Corrupt Trump Becomes Elon Musk's Tesla Salesman As He Hikes Prices For Regular Americans

People are going to care about this, right? They just got to know about this. People have to care about this, particularly when the split screen is, uh, Trump hawking the Teslas and the crypto stuff, with the markets tanking and, uh, risks of recession going up. I don’t know. Welcome to Pod Save America. I’m John Favreau.

I’m Dan Pfeiffer. Big show today, Dan. We got Trump coming after our booze in the next phase of a trade war that might cause a recession. We got, uh, his family looking to do business with a crypto felon who wants a pardon, and, uh, the president himself hawking Teslas on the White House lawn. And as the 2026 midterm announcements begin—love it—I drove down to Orange County to chat with Katie Porter, who just announced that she’s running for governor of California, possibly against Kamala Harris.

But the biggest story right now is the looming government shutdown, which, as of this recording on Thursday afternoon, still hasn’t been averted. For Republicans to pass their sandwich of a fun bill through Congress, they need at least eight Senate Democrats to break a filibuster. They have Fetterman and, reportedly, right before we started recording, Chuck Schumer told his colleagues that he’ll allow a vote on the bill. There are also reports that six other Senate Democrats will follow Schumer, uh, even though most of them have come out against the bill, which doesn’t just keep the government funded at the same levels; uh, it makes cuts to things like housing, health care—a billion dollars in cuts to D.C.—um, and it also gives Trump more power to impose tariffs and basically spend our money however he’d like. Naturally, Trump’s a fan. Here he is talking about the situation during a pool spray in the Oval Office on Thursday.

“We’re talking about a shutdown. We’re talking about getting to work immediately on the greatest tax bill ever passed. If we don’t open—uh—the Democrats are stopping all of these good things that we’re providing. If there’s a shutdown, it’s only because of the Democrats, and they would really be taken away a lot from our country and from the people of our country.”

All right, so I don’t know. From where we sit right now, 3:00 p.m. Pacific on, uh, Thursday, it feels like the shutdown may be averted. Dan, it seems like it’s going to be averted. If it is, if Chuck Schumer is voting for cloture, that is a sign that there are at least six other Democrats—Schumer, Fetterman, and six others—who will vote to allow the Republicans to pass this bill. So let’s take a step back and just talk about sort of the strategy around this, like the analysis of voting for a shutdown against a shutdown. You had a great message box, uh, Thursday about why Democrats shouldn’t fear the politics of a shutdown. Can you walk us through that?

I would say it did not seem to carry the weight I had hoped when I wrote it. Smash that subscribe button, Chuck Schumer. Dan, weren’t you just coming from, uh, talking to some House Democrats in D.C.?

I did. You know what they did? They all but one of them voted against this bill.

You—after they did that before I arrived, but I was there for the celebration, so yes, I was.

I would say so. It’s not your fault. It’s not—I would—I would say that this is going to be a wild pod because I woke up in Virginia this morning and did our morning call in California, so I am quite tired. Unbelievable. And I know that you were speaking along with fellow 2028 hopefuls—Schen and Whitmer, Josh Shapiro—they’re—they’re speaking today. This was the first—this was—this was the first cattle call of the 2028 season, and you were—you were the—you were first up.

I was first up. That’s right. That’s right. Yes. WeDan.com.

That is a painful thing for you to say. Okay, let’s—I just want to talk about the politics of this, because that is what—there—I would stipulate that there are people who have legitimate, substantive concerns about the impact of a shutdown and fears that if you’re engaging shutdown negotiations with a party that wants to destroy government, they may not open it again. Elon Musk could do a lot of damage while the government is shut down like that. That’s—I think that’s a legitimate, substantive concern. But there are people who are worried about the politics here, and I think they’re wrong to be worried about the politics. There is this narrative that the party that quote-unquote “shuts the government down”—and I don’t think that’s what government would get—Democrats would be doing here—but the people who don’t vote for the funding bill are take the blame. And that’s based on the fact that in the 90s, when Bill Clinton’s presidency was struggling, Newt Gingrich shut the government down over a big budget fight, and Clinton won that fight substantively and politically and put himself on the path to an easy re-election. In 2013, Republicans shut the government down when Obama was president. After the end of that shutdown, the Republicans had their low—the Republican Party had its lowest favorability rating in modern history at that point. But what I think—and then when Trump—people—we—we forget this, but Trump shut the government down for the longest government shutdown in history. It was Trump’s fault, and it was over funding for the wall, and which was something that while his base loves, most of the country thinks it’s kind of ridiculous and not important, and Trump took blame then, too. His numbers went down over the course of that shutdown. I think people are reading this the wrong way because in all three examples I gave—Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in the 90s, Republicans in 2013, and Trump—is they all shut the government down over incredibly unpopular things. But you can’t get more unpopular: Republicans wanted to—wanted to cut Medicare. Ted Cruz in the Freedom Caucus—you mentioned—you—the Obama-era shutdown wanted to defund the Affordable Care Act and kick, you know, millions of people with pre-existing conditions off their healthcare coverage. The wall’s not popular. And so I think we have to look at is what happens if you pick a shutdown fight over something popular, and Democrats would have a laundry list of popular options: Social Security cuts, veterans’ cuts to VA healthcare, cuts to food safety and cancer research—like a whole bunch of things we like. We have the high side of the political argument on issues, and we could—and we could—I think Democrats could win that fight if we try. The other part is, even if you don’t win the fight in the short term, these things flush through the system so much faster than we think, right? Yes, the Republicans were at their lowest level in November of 2013, but then they won the Senate and expanded their House majority in November of 2014. And so this idea that this would somehow damage our—our damage our chances in the midterms is sort of—I think sort of absurd. And so you—people shouldn’t be—I think it’s a political fight Democrats could win. It would—you know, it’s not a guarantee you’d win it, absolutely, but there are no guarantees in life, and just being afraid of the politics I think is taking the—it’s an oversimplistic reading of what’s happened, and I think it’s kind of taking the coward’s way out of this fight.

Yeah, so I completely agreed with your, uh, your message box, and especially like I think that any political benefit or damage will be short-lived on either side, whoever gets it. And even if I’m wrong, which I may be—like predicting who voters will blame for a shutdown is difficult, especially in this media environment, which is not exactly friendly and conducive to getting a message out—um, and especially since there’s no way to know how long the shutdown would last, right? These things tend to change over time, depending on if it’s a short shutdown, a longer shutdown, when it’s going to—so like putting aside for a second just what voters might think about this, like we should just talk about what happens during a shutdown, because I do think this is—I think this is a harder vote for a harder decision for Senate Democrats to make than—um—it might appear to be. Because look, I love a good shutdown. We remember in 2018, there was—there was a brief shutdown before the longest shutdown in history that Trump caused at the beginning of Trump’s term—maybe it was like 17, 18—it was early 2018. Early 2018, um, Democrats decided they were not going to give votes for a funding bill because they were concerned that Trump would deport the Dreamers and that he would—he was going to get rid of protections for the Dreamers, and we as a podcast and a company, um, did like a whip count and tried to, you know, pressure the Senate Democrats into doing this because we really thought that they had leverage here, and they did it. And then after like 48 hours, maybe, the government shut down on a Friday, and I think it reopened again on a Monday.

