March 28, 2025 • 53 mins
The good news for California governor Gavin Newsom is that his new podcast has the left and the right buzzing. The bad news is that neither side likes what is covered in his podcasts, as the governor makes nice with conservative and liberal provocateurs and thought leaders.
Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind web channel, discuss where Newsom’s latest foray into podcasting comes up short; how a shortfall in the state’s health budget may tie into his political re-branding (or is podcasting more about Newsom becoming a media kingpin?); plus differences in state and city approaches to California’s homelessness issues. After that, with the NCAA’s “March Madness” in high gear, the fellows discuss the altered state of Golden State collegiate athletics – Stanford, UCLA, and USC’s changing fortunes and conferences.
Recorded on March 27, 2025.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
>> Foreign.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (00:00):
It's Thursday, March 27, 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'm Jonathan Movroydis,sitting in Bill Whalen's chair this week,
the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter DistinguishedPolicy Fellow in Journalism.
So that he can answer questions and
(00:21):
provide commentary about California policyand politics in which he is well-versed.
Bill Whalen, in addition to beinga Washington Post columnist,
writes weekly for Hoover's Californiaon youn Mind web channel.
Waylon is joined today by Leo Hainian,Hoover Institution Senior Fellow,
professor of Economics and the Directorof the Edinger Family Program in
Macroeconomic Research at the Universityof California, Los Angeles.
Ohanian also writes weekly about thepolicy environment the Golden State for
(00:42):
California on youn Mind hello gentlemen.
How are you guys doing today?
>> Bill Whalen (00:45):
Good. It's opening day for baseball in America.
All is good.
>> Lee Ohanian (00:48):
That covers over a lot of problems, Bill.
Certainly in your world.
>> Bill Whalen (00:53):
Exactly.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (00:54):
Well, great, gentlemen.
Let's talk about the latestdevelopments in policy and
politics in the Golden State.
This past month, Governor Newsom, who isa prominent topic of conversation on this
podcast, has himself ventured out intothe podcasting world with, quote,
this is Gavin Newsom.
That's his podcast name.
Newsom says the purpose of the podcast isto talk to voices to whom he disagrees
(01:14):
with and those who he looks up to.
Among his guests have been Charlie Kirk,Turning Point USA and
former White House counselor Steve Bannon.
Those have been on the right.
On the left, it's been Ezra Klein andformer vice presidential candidate and
current Minnesota governor Tim Waltz.
An LA Times columnist has calledthe podcast, quote, cringe.
The New Yorker has called itan embarrassing and a new strategy of
(01:37):
disavowal among progressivepoliticians that is destined to fail.
Newsom himself took a hit from the leftfor pandering to the right and for
allegedly breaking with Democrats ontrans rights, specifically the right of
biological males who have transitionedto participate in women's sports.
This allegedly took place duringhis interview with Charlie Kirk.
Bill, you've devoted recentcolumns to Newsom's podcast for
(01:58):
California on your Mind.
Your take a this is a clever way forNewsom to get attention,
B it's an example of bad journalismbecause Newsom isn't likely to use
his authority to ban biological malesfrom participating in women's sports and
C he has shifted the focus back ona presidential run instead of governing.
Bill for the for all the falloutof the podcast on the left,
(02:18):
is this a smart Play for Governor Newsom.
>> Bill Whalen (02:21):
Yeah, let's don't forget D, which is.
I've written twice about this now, so
I probably need to find somethingnew to write about in California.
But it's a little slow in Sacramento rightnow because we're about to get into budget
season in earnest, which we'lltalk about later on this podcast.
But it's this podcast that stands out.
So, yes, on the one hand, Leah, Jonathan,the governor has done something that we
didn't think was possible in this day andage.
(02:41):
He has managed to createunison between the left and
the right in terms of pretty muchuniversal painting of his podcast.
And you touched on itin your introduction.
You know, probably the most devastatingcriticism comes from publications like
the New Yorker, which is an importantpublication to Gavin Newsom, or Slate,
which is, you know,an online place where conservative,
(03:02):
where liberals go to drink water andgather their thoughts.
They have both noted that he just seems tobe kind of going through the motions in
these interviews.
In other words,you guys can appreciate this,
being in the interview business yourself.
It's one thing to sit behinda microphone and talk to somebody and
just kind of nod your head and not reallyengage them in the conversation, and
that's what he's doing.
He's not really engaging with Bannon andKirk and Michael Savage or Tim Waltz.
(03:26):
He's just kind of nodding, going alongwith them, sometimes agreeing with them,
just kind of doing the podcast forthe sake of it.
Now you ask the question,is this good polit politics?
The answer is yes,it's very good politics.
It's extremely goodpolitics in this regard.
The podcast might get mocked,it might get criticized,
it might get ridiculed, even,but we're talking about it.
(03:46):
Reporters are writing about it, andpeople are watching and listening to it,
it's getting clicks.
And so Gavin Newsom's kind oflaughing all the way to the bank, and
he's kind of doing what a governor,a 2028 hopeful has to do at this point.
It's called the battleof the great mention.
Before you actually run,before you've admitted you're gonna run,
you want the media to be talking aboutyou as a hopeful, get mentioned.
And so this is his way forgetting mentioned.
(04:09):
So kudos to the governor for, you know,finding a way to get mentioned.
The criticism which we can get into,Lee and Jonathan, is,
is this really governing?
And that's the main problem I have here.
Every minute he spends doing podcasting isone less minute he's paying attention to
California and there's some very seriousissues that he needs to stand up and
address at this moment.
>> Lee Ohanian (04:28):
I find the decision for him to do this podcast, I mean,
personally, I find it somewhattone deaf given the enormous
problems that the state is facing andjust so soon after the LA fires.
And it really at some level brings to,brings to the fore of
(04:49):
what many criticisms of the Governorhave been over his tenure.
He's now in his seventh year,perhaps three years ago.
Two, three years ago, the, the Chronicle,San Francisco Chronicle, representing
a very progressive city, wrotean editorial that the governor should get
back to his day job and should reallyfocus on the problems within California.
(05:12):
So [COUGH] I found that at leastthe timing of this podcast somewhat
surprising.
And Jonathan, you mentioned some of the,you know, some of the media,
some of the media headlines.
What I found particularly surprisingwas the LA Times called it cringe and
the New York Times remarked,what on earth is, is Newsom doing?
And you know, from a political perspect,I don't really see it.
(05:36):
Having Tim Waltz on certainlydoesn't gain him any traction.
And I almost see it more ashim kind of stepping his toe
more into the space of media andperhaps not so
much politics within his,within his future.
When I look at the Democratic Party andthe Republican Party,
(05:58):
it's not pretty clear.
The Republican Party has transformeditself from the party of Reagan and
the party of free trade and the partyof being relatively pro immigration.
I mean, if we remember back to the 1980s,all the way back then,
Bush Senior andReagan had a debate about immigration and
(06:20):
both of them were talkingabout pathways to citizenship.
That was 45 years ago.
So the Democratic Party is now in thatprocess of possible transformation.
It could go the way of, of aoc.
If it does,I don't think Newsom will be the guy.
It could go the way of more moderation,
(06:41):
which is certainly whatDemocrats say in polls.
You know, we've all seen recent pollsindicating the Democratic Party has
favorability under, under 30%.
And, and right now you see politiciansthat are among the most popular Democrats.
And of course,that's a relative statement.
People such Jasmine Crockett,
(07:04):
who is in the House from Texas andthey're gaining traction.
But that traction seems to be basedon almost performative politics,
well staged video eventsthat are played on TikTok.
So I just, so when I look at Newsom andhis podcast, I see him looking at,
I see him looking at what could bea springboard into into his next career.
(07:27):
And what I come back to is the statejust has just enormous problems,
and he is in his seventhyear of being governor.
And really all of his major goals,housing,
homelessness more broadly,improving the lives for
Californians in Middlingham households.
(07:49):
Now, that just hasn't happened yet.
>> Bill Whalen (07:51):
Yeah, so Lee raises a great point here in that we have been
constantly on this podcast and
other places assuming Gavin Newsomwas to run for president.
But what if the end game for him is notthe presidency and here's something he may
have very cleverly stumbled onto, ormaybe he already understands this.
His side of the aisle in terms ofmedia is struggling right now.
MSNBC is in a free fall.
CNN has suffered post election.
(08:13):
Legacy Media, New York Times, WashingtonPost, those others have all struggled.
And for liberals, Democrats, this raisesa question of where do you go now for
information?
Do you go onto social media,do you go to X and look for it,
what about the podcasting medium andNewsom, who studies media?
We know he's obsessed with Fox News.
I got an email from his OPER morningblasting Fox News about a half dozen Fox
(08:34):
myths.
He spends way too much timestudying Fox News, in my opinion.
Newsom understands that Donald Trumpharnessed nonconventional media in this
last election, really ran circlesaround Kamala Harris with it.
The left is not similarly organized.
So maybe Lee and Jonathan,that's part of what this podcast is.
It's kind of a foothold intothis world of new media.
And maybe when he leaves office,there will be more podcast,
(08:56):
if not Gavin Newsom podcast maybehis wife takes up a podcast.
Maybe other people take up kind of,you know,
maybe becomes like essentiallya Barry Weiss kind of figure,
if you will, on the left interms of media, if you will.
But you know,the one thing which Lee mentioned,
which I think is very important here,is that, you know, Gavin Newsom, in
my opinion as a politician, suffers fromwhat I might call restless leg syndrome.
And that he is just kind of,
(09:17):
kind of constantly kind of looking atthe next thing and the next move to make.
And the parallel would beback in the late 2000,
in the late first decade of this century,the late 2000s, when he was in his
second term as mayor of San Francisco,having been reelected in 2007.
Come 2008,the legs started getting restless and
he started figuring what to do next.
(09:38):
He decided to run for governor in 2009,it didn't last very long.
Jerry Brown had a hold on that racethat Newsom just couldn't chip into and
he did the smart thing and got out quicklybefore people really knew he was running.
And that kind of kept him viable.
He then becomes lieutenant governor,and that's how he stays in the race.
But he's in a similar situation.
Now Leon Jonathan and that because ofterm limits, he cannot run in 2026.
(09:59):
I had fun in my California on your mindcolumn talking about, well, [LAUGH] How
about his wife running for the job andthen he could kind of take over from her.
But he's in the same position he was in asecond term mayor, as to what to do next.
And still along comes the podcasting,so, yeah, the problem with the podcast,
though, one reason why it does getcriticized is that it just really doesn't
have kind of an identifiablebrand other than, my gosh,
(10:21):
he's sitting down with Steve Bannon.
My gosh, he's sitting down with, with,you know, people he doesn't agree with.
Wow, isn't this interesting, becausethe podcasts are not confrontational,
shall we say.
They're not evocative, if you will,which a good podcast tends to be.
And he's really not changing that.
And that maybe is our segue into talkingabout the governor and women's sports,
(10:44):
he does a podcast and he suggests thathe is maybe rethinking his position on
biological men playing women's sports,a transgender sports issue.
Although he really isn't.
Because if you watch the podcast,you read the transcript,
you look at his words carefully.
He just tells Charlie Kirk ofTurning Point USA that he understands
(11:04):
the fairness of argument of it.
Now, there's a world of difference betweenmy saying I understand the fairness of
something and my actually makinga policy move to change said unfairness.
There are two measures sitting right nowin the legislature that are going to get
hearings next week.
One is a bill that would completelyreverse California policy, would ban
transgender athletes, period, frombiological boys playing them in sports.
(11:27):
The other one's more nuanced.
It would allow.
It would allow it in other sports,but ban it from high school.
The governor's office has no positions,as I understand, on this matter.
They will of course, takethe historical duck that governors do,
which is we don't commenton pending legislation.
But my point is, if he really were seriousabout this, if he really were changing,
if he really were triangulating in theclassic Bill Clinton way, he would have
(11:48):
either gotten involved in legislation,he would have signaled that he was for
one of the two bills, he would have saidhe was open to the idea of initiative and
let the public vote on it,something like that.
Rather than just kind of saying,I understand the fairness and
letting the media run with it andsuggesting there's daylight here so
along the lines,the Jonathan Gertrude Stein in Oakland,
there's not really a lot of therethere when it comes to these podcasts.
>> Lee Ohanian (12:10):
Well, Bill, the,
what perhaps now I havenot read a bit about them.
I haven't brought myself to, to actuallylisten to them, but of what I've
read what I find most surprising is his,is his interview with Bannon and
when Bannon Talked about the 2020election being stolen and so forth.
(12:32):
Now that vision is 100% anathemawithin democratic Party and
not just among the Democratic Party,
I suspect among virtually allindependents and some Republicans.
