And, These Are Your Questions

Summary

Podcast Summary: "And, These Are Your Questions" – This is Gavin Newsom

Release Date: August 7, 2025

In the episode titled "And, These Are Your Questions," Governor Gavin Newsom engages with pressing political issues, offering insights into redistricting strategies, democratic integrity, and recent political maneuvers by former President Donald Trump. The episode is structured around listener-submitted questions, fostering an open and honest dialogue on the state of American democracy.

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1. Redistricting and the 2026 Midterms

Timestamp: [03:04] – [08:11]

Question from Political Analyst: “You and New York Governor Kathy Hochul have been considering redistricting in your blue states in order to pick up seats in the 2026 midterms because of what's been happening in Texas. Have you spoken to Governor Hochul and is there a national plan for redistricting that the DNC has been a part of?”

Governor Gavin Newsom's Response: Newsom addresses the existential threat posed by former President Donald Trump's attempts to alter the electoral landscape. He emphasizes the need for strategic redistricting to counteract what he perceives as efforts to "rig the system."

“Donald Trump knows who will lose the election, and in de facto, his presidency ends in 18 months... If we want to allow that to happen, I guess California, New York, Kathy Hochul and other state governors can roll over and act taller than now...” [04:15]

He outlines California's proactive stance in redistricting, advocating for independent commissions as a national model to ensure fair representation and prevent partisan gerrymandering.

“In California, we choose to fight fire with fire. We choose to stand up. We choose to support the principles of our founding fathers...” [05:40]

Newsom also highlights plans to place redistricting maps directly on the ballot for transparency, aiming for implementation in the upcoming November elections.

“We're going to do it in a transparent way by putting the maps on the ballot so the voters will know what they're doing.” [07:10]

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2. The Tragic Story of Reggie "Sexy Sweat" Payne

Timestamp: [12:36] – [13:30]

Narrative Segment: Governor Newsom shares a poignant story about Reggie Payne, a former roommate and aspiring rapper, whose untimely death exposed systemic issues within city governance and law enforcement.

“In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died.” [12:59]

This segment underscores the importance of accountability and transparency in public institutions, urging listeners to seek truth and justice.

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3. Concerns Over Economic Policies and Democratic Integrity

Timestamp: [13:39] – [17:26]

Political Analyst's Question: “After last week's job report, President Trump said he thought the numbers were wrong. After that, Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. How concerned should we be that the president is firing people who report information he doesn't like? And shouldn't the business community be standing up against this?”

Governor Gavin Newsom's Response: Newsom expresses deep concern over Trump's actions, framing them as threats to democratic institutions and economic stability.

“Donald Trump's tariffs, taxes on American consumers is starting to be felt... Donald Trump is trying to rig the games, how elections are done mid census.” [14:30]

He warns that undermining the Bureau of Labor Statistics erodes trust in essential governmental functions, likening Trump's behavior to that of authoritarian regimes.

“That's what authoritarian regimes do. It's about truth and trust...” [16:05]

Newsom calls for collective action to preserve democratic architecture, emphasizing the critical role of independent institutions in maintaining societal trust and economic integrity.

“This is code red. This is another reason we all need to step up and share our voice.” [16:45]

He reiterates the importance of redistricting discussions as part of safeguarding democracy against manipulative political strategies.

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4. Closing Remarks and Call to Action

Timestamp: [17:26] – [19:47]

Governor Newsom wraps up the episode by reinforcing the themes of accountability, transparency, and active participation in the democratic process. He encourages listeners to stay informed and engaged, emphasizing that collective effort is essential in preserving the foundational principles of American governance.

“We're going to preserve and protect our democracy and all that is at stake in this country.” [17:50]

He invites listeners to reach out with further questions, fostering ongoing dialogue and community involvement.

