June 6, 2025 • 56 mins
What do an electric-vehicle mandate, a structural budget deficit, and chronic homelessness and affordable housing woes have in common? The answer: they are policy headaches likely awaiting California’s next governor.
Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind web channel, join Hoover senior product manager Jonathan Movroydis to discuss the latest in the Golden State including flaws in Governor Newsom’s plan requiring all new automobiles sold in California by 2035 to be zero-emission vehicles, another financial blow to California’s high-speed rail project, ongoing struggles with homeless and affordable agenda, plus a curious lack of celebrities auditioning for statewide offices. After that: 95th-birthday tributes to Clint Eastwood (May 31) and Hoover’s own Thomas Sowell (June 30).
Recorded on June 5, 2025.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
[MUSIC]
>> Jonathan Movroydis (00:04):
It's Thursday, June 5, 2025, and
you are listening to Matters of Policy andPolitics, a Hoover Institution podcast
devoted to governance and balance of powerhere in America and around the free world.
I am Jonathan Movroydis of the HooverInstitution, and I'm sitting in the chair
of Bill Whalen, the Virginia HobbsCarpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in
Journalism, sothat he can answer questions and
provide commentary about California policyand politics in which he's well-versed.
(00:25):
Bill Whalen, in addition to beinga Washington Post columnist,
writes weekly for Hoover's Californiaon youn Mind Web channel.
Whelen is joined today by Leo Hanian,Hoover Institution Senior Fellow and
Professor of Economics andDirector of the Edinger Family Program in
Macroeconomic Research at the Universityof California, Los Angeles.
Ohanian also writes weekly about thepolicy environment of the Golden State for
California on youn Mind.
(00:45):
Gentlemen, how are you doing today?
>> Bill Whalen (00:46):
Good, good.
>> Lee Ohanian (00:48):
How are you fellows doing?
>> Jonathan Movroydis (00:49):
Very good.
>> Bill Whalen (00:50):
It's early June in Northern California.
Life is good.
It's about 72 degrees here, Lee.
It's Santa Barbara weather.
>> Lee Ohanian (00:57):
Yeah, we're having Bay Area weather.
We were overcast about 65 degrees,but I'm not complaining.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (01:04):
We're having Arizona weather here and
it's close to 100 degrees, so.
>> Bill Whalen (01:08):
Shall we do sports next or get on with the news?
>> Jonathan Movroydis (01:12):
Yeah. So let's talk about the latest
developments in policy andpolitics in the Golden State.
Lee let's start off with your recentcolumn in California on your Mind,
which discusses the US.
Senate vote to block Governor Newsom'sexecutive order requiring all new vehicles
sold in California by 2035 tobe zero emission vehicles.
You explain why the legislationis misguided in the first place.
(01:33):
Quote the key issue with California'saggressive fight against climate change,
including the 2035 ZEV mandate,is that it hasn't
adequately recognized the trade offsinvolved with its policy choices.
Specifically, any policy choice involvespotential costs as well as potential
benefits and we obviously needto prioritize those policies for
which the expected benefitsfar outweigh expected costs.
(01:54):
But that hasn't always happenedwith California's climate policies.
Ali, what are the expected costs?
And second,would California EV sales plateauing?
Could the state evenhave met this mandate?
>> Lee Ohanian (02:06):
Well, Jonathan, you know this is probably going to be a blessing in
disguise forCalifornia drivers because demand for
EVs may be close to beingsaturated at this point.
Most purchasers of EVs up to this pointhave been relatively wealthy households.
There are households with multiplevehicles, about 90% of those households
(02:30):
have a gasoline powered car andit's interesting, in California, the,
the average number of miles driven byan EV is only about 28 miles per day.
So, so these are, these are vehiclesthat are bought with substantial
tax incentives and tax credits.
And they're very much a second car.
(02:51):
They're not really a good choice at thispoint for families that have, that have
one, that will have one vehicle who willbe using that electric vehicle as a,
as a primary car with verylong distance driving.
So, you know, Jonathan, it really boilsdown to the issue that there's not
just an awful lot of demand out therebeyond what's already been purchased.
(03:12):
And you see this being discussedby a number of automakers,
other experts in the auto industry.
And EVs have become very expensive forCalifornia because, you know, what
we do is we require a certain number ofvehicles to be sold in California's EVS.
Otherwise we penalize automakers at about
(03:37):
$20,000 per vehicle if they don't deliver
enough EVS relative togasoline powered cars.
Or they have to buy, they,
they have to buy credits froman EV company such as Tesla.
(03:57):
But you know, given all this,Jonathan, we've.
California has jumped into renewables and
reducing carbon emissions, you know,much more so than most other states.
And it's very, very expensive.
Over 600,000 workers in Californiaare in the clean energy industry.
That compares with onlyabout 50,000 workers.
(04:19):
So about 1/12 or 1/13 of the number ofworkers in the oil and gas industry.
And despite that lopsidednumber of workers,
only about 28% of California's electricitycame from solar and wind power.
So you look at that, and it's not a senseof markets being used effectively.
(04:45):
Renewables have become very,very expensive.
The policies of California haveimplemented very, very expensive,
we have the, I believe the highestgasoline prices in the country at over
$5 a gallon is 50% morethan the US average.
We have the fifth highestnatural gas prices.
We have the fourth highestelectricity prices.
(05:07):
And when you think about that, those arevery burdensome on, on middle income and
low income households.
So there's just a lot that we're doingthat's not really paying off very much,
but that is costingCalifornians an awful lot.
>> Bill Whalen (05:23):
So, Lee, I have two questions for you.
First, when the Senate did its vote,Governor Newsom came out very strong
against it and said basically they wantto turn the clock back on California,
back to the 50s, 60s, 70s and the badold days of bad air in Los Angeles.
Interesting message because a lot ofCalifornians don't remember those days.
We're talking 50, 60 years ago.
(05:43):
So one question, Lee,is really how critical is as to air
quality in California butthe second is that Newsom at all
times equates this mandate to innovationis the word he chooses deliberately.
Why do you think he isusing the word innovation?
>> Lee Ohanian (05:56):
Well Bill, he compared it, I believe to the iPhone,
Apple's iPhone, just,you know, in, in, you know,
just a few miles downthe road from where you are.
So I think that frames it, you know,very attractively from his purpose to say,
well you know,we're doing the Lord's work here.
We're, we're innovating.
You know the, the obvious,
(06:16):
the obvious difference is that the iPhonewas developed within the context of for
profit markets by a manufacturer whohad to figure out what's the demand for
the product, what are people willingto pay, how much will it cost them to
produce, how will, how much will it costthem to make it better in the future?
If you applied the same standards to EVs,we would hardly have any EVs.
(06:43):
They're very expensive,they're expensive to repair.
They depreciate very, very quickly.
There are some EVs that lose half oftheir value in the first year on average.
They lose half of their valuewithin the first three years.
And a big, and a big issue with them isthat the battery replacements can be very,
very expensive.
People just don't want them.
(07:05):
The, even the profit margins, sowe're forcing auto producers to create
a certain number of EVs forCalifornia and they're not profitable.
To put this in context, the aver most
Profit margin in USindustries is about 34%.
(07:26):
The most, the most profitable EV
production in the United Statesis by Tesla at about 7%.
So about 1 fifth the profit margin.
So there's just nothing from thestandpoint of markets that says this is
a good thing to be doing.
And Bill, you know, it's interestingrelative your question about clean air.
(07:50):
So back in the 60s and 70s, Californiajust had a horrible smog problem.
I remember as a little kid andgrowing up in LA in the late 60s and.
Early 70s, you know, oftentimes we had togo inside and stay there until the stage
three smog alert was downgradedto a stage one smog alert.
And when you drove, when you drove acrossthe 405 from Los Angeles over into
(08:13):
the San Fernando Valley, you couldn'tsee very far beyond your windshield.
And now when I do that driving from ucla,you see the beautiful San Fernando Valley.
I mean,we've made enormous progress on smog.
But reducing carbon emissions doesn't haveany direct benefits for California because
(08:33):
these are greenhouse gas emissions,it's CO2, and that's a global phenomenon.
California is responsible for less than1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
So even if we had a magic wand andwe could reduce carbon emissions by 50%,
it wouldn't even really move the needle.
(08:54):
So the Governor's analogy withthe iPhone really is, in my opinion,
misplaced, placed in.
And this kind of goes backto a long standing criticism
of governments picking industrial winners.
You know, we're just not very good at it.
You know,Japan failed at that in the 70s and 80s.
You know, we're going to be closing downa 2 plus billion dollar power plant in
(09:19):
the Mojave Desert that's onlybeen operating for 11 years.
And I think the first three orfour of those weren't very effective.
That power plant is an enormous solarpower plant that was supposed have
potentially a 45 year lifespan,is going to effectively being shut down
after 11 years, maybe seven good years,because better technologies have emerged.
(09:42):
And this is what happens when we allowgovernments to try to pick industrial
winners, losers.
There's no reason to believe they'regoing to be better than the marketplace.
And the historical record is thatthey've been worse than that.
>> Bill Whalen (09:54):
So you're telling me that the Governor is saying, in essence,
I've seen the future andthe future is electric vehicles.
My question, Lee, is this.
There is a country on the other sideof the Pacific Rim that is just
producing tons andtons of cheap electric vehicles.
China.
So why isn't Governor Newsomreaching out to China and
trying to flood the Californiamarket with cheap Chinese cars?
>> Lee Ohanian (10:13):
My goodness.
Yeah, I think, wouldn't that be a,
that would be an interesting politicalsituation for him, wouldn't it?
Particularly after his visit to China,what was that bill a year or
two ago when he claimed that he had thesereally difficult conversations with Xi and
that they were going to be cooperatingon carbon emissions and global warming.
(10:35):
And, and of course the Chinese record ofthat was nothing, was nothing at all.
Nothing at all like that.
And speaking of China,over 50% of their electricity is,
is created by burning coal,which is one of the,
the most polluting,the most polluting fossil fuels.
So I, you know, soI don't think the government,
(10:57):
the government really has much,much to stand on here.
I mean, we'll see what happens in the,in the courts, but
we're nowhere close to being able to getto that 100% ZEV sales target in 10 years.
And I mean personally,
I don't think we'll get anywhere close tothat even if the mandate was restored.
>> Bill Whalen (11:17):
So Arnold Schwarzenegger had a phrase when he was governor.
He'd always talk about things getting,
talk about the can gettingkicked down the road.
That's his catch-all phrase, anytimelegislature would just take a pass or
delay the inevitable.
So do you think they're going to kickdown, kick the can down the road here,
Lee, and maybe push the mandateback to 2040 or 2045?
Because it sure sounds like come 2033 or
2034 the state's not going to be anyposition to put this into play in 2035.
>> Lee Ohanian (11:42):
No, no, no, we would need, just to meet the target, I believe for
next year we would need to haveabout one third growth in sales.
And I think last yearwe just had 1% growth.
So we're not going to getanywhere close to that.
And you know, the governor,the governor, in Arnold's words,
(12:02):
kick the can down the roadwith his housing goals.
When he ran for Governor Back in 2018,
he made a promise of developinga Marshall Plan for housing and
just enormous, an enormous goalof building I believe three,
about 500,000 houses peryear between 2018 and 2025.
(12:24):
And so he pushed the target date back,I think to 2030 and
he reduced the numberof homes to be built.
So there's, he's moving the goalposts aswell as kicking the can down the road.
So if he does that, and I suspect he will,
it won't be anything thathe hasn't done before.
>> Bill Whalen (12:41):
Now, while we're on the topic of cars and energy,
I was just in South Carolina recentlywhere the locals are up in arms, Lee,
because the price of gasolineis approaching $3 a gallon.
Meanwhile, in California, there's a reportout that says the price of gasoline could
be $8.5 a come next year.
So what are we doing here, Lee?
>> Lee Ohanian (12:59):
Bill, I think you should have them start paying for
your ticket because if they came outto visit you in California, I mean,
what would they be saying whenthey Saw these prices here.
Yeah.Bill,
there are plans to shutdown to two refineries.
One is by Valerian, I think.
The other one is maybe an oldPhillips 66 refinery that could
(13:21):
reduce refinery capacity by 20%.
California is in a unique position.
It's not a particularly good uniqueposition that our fuel blend is different
than the rest of the countries.
And it's either produced here andif it's not produced here,
it comes from either South Korea orNew Brunswick,
(13:41):
Canada, places that aren't so closeit's expensive to bring that fuel here.
So if we lost 20% ofour refinery capacity,
supply would fallsubstantially potentially.