>> Bill Whalen (12:42):
Right.
>> Lee Ohanian (12:43):
And Newsom didn't push back at all.
He didn't challenge that,I think he said something like,
well, I appreciate your energy forthis and
you compare that to Newsom'sdebate with DeSantis.
I don't know,that's not even two years ago.
And that was very confrontational tothe point of knew some sighting statistics
(13:07):
about California taxes and people leavingCalifornia for Florida, Florida to
California that other people, [LAUGH]Don't necessarily try to cite or find.
So I'm just wondering whether aftera long career in politics, he was mayor.
What in San Francisco, what was that,did he begin in 2002 as mayor?
>> Bill Whalen (13:29):
He came in in late 3 and
then left office when he waselected lieutenant governor.
So he left in January of 2011.
>> Lee Ohanian (13:35):
Yeah.
Okay, so that's going to be.
He's going to have over 23years in politics, right?
He is, in my opinion,he is somewhat thin skinned,
I think he sees the political cardsmay not be really in his favor.
When polls about Democratic leadershipare done, he's not coming out on top.
(13:57):
The Hill aggregated a number of pollsabout favorability of politicians back
in December after the election butnow that is about three or
four years, three or four months old.
I don't know how they didthat aggregation, but
Newsom's favorabilityratings were in the twenties.
These are national polls, PublicPolicy Institute of California does,
(14:19):
I don't know, two orthree polls a year about California,
including in those polls our visionsare approval ratings for the governor.
Democrats within California overwhelminglyapprove of Newsom, but among independents,
his approval rating is I believe was about43% and then I don't have to tell you
(14:39):
what Republican views about Newsom are,they're not that quantitative
important since only about one out offour voters in California is Republican.
So I'm just, I, I just wonder if he isthinking about his next great thing
which I, which I think for him maybe inthe media space he has a gift for that.
(15:00):
I hope he's not doing that becausehe is being paid to be governor and
there's an awful lot that the state needsand there's an awful lot that he has
campaigned on that hasthat in which he is not.
He has not moved the needle or perhapsthe needle has gone in the wrong way.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (15:16):
Yep, he does like the sound of his own voice.
>> Bill Whalen (15:18):
This is his second podcast.
He has another one that he does withthe football player Marshawn lynch where
they're supposed to be talking aboutthings other than politics, but
invariably they get sucked into politics.
And then years ago he did a televisionshow, the Gavin Newsom show on Current tv.
You might remember Current TV.
It was his failed venture to kind ofcreate a alternate to Fox on the left.
I think Al Jazeera is behind the funding,
(15:39):
Al Gore I believe wasinvolved in at some point.
And so Newsom had a TV show thatlasted I think about a year or so.
It was kind of dreadfulwhen he got down to it.
But you know, Lee,you mentioned the Bannon podcast.
The one that caught my eye was reallythe Waltz podcast where before he had sat
down with the Minnesota governor,former vice presidential candidate.
(15:59):
He had an earlier podcast,had talked about how Ham handed the clumsy
the Harris campaign was in respondingto the one Trump ad that nailed it on
the issue of gender reassignmentsurgery in California prisons.
And Newsom went off on that fora couple minutes and
said they got creamed on this issue.
They didn't respond to it, andit wasn't even an 8020 issue.
(16:19):
It was a 90,10 issue, blah, blah, blah.
He went on.
So here he has Tim Waltz on his show,and he doesn't push him at all, saying,
you know, what were you people thinking?
Where was your response?
Why didn't you fight?
He didn't really kind of get into thewhole narrative of was the campaign flawed
or Kamala Harris flawed.
Now, you can say he'sbeing a loyal Democrat and
the wounds are still too fresh andit's heat.
(16:41):
But I think he's also being very politicalhere and that he wants to kind of
dance around Kamala Harris andnot really start a fight with her,
which ultimately would involvemaking donors upset donors.
He may need one day for presidency ormedia things as we're talking about here.
So it's just,it's a little too clever, if you will.
Lee, instead of kind of havingthese earnest conversations,
(17:01):
I think Newsom thinks basicallyhe's being Bill Maher on hbo.
In fact, I believe he's doing Mars Show onFriday night of this week where he's gonna
be like Daniel the Lion's Den and sit downwith him, sit with these ferocious figures
to the right and kind of make sensewith them, but it just doesn't work.
And, you know, part of the problem here,guys, is it's Newsom himself.
But then it's also the approach here.
And again, the end result,
(17:22):
it's just a product that doesn'tmake the left to the right happy.
But, hey, he's laughing all the wayto the bank with it, isn't he?
>> Lee Ohanian (17:29):
Yeah, he's Bill Maher without the criticism of Bill Maher.
And that was an interestingchoice about Waltz.
You could have imagined himtrying to get on AOC, or
you could have imagined him trying toget on someone from the other side,
a much more moderate Democratssuch as Andy Beshar.
>> Bill Whalen (17:49):
But two things here, Lee, number one, these are potential rivals.
>> Lee Ohanian (17:53):
Exactly.
>> Bill Whalen (17:54):
So I wanna give a form to somebody who might be a rival to me,
do I wanna take the risk at AOC orGovernor Beshear or
Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania mightlook like A better alternative to me.
So I'm sorry, Tim Waltz,your cannon fodder in this regard.
You're easy Pickens, if you will.
And this is kind of the challenge movingforward if he wants to continue with this
podcast.
(18:14):
It's all fine if he wants to bring ona provocateur like a Steve Bannon,
I'll be impressed when he brings onsomeone like Victor Davis Hansen,
who is a real Bonafede heavyweightintellectually, who knows his California
very well and could just go toe totoe with gabinism quite ferociously.
So if he brings on someonelike VDH I will be impressed.
>> Lee Ohanian (18:32):
Yeah, exactly, regarding someone like Bashar or AOC, and
what that also highlights is thatreally effective podcasts have
a clear vision, a clear goal.
You know what the podcast stands for.
You know what you'regoing to get with Gavin.
It might be X, it might be Y, it mightbe Z, it might be a little of all three.
(18:54):
And that is not a recipe forsuccessful podcasts, in my opinion.
>> Bill Whalen (18:58):
Out of curiosity, guys,
have either of you watchedMeghan Markle's new show on Netflix?
Because my column, I mentioned that thisis kind of a parallel to Markle in that
whatever she does,she tends to get criticized for it.
And Newsom's kind ofgetting criticized as well.
But Markle gets views on Netflix.
I think Netflix is negotiating with herand her husband for a new contractor,
if you will.
So here is somebody who again, is,you know, getting critically, you know,
(19:20):
punched around.
But like Newsom,she is laughing all the way to the bank.
But I have a hard time seeing you twoguys sitting back on a Friday night and
watching [LAUGH] Meghan Markleoffering hostess tips from Montecito.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:33):
I've missed it so far, Jonathan.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (19:35):
Yeah, I haven't had a chance, but I was gonna say that
Governor Newsom could invite either LeoHaney and or Bill Leyland on this podcast.
That might make for good conversation.
>> Bill Whalen (19:45):
I'd rather see Leo Henning go on Meghan Markle Show.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:53):
I'm not sure I'd have any interesting contact for Megan.
I would need to brush up on Town andcountry and
a home and garden and God knows what else.
>> Bill Whalen (20:03):
I could see one of those beekeeping costumes out there in
the hive with her.
>> Lee Ohanian (20:07):
Yeah, that's me.
>> Bill Whalen (20:09):
That's you.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (20:10):
Gentlemen, let's talk about California's budget situation.
Los Angeles is facinga $1 billion budget hole.
San Francisco, Oakland and
San Jose have a combined budgethold of about the same amount.
Further, according to state healthofficials, There is a 2.8 billion medical
shortfall on top of an emergency $3.4billion loan just keeping the afloat,
(20:31):
which will make a messy budgetnegotiation season in June.
Bill, you brought up Clintoniantriangulation, but with the state
sponsored healthcare program forundocumented immigrants already 50% over
budget and growing, Newsom and lawmakersare under pressure to scale back coverage.
He's also unlikely to getbailed out by Washington.
So how does the governor navigateout of this policy headache?
(20:55):
Can he adopt some Clintonian tactics?
>> Bill Whalen (20:57):
Well, if you want to be cynical and go back to the podcast and
say that Gavin Newsom is in the businessof kind of essentially, if not
reinventing himself, reorienting himselffor 2028, here is an opportunity to do so.
Because now you're dealing withthe issue of fiscal responsibility, but
also the issue of illegal immigration andbenefits and public services.
And if he really wanted to strikea blow for himself, he really wanted to
(21:20):
get noticed in red state America, hewould take away some benefits for legals.
Tapping into.
I just have a hard time seeingthis happen for a lot of reasons.
Now, Lee can address thismaybe better than I can, but
I imagine there are fiscal tricks theycan do in terms of tapping into reserves.
But they tapped into reservesin last year's budget as well.
They're not going to raise taxes.
They're probably going to borrow money to,you know,
(21:40):
from Peter to pay Paul and so forth.
They'll find a way around it.
But this just gets back to our idea that,you know, look, when he does a podcast
sitting in Marin county in his house,that is every day he does that.
He's doing, you know,every time he does that,
that's an hour podcasting thathe's not being the governor.
There's time before the podcast,
we have to research a podcast where hecould be studying up these problems.
This issue is not going away.
It's going to come to a headvery soon when sit down and
(22:01):
negotiate the budget Earnest come June.
So I don't know, Lee.
I just, you know, I don't see him strikinga triangulating blow here in terms of
dealing with public services.
And he's gotta find his way yet
again around this fiscal messwhich he is partly responsible for
because it wasn't that long ago that wewere washing the record surplus, correct?
>> Lee Ohanian (22:18):
$97 billion surplus, I believe in 21 or 22.
And then the budget teammade a critical mistake.
So much revenue was coming intothe state at that time and
an awful lot of it was capital gains,that the budget forecast
projected out extremely high revenuenumbers for the following years.
(22:40):
And then it turns out thatthose numbers were unrealistic.
I think a lot of people understood thatrevenue came in much lower than what
those very optimistic scenarios had.
So then Sacramento had to scramble to comeup with a budget that would be balanced.
And every governor,
every state legislature usesgimmicks in difficult budget years.
(23:03):
And last year was no, was no exception.
And reserves were used toclose the budget of 2425.
But when Newsom came upwith his January proposal,
what that indicated is thatstate spending in this fiscal
year 24,25 is much higher than anticipated.
(23:27):
And Bill,to one reason is the medical expenditures.
So you know,we're looking at a potential deficit for
about 15 billion inthe current fiscal year.
One issue,one reason why we're having a deficit or
projected deficit for2425 is that one of the so
(23:49):
called gimmicks in last year's Junebudget was efficiency savings.
That would be I think two anda half to three billion dollars.
And it looks like thosejust aren't being realized.
The university system seemed to have beenable to enact what they were asked to do,
but the Legislative Analyst office isnot seeing numbers that are suggesting
(24:13):
other areas are getting efficiency gains.
So this puts much morepressure on a budget that was
already pressured andit's not going to be.
They're gonna have to deal with some veryhard questions when it comes to June and
the negotiation is done.
And the state simply is notin position to be this.
(24:38):
Well, let me put this way,
the state really needs to prioritizewhat is important for its constituents.
And they need to ask themselvesvery critically if in a 300 plus
billion dollar budget,if we can't get 1% efficiency savings,
something is very, very deeply wrong.
>> Bill Whalen (24:58):
I'm glad Lee, Jonathan, you mentioned what's going on in
the cities right now,Los Angeles in particular.
Mayor Karen Bass, the embattledMayor Karabass was in Sacramento this week
looking for money for her city.
And that's what mayors do.
They go up the ladder looking for money.
The governor of Californiais no different.
He goes up the ladder.
He looks to Washington for money as well.
But Jonathan, you referenced it,he's not gonna find a lot of love,
(25:20):
a lot of help in Washington.
In fact, speaking of the podcast,a real interesting guest for
him might be Kevin Kiley who issomething of a newsome tormentor on X.
But Kylie has a bill in Congress nowthat would ban the states from using
federal and state Medicaid funds toprovide services for illegal immigrants.
So it'd be a fascinating debate ifyou took it in the big picture.
(25:42):
I go back 30 years inCalifornia government.
In the 1990s, the controversy wasproviding services in the form of
prenatal services in particular forillegal immigrants.
It was the humane thing to do.
We advertise as much trying to getpeople to come out of the shadows,
to come get care for their children.
Conservatives hated it, butwe thought it was humane thing to do.
(26:05):
Gray Davis gets recalledin the early 2000s.
