And, This is Ezra Klein

Summary

Podcast Summary: "This is Gavin Newsom" Episode: And, This is Ezra Klein
Release Date: March 26, 2025
Host: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In the episode titled "And, This is Ezra Klein," host Gavin Newsom engages in a profound dialogue with journalist Ezra Klein about Klein's newly co-authored book, "Abundance." The conversation delves deep into the intricacies of democratic governance in the United States, with a particular focus on California's political landscape. Both Newsom and Klein explore the challenges and opportunities that lie within liberal governance, emphasizing the need for effective policy implementation and visionary leadership.

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Key Discussions and Insights

**1. Ezra Klein's Book: "Abundance"

Ezra Klein introduces his book, "Abundance," co-authored with Derek Thompson, which critically examines the state of democratic governance in the U.S., especially in California. The book emphasizes the contrast between the potential for abundance through progressive policies and the systemic obstacles that hinder their realization.

Ezra Klein [05:31]: "There's something liberalism is good at and knows how to look for, which is where can we subsidize something that people need? But there's something liberalism is bad at because it doesn't know how to look for it, which is how do we create more?"

**2. Housing Crisis in California

A significant portion of the discussion centers around California's housing crisis. Klein and Newsom dissect the supply-demand imbalance, attributing the scarcity of affordable housing to stringent regulatory frameworks and NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard sentiment).

Gavin Newsom [11:38]: "This supply-demand imbalance is next level in the state of California. We're simply not building enough housing."

**3. Regulatory Barriers: SB9 and CEQA

The conversation highlights specific legislative measures like SB9 and CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) that have unintentionally exacerbated the housing shortage by imposing extensive regulations, thereby slowing down construction processes.

Gavin Newsom [13:29]: "No, look, there's a lot of other bureaucratic malaise and other issues... but fundamentally it's the NIMBYism that drags it."

**4. High-Speed Rail: A Case Study

High-speed rail emerges as a pivotal example of liberal governance's struggles. The project has faced immense delays and budget overruns, symbolizing the broader challenges of executing large-scale infrastructure projects under stringent regulatory oversight.

Taylor Gray [27:41]: "High speed rails undermined the public's faith in what can get done. It undermines the next high speed rail."

**5. Balancing Process and Outcomes

Klein critiques the liberal focus on procedural correctness over tangible outcomes, arguing that excessive emphasis on process can stifle innovation and hinder timely policy implementation.

Taylor Gray [49:31]: "The public's faith in what can get done is undermined by excessive process focus."

**6. Vision and Technological Integration

Both speakers underscore the importance of a clear, forward-looking vision in governance. They advocate for integrating technology and innovation into policy-making to drive societal progress and address contemporary challenges effectively.

Gavin Newsom [87:53]: "It's a framework of optimism...embracing innovation is foundational."

**7. Political Accountability and Speed of Governance

Klein emphasizes that the slow pace of government action erodes public trust and political accountability. He suggests that liberals need to adopt a more dynamic approach to governance, prioritizing speed without compromising on essential values.

Taylor Gray [50:22]: "Democrats need to begin to think about speed as a thing. We are actually tracking and pursuing government."

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Conclusions

The episode culminates with a mutual acknowledgment of the need for reform within liberal governance structures. Both Newsom and Klein agree that while progress has been made in areas like clean energy and technological innovation, significant challenges remain in policy execution and infrastructure development. The dialogue calls for a recommitment to visionary leadership, streamlined regulatory processes, and an unwavering focus on outcomes to realize the full potential of progressive policies.

Gavin Newsom [91:24]: "We're trying to find that balance. We're iterating. But this notion of relentlessness is very resonant."

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Notable Quotes

1. Ezra Klein [05:31]:
   "There's something liberalism is good at and knows how to look for, which is where can we subsidize something that people need? But there's something liberalism is bad at because it doesn't know how to look for it, which is how do we create more?"

2. Gavin Newsom [11:38]:
   "This supply-demand imbalance is next level in the state of California. We're simply not building enough housing."

3. Taylor Gray [27:41]:
   "High speed rails undermined the public's faith in what can get done. It undermines the next high speed rail."

4. Taylor Gray [49:31]:
   "The public's faith in what can get done is undermined by excessive process focus."

5. Taylor Gray [50:22]:
   "Democrats need to begin to think about speed as a thing. We are actually tracking and pursuing government."

6. Gavin Newsom [87:53]:
   "It's a framework of optimism...embracing innovation is foundational."

7. Gavin Newsom [91:24]:
   "We're trying to find that balance. We're iterating. But this notion of relentlessness is very resonant."

---

Conclusion

This episode of "This is Gavin Newsom" offers a compelling examination of the current state of liberal governance in the United States through the lens of Ezra Klein's "Abundance." The in-depth conversation highlights the critical need for balancing regulatory prudence with decisive action to address pressing societal issues like the housing crisis and infrastructure development. Both hosts advocate for an optimistic, outcome-oriented approach to governance that leverages innovation and technological advancements to foster a more prosperous and equitable society.

Transcript

[Vanessa Marshall]

Welcome to Pod of Rebellion, our new Star Wars Rebels Rewatch podcast. I'm Vanessa Marshall, voice of Harrison Duelist Specter 2. I'm Tia Sirkar. Sabine Wren, Spectre 5.

[Taylor Gray]

I'm Taylor Gray Ezra Bridger, Specter 6.

[Jon Lee Brody]

And I'm Jonlee Brody, the Ghost Crew Stowaway moderator.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Each week we're gonna rewatch and discuss an episode from the series and share some fun behind the scenes stories.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Sometimes we'll be visited by special guests like Steve bloom voices Zaborelio's Spectre 4, or Dante Bosco voices Jai Kell and many others.

[Vanessa Marshall]

So hang on because it's gonna be a fun ride.

[Taylor Gray]

Cue the music.

[Jon Lee Brody]

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

[Jamie Petras]

45 years ago, a Virginia soul band called the Edge of Daybreak recorded their debut album Behind Bars. Record collectors consider it a masterpiece. The band's surviving members are long out of prison, but they say they have some unfinished business.

[Gavin Newsom]

The Edge of Daybreak in Love was supposed to have been followed up by another app.

[Jamie Petras]

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

[Dan Roth]

Ever wonder what it would be like to be mentored by today's top business leaders? My podcast this is Working can help with that. Here's Advice from Google CMO Lorraine2Hill on how to treat AI like a partner.

[Taylor Gray]

I see AI as incredible copilot. You may use different tools or toys to get the work done, but AI.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Is just the latest flavor of that.

[Taylor Gray]

You're still the judge of what good looks like.

[Dan Roth]

I'm Dan Roth, LinkedIn's editor in chief on my podcast this is Working Leaders Share Strategies for Success. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Taylor Gray]

Hey sis, it's Dr. Joy from Therapy for Black Girls. We've had 400 episodes of Conversations, Growth and Healing, so we are celebrating. Join us for a special episode with internationally recognized yogi Chelsea Jackson Roberts as she shares wisdom on mindfulness, movement and motherhood. I waited later to have children and I still have exactly what I knew that I wanted. You don't want to miss this special episode. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gavin Newsom]

Hey, what's up y'all?

[Taylor Gray]

This is Eric Andre. I made a podcast called Bombing about absolutely tanking on stage. I tell gnarly stories and I two friends about their worst moments of bombing in all sorts of ways bombing on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life. Like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she jumped on stage and threw a big haymaker punch to my nose. Listen to Bombing with Eric Andre on.

[Gavin Newsom]

Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network, on.

[Jamie Petras]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

[Taylor Gray]

You get your podcasts.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, coming up next, I have Ezra Klein here in studio talking about his new book that he co authored with Derek Thompson called Abundance. In this book, Ezra does not hold back on taking a very critical look at democratic governance all across the United States of America, in particular in my home state of California. This is Gavin Newsom and this is Ezra Klein. Ezra, it is great to have you here in studio.

[Taylor Gray]

Thanks for having me here for this weird inversion.

[Gavin Newsom]

Weird inversion. And you've been, I mean, you've been all over the place. You got a new book, Abundance, and we'll jump right into that. But I want to just frame a little bit of the relationship that we have that goes back. And you may not even remember this. I was a new mayor in San Francisco and was asked by Bill Maher to go on his show.

[Taylor Gray]

I remember this.

[Gavin Newsom]

And you were one of the panelists. And I'll never forget just sparring with Bill, obviously. And then you. And after the show was done and we were all finishing, you had left, Maher goes up to me and he goes, who the hell was that? And I'm like, I know. Who the hell was that? And it was you that. We were like, whoa. Just both of us didn't have a, you know, I was, I was relatively new. Bill's been seasoned.

[Taylor Gray]

You were lieutenant governor then. I don't think you maybe was lieutenant guy, wasn't he?

[Gavin Newsom]

You know, was I still was I Lieutenant? I'm pretty sure you were lieutenant governor, so. But I was like. Anyway, I'd been on the show a bunch of times. But you were. You had a next level capacity to analyze things and to deliver a point of view. And so it's not surprising to me that so much of that, including that conversation we probably had on that studio and said is reflected in what you've been focused on.

[Taylor Gray]

Funny. I think about your book from that era, Republic 2.0, it was called.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right. Yeah. Citizenville.

[Taylor Gray]

Citizenville.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. How to take the town square digital.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

And reinvent government. How about that?

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah. It's something we should thread into this conversation. I think people have forgotten, forgotten that era of Gavin Newsom.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. Well, I think in so many reflects in aspects I was reading this book and you're reflected in this. I mean, this has been my struggle as a former mayor. You, you, you chronicle San Francisco, California disproportionately. But this book is fundamentally about the future and you framing the future in abundance terms. But it's also a real shot against liberalism in many respects, against the world we created now, competing against us in terms of process and courts and laws and rulemaking and all of that that's created so much of this cost of living dynamic. So tell us, what was the inspiration of the book? Tell us a little bit about what abundance is about.

[Taylor Gray]

I mean, the reason the book is so rooted in California is that I am. I mean, so this book is co authored with Derek Thompson from the Atlantic. And so we both have our own things we bring to it. But I grew up in Irvine. As you know, I went to the UC system, then I went to D.C. for 12 or 13, 14 years. And I spent a bunch of time in D.C. covering a political system where the problem was Republicans were bad. Oftentimes the things that I wanted to see happen were not happening there because they were being blocked by the Republican Party. And then in 2018, I moved back here. I moved back to Oakland and then to San Francisco and I looked around and it just wasn't doing well. People were unhappy, people were leaving. I mean, you know this. You're a retail politician. Like, you can sense people's anger when they find out you have anything to do with politics, they tell you real quick. And we could see the housing crisis had metastasized into something that was genuinely now a crisis. Not just homes are expensive. California high speed rail has always lit me on fire. We'll get to that. Yeah, we'll get to that. And when I began to. And I was thinking about clean energy, where your. I mean, the goals that you have set for clean energy in this state are remarkable. And in order to achieve them here or nationally, because the Inflation Reduction act is passing around this time too, that I was thinking about a lot of this. We have to build faster than we have ever built, and the laws don't really permit that. And so the thing that I began thinking a lot about was that there is something liberalism is good at and knows how to look for, which is where can we subsidize something that people need? But there's something liberalism is bad at because it doesn't know how to look for it, which is how do we create more? How do we make it possible to build more of things people need and not Only are we not good at pursuing that. We don't even realize how often we are getting in the way of it, how often we are the problem. There is, I think, something bracing as a liberal about asking this question of why in the places where people who agree with me govern, you and I, I don't think, have that different politics. Aren't the outcomes what I want to see. Why can't I go say to the Texans or the Floridians. No, no, no, no. We, you just have to do our policies from California.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Taylor Gray]

And that's the thing I'm grappling with here.