And gasoline is a commodity that consumersaren't very price sensitive to that.
(14:02):
So what I mean is that it's notas if they cut their consumption
substantially in response toa small increase in the price.
Instead, it takes a really big increase inthe price to get them to cut their right.
>> Bill Whalen (14:15):
But it has an ancillary effect in that that's more money out of
your pocket.
So that's less money you couldspend elsewhere in the economy.
>> Lee Ohanian (14:21):
Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
So I mean,I suspect it'll easily go over $7
a gallon if we do lose 20% of,of capacity.
Because the, it takes.
For every, for every 1% increasein the price of gasoline,
consumers, consumers drop theirdemand by about 1/3 of 1%.
(14:45):
So if you do the math,$7 a gallon gas is really pretty.
Is pretty, is easy to see.
>> Bill Whalen (14:53):
Well, I think lawmakers need to be on notice here.
Gray Davis got kickedout of office in 2003.
Why?
Energy crisis in California,rolling blackouts.
A state senator wasrecalled more recently.
Why?
Because the legislature approveda tax increase in gasoline.
People pay attention.
Where the precious commodity of gasolineand energy are being messed with.
>> Lee Ohanian (15:14):
My goodness.
Yes.Yeah.
Yeah.And Bill, you know, it's interesting.
We had not only the US but
the world had an energy crisis backbefore 19 majors in major cities,
the horse drawn carriage wasthe primary mode of transportation.
Excuse me.
Cities like New York and
London were literally beingsuffocated by horse droppings.
(15:38):
Thousands of people were dying everyyear from manure born bacteria.
And in just about a 25 year period,horses were completely replaced.
We no longer had the problem of horsemanure because the nascent internal
combustion engines just come online, and
tiny logical innovations made it very,very.
(16:00):
Very, very easy to put into a car.
And what needs to be acknowledged here,
I think by policymakers isthat there are trade offs.
It's not as if there's a free lunchout there to say, well, you know,
we've got this problem withcarbon emissions and you know,
we're going to do whatever ittakes to get rid of those.
No, you got to look at the costs andthe benefits and
(16:20):
we've been subsidizing solar andwind now for the better part of 50 years,
going back to the, the energycrises of the early and late 1970s.
The advertising campaign was always,gosh, you know what, in another 10 years,
solar will be there and we'll be gettingso much of our electricity from solar that
(16:42):
was repeated every decade,decade after decade after decade.
And I think this is another case wheregovernments may have just put all the by
putting all of our subsidy eggsinto the baskets of solar and wind.
I think that was probably a mistake.
We might be a lot further aheadwith renewables if we'd had
more of a level playing field and purssome different alternative energy sources.
>> Bill Whalen (17:04):
So the good news for the Godor, if you can call it that,
is to the extent that he's hounded byvery bad visuals in California right now,
I think we'd agree.
Lee.The visual that haunts him is what
homeless encampments.
We're going to get to homelessness ina couple minutes here on this podcast.
I would argue that ifGasoline goes over $7, Lee,
you're going to see return to that gasstation in Menlo park that a few years ago
took down the numerical prices andput up instead arb and a leg.
(17:28):
And that's going to beyour new California meme.
>> Lee Ohanian (17:30):
Yeah, yeah.
I pity, I remember Mr.you remember the old show the A Team.
And Mr. T would say, I pity the fool.
We're gonna talk about governorgubernatorial issues later, but
I pity the governor just gonna haveto come in and deal with that.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (17:46):
Yes, gentlemen,
let's talk about the 2026election politics.
This coming January marks the 60thanniversary of the beginning
of Ronald Reagan's successful1966 gubernatorial run.
In your column, Bill for California,in your mind this week, you described
the lack of Hollywood stars in Californiapolitics within the last century.
(18:08):
Reagan was part of a longlist of celebrities
who caught fame inCalifornia California politics.
There's the actress turnedcongresswoman Helen Hagen Douglas,
who ran unsuccessfully against RichardNixon for a US Senate seat in 1952.
There was the song anddance man George Murphy,
who was elected to the US Senate in 1964,serving one term.
(18:30):
Don't forget Clint Eastwood,
who we're going to talk about later, whoserved as mayor of Carmel in the 1980s.
And then of course the governatoraction hero Arnold Schwarzenegger,
who served two terms as governorbetween 2003 and 2010 or yesterday.
There was a bipartisan gatheringof would be gubernatorial
candidates that took place in Sacramento.
(18:51):
At this forum were former RepresentativeKatie Porter of the Irvine area,
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco,former legislative leader Tony Atkins and
former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Viragosa,and
current LieutenantGovernor Aleni Kunalakis.
Of those two, Bianco and Hilton,
conservative commentator Steve Hiltonwere the only Republicans there.
(19:15):
Why the dearth of a listers bill even forthe most liberal celebrities?
Has California become that unglamorous?
>> Bill Whalen (19:22):
Well, that's a good question, Jonathan.
So keep in mind the primary in Californiais still two days shy of a year from now.
It's first Tuesday in June of 2026,so maybe an a lister jumps in.
But I wanted to point out thatif you look at Reagan's run and
also Schwarzenegger's run for governor,the timing worked out very well for both.
Ronald Reagan was past hispeak of acting by then.
(19:44):
He was doing GE theatre anddeath rally days and so forth.
He was on the downside slop, so
Arnold by 2003 was getting alongin the tooth for an action hero.
His big hits were back in the 90s butstill high name recognition.
So you have to find somebody who I thinkJonathan Lee is not necessarily at
the peak of their powers,just willing to kind of walk away.
(20:05):
Not too many of those.
It might also be a reflection, just thatpolitics is ugly and bruising right now
and if you jump in you're going toget attacked thanks to social media.
So maybe that kind of explains it as well.
Now there is a celebrity who could run forgovernor.
Kamala Harris is at least a politicalcelebrity, if not a Hollywood celebrity,
but at least a political one.
(20:25):
But you notice Lee and
Jonathan that she is not takingpart in these candidates forms.
There was previous to this event youmentioned in Sacramento which was run by
the California Chamber of Commerce.
There was a Democratic Party gatheringin Los Angeles previous weekend,
she did not go in person.
She sent in what by the crowd's estimateswas a pretty underwhelming video.
(20:45):
Just kind of a paint by numbers video,not very passionate, not very exciting,
certainly no policy ideas.
And so this, this race is kind ofwaiting for Godot in that regard,
it's getting back to Richard Nixon.
All roads lead to Nixon.
On this podcast, 1962 he runs.
He would be the new Nixon in that regard.
A former vice president who had lostthe previous presidential election having
(21:06):
a go at it.
But I just, you know,you look at celebrities right now and
there's just no A listersout there right now.
No perfect fits.
The closest thing we have to an A listerwho is politically hungry, it would seem,
as Matthew McConaughey.
All right, all right, all right,but Matthew McConaughey,
he wants to run in Texas,not California and Lee,
this gets back to your comment about Mr.T and pity the fool.
(21:27):
That person's going tocome into office in 2027.
They're going to have to deal withthis mandate we've been talking about.
They're going to have to dealwith a messy, messy budget,
which we will get to I think,in our July podcast.
But that is now being talked about aswhat is called a structural deficit,
meaning that the lawmakers have bakedin so much money into the, into the,
the budget that essentially you'relooking at raising taxes or
(21:50):
borrowing a ton of money to,to paper year.
Add that to the assortmentof California headaches,
it's not going to be a very fun ride,if you will.
So I think for most politicians thesedays, it's just easier to stay on
the sidelines, tweet if you will,bash Donald Trump if you will.
But yet another thing to actually wantto go to Sacramento and change things.
>> Lee Ohanian (22:09):
My goodness, what a thankless job this, this has become.
Particularly, you know, with the budget.
And as you noted, we have structuraldeficits now, meaning that, you know,
you look out 1, 2, 3 years,it still looks like a budget deficit.
And what happened a couple of yearsago is that, you know, the governor's
(22:29):
office projected revenues that were fartoo high, I think by about a, somewhere
between 160 to 180 billion dollars inrevenue over about a four year period.
And they, in my opinion,
they made a mistake by just simplyprojecting out from very high capital
gains revenues realizationsthat came in around that time.
(22:52):
And, and as we know, when you have highcapital gains realizations one year,
you tend not to have such high capitalrealizations the following years.
But they projected notonly high continuation,
high capital gains realizations, butincreasing capital gains realization.
So I don't think there's really any,you know, empirical basis for that.
(23:15):
But that's the,that's the mess we find ourselves in.
And we're going to havea mess with energy.
We're going to have a mess that continueto mess with housing affordability and
with homelessness, there, Bill, is hardfor me to look at that job and say,
you know, what person in their right mindwould want to be trying to do that now?
It's interesting, I guess, Bill, this,the six who appeared on the stage,
(23:39):
were those the six.
Were those the six thatare polling the highest right now?
>> Bill Whalen (23:43):
Yes. >> Lee Ohanian
it's interesting,you said there's no A listers.
Katie Porter finished.
What?She finished third in the Senate race
behind Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey.
That doesn't sound very good.
You have Tony Atkins,
who I think has probably almost noname recognition outside of San Diego.
(24:07):
There's Villargosa,although he hasn't been, and
he hasn't been on the political stage fora long time.
And he ran against,he ran against Susan, what in 22 and
really didn't get much traction.
You're talking Antoine Virgosa, Lee, you're talking about
somebody who at the 2012 conventionwas desperately trying to angle his
way into a treasure, into a transportationsecretary job in the Obama administration.
(24:30):
That's 13 years ago.
So I have a theory that politicianscandidates are very much like dairy
products.
There's a certain expiration date.
I don't know if that applies to Antonio ornot, but he was a big deal thing.
One other thing to point out,by the way, about celebrities running.
There's a wonderful book writtenabout Reagan's run for governor.
It's called the Right Moment.
It's written by Matthew Dallek,who is the son of Robert Dallek,
(24:50):
the presidential historian.
And it's really a terrific book if youlisteners are interested in California
politics in this regard.
It chronicles how Reagancame into the race,
how the state party did notcotton to Reagan at all.
They thought that he was an extremist.
They just represented the John Birch wing.
They had a favorite in George Christopher,who was a former mayor of.
(25:12):
Republican mayor of San Francisco.
You heard that correctly, folks.
Republican mayor of San Francisco.
We were talking a long time ago,but Reagan just rolled his
way through the primary, won it by a 2:1margin and then rolled over Pat Brown.
It was the right moment because Reagan wastalking about society kind of coming apart
at the seams, be it campus unrest,be it Vietnam and so forth.
And this ties into the recall with Arnold.
(25:33):
It was the right moment for Arnold interms of where California was, but
also for Arnold.
He only had to run in a 60 day campaign.
And I think if you, if you wanted to runTom Hanks for governor, if you wanted to
run some other a lister for governor, youwould want to do it in a 60 day campaign.
Why?Because the fact is they don't know that
much about public policy.
(25:53):
The less time they would haveto be stretched on the rack and
have to explain their positions on things,the worse off for their candidacy.
So you just want a two month sprint.
So again, butit gets back to this idea, you know,
you're going to bethe governor of California.
Maybe some of these people thinkthey want to be the president or
something like that.
It's just not a fun job to have right now.
>> Lee Ohanian (26:12):
No. And, and Bill it's interesting.
You saw that lack of knowledge with SteveGarvey when he was running for senator.
I mean, he was well spoken, butit just was so obvious that,
that he did not have, he did not havea deep understanding of the policy issues.
I think he had pretty good instincts forwhat was wr.
(26:33):
He couldn't he couldn't explainanything at a deep level.
And Bill when I look at those candidatesand you think about Reagan and
you think about how charming hecould be and you think about him,
how engaging he could be he had that, hehad that quality just like in my opinion,
Bill Clinton has that quality.
It's a wonderful quality to have.
(26:53):
If you're a politician,you can meet somebody in 15 seconds.
Later, the person thinks like,this is my new best friend.
It's hard to see that type of charmamong the, among those six out there.
Katie Porter, Far from it.
Steve Hilton, I think has thathe's a radio personality, so
he has that within, within his skill set.
(27:16):
But he's a Republican and
he's another guy that I think haspretty good economic instincts.
But Bill, you think there's, what do youthink the chances are of either Hilton or
Bianco appearing on a November, ona November ballot after the after primary?
>> Bill Whalen (27:34):
It depends.
I think first of all, if Kamala is goingto run, I talked to smart friends in
Sacramento who are convincedshe's going to run because why?
Because she wants to getthe L off her forehead.
