Governor Newsom Discusses Trump’s SCOTUS Loss and New Book
2/22/202621 mincomplete
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2:19I'm joined by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
2:21Governor Newsom, great to see you.
2:23Got to get your reaction to Trump's reaction to the Supreme Court ruling against his
2:29tariffs against the world. Donald Trump having a meltdown, a temper tantrum, and his entire
2:35regime right now, they're just whining.
2:38What do you make of it all, Governor?
2:39Yeah, I mean, there's never been a ditch that's been dug this deep, isn't it?
2:44I mean, as you describe it, a tantrum on top of the tantrum attacking his
2:48own handpicked Supreme Court that's been completely supine.
2:52He's been doing his bidding, particularly with the shadow docket, for months and months and
2:56months. But look, months ago, I was on your show the day we announced we
2:59were the first state with our attorney general to announce our lawsuit against the Trump
3:04administration, saying they were illegally moving forward, exercising emergency authority under the International Economic Emergency
3:13Powers Act. They could not unilaterally do that.
3:16And boy, I think about that complaint we filed that day.
3:19It sounded a lot like or read a lot like Robert's opinion, or at least
3:24Robert's words as it relates to this illegal action.
3:27by this administration. I want to remind you, by the way, we did it in
3:31a ranch in the Central Valley in California because it was ranchers and farmers, small
3:36businesses that were hurt most with this regressive tax that is taxed average American family
3:43by over $1 ,750. And so it's time to return that money immediately to the
3:50American people, put it back in their pockets, and it's time to return to the
3:53rule of law, not the rule of Don.
3:56Right. And you immediately demanded those refunds be issued right away.
4:00Donald Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, they said, we're going to try to hold up
4:06American businesses and the people in litigation.
4:08We're going to be fighting this is what they they said.
4:11The Supreme Court ruling is ambiguous and confusing.
4:14And they said years of litigation.
4:16What's your response to that?
4:17Again, I mean, it's the last stop.
4:19Sorry, guys. I mean, we've all I've suffered many times on the other side of
4:24Supreme Court ruling. So there's no higher ruling.
4:26There's no board of peace here.
4:28You can't reestablish with a billion dollar tithing with 27 of your friends from overseas
4:33and create a new Supreme Court.
4:36So it's time this guy start to understand that he cannot operate as an imperial
4:43president, that he is subject to the rule of law, co -equal branches of government,
4:49the only branch of government that seems to be marginally operating Supreme Court, I say,
4:53with an asterisk, but today they seem to operate, are the courts.
4:58And I hope the court of public opinion is finally catching up that, you know,
5:01it's going to put pressure on the other branch of government, Congress, to step up
5:05and start doing their job.
5:06They're all going to be out of work in nine months.
5:09You're going to have a Speaker Jeffries.
5:11This thing, this is a wrecking ball president.
5:13And in his imperial presidency is about to come to an end.
5:19But he's going to be, as you suggest, this last gasp of a desperate man.
5:25And that was advanced today rhetorically, and then substantively with his effort to now do
5:30a global tax of 10 percent, another regressive tax on working people and small businesses
5:35across this country and around the world.
5:37You mentioned his board of peace.
5:40Boy, was that a weird, bizarre thing to watch.
5:44He was like sleeping through it.
5:45You had all these authoritarian leaders there.
5:48He was playing YMCA. Very strange.
5:51But in a more serious note, you've now traveled to the Munich conference.
5:55You were at Davos. You were at a climate conference in Brazil.
5:58You've been speaking to world leaders who are our allies or under the Trump regime,
6:03former allies who should be our allies.
6:06What's your general sense of what the world is feeling right now as you've now
6:11concluded this travel to those places?
6:14One -on -one meetings with the chancellor of Germany, the prime minister of Spain.
6:18I'm talking ambassadors from across the globe.
6:20There's a reckoning happening. I didn't feel that when I went to Davos those first
6:28few days, I called out.
6:29I was very aggressive. I brought those knee pads and I brought them up on
6:33stage. I decided not to come in mildly.
6:36I came in very hot, calling folks out, calling those that are bending their knee
6:40like law firms and universities have in the United States and CEOs that were assembled
6:44in Davos. I suggested a lot of world leaders were as well, only to be
6:49pleasantly surprised with Carney's speech there in Davos and this great retreat from Donald Trump
6:55as it relates to Greenland.