[Gavin Newsom]

No, and I appreciate that and we'll get to that question because I think it's a fundamental question and it's interesting what you sort of define from that prism. That's important because what people are actually looking for isn't necessarily what you are identifying specifically I would challenge as the problem. That said, what you're. What you identify as a problem, I completely agree with. I was going back to my speech, my first speech as governor of the state of California. It might have. Well, it's quoted in here, these pages.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

Literally said, if you can build a sports stadium with these new rules and fast track a judicial process and what we refer to. And we'll get to ceqa, our California rules that go back to quite literally Ronald Reagan in 1970. And as it relates to environmental review, it should work for homelessness, it should work for housing. And I announced that day an effort to sue up to 47 cities. We started with one. Huntington Beach, California. Doesn't make you popular as governor to announce a lawsuit against Y city because they weren't meeting their zoning requirements under our housing element. So much of that again reflected in this friction and your own reflected frustration and lived experience in the state of California. But my point is this. As a practitioner, it's a very different reality. But what you identify, I completely embrace these labyrinths of rules, federal rules, state rules. Absolutely. Localism though, and I want to talk about that. Localism is determinative and you pick on understandably San Francisco. But you can look at almost any city, including a Republican held city like Huntington beach, and these same rules and restrictions apply there and the same frustrations. So from the prism of left versus right, you take the shot against liberals. But can't we argue that there is sort of equality of consideration, nimbyism that persists in rural and red parts of.

[Taylor Gray]

The country as well? Let me flip this because to shadowbox around the fact that you know more about California governance than I ever will in a thousand years of doing this would be ridiculous. Why is it easier to build homes in Texas and California?

[Gavin Newsom]

They have. Well, you established that in the book. In Houston, you make the point. I think it was 70,000 permits in 2023, just 7,500 in a much smaller city, San Francisco. But understandable.

[Taylor Gray]

Contrast a city with more demand.

[Gavin Newsom]

More demand. And it's simply because they have no zoning. They have land use considerations.

[Taylor Gray]

But Austin has zoning.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, but not Houston. In the context of that frame, the.

[Taylor Gray]

Thing I'm getting at here, which I really would like, your. The thing you just said, right. About localism. It's so important and like, this is so much the conversation I'd love for us to have here, because the texture that you have been grappling with of why do things that you want to have happen not happen is I think, a really interesting thing to add to it. But when you're saying, well, is this really a problem for liberals, it's easier to build in Texas and Florida than not just in California, but in California or New York. The cost of living crisis is worse in blue states. And a little bit of that is blue states are a place a lot of people want to live. But you should be able to.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

In places where governed governing for the working class, in theory.

[Gavin Newsom]

And your point is a point just to level it. People listening. I completely agree. This notion of the supply demand imbalance, I mean, you're making an Econ 101 argument and that supply demand imbalance is next level in the state of California. We're simply not building enough housing. And that goes to. I mean, and you correctly identify NIMBYism and people, you know, incumbent protection rackets, so to speak. Not just from a corporate perspective, but someone who's very satisfied with their backyard and their views and their home and their community. They don't want density, they don't want other people moving in. They don't want any infrastructure built around it as it relates to transportation. They're very satisfied with what they have. And I think. And they abuse in some respects a lot of these rules that have been around decades and decades to advance that aim.

[Taylor Gray]

So you identified all this, I think, pretty well as a problem for the state and for you. So when you gave a state of the state a couple years back, I'm genuinely forgetting the number, what was the housing goal you set?

[Gavin Newsom]

We said, well, we had an audacious goal. That was a study of studies that identified what the state would need in order to address the supply demand imbalance. But we made the point we were going through a legally binding process, what we refer to as our arena goals. And we've established that here is the legally binding goal, 2.5 million units by 2030. And that is the established state policy, and that's the goal.

[Taylor Gray]

So you're not on track for that?

[Gavin Newsom]

Not even close.

[Taylor Gray]

Why?

[Gavin Newsom]

For Well, a number of reasons. Macroeconomic. I mean, I think you have to be fair as it relates to the realities of what just occurred, as it relates to the constraints around the market.

[Taylor Gray]

Interest rates.

[Gavin Newsom]

Interest rates are high. Obviously, we came out of a very difficult period during, during COVID But fundamentally because of the inability to get local government to get out of the way and allow for more construction. And that's why we created a housing Accountability Unit. That's why we've taken 800 actions. That's why we've unlocked 7,500 units. And that's why we have advanced 42 CEQA reforms and some of the most significant housing reforms in California history. As it relates to ADUs which you.

[Taylor Gray]

Identify use now, you can build kind.

[Gavin Newsom]

Of work, kind of do and single fam family home zoning and duplexes. But at the end of the day, state visions realized back to localism.

[Taylor Gray]

Why did the ADU effort work and the single family housing or multifamily housing didn't? I mean, those were big bills and we yimbys greeted them with, with delight. But I would say, everybody would say that. What was it? SB9?

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, SB9, SB6.

[Taylor Gray]

The cities have made it so those don't actually, it doesn't build as much housing.

[Gavin Newsom]

That's it. And that's why we created this housing accountability to drive more responsibility at the local level and, and, and providing technical assistance. It's not just a stick, it's also a carrot. But no, look, there's, but that's the, that's the construct, right? I mean, that's a classic example. People like their neighborhoods. That's the foundation of NIMBYism and this NIMBYism frame, which is. Yes, in my backyard for those wondering the hell we're even talking about, I embrace it, I celebrate. I don't think there's been a more yimby governor in California's history. And that's why we've signed so many of these bills and supported many of these bills. But, but you're right, that application, a lot of these are new reforms just in the last few years in this high interest rate environment. So we'll see how quickly things Unlock as interest rates drop down. But fundamentally it's the nimbyism that drags it.

[Taylor Gray]

Let me ask you something about the housing reforms as I flip the whole table. This podcast, it's a problem with having a podcast host on. So during the election, when Kamala Harris and then Barack Obama at the dnc, actually, by the way, on Barack Obama, then Kamala Harris were up there talking about the need to build 3 million new homes. Right. And really sat in like yimbys from the stage. I was thinking, man, that is a huge intellectual victory for a movement that didn't exist like 25 minutes ago. Then I started thinking and started running back through the data. I'm like, okay, how's it working out? And you look in San Francisco and housing starts aren't up. And you look in LA and they're not up. You look in California, not talking here about adus, but housing starts in January 2025 were lower than in 2015. I began thinking to myself, oh shit, we actually have won an intellectual argument without winning the policy. So I began doing some reporting. Cause I knew how many, I mean, not literally how many, but I knew there's been a pretty torrid pace with you and you know, Scott Wiener and Buffy Wicks and a bunch of other housing champions.

[Gavin Newsom]

These are local elected officials in the.

[Taylor Gray]

House and big bills.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

And so I began calling developers in San Francisco and send them, what's going on here? Why don't I see a movement in how much you're building? And what they all told me was I didn't end up writing this piece. I just didn't have time. But I've meant to for some time was all these fast track bills required me to take on a bunch of new standards and requirements, prevailing wages and environmental standards and this and that. That made it more expensive for me to take the fast track than just do what I'm doing it. It wouldn't pencil out for me to do it right now. Look, I don't know if that's 100. True. I can see you. But if that's not it, why do you think all those bills didn't lead to.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, a lot of them have. I mean, we can talk about it. You know, I don't want to get into really parochial politics, but we could talk about a 500 unit project on Stevenson street in San Francisco was never going to get done until the state intervened and compelled the hand of the city to actually move forward again. Nimby. I mean, you and you've got an ideological war that's going on in progressive cities that don't, they don't believe in the supply demand framework, they don't believe in this notion of abundance fundamentally. They have a degrowth mindset, which you talk a lot about or at least write about in the book. And so you're struggling with that ideological spectrum. But San Francisco, I mean, it's just infamously, just loves its neighborhoods, doesn't want to see it up zone, don't want to see the density. So they're constantly pushing back against this. And we are, as a state, finally intervening in ways the state has never intervened in the past. So I think it's a little too early to sort of assert the sort of fatal, or have a fatalist notion of what hasn't yet occurred, when in fact we're starting now to flex our muscles and the application of these laws are now starting to fully go into effect. And ultimately we want to see them materialize and manifest. But that's, I think that's, that's the friction. But look, let me just stipulate again, we're not arguing here. You're 100% right.

[Taylor Gray]

I'm just asking. I'm curious.

[Gavin Newsom]

No, but, but also you're not, I'm, you know, you talk about as a bagel liberalism.

[Taylor Gray]

Everything. Bagel liberalism? Yeah, everything.

[Gavin Newsom]

Bagel liberalism. Pack everything together. You even were a little critical of the Biden administration and the chips and science acts and the infrastructure.

[Taylor Gray]

This stuff happens.

[Gavin Newsom]

The same thing.

[Taylor Gray]

Look, you go to the rural broadband effort, right? 2021, they passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill, say it's the biggest infrastructure bill in decades, which is not wrong.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, 1.2 trillion, but 500, 550 of new.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah. And one of the big headline pieces of it is $42 billion for World Broadband 2021, that passes by the end of 2024. Functionally, nobody is hooked up to rural broadband. And, and me and Derek look into it and there is a 14 stage process. I mean, I'm sure California was going through it. A 14 stage process of they're creating a map and then the map can be challenged and there's these letters of intent and so on and so forth. And by the end of their administration, of the 56 states and jurisdictions that were trying to apply for the money, three had made it through. Which putting aside the fact that that meant all these people didn't get broadband, it also meant that they couldn't run on that. Right, Right. So much of the political theory of the Biden administration was that if you can show liberal democracy can deliver.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Taylor Gray]

You will pull people out of wanting these strong men who say they're going to burn the whole thing down and give you something out of the ashes. And if you can't really, if the things don't move fast enough, if they don't get to the people fast enough, it's much harder for liberal democracy to make the case that it delivers. I want it to deliver. I like these policies, but the speed thing is a real problem. And I'll say one more thing, because I was talking, I did a event the other night with Jon Favreau, and we were talking about. We were talking about high speed rail, but I was saying that the stimulus bill under Obama that had three big headline projects for reinvestment, it had high speed rail, it had smart grid, and it had a nationwide system of interoperable health records.

[Gavin Newsom]

Remember Those days?

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah. 0 for 3.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

At some point, we got to be upset about this, you know?

[Jamie Petras]

September 1979. Virginia's top prison band, Edge of Daybreak, is about to record their debut album behind bars in just five hours.

[Gavin Newsom]

Okay, we're rolling. One, two, three, four.

[Jamie Petras]

I'm Jamie Petras, music and culture writer. For the past five years, I've been talking to the band's three, three surviving members. They're out of prison now and in their 70s, their past behind them. But they also have some unfinished business.

[Gavin Newsom]

The Everyday Eyes of Love was supposed to have been followed up by another album.

[Jamie Petras]

It's a story about the liberating power of music, the American justice system, and ultimately, second chances. Listen to soul incarcerated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Cheekies]

Hey, y'all, it's your girl, Cheekies. And I'm back with a brand new season of your favorite podcast, Cheekies and Chill. I'll be sharing even more personal stories with you guys. And I know a lot of people are gonna attack me. Why are you gonna go visit your dad? Your mom wouldn't be okay with it. I'm gonna tell you guys right now. I know my mother and I know my mom had a very forgiving heart. That is my story on plastic surgery. This is my truth. I think the last time I cried like that was when I lost my mom like that, like, yelling. I was like, no. I was like, oh. And I thought, what did I do wrong? And as always, you'll get my exclusive take on topics like love, personal growth, health, family ties, and more. And don't forget, I'll also be dishing out my Best advice to you on episodes of Dear Cheekies.