One of the issues that takes him down inthe recall is Newsom reversing course on
a bill that granted driver's licenseto illegal immigrants in California.
He had vetoed it beforethe recall election.
Then amidst the recall election,trying to get Hispanic votes, he signs it.
And then on a Friday,with very little fanfare,
just kind of the worst of pandering andit pays a price for it.
(26:26):
But now we fast forward to 2025 and we'rein this issue now about what benefits and
how many people are coming onthe payroll and things like that.
It'll be a great debate to have bothin terms of what services you provide,
but also what the role ofgovernment is vis a vis people who
are not citizens of this country.
So, again, that's the kindof podcast I'd like to hear.
But you know, Lee, at the end of the day,the governor has this going for him.
(26:48):
He still has an overwhelmingDemocratic legislature in.
In Sacramento.
He doesn't have to have Republicansbuy into any votes, if you will.
So I suspect they will find some way tocome to the finish line before July 1st.
I'd be just very surprised to haveseen beyond the fiscal deadline.
>> Lee Ohanian (27:04):
Yeah, yeah, Bill, I agree with you.
They will.
Given that he's turned out andhis time's almost up,
I would love it if hewent to the legislature,
which is roughly 75% D on both sides,comfortable, super maturity,
and simply said, look,you figure out a way to make this country.
(27:25):
You figure out a way to stop sending.
Stop sending me a thousand bills a yearthat are about issues that hardly
anyone cares about.
I promised Californians I wouldmake housing more affordable.
I promised them I woulddeal with homelessness.
I promised them I would dealwith the cost of living.
I want to start seeing legislation thatif it needs to peel back regulations,
(27:49):
let's do that.
I wanna see legislation that will help usachieve what California's really need.
I don't think we're going to see that, butI suspect politically that might allow him
to make a lot more hay than someof the other things he's doing.
Because there's nothing partisanabout efficiency in government.
There's nothing partisan about beingable to create more housing or
(28:09):
to deal with homelessness orto deal with the cost of living.
But if he wants to find a wayto distinguish himself in a.
In a pool of candidates in the DemocraticParty that really have no policy ideas.
I mean, AOC has no policy ideas,legitimate policy ideas.
Jasmine Crockett does not.
Cory Booker does not.
Then that would be the way forhim to do that.
(28:31):
I doubt he'll do that, butI'll keep my fingers crossed.
>> Bill Whalen (28:34):
I wish I could sing this.
I'd love to sing the Impossible Dreamfrom Mandala Mancha at this point.
>> Lee Ohanian (28:38):
[LAUGH] >> Bill Whalen
But I'm glad you mentioned homelessness,because I think Lee and
Jonathan, this is just a huge issuehanging over Newsom's head in this regard.
Since the podcast I've been getting phonecalls from reporters back east who just
want a 30,000 foot look at Newsom.
They're starting to write about him forthe first time, really studying him.
And it's interesting in a couple regards.
(28:59):
They don't know much abouthow he rose to power.
So you have to kind of walk them throughthe dynamics of San Francisco and
the Gettys and Willie Brown andthat sort of thing.
But then they don't knowmuch about his governorship.
So they usually ask me point blank, whatone or two policies should I look at, or
Gavin Newsome,what kind of worth studying?
And Lee and Jonathan, what I point themto is homelessness, plain and simple,
(29:22):
which I think Lee wrote about recently forCalifornia on your mind.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (29:26):
Yeah, Lee, you wrote a column that explains that despite
tens of billions of dollars spent,the status has close to 200,000 homeless
under its domain, growing by one-fourthunder Governor Newsom's watch.
Why has the state failed to make headwaydespite tens of billions of dollars
spent and various initiatives inSacramento and at the city level,
(29:49):
initiatives implemented toaddress this challenge?
>> Lee Ohanian (29:52):
Well, we all, as voters,
we all should be really worriedabout this and on many dimensions.
One reason being that the moneyis not being used effectively.
In fact,the money is not being adequately tracked.
Since the governor took office in 2009,37 billion has been spent on homelessness.
(30:13):
And during that time, the number ofhomelessness, the number of homeless
which are counted on a single night intypically in late January, early February.
So that gives rise to a lot of possibleconcerns about how accurate these
counts are.
And I'll touch base on that in a second.
Homelessness on the governor'swatch has increased from about
(30:37):
151,000 when he took officeto about 187,000 now.
So we need to be asking ourselves how canwe spend $37 billion on the homeless over,
over a period of about five years andhave homelessness rise 25%?
It just seems.
Yeah, I mean, how do you get your hands orhow do you get your arms around,
(31:00):
around statistics like that?
And you know what,what the column discusses is there's
been three separate studiesof within the state,
one by the state auditor,some by the Legislative Analyst office,
another federal study, andthey're all quite scathing.
(31:24):
You know, I'll just, what the, the,what they note is that there's simply,
it appears, it appears that juststandard accounting practices,
standard information reporting practicesare not being followed because
an awful lot of this money, no one, no,no one knows where it's going so not,
not very little is known aboutwhich programs are effective,
(31:47):
which programs are dysfunctional,and, and, and not effective.
When you think about this fromthe standpoint of a taxpayer,
that's an awful lot of money.
And when you think about this fromthe standpoint of just human waste, it is.
It was just soul crushing.
And when I mentioned that the,that the number of homeless
reported are from a single counton one evening in late January,
(32:10):
early February, the lao,the Legislative Analyst Office, has,
has suggested that the number ofhomeless may be much higher than that.
They found potentially 337,000people homeless in 2023.
And the homeless number based on thatsingle night count in 24 was higher
(32:33):
than 23.
So we may be, we may have 330,
350,000 people in the state homeless.
And that is simply an intractable problem.
And then, Jonathan,just to put that in context,
if that 37 billion that hasbeen spent between since 2019,
(32:53):
if that had been spent on the number ofhomeless in 2019, that 150,000 homeless,
that would be about $245,000per homeless person.
So there's no way to describe thisother than it's just a massive
public policy failure.
There's no way to dress that up.
(33:15):
And moreover, Sacramento doesn't reallyseem to know where to start with this.
>> Bill Whalen (33:21):
And that's the key Lee, Newsom understands the problem here and
he understands our perception.
We know this because gettingback to the podcast, yet again,
his podcast with us, a Klein, he saysthe following, and I quote, I mean,
if I have another press conferenceabout how much money we're
spending on homelessness,they're going to take my head off.
And then Newsom added, they want tosee encampments off the damn street.
That's what they're measuring by.
(33:41):
Okay, he's right, the public wantsresults, are tied on money being spent.
But this is the Californiaproblem in a nutshell, Lee,
it's just that money beingthrown to the problem.
I did a little digging, Lee,into Inside Safe Los Angeles.
This is Karen Bass's Maribas'ssignature homeless measure.
She ran hard on homelessness whenshe ran for the job in 2022.
(34:02):
Yes, she is in trouble for
reelection because of herperformance about the fires.
But this issue is also going to comeback to haunt her if she doesn't show
progress on it.
You mentioned the dollar figure howmuch is spent per person homelessness in
California.
Well, here's what I figured out,at least my crew math.
I think I'm right here.
Someone may want to check me on this.
As of about a year ago, Los Angeles,Lee had spent about $67 million on
(34:24):
Inside Safe, which is basicallyjust getting people off the street.
What Gavin Newsom Advocates.
$67 million spent, Lee and they got255 people into permanent housing.
That translates to $263,000 per person.
Well, the bad news, Lee, is that there isa homeless population in Los Angeles of
about 46,000 people, I believe.
(34:45):
They'd have to spend 180 times more tocover population, about $12 billion and
all, sothere's obviously not the money for that.
And there's also the question thenabout people staying permanently off.
So again, money is just not the answer.
And so that's why Lee and John, I thinkone of the most interesting people in
California right now, if not the mostinteresting in terms of elected office,
(35:05):
it might be Daniel Lurie, the new mayor ofSan Francisco, who is coming to office.
He is the first mayor to do that jobin about a century who does not have
a political connection inside the city.
He's not part of the system.
He's not a former supervisor, he's notsomebody's son or daughter from politics.
He's not a political brand name.
He ran as an outsider, he ran hard againstthe incumbent mayor of London Breed and
(35:27):
what was all around the city.
And he has a program, Lee and Jonathan,
called Breaking the Cyclein San Francisco.
He's very cleverly approachedit in this regard,
he has laid out threedifferent target areas.
100 day problems, six month solutions, andone year targets of solutions as well.
And that to me seems kind of a smarter,more nuanced way to take this on.
Kind of break the homeless issue intovarious parts, you know, be it housing,
(35:49):
be it drugs, be it, you know,police enforcement and so forth,
and set these very specific timelines foraddressing them.
>> Lee Ohanian (35:56):
Yeah, I appreciate that he's doing that and
that he's taking a fresh look at it.
I'm, I'm not,I'm not optimistic it's going to work.
One reason being that San Francisco'sbudget's under enormous pressure.
Another is that San Franciscois spending in excess of
a million dollars per unit of housing.
(36:17):
So you just can't do very much of that.
No one seems to be questioningthose kinds of numbers.
And then another issue is the Californiapolicy about homelessness,
in my opinion, is just missing the boat.
And the boat is that to getpermanent supportive housing,
you don't need to be sober,you don't need to be receiving treatment.
(36:38):
The state has really kind of eschewedthe issue that what's underlying a lot of
homelessness in California, you know,certainly almost all of the chronic
homelessness, is that these are peoplewith severe mental health issues,
severe substance abuse issues.
And until you get them into cost effectivetreatment, you're never gonna win.
(37:00):
So I like the fact that Larry is thinkingabout this a little bit outside the box,
but he's going to need somehelp from the state as well.
>> Bill Whalen (37:07):
What I like is these three leaders are working under very different
clocks, if you will.
So for Newsom, the clock is obviously,you know, 2026, early 2027,
end of his term in office.
I've got to show progress on this issue.
For Karen Bass,it's two clocks hanging over her.
One is the same 2026 clock as Gavin Newsombecause she's up for reelection next year.
(37:28):
But also Lee And Jonathan, the 2028 clock.
And that the Olympicsare coming to Los Angeles and
the world's gonna be looking at the city.
And boy, if skid row is still skid row,what an embarrassment to both Los Angeles,
California, United States of America.
But then thirdly, Daniel Lurie, okay,
he doesn't have the 2026 clock,as do Newsom and Bass.
Does he have a 2028 clock?
(37:50):
Yes, in terms of reelection, but
he is operating under a different setof circumstances because San Francisco,
we forget, has been a very volatile citypolitically now, going back several years.
This is the same city that tossed severalmembers off its Board of Education
because they got into a silly issue overrenaming schools during the pandemic.
This is the same city that tossed out itsvery liberal district attorney because
(38:13):
they didn't like his dealing with issueslike homelessness and petty crime.
And a city just turnedout its incumbent mayor.
So Lurie has that kind of over hishanging over his head in terms of clock.
Just that the city is restless.
So again, just curious to see how thosevarious factors add to the pressure to get
something done here.
On an issue I'd add, by the way, Lee andJonathan seems to be intractable
because getting back to Gavin Newsom, whypoint this out as an issue to reporters?
(38:35):
Newsom, when he wasmayor of San Francisco,
said he would solvethe problem in 10 years.
He made that boast 21,almost 22 years ago now.
>> Lee Ohanian (38:43):
Yeah, and Bill, I think Bass is in over her head as LA mayor.
You know, I think voters never reallythought about the fact that she
did not have substantialmanagement experience.
She'd been the House of Representativesfor an awful long time.
She'd been in the Legislativeassembly within the state.
(39:05):
So she was involved withlegislative creation and lawmaking.
But being mayor of LA isa really huge CEO job.
She has no CEO experience It'sa very difficult CEO job.
Not everybody can be a CEO.
And I suspect that it willbe next to impossible for
(39:26):
her to get reelected,given what's happened with the fires.
And not just that, but, I mean,
we know what's going to happenwhen the election comes around.
It'll show her flying off to Ghanadespite the fact that she promised not to
take any international travel.
It'll show the empty reservoir.
A lawsuit was filed, I believe, yesterday,
(39:48):
that the DWP has been trying to hide dataon which power lines were electrified and
whether any electrified power linescontributed to the Palisades fire.
So it's a mess.
I don't think she's the person to beable to make progress on these issues.
(40:08):
So here's to hoping to look thatLurie will be much more effective in
that regard.
I think he does have more of a CEO typepersonality, but I think Angelenos
are paying, paying the price ofelecting a person who I think Bass is.
I think she's, I think she's sincere.
I think she really cares aboutthe people of California, but
she just wasn't the rightperson to be mayor.