6:57Maybe that was aided and embedded by world leaders bucking up and expressing themselves more
7:02clearly and more forcefully, but also by the bond markets that also spoke very loudly.
7:06against these incursions against a NATO ally into Greenland.
7:11But it was an assertion that we need to be tougher, we need to be
7:15more united. And I felt it was important not to give him, again, exclusive playing
7:21field in Munich. And it was great to see other Democratic leaders there, other congressmen
7:25and congressional leaders that, or rather business leaders that were a little more assertive, including,
7:31by the way, the Chancellor of Germany, who decided to promote the fact that we
7:34got together. Trump was very critical of that.
7:37He was threatening, by the way, Trump, threatening other world leaders not to even meet
7:41with me. He's a weak, weak president.
7:46And that weakness is on display globally now as well as the rest of the
7:51world starting to turn against Trump and Trumpism.
7:54And the only card he had left was these terrorists.
7:57And that's why it's exactly why he was so aggressive today, because he knows it.
8:03He's got nothing else going on.
8:05His entire economic policy is mass deportations.
8:08That's beginning to unravel because of the people in Minneapolis.
8:11His economic policies were obviously aided and embedded by these terrorists.
8:16By the way, Soben was his personal dealings.
8:19And don't forget for a second, these terror policies are connected to the great grift,
8:24this great self -dealing, this crony capitalism we're seeing around the globe.
8:30You saw it as he moved back on terror policy in Vietnam, as he got
8:34a business deal done there with the golf course and the waiver of a lot
8:38of environmental rules. Same thing in the UAE.
8:42Same thing in Saudi Arabia.
8:44So the self -dealing is a big part of the story and what happened today
8:48at the Supreme Court. I want to talk about your book in a moment.
8:51It's out right now, Young Man in a Hurry, a memoir of discovery.
8:57And it is a memoir of discovery of you becoming a man.
9:02And I want to talk about that.
9:03But it's in contrast to Donald Trump's behavior, because so much of what's taken place
9:11to me with this Trump regime, masqueraded as political, this side, that side.
9:17But I had always been shouting from the rooftop, this is about basic human behavior.
9:22And Donald Trump is behaving like a demented human being.
9:27And I've been just trying to say, stop viewing this as a Democrat or a
9:31Republican. View this as human character.
9:33And this is someone utterly lacking in moral character.
9:37This is someone who is weak and pathetic and just stop with the politicizing of
9:42it. And so just talk to us before we get into the book about just
9:46the behavior you've exhibited. Because you used to say that it was weakness masquerading as
9:52strength. But I've noticed a pivot in how you talk about it now, which is
9:55it's weakness, period. Yeah, he's weak.
10:01And look, he's a broken man in the spirit of your question.
10:05And I think, yeah, you rightfully for years now diagnosed him.
10:09He's a broken man that tried to break this country on January 6th, tried to
10:13light democracy on fire. He's going to do everything he can to analyze this next
10:16election. His presidency de facto ends when Speaker Jeffries gets sworn in.
10:21At least his presidency as we know it.
10:23And now losing this tariff policy and the unilateral authority under the IEEPA.
10:27This is a major body blow.
10:30You saw the new GDP numbers that came out 2 .2 percent for the year,
10:35down from 2 .8 percent under the Biden administration.
10:39We're seeing manufacturing job losses.
10:42We're seeing the entire economic case.
10:44Bessett, not just Trump, have made collapse, run over.
10:47And he's got no he's got nothing else left in his back pocket.
10:52And we're going to I think there's going to be a hell of a state
10:55of the union. And I imagine that's going to mean perhaps more forays overseas.
11:00I watch what happens, obviously, in Iran.
11:02But this weakness is on display.
11:05World leaders have finally figured it out, to your point about Munich, COP and what
11:09happened in Davos. And the American people are seeing it on full display.
11:13When you stand up to this guy, he backs down.
11:16His great strength, if there's any, is figuring out your weakness and exploiting it.
11:23But he does not do well when people assert themselves and push back.
11:28Again, that's what the people of Minneapolis have done.
11:32And that's what's happening across this country.
11:34And that's the pathway back.