[Taylor Gray]

So my fiance and I have been together for 10 years. In the first two years of being together, I find out he is cheating on me, not only with women, but also with men. What should I do?

[Cheekies]

Okay, where do I start? That's not love. He doesn't love you enough. Because if he loved you, he'd be faithful. It's going to be an exciting year and I hope that you can join me, listen to Cheekies and Chill Season four as part of the My Cultura Podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Welcome to Pod of Rebellion, our new Star Wars Rebels Rewatch podcast. I'm Vanessa Marshall. Hi, I'm Tia Sircar.

[Taylor Gray]

I'm Taylor Gray.

[Jon Lee Brody]

And I'm Jon Lee Brody.

[Vanessa Marshall]

But you may also know us as Harrison Specter 2, Sabine Wren, Specter 5.

[Taylor Gray]

And Ezra Bridger, Specter 6 from Star Wars Rebels.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Wait, I wasn't on Star Wars Rebels. Am I in the right place?

[Vanessa Marshall]

Absolutely. Each week we're going to rewatch and discuss an episode from the series and.

[Taylor Gray]

Share some fun behind the scenes stories.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Sometimes we'll be visited by special guests like Steve bloom voices Zaborielio's Spectre 4, or Dante Bosco voices Jaquel and many others.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Sometimes we'll even have a lively debate.

[Taylor Gray]

And we'll have plenty of other fun surprises and trivia too.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Oh, and me. Well, I'm the lucky Ghost cruise stowaway who gets to help moderate and guide the discussion each week. Kind of like how Kanan guided Ezra in the ways of the Force. You see what I did there?

[Vanessa Marshall]

Nicely done, John.

[Gavin Newsom]

Thanks, Tia.

[Vanessa Marshall]

So hang on, cuz, it's going to be a fun ride.

[Taylor Gray]

Cue the music.

[Jon Lee Brody]

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

[Taylor Gray]

We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the.

[Gavin Newsom]

Beginning that we were family.

[Taylor Gray]

They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's.

[Gavin Newsom]

All been worth it. I wouldn't change thing about our lives.

[Taylor Gray]

Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more.

[Gavin Newsom]

Brought to you by Adopt Us Kids.

[Taylor Gray]

The U.S. department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Love at first swipe? I highly doubt it. What's your biggest red flag? No, no, no. What's your ultimate green flag? These days, reality TV and social media have us thinking love is instant. We're marrying strangers at first sight, we're finding love through walls, or we're even judging people by balloon pops. But what really makes a relationship last? On this episode of Dope Labs, poet, author and relationship expert Young Pueblo breaks down the psychology and biology of loving better. And he provides eye opening insights and advice that we all need. It's a big realization moment that you should not be postponing your happiness. Like your greatest happiness is not necessarily going to like come from a relationship, your partner, they should add to your happiness, but your happiness is really coming from within. You listen to Dope labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Gavin Newsom]

So you have five core chapters in this book. You talk about growth, you talk about governance, you talk about deploying, inventing, you know, a lot of, a lot of language very familiar here in the state of California. Again, abundance is fundamentally foundationally who we are, at least believe we are in the state of California. And, and so in that respect I agree this sort of, this, you know, perception performance is one thing and I would argue a little bit more favorably to Biden. I mean 775,000 manufacturing jobs, just the job growth generally and I'm not just talking about job recovery from the pandemic, but the six plus million jobs that you have to stack on that after we were back to full recovery. The fact that Chips and Science act is producing real results as it relates to private sector investment and the fact that we finally have an industrial policy that is worker centric. And I think it's that worker centricity that you can argue against because that was, and you call it out in here when you talk to Gina about issues related to child care and other aspirational frameworks as it relates to small businesses and reaching diversity goals and the like. But, but there is the fundamental disconnect and you're absolutely right as it relates to these large scale audacious projects. And I will give you your due on high speed rail. I have been as critical or more than you have about this. In fact, I appreciate you reference my pivot after I took this job as governor where we called out the status quo and now we're trying to level set and get this back on track. But at least there's a vision. At least Obama had a vision. He wanted to be big in big things. He wanted to do big things. And at least progressive states still have a vision and they have a desire. I mean And I think that's part of an abundance frame. And, and, and while it's difficult to manifest that vision, I don't think it's an indictment necessary. It's in double. It's indictment in terms of our ability to deliver on time and under budget. But, but the vision I think is foundational and important and I give credit to the Obama administration in that respect for all three, even if they were over.

[Taylor Gray]

Look, I'm all for vision. I, my upset. The point of this book is that I want the things to happen. I mean we could talk about high speed rail, we must talk about high speed rail. But before we get there for a second, I mean I do get the question around this book because it is very critical of how liberals have governed. Well then why aren't you just a Republican, right. If Texas is so good at housing. And the thing that I keep telling people is you've really confused means and ends here. Another thing that keeps coming up is like you want deregulation. Isn't that a Republican thing? Well, not if I'm deregulating the government itself so it can deliver on the things you want. What's supposed to matter in politics is not the means, it's the ends. And what I sort of want, what I'm trying to push here is for liberals to get a little bit more means agnostic and more like ends obsessed.

[Gavin Newsom]

There you go.

[Taylor Gray]

So the thing that I, the place where I probably differ a little bit in what you just said a second ago is that I don't want to give anybody credit for a vision that didn't happen. High speed rail has, you have a great quote to me in this. I use it in the book. High speed rails undermined the public's faith in what can get done. It undermines the next high speed rail.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Taylor Gray]

And the thing that I want to see happen is a kind of reckoning inside the governing, I would call it a culture. It's not just laws, it's not just regulations, although it is all those things. But it is a culture of what happens when the Democrats who are setting this stuff up, getting the room together and people start raising their hands and saying what about this and what about that and how about the other thing? And instead of here and no, everybody gets kind of a little bit and it's not the only thing going on. But there is something wrong in a culture that so often fails to deliver what it promises. I mean not just high speed rail, the big dig, the second Avenue subway, right. These, you know, parts of them got done in the 2nd Avenue piece or the Big Dig eventually got done. But. But too much, too expensive. You can't do enough if you're doing that. And it's not inevitable. Europe builds trains better than we do. They just do. And they have governments, I checked. And they have unions more than we do. Right. So it's not.

[Gavin Newsom]

They have less lawyers than you point that out in the book.

[Taylor Gray]

Well, that's an issue I'd be very curious to hear. So this is a thing I think people don't know that I would love to hear, to hear your thoughts on that. We do government different in this country than they do in Europe. There's a qualitative difference between it, which is they run government through bureaucracies and we restrain government through courts, which at the moment with Trump seems good in a bunch of ways. And there are ways in which it's good and there are also ways in which it makes it hellacious. You got it to deliver.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. And I would say that's the central theory of least. The argument that I would make against the high speed rail is, I mean, look, this thing started and you make the point, it started there was sort of talk about the vision. The original vision was not Obama. It wasn't even necessarily Jerry Brown. But you point to 1982 when Brown at least says former governor Jerry Brown, we should look at this high speed rail thing. And then eventually Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, puts a bond on the ballot in 2008 and the voters approve it. And you're right, there was a lot of promotion and promise. $33.6 billion, two hours and 20 minutes downtown by 2020, by 2020, and the whole thing and then reality, now I get here, decade later, decade plus later, and reconcile the fact that we have to dig our way out of this. There's a new reality. There's scarcity of resources, there's an abundance of delay, there's an abundance of cost overruns and we have to level set that we need to build something or we're left with literally nothing. We're left with pieces that go nowhere, that have no utility and actually have a long term cost. But let's do it by telling people what it is and what it's not. And so this focus on the Central Valley, which as you stipulate, recognize, was stipulated as a requirement under the Obama grant, the $3 billion in one of the fastest growing parts of the state, an important part of the state, a state that has deep desire to connect to the rest of the state in A state of mind that's not just about a transportation project, but about upzoning, about economic development, which a lot of that has occurred in and around these new stations that have been built, 50 large scale projects the size of three Golden Gate bridges. The entire environmental clearance is now 100% done. Louisiana to San Francisco, there were 2000, 2012 to 2024. I can't, I can't make up for that. I can only deal with the Kubota part.

[Taylor Gray]

But it's just crazy.

[Gavin Newsom]

It's crazy. But, but the point is, we're at the point, we're just announced, we're doing railhead, we're finally laying the tracks. I mean, we could, we can lament about it. I, we absolutely learned from it and we've stress test a lot of it. You talk about the consulting class versus a bureaucratic class. You're absolutely right. And we started to shift that just a few years ago. But the litigation on the 2,270 parcels that we had to purchase was next level. And that delay, I think is the core of this. There's plenty of other bureaucratic malaise and other issues we can identify. But back to this notion. I think you're right. This idea of. So what do you. I think liberal litigation. I don't know what phrase you use in the book, but we were mindful of that and critical of that. And you mark that as a big part of the sort of 1970s construct in America. And tell us a little bit more about the thinking there.

[Taylor Gray]

We can put a pin in high speed rail. There are two major liberal movements that happen in the 20th century. The one we think about a lot is New Deal liberalism. That's the one where we build aggressively. It's a growth oriented liberalism. It's a liberalism of material goods. And it's the liberalism that defines the left right divide in our national narrative. Right. Liberals believe in big strong government. Conservatives believe in small, limited government. In the 60s, 70s, 80s, you have real problems that have emerged from this New Deal order. We have built heedlessly, recklessly, intensely. We are cutting highways all across the country, many of them, though not all of them through marginalized communities. But man, the rich communities don't like it when a highway goes through either. Right. And they have a lot of the power that leads to this. There is a genuine despoiling of the environment. My colleague Derek likes to talk about the moment in Los Angeles. I think it's in the 40s or 50s where people wake up and think there's been a Chemical attack from Japanese. But it turned out that the city had launched its own chemical attack on itself.

[Gavin Newsom]

People forget in California, lazy pundit could suggest the modern environmental movement started in 1967 in reaction to that and the business community saying enough. And Governor Ronald Reagan established the California Air Resources Board of which that rights and responsibility were afforded under the 1970 Clean Air act, which you also highlight in the book Richard Nixon affording California a waiver so that we can address the unique air quality concerns that you identify in the book.

[Taylor Gray]

And then 56. And then of course, everybody forgets it's Reagan who signs the California Environmental Quality Act.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. This CEQA issue that you and others and myself, it's worth taking at times.

[Taylor Gray]

It'S worth taking, I think a minute on ceqa. So Reagan signs a bill into law from Jake Ambinder's research. It doesn't even merit a full article in the LA Times.

[Gavin Newsom]

That's interesting.

[Taylor Gray]

Nobody quite knows what they've done because initially ceqa, it just says, look, when the government does stuff, it's got to produce a report on, you know, what the likely consequences are. No big deal. And then there is a proposed development in Mammoth, which, you know, the great ski and snowboard town which I've been to many, many times.

[Gavin Newsom]

Oh, you Southern Californians.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah, Mammoth. But there's a mixed use development that's proposed there. You know, sort of condos and some shopping at the bottom of them. And a bunch of rich Mammothians, I don't know what they call themselves, file a lawsuit and they have a novel argument which is that this development can't go forward because it violates ceqa. And this gets rejected in the courts because this is roughly.

