#1798 - Michael Shellenberger

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] And we're up with the future governor of California.

[4] Michael Shelman.

[5] Hello, Michael.

[6] Thanks for having me back, Joe.

[7] Nice to see you.

[8] Hey, I said that I wasn't going to do any more political podcasts, but I had already booked this one.

[9] So for people like, what the fuck, man?

[10] But you're not just a political person.

[11] You know, your book, San Francisco.

[12] What would you call that?

[13] That's a sociopolitical book, right?

[14] That's a work of journalism, commercial nonfiction, for sure.

[15] And a way for people to understand what can happen when bad policies get in the way of a city and turn it sideways, which is what has happened to San Francisco.

[16] Yeah, pathological altruism.

[17] I like that word.

[18] Yeah.

[19] It's not mine.

[20] I mean, I just, you know, it synthesized a bunch of other people's stuff.

[21] But, yeah, I mean, I considered whether it was Monkhausen syndrome by proxy.

[22] Mm, why so?

[23] Well, so Monkhausen syndrome by proxy, of course, is when, like, a parent deliberately poisons her child in order to be able to treat the child for illness.

[24] Yeah.

[25] So we have one of things I just children, it's like caretaker, right?

[26] Yeah, it could be, I guess it could be like a nurse and a patient.

[27] But we, one of the things since I've seen you last, a few things have happened.

[28] I discovered, I was the first one to report that we have a supervised drug.

[29] you cite now illegal in San Francisco's United Nations Plaza where people are using fentanyl and meth under city supervision.

[30] So I guess the difference is that, you know, monk hasn't a syndrome or a proxy, the adult or the caregiver is poisoning the person directly.

[31] In this case, people are poisoning themselves in front of the supposed caregivers and the caregivers are there to monitor it.

[32] But when they do something like that, did they have any proposal or any sort of protocol these people can follow to get off the drugs?

[33] They call it radical compassion.

[34] This is, you know, there's a chapter on my book called Love Bombing, but it's basically this is the big blind spot for progressives, is that they just can't conceive that being radically compassionate could cause harm.

[35] And radical compassion, the idea is you're going to accept these people for who they are, the fact they're drug users, and you're going to give them a car.

[36] safe place in order to do their drugs.

[37] Yeah, radical.

[38] Sorry.

[39] And by way, it's radical hospitality is what they call it.

[40] It's a very rat.

[41] When you're attaching the word radical to anything, you should be cautious.

[42] Yeah.

[43] I mean, the idea is, so they supposedly this was the, they called this.

[44] So in December, we whipped up a lot of concern, you know, in California, in San Francisco for what was happening in San Francisco, the open -air drug markets, the overdose deaths, which were almost triple the COVID deaths in 2020.

[45] And the mayor announced a crackdown in December.

[46] She said she was going to put an end to all the bullshit.

[47] That was literally a word she used.

[48] And she said she was going to use tough love, which is what we want, tough love.

[49] So what do you think lit the fire under her?

[50] Well, I think the book helped a lot.

[51] I'll take some amount of credit for it.

[52] It was national media attention.

[53] I think it's bad for tourism.

[54] People don't want to bring their families to San San Francisco.

[55] Is that the worst city in terms of like the way things have eroded due to extreme progressive ideology?

[56] Honestly, I think the book is San Francisco because and people are always like, you should write that book about, you know, Seattle.

[57] And it's like, no, no, it's, it's, it's an, it's the same thing in all these places.

[58] But San Francisco, refers also to compassion sickness.

[59] San Francisco, you know, St. Francis is the saint of, of compassion.

[60] You go too far and you get pathological altruism.

[61] But the worst city by far is Los Angeles.

[62] There's no doubt about it.

[63] Skid Row is just, it's just insane.

[64] I mean, I don't even know.

[65] It's like visiting hell.

[66] It's hard for people to believe if they haven't actually visited.

[67] And I'm saying this as someone who hasn't visited it in more than 15 years.

[68] But 15 years ago, it was insane.

[69] And Sager, Sager and Jetty from Breaking Points, he was just there.

[70] Yeah.

[71] And he told me, you can't believe that.

[72] it.

[73] You can't believe it's real.

[74] No, it's horrible.

[75] And, you know, it's, I'm a father of a 16 year old and 16 year old girl.

[76] And you see, you know, young women, you see teenagers prostituting themselves in psychotic states, clearly not in control of their minds or their bodies.

[77] Why do we allow this?

[78] This is a complete breakdown of civilization.

[79] It's not civilized.

[80] It's barbarism.

[81] It's bring up the key problems in LA.

[82] They bring up homelessness, but they don't bring up like literally the epicenter of homelessness in the United States, which is inside downtown L .A. It's a crazy play.

[83] We're talking about it, but I think it defies description.

[84] I think you have to experience it.

[85] And again, I'm talking about it the way I saw it 15 years ago.

[86] I think if you saw it today, it's probably measures worse, right?

[87] Absolutely.

[88] I mean, one thing, one thing that happened since I saw you last, because I was here in October, and we, the time, the New York Times trashed my book, as we would have expected.

[89] One of the most crazy things they said is they said that I didn't interview any homeless people, which is like bonkers.

[90] I interviewed hundreds of homeless people.

[91] So I didn't even know how to respond to that because it's just so bizarre.

[92] So finally I was like, all right, you know, that's how you guys want to roll.

[93] So I started putting up on videos.

[94] I started recording videos of folks on this.

[95] street, just being really, really honest, and it didn't take much at all.

[96] You know, the first people I interviewed, I was like, why are you here?

[97] I'm addicted to fentanyl and meth, you know, and where are you from, Louisiana, Texas?

[98] So, because one of the mythologies is that everyone's just local and they couldn't afford the rent.

[99] And so then they decided to, like, live in a tent on the sidewalk.

[100] It's ridiculous.

[101] I never met anybody that had that story.

[102] It's, it's addiction and mental illness, full stop.

[103] So.

[104] And have they moved?

[105] to Los Angeles specifically because it's easy to exist there like that?

[106] For sure.

[107] That's so ambitious.

[108] It's hard for people to move out of state, right?

[109] It's hard to move out of state for a job.

[110] Imagine moving out of state for an addiction.

[111] A lot, it's actually a pretty classic story.

[112] I mean, it's slightly different stories that you hear in San Francisco and L .A. A lot of people show up in L .A. kind of Mahal and Drive style.

[113] You know, I'm going to try to make it here as an actor in Hollywood or whatever.

[114] And then they, you know, end up depressed.

[115] taking drugs, end up in Skid Row.

[116] San Francisco, people definitely go to San Francisco to service their addiction, and they tell you that.

[117] They come from Ohio or Kentucky or, you know, wherever.

[118] So I just started filming, I just started interviewing people on the street with my iPhone and posting them on Twitter, and they would go viral right away.

[119] I interviewed a guy, one of them went viral, a guy told me he had sold fentanyl to a 15 -year -old, and I was like, why are you here?

[120] And he's like, because they make it pretty fucking easy to be homeless here, man. Yeah, I've seen quite a few interviews like that where they describe how much money they get per month and why would they move?

[121] Right, yeah, that was a lot of my stuff.

[122] So it was kind of like, that was my elaborate response to the Times review.

[123] The Times has gotten silly.

[124] I mean, listen, I'm a fan of the New York Times.

[125] I still subscribe to the New York Times.

[126] I still think it's one of the greatest papers.

[127] Well, it's like, if you just look at their history alone, it's one of the greatest newspapers in the history of the world.

[128] But there's so many blind spots.

[129] Like, Candice Owen, who has many blind spots of her own, was talking about how corrupt Ukraine is.

[130] So the New York Times contacts Candace Owens and says, what are you basing this on?

[131] Why are you saying that Ukraine is corrupt?

[132] And she said, how about articles from your own fucking newspaper?

[133] And she sends them all these links that specifically talk about how corrupt Ukraine is.

[134] But these are from 2017, 2018, whatever.

[135] But it's like, you don't, you guys didn't even look through your own fucking archives before you're trying to dunk on someone.

[136] Like your own newspaper talked extensively about corruption in Ukraine.

[137] You know, it's, it's super complicated because obviously there's bigger problems than the corruption in Ukraine.

[138] It's, you know, a giant superpower is trying to take over another country and it's put the whole world on notice and we're all terrified of World War III.

[139] But still, you guys are supposed to be the New York.

[140] fucking times.

[141] Like you got to know whether or not you wrote articles about something that you're criticizing someone for talking about.

[142] It feels like it feels like the nuance stories are kind of gone now.

[143] And so it's either a defense of, you know, the president or a defense of some progressive person or it's a hit piece.

[144] That's what it feels like.

[145] There's a lot of there's a lot of activism.

[146] And this is, I think this is a problem today with young people that are getting involved in media and that are getting involved in social media companies and that are getting involved in even in even big corporations like Google and Facebook and Netflix even is they feel like they have a duty to be an activist.

[147] But the best way to really get the truth out there, if you are, if you want to be a journalist, a real journalist, you can't do both.

[148] You can't put like these political one -sided spins on things and then have people trust you across the board about all the complexity that's involved in corruption and international dealings between large superpowers and corporations and what is the what's the entanglement here well if i think that you are completely biased towards the right or completely biased towards the left everything you say i'm going to be cynical about everything you say i'm going to be like yeah how How much, how much is this is true?

[149] How much of this is real?

[150] How much of this is a political slant?

[151] How much of it is bullshit?

[152] Like the New York Times used to be, I mean, obviously they've always had opinion pieces, but the New York Times was the best source of objective journalism.

[153] Right.

[154] It was so good.

[155] You know, it's like you got no bullshit.

[156] You knew what you were reading was true and that they had vetted it and it had been like these hard -nosed editors who'd been out there for fucking decades pounding the pavement doing real journalism they were the ones responsible for giving the green light to whether or not this story makes it into the New York fucking times and there was sort of a kind of humanism in it which is a sense this trust is the right word by the way and there's a sense in which we're all on it together we're all mortals yes there's not a kind of making of monsters that you have now that if you are on the wrong side or whatever, you're a monster.

[157] And so it's just gotten, yeah, there's like no, like, it's that moment where, was it Murrow, who stood up to McCarthy and was like, have you no decency?

[158] It feels like that's the moment again, which is like, what's the basic, you know, they're going after a friend of mine, Alex Epstein, he just texted me very upset before I came in about the post running a hit piece against him for something he said when he was 18, supposedly alleging he's a racist.

[159] I know he's not a racist.

[160] It's ridiculous.

[161] How old is he now?

[162] I think he's in his, must be in his late 30s, maybe early 40s, you know?

[163] So it's kind of like, well, but even if he, write it on when he's into it.

[164] I don't even, I haven't even looked into it yet, but it's just kind of like, what are we doing here, guys?

[165] Like, what are we trying to do?

[166] They're trying to get clicks.

[167] They're trying to get people outrage.

[168] Trying to get clicks and delegitimize somebody because he defends fossil fuels.

[169] You know, at a time, by the way, when we needed a lot more of them, you know, at a time when the idea that you could power the world.

[170] on renewables has come, you know, crashing to an end in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

[171] So, you know, I just think you kind of go, that's just all feels like, that's where it's like, you don't trust it because it's like, why are they going after Alex Epstein?

[172] It hasn't have anything to do with what he said when he was 18.

[173] You know, it has to do with...

[174] It stands on fossil fuels.

[175] Yeah, it's a problem.

[176] Yeah.

[177] And it's such a strange time to try to vet the truth out.

[178] I think, you know, this is one of the big.

[179] biggest problems with a guy like Donald Trump is it's not just that you know people like the Washington Post cited so many times I don't know I forget what the number was that he lied while he was in office it's pretty crazy it's in the thousands have you seen it no but I mean I'm not surprised I mean some of them are like partial truths but you know at the end of the day yeah you know you're yeah the fucking president but the thing is like people were so opposed to him And his sort of bombastic, you know, it's like just the way he would, his conflict style of communication, you know, the way he would have all these conflicts with people, rile people up so much that they feel like they have to oppose him almost in the same way that he opposes other people.