11:36Conviction, strength, clarity, purpose. Call this guy out.
11:42No quarter. Fight fire with fire.
11:45He's a paper tiger. A broken man.
11:49And the only thing standing between our republic, a 251st anniversary we celebrate this historic
11:56project, is Donald Trump. We have to be mindful of what he will do between
12:02now and November and be more vigilant than we've ever been.
12:06You know, one of the things I note about your memoir and how deeply personal
12:12it is, how you open up about things like your emotions and you describe things
12:19that I'm not used to seeing political leaders or leaders at all really get into.
12:24I mean, you talk about feeling of this conflicting feelings of abandonment with your dad,
12:30William, you know, and how he was a mentor.
12:32But also you felt that he left your family, you know, in the 1970s, moving
12:37from home to home with your mom, Tessa.
12:40What that experience was like living in these two different worlds where your dad was
12:44representing high profile people, but you didn't feel that and you were living with your
12:50mom and going and you open up, I mean, about going to college and not
12:54doing well on the SATs.
12:56We have currently right now people in the office who say, I did so great
13:00and I'm amazing. And you said, I suffered with dyslexia, torture was the words that
13:06you use. And you open up about things that you just don't hear that people
13:09would normally say, ah, why are you opening up?
13:12You're being too emotional. What do you say about that?
13:14And why'd you open up like that in the book?
13:16Well, it's because I'm sick of wearing the mask, you know, and I put a
13:23mask on and my face started growing into it.
13:26And I was becoming someone that I didn't want to become that I'm not.
13:31And, um, and, and I, and I talked, you know, this, this book, it says
13:35young man in a hurry.
13:36It's a memoir of discovery.
13:37I didn't, you know, I didn't know about my family.
13:41I knew a little bit about my family.
13:42Both my parents passed away.
13:43My mom, many, many years ago, my father, right after I got elected governor of
13:48California, they never talked about their marriage.
13:50They never talked about why my father left.
13:52I, you know, my mom was 19, two years later, she's living on her own.
13:55She comes from no money.
13:56We're living in one bedroom apartment.
13:58And my father just took off.
14:00Uh, and he never told me I discovered that in the process of writing this
14:04book, she raised us, uh, single -handedly grit, hard work, resilience, um, and how she
14:09never wanted me to get in politics.
14:11I struggled with learning disability this day.
14:13I don't read speeches. You'll never see me read a speech because I can't read
14:16a speech. I can read and write the irony of me writing a book and
14:20then reading, by the way, that book, the audio book, that alone.
14:23was 18 hours of pure hell.
14:25God bless the people that helped edit that and the grace of theirs.
14:30But I just wanted to open up and be myself.
14:32For those that hate me, you should buy this book.
14:35It's all the op research.
14:37You don't even have to work very hard.
14:39I gave it all to you.
14:40But it's honest. It's like really honest.
14:43And I'll tell you, Ben, you know this, man.
14:46There's so many political books out there.
14:48Diamond does. I'm not knocking anybody.
14:50I'm not. There's some great ones, too.
14:52But this is not your typical political book.
14:55But it's me, man. It's all the good, the bad, the sweaty hands, the nervous
15:01guy in the back of the room, the guy tries to put a mask on,
15:04wear a tie, the whole thing, and mistakes I made, how I played into the
15:10stereotypes. But it's a little more raw.
15:13And to the extent it's emotional, it's real, man.
15:16I was there for my mom's assisted suicide when it was illegal.
15:19And I was there with her, held her hand, her last breath.
15:23I didn't know about her dad, who put a gun to her head, committed suicide.
15:28He was a prisoner of war after the march in Corriga.
15:31I didn't know all this history.
15:32I didn't know that history.
15:34And so, you know, it shaped me.
15:36And now it explains who I am in ways that I didn't, I never understood
15:39the why, why I was motivated by this, why I was doing certain things, why
15:44I felt certain anxieties. And it all just started to take place and shape as
15:49I started to learn and dive deeper in this book.
15:51And it's a book for my kids, man.
15:53It's literally a dedication to my four little kids and, you know, how I wish
15:57my parents wrote this book.
15:59I wish my grandparents wrote this book.
16:01And, you know, I hope people receive it well.
16:04And I know it will be seen through the lies of cynicism and politics.