On a Monday. Yeah. Then they—then they caved, but I wasn’t like disappointed in them caving at that point because I don’t know—like Trump was basically like, “Okay, the government shut down. I’m not going to give you what you want. I don’t care.” And so what’s—so now you have a bunch of federal workers who aren’t getting paid in the federal government, and it turns out like the Democrats didn’t really have the leverage, or at least they didn’t try—like maybe—maybe they could have had it go on for a couple of weeks—but that made me rethink my priors about like what leverage really is in a shutdown, depending on which party it is. So like if a—if—if we went through the shutdown, right, what would happen? So during the last shutdown, the longest in history that you mentioned during Trump’s first term, about 400,000 federal workers were placed on unpaid leave, and another 400,000 were forced to work without pay. This dragged on for 35 days—longest shutdown ever. So more federal employees would be out of work than, uh, Trump and Elon already fired, and a bunch of government services and benefits would get disrupted more than have already been disrupted. So then the question is, what forces Trump and Republicans back to the table to negotiate with Democrats once that happens? Like what—and then you have to ask yourself, okay, what do they actually want? Trump and Republicans—well, they want to destroy government jobs, services, and benefits. Government shutdown gives them that. They want the power to spend our money however they’d like, even if Congress appropriated it in specific ways. Government shutdown makes that easier. Um, and now do they also want public approval? Uh, yeah, maybe theoretically. They’ve done to date—Sugg—just—they do—well, that’s my problem, right? Theoretically, a party wants public approval and wants to be popular so they can win reelection, particularly Republicans in Congress who have to face voters in 2026, but thus far they have gone along with some Trump policies and decisions that are deeply unpopular. And so even if public opinion turns against them, do we think that will really pressure Republicans? Do we think Republicans and the—and the Trump folks will feel pressure to then negotiate with Democrats? And then if so, what are Democrats asking for? And I hope—and—and we can’t be asking for an agreement, a promise, because they’re going to break all of that. In fact, they’re breaking laws right now. So it’s just like—I—this is why I think it’s tougher. And look, I still think you could say, “Whatever, let’s roll the dice. Let’s show that we’re going to fight. Let’s shut this thing down and let’s, you know, draw attention to it and protest them,” blah, blah, blah. But like, you know, I—I just don’t know. I don’t know how it ends, and I don’t know what we’re asking for, and I don’t know what they’ll give—what they’re likely to give because they don’t give a—they are—they—they do still care. They want to get rid of government. I think like we—you and I, Pod Save America, people who follow politics, the Democratic Party—we’ve been having this conversation for a couple of weeks now. Yeah, and the—it feels like it’s been the same conversation, but it hasn’t caught up to changes in the facts on the ground. Like when we had Schiff—Senators Schiff and Merkley and Wyden on our live stream before Trump’s State of the Union address thing, what we were talking about is, “Would you vote for a clean funding bill, a six-month funding bill that would just keep the government open at the same levels that were agreed to when Joe Biden was president?” That is a much tougher vote for the reasons you laid out.

Yeah, right. That is not what this is. Yeah, that is not this bill. This is really important. This bill increases funding for the military by $12 billion. It gives—depending on how you read the language—gives Trump more authority on how to spend that money—him unilaterally. It increases funding for Trump’s mass deportation plan. And this is very important: it has a $1.2 billion cut in what is called non-defense discretionary spending. What that means is spending that is not military spending, defense spending, or Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. So what that means is a billion-dollar cut to Head Start, community health centers, education, food safety, cancer research. That’s just being cut. Just—we’re just going to cut that. What that’s essentially doing is codifying what—what Elon Musk and Doge have been doing, right there. And then just for shits and giggles, it takes—cuts a billion dollars from D.C.’s budget for no reason, which is going to force D.C. to possibly have to fire teachers, police officers, and firefighters. And then on top of that, it takes away Congress’s ability to reject Trump’s tariffs. Congress can call a vote on tariffs; that is—that power is taken away in this bill. And so Republicans—Democrats did not shut the government down here. They would not be shutting the government down. Republicans need a bill they can get 60 votes on. They never talk to Democrats about what it would take to get seven Democratic votes for this bill. They never talked to a single Democrat about it. And so even if you want to—just like—another way to think about this is like, “We should just fight for a clean CR,” right?

That was—gonna say that’s what you want. We will—we would support keeping the government open, but we’re not going to give—do favors to Trump and Elon Musk and this for no reason. We get nothing for it. We have—like just giving away all of our leverage, and I think that is a huge mistake, and it just—it is rolling over in this moment. Like we don’t—I think in a clean CR, it’s kind of hard to figure out what the way out is. There is a way out here, and if you just said—you just go to them and say, “Clean CR,” you’re not gonna get—Clean CR can be six months, 30 days—like we—30 days, you—six months—let’s make it three months, right? Whatever, something like that. Just—we will keep the—we want to keep the government, but we’re not going to just—we’re not going to vote for a big cut in programs like Head Start, community health centers. We’re not going to do that. And I think that would have been—that’s a very defensible position to take, substantively and politically. And I’m very disappointed that it appears, at this recording at 3:15 Pacific time on Thursday, that that’s not the direction the Democratic caucus will go.

How do you message the—we’re for a clean CR, which obviously no one knows what that is—is, and it does seem like the changes they made to the CR are, uh, calculated to, like, you know—our most—it’s horrible that they’re going to cut a billion dollars from the D.C. budget—our most—people going to care about was what happens in Washington, D.C., right? Um, I do think people would probably hate that they’re going to add another, like, $12 billion to defense spending for no reason. The deportation stuff, I, you know, I wish it was more unpopular, but it’s—it’s like the most popular thing he’s doing right now, which is gross. Um, so I guess you would have—you would talk about, like, healthcare cuts and cuts. Yeah, we’re not going to support healthcare—we like—we are in the process of negotiating a budget agreement for the year; like that is the point here. What they try to do is you want to negotiate a budget agreement for the year, and while we’re doing that, we’re not just going to cut Head Start, community health centers for fun; like we’re not going to agree to that. That is not a way to have a negotiation over the budget. And if you want to—if you want to raise—you want to increase military spending by $12 billion, traditionally over the last, you know, 15 years here of budget negotiations, we have increased and decreased defense and non-defense spending at the same time. So they’re breaking that. And so I think you just say, “We all—we are asking for is to keep everything working, keep the lights on, keep everything working the way it has been working right now. We are not going to support cuts to these programs. We—we’re happy to negotiate with Republicans. We’ll go to the table; we’ll negotiate. And we can either negotiate the same levels of funding, uh, that we had and just keep the government open, or we can, you know, we’ll compromise; we’ll put proposals on the table, but like—we’re—you go to—you need our votes, you’re gonna—you’re going to give us at least a clean bill.” Yeah, I mean, we’re not even—we’re not even asking for anything. So then why—so then okay, now we’re going to take from the other side. So then why do you think that Schumer doesn’t have the appetite to at least just fight for a clean CR?

I—I would say that that Schumer is probably taking one for the team here, right? He has enough members who want—who do not want this fight for political reasons, substantive reasons, whatever that is. The fears you have about a shutdown exist whether it’s over a clean CR and a clean funding bill or this—they exist; they’re the same.