She is right now a political loser,having lost her last campaign.
They think she wants toget a W to erase that.
But I don't know.
Just you talk about a Pyrrhic victory,though, because you're going to
(27:55):
win that campaign but then probablywalk away as a poor governor.
I mentioned her, though,because it would the easiest strategy for
her would be to jump in the race,essentially bigfoot the other Democrats,
but then also spend a bunch of money andtime really talking up
the Republican opponent, which is whatNewsom did when he ran for governor.
28 his classic,classic campaign tactics in California.
(28:16):
So I would argue that with only twoRepublicans running against a larger field
of Democrats, you could get a Republicanrunning for in the November as well.
Now, Steve Hilton will tell you thatnow is the time is the right moment for
Republican in California.
He has a point in terms ofsome policy issues, but
just the math is just crushing.
Our colleague Lan Hee Chen ran forcomptroller in 2022 and
(28:39):
he pulled off what I callthe Chen curve or the Chen line.
It's like the Mendoza line in baseball.
Hitting 200.
Lanhee ran pretty mucha flawless campaign.
He got endorsed by the Los Angeles Timesand he got 44.9% of the vote.
He still needed another halfa million votes to win.
There are just not enough votes outthere for Republicans, by the way,
one California, I want to add in herebefore we segue to our next top.
(29:02):
When I was in South Carolina, my lastnight there, I took my sister and brother
in law out to dinner and decided it wastime to use my California debit card.
This I got this from the stateI think a year or two ago.
This is part of the very bad idea,I think a retrospect, Lee,
just handing out money to people.
And sothis bad boy is supposedly worth 200.
So we went out to a nice restaurant,pulled out,
(29:22):
said we're going to eat onthe state of California tonight.
And guess what?
It got rejected.
>> Lee Ohanian (29:29):
Why am I not surprised?
>> Bill Whalen (29:31):
I don't know if it's a function of using it outside
inside the state.
But boy, if you want to sum upCalifornia's problems in a nutshell,
here's $200.
By the way, it's not going to work.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (29:41):
Lee, you recently took part In Santa Barbara's 2025
South County Economic Summit in whichyou focused on homelessness and
housing in California.
You proposed three ideas foraffordable housing.
Number one,
reducing building costs, two, facilitatingbuilding where land is more affordable and
three, leveraging efficiencies ofmodern technologies and building.
(30:02):
Lee are you hopeful that there can be sometraction on these and other similar and
similar proposals made by others?
>> Lee Ohanian (30:08):
JONATHAN not particularly because we know what the issues are.
It's there to fix.
It could be fixed in a nanosecond witha super majority in both the Senate and
the Legislative assembly and a governorwho could sign off on that immediately.
(30:31):
What really has happened in California iswhere we've really focused our building
efforts on again, on what just peopledon't want and what's expensive.
So for example, Scott Wiener, statestate legislator, he's perhaps the most,
I think by far the most the most devotedto trying to get housing bills passed.
(30:55):
And his emphasis, and I thinkthe party's emphasis he' Democrat is
to build where land is very,very expensive and to buy high den and
to build high density housingthat ends up being very,
very expensive in termsof construction costs.
You take expensive land andexpensive building with various
(31:17):
types of prevailing wage rules andan awful lot of overhead costs,
and pretty soon you've made housingthat's supposed to be affordable.
Anything but that.
So, Senator Wiener.
So Senator Weiner, I think,
is his efforts are really justthe opposite of what my views are.
(31:40):
I know developers who tell methat California costs twice or
even more than twice as much as otherstates just for the construction costs.
And so when you take that into account,areas such as, well, we're going to build,
you know, affordable housing inSanta Monica or Beverly Hills or
San Francisco or in Silicon Valley.
(32:00):
It's just, it's just simply not possible.
Is simply not possible, you end up withhousing that can be in excess of a million
dollars per apartment unit.
So thus anything, anything but affordable.
So the simple idea is that you simplycan never create affordable housing
unless you reduce costs,which means you go to where land is not so
(32:23):
nearly as expensive as it is, say in PaloAlto or Santa Monica or San Francisco or
Beverly Hills, and you reduce regulationso the building costs aren't so high.
You try to use modernefficiencies of manufacturing.
We can, we know we can now buildquality housing that's built
from start to finish in a factory forabout a hundred dollars or
(32:47):
less a square foot,which is probably a fifth or
a sixth of the cost as we're seeing insome affordable housing developments.
And if you look at the state, if you lookwhere cities are growing, the fastest
growing community in Californiais a little place called Shafter.
And it's not so little.
(33:08):
It's growing very, very quickly.
It's about, I think,15 miles outside of Bakersfield.
You know, the median home pricethere is somewhere in the threes.
And, you know, so why is that growing?
Because it's less expensive.
There's no complicated orfancy economics associated with that.
But the governor's now in his seventh.
(33:29):
He's got one more year to go.
He ran in 2018 on tremendously expandinghousing and making housing affordable,
well, the median single, the mediansingle family home today in California,
according to the CaliforniaAssociation Realtors, you know,
somewhere around $880,000anywhere near the coast.
(33:52):
So, you know, dear, near Stanford,San Francisco, coastal area
of Southern California, you know,it's well, well above a million dollars.
So, you know, so what we've done iswe've just really made California
unaffordable for, for most people,we could build homes, I think,
for well below $250,000,perhaps close to $200,000.
(34:16):
And that would make purchasing homea lot more, a lot more realistic for
an enormous number of families.
But I just don't see that happening,
at least under the currentpolitical leadership.
>> Bill Whalen (34:28):
So, Lee, there was a study put out recently by a Long island based
group called Leave the Key.
And they looked at census data, theylooked at bureau economic analysis data,
and here's the conclusion, Lee,this is just going to blow you guys away.
They came to the conclusion thatwould take Cal, it takes the average
Californian over 2,639 work daysto save for a home deposit.
(34:49):
And here's the numbers they're using,Lee, this by the way,
is the second worst number.
Hawaii is worse, apparently.
So there you go.
Trouble in paradise.
They figured it this way.
Residents need 10 years and
six months to afford a medianhome value of $725,000 lease.
So we're not even at the $880,000 market,met Golden State average after tax income
(35:09):
is $69,140 with monthly expensesas gets cost living in California.
He leaves with you with about $1,150 fora home buyer to put down, so.
>> Lee Ohanian (35:21):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (35:23):
Let me ask you this question though, Lee.
>> Bill Whalen (35:24):
After World War II, they're very famously was Levittown,
Speaking of Long island, what wouldhappen if Mr. Levitt, God rest his soul,
came to California in 2026 andwanted to build Levittown in California?
>> Lee Ohanian (35:37):
He would probably turn around and go back to Pennsylvania.
He would, he would say, hey, let mebuild where land is not so expensive and
I'll put up these cookie cutter beautiesand we can save an awful lot of money.
And he might stick around fora few months and
(35:58):
when he finds out that it'llbe perhaps a decade or two for
building permits, he will hightail it,he will hightail it away.
Bill, we had a, we had an attemptat building a Levittown just
outside of Valencia inSouthern California, Tejon Ranch,
which is several hundred thousand acres.
(36:19):
I think, I think it goes back tothe time of when Mexico owned that,
owned that area and sold it.
At some point Cajon Ranch was going tobe home to a 60,000 person community.
So a small city bigger than the town,you know, not, not gargantuan, but
60,000 people, 20,000 homes.
(36:40):
Plans were submitted in 1994.
The first homes went on sale in 2021.
What is that, 27 years afterthe plans were first submitted.
And because time is money, the,
those homes now cost as muchas I believe $2.8 million.
(37:01):
So you know, we're just, we're justshooting ourselves in the foot here.
This could be stopped by the governor andthe state legislators immediately.
There was just one environmentallawsuit after another.
The governor has railed about CEQA.
He, he talks glowingly aboutchanges they made to ceqa.
This is all, these are all changesthat nibble around the edges.
(37:24):
CEQA is still, is weaponized to block and
delay development, andit is California to lose on that.
And I wish, I wish,I wish reporters like Ashley Zavala,
who I think is absolutely wonderful,she's up In Sacramento.
She's not necessarilythe friend of the governor.
(37:45):
I hope she gets interested in housing andI hope she asks him,
well, why haven't you done,have, why haven't you done
more to change CEQA builders say that'swhat's needed to reduce building costs, so
you're in your seventh year,why hasn't it happened yet?
I'd love for, I'd love her,another reporter asking that question.
>> Bill Whalen (38:04):
Ronald Reagan, speaking of Reagan, he brought CEQA into the world.
Not, not one of the betterReagan legacy items.
And CEQA is that rock in which everygovernor tends to, to land his ship.
But CEQA has to do with construction.
The issue here to meis also affordability.
And I think the state needs to take a verylarge look at a lot of sort of competing
fact factors here.
(38:25):
Where in California can you builda house that people can afford to buy?
And let's say $800,000 meantjust a random number and
if you're going to buy a home for$800,000, where will it be?
What kind of job are yougoing to be able to get?
And where are you going to do your job?
Can you work at home,maybe that $800,000 job?
Can you be close to a large cityin a business center at $800,000?
Which gets into infrastructure issues,
which takes us back to the priceof gasoline and so forth.
(38:47):
So it's a Gordian knot.
>> Lee Ohanian (38:49):
It is a Gordy knot, and it's unfortunate that California,
you know, so many years ago when wetalked about high speed rail and
that's another conversation formaybe we'll have in July given what's
just happened with the DOTtelling California they're,
they're planning on rescinding federalfunding for California high speed rail.
(39:13):
That really should have been prioritizedto bring people from the Central Valley,
places like Stockton for example,to Silicon Valley, the Bay Area or
from the Inland Empire to areas withhigh paying jobs such as Los Angeles.
That just made somuch more sense than to say, well,
we've got to connect Los Angeles andSan Francisco.
(39:33):
We didn't need to, there was,there's very affordable flights,
no one really wants to know.
You know, we don't see peoplereally wanted to take that,
take a train from there to,to Los Angeles.
And who's not to say that they, that thestate wouldn't have messed that up as much
as they messed up the existing plans.
(39:54):
But, but you're absolutely right.
The high paying jobs are inareas where housing is.
Extremely expensive and it made an awfullot of sense to be able to bring
people from more affordable areas tolocations that have the jobs they want.
But that's not what happened.
>> Bill Whalen (40:11):
I wrote not too long ago about high speed rail and
I always feel guilty when I do, Lee,because I feel like I could just write
about it six months later and just changea few things around and finish that column
about two minutes because it's the sameold story, but it's interesting.
So you mentioned the Trump administrationwas to pull away, I think,
$4 billion in funding for high speed rail.
The High Speed Rail Authorityquickly said, well, you know,
we're in a good place actually,and if we keep going forward,
(40:34):
we're going to reach our goal of$20 billion to keep this going.
But what they don't mention is, Lee,there is a $100 billion gap and
the number keeps growing.
So there's just no.
And if you go and look at the website forhigh speed rail in California, there is no
promise date for when the thing everreaches Los Angeles and San Francisco.
So it's, it's a folly, plain and simple.
>> Lee Ohanian (40:54):
No, no, no, yeah, it's absolutely a folly.
And Bill, is interesting.
I don't know how it ever receivedthe latest funding which was done from
the Biden administration because tobe competitive and to qualify for
that type of federal funding, you needto demonstrate an established source of,
of, of remaining funds to cover the costs.
(41:16):
And California simply doesn't,doesn't have that.
We now are, we now are inthe process of building 170 mile,
170 mile system fromBakersfield to Merced.
That looks like it's going to cost,you know,
years ago was going to cost I think 25 or28 billion.
(41:36):
Then it went up to 33 billion.
Now it looks like it couldbe as much as 38 billion.
It was supposed to be ready in 2030.
Now it's looking more like 2035.
I mean, again, when you talk aboutkicking, kicking the can down the road,
this is a great example of that.
And you know, Bill, you know, we, we wereliving in California when that vote came
(42:00):
up the, for the, the ballot initiativethat was going to, in which we, you know,
we, in which California voters approvednearly $10 billion of seed money.
I'd love to go back in time with,you know, Michael J.
Fox and his DeLorean and, andtell people, hey, guess what?
You're going to have maybe by 2035,maybe high speed rail.
(42:23):
We don't know how fast it's going to be,but
it'll operate between Bakersfield,Merced and It'll cost about $38 billion.
What do you think about that?
>> Bill Whalen (42:30):
Yeah, it was a down payment of about $10 billion, 38 to $40.
