Gavin Newsom

Summary

Podcast Summary: All There Is with Anderson Cooper

Episode: Gavin Newsom
Date: March 9, 2026
Host: Anderson Cooper
Guest: Gavin Newsom (Governor of California)

Overview:

This emotionally raw episode centers on grief, loss, and the enduring impact of family secrets, as Anderson Cooper has a candid, deeply personal conversation with California Governor Gavin Newsom. The episode avoids politics, focusing solely on Newsom’s relationship with his parents, their deaths, and how their lives – and silences – have shaped him as a son, a father, and a person seeking healing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Childhood and Family Secrets

• Newsom’s Struggles with Communication and Identity
  • Newsom describes his childhood as “bifurcated,” marked by the absence and emotional distance of his father and his mother’s constant struggle to make ends meet after their divorce.
  • He learned about the reasons for his parents’ split and much about their lives only from family audio recordings after their deaths.
  • “It explains so much of why I have doubts, anxieties, fear, resentment, anger. And it's allowed me just to let it go and now to understand more deeply and, you know, and frankly, apologize for many of those emotions…” (Gavin Newsom, 01:03)
• Inherited Silence and Trauma
  • Anderson and Gavin bond over growing up in families that “did not talk about stuff.”
  • Newsom recounts hidden family traumas, including his grandfather’s alcoholism, abuse, and suicide, only learned after his mother’s death.
  • “She never told me that. I learned about that. I didn't know about my grandfather's suicide…” (Gavin Newsom, 03:42)

2. Dyslexia and the Pain of “Average”

• Both Newsom and Cooper share their experiences with dyslexia. Newsom describes extreme childhood insecurity.
  • “Felt like I was dumb and actually knew I was dumb…” (Gavin Newsom, 02:35)
• Newsom’s mother, in a moment of exhaustion, once told him, “It’s okay to be average, Gavin,”—words that wounded him deeply and became a chip on his shoulder for years.
  • “I'll tell you, if I look at my life, that may have been the most piercing thing. I resented her for years and years.” (Gavin Newsom, 03:04)
• Only through writing his memoir did Newsom come to reinterpret her remark with forgiveness.

3. The Mother’s Hidden World

• Newsom’s mother survived a “house of horrors,” marred by violence and silence, shaping her emotional world and ultimately her son’s.
  • “She had secrets. She had all these struggles. She never revealed them. I lacked the curiosity to really push her on it.” (Gavin Newsom, 03:23)
• She coped through tireless work and drinking as “medicinal,” never showing the full burden to her children.

4. Grieving Through Distraction—and the Voicemail (07:39)

• When his mother’s cancer returned, Newsom emotionally distanced himself, immersing in work and leaving emotional caretaking to his sister.
• His mother left him a voicemail:
  • “Hello, that's your mom. Next week, if you're interested, will be my last day of life, and if you want, you should stop by.” (Gavin Newsom, 06:56)
• Newsom reflects with regret on being so “fully absorbed by myself,” and the pain of realizing—through her final message—just how little he’d been present.

5. Assisted Death: The Final Goodbye (09:11)

• Newsom describes in detail being present for his mother’s physician-assisted suicide (then illegal in California).
  • He and his sister were the last with her: sorting through photos, sharing stories, giving medication, and holding hands at the end.
• “There was nothing. This is not. Nothing romantic about this. I mean, it was, like, violent. The breasts, you're like, Jesus, what am I doing here?...I just put my head on her stomach...just bawling...the things I couldn't...say 20 minutes before...” (Gavin Newsom, 10:47)
• He struggled for years with resentment about being asked to witness this, but has, through writing, come to see it as a blessing.
  • “I was holding her hand. I'm still holding her hand. Breath. That's my breath. It's the last breath. And I'm like, oh, God, what a gift. What a gift. Like, how blessed am I?...” (Gavin Newsom, 11:54)

6. Understanding Grief and Regret (13:31)

• On whether he feels grief:
  • “I feel loss. I feel regret. I feel inadequate. Just inadequate. I feel grace. Humility. I feel, I guess, human.” (Gavin Newsom, 13:36)
• On missing his mother:
  • Newsom recounts his son’s unscripted appearance during his inaugural address as governor, a moment that made him ache for his mother’s presence and pride.
  • “I swear to you, like, oh, where's my mom to see this? Because that is someone she would have been proud of. That moment. That's what she wanted. Me. I'm sorry, man. Jesus.” (Gavin Newsom, 14:21)

7. Parenthood and Breaking the Cycle (16:03)

• Newsom describes daily efforts to be emotionally open with his own children, conscious of his parents’ shortcomings.
  • “I try to say I love you every time I talk to them. And sometimes I fall short. And it's the greatest thing in the world because my dad can never do that.” (Gavin Newsom, 17:14)
• His fear—echoing his father’s emotional reserve—is to “break the cycle.”
• He recounts how his athletic success finally attracted his father’s attention as a child, and how he longed for (but never directly received) his father’s expression of love.