Yeah, I—I do think you’re right, even if you’re fighting for a clean CR and the government shut down, you do have then the possibility—and there’s been White House people saying this to reporters—that nothing would make Elon happier and Trump happier than having the government shut down and them being able to pick and choose who gets laid off, who’s on unpaid leave, which money they spend, how they spend it, and basically just be—continue to be even more, uh, authoritarian than they have been in running the whole country. There is a—just—I worked in—I was in the White House when we had the shutdown, and everyone has to decide what’s an essential worker and what’s an inessential worker, and the essential workers stay and work for no money, and everyone else goes home. And so you can just see—they’re just like picking through the people they trust, their people, the Project 2025 people. So like there is a substantive risk in all of this, but if you’re not going to fight now, if you’re gonna—because this really is waving the white flag—it—I could argue the vote on a clean funding bill round or flat—like I would have leaned towards having the fight—this is—you are—this is easier—you’re getting punked here. I think you’re really getting punked in a way that doesn’t bode well for any future negotiations or future votes, and it’s going to inflame—and rightfully so, I think—the sentiment within the party that our leadership is not up to this moment. Because I just—if it—and then we keep having this experience where everyone gets up and says, “Trump is this incredibly existential threat to what is happening,” what he—to Elon Musk are doing—are unprecedented; it’s authoritarian; it’s unconstitutional; it’s potentially illegal, blah, blah, blah—and then we just go about normal politics, right? And if you believe that—if you believe that this shit is extraordinary, you have to be willing to take extraordinary measures yourself, and this is one of the rare moments we have to do that. I also think to argue now for shutting it down—um, or at least demanding a clean CR—so you—so it shuts down and, uh, you know, lasts a week, two weeks, and all the substantive risks that you and I were talking about come to pass, and it’s mayhem everywhere, and people aren’t getting their benefits or services, and there’s hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed, and Republicans are just like, “It—we don’t care. We’re not negotiating. We’re not opening the government back up,” like we could cave then, and that would still be better than not trying to fight at all. Like it would be embarrassing when it happens, and we’d have lost the fight, but like—might as well give it a shot. What—it’s—it’s not worse, right? Like—like having it shut down for a week or two and then saying, “Okay, well, Republicans don’t care about the government, don’t care about these workers, and are just doing whatever they want anyway. We’ll vote for a—a clean—you know, we’ll—we’ll vote for the bill, or we’ll—let you know—vote for cloture, whatever it is—um, we’ll do that”—like that’s—that’s not worse than just not fighting at all.

No, I—probably not. Like I think if we—if it shuts down on Friday and you open up on Monday, that’s probably worse. That’s worse. That’s like last time. Like part of this is just an unwillingness to wrestle with impending decisions. This has been coming for a while. We’ve at least known since the weekend what this bill looked like. I think everyone was just—in the Senate—was closing their eyes and hoping that Mike Johnson wouldn’t get the vote, so it wouldn’t be their fault. But yes, we could really use a little, uh, game planning here about what could possibly happen. And the fact that we’re at this point and they were just having a meeting about it today, I think is—it’s tough. It—this is a—this is a tough—this is going to be a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow. Not great. Okay, we’re going to take a quick break, but before we do, some Cricket tour news.

Strict Scrutiny, our excellent legal podcast hosted by constitutional law professors Melissa Murray, Kate Shaw, and Leah Litman, is going back out on the road. Tickets for the Bad Decisions Tour 2025 are on sale now. Great tour name. Great. It’s so good. Uh, they’ve got three great shows planned: May 31st in Washington, D.C., at the Capitol Turnaround; June 12th in New York City at Sony Hall; and October 4th in Chicago at the Athenaeum Center. Uh, tickets are going fast. Don’t miss out. Head to kateshaw.com/events for more info.

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Well, if the government shuts down, uh, Trump will have more time to focus on what seems to be his true passion, which is tanking the economy with his trade war. Uh, here’s the latest: Trump promised on Truth Social on Thursday morning to impose a 200% tariff on European wine and champagne, apparently as a retaliation for tariffs that the EU imposed on American whiskey, which itself was in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on foreign-made steel and aluminum. Meanwhile, a delegation from Canada was in Washington on Thursday—awkward—to talk about the trade war we’re already in with them. Uh, Trump got asked about all this in the Oval on Thursday. Uh, let’s listen.

“We’ve been ripped off for years, and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore. Now, I’m not going to bend at all—aluminum or steel or cars—in the case of Canada, we’re spending $200 billion a year to subsidize Canada. I love Canada. I love the people of Canada. I love—I have many friends in Canada—the Great One, Wayne Gretzky. The Great—how good is Wayne Gretzky? He’s the Great One. And to be honest with you, Canada only works as a state; it doesn’t—we don’t need anything they have as a state. It would be one of the great states anywhere. This would be the most incredible country visually if you look at a map. They drew an artificial line right through it.”

Now, Dan, in one of our, uh, our social videos that we’re making now this week, I made a joke in the video that, um, Trump wants Canada as a 51st state because he thinks it looks cool on the map, but apparently that is—that is true. That is why it seems like—that is why he wants—he looks at the globe, he looks at the map, and he’s like, “Which country is the biggest?” And he looks at us and he’s like, “Well, if we had Greenland and we had Canada, look how—look how big that would be. Look how big America would be then.” And of course, he’s probably looking at a map that’s not, you know, proportional, so he thinks he thinks Greenland is bigger than it—I mean, I—it’s so stupid. It’s also stupid. Trump’s approval rating is now falling quickly, uh, driven mostly by people’s view of how he’s handling the economy, which are now at all-time lows. Uh, 51% say Trump’s policies have worsened the economy, while only 28% think they’ve helped, according to the latest CNN poll. The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that CEOs and even some of Trump’s own advisers are quote “spooked” by the way he’s talking about tariffs. Uh, and here’s just a sample of what smart financial folks are saying. Uh, this is from CNBC’s Steve Liesman. “I’m going to say this at risk of my job, Kelly, but what President Trump is doing is insane. It is absolutely insane. It is about the eighth reason we’ve had for the tariffs, and now he’s saying he’s putting 50% tariffs on Canada unless they agree to become the 51st state. That is insane. It is—it’s insane.” The whole—yes, yes, yes. Uh, so the comments in the Oval on Thursday where Trump also mused about sending troops to Greenland, uh, and said that he had invaded Los Angeles to turn our water on—he did not invade Los Angeles; there was no invasion here—and the water doesn’t go to Los Angeles, and the water did not go to Los Angeles; it just, uh, nearly flooded a bunch of farms in the Central Valley. Uh, meanwhile, it was raining here while that whole thing happened, so—so none of that really happened either. Um, he also in that same pool spray talked about the quote “adjustment period” that we’re in. Uh, how you think that’s going for him?

The adjustment period? Not great.

It seems that way. Now, you know who’s not going great for the rest of us—for the American people?

Yeah, it’s—it is, I guess, somewhat comforting that public opinion has turned so quickly on him. The people get what’s happening. When he was president the first time, his economic approval was always higher than his job approval. During the campaign, his economic approval was always higher than his personal favorability. Now, they—his economic approval is, in some cases, below his job approval. People get what’s happening. In the Reuters poll, he is at a minus 12 on the economy, minus 17 on foreign trade, and minus 25 on inflation in terms of net approval. Like people—people get it; they see what’s happening. And it’s the public, it’s the markets, it’s business leaders—like you see, you know, like David Solomon, who is the CEO of Goldman Sachs—like went on Fox and tried to, like, send a message to—he tried not to piss off Trump in his interview—but Goldman Sachs is cutting their forecasts, and all the—all these like these earnings calls, these Wall Street analysts are all saying they are cutting their economic projections, and they cite every single time the reason is the policies of this president.