About $40 billion is a price tag andit was going to be done by 2020.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (42:39):
Moving on, a gentleman on the homelessness issue,
Governor Newsom's new mantra is,quote, no more excuses.
In May he announced a new ordinancecalling for cities without delay.
Newsom says in part that local authorityshould be not be duly unlimited from
clearing encampments and such policyshould prioritize shelter and services.
(43:00):
Bill, what do you make of the governor'stough stance and will the mayors listen?
>> Bill Whalen (43:04):
I think it's something that plays very well outside of California
but does not play verywell inside California,
at least with those handful of mayorswho really hate this kind of messaging.
The governor seems to have an iditarodapproach to this that essentially I will,
you know, whip the, whip the sled dogsahead of me, tell them mush and they will,
they'll move forward.
Mayors don't operate that way.
Mayors have sensitiveoperations in their cities.
(43:27):
It's just Newsom's just not reallyapproaching this the right way.
He needs to be more collaborative withthem rather than showing them up.
But look, he's simply playing forthe cameras and
this gets in a lot of 2028 speculation.
I suppose too.
Sometimes Gavin sounds very progressive,sometimes he sounds not progressive and
tough mainly.
And Jonathan, this gives hima great example to sound tough.
You know, I'm fed up.
(43:48):
I'm mad as hell,I'm not gonna take it anymore.
No more excuses.
Do something.
It also is a good way to deflect.
You know, it's a theory that sometimes thebest, the best defense is good offense.
So go on the offensive andtell the mayors to get their act together.
And by the way,
cover up that your own record as governoron homelessness is pretty awful.
And by the way, as mayor of San Francisco,you promise to end it by 2010.
>> Lee Ohanian (44:08):
The, I mean the governor's been taking a lot of heat for
the homeless problem and, andit's, it's well deserved back.
I don't know what was it, Bill, 20,
20 years ago when he wasmayor of San Francisco,
he promised to end homelessness inSan Francisco by, What was it, 2010?
>> Bill Whalen (44:25):
By the end of the decade, yeah.
>> Lee Ohanian (44:26):
Yeah, and then I believe his state of the union
in 2020 was devoted entirely.
>> Bill Whalen (44:34):
To the topic Yep.
>> Lee Ohanian (44:35):
Yeah.
The headline of that was,was homelessness.
And homelessness has increased.
>> Bill Whalen (44:41):
And he periodically goes out and he puts on a t-shirt,
a ball cap and jeans, and he helps clearout an encampment under the freeway.
So he shows he cares.
But the problem doesn't change.
It gets back to, I mentioned earlier, thisis the ugly California meme that's going
to follow him wherever he runs forpresident.
This is what.
>> Lee Ohanian (44:56):
Yeah, and yes, I think he's trying to offload it onto others,
but at the end of the day,homelessness is up 60% since 2015.
The legislative, the LAO,the legislative analyst office
has looked at hospital admissionsof those who are homeless and
(45:19):
counts somewhere between300 to 400,000 unique
homeless people overthe course of the year.
So the 187,000 count we currently have,
that comes from just a single night count.
So it may be twice as high as that.
(45:40):
There was the $24 billionin state funding that,
that the state auditorwas very critical about.
They said there's a number of programswe can't evaluate because the, you know,
the state, the state lacksinformation on costs and outcomes.
It hasn't tracked gathering information orevaluated the efforts to prevent or
end homelessness.
(46:01):
It hasn't aligned its action plan withthis goal to collect information,
ensure accountability.
It was, it was justan overwhelmingly critical report.
And when that happened last year, whenthat, when that report was was issued last
year, the governor immediatelyblamed local, local government.
He just said, look, you know,it's not, it's not our fault.
(46:21):
It's the fault of counties and cities,you know, but at the end of the day,
the buck has got to stop with,as Harry Truman said, the buck stops here.
But, you know,Gavin doesn't want the buck to stop there.
And it's, it's obvious.
Why.Why, why?
Because it's just, it's an awful failure.
And he's the governor andit really goes to, I think,
(46:41):
just a failed vision of what ittakes to deal with homelessness.
For a long time, the state wasimplicitly okay with drug abuse and
drug use on the streets.
So we know that, you know, certainblocks of San Francisco were taken over.
And now the governor's saying, well,you know, clear all those out.
You know, we're going to, you know,turn the, turn the ship around.
(47:04):
And the governor was kindof all about housing first,
which said, hey, you know what, builda million dollar apartment unit and, and
put this person who has horrible substanceabuse issues or terrible mental health
issues, put them into that apartment,and then everything will be okay.
Well, it didn't work out that way.
The state was very slow to recognizejust the the very significant
(47:27):
numbers of homeless,particularly homeless men.
And, you know, the mobile per the mobilehomeless person in California is
a single male over 45, over 50.
And they have severe mentalhealth issues and on average,
severe mental health issues and,or substance abuse issues.
So that's really what weneed to be dealing with.
(47:49):
And, and it's, you know, it's difficultfor a local politician to be told by
the governor, hey, there are thesepeople that are homeless in your city.
We're gonna write you a check.
It's not gonna Going to be enough tocover everything you need to do, but,
but take care of it.
It's, well, I don't know,why do you call these people ours?
Just because they're sitting here in Longbeach or, or Santa, or Santa Ana or,
(48:11):
or Orange, you know, why is,why is this our problem?
Why can't you come here andwe'll figure out how to deal with it?
So, Bill, as you mentioned, there'snot a sense of a collaboration here.
And I kind of have the feelingthat the governor, long ago,
several years ago, figured this,we're not going to win on this.
So I think I'll try to do some otherthings that maybe will make me politically
(48:34):
popular and I'll try to deflectoff this off to others.
>> Bill Whalen (48:38):
Yeah, I'm starting to think that the easiest job in California
2026 will be debate moderator whenthe gubernatorial candidates get together.
Because every question, Lee will besimply, what are you going to do about.
So on this podcast, what are yougoing to do about homelessness?
What are you going to do about the budget?
What are you going to doabout the ZEV mandate?
>> Lee Ohanian (48:56):
There's. Yeah, I mean, there's just,
there's a never ending laundry list there.
They'll have to have a lot of debatesbecause they'll only be able to do a small
fraction of them on any one debate.
And it'll be like, you know, debate 18.
Well, here's the issues we're talkingabout today here on debate 18.
>> Bill Whalen (49:13):
But it will be interestingly to see
if Kamala does not run,if they go after Newsom at all,
if they try to throw him underthe bus on a particular topic.
>> Lee Ohanian (49:21):
Yeah, I just, you know, I wonder, Bill,
how much that will do for her.
I mean, it's obvious.
I, I mean, to me, I think it's obviousshe would win the, win the race.
But is that really a win forher in California?
I mean, she would be overwhelmed bythe policy, by the policy issues.
(49:42):
I can't imagine her being a successfulgovernor in terms of dealing with
the problems we're talkingabout now because they're
going to be that much worsewhen she would take office.
So do you really think it's about,it's about, it's about getting a w.
>> Bill Whalen (49:56):
I think so.
It's, I mean, look, Nix,if Nixon had not run for president 1968,
his political career would have beenlargely defined by that last gubernatorial
race in California.
We'll have Nixon to kick around.
And right now her politicalcareer is defined by what?
Not, not being the historic vice presidentshe was by running a terrible campaign and
losing to Donald J.
(50:16):
Trump.So I imagine that maybe I don't know
about her worldview by mentioningpeople around her thinking, you know,
she really needs to rehabilitate herimage by showing that she can win a race.
But again, it's classic period victory.
You win the battle, butyou're gonna lose the war,
I think in terms ofhaving to run California.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (50:32):
Gentlemen, moving back to our A list conversation,
in particular, Clint Eastwood,who I said I'd conclude the show
with his birthday just passedlast Saturday on May 31st.
He is 95 years old.
So happy birthday, Clint Eastwood.
We also have another birthday coming up.
Thomas Sowell will also be95 years old on June 30th.
(50:54):
Gentlemen, would you care to reflect onthe impact of both of these California
giants on America and the Golden Stateover the past century or nearly a century?
>> Bill Whalen (51:03):
Lee, why don't you take Tom Sowell?
Because fellow economist and I believehe also has UCLA DNA, does he not?
>> Lee Ohanian (51:10):
Yeah, Tom was on the UCLA economics faculty,
I mean, long before I was there.
But you know, he's a,he's a great, pure economist.
The person who was department chairat the time that Tom left for
Hoover, he and I,his name was Harold Demset.
(51:30):
And he passed away.
But when I first went toUCLA a number of years ago,
he was still quite activein the department.
We would, you know, we would talk a lot.
And he told me, you know, one dayHoover was looking for somebody and
they called me up and I told Tom,you know, you'd be perfect for this.
You'd be a great fit for them.
You don't like teaching theseundergraduates that aren't
(51:53):
really into economics.
You hate faculty meetings.
So this would be a great,this would be a great job for you.
And then, and then Tom went up to,went up to Hoover and Bill,
if I can add,I do have one Clint Eastwood story.
Back in the day between college yearsduring the summer, I worked in Carmel,
(52:13):
just a few doors down from the restauranthe owned, which was the Hogs Breath in.
And, and, and so I would sometimesgo there for a drink at the,
you know, late at night.
And Carmel is a, Carmel is a littletown that pretty much roll, you know,
rolls up the sidewalks around 8:30 or 9.
So you'd be around 9:30 or 10 and
(52:33):
we'd be having a drink outside at theHogs Breath and had this huge fireplace.
Everyone would gather aroundbecause even in the summertime,
a Carmel night is Goingto be under 60 degrees.
And, and he would come,he would come and join us for
a drink every once in a while and, and youknow, people often talk about Nicholson.
No matter,no matter what role Jack Nicholson is in,
(52:55):
he's still Jack Nicholson.
And it's not that I got to knowClint Eastwood particularly well, but
he was a very, he was a very,he was a man of few words.
And what I came to know is whateverrole Clint Eastwood played,
he was, he was still being Clint Eastwood.
>> Bill Whalen (53:11):
When I worked in the governor's office in the 1990s,
a Republican governor,
we had two people who were sort ofdedicated lines to celebrities and
one was a, an assistant to the chiefof staff who was Arnold's go to person.
If Arnold Schwarzenegger had a question,had a needed concern,
he would call this guy andthe guy would pick up.
It's like being a 10 millionmile member of an airline.
(53:33):
And so, you know, Mr.Rohanian, thanks for calling.
So that was Arnold, but the other one wasClint Eastwood because he was the mayor of
Carmel at the time and he had allkinds of environmental concerns and
usually Clint was not in a good moodwhen he called about something.
And so, [LAUGH] it was very funny forthis fellow,
he was the deputy cabinet secretary.
It began as the most wonderful thing.
Boy, I get to talk toClint Eastwood [LAUGH].
(53:54):
He's in a bad mood.
But so Clint gets back to the theory of.
Or mysterious wood I should say getsback to our theory about kind of peak in
politics because his peak would havebeen in the 1990s when he ran for
mayor of Carmel by the sea.
And the right fit for him would havebeen 1998 in that Governor's race.
But we will never know.
But interesting guy andthe world is politics.
(54:14):
Always gifted by his line of dirtyHarriet Ronald Reagan stole,
which it's course, go ahead, make my day.
>> Lee Ohanian (54:20):
[LAUGH] He was very popular as Carmel mayor because I remember
this may have only happened once, but
there was a big disputeabout a piece of land.
On the one hand,many wanted to preserve it as green space.
And you know, Carmel is just,you know, it's a jewel and
there were developers who wanted to,to create some stuff on there.
(54:42):
And so Clint just stepped in andwrote a check and
purchased it from the developers andkept his green belt.
And everybody was happy, developerswere happy, the townspeople were happy.
He was in a financial positionto be able to do that.
But yeah, it would have been interestingto see if Clint as, as governor,
(55:03):
particularly compared to some of thosein the, in the, in the race today.
>> Bill Whalen (55:09):
Well, he could have run if he'd won in 1988.
Then maybe there's no recall with Arnold.
Who knows?
>> Jonathan Movroydis (55:15):
As always, gentlemen,
this has been an hour of interesting andtimely analysis.
Thank you for your time.
>> [CROSSTALK]>> Lee Ohanian: Happy summer.
You've been listening to Matters of Policy and
Politics, the Hoover Institutionpodcast devoted to governance and
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(55:37):
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(55:57):
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This week he'll be back for anotherepisode of Matters of Policy and Politics.
Thank you for listening.
>> Speaker 4 (56:04):
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Org.
