Meet the Press interview

The rules of the game have changed. Now, we have to rewrite the new rules.

I don't. I'm not suggesting I am.

Not right now. Four months ago, if you asked me that question, I would have been struggling to find positive signs of the party. I feel it's a completely different moment. I feel like we're on the precipice of a remarkable moment on November 4th, and not only where I'm confident we're going to win here with Proposition 50, but you're going to have two new remarkable governors in Virginia and New Jersey. You're going to have a dynamic young mayor, regardless of where you are in the political spectrum, that ran an extraordinary and exceptional campaign that galvanized people that, frankly, have been disenfranchised from politics. And we've got leaders now that have a united front and a message that's breaking through on health care, with Schumer and Jeffries, that give me real confidence that the Democratic Party is on its ascendancy. And November 4th will be a pivotal moment marking a new frame, new energy for our party.

Yeah. I am, and for obvious reasons. I mean, this is a historically unpopular president. His policies are even more unpopular than the president himself. In every core category, he's underwater. And he's a guy that promised to make us wealthier and healthier. We're poorer and sicker, across the board. People are starting to realize that not only is their coffee more expensive, their beef is more expensive, but the cost of an automobile is more expensive, since he became president, the cost of utilities. All the things he promised to solve, day one, he hasn't solved. So his recklessness aside, his style aside, the substance, he hasn't delivered. And that's why, again, we're here, Prop 50, because he knows he's going to lose the midterms and he's trying to rig the election before one vote is cast.

I'm deeply confident, as long as we do everything that we set out to do over the next few days. We don't believe in running the 90-yard dash. We run at peak, the 110-yard dash. But the people have spoken and have spoken so far in historic ways. It's a special election. We've seen unprecedented number of ballots already sent in. We have an all mail-in ballot system here. And of course, we have a big turnout we expect on Election Day. But we're seeing overwhelming understanding and recognition of what's at stake. And remember, it's Prop 50 because this impacts everyone watching, in all 50 states. As I said a moment ago, Donald Trump is an historic president, historically unpopular. He's been very open and honest, including right outside the White House just last week, saying, "Incumbents are likely to lose the midterms." That's why he called Greg Abbott. That's why he said he's, quote-unquote, "entitled," think about that, "entitled to five seats." It's why he sent JD Vance to Indiana, shortly thereafter. It's why he moved in Missouri, he moved the folks in North Carolina. And now, we've got a special election in Indiana or, rather, a special session and likely movement in Florida. He is not screwing around. He's changing the rules. He's rigging the game because he knows he'll lose if all things are equal. He did not expect California to fight fire with fire.

Well, former Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's in all the Republican ads, is wrong on a number of points that he just made. First of all, we're not throwing out the independent redistricting. We're affirming national independent redistricting. We're maintaining our current independent redistricting for statewide races, but in response to what happened in Texas, temporarily changing the maps for three cycles for the congressional races. It reverts then back to its original form, number one. Number two, the people are deciding. The maps are in the ballot. They're there in front of the voters in a way that have never been done in California or American history. So it's temporary. It's transparent. We have maintained the commission. And we're responding to the crisis, not of our making, but the crisis that Donald Trump advanced. Greg Abbott and other Republicans, that don't believe in fair and free elections. They don't. Why else would they be moving in this unprecedented way?

Yeah.

Absolutely not.

Are you kidding? His personal attorneys --

I have confidence –

– in the lower courts, and I'm holding hope that there's one co-equal branch of government left, and that's the judiciary. But again, not on the basis with the shadow docket in the U.S. Supreme Court. But the courts, the lower courts, the federal courts have held pretty strong. And so I'm hopeful it's the last institution standing. Again, he's assaulting all institutions that stand in his way. And obviously I mentioned the one third of the decisions that he appears to have dismissed. The courts are one of the most powerful and potent. So I'm hopeful, but I'm not naïve. Posse Comitatus, it's not complicated. You cannot use the United States military for domestic law enforcement. He just announced he will be sending out strike teams and he'll be organizing in every state these strike teams. Wake up. What the hell do we need to tell people to get them off their couch, to say, "Well, hold on, I may have liked his bluster, I may not have liked the last guy, but I didn't sign up for this?"

Quite the contrary. The whole expression was to not allow it to be normalized. It was becoming normalized. All this – the normalization of deviancy across the spectrum of issues. But his communication – he's dressing up as the Pope, as Superman – hold on – he's putting his face on Mt. Rushmore. He's saying, "Thank you." It's madness. And so I put a mirror up to that madness.