[Gavin Newsom]

Would this be.

[Taylor Gray]

I'd want to double check this. But early 70s, but I could be wrong on that. So let me. So what happens here is that the courts reject this a bunch of times because CEQA is about public development. And then the Supreme Court rules, no, no, no, no. Public development is anything that requires a permit by the state of California. There's a Sierra Club lobbyist who we quote in the book who says after that CEQA applies to anything where you are rubbing two sticks together in the state.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

And so now having been, as Ambinder puts it in his dissertation on this stuff, informed by the courts of what the law they passed actually does, the legislature puts a pause on it because now everything's in huge legal limbo. But the key thing here is at ceqa, I mean, and I'm sure you know all this much Better than I do. But CEQA's power is amplified a lot by courts that interpreted it in a way that was very different than anybody initially interpreted it. And this is part of a period in liberalism where you have this rise of an environmental movement that has legal dimensions and political dimensions and statutory dimensions and cultural dimensions. It's Rachel Carson, it's Ralph Nader. And the key thing about this period of liberalism, the New Left period of liberalism, is that it is fundamentally skeptical of government action. The New Deal is this alliance between the government, the unions, and the corporations to build, to put people to work, to industrialize America and make it into this kind of advanced, globe spanning superpower. And the New Left comes in and says, we are destroying this place. We are turning this country conformist. The term ticky tacky comes from a song about Daly City and how gross all those homes are. Right? Like, there's a whole thing about the aesthetic destruction of it. I have great quotes from Lyndon Johnson speeches about, we used to worry about the ugly American, now we have to worry about the ugly America. Right? There's a whole change that begins to happen. And the way that this moment in liberalism tries to square the circle because the New Left is part of this era, that's very individualistic, Right. We think about this for Reagan and individualism, but it's happening on the left too. And it wants a highly participatory democracy. And the way it tries to square it is create a million different ways that individuals or individuals represented by nonprofit groups typically can sue the government to stop it or force it to think about things that it wasn't thinking about before. Sorry, got a mosquito there. And it creates ways to sue the government and force it to think about things that it wasn't thinking about or hadn't earlier.

[Gavin Newsom]

Get that damn thing.

[Taylor Gray]

If I got it, I'd be like a bomb in that. Remember the time when he truly seems superpowered? So the way they do that is they create this raft of legislation. Some of it is environmental, but not all of it.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Taylor Gray]

And what it allows is for individuals or individuals represented by groups. And a huge world of nonprofits emerges to take the best talent out of the law schools and like, set them to suing government to. To sort of enforce this. Ralph Nader, when he runs for president in 2000, is asked, what qualifies you to be president? He says, nobody has sued more government agencies than I have.

[Gavin Newsom]

And I don't mean to laugh.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah. And so this is very potent in blue states that had a strong New Left and We don't think about it really. It's not part of our national narrative of the left and the right. Our national narrative is like the guys who like government and the party that likes government and the party that doesn't. It's not that way. The right loves a big police state and the left has a very divided soul on government. It likes some kinds of government, but it hobbles government. And that sort of made sense for its time, but now we're in a different time where the problems are problems of not building enough and environmentally particularly, all of a sudden we've gone from a period where it really was environmentally important to stop much of the things that were happening. And now we're in one where the environmental movement has to build, build, build, build. The IRA is a building approach to climate change and our laws are not set up for that. And this is where I'd like to get your perspective. The thing that's also true is like the Democratic coalition is not set up to revisit those laws. You all have been doing little carve outs of ceqa, but you've not ripped it out and rebuilt it. And nor have we done that at the national level. And as much as Democrats know this, the environmental groups don't want them to do that. There's a lot of power and incumbents around the legislative architecture we have now. And you don't get a huge, I mean you tell me if this is wrong, but I feel like you don't get a huge parade for rebuilding legislative process. Right?

[Gavin Newsom]

Zero. I mean quite the contrary. It's years and years of friction, trial and error. It takes a couple of years. You introduce, you socialize, it gets nowhere, finally gets through. New coalition, new personalities, you finally get it done, then two years later you're actually able to exercise it. I'll give you two specific examples. I have a 270 day judicial review process that we pushed, we worked it for its first use case was the first above ground storage facility in California. Last half century sites. It's in an off stream dam in California. The second quite literally a week ago for 300 megawatt solar, large scale solar facility which we are testing it, hardly perfect, but that was three years in the making. Just to have this established rule where I can finally fast track large scale projects to start addressing your point. And you're right, there was no fundamental coalition for any of that. It was a very lonely process until after years and years of trial and error, we finally broke through.

[Taylor Gray]

Do you think you benefit from the other side of it from being able to get these projects built. Like, if you could get them built, do you think it's an intermediate period of pain and then better politics?

[Gavin Newsom]

It will be better politics, but I won't be around to enjoy the fruits of that. And I think that's the great struggle. To your point. I mean, you made that point about Biden earlier. I mean, that's just. Come on, it's 48 months. You're in the middle of trying to address the pandemic. You've got all kinds of global issues. You've got supply chain constraints, you've got war in Ukraine. You've got all of these issues. And yet he passes, I refer to as a masterclass.

[Jamie Petras]

September 1979. Virginia's top prison band, Edge of Daybreak, is about to record their debut album Behind Bars in just five hours.

[Gavin Newsom]

Okay, we're rolling. One, two, three, four.

[Jamie Petras]

I'm Jamie Petras, music and culture writer. For the past five years, I've been talking to the band's three surviving members. They're out of prison now and in their 70s, their past behind them. But they also have some unfinished business.

[Gavin Newsom]

Daybreak Eyes of Love was supposed to have been followed up by another album.

[Jamie Petras]

It's a story about the liberating power of music, the American justice system, and ultimately, second chances. Listen to soul incarcerated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Cheekies]

Hey, y'all, it's your girl, Cheekies. And I'm back with a brand new season of your favorite podcast, Cheekies and Chill. I'll be sharing even more personal stories with you guys, and I know a lot of people are gonna attack me. Why are you gonna go visit your dad? Your mom wouldn't be okay with it. I'm gonna tell you guys right now. I know my mother, and I know my mom had a very forgiving heart. That is my story on plastic surgery. This is my truth. I think the last time I cried like that was when I lost my mom like that. Like, yelling. I was like, no. I was like, oh. And I thought, what did I do wrong? And as always, you'll get my exclusive take on topics like love, personal growth, health, family ties, and more. And don't forget, I'll also be dishing out my best advice to you on episodes of Dear Cheekies.

[Taylor Gray]

So my fiance and I have been together for 10 years. In the first two years of being together, I find out he is cheating on me, not only with women, but also with men. What should I do?

[Cheekies]

Okay, where Do I start? That's not love. He doesn't love you enough. Because if he loved you, he'd be faithful. It's going to be an exciting year and I hope that you can join me, listen to Cheekies and Chill Season four as part of the My Cultura Podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Welcome to Pod of Rebellion, our new Star Wars Rebels Rewatch podcast. I'm Vanessa Marshall. Hi, I'm Tia Sircar.

[Taylor Gray]

I'm Taylor Gray.

[Jon Lee Brody]

And I'm John Lee Brody.

[Vanessa Marshall]

But you may also know Harris Syndulla, Specter 2, Sabine Wren, Specter 5, and.

[Taylor Gray]

Ezra Bridger, Specter 6 from Star Wars Rebels.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Wait, I wasn't on Star Wars Rebels. Am I in the right place?

[Vanessa Marshall]

Absolutely. Each week we're going to rewatch and discuss an episode from the series and.

[Taylor Gray]

Share some fun behind the scenes stories.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Sometimes we'll be visited by special guests like Steve bloom voices Zaborielio's Spectre 4, or Dante Bosco voices Jaquel and many others.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Sometimes we'll even have a lively debate.

[Taylor Gray]

And we'll have plenty of other fun surprises and trivia too.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Oh, and me. Well, I'm the lucky Ghost Cruise stowaway who gets to help moderate and guide the discussion each week. Kind of like how Kanan guided Ezra in the ways of the Force. You see what I did there?

[Vanessa Marshall]

Nicely done, John.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Thanks, Tia.

[Vanessa Marshall]

So hang on cause it's gonna be a fun ride.

[Taylor Gray]

Cue the music.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Listen. The Potter Rebellion on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Taylor Gray]

Some people won't give you the real talk on drugs, but it's time we know the facts. Fentanyl is often laced into illicit drugs and used to make fake versions of prescription pills. You can't see it, taste it, or smell it. Suppliers mix fentanyl into their products because it's potent and cheap and the dealer might not even know. Keep yourself and others safe by knowing the real deal on fentanyl. Get the facts. Go to real dealonfentanyl.com this message is brought to you by the Ad Council.

[Dan Roth]

Ever wonder what it would be like to be mentored by today's top business leaders? My podcast, this Is Working can help with that. Here's some advice from Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, on standing out from the leadership crowd.

[Gavin Newsom]

Develop your eq. A lot of people have plenty of brains, but EQ is do you trust me? Do I communicate well? You know, when you Walk in a room to do people feel good? You're there? Are you responsive to people? Do people know you have a heart? Develop the team, develop the people. Create a system of trust. And it works over time.

[Dan Roth]

I'm Dan Roth, LinkedIn's editor in chief. On my podcast, this Is Working, leaders like Jamie Dimon, Mark Cuban and Richard Branson share strategies for success and the real lessons that have shaped them. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Taylor Gray]

You are more defensive of Biden's record than of your own.

[Gavin Newsom]

I'm. No, I'm. I'm. I'm more proud of the work they did, breaking through, actually addressing the issues that Democrats claim they wanted to address, including marginally. And I agree with you again, there's zero daylight in this book, which is remarkable, including its own critique, my own self critique of my own state and my own performance. So it's interesting. But he had, as I said, an industrial policy that was worker centric and there was reforms at the same time. The deal with Manchin, which you acknowledge in the book, Marginal.

[Taylor Gray]

Well, the progressives killed.

[Gavin Newsom]

Those just killed.

[Taylor Gray]

But you're talking about the permitting reforms.

[Gavin Newsom]

The permitting reforms, but that sort of manifested. And finally on the Chips and Science act to be a version of that with Kelly and Cruz as it relates to. So there was some component parts and.

[Taylor Gray]

They learned on this. I mean, Brian Deese, who is Biden's former NEC director, as an awesome piece in Foreign affairs about why we need to build faster. Right. There's real learning here.

[Gavin Newsom]

But I want, but if we, But I'm, I'm. Let me stipulate, let me make this quick. If we can figure that out. If we can. I don't. This is, this is the most, one of the most important books Democrats can read. Wake up. I sent this to the two leaders of my California assembly and Senate. You love to hear it, I just know it. But no, I'm serious. I said, guys, wake. This is it. I mean, we're being judged here at a different level. We've done some good things together. We got to get serious. Ezra's spot on. On a lot of this stuff. There's some, you know, we had population growth the last two years, by the way, in December, they updated all the census numbers. It grew in California the last two years. You had red states that had population decline in the last few years, with the exception of Vermont. There's some quip, yeah, I can quibble in some of that respect. But fundamentally, these larger trend Lines you identify in this friction struggle to build more and build better and address. I'm with you on the high speed rail. It infuriates me as a taxpayer. You're 100%. It's an indictment of our ability to deliver. That said, we are finally doing railheads. We're buying train sets. We got partnerships with Brightline and High Desert Corridor. We did full electrification of Caltran. $714 million, 51 miles. We got all the environmental work done. All the hard work's now behind us. Now we're laying track and we're finally getting that first 119 miles done. We'll get to 171. It's a $6.5 billion gap. We have a strategy to address that. I don't even want to.