[180] So they can't be, like even the way they didn't like George Bush, George W. They never attacked him the way they attacked Trump and they never there was never this divide there was always a divide between the right and left But it was always civil like it doesn't seem like there's a civil divide today It seems like very hostile yeah, and it seems like you are allowed to do things that are outside the realm of normal journalism to attack someone that you feel is the enemy of your ideology and that didn't used to be the case It used to be the case that like you would report about things in an objective manner and that's what being a journalist was and they probably took pride in that and then maybe they had drinks together afterwards and you know they smoked cigarettes and talk shit and gave their own real opinions but when they wrote these pieces these pieces were objective journalism based on facts right and i don't think you feel that anymore i think there's a problem also with clicks right because how many people are actually buying the new york times i'm sure a bunch people still get it delivered to their home and still pick it up on the way to the subway or whatever but for the vast majority of folks, you're getting it on your computer or you're getting it on your phone.

[181] So you have to attract people in this new world where there's fucking millions and millions of controversial headlines that are trying to vie for your attention.

[182] Yep.

[183] Yeah.

[184] And the flip side of, of course, is that people are also really gravitating towards these long -form podcasts that you've been pioneering and Bridget and, you know, Mel and these other folks that we know.

[185] And so there's clearly a hunger for the other side of that digital experience.

[186] Well, there's a hunger for honesty.

[187] Mm -hmm.

[188] You know, and I think that's something.

[189] Yeah, complexity, nuance.

[190] You know, and being honest about maybe your own conflicts about an idea and a problem.

[191] And I think it's very hard to do that.

[192] First of all, it's very hard to do that in a small article.

[193] And it's very hard to do that when you work for a giant corporation that has an agenda.

[194] Like, you know, I'm friends with Barry Weiss.

[195] And Barry, when she was talking about her time at the New York Times, like, she ran into many issues with that where, you know, you have an idea that you want to say in a certain way.

[196] And then the editors say, no, I want you to say it like this.

[197] Or no, I want you to change that.

[198] And it doesn't become your voice anymore.

[199] It becomes this sort of bastardized, conformed version of your voice.

[200] Yeah.

[201] Oh, and just look at what she's done since.

[202] I mean, her essays are incredible.

[203] The two best essays that I've written since over the last six months were for her.

[204] her.

[205] She made them better.

[206] Her substack's amazing.

[207] It's incredible.

[208] She made them more in my voice than my articles from my own substacker in my voice.

[209] You know, it's like when you go to like a restaurant, they serve like a dish.

[210] And it's like, it's like this is the most essential aspect of Apple.

[211] You know, and it's like I feel like she brought out my voice in her editing.

[212] And it was an incredible experience.

[213] But yeah, I think there's that hunger for it.

[214] And hey, man, that's why I'm here, dude.

[215] Because I just think there's the desire for something that gets beyond this just, really bad, dumb, left -right stuff.

[216] It's so dumb.

[217] Good and evil stuff.

[218] And the rise of substack has been one of the most amazing things about the era of censorship that we live in is that this one platform has attracted Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibi, Barry Weiss, you, so many people who have these brilliant voices that have a very difficult time finding an unfiltered path to the mainstream, to people, to people to just check out.

[219] And people know that now.

[220] They know that Alex Berenson's on there.

[221] They know all these people are on there that are writing these articles.

[222] They probably couldn't write anywhere else.

[223] Right.

[224] Well, I thought it's interesting.

[225] Like Matt Taibi comes out after Putin invaded Ukraine and was like, hey, I got this one wrong, guys.

[226] You know, I mean, it's like, I think there's a, I think the times is, I think the defensive kind of petty nature of the, what we used to call the mainstream media, I think people don't like it.

[227] They don't trust it anymore.

[228] Right, because they don't ever say they got it wrong.

[229] That's right.

[230] Right.

[231] And the guy like Matt Tybee will always say he got it wrong.

[232] That's right.

[233] And for me, it's a source of creative, it's a source of creativity to be like, how was I wrong about the environment and energy?

[234] How was I wrong about drugs, crime, homelessness?

[235] That's interesting.

[236] And it's humbling.

[237] And people are interested in it.

[238] That people always say, they're like, we want to hear how you changed your mind.

[239] It's like, okay great I'll you know I'll accumulate myself I'll describe the but it is it's interesting it's humbling it makes you a little bit it should at least in your better moments introduce some hesitation and caution before being like I know what my view is of X Y or Z right you people love to be able to proclaim definitively what the problem is what the solution is and oftentimes you get it wrong right but when you get it wrong if you want me to still trust you you have to tell me what happened.

[240] So then I know, oh, Michael is like really honest.

[241] Like if he fucks up, he's going to tell me oh, this is why I thought this.

[242] This is where I got the bad information.

[243] This is where I made a calculated guess.

[244] And I was incorrect because I didn't factor in these things.

[245] And let's look at what led to this, you know, ultimately what I didn't think was going to happen.

[246] Yeah, I'll tell you something interesting.

[247] I just started reading this book called The Scout Mindset, which sort of summarizes cognitive errors that we make.

[248] It's sort of in that tradition of of behavioral economics and sort of, but I think my concern with it was when they're sort of, when she's describing, and she does a very good job describing the state of the science as far as I can tell, but in my experience, it's usually things like fear, social fear that lead us to get it wrong.

[249] In other words, for me, it was like my thing I'm most famous for having changed in my mind is nuclear.

[250] My hesitation to come out as pro -nuclear and to raise concerns about renewables, It wasn't like a cognitive error.

[251] I was scared of the backlash.

[252] I was scared of being attacked.

[253] It wasn't like, and I think I see that a lot more, where it's not just like, oh, I, you know, made some cognitive error due to our evolutionary biology.

[254] I mean, certainly that exists.

[255] But it's more like, no, I was scared of losing my friends and losing my employment.

[256] And, you know, I heard another story of a lot of someone last night just telling me that Carnegie Mellon dean of this great university.

[257] put his pronouns in his Twitter bio and his and this donor who was donated to chronic villain was like why did you do that like did you feel then you know do you worried that people didn't know that you were a man and the guy and the guys like he's like no I'm and I'm totally he was upset about it he was embarrassed but he was like I'm scared you know I'm scared of the students you know it's the scared of the Maoist students and so I know and so but that's not like oh I made a cognitive error and I wasn't sure if I was a if I was a man or a woman anymore it's like no I was bullied into it it's so preposterous especially for an older man who grew up in a different time oh yeah to be jumping on board the woke shit right now right yeah that fear that social fear is a real problem it's a real problem and it leads people to to adopt group think just for their own safety right and then and then it was in what's terrible too of course and Barry does a good job describing this on her has other people describe it too is is then it becomes contagious you know and so then it's like you see people you respect cave to the bullies and the woke mob and then and then other people feel the need so it just becomes now the reverse is true too you know one person stands up and people feel emboldened and I think we mean that's part of what's so inspiring about Ukraine right is you kind of go when the president says I don't need a ride I need ammunition did he really say that I hope I don't know I'm repeating misinformation I don't know it's one of those quotes it's so good yeah I hope it's true that is pretty badass yeah yeah yeah but But you can see it's like, because I was skeptical too, but you're kind of like, wow, they're really putting up a fight and it does take somebody in a position of power to be like, no, we're going to fight this.

[258] Yeah.

[259] I guess probably the opposite is true, too, on the right, though, right?

[260] Like, instead of woke thinking, I bet it's, you know, what do you, what's the, I mean, there is got to be a polar opposite of woke when, when you, you know, you think about like hardcore right wing people.

[261] Like, what is that?

[262] Because it must exist.

[263] Maybe we have a blind spot to that.

[264] No, I mean, I find it, where I see it on the raid, or I mean, there's a lot of examples, but I think one place I see it is in, you know, because I'm proposing, for example, to centralize psychiatric and addiction care as part of the reason I'm running for governor.

[265] Decentralized?

[266] Centralize it at the state level, yeah, because the can't, 58 counties, they overlap these expensive administrative services, plus then you have the gaps, and so people get out of rehab and they overdose.

[267] You need to be able to, and plus, you need to be able to, people need to be able to go often to places where it's cheaper to get drug treatment or psychiatric care might not be in downtown LA, might be in Fresno, particularly if you're trying to get people out of the open -air drug markets.

[268] Some of the resistance to it comes from conservatives who are like, oh, well, we don't want another big government program.

[269] You should probably tell people you're running for governor because we didn't really.

[270] I joked around about it at the beginning, but you were saying that I'm actually doing that.

[271] You're actually doing that.

[272] Yes, I'm running for governor.

[273] As preposterous as that seems.

[274] Have you officially announced it?

[275] I did.

[276] Yeah.

[277] Yeah, I did.

[278] But I mean, you're, this is, I mean, I'm announcing it.

[279] I'm re -announcing it.

[280] That was the soft launch.

[281] The soft launch.

[282] So what led you to make this decision?

[283] Because last time I saw you, you were just promoting your book.

[284] And what made you decide that you have a voice that should probably be heard and you can change some things?

[285] I'm upset.

[286] I'm upset by what's happening.

[287] not just in terms of the open drug scenes, which we misname homeless encampments.

[288] I'm upset by the destruction of our civilization, of our liberal democracy.

[289] I see it.

[290] It's all over.

[291] I mean, you see it everywhere.

[292] And so I want to, I believe, I think civilization's good.

[293] I think that it's so controversial.

[294] How are you going to run for governor with that wild stance?

[295] Yeah, a pro -civil.

[296] I'm taking a hard pro -civilization position.

[297] Yeah.

[298] And the governor I've given, look, you know, I did everything, I did my job in terms of really reached out to the governor's office, really put pressure on the mayor of San Francisco, same thing in L .A. For people who haven't heard of you before, let's just detail your political background just so that people understand that you have a long history of being a progressive and this is like these conclusions that you come to, a lot of times when people read things like that, like about cleaning up the drug problem, cleaning up the homeless problem.

[299] They might not know, they might have like a cookie cutter idea of where you stand politically.

[300] Right.

[301] And it'd probably be way off.

[302] I don't think you were right when, right?

[303] Sure.

[304] So, right.

[305] So a very young, radical young man when I was 17, I went to, I skipped the first half of my senior year in high school to go help the San Anistas in Nicaragua, learn Spanish.

[306] I, you know, I, what was that?

[307] Like, I feel like that needs a whole podcast on its own.

[308] Amazing.

[309] Amazing.

[310] Well, yeah, because...

[311] Did you get shot at it at all?

[312] No. It was actually one of the safest war zones I'd ever been in.

[313] That sounds bizarre.

[314] How many more sons have you been in?

[315] A few.

[316] A few.

[317] Yeah, I was pretty...

[318] I was comfortable...

[319] What did your parents think?

[320] Because my son was 17.

[321] He said, I'm going to go help to San Deneas.

[322] I'm like, the fuck you are.

[323] You're going to graduate from high school, stupid.

[324] I had softened them up because I was going to go to North Africa, and the word of kind of, you know, of what was going to North Africa was even hairier than what was going on.

[325] Nicaragua.

[326] So they were like, okay, Nicaragua, we'll go with that one.

[327] Oh, that's hilarious.

[328] So, yeah, I mean, I always felt pretty confident in terms of, like, streetwise and keeping myself safe.

[329] You know, I mean, really, I'd always, you know, I've been in a hurry to live because when I was, when I was eight, I was hit by a truck and almost died.

[330] And that was a pretty formative experience.

[331] So for me, life was always, I never, like that whole memento, Mori, you know, remember your mortality, remember your death.

[332] That was always there for me. So for me, was like, let's go and experience life.

[333] So some sense of adventure, but also a sense of, I was really angry at the Reagan administration for supporting the Contras, which were fighting a war against the socialists, Anastas.

[334] Let's see, went to a Quaker school, got a degree in peace and global studies, which is what we called cultural Marxism back in the 80s, early 90s.

[335] Some people are like, cultural Marxism is a conspiracy theory.

[336] And it's like, no, no, I'm pretty sure I got a four -year degree in cultural Marxism.

[337] My Antonio Gramsci is like well read, well dog -eared.

[338] There's so many stories of people like you that started out, like a hardcore radical Marxist, socialist, and then upon maturing, develop like a more sensible sort of view of what is possible, what's not possible, what the problems and the holes in socialism are.