Yeah, and you don’t usually get that a lot. It’s not like—

No, no. It’s very specific. How much control does the president really have over the economy? Well, when he launches a global trade war, quite a bit. And it’s not just that—it’s not just that he is launching tariffs; it’s that he’s launching and then un-launching tariffs on an hourly basis. We are now in the middle of one of the fastest market sell-offs since the Great Depression. Uh, the S&P slid into correction territory on Thursday, uh, which is when an index falls 10% or more from its peak. NASDAQ was already there. Um, all these—Goldman, JP Morgan—they’re also, like, increasing their projections for the chance of recession, uh, um, and look, the most generous interpretation here is that Trump genuinely believes he is pursuing a strategy that will bring back American manufacturing, bring in more tax revenue, and force other countries to do what he wants. David Sanger had a piece about this in the Times this week. Um, what do you think about that—that strategy, and you know—and he’s basically saying like, “Yeah, there’s going to be short-term pain and an adjustment.” He said in the Oval, “I’m sorry, but we just have to do this. We just have to do this.” So—but like—even—even taking him, uh, at his word that this is what he thinks is going to happen, like what do you think about that strategy?

Well, it’s not a strategy. There’s no strategy here. One, the manufacturing sector grew under Joe Biden, right? It’s not—he is not—there’s—he’s not, like, digging us out of some hole, right? It grew just about as much under Biden as it did under Trump before. Like if he had an actual strategy, you would put tariffs on and keep them; you wouldn’t put them on, take them off, add this exemption, add this exemption, all of a sudden get pissed off at someone, so you’re now—you want to put 200% tariffs on wine and champagne, which I’m sure is gonna be super popular. And—but also if you cared about manufacturing, you would not go before the entire nation at your State of the Union and declare that you want to repeal the CHIPS Act, right? Which is supposed to be specifically designed to spur semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. You wouldn’t be trying to gut all the funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, which is trying to spur manufacturing in this country for solar panels, batteries, other green technologies and materials. He’s doing the exact opposite of what—say—he may believe this; he also believes he won the election in 2020, so who the cares what he believes? But it is nonsensical. Steve Liesman is right; it is—it’s insanity. There is no actual plan; there are no guardrails. He—his advisers have no say. You have Scott Besset, who is theoretically a smart person; he was a very successful Wall Street guy; he is up there trying to defend this insanity. Howard Lutnick, who might be a loon—doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing—might—yeah—might—I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here, John, I don’t know—um, and they—it just—the president has no idea. He doesn’t understand policy at all, and he has clearly has some sort of fleeting relationship with reality, and he’s just unilaterally making policy with no guidance and no pushback from anyone. And this is—this is what everyone said was going to happen, right? It was going to hurt the economy, and it’s doing it. His reference point is like, you know, William McKinley, uh, did tariffs, uh, and that was successful, and then also like, “We should be, uh, you know, I want to go back to 1950, the 1950s, where we were this manufacturing”—like the idea that

No matter how bad Trump ups the economy, and that's Trump, his family, and their friends. Uh, just this week, as Americans everywhere were freaking out about our 401Ks, Trump held an event that doubled as an infomercial for his top advisor's car company. Here's a taste:

"Should I get in? Get in. Okay, let me, let me get in this Su Tesla. Do you want my notes? Yeah, they gave me notes. I said, 'I'm not Biden, I don't need notes.' That's beautiful. This is a different panel than I've—everything's computer in terms of imagination. I think I have a great imagination. Who else but this guy would design this? And everybody on the road is looking at it. What kind of truck would Blade Runner drive? That was the design. I did it. It's really amazing. Thank you all very much. I love Tesla. Which one did you buy? Tesla. I love Tesla."

I clearly had no idea the Blade Runner reference just went right over his head.

"Not at all. Only a movie that came out in the early '80s, I think so."

That was Trump and Elon Musk, and Elon Musk's child once again popping up in the White House, uh, on the front lawn of the White House selling Teslas. Trump decided—he said he's going to buy a Tesla. Sean Hannity said he's buying a Tesla. Um, and so now we're all buying. Now, MAGA loves Teslas. And, and they're doing it because the libs have been so mean to Elon Musk. And now if you protest at a Tesla dealership and it gets out of hand, that is domestic terrorism. They are—that domestic terrorism if you up a Tesla dealership. So please, peaceful protest only outside of the Tesla dealership. That may also be domestic terrorism under this. That's a good point. That's a good point. So because everyone's so mean to Elon, and Elon is just so hard up for cash—just just a guy who's just trying to make a living, and he's sacrificed so much to just destroy government uh, with his Doge team—we got to help him out. We got to—in—the Tesla. You know, the share price of Tesla is just in the—so uh, clearly the guy's boss, who happens to be the president of the United States, is going to be out there selling cars. "What can I do to put you in a Tesla today?" He's not just selling cars; he's buying cars. He's buying cars; he's selling cars. I got cars to move off this White House lot. I just cannot emphasize this enough: at a time in which prices are rising and the stock market is sinking, Donald Trump's response to the pain the American people are feeling is to write a personal check to the world's richest man. It is, it is insanity. It's like—there—like we—like to look at the data in the poll. I don't need polling data for that. That is not—that does not go down well. I also want to just make sure I have this right now. Okay, so um, now we, we love Teslas. Um, we love using the power of the state to uh, protect and, and, and build American industry, but we hate tax credits for electric vehicles, and we, we hate charging stations. We're—these—yes, these will be quite upset when they discover that they bought all these Teslas in solidarity with Elon, only to find you can't charge them anywhere in Middle America because we took out all the funding for the charging stations. Well, I'm sure that they, they just believe that Elon will give them their own private charging stations so they can drive their cars because they don't really give a—about anyone else. Love Teslas again. Love helping American industry. Hate tax credits for electric vehicles and charges. Donald Trump ran, and the Republicans ran millions of dollars of ads attacking electric vehicles in Michigan in this last election, and now he's selling them on the White House lawn.

But wait, Dan, there's more.

Representatives of the Trump family's World Liberty Financial crypto business are reportedly in talks to take a stake in the disgraced crypto exchange Binance, which in 2023 pleaded guilty to federal money laundering charges and whose CEO is now seeking a pardon from Trump, according to Bloomberg. World Liberty and Binance are considering developing a so-called stable coin.

Dan, I'm sorry to do this to you, but can you explain to listeners who may not know what's Binance and what's a stable coin? And I am one of those listeners who does not know what a stable coin is.