[Taylor Gray]

I want to hold high speed for a second. I want to do one thing on Biden before we go.

[Gavin Newsom]

But the issue with Biden is I don't know what the hell more he could have done in a short period of time to deliver on a bold vision and lay the tracks for benefits that we'll enjoy. Yes. Not all in 48 months, but over the course of the next four, eight years.

[Taylor Gray]

But this is a problem. Like, I'm not saying it's all his fault. That's not my point here. Right. He is inheriting a government. Although you see in a very dark way with Musk and Doge that a lot that was taken as a binding constraint actually isn't. So I want to hold that because I think there are things as grotesque as what that crew is doing to the government. There's also things that need to be learned from what they're doing to the government. But it didn't. I really think it's important to hold this in mind for all of us because it's something I really did not understand. It did not used to take this long to deliver Medicare. Medicare delivered Medicare cards. A year after they passed that bill. It took the Affordable Care act four years to begin delivering actual insurance.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

We can talk about it on the Inflation Reduction act, which is doing the much smaller job of just beginning to negotiate prices on some drugs. Three years to get that started. Oh, I. I mean, we built. I mean, this is. These are the classic examples, but we built the Empire State Building in a year. The average environmental review takes four and a half years.

[Gavin Newsom]

Just a few years. The Golden Gate Bridge. I agree.

[Taylor Gray]

You know, all this, the thing that I want to say about this, which is not Joe Biden's fault, but it is the fault of now, I think a long period of Democrats beginning to get accustomed to this slowness.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

This is not going to work politically.

[Gavin Newsom]

I agree with you.

[Taylor Gray]

You are not going to hold the people you need to hold. If your answer in every term is you can't feel what I did because the government takes too long. If it had to take too long, fine. But it doesn't actually. Right. These are man made.

[Gavin Newsom]

It's not just government, it's also private sector. I mean there is, there is another component of this. The markets actually play a really significant outsized influence in timing on a lot of these things, on investments, et cetera. Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

But they would build fast in a lot of cases if we let them build fast. I mean, they're not why we didn't get rural broadband on. That was not them.

[Gavin Newsom]

No, but, but that's just, you know, I, I agree. That's 50 state solutions.

[Taylor Gray]

Thousands and thousands of municipalities pushing on a little bit here with using the example of Biden. Not, not you. But I do think this is, I think that those of us who want to defend liberal democracy from an actual challenge to it. Right. One of the things Trump is getting the most mileage out of, and he says it himself all the time, I think it's why he likes what Elon Musk is doing. For all the risk of it, is this sense of constant action.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

All of a sudden government, which normally you don't feel moving. You feel it moving maybe badly, maybe what you feel is the heat from it burning to the ground. But you feel movement.

[Gavin Newsom]

No. I agree with that.

[Taylor Gray]

Right. And populists have that. They have a politics of energy almost all of the time. Right. This is something you see across countries. And I think that Democrats need to begin to think about speed as a thing. We are actually tracking and pursuing government.

[Gavin Newsom]

Love it.

[Taylor Gray]

We have other things we need to pursue and track. Equity. Right. Justice.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Taylor Gray]

There are a lot of things we need to think about and you need to make trade offs between them. But speed is one we have just let slip. And it's not just like bad because it's kind of sad that we let it slip. Jake Sullivan said about Biden, he said elections are measured in four years and his presidency will be measured in decades. It won't. Or his policy agenda will be judged in decades. So much of it is going to get undone, including a lot of the transatlantic alliance that he worked so hard to rebuild that it won't. One reason that this book is politically important to me, not just to kind of you Know, my background is as a policy reporter and the stuff I like is like the details of the policy. But one reason it's politically important to me is that Democrats have, I think gotten a little bit of learned helplessness around not every little bit of how government moves slowly. People think about procurement reforms. You've done a lot on that. But in general, the sense that it just, we just can't do what we once did, like the way the government used to work. I was reading a great piece by Harold Meyerson, who's at the American Prospect and he's a great California reporter too. And he wrote this piece. It was back during the stimulus debate under Obama. He sent it to me the other day and he talks about the way the, the Works Progress Administration started up under FDR and the unfathomable speed at which they just cut through everything to put millions of people. The equivalent today of putting 10 million people to work in a matter of months. Right. And he was saying you can't do it today, Harold was because you just wouldn't have the laws. But I just think it's really important to say laws are man made. There are laws of physics, there are technical things we don't yet know how to do. But the difference between places that construct apartment buildings quickly and that don't is that's us 100%.

[Gavin Newsom]

And look, and you highlight some of those successes. I mean, you talk about what happened during the Trump administration and Covid, by the way, a lot of innovation happened during COVID Yeah. Including on land use. We did something called home key, room key. We changed land use and ceqa. We did it through an emergency frame. You referenced the i95 because risk tolerance went up. Risk tolerance went up. I95. An emergency frame is any. We had the i10 which we got done in eight days.

[Taylor Gray]

That was even more the i95.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, you should have added that in. One nice thing you could have said about our state. But, but so there was a state of mind though. I mean, we're doing it right now in terms of the emergency work we're doing on the rebuild.

[Taylor Gray]

But if these emergency declarations and people are celebrating it, if the emergency structures work better.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

Then why is it not making the normal structure closer to them?

[Gavin Newsom]

No, I, look, I, this, this is why, that's why I wanted to do this podcast is why I love don't like your book. That's why I think it's essential reading for Democrats. This notion of speed appearing to take action but not doing things to people. But with people and finding that right balance. It's not. I think there's the stress. And it goes to your opening point about some of the questions. You're getting sort of this notion of a binary, that it's one or the other. Why aren't you a Republican as opposed to, you know, risk taking without recklessness? You know, what's that right balance, you know, is the right balance of Doge is the example, the $140 billion that Clinton and Gore saved on a $1.4 trillion government and they reduced the size of the workforce by 400,000. But they did that again in partnership and did real reform versus the recklessness of Doge. Is it the RFI2 process? Thank you for recognizing our procurement reforms you highlight. We brought in Jen Polka from Code for America to bring in a private sector version. We did the original doge. We call it odi, which the Office of Digital Innovation, which is now Office of Data Innovation. We're trying to change the entire procurement framework. We inherited these old Cobalt systems that you highlight from 1959 and these IBM mainframes in the 1980s. All of that creates a stress on the system, and so it's not easy overnight to fix it. But the emergency mindset and I think the break the glass point you're making is for Democrats right now. And it's the soul searching we have. We got to deliver.

[Jamie Petras]

September 1979. Virginia's top prison band, Edge of Daybreak, is about to record their debut album behind bars in just five hours.

[Gavin Newsom]

Okay, we're rolling. One, two, three, four.

[Jamie Petras]

I'm Jamie Petras, music and culture writer. For the past five years, I've been talking to the band's three surviving members. They're out of prison now and in their 70s, their past behind them. But they also have some unfinished business.

[Gavin Newsom]

The end of Daybreak, Eyes of Love, was supposed to been followed up by another album.

[Jamie Petras]

It's a story about the liberating power of music, the American justice system, and ultimately, second chances. Listen to Soul incarcerated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Welcome to Pod of Rebellion, our new Star Wars Rebels Rewatch podcast. I'm Vanessa Marshall. Hi, I'm Tia Sircar.

[Taylor Gray]

I'm Taylor Gray.

[Jon Lee Brody]

And I'm John Lee Brody.

[Vanessa Marshall]

But you may also know us as Harrison Doula Specter 2, Sabine Wren, Specter.

[Taylor Gray]

5, and Ezra Bridger Specter 6 from Star Wars Rebels.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Wait, I wasn't on Star Wars Rebels. Am I in the right place?

[Vanessa Marshall]

Absolutely. Each week we're going to rewatch and discuss an episode from the series and.

[Taylor Gray]

Share some fun behind the scenes stories.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Sometimes we'll be visited by special guests like Steve bloom voices Zaborelio's Spectre 4, or Dante Bosco voices Jai Kel and many others.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Sometimes we'll even have a lively debate.

[Taylor Gray]

And we'll have plenty of other fun surprises and trivia too.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Oh, and me. Well, I'm the lucky ghost crew Stowaway, who gets to help moderate and guide the discussion each week. Kind of like how Kanan guided Ezra and the ways of the Force. You see what I did there?

[Vanessa Marshall]

Nicely done, John.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Thanks, Tia.

[Vanessa Marshall]

So hang on, cuz. It's going to be a fun ride.

[Taylor Gray]

Cue the music.

[Jon Lee Brody]

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

[Cheekies]

Hey, y'all, it's your girl, Cheekies. And I'm back with a brand new season of your favorite podcast, Cheekies and Chill. I'll be sharing even more personal stories with you guys, and I know a lot of people are gonna attack me.

[Gavin Newsom]

Why?

[Cheekies]

Are you gonna go visit your dad? Your mom wouldn't be okay with it. I'm gonna tell you guys right now. I know my mother and I know my mom had a very forgiving heart. That is my story on plastic surgery. This is my truth. I think the last time I cried like that was when I lost my mom like that, like, yelling. I was like, no. I was like, oh. And I thought, what did I do wrong? And as always, you'll get my exclusive take on topics like love, personal growth, health, family ties, and more. And don't forget, I'll also be dishing out my best advice to you on episodes of Dear Cheekies.

[Taylor Gray]

So my fiance and I have been together for 10 years. In the first two years of being together, I find out he is cheating on me, not only with women, but also with men. What should I do?

[Cheekies]

Okay, where do I start? That's not love. He doesn't love you enough. Because if he loved you, he'd be faithful. It's going to be an exciting year, and I hope that you can join me, listen to Cheekies and Chill Season four as part of the My Cultura Podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Taylor Gray]

Some people won't give you the real talk on drugs, but it's time we know the facts. Fentanyl is often laced into illicit drugs and used to make fake versions of prescription pills. You can't see it taste it or smell it. Suppliers mix fentanyl into their products because it's potent and cheap and the dealer might not even know. Keep yourself and others safe by knowing the real deal on fentanyl. Get the facts. Go to realdealonfentanol.com this message is brought to you by the Ad Council.

[Dan Roth]

Ever wonder what it would be like to be mentored by today's top business leaders? My podcast, this Is Working can help with that. Here's some advice from Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, on standing out from the leadership crowd.

[Gavin Newsom]

Develop your eq. A lot of people have plenty of brains, but EQ is, do you trust me? Do I communicate well? You know, when you walk in a room, do people feel good you're there? Are you responsive to people? Do people know you have a heart? Develop the team, Develop the people. Create a system of trust. And it works over time.

[Dan Roth]

I'm Dan Roth, LinkedIn's editor in chief. On my podcast, this Is Working, leaders like Jeff, Jamie Dimon, Mark Cuban, and Richard Branson share strategies for success and the real lessons that have shaped them. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Taylor Gray]

Does your legislature want to fix it?

[Gavin Newsom]

They all intellectually do. But then you have. You have every constituency and every group, and they're showing up 24 7. Then NIMBYism is well established. You've established it from the mindset. It's not just, by the way, Reagan in Cequa. It's the nepa, it's Endangered Species act, it's the. It's the Clean Water act, all the stuff Nixon did. But it's not. But in any reform, people panic. Oh, you don't care about you. You've just turned in conservative. You can't even. I mean, we've had a podcast here. You talk to Republicans, you're like, geez, what the hell's going on, guys? Selling out sold his soul. So you have reforms around process and ceqa. People panic. Said what? You just want to destroy the environment. So there's a political price you pay for that reform. But you're right, there's a political price for not reforming, which is where the Democratic Party is today. So speed, decision making, the sense of action and purpose. By the way, a lot of what this president is celebrating is what the last president did. And a lot of the investments. I mean, the AI investments that Sam and others were announced.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah, it would be.

