Tech Regulation and Future Ambitions

Thanks for listening to The Rest Is Politics. Sign up to The Rest is Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members' chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to the rest is politics.com. That's the rest is politics.com. Those that think they know me may be very surprised by the actual story of my childhood and my life. I think our politics is radically changing and reorganizing. Part of that is we need to change and reorganize our thinking, our relationship with the public. Donald Trump. He's the most corrupt president in American history. I don't think people fully have absorbed what we're up against day-to-day. He's about to get crushed in the midterms. Absolutely sure of it. Absolutely sure of it. Is that one of the reasons why you've taken this very aggressive social media strategy that has got a lot of attraction around the world? It shifted after a phone call that I had with Trump. Trump called me late at night, and it begins with the following. God is my witness. He says, You're definitely gonna run . Um This episode is brought to you by IG . If you're listening to Leading, the chances are that you're someone who thinks seriously about politics and economics and your own financial future. So here's something genuinely worth knowing. IG's Flexible Stocks and Shares ISA lets you withdraw and top up your money within the same tax year without losing your tax-reef allowance. And that's on top of charging zero commission and zero account fees. So it's no wonder IG was also voted best low-cost ICER at the 2026 boring money awards. Combination of value and control is why IG has been trusted by British investors for over fifty years. This ISA season they're giving away up to £3,000 cash back when you transfer your existing ISA over to IG and use the code ISA leading. That's I S A L E A D I N G ISA Leading. Search IG.com to find out more. IG Trade, invest, progress. Your capital is at risk. ISA rul resules, tax , and TNC supply, cashback offer is for new customers only and cannot be used in conjunction with other promotions. Offer ends 5th of April 2026. Other fees may apply. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Acrob at Studio. In politics, data plays a massive and incre asingly important role in influencing policy. And of course it's not just politics, the lots of roles that rely on information on data, which is why Acrobat Studio is a must. Because if you think about it, I mean it doesn't matter whether you're a civil servant trying to get stuff together on special educational needs, or whether you're trying to make a new decision on a business. 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But he's somebody who's got a fascinating childhood , uh, also then made it pretty big in business, so substantial kind of independent wealth, which allows him just to go and be a politician, uh, and is now really is kind of making a Thank you, Governor. Can we begin with a question of who were you as uh an 11-year-old? If I'd encountered the 11-year-old Gavin Eastern, what would I have thought about? Well, you know, it's interesting. I I went through this process of discovery, a memoir that I call of discovery, and Young Man in a hurry, it's coming out in a few weeks. And um and in that process uh i learned a lot about myself a lot about my family that i didn't know about my mom and dad uh were not very forthcoming both had passed away didn't have a chance to really reflect on their lives and their values uh but at 11 years old, I was in the back of the classroom. 11 years old, I had a bowl cut. My hands were sweaty. I was scared to death of walking into the classroom, faked being sick consistently, couldn't read, couldn't write , and nothing terrified me more than being asked to read out loud uh in a classroom. I think that's that's really bad dyslexia. Yeah, pretty severe dyslexia. And uh it 's really marked um every aspect of my life. It's the reason I'm here. Uh it turned out to be an unbelievable gift, but it's also a great burden. As a consequence, you'll never see me reading a speech. I'm an American politician when someone can't hand me a speech, so I'm not gifted in that respect, but it provides you the opportunity to overcompensate in other ways and allowed me a creativity that allowed me to get into business, to see things a little differently, uh to problem solve, to be able to make mistakes and learn from them, to be resilient, all those things have turned out to be attributes. And you had this kind of fairly troubled child, and not just your dyslexia, but your parents divorced. Yeah. Your mum was kind of bringing you up with your sister on her own, not much money going around. And yet I read the book last night you had this extraordinary entry into the world of the Getty family, one of the richest families in the world. How did that come about? Yeah both and I mean I so m my dad left for reasons I didn't know until I wrote the book. He left my mom, she was 19, two kids, uh 20, 21 on her own. Uh my father had a breakdown, tried to get into politics, ran for county board of Supervisors, ran for state senate, had debt, and had a mental breakdown, as he described it in an oral history that we discovered in the process of writing this book, and just took off and left. work and grit uh and raised us on our own. Meanwhile, my father's relationship with the Getty family is go back to his time in school, and uh Paul Getty from the UK and his brother Gordon uh becoming his closest friends. And uh consequence of that, all these doors opened and the relationship to that world and then coming back home to that reality. And that really is to sort of defined my past, feeling like I belonged in both and didn't belong in either. So it's uh again, memoir of discovery. And uh and I think what was wonderful, not only I discovered a lot about myself, uh, but those that think they know me define probably perhaps disproportionately on the basis of the relationship of the Getty family, may be very surprised by the actual story of my childhood and my life. Without being too pretentious, uh masculinity. You're an very interesting example and I I love you to talk about this a little bit. I mean you're somebody who comes across as a sort of central casting kind of Hollywood politician. You're kinda tall, you're good looking. And you know, if you're not lucky, people could think that you too good looking for your own good, you're like a sports star, etcetera. Okay. Um on the other hand, you've just described this eleven year old who was who was as you've