>> Bill Whalen (40:27):
Speaking of Lori Lee, he recently did an interview with Dan Baltz
of the Washington Post, who's a HooverMedia Fellow as well, I should add and he
said something in passing that might be agood future column for you in this regard.
Here's what he told Baltz, quote,doing business in the city, San Francisco,
he's referencing,is often maddeningly complex and
costly because of layers ofstate with local regulations.
Lurie said it takes, quote,61 different steps and
(40:49):
about $21,000 to open a restaurant.
>> Lee Ohanian (40:53):
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's the kind of common sensegovernance that the state has forgotten.
And again, these aren't partisan issues.
They're just common sense issues, and
that's what Californiacontinues to stumble upon.
And yeah, Lurie is, you know, kudos tohim for calling this out because I don't
(41:13):
recall London Brie calling it out,much less doing anything about it.
>> Bill Whalen (41:18):
Yeah, but 61 steps, Lee, I mean, come on.
It should.
You need a city inspector to come in andcheck the wiring.
And you need a health inspector to comein and make sure it's not a roach trap.
What, what else do you need?
Someone to check to makesure the meat's not tainted.
It shouldn't take stepsto open up a restaurant.
>> Lee Ohanian (41:33):
It's silly, a couple years ago, I wrote a piece for
California Mind about a fellow who'strying to open an ice cream store and
it essentially bankrupted him.
I think he tried for a couple of years andhe ran out of money.
And Bill, what the big holdup was?
There was an ice creamstore down the block that,
that was putting up an impedimentbecause in San Francisco,
(41:55):
at least at that time, businesseswithin a certain distance could were
asked their opinion about whethera new business should be opened.
Turns out existing ice creamstores don't want any competition.
And the poor fellow was,he was bankrupted by this.
So, yeah, it's,.
>> Bill Whalen (42:15):
Now was that Mom and Pop ice cream stores, Lee, or
are we talking big ice cream?
>> Lee Ohanian (42:19):
Yeah, this was, this was just, I think these were two mom and
Pop ice cream stores.
And you know, so oftentimes, you know,before Doge, I used to say, you know,
California really needs to have a taxpayeradvocacy group, but not just in the state.
There needs to be one withinSan Francisco and LA and, and
just more broadly becauseyou look at these things and
(42:41):
you're saying, how can there be 61 steps?
Is it structurally safe?
Does it comply with the ada?
Are there health concerns?
And if not, let's, let's,let's get it going.
But yeah, as you noted,that's three steps, not 61.
>> Bill Whalen (42:58):
Yeah, it's interesting, you could put someone like an Elon Musk
in charge of something likeDoge within California.
And I got a sneaky feeling you're goingto find a lot of waste and overkill and
various things, because where that effortwould end up is where you're seeing
the federal effort went up right now.
The news out of Washington day thatRobert Kennedy wants to lay off
10,000 people at the federalhealth services, for example.
There'd be a lot of, you know, cuts inthe workforce in Sacramento and boy,
(43:21):
would you hear screaming andshouting about that.
But you don't need Doge in this regardbecause you have a state controller.
And the state controller's job is,in theory at least,
I don't know what the current statecontroller does on a daily basis, but
the job is to look at government,make sure government's done well.
You're kind of the efficiency overseer.
So a very smart, very ambitious statecontroller could basically go into,
(43:43):
go to town on government andnot tear stuff down.
They can't do it,they don't have constitutional power.
They could sure point out a lot ofproblems, but herein lies the challenge.
I think you're just kind of showingthe emperor has no clothes if you do that.
And you know, in a town run by one party,that's the last thing you want to do,
expose the failings of said city.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (44:00):
Well, Bill,
you mentioned at the top of the podcastthat today's the beginning of
baseball season.
We're also on the sports note,we're also in the middle of March badness.
A little closer to home, the UCLA Women'sBasketball is in the sweet 16 and
well poised fortheir first national championship.
Juju Watkins, USC's basketball star,just suffered a season ending knee injury.
(44:24):
So for USC's basketball programthat might not pose well for them.
Even closer to home, Andrew Luck,the newly minted general manager for
the Stanford Cardinal football team,has fired its football coach,
Troy Taylor, after it was investigatedthat he mistreated staffers.
And Luck is putting his ownimprint on the program.
(44:47):
Question, what are your thoughtson California sports at this time?
Are we back on an upswing of the heydaysof UCLA Basketball and the heydays
of Stanford Sports and the heydays ofUSC Football in the early century?
>> Bill Whalen (45:01):
I wanted to get to this for a couple reasons.
First of all, it shows how times change.
How in California that Lee and
I as old white guys would rememberwas all about UCLA Men's Basketball.
I think Lee, what, 11 men's championships.
We're talking John Wooden, Abdul Jabbar,Bill Walton, just legendary stuff, but
within that UCLA program, the women'steam doesn't have an NCAA title to claim.
(45:23):
And so it's kinda missing a little hole,
missing there what's a reallyotherwise storied program.
So part of me very sentimentallywants to see UCLA get a championship.
My heart also breaks for juju Watkinstearing an ACL in the first round because
she is arguably the most exciting,you know, women's player right now,
college basketball.
So that's a shame, if you will, butjust kind of reflects how the times have
changed and how we talk about women'ssports really becoming much more
(45:44):
interesting, especially, in the age ofCaitlin Clark and Women's basketball.
And California embodies this withits two Los Angeles colleges,
both top seeds in the tournament.
The Stanford situation isdifferent in this regard.
It's troubling in that it's not just thatwe don't have a football coach right now.
Our athletic directoris also stepping down.
And that's because Stanford finds itselfin a really awkward position vis a vis
(46:06):
college athletics.
It is a storied program.
It is.If you walk around the campus,
you look at various tributes,if you go outside the baseball stadium,
the tennis stadium, long list of justfamous, famous athletes who have at some
point come through Stanford andcalled Stanford home.
But right now, the school strugglesin football two straight, three and
nine seasons.
It struggles in basketball, it's beenyears since it's made the NCAA tournament.
(46:27):
And Stanford suffers in partbecause it is hard in this day and
age to get pure student athletes intoa school like Stanford when there's easy
money to be had in nil, when it's easy totransfer otherware to get more noticed.
And soyou see Stanford struggling with this,
which leads to kind of an identitycrisis into who to bring in and who not.
But I don't know.
Lee, Fingers cross,UCLA Women's Basketball.
(46:48):
And I'm not sure what the future holds forStanford Football if you don't do anything
this fall leaf, you're not teaching,you wanna coach a few games?
>> Lee Ohanian (46:54):
Yeah, we'll run the drop play a lot.
>> Bill Whalen (46:56):
[LAUGH] Three yards and a cloud of dust, right?
>> Lee Ohanian (47:01):
Yes, right.
Stanford is in trouble.
And just, you know, more broadly in termsof college athletics, back in the day,
track and field got much moreattention than it does now.
USC, UCLA dual meets used tothey would attract 10, 15,
I think maybe 20,000 people.
Now those kinda matchesare natural thoughts.
>> Bill Whalen (47:20):
You basically, were watching the Olympic trials [LAUGH].
>> Lee Ohanian (47:22):
Yeah, yeah, exactly,
I was gonna say there wereOlympians on both sides of that.
So the non-revenue sports reallyhave been pushed aside and
Stanford is in a difficult position forfootball talent.
Notre Dame is as well,although they've been able, you know,
they're a very academicallydemanding university, but
(47:44):
they've been able to carve out a differentspace in the world of college football
partially because of their reputation andvery lucrative long term deal with NBC for
telecasting forbroadcasting Notre Dame games.
But yeah, Stanford, they're gonna have torevisit their thoughts about this because,
you have a couple losing seasons andthen you lose.
(48:07):
Once you lose the studentpopulation coming to games,
they're not nearly as exciting.
They're not nearly as energized.
So.
And Stanford's in the process offinding a new athletic director,
so I hope everything works out.
But there can be some challenges there.
>> Bill Whalen (48:22):
Yeah. So, Jonathan,
you asked about where California fits inthe scheme of things in college sports.
I think that times have changed.
50 years ago, we would havetalked very romantically about
a Pac-8 conference becominga Pac-10 becoming a Pac-12.
And glorious football played inthe Los Angeles Coliseum and
UCLA owning the hardcourt andbasketball and so forth.
Just a lot of glamour associatedwith West Coast sports.
(48:45):
The heart and soul of College Sports day,
in my opinion at least lieswhere it's in the Sun Belt.
It's in the Southeast Conference,it's in the acc and
though not technically in the big.
In the Sun Belt, the Big Ten as well.
You just look at any poll of any majorsport, basketball, football, baseball,
if you will,it's these conferences that dominate.
And the west coast just.
Well, except the West Coast has a role.
It's schools like UCLA andUSC moving in the Big Ten or Stanford and
(49:08):
Cal moving into the ACC.
It's just not west coastoriented in that regard.
So kind of a shame in that regard because,you know, one thing I've learned about
living in California for this long, it'sjust a wonderful place to play sports.
I'm just.It's a delight to see friends of mine who
have young kids and how because of theclimate out here, they're exposed to so
many more sports that kids inother parts of the country aren't.
>> Lee Ohanian (49:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's a shame what happened to the Pac-12.
I think the presidents and chancellorsof those universities, you know,
they were faced with some fiscal issues.
SC and UCLA went off to Iguess it's about the Big 18,
relegating Stanford to the [LAUGH]Atlantic Coast Conference.
(49:52):
So it's just.
Yeah, fora lot of reasons I wish the PAC12 was.
Was still together.
In my opinion.
I think they had.
They chose two commissioners whoprobably weren't best suited for
the job back to back andthat wrecked the conference.
UCLA had a huge athletics deficit,so they were cash strapped.
(50:14):
And SC is spending an awfullot of money on football.
And it was what it was an equalshare within the PAC12.
So they weren't happy with that.
I would like to think that itdidn't have to happen all this way.
Maybe we can say that about a lot of,a lot of divorces,
(50:34):
but it certainly hasn't worked outwell for Stanford and I think in some
ways it hasn't worked out well for SC orUCLA when they're traveling back and
forth to the Midwest for basketball,particularly for basketball,
which has what, a 30,30 game season now for regular season.
So yeah, it's tough on the kids anyway.
(50:55):
Too bad,too bad we don't have the Pac 12 anymore.
But that's the dollars andcents of college athletics.
>> Bill Whalen (51:02):
So figures crossed, fingers crossed that Juju Watkins has
a speedy recovery andshe's back playing basketball soon.
Fingers crossed, Lee, that UCLA women'sbasketball gets its first title.
And the a chances of getting a title isgoing to rest on the shoulders in large
part of a woman named Lauren Betts,who is, by the way, a Stanford transfer.
The USA women's team without juju Watk,its chances rest on the shoulders of
(51:24):
a woman named Kiki Ifrin,who's by the way, a Stanford transfer.
Do you see a trend here?
And fingers crossed at Stanford kindof figures what to do next in terms of
football andits program because it's just, it's too,
too storied of a tradition and
just too great of a place to play sportsnot to be relevant in this day and age.
But boy, it's just, it's very painfulto be watching this up close and
(51:44):
just see how the schoolstruggles with this right now.
>> Lee Ohanian (51:47):
Yeah, there's, I mean, women's tournament is really interesting
now because you have SC withoutWatkins and they looked,
they played extremely well without herafter she went down with an injury.
You've got UCLA without a women's title.
So there's a lot of interest in that.
And then you have UConnwith Paige Bueckers,
a lot of people are pulling for that.
So, yeah, somany different storylines and you know,
(52:10):
if you're going to tear an ACL,better to do it in 2025 than back in 1985.
The technology has advanced so much,stem cells are now being used,
I think, to aid in ligament healing.
And if she does all the right things,I'm sure she'll have an excellent surgeon.
She'll come back, hopefully, to what herperformance was prior to the injury.
>> Bill Whalen (52:35):
And by the way, when this podcast is done and
I finish up some other Hoover related workI'm going to turn on my TV later today and
watch Stanford play Virginia and baseball.
Nothing says college sports tradition likeStanford mucking around Charlottesville,
Virginia.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (52:50):
Well, thank you gentlemen.
As always, this has beenan interesting hour's timely analysis.
See you in about a month.
>> Bill Whalen (52:55):
Okay guys, take care.
>> Lee Ohanian (52:57):
Sounds great, fellas.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (52:58):
You've been listening to Matters of Policy and
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(53:20):
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He'll be back for another episodeof Matters of Policy and Politics.