8. The Power and Pain of Unspoken Words

• Anderson and Gavin share how, lacking confidants as children, they developed rich internal worlds, retreating into imagination and performance.
• Newsom says his learning differences led to his capacity for empathy:
  • “One of the overcompensations is the gift. It's the superpower. And that is the ability to absorb and read the room. You recognize that pain in other people, and you're more sensitive to that, and you can absorb that...” (Gavin Newsom, 21:55)
• Despite family flaws, Newsom emphasizes the lasting gifts of empathy, grit, and idealism passed down from his parents.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's okay to be average, Gavin.” – Newsom’s mother, relayed by Newsom (03:04)
• “I was holding her hand. I’m still holding her hand...oh, God, what a gift.” – Newsom on his mother’s death (11:54)
• “I feel loss. I feel regret. I feel inadequate. Just inadequate. I feel grace. Humility. I feel, I guess, human.” – Newsom on grief (13:36)
• “I try to say I love you every time I talk to them. And sometimes I fall short. And it's the greatest thing in the world because my dad can never do that.” (17:14)
• “You recognize that pain in other people...that's what strength looks like. And I found that strength in my parents, and I did. For all their imperfections, for my imperfections, those are the gifts they gave me.” (Newsom, 21:55)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–02:15: Newsom’s family background and secrets
• 02:15–04:36: Dyslexia and the impact of “It’s okay to be average”
• 04:36–06:44: The trauma and silence in Newsom’s mother’s family
• 06:44–09:11: Newsom’s avoidance during his mother’s illness and the voicemail
• 09:11–11:44: The assisted death—detailed, emotional account
• 11:44–13:31: Processing resentment and gratitude after her passing
• 13:31–15:12: Grief, loss, and missing his mother at pivotal moments
• 16:03–19:36: Breaking cycles as a father and reflecting on his relationship with his dad
• 19:36–22:44: Newsom's internal world and the impact of learning differences

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Tone & Emotional Resonance

The episode is marked by deep candor and vulnerability. Anderson Cooper creates space for Newsom’s honest reflections, which are layered with pain, regret, yet ultimately gratitude for the complex family love that shaped him. Both men reveal their own wounds and the legacy of silence and emotional longing, making this conversation intimate, relatable, and hopeful for anyone struggling with grief or unhealed family histories.

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For more stories of loss and resilience, and to connect with others on their journeys, visit cnn.com/allthereis or tune in to Anderson’s live show.

Transcript

[Anderson Cooper]

Welcome to all there is, wherever you are in the world and in your grief, I'm glad you're here. My guest today is a politician, but we aren't talking politics. Gavin Newsom is the governor of California. In 2002, his mom, Tessa, left him a voicemail. Gavin, if you want to see me, she said, you should probably do so before Thursday because that's going to be my last day on Earth. She'd been battling breast cancer for four years and had decided to die by doctor assisted suicide, which was illegal in California. Newsom was by his mom's bedside when she died. He's written a book about his life called Young man in a A Memoir of Discovery. I spoke to him last week. You had a really interesting childhood and a really strange, bifurcated existence in a lot of different ways.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. Yeah. My father just took off, was sort of broken by two campaigns for local office.

[Anderson Cooper]

He ran for two offices back to back, lost, spent the money he had. Yeah, he said he had basically a nervous breakdown later. But the extent to which, like, your dad and your mom did not talk about stuff with you, Never.