described it, with sweaty hands, terrified about coming to class. What what does that tell you about growing up, becoming a man and it and it and yeah, gone. No, I mean I I still think I'm that person. And and look in this memoir, and I hope it reads very differently than most political memoirs. Um they tend I appreciate that. I d decided to sort of crack myself open and I made a commitment with a co-writer, beautiful writer, Mark Ericks. Um, and he his commitment to me in this process was if we're gonna go, we're gonna go another level deeper. But the bottom line for me is I put a mask on. And there were times on my face grew into it. I was becoming someone I was not. And that mask started to fray. I mean, it's that, you know, it started to break down. And that is very well reflected in this book as well. And so it's a book are moments when you're drinking too much. There's moments when marriages are falling apart. Yeah, all of the above. And uh i imperfect it doesn't even describe it. And I think what's wonderful now for me and sort of cathartic, I'm on the other side. Uh I am who I am. I'm not trying to be someone I'm not. And so in the context of sort of a gender frame as as you describe it, uh I just think more it's just developing confidence and realizing your expression is unique. No one else has it. Learn from but don't follow others and so much of my life I was trying to be like somebody else um and I think a lot of people with learning disabilities they need to do that you're you're performing all the time you're overcompensating for your own anxieties insecurities. You know, that's it, you're just not as successful at doing certain things the way other people do them and tasks. So you have to come up with more of a creative mindset. And I think that's turned out to be a gift. In politics, it provides a different pat hway, different perspective, and has allowed my politics to be shaped by risk taking, by iteration, by trial and error, in a way that I don't think many or most American politicians, that's not the chosen Were you deliberately within the book trying to with a very different story, but is the part of you thinking, well what helped Barack Obama really kind of reach out to people was the book that he wrote about his life and his and and his dad. Dreams of my father. Yeah. Beautiful book. Fantastic book. And but I wondered whether 'cause it is it is a very different sort of political memoir. Isn't in fact there's not that much about your political life in it. No. Uh and just uh frankly and just the epilogue. I mean it's uh we uh we obviously goes up to my time getting elected as governor, but it's shaped in the context of my family and the relationship with my mom and dad. Um and their parents, which I discovered this house of horrors. It was described by my mom who's literally her father put a gun to her head when she was a young child. Uh her father, my grandfather, took his life, who spent years . And you and your mother kinda did. Yeah, she did. I was there with her in an assisted suicide. And I was there with her last breath. And uh, and you know, that that is really, I mean, not something I recommend for anybody how painful that was, but in the pain she was in and how she sought relief at a time when that was illegal. Yeah. Full disclosure. And that's a point of criticism, which is a fair point of criticism. Thank God we had a courageous doctor.. And I was there My sister was there on one side. I was on the other side. She was looking through old photos, struggling with her breath. My sister ran out. And I stayed with her for the extra few minutes that she was there. And uh about 20 minutes after and um you know just those mark sort of deep moments in your life. We all have our own journeys. But try to put that out there and express it in as authentic way I possibly could, in the spirit to your question of what Obama did, which was so different, so distinctive, so unique, uh, so un American in the context of so many political memoirs, which are frankly sanitized. Uh, 10-point plans, they're cautious , uh, they see all sides, they're inclusive. Uh, this lets it open. Let it rip. This is important because we're in a new politics, aren't we? And the sort of politics that I grew up in, um as a British minister was hyper cautious. Yeah. And maybe the kind of politics that Alistair was associated with, which was message discipline, some grids, a lot of this was about not making mistakes, because any slight misstep, any allegation about something you'd done when you were young, any c blew up, read all over the newspaper and you resigned and you were gone. But we now seem to have entered a different world, for better or for worse. Where Trump does, not everybody has. Trump's certainly has. It an interesting parallel. Um but but it may be that as we enter the world of Trump, his opponents too need to become more comfortable with failure, mistakes, scandal and just keep But you're noticing just more broadly, and I mean it's the nature of the medium we're on today with podcasts, this notion of extended conversations that was not necessary. I mean we were talking about right five minutes, you know, talking points. We got them right here. Yeah. You know, just stay on message. Yeah. Um and you know, editing away. But now the I mean I just I spent four hours and twenty minutes on a podcast the other day with a conservative uh in Tennessee who the opening question was, are you willing to take this Glock, this American gun, as a gift? And that was the opening question. I I said thank you and I've embraced it and now I'm getting training on it. Jesus holy in America. And uh but the point being I think no I think that's what people are looking for. They're looking for authenticity. We're exhausted by the status quo. I mean there's an anti-establishment feeling across the globe. I mean it's so I think it's very much part of our politics in the United States, Trump express es that, obviously has succeeded in that respect. So does Bernie Sanders on the other side of the the political coin. And so I think our politics is radically changing and reorganizing. Part of that is we need to change and reorganize our thinking, our relationship with the public and just be more transparent and open. Again, politics as you know is full of conventional wisdoms that often turn out to be completely wrong. There is a conventional wisdom that if you're from California. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And of course Reagan did it, but he was a kind of ch Nixon goes to China kind of thing. Yeah. Nixon tried. Yeah, exactly. So what what just tell me, is California a thing? Is it a problem? I think it's both and. It's I mean, I say in the book it's the most blessed and cursed state in America. And then I I would argue politically too. I mean I said that in the context of fires, droughts and floods and um and being the center of the universe as it relates to AI and quantum and robotics and uh advanced manufacturing. But uh no, I I think it it comes with attributes, particularly in a primary. You know, the future happens in California first, where America's coming to traction. Uh so many of the policies, progressive policies, pragmatic progressive policies that the Democratic Party is arguing for, we did years and years ago. Give me a subject matter and I'll give you a policy presvecription that we' advanced. Some have been more successful than others, and so there's grace and humility in that respect, trial and error. But you know, look, we're the center of energy and daring, innovation, entrepreneurialism. Uh, we're dreamers and doers, entrepreneurs and innovators. And I think that is compelling to a lot of folks. In a general election, there's no question on the right, they painted California in the same derangement terms as Trump has been described But there's certainly California derangement syndrome. It's 24-7. And it makes sense because careers, industries, Fox News, Murdoch, I mean, they're defined by what we're against. Our success runs counter to their entire argument of the case. You say in the book there is no Trump without Murdoch. I absolutely believe that. I just think his weaponization, his ability to shape shift, what Murdochs have done for him. Fox News primetime lineup. And uh I mean the Rubio speech today was interesting. I mean, the shape shift, compare that to advance's shift. I mean, they celebrated Vance a year ago, they're gonna celebrate Rubio tonight. Whatever the dear leader, whatever position and repositioning uh they advance. I I've never seen a network like this. You've more experience in this space. Murdoch, of course, is bringing a little bit of his East Coast bias to the West Coast has created the California Post, whose purpose is to take down folks like myself. That's who these guys are. statement that he wanted America's allies in Europe to be strong, and he wanted them to stop being guilty and stop being apologetic, and instead to be proud of their heritage, proud of their civilization, proud of being part of the greatest civilization on earth. I don't really understand that. What's he trying to say? I guess the suggestion is you are not . Which is a hell of a statement. What does he and Stephen Miller think civilization is? When when Stephen Miller's standing up saying 're the heirs to a great European civilization, or the National Security Council says you know, I like the way he said it. Color of your shirt. Right. Right, right. That's exactly what they mean. I mean that's what the migration that's I mean, these are all the code words, so then we know them well. These are the dog whistles and the vernacular of the eighties with Reagan, Nixon and others. And it's a weird thing, isn't it? Given that America has a history of being against empire, uh many ways a progressive history. To have the United States trying to say to us that I mean the i the way I heard it, but maybe I'm exaggerating it, is that he's almost saying, you know, we should be proud of the French and the British Empires. That there's this extraordinary kind of Western civilization. It's this sort of thing. The best of Greek democracy, and you know, this notion of popular sovereignty, coequal branches of government in the vernacular of democracy or republica, bring it on. Amen. Right? The rule of law, not the rule of Don , Donald Trump in this respect , rules based order versus, you know, law of the jungle might makes right. Uh or perhaps he does mean what you're suggesting. We have, I believe, an imperial presidency that is inspired by Mike Makes Wright and the law of the jungle. If you have something he wants, you're a target. Period, full stop. And that will continue to be the case. And Governor, just final thing on this. This something that's very difficult to understand , which is on the one hand the Trump presidency seems to say they want us to be strong. On the other hand, when it suits them, they seem to say they want us to do what Trump says. And these seems to be intention ed because uh on the one hand he wants everybody for understandable reasons, buying American weapons, uh accepting the dollar, accepting his trade terms, giving goodies. On the other hand, he's trying to push Europe to be more independent, pushing them away, which will undermine all those things. I'm trying to work out what's what's what he's doing. I don't think I think he's working it out in real time. That's to suggest uh there's uh a value proposition that's clear and and uh consistent. Uh uh it's not. It's mercurial, it's uh whim, it's feeling, it's news cycle, it's 24-7, it's shock and awe, it's iterative in this context. Uh th row things out, see what works. But right now, the entire theory of his case is in retreat. They're in retreat in terms of their attitudes towards um their alliances in the European Union, uh based on what Rubio said today, in retreat, obviously in Greenland and retreat, even domestically, as it relates to domestic forces, you know, mass men, the secret police that he sent out to cities uh like Minneapolis and Minnesota. They're pulling back. His own domestic agenda is fraying. He's historically unpopular at the moment, trying to address the issue of affordability. He's out on an affordability tour. He is in a very iterative mindset because he's about to get crushed in the midterms. And so he's weakness, masquerading as strength, but he does respect strength in this context . He senses weakness and he exploits it. That's his expertise. And so I thought it was important what Carney said in Dav os. I thought it was important what well, continues to be important, what is being said uh last yesterday, last night, today, here uh in Munich, and I think the European Union, I think global leaders are starting to recognize the approach to Trump cannot be of appeasement. It has to be from a position of of of strength. Is that one of the reasons why you've taken this very aggressive social media strategy that has got a lot of attraction around the world because it's kind of going for him. And likewise, I thought it was really interesting. One of the most kind of laugh out loud moment in your book is when Trump comes down