslexia
I think also really informed how he grew up as
a kid. He really struggled in school. He didn't even
know he was dyslexic, but he couldn't read and he
was bullied and he was made fun of for that.
He talks about the fact that, you know, sports kind
(26:58):
of gave him a place to go where he didn't
have to be in the classroom, and he was big
guy and athletic and all the rest of that. He
kind of found his own there, but a lot of
his sort of childhood trauma was being bullied for being
a kid who people thought was stupid. And so he still,
I think, has this chip on his shoulder of the
(27:20):
guy that was underestimated, the guy that people was mocking,
and the guy who's got something to prove to people.
And I think that is kind of at his core
who Gavin Newsom actually is. And I think that people
see him as sort of the handsome, wealthy, well spoken
guy with the hot wife and the whole thing, and
(27:41):
they think of him as one way, but in reality,
a lot of who Gavin Newsom actually is and he
said this to me is that third grader who was
mocked by his classmates.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
That's really interesting. I didn't know that he had dyslexia.
And I've followed him for many years. I think he's
a formida candidate. I've been obviously very critical of him,
coming from my perspective over the years, but he does
have the charisma. He has the good looks, and good
looks are important in politics. I think I don't know.
My early soft bet would be Newsome Ocasio Cortes in.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I don't know if he would do that. I mean, look,
here's the other thing that I think Gavin Newsom does
that makes him effective in this environment. Kind of coming
full circle with what we were talking about. Gavin Newsom
watches Fox News Channel every night. He looks at social
medium metrics every day. He knows he can tell me
more about how my tweets are performing than I can.
(28:43):
He is so aware of where the conversation is and
is so aware, especially of where the right is, in
a way that very few people on the left are.
Gavin Newsom's father in law, Jennifer Siebel, Newsom's parents are
prominent Republican donors who are like buddies with Ron DeSantis
(29:04):
and people like that. I mean, he is a rich
guy who has hung out with a lot of rich
people who also are Republicans. So this idea that Gavin
Newsom is living in some sort of information silo in
San Francisco and not understanding where the other side is
is not true. I mean, it's part of the reason
(29:24):
that he has more effectively than anybody else, copied Donald
Trump's secret to success to win over the Democrats. I mean,
and a lot of times he's realized that that simply
just you know, condescending and talking about Trump doesn't work,
but copying seems to be working. So that's the other
thing I don't think people understand about him. He's very
(29:46):
aware of what's being said on the right, and that's
not true of most Democratic congress members who do not
engage with the other side.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, I think it's notable that Newsom did that debate
with Ron Desantas a few years back. I don't know
any other Democratic governor that would have agreed to something
like that. I think it's notable. He has a personal
relationship with Sean Hannity, I believe, and he does, I
think have that awareness in a way that makes him
(30:16):
more formidable politically.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
But Charlotte be the first guest on his podcast, you know,
I mean, he's aware of that and then and then
obviously and now he's like trying to figure out the
politics of that. So there was a moment when I
asked him on my show, our first show, about the
fact that he said to Charlie Kirk that his son
was so excited and wanted to stay at home and
wanted to meet him, And I said, your son was
(30:39):
obviously a fan of Charlie Kirk, and then he sort
of didn't want to admit that, which was really kind
of strange.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
So, I mean, I thought he kind of flip flopped
on that.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, so he's also aware of the politics of this
is dicey. The idea of trying to be a good
general election candidate that could potentially appeal to people where
you think maybe he isn't that, but then also be
somebody that's appealing to the Democratic base. And as we know,
the Democratic base has a lot more purity tests than
(31:10):
the Republican base do. I mean, the Republican base for
the most part is like, are you with Trump? Great?
Come on in? At the Democratic base, by a large part,
are do you check every single box on every issue
that we believe in? Okay? And if you're not on
one of them, maybe not. I mean that's obviously a
little bit of an oversimplification, but there is a bit
(31:31):
of a difference in the two parties on that.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Front, for sure. And I think some of the things
we're talking about that would make Gavin Newsom a formidable
general election candidate as the Democratic nominee would make it
difficult for him to get through a Democratic presidential primary,
because the primary system gives a lot of weight to
the most involved participants on either side who tend to
be more extreme, so hardcore progressives. That's why we saw
(31:56):
the Democratic twenty twenty presidential primary them putting their hand
ends up for things that we now look back at
as like, well, those were really out there lefty positions.
But that's the nature of a primary, right, is that
the most diehard people get to decide who the nominee is,
but they their tastes don't neatly map on to the
tastes of a general elector always.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
But he's aware that the one thing that unifies Democrats,
the only thing that unifies Democrats is they hate President Trump.
So he's trying to be perceived as the person who
is most exemplifying that hatred of President Trump, and he
thinks that that's a smart policy position. But to your
(32:37):
point about the primary, the danger for Gavin Newsom, who,
like many politicians, but I think even more so than
many politicians, likes to be liked by the room that
he's in and can shape shift a little bit depending
on where he's at. Not the only politician to do that.
We know everybody's do that over the years, but he
seems to really do that. The danger is you say
(33:00):
something in front of one of these democratic interest groups
that gets the room on your side, but then comes
back to bite you down the line, and it takes
a lot of discipline to not do that, and that's
potentially problematic for him and frankly for everybody.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Well, Alex, I will be waiting with eager ears for
more of your coverage as Newsome and other figures that
you've been covering closely take up a bigger and bigger
spotlight and with great interest for the debates and conversations
you'll be hosting now on CNN. Thank you so much
for coming on the podcast and keep up the good work.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
We got to get you there for some of these debates.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
We want to feature you, telling you I'll come out,
but maybe I'll have to line up a couple other
things and make a trip out of it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Please do. Thank you very much and great to talk
with you and your audience.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Thanks
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