[Gavin Newsom]

And I didn't even know why they got divorced. I never knew that story about my dad until I discovered some audio recordings that were done that my dad did near the end of his life with other family members. And I listened to them, and I'm like, this explains everything. Not only does it explain the thing they never talked about, mom and dad never talked about the reason they divorced, but also explain why my mom was so aggressively insistent that I not get into politics. And she never expressed why. She just constantly pushed me away from politics. And to understand then the origin story of their breakup and the fact that my mom had to become an adult very quickly with two young kids, she came from no wealth, no money, just hustled to make ends meet. My father was distant in every way, financially and otherwise. It explains so much of why I have doubts, anxieties, fear, resentment, anger. And it's allowed me just to let it go and now to understand more deeply and, you know, and frankly, apologize for many of those emotions and those aspersions that, frankly, I cast against them when I was growing up.

[Anderson Cooper]

There's a couple of parallels that I found really interesting. I grew up not talking about anything. I also had dyslexia. I'm not sure what my diagnosis was. I used to go see a doctor. It was spotted early, unlike with you. And I was told about it, unlike with you. But I don't think mine was as

[Gavin Newsom]

bad as you There's a kid in the back of the classroom, literally soaking hands. Still happens a lot. Sweaty under the armpits, heart pounding. Shy beyond words. And felt like I was dumb and actually knew I was dumb because I just wasn't smarter than anyone else. Spelling bees, the whole thing.

[Anderson Cooper]

There's a moment when your mom is trying to help you read, and struggling with it. Can't really do it. She closes the book and she says to you, it's okay to be average. Gavin.

[Gavin Newsom]

The worst words I've. I mean, I'll tell you, if I look at my life, that may have been the most piercing thing. I resented her for years and years.

[Anderson Cooper]

For that long.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. You don't want to say that to your kid. And I struggle with that. And I'm not. I. I kid you. Not only through the process of writing this book did I forgive her. Because now, as a parent myself, with four young kids struggling, and just like, I get the exhaustion and it's what she was saying, and I really believe she was saying, it's just, be yourself. You don't have to be someone else. It's okay. Let it go. And I didn't. And it was a chip on my shoulder, and I don't think it's there like it was before. And, you know, look, I don't want to overstay. I don't want to paint an overly negative picture, but she had secrets. She had all these struggles. She never revealed them. I lacked the curiosity to really push her on it. I didn't want to engage. When she was a kid, her father, my grandfather, was drunk, which was a daily occurrence, and had a gun and put the two girls, my mom and her twin, up against the mantle of the fireplace and said he was going to kill them, put a gun right to their head. Until my grandmother Jean, came in and calmly put him down. And then he passed out. She never told me that. I learned about that. I didn't know about my grandfather's suicide. I didn't know what shaped his drinking. I didn't know what shaped his suicide.

[Anderson Cooper]

He had been a prisoner of war, the Japanese, during World War II. He ended up shooting himself in his bed.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. And how that must have shaped my mom. And we never talked about that. The first few years of her life, she was so traumatized in that house. It was a house of horrors. They described it and later learned. And she didn't even talk for years. Quite literally didn't talk.

[Anderson Cooper]

And your mom and her identity had their own kind of language. Language.

[Gavin Newsom]

And it was sort of this gibberish. She would speak to Annie and Annie would be the one to sort of translate her to the real world. See all those things I wish I knew because then I would have known my mom and then I would have known myself better. She, like her father, like a lot of members of the family. I mean, she. The sadness for her was she would get home and open that jug of Safeway white wine.

[Anderson Cooper]

So she drank too.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. And it was. She wasn't. She drank, but in a different way. It was just. It was almost medicinal. It was just a zone out. And she'd wake up at 4:35 in the morning, seven days a week. Was at work. I mean, I mean she. When people talk about three jobs, three jobs are quite literally the jobs on the weekend. Not just.

[Anderson Cooper]

She worked as like a waitress one day at other jobs.

[Gavin Newsom]

Ramona's restaurant. Part time bookkeeper. She worked for Aid to Adoption of Special Kids. The Bolt family. Intellectual and physical disabilities.

[Anderson Cooper]

You wrote in the book. You said I was trying to solve the riddle of my identity, the question put there by my learning disability and the vastly different worlds that she and my father had presented to me as I grew up trying to grasp which of these worlds have either suited me best. She had worried about the Persona I was constructing to cover up what she considered a crack at my core. If my remaking was skim plaster, she feared it would crumble. It would not hold me into adulthood. What was the crack at your core?

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, I just. This young man in a hurry. I was just seeking something, validation, external affirmation. I was just hustling and I didn't take time to pause. I didn't take time to gauge, reflect on my mother advanced breast cancer that had gone into remission the first time. And it came back and I frankly took it for granted because I'm like, oh, she'll be okay.