[339] Well, thanks, man. Well, I think the tendency sometimes is for people to go from one extreme to the other.

[340] And I was deliberate.

[341] I didn't want to do that.

[342] And that's a problem, right?

[343] It's a huge problem.

[344] So for me, that's why I did these last two books.

[345] I wrote two books during the pandemic, Apocalypse Never in San Francisco.

[346] And in both cases, it was some humility that I was wrong.

[347] And I wanted to figure out what I was right, what was right in order to not make the same mistake of lapsing into somebody's pre -baked ideology.

[348] But anyway, long story short, you know, I graduated from college.

[349] I did a couple of years in grad school at San Francisco.

[350] Santa Cruz, which was also a place of cultural Marxism.

[351] Again, a real thing.

[352] I've always been an activist.

[353] I still consider myself an activist.

[354] I write books because I want to make the world a better place.

[355] I don't write books because I want to, you know, I mean, I want to sell books for sure, but the books are in service of a broader mission.

[356] I don't think my values have changed.

[357] I still care about people.

[358] I still care about the environment.

[359] And in the, yeah, in the 90s, I worked for George Soros, you know, on Twitter.

[360] Which is crazy to say.

[361] Which is crazy because someone on Twitter To legalize, to decriminalize drugs, by the way, because somebody on Twitter was like, that's a dog whistle.

[362] And I was like, working for George Soros.

[363] I was like, I actually did work for George Soros.

[364] I'm not like dog whistling.

[365] What is it?

[366] A dog whistle is like you're saying something, but you're not quite saying it.

[367] Yeah.

[368] But like, they always like to use it for racism.

[369] Yeah.

[370] They're saying, they're suggesting that I'm anti -Semitic because I'm mentioning that I worked for George Soros in the late 1990s.

[371] But Soros is stupid.

[372] It doesn't make any sense at all.

[373] No, no, don't.

[374] Don't overthink a joke.

[375] But yeah, I mean, I worked for a bunch of radical causes, did publicity for saving the Redwoods, fighting Nike sweatshops in Asia, juvenile juvenile justice reforms, many of which I still support.

[376] I worked with Maxine Waters to mobilize civil rights leaders to support needle exchange so that heroin addicts could shoot safely and not get HIV AIDS.

[377] I support decriminalization.

[378] I still support the decriminalization.

[379] of drugs because I don't think that addicts need to go to prison.

[380] I think they need to go to rehab if their, if their addiction is causing problems.

[381] And I don't even, people accuse me of all sorts of things that are not true.

[382] I don't think we should criminalize addiction.

[383] I think if you can maintain and manage your addiction, I think you've had Carl Harton here.

[384] I mean, there's other folks.

[385] I mean, you know, they're right that a significant majority of people can use drugs without having problems.

[386] The problem is there's a significant minority that do have serious problems and they can end up on the street.

[387] and they can end up committing crimes.

[388] So we need to have solutions to that.

[389] So that's what San Francisco works through.

[390] But that was, I mean, that's the basic picture.

[391] And then the environment is a whole other thing.

[392] I mean, I was really working on the environment for last 20 years.

[393] And that's really a story of going from having a really apocalyptic view of climate change.

[394] It's the end of the world to a view that climate change is real.

[395] We should take action to address it, but it's also not the end of the world.

[396] And in fact, we have really good technical.

[397] solutions to it.

[398] San Francisco ended up being a pretty much darker book because my view is that the drug addiction crisis is actually much worse than most people realize that the meth is the meth and fentanyl are really, really deadly, dangerous drugs.

[399] When I got out of this work on drug policy in the year 2000, 17 ,000 people died in the year 2000.

[400] This year, over 105 ,000 Americans will die.

[401] You put that in contrast with, like, climate, you know, climate and, you know, climate and weather -related natural disasters globally killed 6 ,000 people last year.

[402] So just in terms of scale, we're making, we've reduced the number of people dying from natural disasters by upwards of 95 percent, whereas the drug deaths are increasing deaths of despair, the whole thing, the basic picture that people have.

[403] So I've become much more alarmed about the mental health crisis, the addiction crisis.

[404] And that's why we've been organizing a movement and why ultimately, after failing to get the politicians to do what they need to do, decide to run.

[405] It is bizarre and illogical why we concentrate on some causes of death that are preventable and not other.

[406] It's very strange how we lock into certain diseases and certain things, but there's very little discussion about like the fentanyl overdoses, which are really insane.

[407] I mean, I personally know of multiple people who have done.

[408] died from it.

[409] And it's scary stuff.

[410] I'm sure you've seen the amount of fentanyl in relation to a penny that it takes to kill you.

[411] It's crazy.

[412] It's such a small amount.

[413] And they're bringing it through Mexico at an alarming rate.

[414] You see that lady who got arrested because she had it stuffed in her vaginal cavity, like enough fentanyl to kill like a city?

[415] Oh, sure.

[416] How about the West Point cadets that, I think is West Point, the cadets that overdosed?

[417] I mean, there's all sorts of artists, you know, I mean, it's...

[418] Tom Petty.

[419] Yeah.

[420] Prince.

[421] Yep.

[422] Yeah.

[423] Was the, the actor from the wire?

[424] Is it Michael Williams?

[425] Yep, same thing.

[426] Yeah.

[427] Yeah, so it's, it's, you know, it's a tragedy and sad and depressing.

[428] And, you know, when I went out, when I go out and interview people on the street, I interviewed, so I found a guy, I interviewed guy, I put up on Twitter, went viral because he was so honest.

[429] He's such a guy, these guys are So it's really, it's actually quite wonderful how honestly we're, but I was like, what's your drug of choice?

[430] And he said heroin.

[431] And I was like, well, how many people are still using heroin out here?

[432] He's like 5%, like 95 % of opioid users have switched to fentanyl, can't even hardly get heroin anymore.

[433] Meth is now.

[434] He's old school.

[435] He's a guy like vinyl.

[436] No, no, exactly.

[437] Exactly.

[438] He's an analog drug user.

[439] He rolls his own joints.

[440] No, and then I was kind of like, and then you're like, what about meth?

[441] And he's like, well, yeah, I mean, like meth and crack.

[442] That's like baseline.

[443] Like if you're using opioids, then you're, especially if it's fentanyl, then they're using meth and or crack just so that they don't kind of become completely comatose and they can enjoy their high.

[444] Right.

[445] So this is, these drugs are really challenging, you know, and detoxing from them and getting into recovery is a super major challenge.

[446] I also am discovering kids, I'm discovering cases where kids are going right from weed to fentanyl.

[447] You know, that's terrifying.

[448] You know, it used to be whatever you would.

[449] experiment with weed for many years and then they maybe try psychedelics and then they would do you experiment a little bit of cocaine and then you'd be like wow that's too much and but now i mean going right from marijuana fentanyl is terrifying so we have a bunch of concerns now about that pathway being much more real i think than than than people realize it seems like all of these situations when you're talking about addiction whether it's to fentanyl or you know whatever opiates the root cause is some deep despair, right?

[450] The root cause is something terribly wrong in their life.

[451] Like, this is not something LeBron James is doing, you know.

[452] It's not something someone who's, like, ridiculously successful and happy is doing.

[453] It's someone whose life is filled with trauma and pain and tragedy and just despair.

[454] And they are the ones who get addicted.

[455] So what does that say about our society and our values and, like, the way.

[456] we raise people and the way we've structured our civilization because that seems to be the root problem that people aren't addressing.

[457] They're addressing this solution, this escape solution that some really sad people have found that takes them out of this life.

[458] Yeah.

[459] But they're not addressing like, why do they want that?

[460] Why do they need that?

[461] Like, what is it about it?

[462] For sure.

[463] Yeah, I mean, for sure.

[464] Like, and the folks on the street are often victims of trauma or child abuse, a lot of people came out of the foster care system, for sure, for sure.

[465] At the same time, the evidence is pretty strong that the amount of child abuse that occurs in our society has declined significantly over the last several decades.

[466] You know, I think there's probably much more abuse in the past than there is now, and yet drug addiction, drug deaths, homelessness have all increased.

[467] So I think the other factor here, it's a little confusing, given the trauma on the street, but also there's just a coddling culture, which we're all aware of, that.

[468] that parents are coddling their kids.

[469] I become obsessed with stoicism, this philosophy, which I think is summarized in what gets called the serenity prayer.

[470] You know, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

[471] Should be called, by the way, the serenity, courage, and wisdom and prayer.

[472] But that is basically all stoicism is, is it stop having anxiety about things you can't control, but do find the courage to take care of the things that you can't.

[473] can control.

[474] And I think that so what you find is the opposite.

[475] The society is going the opposite that people are not taking control of diet and exercise and education and studies.

[476] And we're having anxiety about things that are basically beyond our control, like the pace of decarbonization often or what's happening to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[477] I mean, what have you, these are things that people are obsessing over that are often out of their control, whereas the things that we do have control over, we're really not taking control of.

[478] Yeah, and of course, social media is just gasoline on that fire.

[479] Yep.

[480] Because you get a bunch of people like -minded in an echo chamber all freaking out about something together, like climate change or like, you know, I watched this whole thread the other day.

[481] Just a couple days ago where people were talking about I'm not going out without a mask on.

[482] And then all these other people were like chiming in, meaning they're, I don't care what they say.

[483] And it was like all of these crazy people who are hypochondriacs have like, they've grouped up together and they're enforcing each other.

[484] And this one guy was wearing a respirator, and there's like people, you know, I went to the supermarket, I was the only one wearing masks.

[485] I'm like, bro, it's over.

[486] It's a cold now.

[487] Yeah.

[488] What do you, why are you wearing a respirator?

[489] Like, are you going to wear this in five years?

[490] Like, what?

[491] People in their cars with masks?

[492] Oh, my God.

[493] People on the hiking trails.

[494] Yeah.

[495] Masks and gloves.

[496] Yeah, I don't know.

[497] I, yeah.

[498] I mean, it's interesting when I see it because I do all this work on nuclear and I saw very similar amounts of neuroticism around radiation.

[499] So, you know, you know, radiation's naturally existing.

[500] I mean, obviously, you don't want to have too high of exposure, but, you know, does make the poison.

[501] Yeah, radiation is in rocks.

[502] If you sit on a rock that's outside, you're getting radiation off that rock.

[503] For sure.

[504] But the radiation that exists from nuclear power plants scares the shit out of us because of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and Fukushima, like, those things.

[505] Those are legitimate concerns.

[506] But, you know, my understanding is that the technology that's involved in the construction of nuclear power plants is kind of like hit a standard.

[507] stagnant point only because people were afraid of it, but the capabilities are much higher than they were.

[508] Like when they built Fukushima, they had a backup power plant and all that got wiped out by a backup power generator, rather.

[509] All that got wiped out by the tsunami and they didn't have a fail safe.

[510] They didn't have like a step three.

[511] What if a tsunami hits?

[512] So when the tsunami hit and everything went down, they're fucked.

[513] I mean, that thing is still, it's just a nuclear disaster.

[514] I mean, it's what it is.

[515] It's leaking nuclear radiation into the ocean.

[516] You know how they had to, they dug a whole.

[517] hole around it.

[518] That was one idea and they're freezing it.

[519] You know that?

[520] Right.

[521] Right.

[522] Like, there's so many wacky ideas try to contain this waste.

[523] Well, I think it's also what's interesting about the Fukushima example because it's about the ways in which irrational fears can create more danger.

[524] They were afraid to raise the seawall that would have prevented the tsunami from flooding the plant because they were afraid of scaring the local community.

[525] And so you get these, you get these things, you get this social fears, or with the case of nuclear, the piece I just did for Barry was, you know, Europe has been shutting down its nuclear plants and not building new ones.

[526] It's been refusing to frack for natural gas out of fears of fracking.

[527] And as a result, it became extremely dependent on Russia so that it would have no way to deter Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[528] And they're struggling with how do you, yeah, they're kind of like, well, we're going to put some sanctions on the oligarchs and we're going to have some economic sanctions.

[529] But as long as you're importing Russian energy and paying for Russian energy, they're in a bind.

[530] And we're going to do all these things.