---

Notable Quotes:

• “Donald Trump knows who will lose the election, and in de facto, his presidency ends in 18 months.” [04:15]

• “In California, we choose to fight fire with fire. We choose to stand up.” [05:40]

• “Donald Trump's tariffs, taxes on American consumers is starting to be felt.” [14:30]

• “That's what authoritarian regimes do. It's about truth and trust.” [16:05]

---

Conclusion

In "And, These Are Your Questions," Governor Gavin Newsom provides a candid and comprehensive analysis of current political challenges facing the United States. Through addressing listener questions, he outlines California's strategic responses to national threats, underscores the importance of maintaining democratic institutions, and calls for collective action to uphold the integrity of the nation's political framework. This episode serves as a crucial resource for understanding the complexities of redistricting, economic policies, and democratic resilience in today's political climate.

Transcript

[iHeart Podcast]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Az Fudd]

Hey, guys, it's Az Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. You may even know me as a people's princess. Every week on my new podcast, Fut around and find out, I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. Listen to Futaround and find out. A production of iHeart Women's Sports in partnership with Unanimous Media on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you your podcast.

[Bob Crawford]

I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, a different type of podcast. You, the listener, ask the questions.

[Sarah Spain]

Did George Washington really cut down a cherry tree?

[Gavin Newsom]

Were JFK and Marilyn Monroe having an affair?

[Bob Crawford]

And I find the answers. I'm so glad you asked me this question.

[Political Analyst]

This is such a ridiculous story.

[Bob Crawford]

You can listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noah de Barrasso]

I'm Noah, and I'm 13, and I started this podcast because, honestly, adults don't ask the right questions. Now, you know, with Noah de Barrasso is a show about influence. Who's got it, how they use it, and what it means for the rest of you. It's not the news. It's what the news should be if someone Gen Z or Gen Alpha made it. Politics is wild, and I'm definitely not here to tame it, but I'm here to make sense of it. Listen to now youw Know with Noah de Barrasso on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Sarah Spain]

Get fired up, y'.

[iHeart Podcast]

All.

[Sarah Spain]

Season 2 of Good Game with Sarah Spain is underway. We just welcomed one of my favorite people, an incomparable soccer icon Megan Rapinoe, to the show, and we had a blast. Take a listen. Sue and I were, like, riding the lime bikes the other day, and we're like, wee. People ride bikes because it's fun. We got more incredible guests like Megan in store, plus news of the day and more. So make sure you listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports Network.

[iHeart Podcast]

Summer's here, and with the kids home and off to camp, it's easy for moms to get lost in the shuffle on Good Mom's Bad Choices. We're making space to center ourselves with Joy, rest and pleasure. Take the kids to camp. You know what, it was expensive, but I was also thinking, you have my kid. This is kind of priceless. Take her, feed her, make core memories. I don't have to do anything. Main thing, I don't have to do anything. To hear this and more. Listen to Good Mom's Bad Choices from Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Gavin Newsom]

This is Gavin Newsom, and these are your questions.

[Political Analyst]

You and New York Governor Kathy Hochul have been considering redistricting in your blue states in order to pick up seats in the 2026 midterms because of what's been happening in Texas. Have you spoken to Governor Hochul and is there a national plan for redistricting that the DNC has been a part of?