I would love to go back to that, but politics has changed. The world has changed --

The rules of the game have changed. Now, we have to rewrite the new rules. I'm trying to iterate. I'm in that process of doing that. But Michelle Obama also recently was interviewed about that comment and she amended that comment about going high is also going strategic, meaning finding strategies to address concerns and anxieties. So she's evolved on her own foundational principle, but it's the right one. We're all better off when we're all better off. This can't continue forever, all of us living in this state of fear and anxiety, on edge. And so of course we want to go back to some semblance of normalcy. But you have to deal with the crisis at hand. It's just been 10, 11 months of this presidency. We have three more years. Time to batten down the hatches. And it's time for us to change if we want things to change. And that's why our communications strategy has shifted.

Because success leaves clues. He was organizing on the campuses. He was successful at getting out the vote. He has a voice, a huge voice, an out-sized voice in the MAGA movement. And I talked to Democratic friends and allies and they weren't familiar with him. And I asked about, well, what exists in the Democratic Party? What are we doing about it? And he was, to his credit, kind enough to fly out and sit down with me. We talked about our wives. We talked about our kids. We talked about the future of this country – vehemently different points of view. I mean, it's like daylight and darkness in terms of the contrast of components. We stayed in touch a little bit. And I just think that's healthy. And I know people, some folks in my party were offended by it. "You platformed him." I had zero downloads of my podcast, so who platformed who? But I did the same with Bannon. I did the same thing with Newt Gingrich, who helped lead my recall campaign. I've done that with Sean Spicer – people on the other side because at the end of the day divorce is not an option.

We've got to call that out. It sickens you to your core. I mean, talk about weakness. Violence solves for nothing. And so it just needs to be called out, period, full stop, not exploited by anybody. Forget politics, how can anybody condone violent acts? I remember getting a call from my son after Charlie was shot, and he asked me as if I would know, "Did he die?" And full disclosure, I sent a text to him, wishing for his recovery. Little did I know – I'm rather humiliated, I haven't shared that. As a human being, my son is not a fan of his but knew of him. And it impacted him. And he was on a speaker phone. He's a young kid at school, it impacted a lot of folks. And I think about my son at that moment. I think that's something he'll never forget, this generation won't forget. So this is, God bless, I prayed for him. And little did I know he probably already had passed away, and so grace. When President Trump was shot, unconscionable, unacceptable, called it out with clarity and conviction. I didn't like on the other side, with respect, and this is not other-side-ism. But there was not that same kind of humanity that was expressed when Paul Pelosi was attacked. There was a lot of, you know, sort of mockery around that. And there's certainly mockery from the left about Charlie Kirk, which was wrong. So all of that needs to be called out. Again, we're all in this together. And so I think, again, we can go back and forth. That's why I say open hand, not a closed fist. The president of the United States calls, I'm going to answer the call, and respect the office, even if I disagree fundamentally with the individual in that office.

I go home with --

I never had that -- I just talked to the president a few hours ago. I've been privileged to have a relationship with the president. I spent almost two hours with him in December, right before, during the transition, in the Oval Office. And my experience, his expression, gave me no pause, no doubt – and let me finish – I was proud to stand there, proud to make the case for 50.4 million jobs. Proud to make the case for the CHIPS and Science Act, the industrial policy that was worker-centered. Proud to make the case for an infrastructure package that actually delivered a real bill and is delivering real jobs all across this country. Proud to stand tall as he was a counter-prevailing point to President Xi and what they're doing on low-carbon, green growth, and how they're going to dominate the future as it relates to green energy. And he was a counter-prevailing point. I was proud of the fact that he supported 400 bipartisan bills. It did more for vets and had started to address the issue of gun violence. I was proud of that legislative package of accomplishments. The one exception, as it relates to the interaction I had with him, that gave me pause, one, was the fundraiser in Southern California. And all of us were a little taken aback. But we also were mindful that he had been in Europe twice in about a week, and for the grace of God go any of us with jet lag and being exhausted. That person came back on that debate night and that certainly gave all of us pause.

I did, privately, with grace and humility. He was going to make the right decision. And so for me it wasn't my job to go out there. My job was to let him, give him the space. I just have a different approach. Good people can disagree. I have a different approach to all this. And I lost my father. I lost him right around election for governor. He survived just to see me elected. So many of the attributes of my father I remember – he reminds me so much, I'll just be candid with you, this is me speaking as a human being, he reminds me of Joe Biden. I wasn't going to do that to him. He was going to make the right decision and he did. The question of the timing, okay. But the bottom line, I was proud and continue to be proud to make a case for his record, and certainly in contrast to the record of this president.