when you've got these terrible fires raging. You paint a picture of a guy who's still utterly self obsessed, completely narcissistic, only thinking about how he's gonna look on Fox News and you tell this incredible story about he's got Jared Kushner sitting alongside you and he's basically saying, I wish that Ivanka was marrying Tom Brady, not him. Yeah. What what are we dealing with? How do I impact this? How do I impact it? Well you're dealing with a malignant narcissist. I mean, for one, someone who's remarkably engaging one on one. And and that's universally understood. Anyone who's had extended interactions with him. I've had perhaps the most interesting, I I would argue, relationship with him of any Democrat. Uh, because we worked together during COVID. And we worked very s very collaboratively uh during that period of time. I don't think any other Democratic governor can like claim that. Were you in favor of taking Bleach to deal with it? I was uh you know i remember bleach uh uh we had our differences um but in the context of at least in engagement the biggest surprise to me on the international stage was a zelensky meeting it was so unlike trump do.esn He't like conflict and friction one-on-one. But that was Vance, wasn't it? It was Vance. Yeah, exactly. And so to understand Trump is to understand that. And I think look, part of that is he's easily manipulated . And that's from a foreign policy perspective. I mean, for Xi and Putin and these others, I mean, that's legendary. And that's a point of some deep caution. But he has a deep desire to get along, for you to appreciate , to engage them, slap you on you know, the backhand on the on on your knee, uh to engage in the kind of banter , uh, sometimes crude , infamously, uh, sometimes rather insulting and degrading to poor poor Kushner in the context of the the Brady comments. And at the end of that, you go off, so you see him close up, you're trying to work with him on dealing with these fires, and then not long thereafter on your social media put out we've got to get an an administration that is less corrupt and more competent than this. And he phones you up almost like it. Yeah, he was hurt by it. So I thought we had something. And I said and I said, ah, well, that was maybe a little tough. It was pretty mild. And he immediately goes, yeah, it's all good. We're good. We're good. He just wanted to make sure we're good. He called me in the right before he federalized. You want to talk about the origin story. And you didn't ask, but I'm going to take advantage of you bringing up my social media. It radically shifted last June. And it shifted after a phone call that I had with Trump. Trump called me late at night, about 1:30, almost 2 in the morning, his time. And uh unknown number, uh Palm Beach. I didn't even answer it. And then I listened to voicemail and it was the president. I I checked back in. I thought it was particularly late. I wasn't even sure. I checked in with his chief of staff first and said, I know it's late. I I got the call, called him tomorrow. I said, no, you should call him now. So I called him. It was a 19-minute conversation about quote unquote the riots in Los Angeles. And it begins with the following. God is my witness. He goes, hey, hey, yeah. I mean this is 10 o'clock my time, uh PM. He goes, uh what do you think of New Scum? You know, the nickname New Scum. He calls me New Scum. Uh worst governor, you know. And I said, he goes, pretty original, right? I said, uh no, it's not original. I I said, uh Mr. President, uh an eighth grade, it's actually in the book. Uh they were calling me new scump. He goes, ah, you know. He goes, what about uh uh mag got, pretty good. I said, uh yeah, make America great. But I said, that's not original. I mean Reagan had he got cuts me out. Goes, how many hats you think I sold last month. This is right when we allegedly had riots on the streets about had no interest, 17-minute conversation, did not once bring up Los Angeles, had no interest in that, wanted to get back into the debate performance with Kamala. He says it was four against one. I said there was only two people that were a cross-examined. So it's a cameraman. The cameraman. I'm like, Jesus, my friend. And this is the third man. Fifteen hours later, he tweets out, said, I read news from the Riot Act, and we're federalizing the National Guard. 4,000 National Guard are federalized, 700 active duty Marines. Didn't even talk about it. Completely made up. And but it was at that moment that my mind radically shifted. That this is I mean, for all the banter aside, the fact that he's sending thousands of troops, the second largest city in the United States, not overseas. Remember this was the first city that he did it, just shifted in my mindset that we've crossed that red line and what I started to do is put a mirror up to that. And I did it in very crude ways. In ways that were profoundly controversial because I started to mimic him for a reason. I mean, dressing up as the Pope , the President of the United States. I mean, this is not normal. And the best part about it, we we had some fun with it is Fox News, again, back to Pravda. Um and his enablers. Uh they were so offended. Uh uh one of the their well known hosts on one of their biggest programs said, Where this newsomi where is his wife? He should be washing his mouth out with soap. This is not once recognizing their lack of situ ational awareness. They've not said a thing about Trump's tweets this entire time. So we haven't doubled down on it. We have made it kind of an art. And if you haven't checked my social media out, I encourage you to check it out. Okay Gavin, we'll be a quick break and then back for more so how did your own um experience growing up and this sort of development from a quite a shy and secure boy into becoming who you are today? How does that help you understand bits about the president? I mean, when you look at him, can you recognize people in your life who is a bit like him and other hints of his personality you're picking up? Well, I mean, uh we all want to be loved, we all need to be loved, even the President of the United States. Look, he's uh he's a broken man in so many respects. Let's not forget, he's the guy who tried to light democracy on fire and wreck our democracy after January 6th. He's a very dangerous person . One should not underestimate what he's capable of doing on a daily and hourly basis. I don't think people fully have absorbed what we're up against day-to-day. Um, he is trying to wreck this country. It's 250th anniversary uh of this historic