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>> Presenter (53:41):
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>> Foreign.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (00:00):
It's Thursday, March 27, 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'm Jonathan Movroydis,sitting in Bill Whalen's chair this week,
the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter DistinguishedPolicy Fellow in Journalism.
So that he can answer questions and
(00:21):
provide commentary about California policyand politics in which he is well-versed.
Bill Whalen, in addition to beinga Washington Post columnist,
writes weekly for Hoover's Californiaon youn Mind web channel.
Waylon is joined today by Leo Hainian,Hoover Institution Senior Fellow,
professor of Economics and the Directorof the Edinger Family Program in
Macroeconomic Research at the Universityof California, Los Angeles.
Ohanian also writes weekly about thepolicy environment the Golden State for
(00:42):
California on youn Mind hello gentlemen.
How are you guys doing today?
>> Bill Whalen (00:45):
Good. It's opening day for baseball in America.
All is good.
>> Lee Ohanian (00:48):
That covers over a lot of problems, Bill.
Certainly in your world.
>> Bill Whalen (00:53):
Exactly.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (00:54):
Well, great, gentlemen.
Let's talk about the latestdevelopments in policy and
politics in the Golden State.
This past month, Governor Newsom, who isa prominent topic of conversation on this
podcast, has himself ventured out intothe podcasting world with, quote,
this is Gavin Newsom.
That's his podcast name.
Newsom says the purpose of the podcast isto talk to voices to whom he disagrees
(01:14):
with and those who he looks up to.
Among his guests have been Charlie Kirk,Turning Point USA and
former White House counselor Steve Bannon.
Those have been on the right.
On the left, it's been Ezra Klein andformer vice presidential candidate and
current Minnesota governor Tim Waltz.
An LA Times columnist has calledthe podcast, quote, cringe.
The New Yorker has called itan embarrassing and a new strategy of
(01:37):
disavowal among progressivepoliticians that is destined to fail.
Newsom himself took a hit from the leftfor pandering to the right and for
allegedly breaking with Democrats ontrans rights, specifically the right of
biological males who have transitionedto participate in women's sports.
This allegedly took place duringhis interview with Charlie Kirk.
Bill, you've devoted recentcolumns to Newsom's podcast for
(01:58):
California on your Mind.
Your take a this is a clever way forNewsom to get attention,
B it's an example of bad journalismbecause Newsom isn't likely to use
his authority to ban biological malesfrom participating in women's sports and
C he has shifted the focus back ona presidential run instead of governing.
Bill for the for all the falloutof the podcast on the left,
(02:18):
is this a smart Play for Governor Newsom.
>> Bill Whalen (02:21):
Yeah, let's don't forget D, which is.
I've written twice about this now, so
I probably need to find somethingnew to write about in California.
But it's a little slow in Sacramento rightnow because we're about to get into budget
season in earnest, which we'lltalk about later on this podcast.
But it's this podcast that stands out.
So, yes, on the one hand, Leah, Jonathan,the governor has done something that we
didn't think was possible in this day andage.
(02:41):
He has managed to createunison between the left and
the right in terms of pretty muchuniversal painting of his podcast.
And you touched on itin your introduction.
You know, probably the most devastatingcriticism comes from publications like
the New Yorker, which is an importantpublication to Gavin Newsom, or Slate,
which is, you know,an online place where conservative,
(03:02):
where liberals go to drink water andgather their thoughts.
They have both noted that he just seems tobe kind of going through the motions in
these interviews.
In other words,you guys can appreciate this,
being in the interview business yourself.
It's one thing to sit behinda microphone and talk to somebody and
just kind of nod your head and not reallyengage them in the conversation, and
that's what he's doing.
He's not really engaging with Bannon andKirk and Michael Savage or Tim Waltz.
(03:26):
He's just kind of nodding, going alongwith them, sometimes agreeing with them,
just kind of doing the podcast forthe sake of it.
Now you ask the question,is this good polit politics?
The answer is yes,it's very good politics.
It's extremely goodpolitics in this regard.
The podcast might get mocked,it might get criticized,
it might get ridiculed, even,but we're talking about it.
(03:46):
Reporters are writing about it, andpeople are watching and listening to it,
it's getting clicks.
And so Gavin Newsom's kind oflaughing all the way to the bank, and
he's kind of doing what a governor,a 2028 hopeful has to do at this point.
It's called the battleof the great mention.
Before you actually run,before you've admitted you're gonna run,
you want the media to be talking aboutyou as a hopeful, get mentioned.
And so this is his way forgetting mentioned.
(04:09):
So kudos to the governor for, you know,finding a way to get mentioned.
The criticism which we can get into,Lee and Jonathan, is,
is this really governing?
And that's the main problem I have here.
Every minute he spends doing podcasting isone less minute he's paying attention to
California and there's some very seriousissues that he needs to stand up and
address at this moment.
>> Lee Ohanian (04:28):
I find the decision for him to do this podcast, I mean,
personally, I find it somewhattone deaf given the enormous
problems that the state is facing andjust so soon after the LA fires.
And it really at some level brings to,brings to the fore of
(04:49):
what many criticisms of the Governorhave been over his tenure.
He's now in his seventh year,perhaps three years ago.
Two, three years ago, the, the Chronicle,San Francisco Chronicle, representing
a very progressive city, wrotean editorial that the governor should get
back to his day job and should reallyfocus on the problems within California.
(05:12):
So [COUGH] I found that at leastthe timing of this podcast somewhat
surprising.
And Jonathan, you mentioned some of the,you know, some of the media,
some of the media headlines.
What I found particularly surprisingwas the LA Times called it cringe and
the New York Times remarked,what on earth is, is Newsom doing?
And you know, from a political perspect,I don't really see it.
(05:36):
Having Tim Waltz on certainlydoesn't gain him any traction.
And I almost see it more ashim kind of stepping his toe
more into the space of media andperhaps not so
much politics within his,within his future.
When I look at the Democratic Party andthe Republican Party,
(05:58):
it's not pretty clear.
The Republican Party has transformeditself from the party of Reagan and
the party of free trade and the partyof being relatively pro immigration.
I mean, if we remember back to the 1980s,all the way back then,
Bush Senior andReagan had a debate about immigration and
(06:20):
both of them were talkingabout pathways to citizenship.
That was 45 years ago.
So the Democratic Party is now in thatprocess of possible transformation.
It could go the way of, of aoc.
If it does,I don't think Newsom will be the guy.
It could go the way of more moderation,
(06:41):
which is certainly whatDemocrats say in polls.
You know, we've all seen recent pollsindicating the Democratic Party has
favorability under, under 30%.
And, and right now you see politiciansthat are among the most popular Democrats.
And of course,that's a relative statement.
People such Jasmine Crockett,
(07:04):
who is in the House from Texas andthey're gaining traction.
But that traction seems to be basedon almost performative politics,
well staged video eventsthat are played on TikTok.
So I just, so when I look at Newsom andhis podcast, I see him looking at,
I see him looking at what could bea springboard into into his next career.
(07:27):
And what I come back to is the statejust has just enormous problems,
and he is in his seventhyear of being governor.
And really all of his major goals,housing,
homelessness more broadly,improving the lives for
Californians in Middlingham households.
(07:49):
Now, that just hasn't happened yet.
>> Bill Whalen (07:51):
Yeah, so Lee raises a great point here in that we have been
constantly on this podcast and
other places assuming Gavin Newsomwas to run for president.
But what if the end game for him is notthe presidency and here's something he may
have very cleverly stumbled onto, ormaybe he already understands this.
His side of the aisle in terms ofmedia is struggling right now.
MSNBC is in a free fall.
CNN has suffered post election.
(08:13):
Legacy Media, New York Times, WashingtonPost, those others have all struggled.
And for liberals, Democrats, this raisesa question of where do you go now for
information?
Do you go onto social media,do you go to X and look for it,
what about the podcasting medium andNewsom, who studies media?
We know he's obsessed with Fox News.
I got an email from his OPER morningblasting Fox News about a half dozen Fox
(08:34):
myths.
He spends way too much timestudying Fox News, in my opinion.
Newsom understands that Donald Trumpharnessed nonconventional media in this
last election, really ran circlesaround Kamala Harris with it.
The left is not similarly organized.
So maybe Lee and Jonathan,that's part of what this podcast is.
It's kind of a foothold intothis world of new media.
And maybe when he leaves office,there will be more podcast,
(08:56):
if not Gavin Newsom podcast maybehis wife takes up a podcast.
Maybe other people take up kind of,you know,
maybe becomes like essentiallya Barry Weiss kind of figure,
if you will, on the left interms of media, if you will.
But you know,the one thing which Lee mentioned,
which I think is very important here,is that, you know, Gavin Newsom, in
my opinion as a politician, suffers fromwhat I might call restless leg syndrome.
And that he is just kind of,
(09:17):
kind of constantly kind of looking atthe next thing and the next move to make.
And the parallel would beback in the late 2000,
in the late first decade of this century,the late 2000s, when he was in his
second term as mayor of San Francisco,having been reelected in 2007.
Come 2008,the legs started getting restless and
he started figuring what to do next.
(09:38):
He decided to run for governor in 2009,it didn't last very long.
Jerry Brown had a hold on that racethat Newsom just couldn't chip into and
he did the smart thing and got out quicklybefore people really knew he was running.
And that kind of kept him viable.
He then becomes lieutenant governor,and that's how he stays in the race.
But he's in a similar situation.
Now Leon Jonathan and that because ofterm limits, he cannot run in 2026.
(09:59):
I had fun in my California on your mindcolumn talking about, well, [LAUGH] How
about his wife running for the job andthen he could kind of take over from her.
But he's in the same position he was in asecond term mayor, as to what to do next.
And still along comes the podcasting,so, yeah, the problem with the podcast,
though, one reason why it does getcriticized is that it just really doesn't
have kind of an identifiablebrand other than, my gosh,
(10:21):
he's sitting down with Steve Bannon.
My gosh, he's sitting down with, with,you know, people he doesn't agree with.
Wow, isn't this interesting, becausethe podcasts are not confrontational,
shall we say.
They're not evocative, if you will,which a good podcast tends to be.
And he's really not changing that.
And that maybe is our segue into talkingabout the governor and women's sports,
(10:44):
he does a podcast and he suggests thathe is maybe rethinking his position on
biological men playing women's sports,a transgender sports issue.
Although he really isn't.
Because if you watch the podcast,you read the transcript,
you look at his words carefully.
He just tells Charlie Kirk ofTurning Point USA that he understands
(11:04):
the fairness of argument of it.
Now, there's a world of difference betweenmy saying I understand the fairness of
something and my actually makinga policy move to change said unfairness.
There are two measures sitting right nowin the legislature that are going to get
hearings next week.
One is a bill that would completelyreverse California policy, would ban
transgender athletes, period, frombiological boys playing them in sports.
(11:27):
The other one's more nuanced.
It would allow.
It would allow it in other sports,but ban it from high school.
The governor's office has no positions,as I understand, on this matter.
They will of course, takethe historical duck that governors do,
which is we don't commenton pending legislation.
But my point is, if he really were seriousabout this, if he really were changing,
if he really were triangulating in theclassic Bill Clinton way, he would have
(11:48):
either gotten involved in legislation,he would have signaled that he was for
one of the two bills, he would have saidhe was open to the idea of initiative and
let the public vote on it,something like that.
Rather than just kind of saying,I understand the fairness and
letting the media run with it andsuggesting there's daylight here so
along the lines,the Jonathan Gertrude Stein in Oakland,
there's not really a lot of therethere when it comes to these podcasts.
>> Lee Ohanian (12:10):
Well, Bill, the,
what perhaps now I havenot read a bit about them.
I haven't brought myself to, to actuallylisten to them, but of what I've
read what I find most surprising is his,is his interview with Bannon and
when Bannon Talked about the 2020election being stolen and so forth.
(12:32):
Now that vision is 100% anathemawithin democratic Party and
not just among the Democratic Party,
I suspect among virtually allindependents and some Republicans.
>> Bill Whalen (12:42):
Right.
>> Lee Ohanian (12:43):
And Newsom didn't push back at all.
He didn't challenge that,I think he said something like,
well, I appreciate your energy forthis and
you compare that to Newsom'sdebate with DeSantis.
I don't know,that's not even two years ago.
And that was very confrontational tothe point of knew some sighting statistics
(13:07):
about California taxes and people leavingCalifornia for Florida, Florida to
California that other people, [LAUGH]Don't necessarily try to cite or find.
So I'm just wondering whether aftera long career in politics, he was mayor.
What in San Francisco, what was that,did he begin in 2002 as mayor?
>> Bill Whalen (13:29):
He came in in late 3 and
then left office when he waselected lieutenant governor.
So he left in January of 2011.