Yeah, I think my focus was, frankly, situational. It was making sure Donald Trump didn't get back into office, to experience everything that we're experiencing today. And there was no interaction I had that suggested otherwise.

Misled in what respect? He decided to step down--

I never experienced – look, I'm not going to substitute myself for someone else or for popular opinion. I'm going to express my relationship to my truth with the former president of the United States, including at the end of his term, quite literally in December, which was a master class of foreign policy and domestic policy, which I will never forget, as we walk through not just the election but we're walking through the world we're living in. There was nothing to suggest what you just said or others have suggested in terms of my interaction. That's all I can be accountable for.

Oh, that's a deeper forensic. I think I'm up to 26 pages of other people's opinions on it – I'm not even making that up. By the way, it's I think actually 24, to be fair. Let me not overstate it. And there's all kinds of theories. I mean, you want to go through the list? We'll need an extra half hour --

I don't know. I’m reflecting on it. I think time, we'll have more of an understanding. We can start with inflation. We can talk with interest rates. We don't talk about interest rates enough. We could talk about incumbency. We could talk about Israel. We could talk about immigration and the border. We can go through a myriad of lists. We could talk about Joe Rogan. We could talk about woke. We could talk about the 107 days. We could talk about the lack of an open primary. We could talk about “The View.” Again, I'm on page six of the 24 pages. And how you unpack that, how you stack that in terms of everything, I think needs still a little bit more forensics, a little more analysis.

I think the prevailing wins were – there were a lot of headwinds. And people were looking for something fundamentally different. They were looking for change. I think the inflation scars were real. I think if – I think about my own surrogacy. You know, I talked about the aggregate a lot. I talked about the economy that was booming. It was the best economy since the 1960s, the lowest Black unemployment, the lowest unemployment for women, the lowest unemployment for people with disabilities, the lowest uninsured rate in American history. We had cut child poverty in half. That all happened during the Biden-Harris administration. I was making those points. I was making the point around GDP. I was making the point that inflation was cooling off – but the inflation scars at 9.1 – and moving in the right direction. I was making a point around the American experience in the aggregate, not what the American people were experiencing. And I think that was a legit disconnect in terms of the campaign, our communication, and others, that would have made it a very challenging election.

100%. And I sent out an endorsement in a few minutes after that. I was one of her first endorsements, the reason she was calling. I've known Kamala all my life. The last person she needs to reach out to is me. So, I learned the news, I wanted to get in touch with the Biden folks. I was out on an actual hike. I was like, "Kamala, you've got a million people to call," and we were literally working as she reached out. It was a voicemail, by the way, unknown number, for the record. And as she was on to her next calls, we were already on to our press release endorsing her. So, I don't even know why that was even in the book.

I don't care --

I don't care. It's all good. We've known each other for 20 years, and I think it's familiarity. I think she was having a little fun.

Oh, my God --

– Just the opposite. Give me a break.

I don't. I'm not suggesting I am. It was in response to someone talked about it and I -- nothing I dislike more than a politician that sits there and lies to you. And we all just sit there rolling our eyes going, "Give me a break." So, as it relates to that, there's nothing on the -- I'm focused on Prop 50. I'm focusing on fair and free elections. And to the extent, fate, the future, there's an alignment, you have a big enough why, you have a what and a how, you meet a moment and that moment presents itself in a year, year and a half, we'll see what happens.

No.

Well, I haven't decided, and I appreciate the persistence as it relates to this and I respect it. I think whoever runs, and this is just my objective belief, subjective, but I hope it's objective for a lot of Americans, it reminds me a little of Isaiah. You need to be a repairer of the breach, spiritually and physically. But it's not just about restoration, the forces of restoration. It's also forces of transformation. And what I mean by that is what are the trend lines that define the future? You know, I'm here. We're in the future business. I'm here in California. Future happens here first. We're America's coming attraction. On artificial intelligence, fusion, quantum, robotics, nuclear, space, California dominates in every critical category. I worry about the future of work. I worry about the announcement from Amazon. I worry about earnings going up, profits skyrocketing, and headcount going down, meaning less and less people having access and opportunities. I think whoever runs has to paint a vision for the future, a journey that we can be on together that's not just about growth but about inclusion, issues of debt and entitlement, issues around energy. And I still believe in climate issues. All those issues need to be front and center eventually for whoever's the nominee of our party.