project of our founding fathers and he is doing everything in his power to to break the core tenets, the spirit of those values. That said, uh he's not complicated . He just simply wants you to understand uh how wonderful he is . Uh how um you know what a good chap he is, uh what a good bloke he is. He wants to do the right thing, uh just give him a hug. He didn't get many, clearly, from his parents. I I don't know that it's more complicated than that. However, he's also a guy, I've described him as a T-Rex. He will either devour you or you have to mate with him. It's almost impossible to work with him. You only work for him. And so I have iterated in that respect as governor. We have tried the path of least resistance, uh, it doesn't necessarily go so well. And now we're taking an approach that's a little bit more aggressive, a little more assertive. And interestingly, I think he responds to that uh with a little more respect than most people would otherwise appreciate. Who do you despise might be too strong a word, but who who do you despise more? Him or the people who enable it? Oh, the enablers. I do. They know better. They should know better. Rubio ? Vance Miller? Where are we? Well, don't get me started. I mean you talk about the dark heart of this administration. You're talking about Miller . The dark heart of this administ Is he oh here we are in in Germany, is he is he Goebbels. I don't wanna c get me in trouble in that respect. I don't know. I mean I think maybe other He's a hard right boy. He goes, he's a tough guy, tough guy. Which is Trump's way of saying, you know, he's not a useful idiot, but he's very intentional, sent out there. Uh and look, the entire mass deportation strategy is a Stephen Miller strategy. And his you know I mean you saw Miller defend the Venezuelan action in a way that was a little understated, alarming. Um, even by Trump standards, I think it started to pull him back a little bit. But look, I think Rubio talk about putting a mask on. He's put a mask on and his face is growing into it. Um I don't recognize Marco Rubio. Nor do the Democrats in the Senate that worked with him as a colleague. He saw that today. He was he was doing Trump's bidding, but doing it in a way that was not as upsetting as Vance was last week. Correct. Last year. Last year. Correct. Who sitting here now, you're bound to think , let's say that you do win the nomination, who do you think is going to fight for the Republicans next time round? Look, Donald Trump's a lame duck president . He hates those words. Donald Trump is a lame duck president. What do you say three times. He will as a lame duck president. He will be remembered in years, not decades. Time of life, not state of mind. He would run for a third term in a nanosecond if he was a younger man. I believe that. He's the most corrupt president in American history. The self-dealing , the graft is next level. It's not about policy making, it's about profit making for the entire family. I mean, it's extraordinary what he's been able to achieve in a very short period of time. And his enabler is allowing that every second of the da y. But in terms of Trump's tenure, it's about to come to an end as we know it today in November. He's going to get, as I said earlier, get shellaced in the midterms. Absolutely sure about it. Absolutely sure of it. He he i i have said this before and it's absolutely important to underscore he's an historic president, historically unpopular. That's the pivot with Rubio today. That's the pivot with Greenland. That's the pivot in Minnesota. I mean, Susie Wilde's no idiot, his chief of staff. I mean, they recognize how existential this all of a sudden the U.S. Senate's now in play. That wasn't even on the table. That was never, I mean, we could have theorized it, we could have promoted it as good partisans, but to believe it, now it's a chance. And so this ends. Lame du ck with Congress now with subpoena power, real authority and oversight, but the ability now also to generate some attention. And that's what he hates most. And I want to go to the Vance question. It's all about attention. He doesn't care if he's the heel or the hero as long as he's the star. That's Donald Trump. The idea that he's going to sit back and watch a primary unfold in organic ways and look around and wonder where CNN is in the Oval Office. And like, well, sir, CNN is uh with JD Vance in Iowa at the primary. He won't put up with that for a second. So he has to be, I mean, this is the apprentice 2.0. He'll make that determination is the answer to your question. He'll have some fun. He'll throw it out as he does with everything. He his focus group are his rallies. He'll go his advance. You know, it's uh, you know, it's like the gladiator, you know, thumb up or thumb down. Uh, it's not complicated. And he'll this always, no, it's Ruby O Vance, not you, uh, you know, and he'll throw out some other names and he'll do this uh until the last breath. And so it's interesting. I think about the nomination for whoever the Democratic president is. I I know all of us want to move, and we do, rightfully, from resistance to renewal. What's the positive alternative message? What's the journey we can all go on? And all of us I mean, Democratic Party, what do we stand for as opposed to who we stand against? I get all that. We all recognize that. It's gonna be an interesting and challenging environment because Trump will continue, despite his weakened stance, as it relates to now no longer having the House of Representatives and being a lame duck, it's still going to be defined in so many ways by Donald Trump. How did uh Camel Harris lose the last election and how is the next Democratic candidate going to win the next one? Well, I mean uh uh well we can go on a journey together on punditry on this. Yeah. We can start with many theories, incumbency, all right. There's one theory, interest rates, uh, there's another theory, inflation scars, there's the third theory, uh Israel. Uh there's the fourth Suri, combination of all of the above, the fifth, wokeism, the sixth. Let's talk about trans sport. I mean, we can go down that list. Um, not sufficiently independent, wrong answer on the view, didn't go on Joe Rogan. Which article, which pundit do we want to highlight and recognize? A combination of all of the above? Uh perhaps. Hundred and seven days. Was a hundred and eight. It would have been different. Uh open primary? Ah I can continue. Uh I don't know, but I'm in the process of trying to understand. It's why I created a podcast. Offended a lot of folks. My first guest was Charlie