[531] But a lot of them are going to take years to be able to get our gas to Europe and it'll be much more expensive than if they had created their own or if they just expanded nuclear power plants in Europe.

[532] So the fear of nuclear, it's not just like the people with the masks on the hiking trails in Berkeley are just sort of, they're just kind of like whatever, who cares?

[533] They're also signaling.

[534] They're letting everyone know that they're a good person.

[535] and they're wearing a mask.

[536] That's right.

[537] But if you, but not building nuclear power plants and becoming to depend on the Russians has serious consequences for the Ukrainians and not building, or California, shutting, you know, or Texas, I mean, not having enough reliable power plants weatherized for natural disasters and over -relying on weather -dependent renewables puts you at the risk of blackouts.

[538] And blackouts kill people.

[539] Yeah.

[540] You lose your electricity.

[541] People die.

[542] So it's the ways in which these irrational fears actually put us in greater danger that I think should be of a concern for us.

[543] Let's talk about fracking because the general consensus amongst the public is that fracking's bad on the left.

[544] And on the right, it's that fracking's necessary.

[545] Yeah.

[546] So like on the left, you watch like Gasland that Josh Fox documentary and you see people lighting their tap water on fire and you see, you know, these places where the air is, you know, there's been.

[547] gas leaks so the air is literally filled with gas and it stinks and it's they've had to abandon their farms and how much of that is what how much of a concern do we have about fracking in terms of the long -term environmental consequences?

[548] Well, first just look at the carbon emissions.

[549] So U .S. carbon emissions declined more than any other country's carbon emissions had declined between 2005 and 2020, really 2020, 2021.

[550] Why?

[551] Because we replaced a lot of our electricity coming from coal with electricity coming from natural gas, which produces half as much carbon emissions.

[552] So to give you a sense of it, our United Nations Paris climate commitment was to reduce carbon emissions 17 % between 2005 and 2020.

[553] We reduced them 22%.

[554] So we exceeded, which almost never happens, by the way, we always make promises and then politicians make a promise and then future politicians break them.

[555] So the main way we reduced carbon emissions in the United States was just by switching from coal to natural gas.

[556] And to the extent that renewables helped with it, they were enabled by having natural gas power plants to provide that backup power.

[557] In terms of the methane that leaks from natural gas production, methane being natural gas, by the way, methane is like in reason the natural gas industry has an interest in reducing methane leaks is because that's a valuable.

[558] That's their fuel.

[559] They don't want to lose that fuel.

[560] They want to sell it.

[561] We saw a decline.

[562] during the time while fracking was expanding we saw a decline in methane leaks what about water the big issue is the disposal of frack fluid because that stuff is contaminated it's dirty well that's just a matter of regulating it well and making sure that you dispose of it well and we know how to do that and to the extent to which it hasn't been happening it's a failure of regulation can i pause you there when you say the fluid is contaminated what is it contaminated with is contaminated with these chemicals that they use?

[563] Yes, yeah, and sand.

[564] And is it possible to filter that stuff out?

[565] Is there any sort of plan that's in place to try to do that?

[566] There is.

[567] I'm not totally up to date on it, but there's always, I remember when I did this work a lot, when it was a hot issue, you know, 10 years ago, there were these companies that were, there were ways to, you know, and as usual, it's one of those things where it's like a lot of these processes where it's like, does it take more cost and money to recycle, the wastewater or just to dispose of it well.

[568] So that's been the issue.

[569] And I think there are companies that have, that are finding ways to do it.

[570] I just don't know the latest state of the technology.

[571] But in terms of like, I mean, so frackland, or sorry, gas land was full of misinformation.

[572] I mean, the famous scene where the guys lighting the faucet on fire, that's not from fracking.

[573] That was from an older well.

[574] So the older, these wells, they can be sealed to prevent the gas from leaking out of them.

[575] Natural gas.

[576] It's in the air.

[577] The natural gas were leaking out of them.

[578] And by the way, gas leaks.

[579] So, I mean, we discovered, I mean, the original, like, the indigenous people and others, when lightning would strike, they would discover, you know, gas and oil would catch on fire.

[580] And that was how we sort of, we always knew that that was, that was where, like, the original kerosene came from.

[581] And the oil and gas revolution came out of an awareness that these, that there was this natural oil and gas leaks.

[582] People think oil and gas spills are completely human.

[583] In fact, you know, Earth is spilling oil and gas in many places.

[584] So that was totally misleading.

[585] As like a lot of technological processes, we've just gotten a lot better at regulating the industry.

[586] So that's not to say there's not more to do or that we don't need tighter regulations, we probably do to reduce methane.

[587] But it's not the main event.

[588] What other misinformation was in that movie?

[589] I mean, that was one of the most important ones.

[590] I think the other was that, you know, we never, New York banned fracking.

[591] So, and I don't know if that scene of the Fossina on Fire was in Colorado or New York.

[592] They were suggesting that the fracking was causing these problems in New York.

[593] Well, it couldn't have been because New York banned fracking.

[594] I think the other misinformation, the big piece of misinformation is that natural gas is more polluting than coal, which is just absurd.

[595] Like, try lighting coal in your kitchen.

[596] I mean, your kitchen would be filled with toxic smoke instantly, whereas you cook with natural gas in your kitchen all the time.

[597] So sort of transparently, gas is burning cleaner than coal is burning.

[598] There was also these estimates, well, the methane, because it's a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide would outweigh the benefits of lower carbon dioxide, that argument depends on looking at a really short time frame because the methane, while it is methane natural gas, while it is a more potent greenhouse gas, it's also shorter lived.

[599] It breaks down in the atmosphere in a period of decades, as opposed to carbon dioxide, which is in the atmosphere for centuries.

[600] And we worry the most about climate change in the next century, you know, in a century or two, the higher temperatures are the temperatures that we worry the most about.

[601] But overall, I mean, look, even global, this is new data that nobody is talking about, but basically carbon emissions globally were flat and even slightly declined over the last decade, both because of the transition from coal to natural gas and also because of less land use change, mainly less conversion of four.

[602] and grasslands into farmlands, which emits a lot of greenhouse gases as well.

[603] So there's just been a lot of good news on the environmental front where we produce more food with less land.

[604] My view is that the worst environmental problem in the world remains the conversion of rainforests into farmland.

[605] That's what kills endangered species.

[606] It takes away their habitat.

[607] It also results in a significant amount of carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions.

[608] That's the main event is you want to protect the Amazon.

[609] on.

[610] We want to protect the rainforests of Africa.

[611] Well, those trends should also all go in the right direction, but it requires the same things that we did, which is that we have greater urbanization, industrialization, people moving from low efficiency, low intensity, farming to more modern forms of agriculture.

[612] And then moving, you know, the basic picture is moving away from wood and dung towards coal, oil, natural gas, and eventually to uranium.

[613] In that process, you'll reduce our environmental footprint and the you know the the the final piece of that is nuclear power which can effectively reduce humankind's energy footprint to near zero yeah that we have to change public perception about nuclear power right that seems that's the main event that's the main event there's it's not a there's technological things but like you said like we're making progress on the fuels themselves so that you get these fuels that can't melt down or will take longer to melt down we're also the training is better.

[614] I always point out, you know, jet planes.

[615] The jet planes are better than they were in 1950, but the same basic technology, it's the same basic technology that we had in 1950.

[616] Same thing with nuclear power plants.

[617] What really change is with jet planes is that the entire system is so much better.

[618] Air traffic control is better, the pilots, the safety system.

[619] So you see this huge increase of air miles traveled and a huge decline in fatalities from airplane crashes.

[620] Same thing with nuclear.

[621] The worst accidents were all, closer to the invention of commercial nuclear power and even Fukushima which was one of the worst nuclear accidents according to the best available science somewhere between zero and one people died from the radiation of Fukushima really?

[622] That's it?

[623] That's it yeah now people what really killed people was the evacuation the dislocation the relocation of people which was much more exaggerated and longer lasting than it needed to be But that place is fucked for a long time I mean, obviously, it's not good.

[624] Like, you can't use the area around that nuclear reactor for a long time.

[625] A small area, a small area, but most of the farmland is now coming back and they've been able to clean it up.

[626] I mean, really, they over cleaned it.

[627] They scraped all of this beautiful Fukushima because it's a beautiful agricultural area.

[628] They scraped all the top soil off that they didn't need to do.

[629] There was a study in the British Medical Journal of the people who lived in some of the most heavily impacted areas, and they had, and they had, they tested the radiation in their bodies and the radiation of the foods from the soil, and they had levels below, you know, what was considered dangerous.

[630] So it's just, it's just a, it was a panic.

[631] You know, it was, people are scared of radiation.

[632] It went too far.

[633] It went too far.

[634] Now, is that because just we're terrified of nuclear disasters to begin with, which is one of the reasons why it's so difficult to try to convince people that nuclear powers the future?

[635] For sure.

[636] Do you, are there, I mean, I know that there's some use.

[637] for nuclear waste now, productive uses for nuclear waste as a potential recyclable fuel?

[638] Yeah, there always have been.

[639] I mean, the dream was, so, yeah, I mean, over 95 % of the energy is still in the used fuel rods.

[640] The dream in the 50s was that you would have, basically what they called a closed loop, where you would then reuse the fuel in a reprocess the fuel.

[641] France does that.

[642] Really?

[643] Yeah, it has this huge facility.

[644] I think it's like a mile long, and they reprocess the fuel.

[645] they recycle it.

[646] Now, it's also then a process that allows you to create significant quantities of plutonium, which of course is weapons -grade material.

[647] That was used to alarm people.

[648] There's some debate about whether you should be alarmed.

[649] Bill Gates is developing a new reactor that would basically do something similar.

[650] The Russians have this reactor that would be a fast reactor that would allow for basically a much more efficient use of the fuel.

[651] For me, as an outsider to the industry, I was always like, all right, is there a shortage of uranium?

[652] No. Is it much cheaper to recycle the fuel?

[653] No. In fact, it's more expensive because it's more complicated.

[654] So for me, I'm satisfied that there's so little waste byproduct created.

[655] You know, all of the nuclear fuel rods, the used nuclear fuel rods can fit on a single football field, stack 50 feet high in the United States.

[656] For me, that's a much safer, simpler, straightforward event.

[657] 20 second century, sure.

[658] We'll be recycling those fuels.

[659] We should definitely do the R &D.

[660] But right now in California, the governor is trying to shut down our last nuclear plant at a time of blackouts.

[661] Why is he doing that?

[662] Ostensibly because, well, okay, the ostensibly reason is because this is so absurd, I have to laugh, is that it's causing impact to marine life.

[663] And the reason that's so absurd is that there's no evidence of any decline of fish population.

[664] And when you visit the plant, the warm water that leaves the plant, slightly warm water, it's not even that hot.

[665] And of course, as soon as it goes into the ocean, it's like the ocean is so vast, it becomes cold immediately.

[666] But there's all these seals and sea lions like hanging out on the discharge area.

[667] So it's clean, super clean discharge water and all these sea, because the sea life, they love the warm water, just like we do.

[668] So it's a joke that it would have some negative impact on sea life.

[669] That's the ostensible reason.

[670] This is the one that's near San Diego.

[671] That one was San Antonio.

[672] This one is near San Luis Obispo.

[673] Oh.

[674] It's called Diablo, unfortunately named Diablo Canyon.

[675] Jesus.

[676] So why did they shut down the one near San Diego?

[677] The real, the ostensible reason is that they had a steam generator, which is this important piece of the plant that they installed wrong and it was expensive.

[678] But basically the real reason is the governor, Jerry Brown, who was anti -nuclear, used it as an excuse to just shut the whole plant down at great cost to taxpayers.

[679] It could have been fixed.

[680] I think that was 2013.

[681] And Diablo, I mean, we're at a point now where Diablo, so we've had rolling blackouts in California for several years.

[682] They are now, they've lifted air pollution regulations, so they're burning more diesel, including, and affecting as usual, you know, poor communities of color.

[683] It's the grid, we're having serious reliability concerns with our grid.

[684] And the governor basically pushed as lieutenant governor to shut down Diablo as a kind of scalp for his donors, for friends of the earth, for the activist, as something he could brag about to primary voters in Iowa.