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>> Jonathan Movroydis (00:04):
It's Thursday, June 5, 2025, and
you are listening to Matters of Policy andPolitics, a Hoover Institution podcast
devoted to governance and balance of powerhere in America and around the free world.
I am Jonathan Movroydis of the HooverInstitution, and I'm sitting in the chair
of Bill Whalen, the Virginia HobbsCarpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in
Journalism, sothat he can answer questions and
provide commentary about California policyand politics in which he's well-versed.
(00:25):
Bill Whalen, in addition to beinga Washington Post columnist,
writes weekly for Hoover's Californiaon youn Mind Web channel.
Whelen is joined today by Leo Hanian,Hoover Institution Senior Fellow and
Professor of Economics andDirector of the Edinger Family Program in
Macroeconomic Research at the Universityof California, Los Angeles.
Ohanian also writes weekly about thepolicy environment of the Golden State for
California on youn Mind.
(00:45):
Gentlemen, how are you doing today?
>> Bill Whalen (00:46):
Good, good.
>> Lee Ohanian (00:48):
How are you fellows doing?
>> Jonathan Movroydis (00:49):
Very good.
>> Bill Whalen (00:50):
It's early June in Northern California.
Life is good.
It's about 72 degrees here, Lee.
It's Santa Barbara weather.
>> Lee Ohanian (00:57):
Yeah, we're having Bay Area weather.
We were overcast about 65 degrees,but I'm not complaining.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (01:04):
We're having Arizona weather here and
it's close to 100 degrees, so.
>> Bill Whalen (01:08):
Shall we do sports next or get on with the news?
>> Jonathan Movroydis (01:12):
Yeah. So let's talk about the latest
developments in policy andpolitics in the Golden State.
Lee let's start off with your recentcolumn in California on your Mind,
which discusses the US.
Senate vote to block Governor Newsom'sexecutive order requiring all new vehicles
sold in California by 2035 tobe zero emission vehicles.
You explain why the legislationis misguided in the first place.
(01:33):
Quote the key issue with California'saggressive fight against climate change,
including the 2035 ZEV mandate,is that it hasn't
adequately recognized the trade offsinvolved with its policy choices.
Specifically, any policy choice involvespotential costs as well as potential
benefits and we obviously needto prioritize those policies for
which the expected benefitsfar outweigh expected costs.
(01:54):
But that hasn't always happenedwith California's climate policies.
Ali, what are the expected costs?
And second,would California EV sales plateauing?
Could the state evenhave met this mandate?
>> Lee Ohanian (02:06):
Well, Jonathan, you know this is probably going to be a blessing in
disguise forCalifornia drivers because demand for
EVs may be close to beingsaturated at this point.
Most purchasers of EVs up to this pointhave been relatively wealthy households.
There are households with multiplevehicles, about 90% of those households
(02:30):
have a gasoline powered car andit's interesting, in California, the,
the average number of miles driven byan EV is only about 28 miles per day.
So, so these are, these are vehiclesthat are bought with substantial
tax incentives and tax credits.
And they're very much a second car.
(02:51):
They're not really a good choice at thispoint for families that have, that have
one, that will have one vehicle who willbe using that electric vehicle as a,
as a primary car with verylong distance driving.
So, you know, Jonathan, it really boilsdown to the issue that there's not
just an awful lot of demand out therebeyond what's already been purchased.
(03:12):
And you see this being discussedby a number of automakers,
other experts in the auto industry.
And EVs have become very expensive forCalifornia because, you know, what
we do is we require a certain number ofvehicles to be sold in California's EVS.
Otherwise we penalize automakers at about
(03:37):
$20,000 per vehicle if they don't deliver
enough EVS relative togasoline powered cars.
Or they have to buy, they,
they have to buy credits froman EV company such as Tesla.
(03:57):
But you know, given all this,Jonathan, we've.
California has jumped into renewables and
reducing carbon emissions, you know,much more so than most other states.
And it's very, very expensive.
Over 600,000 workers in Californiaare in the clean energy industry.
That compares with onlyabout 50,000 workers.
(04:19):
So about 1/12 or 1/13 of the number ofworkers in the oil and gas industry.
And despite that lopsidednumber of workers,
only about 28% of California's electricitycame from solar and wind power.
So you look at that, and it's not a senseof markets being used effectively.
(04:45):
Renewables have become very,very expensive.
The policies of California haveimplemented very, very expensive,
we have the, I believe the highestgasoline prices in the country at over
$5 a gallon is 50% morethan the US average.
We have the fifth highestnatural gas prices.
We have the fourth highestelectricity prices.
(05:07):
And when you think about that, those arevery burdensome on, on middle income and
low income households.
So there's just a lot that we're doingthat's not really paying off very much,
but that is costingCalifornians an awful lot.
>> Bill Whalen (05:23):
So, Lee, I have two questions for you.
First, when the Senate did its vote,Governor Newsom came out very strong
against it and said basically they wantto turn the clock back on California,
back to the 50s, 60s, 70s and the badold days of bad air in Los Angeles.
Interesting message because a lot ofCalifornians don't remember those days.
We're talking 50, 60 years ago.
(05:43):
So one question, Lee,is really how critical is as to air
quality in California butthe second is that Newsom at all
times equates this mandate to innovationis the word he chooses deliberately.
Why do you think he isusing the word innovation?
>> Lee Ohanian (05:56):
Well Bill, he compared it, I believe to the iPhone,
Apple's iPhone, just,you know, in, in, you know,
just a few miles downthe road from where you are.
So I think that frames it, you know,very attractively from his purpose to say,
well you know,we're doing the Lord's work here.
We're, we're innovating.
You know the, the obvious,
(06:16):
the obvious difference is that the iPhonewas developed within the context of for
profit markets by a manufacturer whohad to figure out what's the demand for
the product, what are people willingto pay, how much will it cost them to
produce, how will, how much will it costthem to make it better in the future?
If you applied the same standards to EVs,we would hardly have any EVs.
(06:43):
They're very expensive,they're expensive to repair.
They depreciate very, very quickly.
There are some EVs that lose half oftheir value in the first year on average.
They lose half of their valuewithin the first three years.
And a big, and a big issue with them isthat the battery replacements can be very,
very expensive.
People just don't want them.
(07:05):
The, even the profit margins, sowe're forcing auto producers to create
a certain number of EVs forCalifornia and they're not profitable.
To put this in context, the aver most
Profit margin in USindustries is about 34%.
(07:26):
The most, the most profitable EV
production in the United Statesis by Tesla at about 7%.
So about 1 fifth the profit margin.
So there's just nothing from thestandpoint of markets that says this is
a good thing to be doing.
And Bill, you know, it's interestingrelative your question about clean air.
(07:50):
So back in the 60s and 70s, Californiajust had a horrible smog problem.
I remember as a little kid andgrowing up in LA in the late 60s and.
Early 70s, you know, oftentimes we had togo inside and stay there until the stage
three smog alert was downgradedto a stage one smog alert.
And when you drove, when you drove acrossthe 405 from Los Angeles over into
(08:13):
the San Fernando Valley, you couldn'tsee very far beyond your windshield.
And now when I do that driving from ucla,you see the beautiful San Fernando Valley.
I mean,we've made enormous progress on smog.
But reducing carbon emissions doesn't haveany direct benefits for California because
(08:33):
these are greenhouse gas emissions,it's CO2, and that's a global phenomenon.
California is responsible for less than1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
So even if we had a magic wand andwe could reduce carbon emissions by 50%,
it wouldn't even really move the needle.
(08:54):
So the Governor's analogy withthe iPhone really is, in my opinion,
misplaced, placed in.
And this kind of goes backto a long standing criticism
of governments picking industrial winners.
You know, we're just not very good at it.
You know,Japan failed at that in the 70s and 80s.
You know, we're going to be closing downa 2 plus billion dollar power plant in
(09:19):
the Mojave Desert that's onlybeen operating for 11 years.
And I think the first three orfour of those weren't very effective.
That power plant is an enormous solarpower plant that was supposed have
potentially a 45 year lifespan,is going to effectively being shut down
after 11 years, maybe seven good years,because better technologies have emerged.
(09:42):
And this is what happens when we allowgovernments to try to pick industrial
winners, losers.
There's no reason to believe they'regoing to be better than the marketplace.
And the historical record is thatthey've been worse than that.
>> Bill Whalen (09:54):
So you're telling me that the Governor is saying, in essence,
I've seen the future andthe future is electric vehicles.
My question, Lee, is this.
There is a country on the other sideof the Pacific Rim that is just
producing tons andtons of cheap electric vehicles.
China.
So why isn't Governor Newsomreaching out to China and
trying to flood the Californiamarket with cheap Chinese cars?
>> Lee Ohanian (10:13):
My goodness.
Yeah, I think, wouldn't that be a,
that would be an interesting politicalsituation for him, wouldn't it?
Particularly after his visit to China,what was that bill a year or
two ago when he claimed that he had thesereally difficult conversations with Xi and
that they were going to be cooperatingon carbon emissions and global warming.
(10:35):
And, and of course the Chinese record ofthat was nothing, was nothing at all.
Nothing at all like that.
And speaking of China,over 50% of their electricity is,
is created by burning coal,which is one of the,
the most polluting,the most polluting fossil fuels.
So I, you know, soI don't think the government,
(10:57):
the government really has much,much to stand on here.
I mean, we'll see what happens in the,in the courts, but
we're nowhere close to being able to getto that 100% ZEV sales target in 10 years.
And I mean personally,
I don't think we'll get anywhere close tothat even if the mandate was restored.
>> Bill Whalen (11:17):
So Arnold Schwarzenegger had a phrase when he was governor.
He'd always talk about things getting,
talk about the can gettingkicked down the road.
That's his catch-all phrase, anytimelegislature would just take a pass or
delay the inevitable.
So do you think they're going to kickdown, kick the can down the road here,
Lee, and maybe push the mandateback to 2040 or 2045?
Because it sure sounds like come 2033 or
2034 the state's not going to be anyposition to put this into play in 2035.
>> Lee Ohanian (11:42):
No, no, no, we would need, just to meet the target, I believe for
next year we would need to haveabout one third growth in sales.
And I think last yearwe just had 1% growth.
So we're not going to getanywhere close to that.
And you know, the governor,the governor, in Arnold's words,
(12:02):
kick the can down the roadwith his housing goals.
When he ran for Governor Back in 2018,
he made a promise of developinga Marshall Plan for housing and
just enormous, an enormous goalof building I believe three,
about 500,000 houses peryear between 2018 and 2025.
(12:24):
And so he pushed the target date back,I think to 2030 and
he reduced the numberof homes to be built.
So there's, he's moving the goalposts aswell as kicking the can down the road.
So if he does that, and I suspect he will,
it won't be anything thathe hasn't done before.
>> Bill Whalen (12:41):
Now, while we're on the topic of cars and energy,
I was just in South Carolina recentlywhere the locals are up in arms, Lee,
because the price of gasolineis approaching $3 a gallon.
Meanwhile, in California, there's a reportout that says the price of gasoline could
be $8.5 a come next year.
So what are we doing here, Lee?
>> Lee Ohanian (12:59):
Bill, I think you should have them start paying for
your ticket because if they came outto visit you in California, I mean,
what would they be saying whenthey Saw these prices here.
Yeah.Bill,
there are plans to shutdown to two refineries.
One is by Valerian, I think.
The other one is maybe an oldPhillips 66 refinery that could
(13:21):
reduce refinery capacity by 20%.
California is in a unique position.
It's not a particularly good uniqueposition that our fuel blend is different
than the rest of the countries.
And it's either produced here andif it's not produced here,
it comes from either South Korea orNew Brunswick,
(13:41):
Canada, places that aren't so closeit's expensive to bring that fuel here.
So if we lost 20% ofour refinery capacity,
supply would fallsubstantially potentially.
And gasoline is a commodity that consumersaren't very price sensitive to that.
(14:02):
So what I mean is that it's notas if they cut their consumption
substantially in response toa small increase in the price.
Instead, it takes a really big increase inthe price to get them to cut their right.
>> Bill Whalen (14:15):
But it has an ancillary effect in that that's more money out of
your pocket.
So that's less money you couldspend elsewhere in the economy.
>> Lee Ohanian (14:21):
Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
So I mean,I suspect it'll easily go over $7
a gallon if we do lose 20% of,of capacity.
Because the, it takes.
For every, for every 1% increasein the price of gasoline,
consumers, consumers drop theirdemand by about 1/3 of 1%.
(14:45):
So if you do the math,$7 a gallon gas is really pretty.