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, I appreciate the question. It's, it is the existential question of our time. What do I mean by that? If Donald Trump, who wants to rig the system, he wants to change the game because he can't win the game by playing by the traditional rules, Period, Full stop. He made a phone call, just like he made a phone call in Georgia after he lost the election, after he tried to destroy our democracy. Light it on fire. After January 6th as he tried to steal the election and he asked for 12,000 votes from the secretary of state in Georgia. He is now asking governors like Greg Abbott who are complicit. He knew Greg Abbott would say, yes, sir, and what more can I do for you? Says I need five seats. In fact, he said on national TV this week, he said he's entitled to five seats because he won the election by such a large margin in Texas that they're now his seats. Make no bones about it. This is an existential moment as it relates to the core principles of our founding Fathers. They are trying to change the rules because they cannot win by the traditional rules and the traditional game. Donald Trump knows who will lose the election, and in de facto, his presidency ends in 18 months. Sure, it'll be fire and fury, and he'll be playing on truth Social, but we'll finally have a Speaker Jeffries. We will finally have a system that the founding Fathers designed of checks and balances and oversight, and he knows that it's over in less than 18 months. So if we want to allow that to happen, I guess California, New York, Kathy Hochul and other state governors can roll over and act taller than now and say, well, we really believe in independent redistricting. We're against, quote, unquote gerrymandering these districts, which is another fancy way of saying picking our voters as opposed to voters picking them by changing the maps of who can vote and where they can vote. And in California, we choose to do the opposite. We choose to fight fire with fire. We choose to stand up. We choose to support the principles of our founding fathers. We choose to support you, all of you, so you can have a voice and choice going forward. I'm not. Donald Trump is trying to deconstruct America. It's a serious moment. In all of the distractions, nothing is more important than this. He's trying to rig the games, how elections are done mid census. And so California is going to step up. They're talking about five seats in Texas. We will take those five seats. In California. We have an independent redistricting commission that should be a national model. I support a national model for independent redistricting. I'm not for gerrymandering in blue states any more than I am for red states. But this is a new moment in American history. The facts are new. He's rigging the game. So we have to fight fire with fire. And that's what we choose to do in California. And I hope other governors do the same. Blue state governors, they're going to export this as well. We just heard JD Vance is being sent by Donald Trump into Indiana to get them to rig the Indiana ballot. Same thing in Florida with DeSantis. But California, we punch above our weight. Remember, we're size of 21 state populations combined. So we could do the five seats and we could take other seats that are very competitive. They're a toss up. And through the gerrymandering process that is well established in these red states, we can make those easier districts for a Democratic Party. This should not be the model for the country, but it's the new reality. And so as a consequence, we have to act anew and we have to, as Lincoln said, disenthrall ourselves with the way things have been done in the past. And so we're asking the legislature. We'll require two thirds of our legislature to put this on the ballot. We're hoping it gets on the ballot on the November 4th election. We're going to do it in a transparent way by putting the maps on the ballot so the voters will know what they're doing. And we'll do it for a temporary period of time for the 26th, 28 and 30 ballots. Congressional ballots only will keep our independent redistricting commission and will revert back to our original form once this threat has passed, and will do so only if triggered by the actions. In Texas. They drew first blood. We will fight fire with fire. We will preserve and protect our democracy and all that is at stake in this country. And we're going to punch this bully right back in the mouth and we're going to save our democracy.

[SimpliSafe Representative]

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[Az Fudd]

Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most Outstanding player. You may even know me as the people's princess. But now you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, Fut around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the natty with my UConn Huskies, to just trying to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture basketball and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the Fudd family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on tv. You may think you know me, but this show is the only place where you can really FUD around and find out. Listen to FUD around and find out. A production of iHeart Women's Sports in partnership with Unanimous Media on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Bob Crawford]

American history is full of wise people.

[Gavin Newsom]

Walt Whitman said something like, you know.

[Sarah Spain]

99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is gory.

[Gavin Newsom]

Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and.

[Az Fudd]

They love to cut each other down.

[Bob Crawford]

I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

[Gavin Newsom]

And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said. It would have been harder to fake it than to do it.

[Bob Crawford]

Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mark Lombardo]

What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced.

[SimpliSafe Representative]

He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you.

[Mark Lombardo]

Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months.

[Gavin Newsom]

The first night was overwhelming and you don't know who's next to you and we didn't know what to expect. In the morning, nobody tells you anything.

[Mark Lombardo]

Listen to shock incarceration on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gavin Newsom]

The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Pearlman and this is Rick Jervis.

[Jeff Pearlman]

We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean. But the most unforgettable part, our roommate, Reggie Payne from Oakland, sports editor and.

[Gavin Newsom]

Aspiring rapper and his stage name, Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie.

[Jeff Pearlman]

We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died.

[Noah de Barrasso]

I'm like, thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving.

[Gavin Newsom]

No headlines, no outrage, just silence.

[Jeff Pearlman]

So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own.

[Gavin Newsom]

Listen to finding Sexy Sweat on the.

[Bob Crawford]

Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Political Analyst]

After last week's job report, President Trump said he thought the numbers were wrong. After that, Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. How concerned should we be that the president is firing people who report information he doesn't like? And shouldn't the business community be standing up against this?