[685] I, by the way, you know, when we were together last time I mentioned, I sort of said I thought that the governor cared about these things.

[686] My view, especially made illuminated in the last few months, is that he really is focused on becoming president.

[687] Like, he is one of the Democrats' main hopes.

[688] And so I see all of this stuff through the lens of this is a guy that is trying to appeal to primary voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, not to what's in the best interest of the people of California.

[689] And so the best interest of the people of California is to keep operating our largest source of zero carbon energy, which is Diablo Canyon.

[690] And it's become a bit of a cause -celeb when I started trying to save that plant in 2016, it was just viewed as bizarre.

[691] are.

[692] You know, people just thought I was crazy to try to save Diablo Canyon.

[693] But now it's become quite, it's much more popular.

[694] Is this just doctrine amongst environmental activists that nuclear equals bad?

[695] The devil.

[696] Yeah.

[697] The underworld.

[698] I mean, look at the Germans.

[699] Like, they shut down three reactors in December.

[700] They're supposed to shut down three more, their last three reactors this December at a time when they're like dangerously relying on the Russians for oil, gas, and coal.

[701] Very strange.

[702] And they were like, well, we'll think for like a minute.

[703] they were like, we'll think about keeping it open.

[704] They're like, no, no, we're not going to do it.

[705] It's just, yeah, it's like renewables are a way to harmonize.

[706] It's a religious pursuit, and nuclear is considered a demonic force.

[707] They really, anti -nuclear people really think they're going to get rid of nuclear somehow.

[708] So is this, in your opinion, is this just an ignorance thing?

[709] Like, it's very difficult to educate people on what the pros and cons of nuclear are, and that the pros far outweigh the cons, especially when you take into consideration, and the very low chance that something would go wrong versus the amount of carbon that gets emitted, like for a coal plant or for any of these other places, these other methods of generating electricity that are far more toxic.

[710] For your person on the street, it's ignorance, but for the hardcore anti -nuclear leaders, like when you meet with them and talk to them and interview them, they'll agree with a lot of the points that you make.

[711] They'll be like, no, no, we agree.

[712] I mean, Greenpeace sometimes says, oh, nuclear somehow emits carbon emissions in some way.

[713] But the more serious people are like, yeah, we know nuclear is a large source of zero carbon electricity.

[714] We know it's reliable.

[715] We know that it's gotten safer.

[716] But, yeah.

[717] It's politically toxic.

[718] Well, and it's a, it's, it's, there's just this background ideology.

[719] Right, right, right.

[720] And it's related to, I once met with a. a nuclear or someone in the industry interviewed him about his experience and he said he's like you know the fritz lang i think he's like fritz lang movie metropolis you know which kind of depicts like this terrible capitalist industrial civilization that's the picture that people had and have of a high energy planet of a world where because my view is abundant energy allows us to save nature that's what allows you to have cities and produce significant quantities of food and greenhouse It allows for people to live high energy, wealthy lives, without destroying nature.

[721] Because it takes a lot of energy to protect the natural environment.

[722] So you've got to people need to move from the countryside to the city, all that.

[723] So for me, abundant, cheap energy is the key to sustainability.

[724] They have anti -nuclear and pretty, I would say, I think it's fair to say, anti -human environmentalists have the opposite view.

[725] Energy is what gives the fuel to the cancer of human existence.

[726] We need to degrow the economy, and basically that means choking off our power source, our power supplies at their source.

[727] So when you say by anti -human, you mean people that want to, like, decrease the human population?

[728] Yeah, decrease the human population, reduce...

[729] But it's not something that Bill Gates has talked about as well?

[730] Haven't they talked about, you know, the need for sustainability and that, you know, for global health, it's probably a good idea to decrease population?

[731] Yeah, and I mean, I would say there's a kinder gentler version of it than, and there's a harsher Malthusian version.

[732] I mean, you know, we know now that when you go from living in the country to living in the city, you don't need to have six kids.

[733] You might have one or two or three kids living in the city.

[734] You don't need to have a bunch of worker bees to sustain your farm and sustain you in your retirement.

[735] That that happens, yes, birth control.

[736] helps, but really it's just moving from the country to the city and the moms go to work and the kids go to schools and you don't need that many kids.

[737] And then we overinvest in the kids and they become coddled.

[738] That's the basic picture.

[739] But that is pretty, I think it's mostly beneficial.

[740] The women get to have lives beyond being mothers.

[741] The kids get to have, they get to become, they get to realize their human potential.

[742] That's the way I think that Bill Gates has intended it.

[743] It's not, it's not supposed to be coercive, whereas there was this coercive Malthusian, anti -human, we have to sterilize people, kind of environmentalism, which is quite dark.

[744] Yeah, what is, what's the goal of that, aren't they people?

[745] I never get that when they're like, they're depressed people.

[746] I know that they're depressed people, but when people always say that I wouldn't want to have children to bring them into this world and this world is terrible and I'm going, okay, but don't you like people?

[747] Like, do you want to be alone?

[748] Do you want to be alone by yourself in the woods?

[749] You don't, right?

[750] You want to be around people?

[751] Okay.

[752] So where do you think these people come from?

[753] You have to make them.

[754] You have to raise them.

[755] Yeah.

[756] And that's where people come from.

[757] Like people make people and I like people.

[758] So what the fuck are you talking about?

[759] When you want to depopulate the planet and you want to have less people.

[760] Like is this, this is, it seems like there's like poorly thought out idea that they espouse to just get social brownie points, you know, and amongst people that they, they're pro environment, right?

[761] And they're pro.

[762] And they're pro.

[763] nature so they feel for some reason that human beings and the advancement of human beings is a detriment to nature just it's it's the it's literally this was my when i when we went it's like 10 years ago when i was looking at the basic story of anti -human environmentalists it's a story of a depressed person it's the story of i'm guilty a bad person the world is a terrible place and it's all going to end an apocalypse i mean that's the that's sort of the depressed, you know, like, I mean, those of us that experience some amount of anxiety and depression, that's like my attitude before I take my morning run.

[764] Yeah, right?

[765] And after your morning, you're like, I feel, you know, we can achieve anything.

[766] Isn't that amazing the difference?

[767] Like, you know how I experience it now?

[768] I have a slight cold, as you can tell, if you hear my voice.

[769] It's very slight.

[770] But today's Tuesday, and so Monday and Tuesday, I haven't been able to work out.

[771] And this morning, I woke up and I got my normal, like, weird anxiety.

[772] and I'm like, oh my God, I better fucking work out.

[773] But then I'm like, oh, with this cold, like, I better be careful.

[774] I don't want to fuck this cold up and make it really take root.

[775] Right.

[776] So, like, shit.

[777] And then I realized, like, wow, this is only two days.

[778] I was thinking, sitting up in my bed, and like, imagine being a person that, like, goes through 50 years of life like this and never exercises.

[779] Oh, absolutely.

[780] It is a medicine that we should, we should prescribe to the global population.

[781] Yeah.

[782] And, you know, instead we have, this is another probably have with hardcore left -wing people that they get so crazy about ideas that they have such blind spots.

[783] There was an article, I think it was in CNBC, or was it MSNBC, that was saying that exercise is tied to far -right extremism.

[784] Oh, my God, I saw that.

[785] What the fuck are you talking about?

[786] So marathon runners are Nazis?

[787] Like, what are you saying?

[788] It's bizarre.

[789] People who do yoga are right -wing psychos, like, what are you saying?

[790] Was there they, there's sub -tweeting you, I take it.

[791] Oh, I don't know, did that?

[792] I don't read any of my sub.

[793] If you tweet at me, you're tweeting to the abyss.

[794] I don't read anything about me. I don't think it had anything to do with me, honestly.

[795] I think it was, they were, they did mention MMA and fighters in something, but I don't think they brought me up.

[796] Well, I mean, I think, look, I'm so glad we're getting into this, because my view is we're dealing with serious emotional dysregulation of the population.

[797] And I think it's really simple.

[798] It's you need cardio for anxiety and depression and you need to lift weights for anger.

[799] Well, lift weights actually has a significant impact on anxiety too according to a recent study.

[800] For me, when I lift weights, I, there's a moment where I'm really lifting weights where I actually can feel that, I can feel the anger actually coming and then it going away.

[801] I think of it is like I'm like I'm converting my, whatever the anger chemicals are into muscle mass. Where are you living right now?

[802] Berkeley, California.

[803] I can connect you with a good kickboxing gym.

[804] If you really want to get rid of anger, hitting a bag is the greatest thing the world has ever known.

[805] That makes sense.

[806] Oh, my God.

[807] It's the greatest.

[808] Yeah.

[809] It's the greatest.

[810] Because there's something about, I have many screwball theories about this, but I think this one is kind of based in the idea of what a human being is.

[811] today versus what our genes were designed for like what our genes how we evolved thousands and thousands of years of avoiding predators and wars with neighboring tribes we have a certain amount of like necessary energy expenditure and I don't think most people meet those requirements and explosive work whether it's running hills I used to love when I lived in California to run hills with my dog It was one of my favorite things.

[812] Because there's something about running hills.

[813] And it's very low impact, too, because you're going up for the most part.

[814] You know, when you're running up and going down, I would go slow.

[815] I wouldn't really pound down.

[816] But when you're running up, it's just pliometrics, this explosion.

[817] And when you get done, I love everybody.

[818] I wanted to call my friends.

[819] I wanted to hug everybody.

[820] I love everybody.

[821] Because it's so exhausting.

[822] And I think you can't get to who you truly are unless you clean away the dirt.

[823] the anxiety dirt, the psychological dirt, like the aggression, the tension, the just the stress of society and the mass of human beings around you, especially in L .A. And to me, that was like the greatest gift ever.

[824] It was the ability to be able to run those hills and to expand all that energy.

[825] And I feel terrible for people who don't know that, who don't know that we have these biological needs that are built into the whatever it is whatever the human vehicle is that carries around your mind that vehicle needs a certain amount of work just like my dog needs me to throw the ball for him and play with him or he gets he seems depressed he's just laying around he is probably is no i look i think this is such a it's so it's kind of like wow at the end of the day you're like so it's diet and exercise basically right that's a lot of it man no i mean i totally agree and I that's part of why what I mean one of the big ideas for reforming our schools is that we're not doing physical education right like the kids should be getting a workout first thing early in the day and then because that's I mean you that's the best time to do it is first thing and look I'm like look I hate my my worst part of my day is when I realize I have to go running and and and then my in the first half of the run yeah that's like the worst part of that you're like this is just there's no way to like you just have to muscle through it but in the last half oh yeah the last half and then like on the drive home i love that study that came out a few years ago i don't if you saw that it was like new study finds runner high runners high is real it was like wow the department of no duh new study yeah boys like girls sometimes but that's part of the issue so if you have father absence i mean you can say parental absence but father absence often it was the fathers who were the ones that were getting their kids that was typically I mean, we did, you know, you have hunter -gatherer, you go into farming, farming, people are getting up early and they're doing chores.

[826] The boys are whatever they're doing, milking the cows or, you know, doing their stuff with their dad, doing chores around the house.

[827] Girls are up with the moms, doing the stuff that the girls the moms did.

[828] You then get into the industrial and post -industrial age, and it's just been, there isn't that physical activity early in the day.

[829] I've become obsessed with Ryan Holliday, who's this guy who writes these books on stoicism.

[830] Barry, Barry Weiss turned me on to him and I've been reading his books and he's just like, it's so simple, you know, hard exercise, by the way, not just walking.

[831] He's, you know, hard exercise, aerobic exercise early in the day, first thing in the day, don't turn your phone on for the first hour.

[832] Hard exercise, journaling, then you go and do the hardest thing at work, the first thing.

[833] After the exercise.

[834] Yeah.

[835] Yeah.

[836] And then he, and then like you wait to eat, you know, until you do that sort of intermittent fasting.

[837] But I'm kind of like that seems like we could.

[838] And then you could actually get that into schools.

[839] I think parents just need more choice about where they send their kids to school.

[840] But you start to get that into schools.

[841] I think you start to see some big changes because I agree with you.

[842] It's like, yeah, we can put blocks on social media and you can try to regulate it.