[Gavin Newsom]

We're making.

[Taylor Gray]

The credit. That's one of the reasons I Think the speed thing is actually so important you want to shorten. Look, the policy feedback loops are broken because people don't know who did the policy. When you said a second a couple minutes ago that these projects that can only exist because of your fast tracking will not exist while you are in office.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Taylor Gray]

That is a breakdown of the way the voters can maintain accountability.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Taylor Gray]

When they don't know who did what. It's actually a big problem. One thing that I think about with what you were just saying on the politics of it is that, and I see it very clearly in California. I'm sure it's true in other places. You should tell me if this is facile. You can avoid short term pain in a way that ultimately creates almost unsolvable long term pain. And so, you know, you obviously used to be mayor of San Francisco. London Breed said a lot of the right things on yimbyism and all the rest of it.

[Gavin Newsom]

Former mayor of San Francisco.

[Taylor Gray]

But couldn't get it done and lost reelection. Not the only reason, but a big reason. People are furious about the homelessness problem there. And that's in large part a housing problem. It's not the only reason, but a large part.

[Gavin Newsom]

You make that point and you're spot on about it.

[Taylor Gray]

In Oakland, they recalled the mayor.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yep.

[Taylor Gray]

In Los Angeles, I mean, there's a lot of reasons for what's going on there. But Caruso ran a much stronger campaign than people have expected at the beginning.

[Gavin Newsom]

And former Republican became Democrat, outperformed a lot of his.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah. And so you have this sort of thing happening where there's almost. I think, I don't want to say a ceiling. We'll see what you do in a couple years. I don't want to say a ceiling on where California politicians can go. But it is very hard to be successful when people are angry about problems that maybe you didn't cause, but you're also not willing to take the pain now to solve.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, I am taking the pain and I'm taking the political. I mean, I can give you proof points of the work we've done and the political capital we've used to get a lot of these reforms advanced. And that's. I think that's, that's where I struggle a little bit with the book. Just again, the book that I celebrate and I'm handing out to folks is it's not. A lot of that is acknowledged. The actual policy reforms that we are advancing that we are marching and moving towards and how we're actually starting to see some Progress in that respect. But with that in mind, I get the speed and the scale. But I also want to make a case. Look, this is a state where we're gaining population again. We're running budget surpluses. We dominate in every innovative category. You talk about the future of abundance in the context of invention and deployment. That's California. 18% of the world's R and D is in this state. No other state comes close. Only two countries have more R and D and that's Germany and China. This is a state with 41% more manufacturing output than the state. That tends to get a lot of credit in Texas. Texas, by the way, takes $71.1 billion of federal money from taxpayers. We give $83.1 billion. We have more scientists, engineers, more Nobel laureates, more venture capital. Half of the unicorn companies in the country are in California. There's a lot going right. They just get a survey of the top 10 happiest cities. With respect, Houston went on that list.

[Taylor Gray]

But San Jose was very happy. When I lived in San Francisco, San Jose was.

[Gavin Newsom]

Irvine was on that list. Fremont, interestingly, number one, San Diego. So, you know, I don't know. We dominate in AI the world again. We're inventing the future happens here. By the way, you saw in homelessness, the numbers through the roof across the rest of the country stabilized. Here in California, the housing crisis not unique to blue states any larger, longer lower taxes in this state than in many, many states. People talk about the high taxes in California, it's just BS. 16 states, 16 states tax their poorest residents more than we tax our top 1%. 40% of our residents pay lower taxes than in Florida and Texas. 80% of our residents pay slightly above average taxes. So this notion of even being a high tax state is bs. This notion that everyone's leaving is complete bs. We dominate in so many of these categories because I think of our values. But we're not building enough damn housing. And that's led to this homeless crisis. Not exclusively as you said, but it's contributed. And yes, we had a vision decades ago. The taxpayers advanced it on a high speed rail and we watched China clean our clock. You highlight that in in miles and numerics that are depressing. I don't even want you to repeat them. I can for everybody, but I'm not going to. But we're going to get the damn thing done. They complain about the E Canal, they complained about the Panama Canal, they complained about the transcontinental railroad right before it finally started to start to Start to see real progress. And I feel like we're at that tipping point with this damn high speed rail. But nonetheless, you're right.

[Taylor Gray]

High speed rail for a second. So I keep bringing. I will, I will, I will say first, look, I love California.

[Gavin Newsom]

No, I have.

[Taylor Gray]

I have redwoods tattooed on my shoulder, like, no joke. And like. And leaving the state to go live in New York City was like the right thing for a bunch of reasons, but. But a, you know, a difficult personal choice for me because this is my soil.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

So every, you know, you lived through.

[Gavin Newsom]

A tough time, though, in San Francisco. You know what?

[Taylor Gray]

I would still.

[Gavin Newsom]

I mean, it was that, that was. I admit that was a tough time.

[Taylor Gray]

In essence, it was a pandemic.

[Gavin Newsom]

And by the way, that city's coming around. It's turning around.

[Taylor Gray]

Look, I. Objectively, I love SF too.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. Objectively.

[Taylor Gray]

You know, as I say, what is it? Criticism is an act of love.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yes. God bless you. There's a lot of love in this book.

[Taylor Gray]

A lot of love in this book, man. A lot of love in this book.

[Gavin Newsom]

But.

[Taylor Gray]

And then this is, I think, always the great paradox of California. California is the frontier of the future. It always has been. And technologically, as you said, but also culture, Right. You go to Northern California, we're inventing everybody's technology. You go to Southern, we're given the whole world its culture. Right. It's a wild place. And to me, the reason the housing thing matters here, the reason I structure the housing chapter the way that I do with Derek, is that you need to make it possible for people to be and prosper from that prosperity. It is good for people to be near the AI boom. I have friends. I mean, they fought fires in the city of San Francisco and couldn't afford to live there. Right. The point of California's riches is that they should be shared. Not shared necessarily just through taxation and redistribution, but through the ability of people to go live in these super high productivity places where, as happened with a young Steve Jobs and Wozniak, you sort of fall into this world where maybe if you have a genius for something, you have the connections to make it matter. You know, I have this sort of line in the book that in making these cities so expensive, we did the real gating. We really closed the frontier. Because the true frontier isn't land, it's ideas.

[Gavin Newsom]

You frame it with Horace Greeley. Go west, young man, go west. And then you create that new construct.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah. So I want to pull that. It's actually everything you say about California and you know this I'm not telling, I'm saying it for the audience that that makes it so important that like the working class families can be here and are not driven out, but on high speed rail.

[Gavin Newsom]

Let me. Because by the way, just back to the housing crisis in this state explains more things in more ways on more days. That affordability issue is the core of 90% of California's real and structural problems. This is foundational. Again, you could not be more right. It is at the core of the issues that define the challenges not just to this state. Increasingly all over the United States we talk about the future happening here first, where America's coming to traction. That's all those wonderful things that you and I were just discussing, but obviously all of these perilous issues that you have been discussing and the reason you.

[Taylor Gray]

Wrote this book so high speed rail. So when I went out and did the reporting on that and I went up and down the track with the people building it and the people from the rail authority and they told me a couple things that have stuck in my head that I don't try to resolve in the book. But I'd be curious for your thoughts. So one was that the Merced Bakersfield leg, which is the leg that is currently being tried. I think they said they had something like line of sight, either had spent or had line of sight on something like it was in the range of 11 to 15 billion dollars.

[Gavin Newsom]

We've 13.4 billion dollars of which 10.8 from the state and 2.6 from the feds.

[Taylor Gray]

And that the estimate on finishing was said to Bakersfield was 36 billion.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, well there's, there's currently our estimates and this plus or minus. And yeah, this is a moving target, about $6.5 billion that we, based upon what we have, the current commitments, we had additional $3 billion from the federal government. Obviously the Trump administration trying to analyze that as they did in the last time, and then cap and trade proceeds that will continue to accrue if we extend cap and trade. Can you bond against that? There's a lot variations.

[Taylor Gray]

So you're saying you think you have line of sight on the money with a delta of 6.5 billion, roughly.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

Okay. And what a bunch of people working on said is like, look, in the end, for this to really work, it needs to be LA to San Francisco and that would cost $110 billion.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, well, we're looking at, and I don't, you know, look, here I am extended high speed rail. The idea is to get it in these density and population corridors, which is the point you make in the critique. And get to Fresno, for example, to Gilroy, where Caltran is and we can, we can then connect to San Jose and into San Francisco. You have the existing infrastructure in place. That's about an hour. You get into Palmdale. Now you're connecting with the new Bright line that's going all the way to Vegas and one of the fastest growing parts of the state in Palmdale where middle class families can still afford a home. And so those are component parts and that's where I think that 36 million billion dollar number came from. Those three component parts roughly add up to that. Now the Tehachapi Mountains, getting them over all of those larger issues. Those are issues that obviously are component parts of this larger.

[Taylor Gray]

And that'll be, you know, over the.

[Gavin Newsom]

Course of many, many.

[Taylor Gray]

Right. Oh, but I think the big, I think the big question people have about it and you hear people asking this all the time is that, and I.

[Gavin Newsom]

Just wrote I inherited this.

[Taylor Gray]

It's not your fault, it's not my 2000, I'm not blaming govern on but I think the question is if the there is not a line of sight on that 36 to 110 billion. Right. That that doesn't exist. And that's a very hard thing.

[Gavin Newsom]

You're trying to get revenue generation once you start getting the large population corridors. If you could connect Silicon Valley to Central Valley, which is the foundational argument and you can start sharing, we're looking at train sets that have interoperability not just with Brightline, but high desert corridors. You have two private sector partners and we're actually procuring train sets very, very shortly. As I say, we did the railhead, we're starting to lay track. This thing's starting to get very, very real. Some of the projects you did see are projects that will have profound impacts economically in terms of the upzoning, particularly in the Fresno corridor. And Fresno is a very important part.

[Taylor Gray]

I think the big worry I heard from transportation types is that the ridership in those quarters, as fast growing as they may be, is not enough to throw off money. It's not even enough to handle that operating budget. Very likely. And it's definitely not going to throw off money that's going to complete $110 billion train and that we're finishing something that in the end is going to be a monument to not being able to build the thing we wanted.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah, we're not going to be able to build a new Airport. We're not, you know, I mean the end of the day we've got these constraints that are well established already, these preexisting constraints. There's not a high speed railing system that's not enjoying some popularity and success. Most at least are wildly popular. It's an experience no one's had in the United States of America. At least we're out there daring and we're trying to are there that can.

[Taylor Gray]

Be made that would make the next pieces just easier. I mean I was always interested that like it wasn't exempted from CEQA in the first place. It's a pro environmental project.

[Gavin Newsom]

I know.

[Taylor Gray]

You know, are there things like that.

[Gavin Newsom]

That could be done? I mean, I wish you wrote this Damn book in 2007. Where the hell were you?

[Taylor Gray]

It's a good question.

[Gavin Newsom]

Seriously, by the way, where were you?

[Taylor Gray]

I was in Washington, man.

[Gavin Newsom]

Were you in Washington? I was in Washington. No, I mean, but you're right. No, look, and I don't just say it's the art of the possible. And I know that back to. That's a practitioner framework. I mean I love to intellectualize all these things. What coulda, shoulda, woulda. But there's certain foundational facts and interestingly you made the point in the book that I have to over and over make to people. Why did we start in the Central Valley? It was a requirement, federal requirement for federal dollars. Now it's not the worst idea, I mean the intercontinental rail.