[Anderson Cooper]

You wrote in the book, you said my way of dealing with her illness was to spend even more hours at work.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, that's what I was doing. I was grinding. Yeah. Of course I ran from it. I was just totally fully absorbed by myself. I'm running a few businesses. I'd open a wine store out of college, a restaurant was involved in some other businesses. It was on the county board of supervisors. And you know, I'm so blessed to have an amazing and rock star sister. And she absorbed the emotional side of all of it. And so I felt like, okay, that's being taken care of. My sister's got this. And so I'm just going to Try to take care of what I can take care of. Just go. Just grind. I was very distant from her, and she leaves me a voicemail and she says, hello, that's your mom. Next week, if you're interested, will be my last day of life, and if you want, you should stop by. And I remember calling my sister right away and said, what the hell is going on? She's like, what the hell's wrong with you? Why haven't you been paying attention? Mom's suffering and she's doing this assisted suicide.

[Anderson Cooper]

Your mom literally left you a voicemail saying, Thursday will be my last day on earth.

[Gavin Newsom]

I have it. I have it on a small little, you know, went back to Walgreens little tape recorder with the old tapes. And I kept it. And I don't know why I kept it. I mean, it was such a sad and pathetic thing that she felt she needed to do that to leave me a voicemail because otherwise I wasn't gonna return a call or wasn't around and sort of the finality of it. And again, you talk about psychology and pattern. That was, you know, that was her just scratching the record player. Get out of your routine, man. Pay attention to me. Wake up. Grow up. So it was. That was kind of the plaster. I put a mask on and my face was growing into it. I was becoming someone that I'm not, someone I didn't necessarily like, someone that was unworthy of being her son. And I started to spend a little more time with her and I didn't realize the pain she was in, just the physical, excruciating pain she was in. And, you know, try to boil a hard boiled egg, she couldn't e. And it was just canker sores in her throat and the cancer treatments and the body had significantly deteriorated. And so it made me deeply understand. And, boy, I'll tell you, deeply revere the doctor who was willing to do this. It was illegal at the time. That last few hours, friends and family came over in her apartment. Everyone. I came a little late. They had all said their goodbyes. She's in her bedroom preparing for the assisted suicide. And the last two she wanted to be with were my sister and I.

[Anderson Cooper]

When you came in, she had a photo of you and your sister on her chest. And she said, my works of art.

[Gavin Newsom]

Works of art, yeah. And so you're there. It's emotional. You don't know what you're. I'd never experienced anything like this. And two of us were in there looking through old photographs, sort of 1970s old pictures. And she was describing the moment and talking about her relationship to that moment. And she had. I remember there's a bottle of pills. And my only job was the doctor said, would you have her take these 20 minutes before whatever time the doctor was coming? And so that was my job. And I just remember. And I remember saying, mom, you need to take these two pills, which was gonna prepare for the actual cocktail. And in the process of those 20 or 30 minutes we're talking, you could tell she was just sort of getting looser and more relaxed, and my sister was getting more anxious more. And she's holding. We're holding both our hands on both sides of the bed as she's looking through and the two of us trying to show her pictures and the stories. Doctor comes in, and my sister just. You know, then it's real. And he does what he does. And she's crying. I'm crying.

[Anderson Cooper]

So the doctor administered the. Whatever the cocktail was, the cocktail.

[Gavin Newsom]

And he beautifully. What a. Like an angel. I mean, he. An angel. He passed away years ago. I never got a chance to thank him as well. I risked everything. Talk about, you know, put his license on the line and just so calmly and, you know, said goodbye. And when he left, my sister really started to break down. And she looked at me and I said, you can go. I remember you can go. And she said, thank you, and just left. And I was there. And just for those last minutes and those breasts, there was nothing. This is not. Nothing romantic about this. I mean, it was, like, violent. The breasts, you're like, jesus, what am I doing here? And holding her hand, and then. And then this stillness, but stiffness. And I just put my head on her stomach that had distended and just bawling, saying to her, muttering to her for 20 minutes, the things I couldn't. I didn't have the guts to say 20 minutes before feeling like, you know, it was like the talk about the mask, like, grow up, man. It was just that moment. And, you know, I had a resentment for years about that, too.