Is pretty, is easy to see.
>> Bill Whalen (14:53):
Well, I think lawmakers need to be on notice here.
Gray Davis got kickedout of office in 2003.
Why?
Energy crisis in California,rolling blackouts.
A state senator wasrecalled more recently.
Why?
Because the legislature approveda tax increase in gasoline.
People pay attention.
Where the precious commodity of gasolineand energy are being messed with.
>> Lee Ohanian (15:14):
My goodness.
Yes.Yeah.
Yeah.And Bill, you know, it's interesting.
We had not only the US but
the world had an energy crisis backbefore 19 majors in major cities,
the horse drawn carriage wasthe primary mode of transportation.
Excuse me.
Cities like New York and
London were literally beingsuffocated by horse droppings.
(15:38):
Thousands of people were dying everyyear from manure born bacteria.
And in just about a 25 year period,horses were completely replaced.
We no longer had the problem of horsemanure because the nascent internal
combustion engines just come online, and
tiny logical innovations made it very,very.
(16:00):
Very, very easy to put into a car.
And what needs to be acknowledged here,
I think by policymakers isthat there are trade offs.
It's not as if there's a free lunchout there to say, well, you know,
we've got this problem withcarbon emissions and you know,
we're going to do whatever ittakes to get rid of those.
No, you got to look at the costs andthe benefits and
(16:20):
we've been subsidizing solar andwind now for the better part of 50 years,
going back to the, the energycrises of the early and late 1970s.
The advertising campaign was always,gosh, you know what, in another 10 years,
solar will be there and we'll be gettingso much of our electricity from solar that
(16:42):
was repeated every decade,decade after decade after decade.
And I think this is another case wheregovernments may have just put all the by
putting all of our subsidy eggsinto the baskets of solar and wind.
I think that was probably a mistake.
We might be a lot further aheadwith renewables if we'd had
more of a level playing field and purssome different alternative energy sources.
>> Bill Whalen (17:04):
So the good news for the Godor, if you can call it that,
is to the extent that he's hounded byvery bad visuals in California right now,
I think we'd agree.
Lee.The visual that haunts him is what
homeless encampments.
We're going to get to homelessness ina couple minutes here on this podcast.
I would argue that ifGasoline goes over $7, Lee,
you're going to see return to that gasstation in Menlo park that a few years ago
took down the numerical prices andput up instead arb and a leg.
(17:28):
And that's going to beyour new California meme.
>> Lee Ohanian (17:30):
Yeah, yeah.
I pity, I remember Mr.you remember the old show the A Team.
And Mr. T would say, I pity the fool.
We're gonna talk about governorgubernatorial issues later, but
I pity the governor just gonna haveto come in and deal with that.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (17:46):
Yes, gentlemen,
let's talk about the 2026election politics.
This coming January marks the 60thanniversary of the beginning
of Ronald Reagan's successful1966 gubernatorial run.
In your column, Bill for California,in your mind this week, you described
the lack of Hollywood stars in Californiapolitics within the last century.
(18:08):
Reagan was part of a longlist of celebrities
who caught fame inCalifornia California politics.
There's the actress turnedcongresswoman Helen Hagen Douglas,
who ran unsuccessfully against RichardNixon for a US Senate seat in 1952.
There was the song anddance man George Murphy,
who was elected to the US Senate in 1964,serving one term.
(18:30):
Don't forget Clint Eastwood,
who we're going to talk about later, whoserved as mayor of Carmel in the 1980s.
And then of course the governatoraction hero Arnold Schwarzenegger,
who served two terms as governorbetween 2003 and 2010 or yesterday.
There was a bipartisan gatheringof would be gubernatorial
candidates that took place in Sacramento.
(18:51):
At this forum were former RepresentativeKatie Porter of the Irvine area,
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco,former legislative leader Tony Atkins and
former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Viragosa,and
current LieutenantGovernor Aleni Kunalakis.
Of those two, Bianco and Hilton,
conservative commentator Steve Hiltonwere the only Republicans there.
(19:15):
Why the dearth of a listers bill even forthe most liberal celebrities?
Has California become that unglamorous?
>> Bill Whalen (19:22):
Well, that's a good question, Jonathan.
So keep in mind the primary in Californiais still two days shy of a year from now.
It's first Tuesday in June of 2026,so maybe an a lister jumps in.
But I wanted to point out thatif you look at Reagan's run and
also Schwarzenegger's run for governor,the timing worked out very well for both.
Ronald Reagan was past hispeak of acting by then.
(19:44):
He was doing GE theatre anddeath rally days and so forth.
He was on the downside slop, so
Arnold by 2003 was getting alongin the tooth for an action hero.
His big hits were back in the 90s butstill high name recognition.
So you have to find somebody who I thinkJonathan Lee is not necessarily at
the peak of their powers,just willing to kind of walk away.
(20:05):
Not too many of those.
It might also be a reflection, just thatpolitics is ugly and bruising right now
and if you jump in you're going toget attacked thanks to social media.
So maybe that kind of explains it as well.
Now there is a celebrity who could run forgovernor.
Kamala Harris is at least a politicalcelebrity, if not a Hollywood celebrity,
but at least a political one.
(20:25):
But you notice Lee and
Jonathan that she is not takingpart in these candidates forms.
There was previous to this event youmentioned in Sacramento which was run by
the California Chamber of Commerce.
There was a Democratic Party gatheringin Los Angeles previous weekend,
she did not go in person.
She sent in what by the crowd's estimateswas a pretty underwhelming video.
(20:45):
Just kind of a paint by numbers video,not very passionate, not very exciting,
certainly no policy ideas.
And so this, this race is kind ofwaiting for Godot in that regard,
it's getting back to Richard Nixon.
All roads lead to Nixon.
On this podcast, 1962 he runs.
He would be the new Nixon in that regard.
A former vice president who had lostthe previous presidential election having
(21:06):
a go at it.
But I just, you know,you look at celebrities right now and
there's just no A listersout there right now.
No perfect fits.
The closest thing we have to an A listerwho is politically hungry, it would seem,
as Matthew McConaughey.
All right, all right, all right,but Matthew McConaughey,
he wants to run in Texas,not California and Lee,
this gets back to your comment about Mr.T and pity the fool.
(21:27):
That person's going tocome into office in 2027.
They're going to have to deal withthis mandate we've been talking about.
They're going to have to dealwith a messy, messy budget,
which we will get to I think,in our July podcast.
But that is now being talked about aswhat is called a structural deficit,
meaning that the lawmakers have bakedin so much money into the, into the,
the budget that essentially you'relooking at raising taxes or
(21:50):
borrowing a ton of money to,to paper year.
Add that to the assortmentof California headaches,
it's not going to be a very fun ride,if you will.
So I think for most politicians thesedays, it's just easier to stay on
the sidelines, tweet if you will,bash Donald Trump if you will.
But yet another thing to actually wantto go to Sacramento and change things.
>> Lee Ohanian (22:09):
My goodness, what a thankless job this, this has become.
Particularly, you know, with the budget.
And as you noted, we have structuraldeficits now, meaning that, you know,
you look out 1, 2, 3 years,it still looks like a budget deficit.
And what happened a couple of yearsago is that, you know, the governor's
(22:29):
office projected revenues that were fartoo high, I think by about a, somewhere
between 160 to 180 billion dollars inrevenue over about a four year period.
And they, in my opinion,
they made a mistake by just simplyprojecting out from very high capital
gains revenues realizationsthat came in around that time.
(22:52):
And, and as we know, when you have highcapital gains realizations one year,
you tend not to have such high capitalrealizations the following years.
But they projected notonly high continuation,
high capital gains realizations, butincreasing capital gains realization.
So I don't think there's really any,you know, empirical basis for that.
(23:15):
But that's the,that's the mess we find ourselves in.
And we're going to havea mess with energy.
We're going to have a mess that continueto mess with housing affordability and
with homelessness, there, Bill, is hardfor me to look at that job and say,
you know, what person in their right mindwould want to be trying to do that now?
It's interesting, I guess, Bill, this,the six who appeared on the stage,
(23:39):
were those the six.
Were those the six thatare polling the highest right now?
>> Bill Whalen (23:43):
Yes. >> Lee Ohanian
it's interesting,you said there's no A listers.
Katie Porter finished.
What?She finished third in the Senate race
behind Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey.
That doesn't sound very good.
You have Tony Atkins,
who I think has probably almost noname recognition outside of San Diego.
(24:07):
There's Villargosa,although he hasn't been, and
he hasn't been on the political stage fora long time.
And he ran against,he ran against Susan, what in 22 and
really didn't get much traction.
You're talking Antoine Virgosa, Lee, you're talking about
somebody who at the 2012 conventionwas desperately trying to angle his
way into a treasure, into a transportationsecretary job in the Obama administration.
(24:30):
That's 13 years ago.
So I have a theory that politicianscandidates are very much like dairy
products.
There's a certain expiration date.
I don't know if that applies to Antonio ornot, but he was a big deal thing.
One other thing to point out,by the way, about celebrities running.
There's a wonderful book writtenabout Reagan's run for governor.
It's called the Right Moment.
It's written by Matthew Dallek,who is the son of Robert Dallek,
(24:50):
the presidential historian.
And it's really a terrific book if youlisteners are interested in California
politics in this regard.
It chronicles how Reagancame into the race,
how the state party did notcotton to Reagan at all.
They thought that he was an extremist.
They just represented the John Birch wing.
They had a favorite in George Christopher,who was a former mayor of.
(25:12):
Republican mayor of San Francisco.
You heard that correctly, folks.
Republican mayor of San Francisco.
We were talking a long time ago,but Reagan just rolled his
way through the primary, won it by a 2:1margin and then rolled over Pat Brown.
It was the right moment because Reagan wastalking about society kind of coming apart
at the seams, be it campus unrest,be it Vietnam and so forth.
And this ties into the recall with Arnold.
(25:33):
It was the right moment for Arnold interms of where California was, but
also for Arnold.
He only had to run in a 60 day campaign.
And I think if you, if you wanted to runTom Hanks for governor, if you wanted to
run some other a lister for governor, youwould want to do it in a 60 day campaign.
Why?Because the fact is they don't know that
much about public policy.
(25:53):
The less time they would haveto be stretched on the rack and
have to explain their positions on things,the worse off for their candidacy.
So you just want a two month sprint.
So again, butit gets back to this idea, you know,
you're going to bethe governor of California.
Maybe some of these people thinkthey want to be the president or
something like that.
It's just not a fun job to have right now.
>> Lee Ohanian (26:12):
No. And, and Bill it's interesting.
You saw that lack of knowledge with SteveGarvey when he was running for senator.
I mean, he was well spoken, butit just was so obvious that,
that he did not have, he did not havea deep understanding of the policy issues.
I think he had pretty good instincts forwhat was wr.
(26:33):
He couldn't he couldn't explainanything at a deep level.
And Bill when I look at those candidatesand you think about Reagan and
you think about how charming hecould be and you think about him,
how engaging he could be he had that, hehad that quality just like in my opinion,
Bill Clinton has that quality.
It's a wonderful quality to have.
(26:53):
If you're a politician,you can meet somebody in 15 seconds.
Later, the person thinks like,this is my new best friend.
It's hard to see that type of charmamong the, among those six out there.
Katie Porter, Far from it.
Steve Hilton, I think has thathe's a radio personality, so
he has that within, within his skill set.
(27:16):
But he's a Republican and
he's another guy that I think haspretty good economic instincts.
But Bill, you think there's, what do youthink the chances are of either Hilton or
Bianco appearing on a November, ona November ballot after the after primary?
>> Bill Whalen (27:34):
It depends.
I think first of all, if Kamala is goingto run, I talked to smart friends in
Sacramento who are convincedshe's going to run because why?
Because she wants to getthe L off her forehead.
She is right now a political loser,having lost her last campaign.
They think she wants toget a W to erase that.
But I don't know.
Just you talk about a Pyrrhic victory,though, because you're going to
(27:55):
win that campaign but then probablywalk away as a poor governor.
I mentioned her, though,because it would the easiest strategy for
her would be to jump in the race,essentially bigfoot the other Democrats,
but then also spend a bunch of money andtime really talking up
the Republican opponent, which is whatNewsom did when he ran for governor.
28 his classic,classic campaign tactics in California.
(28:16):
So I would argue that with only twoRepublicans running against a larger field
of Democrats, you could get a Republicanrunning for in the November as well.
Now, Steve Hilton will tell you thatnow is the time is the right moment for
Republican in California.