Kirk. My second was Steve Bannon. I almost didn't get a third guess because there was a what the hell is going on over there? Who's this guy? I just had uh you know Ben Shapiro on um talking about the mega movement and the split now within the mega movement. I mean again back to weakness, masquer ading strength. There's something happening there. You saw it on the tariff vote, too, with those and six uh congressional representatives on the Canadian tariffs. But uh that said, Trump cleaned our clock. Just objectively did. I know it was 170,000 votes , perhaps in the aggregate. Okay. But still, seven swing states, popular vote, historically unpopular person, yet still was successful. so look, uh we have to learn from that. And I don't think we've done the forensics. And our party, interestingly, did, but is unwilling, the Democratic Party, to actually make public their analysis. The whole process that the party's done. But we don't really know what that's. Well, we don't. I don't know that that's healthy. I imagine it will open up wounds and scars, and I think we're feeling better now because 2025 was a good year from us, not the beginning of 2025. We were weak. I think look, what my whole thing, you guys have talked about this before on the podcast, and you know, Scaramucci others are absolutely right. And Clinton said this right years and years ago. Given the choice, the American people will always support strong and wrong versus weak and right. Weakness is another part of this whole story. It's not just policy, it's a sense of how Biden stepped down, this sort of sense of weakness. After the loss of the election, the party's week. You know, Schumer, leaders of the party decided not to move, but the government shut down early on. The base of the party frustrated, outraged. There was no real resistance. And then it started to emerge a little bit from the states, the front lines And there was a little bit more muscularity. Then all of a sudden people started showing up on the streets in a way, these no kings rallies that actually bucked up our party a little bit. And then at the end of 2025, we've got these government gubernatorial races. We're winning in these state races. We're winning in races , you know, for dog catcher that we had never won across the board. And uh and then Prop 50 for me and the work we did to push back against election rigging. So now I think we've found our our footing a little bit more and when we take back that gavel, we take back the House of Representatives uh even more aggressives. Where would you fit on a a kind of UK political spectrum? Or or give give me an American if we put Bernie and AOC over here and the kind of more conservatives over here, i where would you be in there? Well I'm a guy doesn't begrudge other people's success . I say that because there's a tendency in my party, a little bit of that. I've just never been that guy. Nature nurture. I grew up in sort of the clintonian mindset. I'm not talking about triangulation third way here. So I want to be calcious about that. But this notion of the value, the prism to which Clinton made decisions, community, opportunity, responsibility. And I think on the responsibility question, we've fallen short. We can talk in terms of community and opportunity, but the issue of responsibility and patriotism, service, contribution, the Democratic Party can do more. Uniting around the things that bind us together, I think my party can do a better job in the vernacular of Clinton. We celebrate our interesting differences, but we don't do enough to focus on what unites us together. I mean with a kind of a shared agenda that could reach out to the country. Trevor Burrus Well we have look, our system is broken. 10% of you know people own two-thirds of the wealth in the United States. If you're 30 years old, you know, you know, particularly a young man in in terms of gender terms. So we have a crisis of masculinity, more broadly defined, not just the toxicity of a Donald Trump, but more broadly what's happening to boys and men in the crisis in that space in terms of suicides, dropout rates and the like, educational achievement, et cetera. The broader issue of populism is so dominant now in our party that there's a reason people, you know, the reason AOC is out here, the reason Bernie and AOC still fill out stadiums. It's very resonant. I mean, we're gonna have the first trillionaire class. Uh we don't need more trillionaires. Happy to have more millionaires, but we don't need any more trillionaires or any trillionaires, frankly. And so I think these class politics is gonna play a big role, and that populism is going to be dominant in our politics. So it's what you know, how do you dial that up or dial that down in a way that doesn't push people away? Ultimately be that determination. So uh forget the personal ities. I think, you know, tonally we've got to address these systemic issues. There's a sense you can't play on the margins with the established order of things. And uh so I think some more radical thinking without being radical or radicalized uh will be in order. Can I pick you up on this challenges of young men and what you think the approach should be? Well I I've been working uh with Richard Reeves, I've been working with Scott Galloway and others. I mean they've been thought leaders in this space . We did a very significant comprehensive executive order in the space. We have dozens of initiatives. From some as simple as this. We looked around and how many kindergarten teachers were men ? Realized very few. Um in that relationship to a young child to see someone that, you know, represents something. So we're out there recruiting more male teachers as just one example. We have an initiative to organize 10,000 new mentors and coaches, young men. You talk about boys and girls club, a lot of these NGOs that we have, there are not many boys in the boys and girls club. And so we're recruiting men as mentors. We have volunteer initiatives, the largest, larger than the Peace Corps in the state of California, points of pride. I think we should do required public service in the United States of America. I think it should be compulsory. I think that is foundational. Uh we need uh to work together across our differences in the spirit uh that I think defines the best of us. We have to have shared experiences. And so all of those are parts of this larger fabric that we're trying to quilt together. Are you definitely gonna wrong? I don't know. To be determined. The four people that will decide, five, my four kids, and my wife. And it depends on any given