[Taylor Gray]

Just to say it, it was a requirement because the federal program wasn't just for high speed rail. It was to start where you had air pollution for marginalized communities. Which is both like. I just want to say this because it's part of why I'm saying this in the book is that that all sounds great and there's. You can come up with reasons starting in Central Valley, but it's the part of the state that will generate the least political capital to keep going because it has the least dense ridership.

[Gavin Newsom]

But it's also part of the state that does have. I mean you talk about ignorance, poverty and disease. You talk about the issues of air quality and life expectancy. You talk about the economic opportunities.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah, but what addresses air quality is the whole track.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, ultimately a fully electrified track. I mean that ultimately will.

[Taylor Gray]

This is just. To me, it's an example. This one wasn't California's fault. This was the Obama administration. But it's an example of they should have given. I want to say what I think should have happened here. They should have Given you whatever three some billion dollars, that's what that grant was and just said use it for high speed rail. It shouldn't have been a stacked series of ideas. It doesn't all need to be a triple axle. Right. High speed rail is hard enough, as you know better than I do.

[Gavin Newsom]

Representative democracy is a tough thing. Dictatorships are a little easy.

[Taylor Gray]

Not having to do that wasn't representative Democrats. He knew that. No.

[Gavin Newsom]

A lot of folks in the Central Valley, a lot of the elected officials, a lot of the Blue Dog Democrats, a lot of.

[Taylor Gray]

But the Obama administration, when they created those programs. Right?

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

That's a lot happening. I really. This is an important point to me.

[Gavin Newsom]

There were a lot of representatives, Democratic representatives that stipulated their support for that bill and those dollars that it go to the Central.

[Taylor Gray]

There is a lot of politics in that. I don't, I don't want to take that away. But I do want to say because this comes up a lot when I'm talking about this book. It's like, oh, do you hate democracy? People have no fucking idea what is happening in these regulatory processes.

[Gavin Newsom]

100%.

[Taylor Gray]

I cover this professionally and when I dig into what is happening after these bills pass, I'm like, oh my God, really? That is not democracy. That is. We've created things that were supposed to allow for participation and they are often very captured. Maybe they're captured by interests you like, that's fine. But that is not the thing that the mass of Californians who voted for Prop 1A knew they were getting. And even those of us covering the stimulus bill were not looking at the precise requirements in the notice of funding opportunity in the grant program. So there is this thing, I think, where a lot of this highly technocratic governance, which is very much a negotiation between different interests, is in this like King's cup way being justified as democracy. That's not what democracy looks like. I'll use that chant here. Right. Democracy is not shitting. But nobody knows about you.

[Gavin Newsom]

Look, I mean you're very adjacent to the arguments that Elon Musk is making with Doge. Yeah, this clay layer bureaucracy, this is not representative. Who the hell are these people to make these rules? Who are these people making these decisions? And the opacity of these decisions. They're not made in sunshine daylight. And a lot of these three lever.

[Taylor Gray]

I'm supposed to Nicholas Bagley, the more liberal law professor making these rules. But I, I take, I'll take the hit.

[Gavin Newsom]

No, it's. Well, it's not even a hit, but I mean I think it goes to the, the sentiment. It goes to. I think it goes to the thematics of your book. It goes to what you're trying to stress test and what you're trying to stress upon us as Democrats that we need to be more accountable.

[Taylor Gray]

Here's. Here's something.

[Gavin Newsom]

But let me make this point. I say this all the time, my legislative friends, right? When I signed a bill, I said, this happens so often. It's not indictment of any individual legislature. It's sort of institutionalized. They think the process is done. Process just begun. It's just beginning program. It's not problem solving. And then that implementation application goes through. Exactly what you're saying. What's an. You mentioned no foes in, in, in. In the book, we have no fuzz, which are notice of funding, availability, not opportunity. And then you stack all those things up with all these rules and requirements along the lines you suggest that was never part of anyone's understanding or vision, is what you just said. And I think there's absolute legitimacy.

[Taylor Gray]

I have this joke that everybody knows a Schoolhouse Rock song of, like, how a bill becomes a law, but what they don't know is how law becomes or does not become like, a reality.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right?

[Taylor Gray]

Like the things that happen after actually much more complicated. But I want to say one thing about Elon Musk and Doge and this point I was just, just referenced Nick Bagley, who is a great administrative law professor at U. Of Michigan. He was Gretchen Whitmer's, your. Your gubernatorial colleague's chief counsel. He wrote this piece that's very influential these days and very influential for me, called the Procedural Fetish. And one of the things he says in that that I think is really wise is that the Democratic Party is very legalistic. It's got a lot of lawyers in it between. Tim Walls was the first person on a Democratic ticket since Mondale to not go to law school.

[Gavin Newsom]

Right.

[Taylor Gray]

We're very, we're very legalistic. And lawyers and constitutional lawyers and administrative procedure lawyers, they grapple a lot with a very hard question, which is what makes government action legitimate? And the answer they often come to is procedure. Right? It is following the procedure set out in the laws and the rules and the court orders, et cetera. It's not that there's nothing to that. But the point Bagley makes, which I think is the right counter or the way to think about the point Elon Musk is making, is that to most people, what makes government legitimate in a democracy is that they are getting what they think they voted for. When they vote for you and you say you're going to do X, Y and Z. They got X, Y and Z. And if they don't feel like they got that, they vote you out. Right. They see you as illegitimate, a failure. And the problem with Musk and Doge, in addition to its lawless nature, is that its ends are terrible. And the people did not vote for, you know, not to be able to reach anybody at the Social Security Administration or the IRS ever again on the phone. Right. That. That wasn't part of the pitch. But it's, I think, really important that, like, liberals have a little bit more of this sense. Not the procedure is meaningless, because it isn't. You need procedure. But what really connects government to people is outcomes, a lived experience of government acting in their life.

[Gavin Newsom]

You got it.

[Taylor Gray]

And if you are letting endless levels of not just process, but process you have created. I mean, when we're talking about no FOEs and no FAS and I mean, that is the work of men and women.

[Gavin Newsom]

God bless.

[Taylor Gray]

We are. We are writing that shit down on the computer.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah. I mean, we lost everyone. We opened up with sequel.

[Taylor Gray]

I know, yeah, this is. This is going to be a very high, high audience podcast, but when you do that, I think that that actually is a cultural change. The thing I respect about Elon Musk, there's a lot these days I don't like about the guy, but there is a relentlessness to the way he pursues his objectives, a real sense that in between here and the end he is seeking might be a lot of pain, might be a lot of disappointment, might be a lot of angry people, but if this is worth it, which on Tesla and SpaceX it was, and on destroying the federal government, in my view, it isn't, then this is worth it. And that, I think, has not been the culture of liberal governance. The culture of liberal governance has actually been to try to generate political support by giving things to interest groups in the middle of the process.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well said.

[Taylor Gray]

Right. You pass the bill, then there's a regulatory thing. Nobody's really paying attention to that. And you do a bunch of payoffs there. And then the thing doesn't work as well, or it's slower, or it's more expensive, and then people think you don't do a great job, and like, that's actually undermining the legitimacy of government.

[Gavin Newsom]

Couldn't agree more.

[Jamie Petras]

September 1979. Virginia's top prison band, Edge of Daybreak, is about to record their debut album behind bars in just five hours.

[Gavin Newsom]

Okay, we're rolling 1, 2, 3, 4.

[Jamie Petras]

I'm Jamie Petras, music and culture writer. For the past five years, I've been talking to the band's three surviving members. They're out of prison now and in their 70s, their past behind them. But they also have some unfinished business.

[Gavin Newsom]

The end of Daybreak, Eyes of Love, was supposed to have been followed up by another album.

[Jamie Petras]

It's a story about the liberating power of music, the American justice system, and ultimately, second chances. Listen to Soul incarcerated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Welcome to Pod of Rebellion, our new Star Wars Rebels Rewatch podcast. I'm Vanessa Marshall. Hi, I'm Tia Sur.

[Taylor Gray]

I'm Taylor Gray.

[Jon Lee Brody]

And I'm John Lee Brody.

[Vanessa Marshall]

But you may also know us as Harrison Doula's Specter 2, Tabeen Wren, Specter.

[Taylor Gray]

5, and Ezra Bridger's Specter 6 from Star Wars Rebels.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Wait, I wasn't on Star Wars Rebels. Am I in the right place?

[Vanessa Marshall]

Absolutely. Each week we're going to rewatch and discuss an episode from the series and.

[Taylor Gray]

Share some fun behind the scenes stories.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Sometimes we'll be visited by special guests like Steve blum voices Zabarelio Spectre 4, or Dante Bosco, voice of Jai Kel and many others.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Sometimes we'll even have a lively debate.

[Taylor Gray]

And we'll have plenty of other fun surprises and trivia too.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Oh, and me. Well, I'm the lucky ghost crew Stowaway, who gets to help moderate and guide the discussion each week. Kind of like how Kanan guided Ezra in the ways of the Force. You see what I did there?

[Vanessa Marshall]

Nicely done, John.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Thanks, Tia.

[Vanessa Marshall]

So hang on. Cause it's gonna be a fun ride.

[Taylor Gray]

Cue the.

[Jon Lee Brody]

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

[Cheekies]

Hey, y'all, it's your girl, Cheekies. And I'm back with a brand new season of your favorite podcast, Cheekies and Chill. I'll be sharing even more personal stories with you guys. And I know a lot of people are gonna attack me. Why are you gonna go visit your dad? Your mom wouldn't be okay with it. I'm gonna tell you guys right now. I know my mother and I know my mom had a very forgiving heart. That is my story on plastic surgery. This is my truth. I think the last time I cried like that was when I lost my mom like that, like, yelling. I was like, no. I was like, oh. And I thought, what did I do wrong? And as always, you'll get my exclusive take on topics like love, personal growth, health, family ties, and more. And don't forget, I'll also be dishing out my best advice to you on episodes of Dear Cheeky.

[Taylor Gray]

So my fiance and I have been together for 10 years. In the first two years of being together, I find out he is cheating on me, not only with women, but also with men. What should I do?

[Cheekies]

Okay, where do I start? That's not love. He doesn't love you enough. Because if he loved you, he'd be faithful. It's going to be an exciting year and I hope that you can join me, listen to Cheekies and Chill Season four as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gavin Newsom]

Here's the deal.

[Vanessa Marshall]

We gotta set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game.

[Taylor Gray]

We gotta make moves and make them early.

[Gavin Newsom]

Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback.

[Taylor Gray]

Just save up and stack up to reach them.

[Gavin Newsom]

Let's put ourselves in the right position.

[Taylor Gray]

Pre game to greater things.

[Cheekies]

Start building your retirement [e-mail] brought to.

[Taylor Gray]

You by AARP and the Ad Council.

[Dan Roth]

Ever wonder what it would be like to be mentored by today's top business leaders? My podcast, this Is Working can help with that. Here's some advice from Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, on standing out from the leadership crowd.

[Gavin Newsom]

Develop your EQ A lot of people have plenty of brains, but EQ is do you trust me? Do I communicate well? You know, when you walk in a room, do people feel good? You're there? Are you responsive to people? Do people know you have a heart? Develop the team, develop the people. Create a system of trust. And it works over time.