He has a point in terms ofsome policy issues, but
just the math is just crushing.
Our colleague Lan Hee Chen ran forcomptroller in 2022 and
(28:39):
he pulled off what I callthe Chen curve or the Chen line.
It's like the Mendoza line in baseball.
Hitting 200.
Lanhee ran pretty mucha flawless campaign.
He got endorsed by the Los Angeles Timesand he got 44.9% of the vote.
He still needed another halfa million votes to win.
There are just not enough votes outthere for Republicans, by the way,
one California, I want to add in herebefore we segue to our next top.
(29:02):
When I was in South Carolina, my lastnight there, I took my sister and brother
in law out to dinner and decided it wastime to use my California debit card.
This I got this from the stateI think a year or two ago.
This is part of the very bad idea,I think a retrospect, Lee,
just handing out money to people.
And sothis bad boy is supposedly worth 200.
So we went out to a nice restaurant,pulled out,
(29:22):
said we're going to eat onthe state of California tonight.
And guess what?
It got rejected.
>> Lee Ohanian (29:29):
Why am I not surprised?
>> Bill Whalen (29:31):
I don't know if it's a function of using it outside
inside the state.
But boy, if you want to sum upCalifornia's problems in a nutshell,
here's $200.
By the way, it's not going to work.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (29:41):
Lee, you recently took part In Santa Barbara's 2025
South County Economic Summit in whichyou focused on homelessness and
housing in California.
You proposed three ideas foraffordable housing.
Number one,
reducing building costs, two, facilitatingbuilding where land is more affordable and
three, leveraging efficiencies ofmodern technologies and building.
(30:02):
Lee are you hopeful that there can be sometraction on these and other similar and
similar proposals made by others?
>> Lee Ohanian (30:08):
JONATHAN not particularly because we know what the issues are.
It's there to fix.
It could be fixed in a nanosecond witha super majority in both the Senate and
the Legislative assembly and a governorwho could sign off on that immediately.
(30:31):
What really has happened in California iswhere we've really focused our building
efforts on again, on what just peopledon't want and what's expensive.
So for example, Scott Wiener, statestate legislator, he's perhaps the most,
I think by far the most the most devotedto trying to get housing bills passed.
(30:55):
And his emphasis, and I thinkthe party's emphasis he' Democrat is
to build where land is very,very expensive and to buy high den and
to build high density housingthat ends up being very,
very expensive in termsof construction costs.
You take expensive land andexpensive building with various
(31:17):
types of prevailing wage rules andan awful lot of overhead costs,
and pretty soon you've made housingthat's supposed to be affordable.
Anything but that.
So, Senator Wiener.
So Senator Weiner, I think,
is his efforts are really justthe opposite of what my views are.
(31:40):
I know developers who tell methat California costs twice or
even more than twice as much as otherstates just for the construction costs.
And so when you take that into account,areas such as, well, we're going to build,
you know, affordable housing inSanta Monica or Beverly Hills or
San Francisco or in Silicon Valley.
(32:00):
It's just, it's just simply not possible.
Is simply not possible, you end up withhousing that can be in excess of a million
dollars per apartment unit.
So thus anything, anything but affordable.
So the simple idea is that you simplycan never create affordable housing
unless you reduce costs,which means you go to where land is not so
(32:23):
nearly as expensive as it is, say in PaloAlto or Santa Monica or San Francisco or
Beverly Hills, and you reduce regulationso the building costs aren't so high.
You try to use modernefficiencies of manufacturing.
We can, we know we can now buildquality housing that's built
from start to finish in a factory forabout a hundred dollars or
(32:47):
less a square foot,which is probably a fifth or
a sixth of the cost as we're seeing insome affordable housing developments.
And if you look at the state, if you lookwhere cities are growing, the fastest
growing community in Californiais a little place called Shafter.
And it's not so little.
(33:08):
It's growing very, very quickly.
It's about, I think,15 miles outside of Bakersfield.
You know, the median home pricethere is somewhere in the threes.
And, you know, so why is that growing?
Because it's less expensive.
There's no complicated orfancy economics associated with that.
But the governor's now in his seventh.
(33:29):
He's got one more year to go.
He ran in 2018 on tremendously expandinghousing and making housing affordable,
well, the median single, the mediansingle family home today in California,
according to the CaliforniaAssociation Realtors, you know,
somewhere around $880,000anywhere near the coast.
(33:52):
So, you know, dear, near Stanford,San Francisco, coastal area
of Southern California, you know,it's well, well above a million dollars.
So, you know, so what we've done iswe've just really made California
unaffordable for, for most people,we could build homes, I think,
for well below $250,000,perhaps close to $200,000.
(34:16):
And that would make purchasing homea lot more, a lot more realistic for
an enormous number of families.
But I just don't see that happening,
at least under the currentpolitical leadership.
>> Bill Whalen (34:28):
So, Lee, there was a study put out recently by a Long island based
group called Leave the Key.
And they looked at census data, theylooked at bureau economic analysis data,
and here's the conclusion, Lee,this is just going to blow you guys away.
They came to the conclusion thatwould take Cal, it takes the average
Californian over 2,639 work daysto save for a home deposit.
(34:49):
And here's the numbers they're using,Lee, this by the way,
is the second worst number.
Hawaii is worse, apparently.
So there you go.
Trouble in paradise.
They figured it this way.
Residents need 10 years and
six months to afford a medianhome value of $725,000 lease.
So we're not even at the $880,000 market,met Golden State average after tax income
(35:09):
is $69,140 with monthly expensesas gets cost living in California.
He leaves with you with about $1,150 fora home buyer to put down, so.
>> Lee Ohanian (35:21):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (35:23):
Let me ask you this question though, Lee.
>> Bill Whalen (35:24):
After World War II, they're very famously was Levittown,
Speaking of Long island, what wouldhappen if Mr. Levitt, God rest his soul,
came to California in 2026 andwanted to build Levittown in California?
>> Lee Ohanian (35:37):
He would probably turn around and go back to Pennsylvania.
He would, he would say, hey, let mebuild where land is not so expensive and
I'll put up these cookie cutter beautiesand we can save an awful lot of money.
And he might stick around fora few months and
(35:58):
when he finds out that it'llbe perhaps a decade or two for
building permits, he will hightail it,he will hightail it away.
Bill, we had a, we had an attemptat building a Levittown just
outside of Valencia inSouthern California, Tejon Ranch,
which is several hundred thousand acres.
(36:19):
I think, I think it goes back tothe time of when Mexico owned that,
owned that area and sold it.
At some point Cajon Ranch was going tobe home to a 60,000 person community.
So a small city bigger than the town,you know, not, not gargantuan, but
60,000 people, 20,000 homes.
(36:40):
Plans were submitted in 1994.
The first homes went on sale in 2021.
What is that, 27 years afterthe plans were first submitted.
And because time is money, the,
those homes now cost as muchas I believe $2.8 million.
(37:01):
So you know, we're just, we're justshooting ourselves in the foot here.
This could be stopped by the governor andthe state legislators immediately.
There was just one environmentallawsuit after another.
The governor has railed about CEQA.
He, he talks glowingly aboutchanges they made to ceqa.
This is all, these are all changesthat nibble around the edges.
(37:24):
CEQA is still, is weaponized to block and
delay development, andit is California to lose on that.
And I wish, I wish,I wish reporters like Ashley Zavala,
who I think is absolutely wonderful,she's up In Sacramento.
She's not necessarilythe friend of the governor.
(37:45):
I hope she gets interested in housing andI hope she asks him,
well, why haven't you done,have, why haven't you done
more to change CEQA builders say that'swhat's needed to reduce building costs, so
you're in your seventh year,why hasn't it happened yet?
I'd love for, I'd love her,another reporter asking that question.
>> Bill Whalen (38:04):
Ronald Reagan, speaking of Reagan, he brought CEQA into the world.
Not, not one of the betterReagan legacy items.
And CEQA is that rock in which everygovernor tends to, to land his ship.
But CEQA has to do with construction.
The issue here to meis also affordability.
And I think the state needs to take a verylarge look at a lot of sort of competing
fact factors here.
(38:25):
Where in California can you builda house that people can afford to buy?
And let's say $800,000 meantjust a random number and
if you're going to buy a home for$800,000, where will it be?
What kind of job are yougoing to be able to get?
And where are you going to do your job?
Can you work at home,maybe that $800,000 job?
Can you be close to a large cityin a business center at $800,000?
Which gets into infrastructure issues,
which takes us back to the priceof gasoline and so forth.
(38:47):
So it's a Gordian knot.
>> Lee Ohanian (38:49):
It is a Gordy knot, and it's unfortunate that California,
you know, so many years ago when wetalked about high speed rail and
that's another conversation formaybe we'll have in July given what's
just happened with the DOTtelling California they're,
they're planning on rescinding federalfunding for California high speed rail.
(39:13):
That really should have been prioritizedto bring people from the Central Valley,
places like Stockton for example,to Silicon Valley, the Bay Area or
from the Inland Empire to areas withhigh paying jobs such as Los Angeles.
That just made somuch more sense than to say, well,
we've got to connect Los Angeles andSan Francisco.
(39:33):
We didn't need to, there was,there's very affordable flights,
no one really wants to know.
You know, we don't see peoplereally wanted to take that,
take a train from there to,to Los Angeles.
And who's not to say that they, that thestate wouldn't have messed that up as much
as they messed up the existing plans.
(39:54):
But, but you're absolutely right.
The high paying jobs are inareas where housing is.
Extremely expensive and it made an awfullot of sense to be able to bring
people from more affordable areas tolocations that have the jobs they want.
But that's not what happened.
>> Bill Whalen (40:11):
I wrote not too long ago about high speed rail and
I always feel guilty when I do, Lee,because I feel like I could just write
about it six months later and just changea few things around and finish that column
about two minutes because it's the sameold story, but it's interesting.
So you mentioned the Trump administrationwas to pull away, I think,
$4 billion in funding for high speed rail.
The High Speed Rail Authorityquickly said, well, you know,
we're in a good place actually,and if we keep going forward,
(40:34):
we're going to reach our goal of$20 billion to keep this going.
But what they don't mention is, Lee,there is a $100 billion gap and
the number keeps growing.
So there's just no.
And if you go and look at the website forhigh speed rail in California, there is no
promise date for when the thing everreaches Los Angeles and San Francisco.
So it's, it's a folly, plain and simple.
>> Lee Ohanian (40:54):
No, no, no, yeah, it's absolutely a folly.
And Bill, is interesting.
I don't know how it ever receivedthe latest funding which was done from
the Biden administration because tobe competitive and to qualify for
that type of federal funding, you needto demonstrate an established source of,
of, of remaining funds to cover the costs.
(41:16):
And California simply doesn't,doesn't have that.
We now are, we now are inthe process of building 170 mile,
170 mile system fromBakersfield to Merced.
That looks like it's going to cost,you know,
years ago was going to cost I think 25 or28 billion.
(41:36):
Then it went up to 33 billion.
Now it looks like it couldbe as much as 38 billion.
It was supposed to be ready in 2030.
Now it's looking more like 2035.
I mean, again, when you talk aboutkicking, kicking the can down the road,
this is a great example of that.
And you know, Bill, you know, we, we wereliving in California when that vote came
(42:00):
up the, for the, the ballot initiativethat was going to, in which we, you know,
we, in which California voters approvednearly $10 billion of seed money.
I'd love to go back in time with,you know, Michael J.
Fox and his DeLorean and, andtell people, hey, guess what?
You're going to have maybe by 2035,maybe high speed rail.
(42:23):
We don't know how fast it's going to be,but
it'll operate between Bakersfield,Merced and It'll cost about $38 billion.
What do you think about that?
>> Bill Whalen (42:30):
Yeah, it was a down payment of about $10 billion, 38 to $40.
About $40 billion is a price tag andit was going to be done by 2020.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (42:39):
Moving on, a gentleman on the homelessness issue,
Governor Newsom's new mantra is,quote, no more excuses.
In May he announced a new ordinancecalling for cities without delay.
Newsom says in part that local authorityshould be not be duly unlimited from
clearing encampments and such policyshould prioritize shelter and services.
(43:00):
Bill, what do you make of the governor'stough stance and will the mayors listen?
>> Bill Whalen (43:04):
I think it's something that plays very well outside of California
but does not play verywell inside California,
at least with those handful of mayorswho really hate this kind of messaging.
The governor seems to have an iditarodapproach to this that essentially I will,
you know, whip the, whip the sled dogsahead of me, tell them mush and they will,
they'll move forward.