day how they feel about it. My oldest daughter has a calendar that counts down the days that she will be quote unquote free, where I'm no longer governor. My nine-year-old has one interest , and that is Air Force One. Um my 12-year-old uh just wants dad to be home. And dad and hates that I'm here, literally, and it breaks my heart. And she's just amazing. And and I'll tell you, that's what this book was for them. I mean, it's the dedication of the book. I didn't write it for anyone else. The third way I can't control. People, how they review the book, whether they buy it, I wrote it for them. Um and it's a book of second chances. You saw that in there. Yeah. And I'm not going to screw that up again. And that's the only thing ultimately that's enduring and matters, is my family. Okay. So given the scale of the challenge of winning the nomination, raising the money, touring the country, getting there, and then possibly being president, is there not a danger that if you're if that's the decision-making process, that the doubts are going to win? I'm pretty honest and transparent about it. You know, I'm not I you know there's no picture of me with a former president that's been on my mantle since I was a kid. I didn't know that was my destiny. And nor am I prone to that. I I think biggest mistake the Democratic Party has made in the past is we fall in love. It's about the guy or gal on the white horse to come save the day. We're not doing the hard work uh bottom up. It's always top down. And so we we tend to chase that. We're focused on 2028. My entire focus last year was on 2026. And that's why I did this proposition, uh Prop 50. But look, I I I said to someone when they directly asked me, I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought about it. And I think the moment in many ways chooses you as well. Do you meet the moment? I do think the obstacle is the way in the vernacular of the Stoics, what stands in the way becomes the way, and the impediment to action becomes the action. Trump in many ways is defining it's defined this last year for me and a bit of a you know ascendancy and name recognition and identity um i didn't expect that phone call from trump that 17 minutes changed the directory of things so i think it sparks the consciousness and uh depends on the flatness of the surrounding terrain as well. As I say, he only appears eminent because of this flatness of the surrounding terrain. There's humility in all this, grace. Governor I uh there's so many directions to go in, but one of the things that I've been thinking about is is you and California are in tech . And you mentioned we're about to have our first trillionaire . So much money now embedded in very, very few individuals, all of whom you've met and know, and who are worth tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. And they don't want AI regulated, they don't want tech regulated, they don't want the taxes too high, and yet you're gonna have to persuade some of them to give you money. I mean, how on earth do you sort out the kind of systems we need, uh given those kind of pressures. I mean uh we're doing it. And we're doing it better than anyone else and we have a lot more work to do. Uh we're the only state well, New York just modeled our frontier model AI regulations first in the nation. I worked on that for two years. Tell tell us a bit about that. Well, I mean it's it's about dealing with truth trust. It's also dealing uh about um you know, the fear and anxiety around these large language models and making sure that those models are more transparent and that information is shared in an open way. Work with Fei Fee, worked with Stanford University, Berkeley, worked with MIT, uh, did a white paper, built consensus with Anthropic, OpenAI, uh, Gemini, some of the other major frontier players, and we're able to put together uh and knit together a legislative package as a first step . We did 18 AI bills on watermarking, on you know, robot calls, uh, you name it. Uh we're out there on child safety. We're litigating constantly with these same folks. Um we have the most progressive tax policy in the United States of America, infamously. I did my state of the state arguing in favor of it, not defensively, but making a case for progressive tax policy. So, you know, we're we're we're leaning in. At the same time, look, it's in the book. I I think there's a chapter that begins. They were known by their first names back then. There's a wonderful um interaction that I had with Larry and Sergei with Steve Jobs, where Steve literally pulled out of his pocket, said, Hey, come over here to Larry and Sergey. I was the plus one um and came over and we started to swipe and it was the iPhone that he was about to release a few days later at the Moscone Center. And so I've had that privilege of seeing this um in the front row. I don't begrudge them, but some of them have become vestiges of themselves. I don't know or recognize them. They've completely sold out. Increasingly to Trump and Trump ism, to darker impulses and instincts. There was a libertarian bent always with these folks, uh, but now it's increasingly grown darker. And I don't know if it's aided and embedded by AI or times I wonder how many are microdosing on an hour to hour basis. And that's I'm serious about that. And that darkness is reflected in the proximity many that have to JD Vance, to the Vance question, and the concern I have about our country. And so at the same time, there are a lot of enlightened folks that have shapeshifted, that showed up in inaugural, that will shape shift right back when the prevailing winds move in the opposite direction when this pendulum swings back. And so I have a little more confidence. Well listen, we're running out of time. You've got to go and do something else. Um but it's great to talk to you. Hope you do go for it. God bless you. I appreciate. Uh and and also what did Paul McCartney sing to your daughter Montana? Oh my god, I've I have the video and I can't remember the song, but come on. I know. I I know. was in my baby bjorn and he just comes up and he doesn't stop. And I went quietly and handed the phone to someone. I said, are you recording this? As McCarthy's right here with Montana, my beautiful Montana, who's still going to con maybe it was Paul that got her into these concerts, which are costing her dad a pretty penny. Another reason I may need another job, not just political office. I can't afford this. Thank you so much. You're very generous for your time and thank you very much. Great to be with you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I