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, the business community should certainly be standing up. But let's also put this in perspective. The economy is slowing down. The impact of Donald Trump's tariffs, taxes on American consumers is starting to be felt. We're not creating the jobs like we created during the Biden administration. It's Trump's policies that have slowed the growth. And as a consequence, now a lot of folks are concerned that not only is unemployment rising, but we're seeing price pressures once again, inflation starting to creep back up, and the word stagflation is coming back into the conversation. So that's number one. And as a consequence of that, Donald Trump now wants to kill the messenger, wants to fire the person that puts this information together with a team of people in a nonpartisan, apolitical way. And that should scare the hell out of everybody. That's what authoritarian regimes do. It's about truth and trust. The coin of the realm is trust. And the one institution that the world has long looked to for trust is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's foundational from a global perspective, not just from an American perspective. And it is completely consistent. And this is why it's so alarming that Donald Trump is going after what he refers to as the deep state, which are competent bureaucrats. Politicians come and go, but there are people that maintain, through competency and character, the distinction of being professionals that outlived administrations or outlive administrations. And what Donald Trump is doing is politicizing every single position. He's eliminated oversight by eliminating inspector generals. He's eliminating auditing functions so that there's no recourse for actions he takes. He's got immunity printed by the Supreme Court in terms of any actions he possibly could take. These are all, all signs of a deteriorating democracy. But this perhaps is the most alarming of all the actions so far by the Trump administration, because this is about, as Tom Freeman wrote today in the New York Times, the deconstruction of the American system. And he will put in a crony. He'll put in someone that by definition now, people can't trust. And that foundation of trust is all we have. So this is code red. This is another reason we all need to step up and share our voice. This is another reason we all need to stay focused and not get distracted by the latest truth social or tweet or whatever today's headline is and continue to focus on the essential nature of the architecture that holds up this system. That's why redistricting and all the conversations that are being had around Texas and what states like California can do to counter that are so important. And making sure that architecture of truth and trust is maintained. And we call out Donald Trump's tyrannical, well, forgive me, authority, authoritarian tendencies. If you want your questions answered, reach.

[Sarah Spain]

Us at thisisgavin [e-mail] or leave a voicemail at 855-6-newsome.

[Az Fudd]

Hey, guys, it's Az Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. You may even know me as a people's princess. Every week on my new podcast, futaround, and find out. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. Listen to FUT around and find out. A production of iHeart Women's Sports in partnership with Unanimous Media on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bob Crawford]

I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, a different type of podcast. You, the listener, ask the questions.

[Sarah Spain]

Did George Washington really cut down a cherry tree?

[Gavin Newsom]

Were JFK and Marilyn Monroe having an affair?

[Bob Crawford]

And I find the answers. I am so glad you asked me this question.

[Political Analyst]

This is such a ridiculous story.

[Bob Crawford]

You can listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sarah Spain]

Get fired up, y'.

[Gavin Newsom]

All.

[Sarah Spain]

Season 2 of Good Game with Sarah Spain is underway. We just welcomed one of my favorite people, an incomparable soccer icon Megan Rapinoe, to the show and we had a blast. Take a listen. Sue and I were, like riding the lime bikes the other day and we're like, wee people ride bikes because it's fun. We got more incredible guests like Megan in store, plus news of the day and more. So make sure you listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports Network.

[Noah de Barrasso]

I'm Noah and I'm 13, and I started this PODC because, honestly, adults don't ask the right questions. Now, you know what? Noah de Barrasso is a show about influence. Who's got it, how they use it, and what it means. For the rest of you, it's not the news, it's what the news should be if someone Gen Z or Gen Alpha made it. Politics is wild, and I'm definitely not here to tame it, but I'm here to make sense of it. Listen to now youw Know with Noah de arrasto on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[iHeart Podcast]

Summer's here, and with the kids home and off to camp, it's easy for moms to get lost in the shuffle on Good Mom's Bad Choices. We're making space to center ourselves with joy, rest, and pleasure. Take the kids to camp. You know what? It was expensive, but I was also thinking, you have my kid. This is kind of priceless. Take her, feed her. Make core memories. I don't have to do anything. Main thing, I don't have to do anything to hear this and more. Listen to Good Mom's Bad Choices from Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an iHeart podcast.