Mayors don't operate that way.
Mayors have sensitiveoperations in their cities.
(43:27):
It's just Newsom's just not reallyapproaching this the right way.
He needs to be more collaborative withthem rather than showing them up.
But look, he's simply playing forthe cameras and
this gets in a lot of 2028 speculation.
I suppose too.
Sometimes Gavin sounds very progressive,sometimes he sounds not progressive and
tough mainly.
And Jonathan, this gives hima great example to sound tough.
You know, I'm fed up.
(43:48):
I'm mad as hell,I'm not gonna take it anymore.
No more excuses.
Do something.
It also is a good way to deflect.
You know, it's a theory that sometimes thebest, the best defense is good offense.
So go on the offensive andtell the mayors to get their act together.
And by the way,
cover up that your own record as governoron homelessness is pretty awful.
And by the way, as mayor of San Francisco,you promise to end it by 2010.
>> Lee Ohanian (44:08):
The, I mean the governor's been taking a lot of heat for
the homeless problem and, andit's, it's well deserved back.
I don't know what was it, Bill, 20,
20 years ago when he wasmayor of San Francisco,
he promised to end homelessness inSan Francisco by, What was it, 2010?
>> Bill Whalen (44:25):
By the end of the decade, yeah.
>> Lee Ohanian (44:26):
Yeah, and then I believe his state of the union
in 2020 was devoted entirely.
>> Bill Whalen (44:34):
To the topic Yep.
>> Lee Ohanian (44:35):
Yeah.
The headline of that was,was homelessness.
And homelessness has increased.
>> Bill Whalen (44:41):
And he periodically goes out and he puts on a t-shirt,
a ball cap and jeans, and he helps clearout an encampment under the freeway.
So he shows he cares.
But the problem doesn't change.
It gets back to, I mentioned earlier, thisis the ugly California meme that's going
to follow him wherever he runs forpresident.
This is what.
>> Lee Ohanian (44:56):
Yeah, and yes, I think he's trying to offload it onto others,
but at the end of the day,homelessness is up 60% since 2015.
The legislative, the LAO,the legislative analyst office
has looked at hospital admissionsof those who are homeless and
(45:19):
counts somewhere between300 to 400,000 unique
homeless people overthe course of the year.
So the 187,000 count we currently have,
that comes from just a single night count.
So it may be twice as high as that.
(45:40):
There was the $24 billionin state funding that,
that the state auditorwas very critical about.
They said there's a number of programswe can't evaluate because the, you know,
the state, the state lacksinformation on costs and outcomes.
It hasn't tracked gathering information orevaluated the efforts to prevent or
end homelessness.
(46:01):
It hasn't aligned its action plan withthis goal to collect information,
ensure accountability.
It was, it was justan overwhelmingly critical report.
And when that happened last year, whenthat, when that report was was issued last
year, the governor immediatelyblamed local, local government.
He just said, look, you know,it's not, it's not our fault.
(46:21):
It's the fault of counties and cities,you know, but at the end of the day,
the buck has got to stop with,as Harry Truman said, the buck stops here.
But, you know,Gavin doesn't want the buck to stop there.
And it's, it's obvious.
Why.Why, why?
Because it's just, it's an awful failure.
And he's the governor andit really goes to, I think,
(46:41):
just a failed vision of what ittakes to deal with homelessness.
For a long time, the state wasimplicitly okay with drug abuse and
drug use on the streets.
So we know that, you know, certainblocks of San Francisco were taken over.
And now the governor's saying, well,you know, clear all those out.
You know, we're going to, you know,turn the, turn the ship around.
(47:04):
And the governor was kindof all about housing first,
which said, hey, you know what, builda million dollar apartment unit and, and
put this person who has horrible substanceabuse issues or terrible mental health
issues, put them into that apartment,and then everything will be okay.
Well, it didn't work out that way.
The state was very slow to recognizejust the the very significant
(47:27):
numbers of homeless,particularly homeless men.
And, you know, the mobile per the mobilehomeless person in California is
a single male over 45, over 50.
And they have severe mentalhealth issues and on average,
severe mental health issues and,or substance abuse issues.
So that's really what weneed to be dealing with.
(47:49):
And, and it's, you know, it's difficultfor a local politician to be told by
the governor, hey, there are thesepeople that are homeless in your city.
We're gonna write you a check.
It's not gonna Going to be enough tocover everything you need to do, but,
but take care of it.
It's, well, I don't know,why do you call these people ours?
Just because they're sitting here in Longbeach or, or Santa, or Santa Ana or,
(48:11):
or Orange, you know, why is,why is this our problem?
Why can't you come here andwe'll figure out how to deal with it?
So, Bill, as you mentioned, there'snot a sense of a collaboration here.
And I kind of have the feelingthat the governor, long ago,
several years ago, figured this,we're not going to win on this.
So I think I'll try to do some otherthings that maybe will make me politically
(48:34):
popular and I'll try to deflectoff this off to others.
>> Bill Whalen (48:38):
Yeah, I'm starting to think that the easiest job in California
2026 will be debate moderator whenthe gubernatorial candidates get together.
Because every question, Lee will besimply, what are you going to do about.
So on this podcast, what are yougoing to do about homelessness?
What are you going to do about the budget?
What are you going to doabout the ZEV mandate?
>> Lee Ohanian (48:56):
There's. Yeah, I mean, there's just,
there's a never ending laundry list there.
They'll have to have a lot of debatesbecause they'll only be able to do a small
fraction of them on any one debate.
And it'll be like, you know, debate 18.
Well, here's the issues we're talkingabout today here on debate 18.
>> Bill Whalen (49:13):
But it will be interestingly to see
if Kamala does not run,if they go after Newsom at all,
if they try to throw him underthe bus on a particular topic.
>> Lee Ohanian (49:21):
Yeah, I just, you know, I wonder, Bill,
how much that will do for her.
I mean, it's obvious.
I, I mean, to me, I think it's obviousshe would win the, win the race.
But is that really a win forher in California?
I mean, she would be overwhelmed bythe policy, by the policy issues.
(49:42):
I can't imagine her being a successfulgovernor in terms of dealing with
the problems we're talkingabout now because they're
going to be that much worsewhen she would take office.
So do you really think it's about,it's about, it's about getting a w.
>> Bill Whalen (49:56):
I think so.
It's, I mean, look, Nix,if Nixon had not run for president 1968,
his political career would have beenlargely defined by that last gubernatorial
race in California.
We'll have Nixon to kick around.
And right now her politicalcareer is defined by what?
Not, not being the historic vice presidentshe was by running a terrible campaign and
losing to Donald J.
(50:16):
Trump.So I imagine that maybe I don't know
about her worldview by mentioningpeople around her thinking, you know,
she really needs to rehabilitate herimage by showing that she can win a race.
But again, it's classic period victory.
You win the battle, butyou're gonna lose the war,
I think in terms ofhaving to run California.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (50:32):
Gentlemen, moving back to our A list conversation,
in particular, Clint Eastwood,who I said I'd conclude the show
with his birthday just passedlast Saturday on May 31st.
He is 95 years old.
So happy birthday, Clint Eastwood.
We also have another birthday coming up.
Thomas Sowell will also be95 years old on June 30th.
(50:54):
Gentlemen, would you care to reflect onthe impact of both of these California
giants on America and the Golden Stateover the past century or nearly a century?
>> Bill Whalen (51:03):
Lee, why don't you take Tom Sowell?
Because fellow economist and I believehe also has UCLA DNA, does he not?
>> Lee Ohanian (51:10):
Yeah, Tom was on the UCLA economics faculty,
I mean, long before I was there.
But you know, he's a,he's a great, pure economist.
The person who was department chairat the time that Tom left for
Hoover, he and I,his name was Harold Demset.
(51:30):
And he passed away.
But when I first went toUCLA a number of years ago,
he was still quite activein the department.
We would, you know, we would talk a lot.
And he told me, you know, one dayHoover was looking for somebody and
they called me up and I told Tom,you know, you'd be perfect for this.
You'd be a great fit for them.
You don't like teaching theseundergraduates that aren't
(51:53):
really into economics.
You hate faculty meetings.
So this would be a great,this would be a great job for you.
And then, and then Tom went up to,went up to Hoover and Bill,
if I can add,I do have one Clint Eastwood story.
Back in the day between college yearsduring the summer, I worked in Carmel,
(52:13):
just a few doors down from the restauranthe owned, which was the Hogs Breath in.
And, and, and so I would sometimesgo there for a drink at the,
you know, late at night.
And Carmel is a, Carmel is a littletown that pretty much roll, you know,
rolls up the sidewalks around 8:30 or 9.
So you'd be around 9:30 or 10 and
(52:33):
we'd be having a drink outside at theHogs Breath and had this huge fireplace.
Everyone would gather aroundbecause even in the summertime,
a Carmel night is Goingto be under 60 degrees.
And, and he would come,he would come and join us for
a drink every once in a while and, and youknow, people often talk about Nicholson.
No matter,no matter what role Jack Nicholson is in,
(52:55):
he's still Jack Nicholson.
And it's not that I got to knowClint Eastwood particularly well, but
he was a very, he was a very,he was a man of few words.
And what I came to know is whateverrole Clint Eastwood played,
he was, he was still being Clint Eastwood.
>> Bill Whalen (53:11):
When I worked in the governor's office in the 1990s,
a Republican governor,
we had two people who were sort ofdedicated lines to celebrities and
one was a, an assistant to the chiefof staff who was Arnold's go to person.
If Arnold Schwarzenegger had a question,had a needed concern,
he would call this guy andthe guy would pick up.
It's like being a 10 millionmile member of an airline.
(53:33):
And so, you know, Mr.Rohanian, thanks for calling.
So that was Arnold, but the other one wasClint Eastwood because he was the mayor of
Carmel at the time and he had allkinds of environmental concerns and
usually Clint was not in a good moodwhen he called about something.
And so, [LAUGH] it was very funny forthis fellow,
he was the deputy cabinet secretary.
It began as the most wonderful thing.
Boy, I get to talk toClint Eastwood [LAUGH].
(53:54):
He's in a bad mood.
But so Clint gets back to the theory of.
Or mysterious wood I should say getsback to our theory about kind of peak in
politics because his peak would havebeen in the 1990s when he ran for
mayor of Carmel by the sea.
And the right fit for him would havebeen 1998 in that Governor's race.
But we will never know.
But interesting guy andthe world is politics.
(54:14):
Always gifted by his line of dirtyHarriet Ronald Reagan stole,
which it's course, go ahead, make my day.
>> Lee Ohanian (54:20):
[LAUGH] He was very popular as Carmel mayor because I remember
this may have only happened once, but
there was a big disputeabout a piece of land.
On the one hand,many wanted to preserve it as green space.
And you know, Carmel is just,you know, it's a jewel and
there were developers who wanted to,to create some stuff on there.
(54:42):
And so Clint just stepped in andwrote a check and
purchased it from the developers andkept his green belt.
And everybody was happy, developerswere happy, the townspeople were happy.
He was in a financial positionto be able to do that.
But yeah, it would have been interestingto see if Clint as, as governor,
(55:03):
particularly compared to some of thosein the, in the, in the race today.
>> Bill Whalen (55:09):
Well, he could have run if he'd won in 1988.
Then maybe there's no recall with Arnold.
Who knows?
>> Jonathan Movroydis (55:15):
As always, gentlemen,
this has been an hour of interesting andtimely analysis.
Thank you for your time.
>> [CROSSTALK]>> Lee Ohanian: Happy summer.
You've been listening to Matters of Policy and
Politics, the Hoover Institutionpodcast devoted to governance and
balance of power here in America andaround the free world.
Please don't forget to rate, review and
subscribe to this podcastwherever you might hear it.
If you don't mind, please spread the word.
Get your friends to have a listen.
The Hoover Institution has Facebook,Instagram and X feeds.
(55:37):
Our X handle is @hooverinst.
That's @hoover I-N-S-T.
Bill Whalen is on X.
His handle is @.
And Leo Hanian is also on X.
His handle is @leo_hanian.
Please visit the hoover website@hoover.organd sign up for the Hoover Daily Report,
where you can access the latestscholarship analysis from our fellows.
And also check out California onyoun Mind, where Bill Whalen and
Leo Hanian write every week.
(55:57):
Again, this is Jonathan Avroidissitting in Bill Whalen's chair.
This week he'll be back for anotherepisode of Matters of Policy and Politics.
Thank you for listening.
>> Speaker 4 (56:04):
This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution,
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For more information about our work,to hear more of our podcasts or
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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