[843] But we're dealing with serious emotional dysregulation from childhood on because we're not dealing with some of these fundamentals around exercise and diet.

[844] Also, we're not mirroring enough successful, emotionally successful.

[845] and physically successful people.

[846] Not just successful in terms of financial, you know, what you could show on paper and numbers, but emotionally successful.

[847] Yep.

[848] And physically successful, meaning they maintain a good healthy weight, they have good health in terms of like their metabolic health and, you know, they eat well and they, you know, that's so fucking important and we don't have a lot of examples.

[849] Right.

[850] So we find a guy like a David Goggins or something like that.

[851] Everybody like flocks to them.

[852] Yep.

[853] Because, like, here's someone, and by the way, he experiences procrastination on a hardcore basis.

[854] He is hilarious.

[855] He goes, sometimes I stare at my shoes for a half an hour before I put those motherfuckers on.

[856] But then he'll go and run a marathon, you know, but he is just like you and I, and in that, it's getting the ball rolling.

[857] Yeah.

[858] I wake up, and when I know I have to work out, which is almost every day, except today, I have, like, a certain amount of anger with myself that I don't.

[859] want to do it oh yeah you know and so there's two voices in my head one voice is like let's have breakfast let's fucking relax let's watch tv right right and the other voice is like fuck you like come on we got to go that's the right voice there's it's right voice that voice always wins there's this there's a conversation it's like i would be lying if i said that i don't have any hesitancy and then i'm like supremely disciplined that's horseshit i think kids i think one things I mean my mom made me because my mom provide a lot of discipline and she made us like do that hard work and cleaning learning to swim early in the morning I think that it's important for people to remember that you have to make yourself do hard things that there's no like it's not like the people that are getting up early and doing their exercise and doing that hard work they're different somehow no no it sucks it sucks for like pro athletes it sucks for everybody it gets easier over time but yeah that period where it's like from the getting out of bed to getting your running shoes on to the first half of the run is miserable.

[860] It is, but life is a series of hills and valleys.

[861] And to achieve those hills, you've got to get into those valleys.

[862] You've got to get to the bottom and then go all the way up.

[863] And everybody wants to be at the top of the hill all the time.

[864] That's right.

[865] Everybody wants to be happy all the time.

[866] Like constantly, consistently, consistently happy is madness.

[867] It's impossible.

[868] By the way, there's not much new in, like, I mean, I'm sort of disappointed.

[869] I mean, addiction science, there's not that much new there, but there is Anna Lemke at Stanford.

[870] I don't know if you had her on, but she's amazing.

[871] She has a new book out.

[872] But basically they prove now scientifically that you can't have peaks without valleys.

[873] Like it's just part of what you're doing.

[874] So you're trying to regulate them and avoid the big extremes, exercise, diet, good discipline, good mentality, right?

[875] This is what we call it cognitive behavioral therapy, but having the right mentality is also essential to that.

[876] Yeah.

[877] And that's, you know, it's not super new.

[878] but when I start thinking about, like, what would it look like for us to do Cal Psych, for us to have rehab, to have some kind of standards.

[879] CalSyke.

[880] What is that?

[881] Well, so the big idea is that we need to have this statewide psychiatric addiction care system.

[882] And that means that you can have rehab facilities, psych beds.

[883] Because, you know, we have officially 166 ,000 homeless, of whom 116 ,000 are unsheltered, but that's now two and a half years old.

[884] Can I ask you this, though?

[885] Is California responsible for all the homeless people that migrate there?

[886] At a certain point in time, when you get to a number, like whatever that number is, and then you do a survey of these people and you find out, oh, they're coming from, you know, Louisville, Kentucky, in this place, and that place, because they heard that California is an easy place to be homeless because they give you money.

[887] Right.

[888] And they take care of you.

[889] And they don't enforce drug laws.

[890] Right.

[891] Well, then you have to deal with the crime that comes out of it, because not everyone's going to be immediately rehabilitated.

[892] and, like, how do you regulate that?

[893] Well, here's what I would do.

[894] If I become governor and I'm inaugurated.

[895] Excuse me. When?

[896] You have to say it like that.

[897] Thank you.

[898] I have to say it that way.

[899] Otherwise, people are like, oh, this guy doesn't even really believe it.

[900] I do, actually.

[901] When I become governor.

[902] When I become governor.

[903] Ooh, look at that.

[904] Sounds good.

[905] All right, you're hired, Joe.

[906] You're hired, man. Yeah, when I become governor, like, day one, the inaugural address is, first of all, we're going to take action right away.

[907] because the governor has extraordinary powers, which we will use very judiciously, but we can get people into shelters, we can get people into triage, get people to care they need.

[908] Are there enough shelters currently?

[909] No. No, so would you have to build them or would you have to take buildings that already exist?

[910] I mean, one thing, one way you look at as you go, we would never, if there were like a hurricane or earthquake and we had somewhere upwards of 150 ,000 people living in.

[911] in decrepit tents in their own waste on our sidewalks, we would never allow that.

[912] We would have FEMA shelters within hours.

[913] We would call out the National Guard.

[914] We would get people the care they need.

[915] Interesting.

[916] That's a good point.

[917] And when the Europeans did that, that's what they did.

[918] They mobilized the whole society to shut down the open drug scenes.

[919] I would say, here's my view, is I would say, because part of recovery from addiction is reaffiliation with family and friends, often a significant amount of forgiveness needs to be requested.

[920] But that's assuming these people have family and friends.

[921] Well, part of the problem with a lot of them, right?

[922] And then they're alienated from them.

[923] And those family and friends, or excuse me, family at least, probably abused them.

[924] That's right.

[925] So that may not always be possible.

[926] But I would say, look, find a way to get back home.

[927] You know, we'll do what we'll do our part to the extent to which California is going to treat, because you're right, homelessness.

[928] Don't you think a lot of people, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but don't think a lot of people don't want to go back home?

[929] Oh, for sure.

[930] I mean, a lot of those people, that is not an option at all.

[931] Oh, absolutely.

[932] A large majority, well, I don't know, I'm guessing.

[933] They don't want a large majority don't want to go into shelters when you offer it to them.

[934] Right, because then they can't do drugs.

[935] Right.

[936] Yeah, and they'd rather camp outside and do drugs.

[937] Do you remember the Brentwood thing?

[938] Do you know the Brentwood thing, the campsite?

[939] I'm not sure which one now.

[940] Brentwood, which is one of the most wealthy neighborhoods in Los Angeles, had a campsite that they set up for homeless people.

[941] And it was at the VA, I think.

[942] and so they had this big fenced -in campsite, but then when you're in that campsite, you had to observe their rules.

[943] And so other homeless people were like, well, fuck their rules, I'll just camp just outside the campsite.

[944] So just outside the fence, they set up their tents.

[945] And so they're doing drugs, like right there.

[946] And then there's people inside the fence that's like it's madness.

[947] And it created this crazy environment with all these people like breaking into cars and all kinds of other crimes and open drug use, and you're driving four miles away from that, or, you know, four, excuse me, four blocks away from that.

[948] You have multimillion -dollar houses.

[949] I'm going to put an end to that.

[950] Just to be clear, when I'm elected governor, I'm going to create the shelter.

[951] I'm going to require people to stay in there.

[952] We're going to have triage stations to get people the care they need.

[953] We're going to create the rehab facilities that people need.

[954] We can make significant changes in a matter of months, Joe.

[955] Let's break down how that works.

[956] Okay.

[957] So first of all, what are the numbers?

[958] What's the number of homeless people in Los Angeles currently?

[959] Because Los Angeles is the big problem.

[960] If you'll be the governor, you're going to have to deal with, obviously San Francisco is the other big problem, San Diego, much less so, right?

[961] I'll tell you the official numbers, but they're wrong because they're two and a half years old, and they were probably under counts in the year 2020.

[962] But it's in L .A. County, 60 ,000 homeless.

[963] in L .A. City, 44 ,000.

[964] All of California, 116 ,000 unsheltered, meaning outside in tents, 160 ,000 total meaning unsheltered and in shelters.

[965] How is it 100 ,000 in Los Angeles, in Los Angeles County and Los Angeles City, but in only another 16 ,000, the rest of the state?

[966] No, no, 60 ,000 in L .A. County.

[967] Right, but you said 40 ,000 in L .A. property?

[968] Oh, yeah, sorry, but that's the 60 ,000 in California.

[969] includes the 44 ,000.

[970] Oh, okay.

[971] And San Francisco has somewhere between, I would say, officially it has 8 ,000 total homeless, but I think it's much more likely to be 10 to 12 ,000 total homeless, of whom six to, I would say around six to eight are unsheltered.

[972] Now, during a year, at least 25 ,000 unsheltered homeless pass through the city.

[973] So you get a lot of movements.

[974] So do you consider that people without tents?

[975] Are they unsheltered?

[976] No, no. The people in the tents are considered unsheltered homeless.

[977] Oh, okay.

[978] So these are people, the only people considered sheltered are people in official shelters.

[979] I see, I say.

[980] Yeah.

[981] So roughly speaking, you're talking about someone in the neighborhood of 200 ,000 people in the state.

[982] It could be that many.

[983] It's a daunting task when you consider it, particularly since the models that we have are of the five European cities that shut down their homeless encampments.

[984] One thing I discovered is that the Europeans called them open drug scenes.

[985] We euphemistically refer to them as homeless encampments, which makes them sound like they're roasting.

[986] They're making marshmallow s'mores.

[987] Yeah, and it also brings us back to that they're down and their luck narrative.

[988] Right, that their oakies is the picture.

[989] They're just oakies.

[990] They just can't afford the rent.

[991] No, they're not there.

[992] Okies?

[993] Well, remember the Grapes of Wrath, the John Steinbeck novel, they came from the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, they came to California.

[994] And then they lived in tents.

[995] And so this archetypal, when, you know, people that would never go and talk to homeless people or much less interview them, they look at those tents and they go, they're poor people.

[996] That's like how the mentality works as opposed to like, no, no, they became addicted to hard drugs.

[997] They stopped working.

[998] They overstayed their welcome with friends and family.

[999] They were, they usually often, often stole money or lied or cheated from the folks they're staying with.

[1000] and then they were finally kicked out onto the street, and then they go just live in the open drug markets, and the open drug markets become the open drug scenes.

[1001] One of the characters in San Francisco, he was like, when we were walking through the tenderloin, which is like the Skid Row of San Francisco, he goes, yeah, that's the doorwell I used to sleep in because I didn't want to walk the, I didn't want to walk five blocks away to the shelter.

[1002] I wanted to be right where the drug dealers were.

[1003] So part of it is that you see the, the other thing is that like the people often in the, open drug scene might not be homeless in the sense that they might actually have places to stay but what you'll see when you watch the open drug scenes is that people will come on their bikes or they'll walk there they'll buy the drugs from the dealers and they'll use them right there they're in such a hurry to get their fix they'll buy the fentanyl and meth and they'll just sit right there and then after over a period of time they're just there yeah all the time with a little foil and lighting the meth and fentanyl and smoking it and they just become catatonic so so we have these notes Let's just whatever the number is in LA, 100 ,000.

[1004] Let's say 100 ,000.

[1005] Let's start with LA.

[1006] What is available in terms of shelter?

[1007] And do you make new buildings?

[1008] Do you buy buildings?

[1009] Yes.

[1010] Both.

[1011] Yep.

[1012] And it's not clear that I don't, I'm not sure yet.

[1013] I have my, we have a working group on this.

[1014] And so we're looking at this.

[1015] It's not clear where you start.

[1016] One argument is that you start where you have the strongest local political support.

[1017] So there is a mayoral election.

[1018] LA.

[1019] We'll see what happens.

[1020] But for example, let's say the Sacramento mayor is like, Michael, we love your whole agenda.

[1021] Let's start in Sacramento.

[1022] Because I'm what I know, what I feel very strongly about is that success breeds success.

[1023] So we want to start somewhere where we get some good outcomes where we see a big difference in a pretty short period of time, by which I mean months, not years, that it's humane, that we are using our emergency powers the least amount necessary because we want to protect human rights and individual rights, which are now being violated.

[1024] We want to protect those rights.