Well, the good news is, since you don't know, I can say virtually anything. You can, but I will try. I will try to do this as accurately as I possibly can with my sleep-battled brain. But Binance is one of the world's largest crypto exchanges. It was founded in China, but now, according to Binance, it exists nowhere. Mhm. It has no location, which is not sketchy at all. It just exists in the ether, which is definitely not a way to avoid local laws in Texas, correct? It was founded by a guy named Changpeng Zhao, who goes by the name CZ in crypto circles, and he's a big—he's a very big personality in the crypto circles. And as you mentioned, in 2023 Binance pled guilty to violating money laundering laws. They paid a $4.3 billion fine, one of the largest corporate fines ever paid. What they did was help facilitate money transfers to sanctioned organizations like Al-Qaeda, Isis, and Hamas. And reportedly Hamas. You say Hamas; I say Hamas. That, that Hamas. So the Trump family wants to get into business with a convicted felon who uh, helped launder money for Hamas. Do you think that that possibly has adverse foreign policy consequences, or are those just for people who peacefully protest um, and are immigrants that we are then going to deport? What do you think? It's apparently there's a two-tier system of justice, as Trump used to say. So okay. And CZ spent uh, several months in jail for crimes related to this as part of this. Binance reportedly instructed some of these users to—their location when they sold the—when they did the money transfers to hide it from authorities during the campaign, according to these reports. Officials from Binance went to Trump officials—Trump—Trump family—Trump allies to begin a conversation about a possible business venture at the same time that CZ was seeking a pardon for his crimes, and Binance is trying to get back into the US market. What this business venture would mean is sort of an open question. It could be an investment from the Trump family into Binance. They could take a stake in the company. It could mean some sort of partnership or joint venture between World Liberty Finance, which is Trump's crypto company that did his meme coins, and Binance. And then in especially even more alarming situation, according to Bloomberg, the report is that they could create what is called a stable coin. A stable coin is a—is cryptocurrency that is pegged to real reserve assets, right, where theoretically you have the money to back it up, so the price stays stable, and it would—would—so unlike like Bitcoin or Ethereum or these—you're not like buying and selling it like a—like a financial instrument to make money on the spread. It's a—it is your—it's so you can transfer money. It's—it's legitimate currency. Now, there are real questions for some of these stable coins as about whether the actual backup assets exist. That can be US dollars. It could be gold; it could be other crypto assets. Um, but essentially what you would be creating is Trump Bucks here, right? Be an actual Trump currency that that the Trump family would control and could be sent to people with uh, not just without paying bank fees, which one of the arguments before stable coins and the decentralized financial system, but also without people knowing how it's being spent. And there, there are a lot of—there's—there's legislation moving through the Senate on this. There's a lot of concern—people like Elizabeth Warren—about the idea about these stable coins that non-financial institutions could control them, um, therefore not be subject to some of the—the regulations that would be in place in a normal presidency. And so this is just one of the most brazen bits of corruption you could possibly imagine. You would—like, as you said in your intro, you have the president's family doing business with convicted—with guilty people—guilty of money laundering—while the head of said money laundering company is seeking a pardon from the president. Like, literally terrorist financing. And, and Senator Warren has been working on that for a while too. Um, and it—I think it was like a bipartisan bill at some point because like one of the challenges—one of the many problems with crypto in the crypto industry is that terrorist organizations use crypto to launder money—to hide it—because they can't, you know, use banks. Um, and now this—now Binance that did this with Hamas—Isis—business with the Trump family—business with the Trump family. Meet—to—nor—there's meeting with Steve Mnuchin, the uh, the guy that's negotiating the Middle East negotiator who's sitting down with Putin now. We call him—Marco Rubio's boss. Steve—It's worth noting, however, that Steve Mnuchin's representatives denied that he had any involvement in this, and CZ himself went on Twitter to offer a denial as well. I like that the—the New York Times—I saw Peter Kafka tweet this—but they really reported this part in a really understated way. But pursuing a business deal involving a felon seeking a pardon from his administration would be an unprecedented overlap of his business and the government. I would say so. That's a big overlap. That's a—that's a—that's one you're going to want to watch. Uh, remember back in Trump's first term when Kellyanne Conway got an official warning from the White House ethics office for casually suggesting that Americans should buy from Ivanka Trump's clothing line? Just so we—just so we know how far we've come. Now we've got the president of the United States hawking Teslas and his family looking at business deals with a crypto felon. Well, the—I was trying to remember the name of the guy who was the White House ethics officer who got fired. Oh, you remember? I'm talking about—he was big on Twitter for a long time. He was—he was big on Twitter. He was—he was a—he was a character from the first resistance. For yes, for some—he may be huge on Blue Sky right now. I don't know. Yeah, I don't either. Yeah, but—but either way—but what—what is at stake here is when Kellyanne Conway got in trouble for violations of the Hatch Act, that wasn't just the White House ethics office; that is the Office of Special Counsel, which is a theoretically quasi-independent agency within the government that enforces the Hatch Act. Trump fired Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, as part of his deep state purge. And so currently there is no person who would be uh, administering these rules and enforcing them. So it is like the—it is—is the purge 24/7, 365 in the Trump administration. People are going to care about this, right? They just got to know about this. People have to care about this, particularly when the split screen is uh, Trump hawking the Teslas and the crypto stuff with the markets tanking and uh, risk of recession going up. I don't know. I—I just want to push back on one—one thing. The pushback from the right has been this picture of Biden in an electric Jeep on the White House lawn. Yeah, but here's the difference: the founder of Jeep did not spend $300 million to elect Joe Biden and did not just promise another $100 million in donations to his political organizations. That is a—these are entirely different deals, and it is an absurd bit of whataboutism. It was Hunter Biden's Jeep dealership, you know? That's right. Just—it's so stupid. Like, are people going to care? It's so much worse than Hunter Biden because Hunter Biden wasn't in the government. Yes, it would be like—it would be like Jeff Bezos's uh, Jeep dealership if Jeff Bezos had given $300 million to get him elected, right? Again. Yeah, there's just—there's no—there—like you can't even come up with some sort of like reasonable example because there is no thing like this—nothing like this. People are going to care, and you do see this in polling, as you know. I'm obsessed with corruption as a key part of the democratic message. You—if you watch the polling, the number of people concerned about corruption keeps going up and up and up, um, and for good reason. Trump crime family. Trump crime family. Um, okay. According to the uh, beautiful gold-plated timepiece I purchased from GetTrumpWatches.com for just $799, it's now time to introduce our final topic. Oh my God, I'm so mad about this. So it's only been about four months since the last presidential election, and sadly, no, I don't—no, we don't have to officially start talking about the next one, Reed. Yes. No, we're going to—so Democrats are making moves. We're not going to get into the presidential so much, but 2026 uh, midterms are coming, and which means at the very least now candidates have to start announcing that they're running, right? Because you, you know, you have to start your campaign. Um, Democrats are making moves. Pete Buttigieg announced on Thursday that he will not be running for Senate in Michigan um, or Governor, which leaves the door open for a potential presidential run in 2028 for Pete. Uh, Tim Walz is out there; he's touring the country, distancing himself from the Harris campaign. We talked a little bit about that. Uh, Gavin Newsom has launched a podcast where uh, you know, he's raising his profile. He's talking to MAGA goons like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. Uh, that's happening. We could do a whole episode on that. That's definitely happening. That's happening. Kamala Harris herself is toying with a run to replace Newsom as governor of California, where she will face a formidable challenge from, among others, Katie Porter, our pal Katie Porter, who officially entered the race this week. Um, we're going to get to L.V.'s interview with Katie Porter. Uh, he wasn't just going to do some remote thing; he drove down to Orange County this week. L.V. just got in the car; just drove—he flew to Michigan over the weekend; he's in Orange County on a Tuesday; he's all over the place. It's great. Um, so before we get to L.V.'s interview, is this all really happening now? Are we—do not just about Katie Porter—like we're all—we're talking about—about presidential 26? No, we're not. Some people may, but we are not. We are not. And I think we should put—I have no—and I have no views—no views that I'm sharing on 2028. It would be honestly truly idiotic to have a view about 2028 right now. I will—I think I've said this on this podcast before—I say to everyone, bring up 2028 at this point in 2005, when we were still licking our wounds from losing to George W. Bush, despite the Iraq—the Iraq—despite the fact—the wrong country after 9/11. Mhm. Everyone thought we needed a moderate white guy, preferably a governor like Mark Warner. That was the—that was the flavor du jour. And then a few years later, we nominated Barack Hussein Obama from the South Side of Chicago uh, via Indonesian Hawaii. So we don't—no one knows what we actually need right now. And so pretending like you know what voter is going to want in 2028 is insane. Some of us knew we needed that, and we're glad that we lured you away from Evan Bayh to help us out. Well, you, you didn't lure me away from Evan Bayh; you ran Evan Bayh out of the race, uh, so for which everyone is forever grateful. Um, I wonder what percentage of people listening know who Evan Bayh is. He's a senator from Indiana. Uh, anyway, go—either way—not important. But I think we should put—Pete's decision is not a 2028 decision. It's—he had to announce if he was going to seek these seats now because other candidates are getting in the race. It's forming—it would be time to uh, to begin forming a campaign, to begin getting petitions—signatures to get on the ballot. And so yes, the logical conclusion is if he's not running for something in 2026, he's running for something. That may be true, but that is a—I put that in the Katie Porter—Kamala Harris may run for governor category. The other thing I'd say is whether you're running for president in 2028 or not, and this is the thing I took from L.V.'s experience with Bernie Sanders, is people are hungry for people—for someone to get out there, yeah, and fight—to speak with authenticity, passionate about what is happening in this country—to speak to people's fears and their hopes. And so all the people who may want to run for president—don't do presidential—like just go get out there. Go do—go to those Republican districts and do town halls. Do—just the people who are—think they want to run for president but are being silent right now, I think are missing a moment. I think it's a huge mistake, used to—not just to help your potential presidential candidacy but to use the interest in your potential presidential candidacy to help the larger cause of pushing back against Trump and—and Musk. Yeah, I completely agree with that. Um, well, at least the California governor race is next year, not in 2028. Well, with all that said, um, we are going to get to L.V.'s interview with Katie Porter. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid all in one place—from consultations to events and experiences—showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. 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It is actually your kitchen.