16:08But that's the third way.
16:09I can't control that. I can't control the critics.
16:11We'll see. It's just coming up.
16:13People have different, you know, opinions about it.
16:15But I'm really proud of it.
16:16And I'm proud of my dad and mom.
16:19And for all the warts and all.
16:21And, you know, I'm proud of the person I'm becoming.
16:23I'm in the process of becoming.
16:25I'm trying to be a better dad, better father, you know, better husband, rather.
16:30And, you know, just, you know, we're all works in progress.
16:33And my life's been, you know, open.
16:35It's been, there's been bright lights on it for a long time, supervisor, mayor, lieutenant
16:39governor, governor. And I made a lot of mistakes and paid a lot of personal
16:43and professional price for it.
16:44And I try to put it all out there in this memoir.
16:47You know, it's a book for everyone, but also as the title talks about you
16:53becoming a man, young man, a journey of discovery.
16:56And we've seen so many young men who were peeled off by Trump and MAGA
17:02and their movement and put in much darker places than they perhaps already felt.
17:10I've always said, you know, look, empathy is a good thing.
17:14And that, you know, supporting the bullies was always a bad thing when I grew
17:18up. And we should feel comfortable as men to call out that behavior when people
17:25are, again, trying to use the phrases of this is what an alpha is, and
17:30this is what it is.
17:31And I'm like, that actually is the behavior that's being exhibited by these MAGA leaders
17:35to me who call themselves alpha to me is deeply problematic.
17:40And what I like about this book is you said, it's okay to feel these
17:43things, but let's, and it's okay to make mistakes, but let's try to, let's try
17:47to fix it. Let's try to be better.
17:49Let's aspire for something more.
17:51Yeah, no, I love that, man.
17:53Look, I, it's about empathy, care, and compassion.
17:56Those are the superpowers. You want to talk about strength.
17:59It's defined. in those terms.
18:02It's not power, dominance, and aggression.
18:05It's about moral authority, not formal authority.
18:08You don't have to be something to do something.
18:10Donald Trump's learning that. The more he uses his formal authority, the less he has
18:14of it. The more we, the people, the people in Minneapolis use our moral authority,
18:18the more abundant it becomes.
18:22It's reflected in aspects of this book, failing forward fast, learning from mistakes, trying not
18:27to make them again. The grace and humility, the human expression, the human experience, and
18:33how we have privileges and challenges and how they shape us.
18:38How are parents, man? All the good and the bad.
18:41My mom said to me, it's in the book where she said something that just
18:44broke me. She said, it's okay to be average because I was struggling reading.
18:48She was worried I was going to drop out of school.
18:50I was going into community college, 960.
18:53Thank you for reminding me on my SAT.
18:56It hurt me. I'm like, man, I don't want to be average.
19:00Years later, part of the memoir discovery, as I understood, she was just on her
19:04journey trying to be a good parent.
19:05She was struggling herself. It's okay.
19:08You don't have to be smarter than anybody.
19:10That's life, man. It's not like we're all broken.
19:14I don't want to get into that.
19:17It's messy. We're all messy.
19:20It's okay. That's what it's like to be a man, is recognizing that.
19:26To love, man, and to be loved.
19:29We all need it. To ask for help.
19:31The strongest people are those that bend down on one knee, yeah, and lift other
19:34people up. They're also those that ask for help.
19:37I had to ask for help a lot.
19:38That's in this book. That's why I say, for those who hate me, you want
19:41more op research, buy the damn book in bulk.
19:44For those that think they know me, I challenge you, buy a couple books because
19:48you may want to pass along to a friend.
19:50It may challenge even your assumptions.
19:52Those that love me, I hope I gave you some reason why you may be
19:56right and maybe challenge you to say, all right, you didn't know that about me,
20:00but maybe I offered another layer of understanding that may allow you to forgive me
20:07a little bit, too. Everybody check out the book, Young Man in a Hurry, A
20:12Memoir of Discovery. Governor, thanks for being on.
20:17We always appreciate you. We appreciate the work you're doing here in California and for
20:20this country. Honored to be back with you.
20:23Thank you, brother. California Governor Gavin Newsom, everybody.
20:26And hit subscribe. Let's hit that 6 million subscriber this week.
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