>> Lee Ohanian (13:35):
Yeah.
Okay, so that's going to be.
He's going to have over 23years in politics, right?
He is, in my opinion,he is somewhat thin skinned,
I think he sees the political cardsmay not be really in his favor.
When polls about Democratic leadershipare done, he's not coming out on top.
(13:57):
The Hill aggregated a number of pollsabout favorability of politicians back
in December after the election butnow that is about three or
four years, three or four months old.
I don't know how they didthat aggregation, but
Newsom's favorabilityratings were in the twenties.
These are national polls, PublicPolicy Institute of California does,
(14:19):
I don't know, two orthree polls a year about California,
including in those polls our visionsare approval ratings for the governor.
Democrats within California overwhelminglyapprove of Newsom, but among independents,
his approval rating is I believe was about43% and then I don't have to tell you
(14:39):
what Republican views about Newsom are,they're not that quantitative
important since only about one out offour voters in California is Republican.
So I'm just, I, I just wonder if he isthinking about his next great thing
which I, which I think for him maybe inthe media space he has a gift for that.
(15:00):
I hope he's not doing that becausehe is being paid to be governor and
there's an awful lot that the state needsand there's an awful lot that he has
campaigned on that hasthat in which he is not.
He has not moved the needle or perhapsthe needle has gone in the wrong way.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (15:16):
Yep, he does like the sound of his own voice.
>> Bill Whalen (15:18):
This is his second podcast.
He has another one that he does withthe football player Marshawn lynch where
they're supposed to be talking aboutthings other than politics, but
invariably they get sucked into politics.
And then years ago he did a televisionshow, the Gavin Newsom show on Current tv.
You might remember Current TV.
It was his failed venture to kind ofcreate a alternate to Fox on the left.
I think Al Jazeera is behind the funding,
(15:39):
Al Gore I believe wasinvolved in at some point.
And so Newsom had a TV show thatlasted I think about a year or so.
It was kind of dreadfulwhen he got down to it.
But you know, Lee,you mentioned the Bannon podcast.
The one that caught my eye was reallythe Waltz podcast where before he had sat
down with the Minnesota governor,former vice presidential candidate.
(15:59):
He had an earlier podcast,had talked about how Ham handed the clumsy
the Harris campaign was in respondingto the one Trump ad that nailed it on
the issue of gender reassignmentsurgery in California prisons.
And Newsom went off on that fora couple minutes and
said they got creamed on this issue.
They didn't respond to it, andit wasn't even an 8020 issue.
(16:19):
It was a 90,10 issue, blah, blah, blah.
He went on.
So here he has Tim Waltz on his show,and he doesn't push him at all, saying,
you know, what were you people thinking?
Where was your response?
Why didn't you fight?
He didn't really kind of get into thewhole narrative of was the campaign flawed
or Kamala Harris flawed.
Now, you can say he'sbeing a loyal Democrat and
the wounds are still too fresh andit's heat.
(16:41):
But I think he's also being very politicalhere and that he wants to kind of
dance around Kamala Harris andnot really start a fight with her,
which ultimately would involvemaking donors upset donors.
He may need one day for presidency ormedia things as we're talking about here.
So it's just,it's a little too clever, if you will.
Lee, instead of kind of havingthese earnest conversations,
(17:01):
I think Newsom thinks basicallyhe's being Bill Maher on hbo.
In fact, I believe he's doing Mars Show onFriday night of this week where he's gonna
be like Daniel the Lion's Den and sit downwith him, sit with these ferocious figures
to the right and kind of make sensewith them, but it just doesn't work.
And, you know, part of the problem here,guys, is it's Newsom himself.
But then it's also the approach here.
And again, the end result,
(17:22):
it's just a product that doesn'tmake the left to the right happy.
But, hey, he's laughing all the wayto the bank with it, isn't he?
>> Lee Ohanian (17:29):
Yeah, he's Bill Maher without the criticism of Bill Maher.
And that was an interestingchoice about Waltz.
You could have imagined himtrying to get on AOC, or
you could have imagined him trying toget on someone from the other side,
a much more moderate Democratssuch as Andy Beshar.
>> Bill Whalen (17:49):
But two things here, Lee, number one, these are potential rivals.
>> Lee Ohanian (17:53):
Exactly.
>> Bill Whalen (17:54):
So I wanna give a form to somebody who might be a rival to me,
do I wanna take the risk at AOC orGovernor Beshear or
Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania mightlook like A better alternative to me.
So I'm sorry, Tim Waltz,your cannon fodder in this regard.
You're easy Pickens, if you will.
And this is kind of the challenge movingforward if he wants to continue with this
podcast.
(18:14):
It's all fine if he wants to bring ona provocateur like a Steve Bannon,
I'll be impressed when he brings onsomeone like Victor Davis Hansen,
who is a real Bonafede heavyweightintellectually, who knows his California
very well and could just go toe totoe with gabinism quite ferociously.
So if he brings on someonelike VDH I will be impressed.
>> Lee Ohanian (18:32):
Yeah, exactly, regarding someone like Bashar or AOC, and
what that also highlights is thatreally effective podcasts have
a clear vision, a clear goal.
You know what the podcast stands for.
You know what you'regoing to get with Gavin.
It might be X, it might be Y, it mightbe Z, it might be a little of all three.
(18:54):
And that is not a recipe forsuccessful podcasts, in my opinion.
>> Bill Whalen (18:58):
Out of curiosity, guys,
have either of you watchedMeghan Markle's new show on Netflix?
Because my column, I mentioned that thisis kind of a parallel to Markle in that
whatever she does,she tends to get criticized for it.
And Newsom's kind ofgetting criticized as well.
But Markle gets views on Netflix.
I think Netflix is negotiating with herand her husband for a new contractor,
if you will.
So here is somebody who again, is,you know, getting critically, you know,
(19:20):
punched around.
But like Newsom,she is laughing all the way to the bank.
But I have a hard time seeing you twoguys sitting back on a Friday night and
watching [LAUGH] Meghan Markleoffering hostess tips from Montecito.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:33):
I've missed it so far, Jonathan.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (19:35):
Yeah, I haven't had a chance, but I was gonna say that
Governor Newsom could invite either LeoHaney and or Bill Leyland on this podcast.
That might make for good conversation.
>> Bill Whalen (19:45):
I'd rather see Leo Henning go on Meghan Markle Show.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:53):
I'm not sure I'd have any interesting contact for Megan.
I would need to brush up on Town andcountry and
a home and garden and God knows what else.
>> Bill Whalen (20:03):
I could see one of those beekeeping costumes out there in
the hive with her.
>> Lee Ohanian (20:07):
Yeah, that's me.
>> Bill Whalen (20:09):
That's you.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (20:10):
Gentlemen, let's talk about California's budget situation.
Los Angeles is facinga $1 billion budget hole.
San Francisco, Oakland and
San Jose have a combined budgethold of about the same amount.
Further, according to state healthofficials, There is a 2.8 billion medical
shortfall on top of an emergency $3.4billion loan just keeping the afloat,
(20:31):
which will make a messy budgetnegotiation season in June.
Bill, you brought up Clintoniantriangulation, but with the state
sponsored healthcare program forundocumented immigrants already 50% over
budget and growing, Newsom and lawmakersare under pressure to scale back coverage.
He's also unlikely to getbailed out by Washington.
So how does the governor navigateout of this policy headache?
(20:55):
Can he adopt some Clintonian tactics?
>> Bill Whalen (20:57):
Well, if you want to be cynical and go back to the podcast and
say that Gavin Newsom is in the businessof kind of essentially, if not
reinventing himself, reorienting himselffor 2028, here is an opportunity to do so.
Because now you're dealing withthe issue of fiscal responsibility, but
also the issue of illegal immigration andbenefits and public services.
And if he really wanted to strikea blow for himself, he really wanted to
(21:20):
get noticed in red state America, hewould take away some benefits for legals.
Tapping into.
I just have a hard time seeingthis happen for a lot of reasons.
Now, Lee can address thismaybe better than I can, but
I imagine there are fiscal tricks theycan do in terms of tapping into reserves.
But they tapped into reservesin last year's budget as well.
They're not going to raise taxes.
They're probably going to borrow money to,you know,
(21:40):
from Peter to pay Paul and so forth.
They'll find a way around it.
But this just gets back to our idea that,you know, look, when he does a podcast
sitting in Marin county in his house,that is every day he does that.
He's doing, you know,every time he does that,
that's an hour podcasting thathe's not being the governor.
There's time before the podcast,
we have to research a podcast where hecould be studying up these problems.
This issue is not going away.
It's going to come to a headvery soon when sit down and
(22:01):
negotiate the budget Earnest come June.
So I don't know, Lee.
I just, you know, I don't see him strikinga triangulating blow here in terms of
dealing with public services.
And he's gotta find his way yet
again around this fiscal messwhich he is partly responsible for
because it wasn't that long ago that wewere washing the record surplus, correct?
>> Lee Ohanian (22:18):
$97 billion surplus, I believe in 21 or 22.
And then the budget teammade a critical mistake.
So much revenue was coming intothe state at that time and
an awful lot of it was capital gains,that the budget forecast
projected out extremely high revenuenumbers for the following years.
(22:40):
And then it turns out thatthose numbers were unrealistic.
I think a lot of people understood thatrevenue came in much lower than what
those very optimistic scenarios had.
So then Sacramento had to scramble to comeup with a budget that would be balanced.
And every governor,
every state legislature usesgimmicks in difficult budget years.
(23:03):
And last year was no, was no exception.
And reserves were used toclose the budget of 2425.
But when Newsom came upwith his January proposal,
what that indicated is thatstate spending in this fiscal
year 24,25 is much higher than anticipated.
(23:27):
And Bill,to one reason is the medical expenditures.
So you know,we're looking at a potential deficit for
about 15 billion inthe current fiscal year.
One issue,one reason why we're having a deficit or
projected deficit for2425 is that one of the so
(23:49):
called gimmicks in last year's Junebudget was efficiency savings.
That would be I think two anda half to three billion dollars.
And it looks like thosejust aren't being realized.
The university system seemed to have beenable to enact what they were asked to do,
but the Legislative Analyst office isnot seeing numbers that are suggesting
(24:13):
other areas are getting efficiency gains.
So this puts much morepressure on a budget that was
already pressured andit's not going to be.
They're gonna have to deal with some veryhard questions when it comes to June and
the negotiation is done.
And the state simply is notin position to be this.
(24:38):
Well, let me put this way,
the state really needs to prioritizewhat is important for its constituents.
And they need to ask themselvesvery critically if in a 300 plus
billion dollar budget,if we can't get 1% efficiency savings,
something is very, very deeply wrong.
>> Bill Whalen (24:58):
I'm glad Lee, Jonathan, you mentioned what's going on in
the cities right now,Los Angeles in particular.
Mayor Karen Bass, the embattledMayor Karabass was in Sacramento this week
looking for money for her city.
And that's what mayors do.
They go up the ladder looking for money.
The governor of Californiais no different.
He goes up the ladder.
He looks to Washington for money as well.
But Jonathan, you referenced it,he's not gonna find a lot of love,
(25:20):
a lot of help in Washington.
In fact, speaking of the podcast,a real interesting guest for
him might be Kevin Kiley who issomething of a newsome tormentor on X.
But Kylie has a bill in Congress nowthat would ban the states from using
federal and state Medicaid funds toprovide services for illegal immigrants.
So it'd be a fascinating debate ifyou took it in the big picture.
(25:42):
I go back 30 years inCalifornia government.
In the 1990s, the controversy wasproviding services in the form of
prenatal services in particular forillegal immigrants.
It was the humane thing to do.
We advertise as much trying to getpeople to come out of the shadows,
to come get care for their children.
Conservatives hated it, butwe thought it was humane thing to do.
(26:05):
Gray Davis gets recalledin the early 2000s.
One of the issues that takes him down inthe recall is Newsom reversing course on
a bill that granted driver's licenseto illegal immigrants in California.
He had vetoed it beforethe recall election.
Then amidst the recall election,trying to get Hispanic votes, he signs it.
And then on a Friday,with very little fanfare,
just kind of the worst of pandering andit pays a price for it.
(26:26):
But now we fast forward to 2025 and we'rein this issue now about what benefits and
how many people are coming onthe payroll and things like that.
It'll be a great debate to have bothin terms of what services you provide,
but also what the role ofgovernment is vis a vis people who
are not citizens of this country.
So, again, that's the kindof podcast I'd like to hear.
But you know, Lee, at the end of the day,the governor has this going for him.
(26:48):
He still has an overwhelmingDemocratic legislature in.
In Sacramento.