[1025] We want to limit the powers that the governor has because the governor has absolutely extraordinary powers in disaster situations, which is what this is.

[1026] You get success.

[1027] Now, you get people into shelter, you get people into rehabs, you get some people the psych hospitals.

[1028] You might actually get people to go back home to Kentucky or Colorado or wherever they came from.

[1029] But I think it's also fair to assume that some amount of those so -called un -sheltered homeless addicts and mentally ill people will go somewhere else in the state, where they're not being required to stay in the shelters.

[1030] Because, of course, you've got to enforce the no camping.

[1031] You've got to enforce the camping ban.

[1032] Otherwise, you destroy your cities, which are being destroyed now, and people are not getting the help they need.

[1033] So one vision is that you would start where you have the strongest local support.

[1034] Another vision is that you start in a smaller town.

[1035] Another vision is that you start where it's hardest, which is L .A. I would say start in L .A. Just because it's too far gone and it needs to be cleaned up as quickly as possible.

[1036] And some headway needs to be done because it's just going to keep growing.

[1037] Have you paid attention to what happened in Austin?

[1038] Yes.

[1039] Austin's been pretty interesting.

[1040] Because the mayor, who I had on the podcast, he really clearly stated that this is, his goal.

[1041] He said, I want to clean this up before I leave office.

[1042] And if I don't do that, I'll consider my tenure of failure.

[1043] Good.

[1044] And he did a lot.

[1045] He's reversed himself because there was a ballot initiative passed that banned camping.

[1046] He was the one that allowed public camping, right?

[1047] And then there was a ballot initiative that passed that banned it.

[1048] Now, my understanding is that a lot of unsheltered homeless have moved into the woods, have moved into other parts of Austin.

[1049] I haven't tracked it closely.

[1050] But, I mean, at the end of the day.

[1051] They've done a lot to put people into shelters.

[1052] That's great.

[1053] But the thing is, if you don't kidnap them, it's very difficult.

[1054] I mean, I'm not saying you should kidnap people, but I'm saying if you don't physically force them into doing something, these people, I mean, by nature that, like, the type of person that's willing to live on a tent on Caesar Chavez.

[1055] Like, that is a, that's a radical mindset.

[1056] Sorry to use the word radical again, but that's, they've disintegrated.

[1057] Yeah, I mean, you've gone that far.

[1058] They've lost their, yeah, they've, exactly.

[1059] You're sending a lawn chair on a major street in front of this tent that you live in.

[1060] And you're drinking water out of an old milk jug that you bought or got somewhere.

[1061] It's crazy.

[1062] It's not okay.

[1063] The whole thing is crazy.

[1064] And they've done a great job in Austin of cleaning it up.

[1065] But one of the things that the mayor said, when I talked to him about, he said, we can clean up 3 ,000 people.

[1066] We can do that.

[1067] He goes, but if it gets to where Los Angeles is, that's untenable.

[1068] It's unmanageable.

[1069] That's what his thought was.

[1070] He felt like it was so far gone that no one had the resources to gather up all those people and get them off the streets.

[1071] That's not true.

[1072] Okay, like Skid Row.

[1073] That would be where you would start.

[1074] You want to start?

[1075] Start at Skid Row.

[1076] I don't know that we'll start there.

[1077] That's what I'm saying.

[1078] See what I'm saying?

[1079] That's such a giant problem.

[1080] Well, yeah.

[1081] I mean, the other issue is that, and let me just address this other issue which you raised.

[1082] I think it's an important issue, which is like, if we, let's say we do a really good job and we get addicts and mentally ill people coming to, more of them coming to California, and then we're shouldering the burden for the entire country, there's two answers to that.

[1083] First is that we're going to need to ask the states that sent us their people to take, to share that burden and or we're going to need to go to Congress and be like, look, if we're going to treat the nation's addicts in rehab facilities, then we're going to need to be reimbursed.

[1084] We have mechanisms to do that.

[1085] It's also at real danger if this becomes a place where people can go to clean up and people can go to be taken care of that more people come and then crime increases and then more people leave the state.

[1086] Right.

[1087] Which, I mean, the numbers of people that have left California over the last couple of years are staggering.

[1088] That's right.

[1089] We need all the other issue.

[1090] Yes, that's definitely a concern.

[1091] So you also need more police officers.

[1092] So I point out you don't have to choose between mass homeless.

[1093] and mass incarceration, but that means that you need the three key peas, more police, more psychiatry, and more probation.

[1094] So that is for sure part of this agenda.

[1095] I think the other part of it that's not appreciated is that you need more development.

[1096] When you visit Skid Row, so I'm not a, I've been in, I've been in Northern California since 1993.

[1097] When I went to Skid Row, I was like, this neighborhood is awesome.

[1098] I mean, if you ignore the complete human depravity and tragedy on the grounds.

[1099] Real estate.

[1100] Yeah, you look around the buildings and like it's sunny and it's near the highways and you're like, this is an incredible neighborhood.

[1101] It needs to be redeveloped.

[1102] It needs to have, you need to have a much broader mix of people in there.

[1103] They tried to do that for a while, right?

[1104] And it's to some extent happening, but it needs to happen much more significantly, which means that we need to expedite and cut the red tape and get those buildings redeveloped and get people in there.

[1105] And then it means that a lot of those services, you don't have, like, there's no, there's no constitution.

[1106] right to just go to be in Skid Row or in downtown L .A. or down in San Francisco and just be given a free apartment, if you want rehab or if you were arrested and given the choice of rehab or prison, the rehab you might get might be in Fresno or Bakersfield or it might be in Yuba County or it might be in the Sierras.

[1107] And that might be where you should.

[1108] That might be the best place to be 90 day rehab facility or 120 days where you're then on a fire crew.

[1109] I mean, for heaven's sake, we need many more people working on preparing forests for, and to prevent fires, for example, is one of the many things that we need to do in California.

[1110] Absolutely.

[1111] Prescribed burns.

[1112] That's like manual hard labor.

[1113] Not everybody's going to do it.

[1114] Some people might learn Python at rehab.

[1115] Some people might learn woodworking.

[1116] Python?

[1117] That's just a basic programming language.

[1118] Oh, I'm sorry.

[1119] I thought you were talking about like cleaning up Python to Florida.

[1120] You're going to ship them out to Florida.

[1121] Maybe that too.

[1122] You.

[1123] This can be, I mean, one of the revolutions that we have not taken advantage, either in schooling or in mental health care or rehab, is personalization.

[1124] I mean, everybody's different.

[1125] Like, there's some people that should be doing people that would be great on a fire crew, you know, working on Cal Fire.

[1126] Other people, you know, could be helping other people to get into recovery.

[1127] So we can do all those things with a centralized system, with a really good centralized system and the other key and green that we don't have.

[1128] have is professional assertive case managers where somebody is tracking your progress, if you're arrested, or you overdose and you go into rehab, before you get out, there's a plan for you so that you don't just go right back on the street and start smoking fentanyl and die or just become an addict again.

[1129] There's some plan for you, and we're going to keep a close eye on you and make sure that you commit to that plan.

[1130] We know that people relapse, but we can reduce that amount of relapsing with a really engaged good, a sort of case manager.

[1131] And it may be that this is someone who does have a potential to be reunited with his family in Ohio.

[1132] If that's the path, that's great.

[1133] And I'll work with the governor of Ohio to get that done.

[1134] I'll work with the Congress to make sure that there's Medicaid money for that person to get fixed and repair their life.

[1135] But right now, there is nothing like that.

[1136] And that's what CalSyke would do.

[1137] So in the emergency response, I give myself two years before we go back to voters.

[1138] I'm going to put, as soon as we come into office, day one, I'm going to go to the legislature and be like, here's my legislation for shelter first.

[1139] That's the first thing.

[1140] Shelter first, treatment first, housing earned.

[1141] You don't have an entitlement to your own apartment in L .A. You don't just get to go to L .A. and be like, hey, I'm a homeless drug addict.

[1142] Give me my own apartment.

[1143] It doesn't work.

[1144] It's not ethical.

[1145] It's not fair.

[1146] Okay, but if they do go there and then they don't work, they're just going to be homeless.

[1147] If you can't, so we're going to enforce a statewide camping ban.

[1148] So where do you start?

[1149] Venice?

[1150] That's a good eyesore.

[1151] I mean, give me, I've got a little bit of time to figure out where we start.

[1152] And some of it will depend on politics.

[1153] Have you run numbers with anybody?

[1154] We're doing that right now.

[1155] Yeah.

[1156] So it seems like it's going to be.

[1157] We're going to come in on my inauguration day with legislation that goes in front of the legislature.

[1158] And I'm going to take emergency actions as governor to deal with the disaster.

[1159] We can get FEMA shelters set up, triage tents.

[1160] We can get the National Guard involved if we need to in a strictly civilian capacity.

[1161] How many people do you need in terms of like counselors, police officers, law enforcement, just to handle the homeless problem?

[1162] It seems like you need a team.

[1163] Oh, it's a huge.

[1164] That's a great question.

[1165] That's in many ways.

[1166] There's sort of the institutional arrangement.

[1167] There's where do you start geographically?

[1168] There's how do you do the legal side?

[1169] I assume we'll just be sued by ACLU.

[1170] That's fine.

[1171] We'll go to court over what we're doing.

[1172] That's fine.

[1173] And then there's workforce.

[1174] And in some ways, the workforce is the most important.

[1175] thing.

[1176] We're losing, I mean, both LA and San Francisco are short like 500 police officers at this point.

[1177] It's a big part of the reason for the crime.

[1178] And in fact, I, the guy who drove me here this morning was a former police officer who quit after 10 years here in Austin.

[1179] And I was like, why?

[1180] And it was because of all the political bullshit and all of the, you know, so we have to re -inspire.

[1181] I wrote a piece recently on how the Dallas mayor, who's a Democrat, by the way, African -American, And, you know, they use all the same police tactics that we, everybody has, place network investigations and, you know, hotspots and all these, you know, weed and seed methods, they call them the same methods.

[1182] But what was the difference is that he believed in the police.

[1183] So he came in and was like, I support you.

[1184] And he had a new police chief, brought him from San Jose, California, actually.

[1185] And they re -inspired people.

[1186] Moral is everything.

[1187] So we need to re -inspire our police to get involved.

[1188] to go the extra mile.

[1189] We need co -responders.

[1190] So social workers go out with police.

[1191] That relationship is essential.

[1192] So we're not going to be able to do it overnight, but we're going to be able to do a lot in two years.

[1193] Legislature either acts on my agenda or parts of it.

[1194] Whatever they don't act on, we go to the voters with in 2024 as ballot initiatives.

[1195] We also then get in the legislature if we need to new legislators who are going to do what we need to do to deal with this crisis.

[1196] I think we make such significant headway, Joe, in the first two years, that that builds, because nothing succeeds like success, that builds the momentum that we need to deal with these other challenges, school reforms, greater parental choice, energy, water, abundant energy, water, reduce the cost of living, more housing.

[1197] But we need that first momentum, because if we don't have cities, if we don't have functioning cities, if we don't deal with the open drug scenes, then we can't do any of the rest of it.

[1198] Where are you going to get all the money for this?

[1199] Well, first of all, the The reason the problem got so bad is because we've been spending money to make it bad.

[1200] So, I mean, we spend more money on homelessness and mental health than any other state per capita and have the worst outcomes.

[1201] Half of all fires that are being put out in L .A. and Oakland are in homeless encampments.

[1202] Vast majority of which, by the way, are arson, not accidental.

[1203] So just crazy, dumb, revenge stuff.

[1204] I can't, we can't even, I think probably around half of all EMT calls, if not more, are responding to drug overdoses.

[1205] So the system is so grossly inefficient because of this coddling victim ideology attitude towards the open drug scenes.

[1206] Will it cost more?

[1207] I have no idea.

[1208] It might cost less.

[1209] But we've got right now a $45 billion surplus, maybe as big as $60 billion.

[1210] The federal government needs to step in.

[1211] California is going to model, with me as governor, California will model for the rest of the United States how to deal with this drug crime home.

[1212] crisis.

[1213] I think we become, you know, great things, bad things start in California and spread the rest of the country.

[1214] Great things can't too.