thought really intriguing. I mean, and I really warmed him. I mean, my encounters with him in the past, I'm afraid, I only s saw the surface. And it's actually sort of rather kind of wonderful where somebody who comes across as a kind of high school hero, and he was a kind of high schero, he was like a sports star and he got us amazing sports scholarships and this kind of thing, reveals the sort of insecurities and the awkwardness of his childhood and and as he says that part of the being the great kind of all American hero was for him for some years a mask, which he's now had to get into and examine. I think he's r really got something. I was rather alarmed at the end when he said that it will be down to the wife and the kids. Yeah, because you you I mean normally when I tried to say that kind of thing, when I was running to be Mayor London and Prime Minister, people would like cut, stop. People want to know you're a hundred percent committed that this is the thing you think about all the time. They don't want a leader who's a little ambivalent about the job. Well it's the old phrase where there is doubt there is no doubt. Right. And so are there doubts in there? I mean look, I think he's very, very clever. Very, very charming, very, very smart. His analysis of Trump, I think is, spot on. And he's worked out a way to deal with it. And very clever, but in non-conventional ways. He says he he's so deceptive, he could barely read at the age of eleven. Yeah. And I mean, look, we know that famously Trump doesn't sort of re briefs. I think doing any big ex ecutive job where you're really struggling to read and write is really, really difficult. But he's done it, as the various political positions he's at. I thought, you know, he's there's a frankness about him. Yeah, California's a bit of a problem. The book is very very, open about some of his issues in the past to do with alcohol, to do with he had an affair with the wife of one of his staffers. It's very kind of out there. And I think that's the lesson that he's taking from what you talked about, the asking about this sort of new way of new politics that we're in. It's why he does spend four hours talking to somebody on one . It's very much not Keir Starmer, is it? I mean British politics doesn't feel as though it's in that state. British politics still feels as though mm maybe it's better that the slightest scandal and you know if you look at Angela Rayner's mortgage or whatever, I mean that that's that that compared to the kind of stuff that he's going through that a lot of American politics is not so British politics is still actually quite cautious watching your words one step out of line, the journalists are after you and you're being pushed to resign. I mean it difficult other than, you might say, other than Farage. Right. And other than when he was there, Boris Johnson. So I think there are I think a lot of it will be down to the personality. But so for example, what I saw there was somebody who whatever is going on around him has got a confidence about what he's done. And by the way, the one moving , he moves his hands just like Bill Clinton. Right. The left hand movement is identical. And I wouldn't be surprised if time of it he's sort of it's very relaxed and then occasionally he uses the finger to point but it's not a kind of aggressive point. It's a it's a I'm connecting with you point. But I was at a football match, a Burnley game recently and I was talking to the chairman of the club that we were playing against, who was quite sympathetic to Labour, but he said something really interesting, he said, you know whenever they come on the telly, they remind me of managers that are explaining why they just lost. Avoided the question of how Kamala Harris lost. Because of course He said what everyone else said. Yeah, yeah. Are you with Seth Moulton? Are you with AOC ? And he says, Well, let's do the punditry. Could be this, could be that, could be the other, could be the other. We don't know. It's it's almost two years since she blew the blue. Also I think what he what I thought he was going on to say, which he kind of did, was in the end, whatever happened then, we now have to shape something and create something much, much better to take us forward. But he he didn't quite complete that pivot there, did he? He was still giving this very intellectual . Well he was making sure that people understood that listen, we can't just blame Trump. We screwed up ourselves. So he was saying what everybody else was saying. Again I thought I was quite clever. I did see touches of Bill Clinton in him, not just in the hand movements. But but differences too, right? Oh huge differences. But Bill Clinton is a much more bookish man, right But I think in terms I thought it was really interesting I'm now doing it. Yeah. I thought it was really interesting when he went that thing about community opportunity and responsibility. That was a big thing. That was a big thing for New Labour as well. It was basically saying we can't just become the kind of, you know, we're that we're providing people with better health service, better education, better this, better that. There's got to be a sense of shared ownership of the responsibility. And I think that would be a very powerful message if you could land it. And the other thing I think he showed that I think is one of the reasons why he kind of is emerging in the way that he does is this thing of r calling out Trump. And having Trump, as I said, this comes out in the book, when he calls him out, wanting to know why you calling me out. Love the count of those conversations. I mean i it i i it's interesting we don't get as much as we should of really getting a sense of how Trump works. Yeah to say this is how the guy behaves. Right. You know. And honestly in the book . What do you think about the name Newscum? Great name, right? Well no, they said that in eighth grade. Anyway, I hope it does run for I think it'll be it's certainly licensed things up. I I thought he was terrific. Thank you. You that was very much uh uh something that you brought in. He's an admirable so thank you for getting him and I thought that was a great, great podcast. See you soon. Hi, it's Steph McGovern here from The Rest is Money. Now obviously there are big economic consequences to all the geopolitical turmoil. Listen to us to find out how investors are reacting and whether we're heading to a financial Armageddon. I'm talking to Karen Ward, a chief market strateg ist at JP Morgan Asset Management. Listen to the rest is money to get her take