He doesn't have to have Republicansbuy into any votes, if you will.
So I suspect they will find some way tocome to the finish line before July 1st.
I'd be just very surprised to haveseen beyond the fiscal deadline.
>> Lee Ohanian (27:04):
Yeah, yeah, Bill, I agree with you.
They will.
Given that he's turned out andhis time's almost up,
I would love it if hewent to the legislature,
which is roughly 75% D on both sides,comfortable, super maturity,
and simply said, look,you figure out a way to make this country.
(27:25):
You figure out a way to stop sending.
Stop sending me a thousand bills a yearthat are about issues that hardly
anyone cares about.
I promised Californians I wouldmake housing more affordable.
I promised them I woulddeal with homelessness.
I promised them I would dealwith the cost of living.
I want to start seeing legislation thatif it needs to peel back regulations,
(27:49):
let's do that.
I wanna see legislation that will help usachieve what California's really need.
I don't think we're going to see that, butI suspect politically that might allow him
to make a lot more hay than someof the other things he's doing.
Because there's nothing partisanabout efficiency in government.
There's nothing partisan about beingable to create more housing or
(28:09):
to deal with homelessness orto deal with the cost of living.
But if he wants to find a wayto distinguish himself in a.
In a pool of candidates in the DemocraticParty that really have no policy ideas.
I mean, AOC has no policy ideas,legitimate policy ideas.
Jasmine Crockett does not.
Cory Booker does not.
Then that would be the way forhim to do that.
(28:31):
I doubt he'll do that, butI'll keep my fingers crossed.
>> Bill Whalen (28:34):
I wish I could sing this.
I'd love to sing the Impossible Dreamfrom Mandala Mancha at this point.
>> Lee Ohanian (28:38):
[LAUGH] >> Bill Whalen
But I'm glad you mentioned homelessness,because I think Lee and
Jonathan, this is just a huge issuehanging over Newsom's head in this regard.
Since the podcast I've been getting phonecalls from reporters back east who just
want a 30,000 foot look at Newsom.
They're starting to write about him forthe first time, really studying him.
And it's interesting in a couple regards.
(28:59):
They don't know much abouthow he rose to power.
So you have to kind of walk them throughthe dynamics of San Francisco and
the Gettys and Willie Brown andthat sort of thing.
But then they don't knowmuch about his governorship.
So they usually ask me point blank, whatone or two policies should I look at, or
Gavin Newsome,what kind of worth studying?
And Lee and Jonathan, what I point themto is homelessness, plain and simple,
(29:22):
which I think Lee wrote about recently forCalifornia on your mind.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (29:26):
Yeah, Lee, you wrote a column that explains that despite
tens of billions of dollars spent,the status has close to 200,000 homeless
under its domain, growing by one-fourthunder Governor Newsom's watch.
Why has the state failed to make headwaydespite tens of billions of dollars
spent and various initiatives inSacramento and at the city level,
(29:49):
initiatives implemented toaddress this challenge?
>> Lee Ohanian (29:52):
Well, we all, as voters,
we all should be really worriedabout this and on many dimensions.
One reason being that the moneyis not being used effectively.
In fact,the money is not being adequately tracked.
Since the governor took office in 2009,37 billion has been spent on homelessness.
(30:13):
And during that time, the number ofhomelessness, the number of homeless
which are counted on a single night intypically in late January, early February.
So that gives rise to a lot of possibleconcerns about how accurate these
counts are.
And I'll touch base on that in a second.
Homelessness on the governor'swatch has increased from about
(30:37):
151,000 when he took officeto about 187,000 now.
So we need to be asking ourselves how canwe spend $37 billion on the homeless over,
over a period of about five years andhave homelessness rise 25%?
It just seems.
Yeah, I mean, how do you get your hands orhow do you get your arms around,
(31:00):
around statistics like that?
And you know what,what the column discusses is there's
been three separate studiesof within the state,
one by the state auditor,some by the Legislative Analyst office,
another federal study, andthey're all quite scathing.
(31:24):
You know, I'll just, what the, the,what they note is that there's simply,
it appears, it appears that juststandard accounting practices,
standard information reporting practicesare not being followed because
an awful lot of this money, no one, no,no one knows where it's going so not,
not very little is known aboutwhich programs are effective,
(31:47):
which programs are dysfunctional,and, and, and not effective.
When you think about this fromthe standpoint of a taxpayer,
that's an awful lot of money.
And when you think about this fromthe standpoint of just human waste, it is.
It was just soul crushing.
And when I mentioned that the,that the number of homeless
reported are from a single counton one evening in late January,
(32:10):
early February, the lao,the Legislative Analyst Office, has,
has suggested that the number ofhomeless may be much higher than that.
They found potentially 337,000people homeless in 2023.
And the homeless number based on thatsingle night count in 24 was higher
(32:33):
than 23.
So we may be, we may have 330,
350,000 people in the state homeless.
And that is simply an intractable problem.
And then, Jonathan,just to put that in context,
if that 37 billion that hasbeen spent between since 2019,
(32:53):
if that had been spent on the number ofhomeless in 2019, that 150,000 homeless,
that would be about $245,000per homeless person.
So there's no way to describe thisother than it's just a massive
public policy failure.
There's no way to dress that up.
(33:15):
And moreover, Sacramento doesn't reallyseem to know where to start with this.
>> Bill Whalen (33:21):
And that's the key Lee, Newsom understands the problem here and
he understands our perception.
We know this because gettingback to the podcast, yet again,
his podcast with us, a Klein, he saysthe following, and I quote, I mean,
if I have another press conferenceabout how much money we're
spending on homelessness,they're going to take my head off.
And then Newsom added, they want tosee encampments off the damn street.
That's what they're measuring by.
(33:41):
Okay, he's right, the public wantsresults, are tied on money being spent.
But this is the Californiaproblem in a nutshell, Lee,
it's just that money beingthrown to the problem.
I did a little digging, Lee,into Inside Safe Los Angeles.
This is Karen Bass's Maribas'ssignature homeless measure.
She ran hard on homelessness whenshe ran for the job in 2022.
(34:02):
Yes, she is in trouble for
reelection because of herperformance about the fires.
But this issue is also going to comeback to haunt her if she doesn't show
progress on it.
You mentioned the dollar figure howmuch is spent per person homelessness in
California.
Well, here's what I figured out,at least my crew math.
I think I'm right here.
Someone may want to check me on this.
As of about a year ago, Los Angeles,Lee had spent about $67 million on
(34:24):
Inside Safe, which is basicallyjust getting people off the street.
What Gavin Newsom Advocates.
$67 million spent, Lee and they got255 people into permanent housing.
That translates to $263,000 per person.
Well, the bad news, Lee, is that there isa homeless population in Los Angeles of
about 46,000 people, I believe.
(34:45):
They'd have to spend 180 times more tocover population, about $12 billion and
all, sothere's obviously not the money for that.
And there's also the question thenabout people staying permanently off.
So again, money is just not the answer.
And so that's why Lee and John, I thinkone of the most interesting people in
California right now, if not the mostinteresting in terms of elected office,
(35:05):
it might be Daniel Lurie, the new mayor ofSan Francisco, who is coming to office.
He is the first mayor to do that jobin about a century who does not have
a political connection inside the city.
He's not part of the system.
He's not a former supervisor, he's notsomebody's son or daughter from politics.
He's not a political brand name.
He ran as an outsider, he ran hard againstthe incumbent mayor of London Breed and
(35:27):
what was all around the city.
And he has a program, Lee and Jonathan,
called Breaking the Cyclein San Francisco.
He's very cleverly approachedit in this regard,
he has laid out threedifferent target areas.
100 day problems, six month solutions, andone year targets of solutions as well.
And that to me seems kind of a smarter,more nuanced way to take this on.
Kind of break the homeless issue intovarious parts, you know, be it housing,
(35:49):
be it drugs, be it, you know,police enforcement and so forth,
and set these very specific timelines foraddressing them.
>> Lee Ohanian (35:56):
Yeah, I appreciate that he's doing that and
that he's taking a fresh look at it.
I'm, I'm not,I'm not optimistic it's going to work.
One reason being that San Francisco'sbudget's under enormous pressure.
Another is that San Franciscois spending in excess of
a million dollars per unit of housing.
(36:17):
So you just can't do very much of that.
No one seems to be questioningthose kinds of numbers.
And then another issue is the Californiapolicy about homelessness,
in my opinion, is just missing the boat.
And the boat is that to getpermanent supportive housing,
you don't need to be sober,you don't need to be receiving treatment.
(36:38):
The state has really kind of eschewedthe issue that what's underlying a lot of
homelessness in California, you know,certainly almost all of the chronic
homelessness, is that these are peoplewith severe mental health issues,
severe substance abuse issues.
And until you get them into cost effectivetreatment, you're never gonna win.
(37:00):
So I like the fact that Larry is thinkingabout this a little bit outside the box,
but he's going to need somehelp from the state as well.
>> Bill Whalen (37:07):
What I like is these three leaders are working under very different
clocks, if you will.
So for Newsom, the clock is obviously,you know, 2026, early 2027,
end of his term in office.
I've got to show progress on this issue.
For Karen Bass,it's two clocks hanging over her.
One is the same 2026 clock as Gavin Newsombecause she's up for reelection next year.
(37:28):
But also Lee And Jonathan, the 2028 clock.
And that the Olympicsare coming to Los Angeles and
the world's gonna be looking at the city.
And boy, if skid row is still skid row,what an embarrassment to both Los Angeles,
California, United States of America.
But then thirdly, Daniel Lurie, okay,
he doesn't have the 2026 clock,as do Newsom and Bass.
Does he have a 2028 clock?
(37:50):
Yes, in terms of reelection, but
he is operating under a different setof circumstances because San Francisco,
we forget, has been a very volatile citypolitically now, going back several years.
This is the same city that tossed severalmembers off its Board of Education
because they got into a silly issue overrenaming schools during the pandemic.
This is the same city that tossed out itsvery liberal district attorney because
(38:13):
they didn't like his dealing with issueslike homelessness and petty crime.
And a city just turnedout its incumbent mayor.
So Lurie has that kind of over hishanging over his head in terms of clock.
Just that the city is restless.
So again, just curious to see how thosevarious factors add to the pressure to get
something done here.
On an issue I'd add, by the way, Lee andJonathan seems to be intractable
because getting back to Gavin Newsom, whypoint this out as an issue to reporters?
(38:35):
Newsom, when he wasmayor of San Francisco,
said he would solvethe problem in 10 years.
He made that boast 21,almost 22 years ago now.
>> Lee Ohanian (38:43):
Yeah, and Bill, I think Bass is in over her head as LA mayor.
You know, I think voters never reallythought about the fact that she
did not have substantialmanagement experience.
She'd been the House of Representativesfor an awful long time.
She'd been in the Legislativeassembly within the state.
(39:05):
So she was involved withlegislative creation and lawmaking.
But being mayor of LA isa really huge CEO job.
She has no CEO experience It'sa very difficult CEO job.
Not everybody can be a CEO.
And I suspect that it willbe next to impossible for
(39:26):
her to get reelected,given what's happened with the fires.
And not just that, but, I mean,
we know what's going to happenwhen the election comes around.
It'll show her flying off to Ghanadespite the fact that she promised not to
take any international travel.
It'll show the empty reservoir.
A lawsuit was filed, I believe, yesterday,
(39:48):
that the DWP has been trying to hide dataon which power lines were electrified and
whether any electrified power linescontributed to the Palisades fire.
So it's a mess.
I don't think she's the person to beable to make progress on these issues.
(40:08):
So here's to hoping to look thatLurie will be much more effective in
that regard.
I think he does have more of a CEO typepersonality, but I think Angelenos
are paying, paying the price ofelecting a person who I think Bass is.
I think she's, I think she's sincere.
I think she really cares aboutthe people of California, but
she just wasn't the rightperson to be mayor.
>> Bill Whalen (40:27):
Speaking of Lori Lee, he recently did an interview with Dan Baltz
of the Washington Post, who's a HooverMedia Fellow as well, I should add and he
said something in passing that might be agood future column for you in this regard.
Here's what he told Baltz, quote,doing business in the city, San Francisco,
he's referencing,is often maddeningly complex and
costly because of layers ofstate with local regulations.
Lurie said it takes, quote,61 different steps and
(40:49):
about $21,000 to open a restaurant.
>> Lee Ohanian (40:53):
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's the kind of common sensegovernance that the state has forgotten.
And again, these aren't partisan issues.
They're just common sense issues, and
that's what Californiacontinues to stumble upon.
And yeah, Lurie is, you know, kudos tohim for calling this out because I don't
(41:13):
recall London Brie calling it out,much less doing anything about it.