It is actually my kitchen.

Actually asked me that—like, is that actually her kitchen? Yeah, I mean, it's a really—I don't think it's a compliment. No, I don't. Well, I think it's—I honestly, I think it's like, wow, this is exactly what I think the kitchen of a working mom is—who's actually living that life as opposed to doing an impression of someone doing that. Yeah, and I think that people have this expectation that things are shiny and new, and like—this is it. This is actually my kitchen. And so um, you know, it's the same thing when people are like, do you actually drive that minivan? And I was like, yeah, it was my only car until a few months ago. And that was actual pee from your dog, Poppy, on the floor when we walked. Yes, that was actual pee. Thank you. Thank you for advertising that. Yes. So uh, it's uh, it's March of 2025. What made you jump into this race for the governorship so early?

Well, look, I think Californians are hungry for leadership. I think the country—half of the country, anyway—is really, really hungry for leadership. They're concerned about what Donald Trump is doing, and they want to make sure that we're going to have a plan to deal with that—a plan not only for the next several months but a plan for what could be a very, very long four years. So you talked in your announcement video about fighting back against Trump, but governors have been in a bit of a bind because they obviously want to defend—especially Democratic governors want to defend their people against abuses from the federal government. But if there's a disaster in California, and there will be, uh, Trump's on a revenge tour against governors he doesn't like. So how do you think about that?

Look, I think it's exactly what I said in my launch video, which is I will say yes to anyone, and I am willing to say no to anyone. I work with anyone who has a good idea, regardless of what else we agree or disagree on. Look, I had a lot of bipartisan bills in Congress. I didn't agree with everybody on those issues. Um, at the same time, people want to know that you'll have their backs, that you're willing to stand up, and that you're going to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump and that you're going to come up a winner. So look, bipartisan disaster relief—wildfire relief—that should be bipartisan. I think that Governor Newsom did the right thing to—to walk with President Trump to get him here on the ground. That's what fighting for California looks like in that context. But when we have a president who's saying, "I'm going to cut off health care for a third of your population," then that's time to push back and time to fight. Now, for the most part, the—the people you'd be pushing back against if you're governor are Democrats, and there's a lot of people that look at California and say, "This is a state where you've had Democrats in the—in the governor's mansion; you've had Democrats controlling the assembly, and we haven't been able to build housing; we haven't been able to tackle a lot of the biggest challenges we face." Uh, how do you think about pushing back against Democrats or—or when there aren't Republicans to blame? What do you think went wrong here?

Well, I think people want to see a common-sense approach. They want you to call a spade a spade. Where we have come up short, we need to do better—not try to convince people that there isn't a problem. Anybody who's walking into a grocery store today and walking back out with any number of groceries understands the problem. People who have kids who are wondering if they're going to be able to afford to stay in California—as a mom, I feel that person. So I think you have to be straight with people: "This is where we've fallen short; this—" You know, Governor Newsom, when he got elected, said he was going to focus on housing. Kudos to him for seeing and talking about housing at a time when very few Democrats were. But I think we've taken the tools that he's used about as far as we can. Now we need a set of fresh ideas.

What are some of those ideas? And do you look at—like, you know, people talk about Florida and Texas versus California, right? You have the kind of conservative—more conservative model—than you have the—the Democratic model. Are there lessons that you would take from what some of those other states have done?

Yeah, so one of them is: look, we in California, we need to fight to get good, high-paying jobs here—not just keep the ones we have but actually bring new industries here with good jobs. So we always say, "Well, we're the fifth or sixth biggest economy." I want to be the fourth biggest; I want to be the third biggest. I want those jobs to be there, and I want to attract new and amazing talent. I think the other lesson is—they're coming from the Trump administration—is people want to see things done. So you have to be willing to think a little outside the box—to prioritize—to have a tight agenda. You, you can't be the everything-everywhere-all-at-once. You, you have to have some priorities; you have to tackle them, and you have to be straight with people: "This is how far I got; this is what needs to be done; here's the lesson learned; here's what I'm going to change to deliver."

Is there a little part of you when you see someone like Elon Musk barreling through the government and obviously asking and answering—doing it a despicable way—destroying important resources—way—yes—but do you see that and think, "No, of course that's not what we should be doing, but man, if Democrats were a little less deferential to some of these institutional prerogatives, man, if Democrats were a little less consensus-oriented and a little more combative," do you take any lesson from what we're seeing?

Well, look, you're talking to someone who during the COVID pandemic—in the early, early days—had a—you know, was the second-to-last person to question—50 people had questioned—and the CDC director—and the—on all of the executives danced on the top of a—you know, the—um—government officials had said, "We're trying—this is what we're working on; we're operationalizing it," and the truth was there was a law that allowed for making testing free in a public health emergency, and I stuck with the CDC director until I got him to—yes—not yes for me—yes for everyone in America—to—for free testing. So I think that's a good example of being really true to our values. If you are—believe that government workers do good work—put them to work; let them thrive, right? And so I think believing that government can do things and holding it accountable to achieve those outcomes are entirely consistent. So Democrats should own the issues of things like government efficiency. We should own the issues of modernizing government so that it works better for people and it inspires confidence. We should own the issue—I would argue even of things like taxpayer rights and making sure that taxpayers are seeing a return for what they do. We want to see outcomes. We're Democrats, Republicans, Independents—everybody wants to see outcomes. And I think Democrats need to be laser-focused on that. So part of the reason I care so much about oversight is that's what oversight's about; it's about closing that gap between what people stand at a press conference and say they're going to do and then what's actually happening. If—if you don't close that gap, you're going to lose people's trust; you're going to lose their confidence.