[Dan Roth]

I'm Dan Roth, LinkedIn's editor in chief. On my podcast this Is Working, leaders like Jamie Dimon, Mark Cuban and Richard Branson share strategies for success and the real lessons that have shaped them. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gavin Newsom]

By the way, sort of going back to that book, citizenville literally talks about this in the context of it's not inputs, it's outcomes. This pyramid's inverting. More choice, more voice. I talk about government being a vending machine where you put in your taxes, you get police, fire, healthcare, education. If you don't like what you get, you kick the machine, you shake the machine. And shifting that paradigm. And not just government efficiency, but how government works. Moving away from you vote, I decide. More of a participatory framework in between elections. We're finally starting to see the fruits of that vision. And near the end of my term, in the context of these new models we've created, Engaged California, our new procurement platforms, the work that Jen Polka helped seed and the reforms we're doing as it relates to large scale IT reforms. But look, this is this notion of being accountable. I mean society becomes how we behave, we are our behaviors. All this to your point, happened on our watch. We own it. Democrats, we own it. Can't, can't point fingers. You got to look in the mirror, you got to take responsibility. I think foundationally that's at center of this book and I think it's very helpful. And it's, you know, it's humbling as well. But it's critically important this time. Not only that we focus on situational politics, but how we're governing and how we're delivering real results. Because I mean, if I have another press conference about how much money we're spending, homelessness, they're going to take my head off. They want to see encampments off the damn street. That's what they're measuring by. They want more housing so that the cost of that housing goes down because there's more supply. They don't give a damn about the process. They don't know what a NOFA is or a no fo. They don't care about any of that stuff. You're 100% right, it does matter. I think there's a balance that we have to find. We're trying to find that balance. We're iterating. But this notion of relentlessness is very resonant. What you just said to be seen doing. It's what you said about Trump a minute ago. We've got to be seen not defending the status quo, defending the high speed rail, this went really well for me.

[Taylor Gray]

But defending, it's a hard brief.

[Gavin Newsom]

The sort of dynamic except expectations that taxpayers rightfully are placed on us. But let me just end with that because you end this book making that case from an abundance frame back to this, this nomenclature around abundance. But you talk about DARPA, you talk about CRISPR, you talk about ARPANET going back 1969, the origins of the Internet. You talk about the NIH, the NSF, you talk about all of these things that few people that are listening even know, but that are important. And it relates to innovation. It's not an act that occurs, it's a process contradicting a little Bit of what we just said that unfolds over time. Tell me a little bit.

[Taylor Gray]

Well, everything's a process, so we don't want to say all processes are bad, just like all regulations are not good or bad. Yeah. This is the other piece of the book that we haven't talked that much about. But Abundance is not just like me banging my fist on the table about how High Speed Rail didn't get finished. It's also motivated in part by a belief that Democrats have developed a dysfunctional relationship with technology and in a way, the future. And I sort of date this back in my own reading of it to around 2016, when I think the harms of social media became really salient to people. I think it got overblamed for the 2016 election. I've never been a believer that misinformation was like the driver there, but it is rotting our brains and it's not making us better people. And it's fucking up our kids. Right. And it's represented by like, a small crew of tech billionaires who, you know, in the years since have turned, you know, more and more both right and weird. And I think the left got to become very skeptical of it. And one of the things that we are trying to say is that a huge amount of social progress, a huge amount of what makes it possible to live a life better than the one we live now, is not just new social insurance programs, though those are very important and I would like to see some of them, or redistribution. It's technology. And it is also being thoughtful about the government's ability to organize resources and rules and manpower to pull technology from the future into the present. Right. The canonical example here is a Manhattan Project. But you can think of the Internet, which, as we talked about, comes from the arpanet. You can think about Operation Warp Speed, like the one truly great success of Donald Trump's first term, which is now disowned very much by him and us and to some degree by the Democrats, too. Right.

[Gavin Newsom]

Some credit, too, a little bit. We should.

[Taylor Gray]

And so there are a lot of problems. Like, the only reason we have any shot on preventing a world of 3 or 4 degrees of warming Celsius is because we have created miracles through government policy in solar, wind, ev.

[Gavin Newsom]

Tesla would not exist had it not been for the regulatory environment of California. One of the great federal subsidies, one.

[Taylor Gray]

Of the great shames of what Elon Musk has become is that guy is a walking advertisement for the power of public private partnership.

[Gavin Newsom]

Thank you.

[Taylor Gray]

He is just like every major company he has done is built on government subsidies, government loan guarantees, over 3 billion.

[Gavin Newsom]

Government demand in the original 465.

[Taylor Gray]

Now this guy is just pulling the lotto up after him. It drives me crazy.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well said.

[Taylor Gray]

But I guess, but, but, but also.

[Gavin Newsom]

It'S a principle that you lay out as it relates to DARPA and which gave us gps, gave us the self driving car he's now promoting that gave us so much of this innovation.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah. And certainly that seeded it. And you know, look like I'm a big believer in universal health care. A lot of my career has been, you know, about trying to expand health insurance. But where health insurance, the only state.

[Gavin Newsom]

That does that regardless of ability to pay in pre existing conditions and immigration.

[Taylor Gray]

But there's a reality to this that for the people who have health insurance, which is most people, what really matters is when you get sick. Is there a cure? My wife is kept alive by shots of insulin. She just is. Right. At another age she wouldn't be. There is so much that we do not yet know how to cure. Yeah, right. There is so much. I mean what Medicare or Medicaid can offer or private health insurance because they don't yet cover it for Most people with GLP1s is just more valuable than what it could offer before GLP1. These are going to be transformational medications for people. They already are. And so getting really serious about what we want the government to do technologically and having a vision of the future that is an abundant one. Right. A vision of the future that is not just about like how cheap consumer goods are. That's fine. But is about the things we need to build or better a life. Right. Cheap energy, cheap health care. Right. Abundant housing, education. Right. There's a lot of things we only touch on in the book that are really important here. I think that one of the shames of politics in the last couple of years is it got to be a really bitter argument over our past. Right.

[Gavin Newsom]

With the the right notion of American reverse pre1900.

[Taylor Gray]

Well, the right was gripped by a deep nostalgia.

[Gavin Newsom]

Yeah.

[Taylor Gray]

For an America I think that never really was. And the left was really focused, really focused on the injustices of our history, which I think are very real. So I'm not trying to undermine that as a thing worth confronting. But I think visions of the future for different reasons on both sides became really degraded completely. And one thing that did change with Trump between his first term and his second is Elon Musk. Marc Andreessen in a way RFK Jr they changed his meaning Trump was the defender of the past America in 2016. Make America great again. All these futurist influencers and, you know, rocket makers and so on, they sort of made him into something that represented a kind of future. I think it's quite dark one. But it is. But, but there is around him. J.D. vance. Right. It changed what he meant. And I think to compete with that, and given that they're going to destroy the present, I don't think it's going to end up being a very attractive vision to people. But to compete with that, I think Democrats need to figure out how to represent a future again. I think Obama represented the future, I think Bill Clinton represented the future. And both that sort of ability to grab reform, which is part of what abundance is about, reform of government, and that ability to grab the high ground of the future, which is the other part of what it's about. This ability to integrate a theory of technology and an optimism about it and ability to sort of wrap it in policy, those things are really important. We haven't talked about AI. There's a lot coming here that's going to be very important. And the party, particularly in that medical frame and the party and the thinkers in it are going to have to be alert to this side of it, too, because it is a mistake to think of politics as a separate sphere from technology. Are, you know, if we could do more modular housing, it would change what is possible in housing policy. Right. These things are bidirectional. They're intertwined. And like, I would like to see a liberalism that isn't just angry about a bunch of things government has failed to do, as I am, but is also optimistic about what is possible. And that's where that vision between red and blue states really diverges. I mean, Trump and them, they're trying to destroy wind and solar. They don't want this vision. They don't want more trade, they don't want more people. Right. It's all scarcity. And that leaves a pretty big opening for the Democratic Party to capture both reform and abundance from them.

[Gavin Newsom]

I love that. And it's a great way to end because it's a framework of optimism. Of course, you know, and I appreciate just thinking about Clinton. Don't stop thinking about tomorrow. I mean, obviously there was language around that and, you know, talking about your tomorrows, not his yesterdays.

[Taylor Gray]

Yeah.

[Gavin Newsom]

Obviously the journey that we were on in the 1960s with the vision, that was JFK. But I will say about our state, and it's a point of pride and in principle for me as governor to say it, or as the future ex governor is a fifth generation California future happens here first. And I talked about this being America's coming attraction. But that's, that's the game that separates, I think our game from the game played everywhere else. It's the reason we went from the seventh largest economy to the sixth largest economy in the world. And we dominate in so many spheres even today. But you're absolutely right, we now have to dominate on that reform agenda and we have to deal with the original sin and that's housing and again, being accountable to these larger visions as well and deliver and level set with folks. And so it's in that spirit of an abundant mindset that Ezra, I'm glad you took the time to be here. I'm really moreover pleased you took time to write this book, which is an essential reading for everybody listening. Thanks for being with us.

[Taylor Gray]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Gavin Newsom]

Thank you.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Welcome to Pod of Rebellion, our new Star Wars Rebels Rewatch podcast. I'm Vanessa Marshall, voice of Harris Syndulla. Specter 2. I'm Tia Sir Car Sabine Wren, Specter 5.

[Taylor Gray]

I'm Taylor Gray. Ezra Bridger, Specter 6.

[Jon Lee Brody]

And I'm Jon Librody, the Ghost Crew Stowaway moderator.

[Vanessa Marshall]

Each week we're gonna rewatch and discuss an episode from the series and share some fun behind the scenes stories.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Sometimes we'll be visited by special guests like Steve bloom voices Zabarelio Spectre 4 or Dante Bosco voices J. Kel and many others.

[Vanessa Marshall]

So hang on because it's gonna be a fun ride.

[Taylor Gray]

Cue the music.

[Jon Lee Brody]

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

[Jamie Petras]

45 years ago, a Virginia soul band called the Edge of Daybreak recorded their debut album Behind Bars. Record collectors consider it a masterpiece. The band's surviving members are long out of prison, but they say they have some unfinished business.

[Gavin Newsom]

The Edge of Daybreak, Eyes of Love was supposed to have been followed up by another album.

[Jamie Petras]

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

[Taylor Gray]

Hey, sis, it's Dr. Joy from Therapy for Black Girls. We've had 400 episodes of Conversations, growth and healing, so we're celebrating. Join us for a special episode with internationally recognized yogi Chelsea Jackson Roberts as she shares wisdom on mindfulness, movement and motherhood. I waited later to have children and I still have exactly what I knew that I wanted. You don't want to miss this special episode. Listen to therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Dan Roth]

Ever wonder what it would be like to be mentored by today's top business leaders? My podcast this is Working can help with that. Here's advice from Google CMO Lorraine Twohill on how to treat AI like a partner.

[Taylor Gray]

I see AI as an incredible co pilot. You may use different tools or toys to get the work done, but AI.

[Jon Lee Brody]

Is just the latest flavor of that.

[Taylor Gray]

You're still the judge of what good looks like.

[Dan Roth]

I'm Dan Roth, LinkedIn's editor in chief, on my podcast this is Working Leaders Share Strategies for Success. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gavin Newsom]

Hey, what's up y'all?

[Taylor Gray]

This is Eric Andre, but I made a podcast called Bombing about absolutely tanking on stage. I tell gnarly stories and I talk to friends about their worst moments of bombing in all sorts of ways. Bombing on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life. Like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she jumped on stage and threw a big haymaker punch to my nose. Listen to Bombing with Eric Andre on.

[Gavin Newsom]

Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on.

[Taylor Gray]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.