[Anderson Cooper]

Resentment that she asked you to be there.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. I just, again, through the lens of this sort of shitty son that was about me, but it wasn't about me. Right. But I was like, who does this? Who. Who would, like, invite someone in to see this, the experience? Like, I saw the trauma of my sister. I'm like, she's not. We've struggled with this. Like, should we have done this together? But I kid you not. Once again, this. I mean, this is why everyone should journal and write I didn't know. I have never done anything like this. In the process of writing this, I also back to. It's okay to be average. I like, wait a second. I was holding her hand. I'm still holding her hand. Breath. That's my breath. It's the last breath. And I'm like, oh, God, what a gift. What a gift. Like, how blessed am I. Thank you. But she's not around for me to say it. And so, you know, what I have to do is have to be a better husband and father to my own kids and make up for all that. But that was hard.

[Anderson Cooper]

You view it as a gift now?

[Gavin Newsom]

Oh, I do. I didn't. I really feel the breath. I feel there's this thing, just this notion of this letting go. It's powerful. I didn't. I've never had the feeling of understanding that of a breath. I feel for 57 years, like just all wound up and just accepting. Just accepting things I can't control. Just accepting them. Things I can. Taking account and responsibility to be better and more.

[Anderson Cooper]

More of my conversation with California Governor Gavin Newsom in just a moment. Welcome back to my conversation with Governor Gavin Newsom. Do you feel grief?

[Gavin Newsom]

I feel.

[Anderson Cooper]

Because not everyone does or it has different meanings for different people.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, it's really. It's such a basic question, isn't it? It's interesting just as you, as you pose it. I feel loss. I feel regret. I feel inadequate. Just inadequate. I feel grace. Humility. I feel, I guess, human.

[Anderson Cooper]

Do you miss her?

[Gavin Newsom]

Oh, God. Jesus. I mean, I mean, Anderson, in the book I talk about the one speech that I have to read and periodically we'll do a teleprompter. Thing was with my inaugural speech when I got elected governor and my little two year old, or three, whatever he was at the time, Dutch with his pacifier, you know, right out of central casting, kid. All of us had those moments with our kids and ran up on stage as I'm speaking and I'm terrified to look off the teleprompter because I'm just. There's no way I'll get back on the, on the script. And everyone's staring at the kid running on the stage. My wife tried to grab him and he's running away and he eventually just lands on my leg. And I'm in the middle of the speech and I'm just staring there and I just instinctually lifted him up and he puts his photos there, just puts his head right in my. You know, just like. And he starts falling asleep. And I'm reading the speech and I'm like, and I swear to you, like, oh, where's my mom to see this? Because that is someone she would have been proud of. That moment. That's what she wanted. Me. I'm sorry, man. Jesus.

[Anderson Cooper]

Let's take a look at that moment, actually.

[Gavin Newsom]

Oh, gosh. Now more than ever, we Californians know how much a house matters and children

[Robert Irwin]

matter.

[Gavin Newsom]

No. Because so many of our neighbors have lost theirs. We will support parents. They need support, trust me, I. So that they can give their kids the love and care that they need. My biggest fear, my wife's biggest fear was, you know, what kind of dad are you going to be? You gonna be your father or you gonna be. She didn't know.

[Anderson Cooper]

Well, that was actually a question of mine. How do you break that cycle?

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, I think it just happens. It's like you're struck by lightning. And I didn't, you know, I was, I remember just the birth of my oldest who just turned 16, which is incredible. And it felt like lightning when she was swaddled and I was like, like, oh, oh, thank God. Like, I'll tell you the, the coolest thing for me, like, actually, and if you have a 14 year old boy, you can appreciate this. Like, he leaves and I'm gonna embarrass him now, but when he leaves, I love you. Love you. 14. And I'm like, man, that's called at winning. Like, I'm like, that's. And that's the same boy that texted me saying, dad, did I hear you might run for president? He goes, you can't do that. We're still too young and we need you around. Life.

[Anderson Cooper]

I now I have a four year old and almost six year old and I'm trying to do all the things which don't come naturally, which is to talk about myself to them and show, you know, my own sadness or my own joy or whatever it is.

[Gavin Newsom]

I try to say I love you every time I talk to them. And sometimes I fall short. And it's the greatest thing in the world because my dad can never do that.

[Anderson Cooper]

Your dad, even on his deathbed, a home attendant said to him, tell your son you love him. And he didn't.

[Gavin Newsom]

It was right after I got elected, it was the night of my election, after you may have announced, literally, Anderson, you may have announced the results of the California governor's race. I'm sitting there with my father, he's in his wheelchair and it's a miracle he lived to see it.