So let's talk about that gap. So uh, uh, 30 years ago we were going to have high-speed rail in California by 2020. We're supposed to have a train that takes us from San Francisco all the way to San Diego. Uh, now we can't seem to build a train that goes from Bakersfield to Merced, which makes no sense to me. Uh, what—would—like—do you believe right now, sitting here, that you could help get done that high-speed rail line between our two biggest cities?

Well, I think there's two challenges with that. One is President Trump is trying to take back the promised federal funding that is the foundation of the project. So you, you can't push it ahead when it's—when it's being sort of cut down from the bottom, right? So you can't build something when it's being eroded from the bottom, and that's what he's doing with that funding. So—well, except except if the—the money that's supposed to come from the federal government is less than how much the budget has ballooned, right? Like, we, we're already on track to spend more as a state than we were supposed to spend on the entire thing—not like 10 years ago. So that's my second point. There are real costs to delay; there are real costs to being overly cautious; there are real costs to deciding that you have to make everybody happy all of the time. Time. Um, you know, I think Governor Jerry Brown was a little bit of a good example of this—Governor Schwarzenegger a little bit of a good example of this. They made some people unhappy when necessary to get their top priorities done. And so I think with this high-speed rail project, we have to decide, "Are we going to build this?" And if so, I have every confidence that California can do it. And if we're not, then we need to cut bait and quit wasting taxpayer dollars. We've had a cat—this is Dino. Dino, buddy. So on housing—we face—that's the dog. If I mean—this is—I love this; I'm so glad we came—this is so much better in person. Uh, on housing, it's the same problem, right? You have to make some people upset to build a lot of housing. Are you going to tell the NIMBYs to—off—?

Well, look, people need to understand there are consequences to all of us—whether you're currently a homeowner, whether you want to be a homeowner, whether it feels way out of reach—there are consequences to every single person in California of not building enough housing. We have a mindset problem, and we need to—to call it out and to shake it up, which is this idea that if we do something to lower the cost of housing, that's helping only the people who can't afford housing—nonsense. Our whole economy is being held back by our housing challenges. So this is the exact same argument we have about things like school funding. People say, "Well, why should I pay for schools? I don't have kids," because that's the future workforce. So I think we need to get out of this—"who benefits"—it's this little sliver—and get into—into talking about things that—for instance, if we build more housing, every single person in California is going to benefit because it will increase—our businesses will come here; jobs will come here; people will be able to spend more; we'll have more sales tax revenue—all of those things are up. It's not a zero-sum game, and we have to get out of that conversation. But even—but like here the problem is that like even if most people agree—I think probably most people in California already agree—most people in the state are Democrats, or most voters are Democrats—they mostly agree with you—the problem is you have in individual projects—individual communities—you have a committed group of people that are able to not just use public opinion and public sentiment but uh, our environmental laws, our uh—um—our uh—um—uh, town hall processes and—and all these different levers of—of government that originally were supposed to make government work better that grind everything to a halt. And it does seem to me that one job of a leader in this state—those—those are roadblocks, and you need to be clear: "We are building a road," right? And so I think that's exactly what you need to say: "All of these things—the environmental laws—the local—the local processes—it's too much. If we want to get problems solved quickly, and there is a real hunger from voters in California to tackle some of these things that we have dealt with now for too long, then you're going to have to be willing to make hard choices—to have hard conversations and to own the consequences of that." And I think you do that. I think how you do that in a way that doesn't sort of tear down things and—and leave things in—in fragments is you're honest with people: "Look, this is a priority; this is Californians' top needs; this is not my pet project; I work for Californians, and so this is what California needs; we all have to get on board, and—and I hope you will."

What does it take to get you on board? How do we get you there? What are your concerns? You have that conversation. But if at the end of the day, they just want to be in the way of California thriving, what it means to be a leader is to—is to get them out of the way. Now, how do you think the governor has done on this issue? It does strike me that he's been—that we've made a lot of progress that we're not seeing the results of because the generational failure—but like, you know, pushing San Francisco to build a bunch more housing—same thing down here in L.A.—where do you think it's working, and where do you think you need to go further?

Well, I give Governor Newsom a lot of credit. When he ran in 2018—it was my first time as a candidate too, right after Trump had gotten elected—and he was really one of the only people in the Democratic party talking about housing. And at the time, I remember talking with my consultants and being like, "I want to be a housing candidate," and they were like, "E—you know, that's not really a big issue," which was nuts because it was a big issue then; it's a big issue today; it was a big issue when I came to California and started helping people in the foreclosure crisis. So I give them a lot of credit for—for really making that a big issue. I think we've started to hit the limits of what the strategies that we already have in place are going to be. So I think with the current environmental framework, with the current building requirements, with the current zoning, with the current infrastructure planning—with—we've built a lot of ADUs in some cities—great—but you, you can't—this—you, you can't just build ADUs to get out of this. It's going to take a lot more housing—at

We're that's there's a limit to that tool. And I think what I'm excited about is it takes years, but also like when you're—there's a phrase—when you're litigating, you're losing, right? So like, absolutely Attorney General Bonta's job is to hold people who are breaking the law accountable, and to that I say, Godspeed. Glad to have him in the fight. But the job of the governor is to figure out what we can do proactively so that we never get there, so that we are we are we are addressing whatever concerns they are; we are creating more capital in the private market to help fund this housing; we are making sure we're recruiting the workforce that we need to be able to do this construction, because we need to do it at a scale and at a speed that is going to require some out-of-the-box thinking.

Let's talk about the politics of this race. Uh, what did you learn from the race against Adam Schiff that you'd bring to this statewide race? Yeah, I mean, look, I think that that race was a lot about um people's anxieties about Trump, um and Adam has a terrific record of of taking on Trump. I think what we see now is we're we're living with it, so we are living with the political consequences; we are asking ourselves how do we reach people that we don't always reach; how do we how do we get a a closer hold and bigger bigger stronger trust with people who were slipping away. And so I think that's where being a sort of a messenger who's come into politics relatively recently, somebody who comes from a purple district, somebody who has spent her career doing other things, you know, in classrooms, um as a consumer advocate—I think that's the kind of messaging that we need in this moment to connect with people. And we also need to do a lot of listening, and I think that is something that—the joy of the senate race—my happiest moments in that race were listening and learning. One of my favorite days in the entire senate race was the day I spent in Bakersfield. And when I say that, people are like, "What?" I spent a whole day learning about how we can reduce the amount of water we you water we use when we're growing nuts. I spent a day learning how baby carrots are made—so cool. And so we need to have those kinds of conversations; we need to listen. Businesses are concerned about staying in California; workers are concerned about staying about staying in their jobs. Got to have those conversations; you got to be willing to listen. And so part of the launching now is I want that runway to do exactly that. Some of it was just around name ID, competing in a—that is massive—that requires such a—this race is really different that way, right? So I've run big expensive races here in Orange County three times, a statewide race, so I've had the opportunity to connect with a lot of voters, to introduce myself to a lot of voters, and this race is an opportunity to build on that by talking to voters and listening to voters about what they what what are they worried about with California? What do they love about California that they're worried that Trump is going to cause us to lose? What do they miss about a California maybe of the past? Where do they want to see in a California of the future?