>> Bill Whalen (41:18):
Yeah, but 61 steps, Lee, I mean, come on.
It should.
You need a city inspector to come in andcheck the wiring.
And you need a health inspector to comein and make sure it's not a roach trap.
What, what else do you need?
Someone to check to makesure the meat's not tainted.
It shouldn't take stepsto open up a restaurant.
>> Lee Ohanian (41:33):
It's silly, a couple years ago, I wrote a piece for
California Mind about a fellow who'strying to open an ice cream store and
it essentially bankrupted him.
I think he tried for a couple of years andhe ran out of money.
And Bill, what the big holdup was?
There was an ice creamstore down the block that,
that was putting up an impedimentbecause in San Francisco,
(41:55):
at least at that time, businesseswithin a certain distance could were
asked their opinion about whethera new business should be opened.
Turns out existing ice creamstores don't want any competition.
And the poor fellow was,he was bankrupted by this.
So, yeah, it's,.
>> Bill Whalen (42:15):
Now was that Mom and Pop ice cream stores, Lee, or
are we talking big ice cream?
>> Lee Ohanian (42:19):
Yeah, this was, this was just, I think these were two mom and
Pop ice cream stores.
And you know, so oftentimes, you know,before Doge, I used to say, you know,
California really needs to have a taxpayeradvocacy group, but not just in the state.
There needs to be one withinSan Francisco and LA and, and
just more broadly becauseyou look at these things and
(42:41):
you're saying, how can there be 61 steps?
Is it structurally safe?
Does it comply with the ada?
Are there health concerns?
And if not, let's, let's,let's get it going.
But yeah, as you noted,that's three steps, not 61.
>> Bill Whalen (42:58):
Yeah, it's interesting, you could put someone like an Elon Musk
in charge of something likeDoge within California.
And I got a sneaky feeling you're goingto find a lot of waste and overkill and
various things, because where that effortwould end up is where you're seeing
the federal effort went up right now.
The news out of Washington day thatRobert Kennedy wants to lay off
10,000 people at the federalhealth services, for example.
There'd be a lot of, you know, cuts inthe workforce in Sacramento and boy,
(43:21):
would you hear screaming andshouting about that.
But you don't need Doge in this regardbecause you have a state controller.
And the state controller's job is,in theory at least,
I don't know what the current statecontroller does on a daily basis, but
the job is to look at government,make sure government's done well.
You're kind of the efficiency overseer.
So a very smart, very ambitious statecontroller could basically go into,
(43:43):
go to town on government andnot tear stuff down.
They can't do it,they don't have constitutional power.
They could sure point out a lot ofproblems, but herein lies the challenge.
I think you're just kind of showingthe emperor has no clothes if you do that.
And you know, in a town run by one party,that's the last thing you want to do,
expose the failings of said city.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (44:00):
Well, Bill,
you mentioned at the top of the podcastthat today's the beginning of
baseball season.
We're also on the sports note,we're also in the middle of March badness.
A little closer to home, the UCLA Women'sBasketball is in the sweet 16 and
well poised fortheir first national championship.
Juju Watkins, USC's basketball star,just suffered a season ending knee injury.
(44:24):
So for USC's basketball programthat might not pose well for them.
Even closer to home, Andrew Luck,the newly minted general manager for
the Stanford Cardinal football team,has fired its football coach,
Troy Taylor, after it was investigatedthat he mistreated staffers.
And Luck is putting his ownimprint on the program.
(44:47):
Question, what are your thoughtson California sports at this time?
Are we back on an upswing of the heydaysof UCLA Basketball and the heydays
of Stanford Sports and the heydays ofUSC Football in the early century?
>> Bill Whalen (45:01):
I wanted to get to this for a couple reasons.
First of all, it shows how times change.
How in California that Lee and
I as old white guys would rememberwas all about UCLA Men's Basketball.
I think Lee, what, 11 men's championships.
We're talking John Wooden, Abdul Jabbar,Bill Walton, just legendary stuff, but
within that UCLA program, the women'steam doesn't have an NCAA title to claim.
(45:23):
And so it's kinda missing a little hole,
missing there what's a reallyotherwise storied program.
So part of me very sentimentallywants to see UCLA get a championship.
My heart also breaks for juju Watkinstearing an ACL in the first round because
she is arguably the most exciting,you know, women's player right now,
college basketball.
So that's a shame, if you will, butjust kind of reflects how the times have
changed and how we talk about women'ssports really becoming much more
(45:44):
interesting, especially, in the age ofCaitlin Clark and Women's basketball.
And California embodies this withits two Los Angeles colleges,
both top seeds in the tournament.
The Stanford situation isdifferent in this regard.
It's troubling in that it's not just thatwe don't have a football coach right now.
Our athletic directoris also stepping down.
And that's because Stanford finds itselfin a really awkward position vis a vis
(46:06):
college athletics.
It is a storied program.
It is.If you walk around the campus,
you look at various tributes,if you go outside the baseball stadium,
the tennis stadium, long list of justfamous, famous athletes who have at some
point come through Stanford andcalled Stanford home.
But right now, the school strugglesin football two straight, three and
nine seasons.
It struggles in basketball, it's beenyears since it's made the NCAA tournament.
(46:27):
And Stanford suffers in partbecause it is hard in this day and
age to get pure student athletes intoa school like Stanford when there's easy
money to be had in nil, when it's easy totransfer otherware to get more noticed.
And soyou see Stanford struggling with this,
which leads to kind of an identitycrisis into who to bring in and who not.
But I don't know.
Lee, Fingers cross,UCLA Women's Basketball.
(46:48):
And I'm not sure what the future holds forStanford Football if you don't do anything
this fall leaf, you're not teaching,you wanna coach a few games?
>> Lee Ohanian (46:54):
Yeah, we'll run the drop play a lot.
>> Bill Whalen (46:56):
[LAUGH] Three yards and a cloud of dust, right?
>> Lee Ohanian (47:01):
Yes, right.
Stanford is in trouble.
And just, you know, more broadly in termsof college athletics, back in the day,
track and field got much moreattention than it does now.
USC, UCLA dual meets used tothey would attract 10, 15,
I think maybe 20,000 people.
Now those kinda matchesare natural thoughts.
>> Bill Whalen (47:20):
You basically, were watching the Olympic trials [LAUGH].
>> Lee Ohanian (47:22):
Yeah, yeah, exactly,
I was gonna say there wereOlympians on both sides of that.
So the non-revenue sports reallyhave been pushed aside and
Stanford is in a difficult position forfootball talent.
Notre Dame is as well,although they've been able, you know,
they're a very academicallydemanding university, but
(47:44):
they've been able to carve out a differentspace in the world of college football
partially because of their reputation andvery lucrative long term deal with NBC for
telecasting forbroadcasting Notre Dame games.
But yeah, Stanford, they're gonna have torevisit their thoughts about this because,
you have a couple losing seasons andthen you lose.
(48:07):
Once you lose the studentpopulation coming to games,
they're not nearly as exciting.
They're not nearly as energized.
So.
And Stanford's in the process offinding a new athletic director,
so I hope everything works out.
But there can be some challenges there.
>> Bill Whalen (48:22):
Yeah. So, Jonathan,
you asked about where California fits inthe scheme of things in college sports.
I think that times have changed.
50 years ago, we would havetalked very romantically about
a Pac-8 conference becominga Pac-10 becoming a Pac-12.
And glorious football played inthe Los Angeles Coliseum and
UCLA owning the hardcourt andbasketball and so forth.
Just a lot of glamour associatedwith West Coast sports.
(48:45):
The heart and soul of College Sports day,
in my opinion at least lieswhere it's in the Sun Belt.
It's in the Southeast Conference,it's in the acc and
though not technically in the big.
In the Sun Belt, the Big Ten as well.
You just look at any poll of any majorsport, basketball, football, baseball,
if you will,it's these conferences that dominate.
And the west coast just.
Well, except the West Coast has a role.
It's schools like UCLA andUSC moving in the Big Ten or Stanford and
(49:08):
Cal moving into the ACC.
It's just not west coastoriented in that regard.
So kind of a shame in that regard because,you know, one thing I've learned about
living in California for this long, it'sjust a wonderful place to play sports.
I'm just.It's a delight to see friends of mine who
have young kids and how because of theclimate out here, they're exposed to so
many more sports that kids inother parts of the country aren't.
>> Lee Ohanian (49:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's a shame what happened to the Pac-12.
I think the presidents and chancellorsof those universities, you know,
they were faced with some fiscal issues.
SC and UCLA went off to Iguess it's about the Big 18,
relegating Stanford to the [LAUGH]Atlantic Coast Conference.
(49:52):
So it's just.
Yeah, fora lot of reasons I wish the PAC12 was.
Was still together.
In my opinion.
I think they had.
They chose two commissioners whoprobably weren't best suited for
the job back to back andthat wrecked the conference.
UCLA had a huge athletics deficit,so they were cash strapped.
(50:14):
And SC is spending an awfullot of money on football.
And it was what it was an equalshare within the PAC12.
So they weren't happy with that.
I would like to think that itdidn't have to happen all this way.
Maybe we can say that about a lot of,a lot of divorces,
(50:34):
but it certainly hasn't worked outwell for Stanford and I think in some
ways it hasn't worked out well for SC orUCLA when they're traveling back and
forth to the Midwest for basketball,particularly for basketball,
which has what, a 30,30 game season now for regular season.
So yeah, it's tough on the kids anyway.
(50:55):
Too bad,too bad we don't have the Pac 12 anymore.
But that's the dollars andcents of college athletics.
>> Bill Whalen (51:02):
So figures crossed, fingers crossed that Juju Watkins has
a speedy recovery andshe's back playing basketball soon.
Fingers crossed, Lee, that UCLA women'sbasketball gets its first title.
And the a chances of getting a title isgoing to rest on the shoulders in large
part of a woman named Lauren Betts,who is, by the way, a Stanford transfer.
The USA women's team without juju Watk,its chances rest on the shoulders of
(51:24):
a woman named Kiki Ifrin,who's by the way, a Stanford transfer.
Do you see a trend here?
And fingers crossed at Stanford kindof figures what to do next in terms of
football andits program because it's just, it's too,
too storied of a tradition and
just too great of a place to play sportsnot to be relevant in this day and age.
But boy, it's just, it's very painfulto be watching this up close and
(51:44):
just see how the schoolstruggles with this right now.
>> Lee Ohanian (51:47):
Yeah, there's, I mean, women's tournament is really interesting
now because you have SC withoutWatkins and they looked,
they played extremely well without herafter she went down with an injury.
You've got UCLA without a women's title.
So there's a lot of interest in that.
And then you have UConnwith Paige Bueckers,
a lot of people are pulling for that.
So, yeah, somany different storylines and you know,
(52:10):
if you're going to tear an ACL,better to do it in 2025 than back in 1985.
The technology has advanced so much,stem cells are now being used,
I think, to aid in ligament healing.
And if she does all the right things,I'm sure she'll have an excellent surgeon.
She'll come back, hopefully, to what herperformance was prior to the injury.
>> Bill Whalen (52:35):
And by the way, when this podcast is done and
I finish up some other Hoover related workI'm going to turn on my TV later today and
watch Stanford play Virginia and baseball.
Nothing says college sports tradition likeStanford mucking around Charlottesville,
Virginia.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (52:50):
Well, thank you gentlemen.
As always, this has beenan interesting hour's timely analysis.
See you in about a month.
>> Bill Whalen (52:55):
Okay guys, take care.
>> Lee Ohanian (52:57):
Sounds great, fellas.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (52:58):
You've been listening to Matters of Policy and
Politics, the Hoover Institutionpodcast devoted governance and
balance of power here in America andaround the free world.
Please don't forget to rate, review and
subscribe to this podcastwhere you might hear it.
And 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.
Our X handle is @hooverinst.
That's @hoover I-N-S-T.
Bill Whalen is on X,his handle is @BillWhalenCA.
(53:20):
And Lee Ohanian is also on X,his handle is @Lee_Ohanian.
Please visit the hoover website@hoover.organd sign up for the Hoover Daily Report,
where you can access the latestscholarship and analysis from our fellows.
Also check out California On Your Mind,where Bill Whalen and
Leo Ohanian write every week.
Again, this is Jonathan Movroydis sittingin Bill Whalen's chair this week.
He'll be back for another episodeof Matters of Policy and Politics.
Thank you for listening.
>> Presenter (53:41):
This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution,
where we generate andpromote ideas, advancing freedom.
For more information about our work,to hear more of our podcasts or
view our video content,please visit hoover.org.
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