[Anderson Cooper]

He was keeping himself Alive to see you elected for literally. He was hugely proud.

[Gavin Newsom]

It was everything. And that's.

[Anderson Cooper]

And it was everything he wanted to

[Gavin Newsom]

be, everything he wanted to be. And this was like, I mean, come on. California governor, mayor was extraordinary to him, but Governor, this is ridiculous. And then she says, you must be so proud, Bill. And everyone's egging him on, and he does this Gleason thing. Oh, you know, the old Irish thing. He's just joy to, you know, some thing a little. Or quotes Yates or something. When in doubt, he always quoted Yates. And I couldn't say it, but I never doubted he did. Never doubted he did because he told all his friends, and they always told me, they said, I was with your father last night. He's so proud of you. Watched this. I'm like, come on, man, tell me. So I never felt that distance in that respect, but I also never felt that direct connection.

[Anderson Cooper]

I listened to a podcast you did with David Axelrod a long time ago. You were saying that your dad, as you grew more athletic, your dad gravitated more toward you than he had previously.

[Gavin Newsom]

No. Now I'm interested. Right?

[Anderson Cooper]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

I'm sorry to say it like that. I was all of a sudden interesting. Yeah. But all of a sudden I was the captain of my basketball team, and all of a sudden we're in the playoffs. All of a sudden I'm leading scorer on the team. And all of a sudden I'm hitting.400 baseball and getting some college recruits. And all of a sudden, now his showing up with his friends because their friends are like, hey, Bill, congrats. But it was wonderful because I had a.

[Anderson Cooper]

He was bringing friends to see.

[Gavin Newsom]

And look up there. I'm like, oh, my God, Dad's there. And you just. You're performing for him, man. You're diving now. You're not just going the ball, you're diving for the ball. And you're dying at the end of the day for the thing that you really were longing for. And that is going to take you to dinner and you're going to have dinner with dad.

[Anderson Cooper]

He would have dinner with you, but he would bring.

[Gavin Newsom]

It was friends never one on one. I don't think I've ever had one on one dinner with my dad.

[Anderson Cooper]

He couldn't be alone with you.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Anderson Cooper]

He never really opened up to you. He was charming and could tell a great story, but if you were looking for truths of who he was or his past or you weren't going to

[Gavin Newsom]

get that, you weren't going to get it. And he came from A very strict household, old Irish Catholic family, and very religious. And so certain things were just not discussed at all. And he certainly passed that down. But, boy, was he a great storyteller. What a wonderful friend and what an extraordinary father he became. And he's my sense of idealism. He's the spirit. He's the pride I have in public service. And you combine that with my mom's grit and hard work and dedication, this blend. But, yeah, he became such an extraordinary example to me. But again, he didn't raise us.

[Anderson Cooper]

Did you have anybody who you confided

[Gavin Newsom]

in when you were a kid?

[Anderson Cooper]

You couldn't really talk to your dad, Couldn't really talk to your mom?

[Gavin Newsom]

No.

[Anderson Cooper]

I mean, I developed a very strong internal conversation in my head and a very voice in my head, which may be a psychopath, I'm not sure, but is an unreliable narrator at best. And. But, yeah, I didn't really have anybody I ever talked to.

[Gavin Newsom]

No, I was. I did the same thing on the basketball court in the backyard for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours playing baseball, just throwing the ball against the hard wall. And then, you know, throwing the ball in the air. And it's the bottom of the ninth and I'm on center field. Just those narratives that would shape and then candidly try and be like Remington Steele and Pierce Brosnan and literally furrowed bow that which I wish I would get rid of now that I think I started creating when I was in high school. And literally just looking around and trying to see who I could become, who can I absorb?

[Anderson Cooper]

And Pierce Brosnan, that was the. Remington Steele was the model.

[Gavin Newsom]

Come on.

[Anderson Cooper]

See, for me, it was T.E. lawrence or Colonel Kurtz.

[Gavin Newsom]

So sorry.

[Anderson Cooper]

Yours is better.

[Gavin Newsom]

Sorry. Much better.

[Anderson Cooper]

Much better.

[Gavin Newsom]

Mine's been more enduring as well.

[Anderson Cooper]

Mine were like psychopaths.