But but you understand why what I'm getting at here, which is you're getting in the race early; there are rumors that the vice president may get in the race later. I saw some reporting that that you said that that the vice president might clear the field, and I was surprised to see that uh that one of your advisors apparently told CNN that you wouldn't run against Kamala. Is that true? Well, so listen, what I've said and what I'm going to say again today is that I think if Kamala comes into this race, especially if she comes in tomorrow, she comes in now, it's going to have a near field-clearing effect. It's just going to be—well, I'm not sure who all—there's a big field of people; some of them have said they're staying in no matter what, right? So I think it's going to shake up the field. I said it's going to have like a sort of a seismic effect. Um, that said, we got to start this process now. Kamala is going to make her decision in her own time; the vice president is owed that—that's her decision to make. And I've worked with her; I know that she's a careful decision-maker; she's a thinker, and so she's going to make her decision. But in the meantime, it is full speed ahead, voters. I'm not waiting around, and I don't think voters are waiting around. They want to know how we're going to lead; they want to make plans for what we're going to do with regard to Trump. And so I think there's a hunger for people to lead in this moment, and I'm stepping up. But see, but I I'm like, honestly like, I what I expect from—as someone who admires and respects you as a leader and a political figure—I'm surprised you're not saying, "I don't care what Kamala Harris does; I will be the best governor." That's what I don't—that's what's confusing to me, like I I isn't the person that's supposed to lead this big fractious state the person who says, "Kamala can get in; who I don't give a—I'm going to—if she gets in, I'll beat her?" Well, I'm not sure that our leaders—people want to hear our leaders say—well, the way that I—the way that you would say it—I I'm not—I have to find the right district for my vibe. But I do think, look, I am not waiting for Kamala Harris, and I don't think anyone should who wants to lead. I think what it means to lead is to literally step forward, right, to be willing to be at the tip of the spear in this moment. That's exactly why I'm launching; that's why I've been working on this. I am not sitting back waiting to see what Kamala does; I am not considering other races, hedging my bet. I'm going to be California's next governor. But it would also be, I think, disrespectful to somebody who went toe-to-toe month after month after month in a grueling race against Donald Trump, and and I saw this firsthand, personally serve California very very ay as our attorney general, not to acknowledge that this is somebody who would be an incredibly strong candidate. And there are practical realities that anyone faces.

But you think you would be a better governor than Kamala Harris? Well, look, if I didn't think I would be the best governor that California could have, I wouldn't be in this race. Donald Trump has has appointed, or you know, fake-appointed a group of uh celebrities that like him to be ambassadors to Hollywood. But there is a problem that I think isn't getting enough attention generally, which is you have all the Los—this is—we're we're not far from the heart of Los Angeles, where which has been the kind of center of film and television culture for a hundred years, and now they're filming all of the game shows in Ireland. There's tons of states and cities putting in um incentives, like I have so many friends that are work that like are—if they're working at all—they're going to Vancouver; they're going to Atlanta; they're going to New Orleans; they're going to all these places. Uh, it seems ridiculous to me that we don't have a plan to get production back to Los Angeles. What do you think about that? That plan is the same plan that we need to get tech jobs back here, to get um manufacturing jobs here, which we were once a center of kind of um highly skilled manufacturing in California. Um, it's to make sure our agricultural sector flourishes; it's it's all the same. We are in a competition with other states and other you know other countries now, and it's a competition that we need to win. California is amazing; the people of California are amazing; the history of California is amazing; the resources of California are amazing. So let's not get down—in this—this is a battle that we can win. But you don't win the fights that you don't start, that you don't enter. And so we need to be understanding; we need to bring California's treasures and our talents to those competitions. I think California can win those jobs back—for production back—for Hollywood. I want protecting writers against AI; we need to be aggressive about doing this because frankly other states are—

So you're going to get to go all across the state of California; uh, it's going to be a lot of eating on the road, a lot of unhealthy long days, fast food in the car. What are we excited about? What are we not excited about? Well, I'm in fighting shape, so I'm ready for this. I've had—really feel so lucky to have had some time after the senate race, you know, a year now, to think, to learn, to get healthy, to spend time with my kids, to think about what I did well and what I didn't do well, um what what I learned, what I listened to, what I heard, where I maybe wasn't listening enough. So I think this is going to be really really exciting and fun. Look, I love campaigning. Um, one of my uh campaign staff once said, you know, they were doing a training for volunteers and they said, "Now, when you get to the event, Katie is just going to get right out of the car." And I thought, "Well, what else would you do?" But apparently some people don't want to get out of the car. I love to get out of the car; I love to get stopped in the grocery store; I want to hear; I want to listen; I want to connect. I love campaigning. So to me, to take a minivan, to get a chance to go back to Bakersfield, to spend some more time in Fresno—I didn't get to make it to Merced last time—I didn't get to—soon there'll be a train; soon there'll be a train that could take you from Bakersfield. I'm personally going in the minivan because that's how I like to roll. But I do think we should make sure that if we're spending money on a train, we get a train.

And uh, how do your kids feel about this this next run? So my kids are very excited, and I was a little surprised about that. They've been through a lot; there was a lot of negative advertising spent against me in the last race. That's hard on kids; it's frankly hard on the candidate, but it's really hard on kids. So I was surprised. I asked them each um about this, and I think what my oldest son said really stuck with me the most. He's 19; he's a voter now, and he said, "I want a governor who's going to fight for California values. I am not going down without a fight. Like, people cannot just sit around and say, 'Oh, you know, I'm trying; I'm going to emerge in in four years; I'm I'm just not going to read the paper till Trump's gone.' He's like, 'I want someone who's going to to do the work, to be tough,' and he's like, 'And Mom, you're really tough.'" And sometimes I'm tough on him, so he knows. And how's your driving been lately? How are we doing? Are we—how's the road rage out there? Oh, I'm I'm pretty good now because I walk to work. Okay, so not only did I—I mean, I also don't have to fly um to Washington anymore, so now I walk um to work, to the campus, and I've been loving teaching. So I just finished grading my midterms um Monday night, so that I was all ready to launch today. What kind of what kind of uh what kind of what kind of grade are we doing? How how tough are we on these on these papers? Are we still—are we still post-Vietnam-era inflation? Are we are we back to giving people a little tougher than average? But part of it is this is midterms, so I think this actually says something about what we were talking about about how I would lead, about the honesty I try to bring to things. In these midterms, I was pretty tough with them because I'm trying to help them know what needs to change. So I'm telling them straight up, "If you do this same thing again, it's—you're going to get another C. Here's where you need to to pick it up, because that B+—maybe even an A minus—it's in your grasp, and I'm going to push you to get there." And I think when you think about the governor and leading all these different agencies, that's what people who are in the cabinet—the Katie Porter governor cabinet—can expect. We're going to set goals; I'm going to listen to you about what your challenges are; I'm going to try to clear them out of the way; we're going to set goals for you, and then I'm going to ask you, "Why isn't it done? And what do I need to do to help you?"

Katie Porter, thank you so much. Good luck. Good luck out there. We'll see you out there. Thank you. That's our show for today. Love it. Tommy and I will be back with a new show on Tuesday. Talk to you all then. Bye everyone.