[Gavin Newsom]

But I think, and you may have discovered this with your learning differences, you tend to overcompensate in other ways. And one of the overcompensations is the gift. It's the superpower. And that is the ability to absorb and read the room. You recognize that pain in other people, and you're more sensitive to that, and you can absorb that. And I just. Look, I think that's. At the end of the day, that's a hell of a lot healthier than those that have no shame, no empathy, or those that assert that empathy is somehow destroying Western civilization, as one infamous individual has done. It's not about aggression. It's about empathy, caring and collaboration. And that's what strength looks like. And you know, I found that strength in my parents, and I did. For all their imperfections, for my imperfections, those are the gifts they gave me.

[Anderson Cooper]

Gavin Newsom, thank you so much.

[Gavin Newsom]

It's great to be with you.

[Anderson Cooper]

Gavin Newsom's book, Young man in a A Memoir of Discovery, is out now. This week, we're bringing you an extra podcast. Episod this Thursday. You can hear my conversation with Robert Irwin. His dad, Steve Irwin, who was a conservationist and TV star best known as the Crocodile Hunter, was killed when Robert was just two years old. Steve was shooting a documentary underwater when he was killed by a stingray. Robert Irwin has followed in his dad's footsteps as a conservationist. You may also know him from Dancing with the Stars.

[Robert Irwin]

I'm a very sentimental person, and my dad was like, he's kind of like Indiana Jones, right? When you walked into his office, it was like a museum. I mean, he's got, like, Masai spears on the wall, and he's got, like, swords from blood.

[Anderson Cooper]

Like, he. Like, he's exactly what you would imagine his office to be.

[Robert Irwin]

Literally, his office was like Indiana Jones. And I remember I would often, you know, just walk in, and everything was left pristine. Exactly the same, right? Nothing was touched. And sometimes I would just walk in, and I felt like I was in, like, I don't know, like, sacred ground. Don't touch anything. Don't breathe on anything. And I would kind of just look just. Just on my own to just sort of get, I don't know, feel him again. And then one day I went, you know what? I don't think he's gonna mind. So I started taking stuff. I went in, and there's all of his shirts on a rack. He used to wear all his khaki shirts. I looked at that, and I went, I wonder if that fits me. So I popped it in the wash, I put it on. I'm like, yep, that fits. And I'm like, great. I'm gonna start wearing his shirts. He had a watch on the. On the table that was sitting there, always told the same time. And I went, I'm gonna get that thing working again. And got it working and started wearing it. And now it's like this really powerful thing. It's like almost like it was. That was like this stepping off point to be like, he's this almost, like, untouchable part of my life that is, like, held stale in time. But then I kind of went, no, no, no, no. I can embrace that. I can bring that into my world. So that was kind of really?

[Anderson Cooper]

That was really awesome.

[Robert Irwin]

It was.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Robert Irwin]

And then I. Do you know what I'm, you know what I mean?

[Anderson Cooper]

Yeah. And it also gives new life to these, these things which become, you know, draped in memory and maybe sadness and, you know, are frozen in time, as you say. And it brings them alive again.

[Robert Irwin]

Brings them alive again.

[Anderson Cooper]

Brings them alive in a way. It's a great conversation. And it'll be available Thursday, March 5th at 9pm Eastern. You can watch it on CNN.com Alltheris, YouTube, Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Then next week on Thursday, March 12, join me at 9:15pm Eastern for my live streaming show, all there is live. If you haven't seen it, you can catch an old episode on CNN.com alltherisrightnow. And if you missed the live stream, it'll be posted the following day on that website for a week. Thanks so much for listening. Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, you're not alone.

[Gavin Newsom]

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, is the AI market a bubble waiting to burst? And if so, how should we all as individuals be thinking about our personal investments and retirement accounts? To help me answer those questions, I have Ross Mayfield here with me. He's an investment strategist for Bayard Private Wealth Management where he helps clients make informed investment decisions.

[Anderson Cooper]

The dot com bubble of the late

[Robert Irwin]

90s is the go to example, particularly

[Anderson Cooper]

for today because it's a brand new technology. This also resembles pretty closely the mid-1800s railroad bubble, which this is my favorite bubble.

[Robert Irwin]

Yeah, it's great, right?

[Anderson Cooper]

Because railroads are such an old school

[Gavin Newsom]

technology, but in the 1800s they were

[Anderson Cooper]

the AI of their time. It was this game changing technology.

[Gavin Newsom]

Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever you get your podcasts.