[1215] That's what we can do with CalCIC.

[1216] And so the amount of money that's being spent on homeless people right now is exorbitant, but ineffective.

[1217] So what are they doing with that money now and how is what they're doing, is any of it necessary?

[1218] Do you still need to spend that money doing what these people are doing it, but manage it better?

[1219] And do you need money on top of that to implement your plan?

[1220] don't know.

[1221] I mean, the funny thing is, so the big cost is housing.

[1222] It costs between $750 ,000 to $850 ,000 to build a single apartment unit for a homeless dude.

[1223] One person.

[1224] One person in Venice Beach in San Francisco.

[1225] That is not going to work.

[1226] They passed a ballot initiative in Los Angeles called Proposition HHS, and it was billions of dollars to build supposedly 10 ,000 units.

[1227] They're going to end up building fewer than 2 ,000.

[1228] To meet the needs of of 60 ,000 people, like it was flawed from the, it was doomed from the beginning to not work.

[1229] Shelter, FEMA shelters cost a tiny fraction of that, a few thousand dollars per person.

[1230] You know, when you have an earthquake or a flood or a hurricane or whatever, we put up these FEMA shelters, they're sprung shelters that can be built in hours.

[1231] That should not be a high cost.

[1232] I believe that as a civilized society, people have a right to clean.

[1233] basic and safe shelter.

[1234] They do not have a right to their own apartment unit in Venice Beach or San Francisco.

[1235] That's absurd.

[1236] But yet that is the official policy in California is that we're going to give all 150 ,000 or so unsheltered homeless people their own apartment unit.

[1237] That is literally the ideology right now.

[1238] I read this moronic tweet where they were talking about how many people are working at home now and how many office buildings are unoccupied and then how many people are homeless and now we have a solution.

[1239] Very simple.

[1240] Just move these homeless people into these office buildings.

[1241] I'm like, yeah, what about the people that own the fucking office buildings that would like to sell them?

[1242] You know, they bought them.

[1243] They spent millions of dollars.

[1244] Are you a communist?

[1245] The fuck are you saying?

[1246] Like, what, where does this make sense to you?

[1247] Are you going to, is the state going to buy these gigantic office buildings that are worth a fucking cajillion dollars and then use those for homeless shelters?

[1248] And who's going to manage those.

[1249] Who's going to clean them up?

[1250] Who's going to make sure that these people aren't shooting each other in there?

[1251] Well, right now what we've done is we're basically just warehousing people in motel rooms, as we've been doing since COVID.

[1252] They all get trashed.

[1253] They all get destroyed.

[1254] I don't even want to describe it's gross what happens to them.

[1255] So these basic questions you're asking are they don't even the establishment, Governor Gavin Newsome, the people he relies on, they don't even answer them.

[1256] They think it's just a moral issue that we should give everybody their own house.

[1257] it doesn't work.

[1258] It doesn't even keep people housed.

[1259] Do you think they really think that or do you think they say that because it's politically effective?

[1260] Like it's a good thing to say if you want to get like the hardcore lefties on your side.

[1261] Yes.

[1262] I mean, for sure.

[1263] I mean, he wants Gavin wants George Soros and ACLU to back him as governor.

[1264] I mean, George Soros gave Gavin a million dollars during their recall last year.

[1265] They then, when he wants that support, to go win in Iowa in New Hampshire and become the Democratic nominee in 2024.

[1266] Really?

[1267] That's the strategy.

[1268] After almost getting recalled in.

[1269] Yes.

[1270] They really think that he can do that.

[1271] Well, yeah, because, I mean, now his approval ratings was 57 percent.

[1272] He had a 57 percent approval rating two months ago.

[1273] It is down to 50 percent now.

[1274] Everybody that was going to be in the recall, everybody that was in the recall, all the people competing in it are not running.

[1275] I got in at the very last minute because I was like, who's going to do this?

[1276] like come on guys somebody's got a run against this guy i'm sorry i got into this uh this election at the very last minute the best candidate was larry elder like in terms of like the biggest and he got 38 percent yeah i mean but he was just a popular radio guy he's not even like a career politician but he was the best in that he was a high profile public figure and he was you know but look i mean and super nice guy by the way i've met him um but you know he's a trump he's a trump guy and california we're that's not who we are i mean i you know that's you're misinterpreted who he is.

[1277] Yeah.

[1278] What he is is the black face of white supremacy.

[1279] But that's what the LA Times call them.

[1280] Right.

[1281] What?

[1282] Right.

[1283] Right.

[1284] And then by the way, by the way, by the way a month or two ago then the LA Times ran a story complain of the lack of civility and politics.

[1285] Oh, adorable.

[1286] Yeah.

[1287] Adorable.

[1288] Well, hopefully a different person wrote that.

[1289] But people, I mean, I think people wanted to shake up the system with Larry Elder.

[1290] I can shake up the system because I don't hold a lot of those views.

[1291] I mean, I've, I've, the negative views.

[1292] Yeah.

[1293] I mean, I, I support a strong, a high minimum wage.

[1294] Yeah.

[1295] As do I. I, you know, I think immigrants have made this country great and strong.

[1296] I would like to see it legal and regulated, but there's just a lot of views that, you know, I support the decriminalization of marijuana.

[1297] I think, you know, psychedelics hold a lot of potential.

[1298] I'm not a drug prude.

[1299] I also think that you have to, for cities to function, you have to, you can't allow people to camp anywhere.

[1300] Right.

[1301] And I think that their reciprocity is essential.

[1302] Carrots and sticks are essential.

[1303] There need be consequences for misbehaviors, including breaking the law.

[1304] You sound like a Republican, though, would say that.

[1305] See, this is the problem, right?

[1306] Like, we get these ideologies are so divided that good things that are supported by the other side are denounced because - By the LA Times.

[1307] Yeah, well, not just by the LA Times, by a lot of people on the left.

[1308] Yeah.

[1309] A lot of people on the left that were in this defund the police.

[1310] fucking camp when that was going on was like have you ever been involved in real violence have you ever needed to call the police because when you say defund the police you don't know what you're saying you don't know what you're saying because you will then allow criminals which there are many of you will allow them to go commit crimes and have no repercussions which will emboldened them and will increase their crime like they're going to keep and that's what we're seeing in new york city that's what you're seeing in los angeles you're seeing it it's crazy like there is a video that I sent a bunch of my friends where it was again it was on my friend Collian Noir's Instagram page where he was talking about this gang member was leaving LA because it's too dangerous and he was telling all his friends get out now because they're gonna release is some very large number I think I want to I think it was like 70 ,000 people they're releasing them early yeah from prisons from prisons with violent histories drugs gangs, violence, and they're going to release them, and they have no jobs, and they have nowhere to go, and nothing to do, and there's no police presence.

[1311] Right.

[1312] The police presence has been significantly diminished, and the police that are there are very hesitant to respond to calls because the amount of support for the police since George Floyd has drastically decreased.

[1313] Well, yeah, although, I mean, we're in, so first of all, I think, yeah, look, there's 20 to 30 percent of the electorate that is in favor of police abolition, defunding the police.

[1314] police, public camping.

[1315] I hate to say this, but those people need to experience what that's like.

[1316] They need, I mean, I'm not, I don't want anybody to get robbed and beaten up, but you should kind of see what that means.

[1317] Yeah.

[1318] Because what we need is more funding of the police.

[1319] Absolutely.

[1320] We need police to be held to a higher standard, but we need better training for the police.

[1321] And we also need a lot more respect.

[1322] Those people are doing a really fucking hard job.

[1323] And it's one thing that I say, I've had so many conversations to people that disagree with me on this, you know, outside.

[1324] Like, I don't like your open support of the police.

[1325] What the fuck are you talking about, man?

[1326] Do you know how hard it is to be a cop?

[1327] You know, you're seeing out of the millions and millions of interactions that police have with people that are committing crimes or the people that are pulling over or whatever, you're seeing a choice few amount of people that either can't handle it or they're bad people or they're corrupt cops or whatever it is and they go sideways.

[1328] But you're discounting the vast majority of these exchanges that go well.

[1329] And no one gets hurt and everyone's fine.

[1330] Of course.

[1331] And not like that, but you need more police to remove the bad apples.

[1332] Yes, yes.

[1333] And also to get the right training and the right preparation.

[1334] Andrew Yang had a really good point about that as the police too.

[1335] He said you shouldn't be a police officer unless you're at least a purple belt and jujitsu, which is dead on.

[1336] Right.

[1337] I agree.

[1338] You can't be 120 pounds with no ability to defend yourself and, you know, your gun has a snap.

[1339] You know, and you're three feet away from someone who can punch you in the face.

[1340] Like, you're vulnerable.

[1341] You're not really enforcing the law.

[1342] You're barely there.

[1343] Well, I mean, right now, basically what happens in a place like Skid Row and tunnel is the police just watch crimes occur.

[1344] Right.

[1345] And they don't do anything.

[1346] They can't change anything.

[1347] And they, yeah, and they kind of go, what's the point?

[1348] They'll take him to the DA and the DA won't prosecute.

[1349] So look, all that.

[1350] Do you get rid of that guy immediately?

[1351] Well, well, so first of all, he's going to, the San Francisco DA is almost certainly going to be recalled in June.

[1352] The L .A. The L .A. will probably be recalled in November.

[1353] So this is, things are changing quickly.

[1354] You know, my candidacy, we did some initial polling.

[1355] I'm drawing equal support from independence, Democrats, Republicans.

[1356] It's an open primary on June 7, meaning that anybody can vote for anybody and the top two vote getters go in.

[1357] I'm, I was a lifelong Democrat, changed my party affiliation to no party preference.

[1358] So I think, look, I think I'm going to come in second, which is all I need to do on June 7th.

[1359] Gavin comes in first.

[1360] And then the voters can choose between a fairly radical, you know, agenda that basically Gavin is captive to or a much more sensible approach that I'm proposing that we find is actually quite strong, 78 % support.

[1361] So when you say he's got a radical agenda, like what is that, if you would categorize that to people that aren't familiar that don't, they know that California's kind of nutty, what is the agenda?

[1362] First and foremost is housing first.

[1363] It's this idea that.

[1364] anybody who comes to California, anybody who shows up in Venice Beach or San Francisco and says they went their own apartment.

[1365] And then when you say, well, of course we don't have an apartment for you now, then it's like, okay, well, then I'm going to camp here in the park or on the sidewalk and the city say, okay, fine, as opposed to, no, you can go stay in the shelter, you can go back home, you can get a job and pay for your own apartment, but you can't sleep in a public places.

[1366] That's not compatible with civilization.

[1367] It's not safe for you.

[1368] or for anybody else.

[1369] That's, to not do that, to not require shelter is radical, in my view.

[1370] What city, if any, in this country handles it correctly?

[1371] New York actually, before the pandemic, did better than anybody else.

[1372] They sheltered over 95 % of its people.

[1373] We shelter in California about a third of our homeless.

[1374] So New York had, how many?

[1375] What percentage was it?

[1376] Over 95 % of its homeless were.

[1377] sheltered.

[1378] Yes.

[1379] That's what the numbers are huge though, right?

[1380] What is the numbers of homeless people?

[1381] Well, this is one of the one of the ways that the the wokes manipulate these numbers is they say, well, New York has many more homeless people.

[1382] It's like, well, but they're sheltered.

[1383] So when most, most ordinary people don't distinguish between sheltered and unsheltered homeless.

[1384] When they, when they, when most people think, ordinary people think of homeless people, they think of the people they see on the streets.

[1385] Those people are called unsheltered homeless.

[1386] So there's a whole.

[1387] So there's a whole, group of other people that live in shelters that are being that have there should be having personal plans to get on the straight and narrow to improve their lives or to get residential care like my aunt who suffered schizophrenia she had good residential health care in a group home which also does not need to be super expensive by the way she shared a home she had her own bedroom but she shared a kitchen and living area with other people and a caretaker for people that are mentally disabled that's what they need you know but look 75 % of our i mean i estimate talking in the research that we've done and talking to a lot of other people, I estimate that 75 % of our homeless are just addicts, meaning they don't have schizophrenia, they don't have bipolar disorder, they're just addicts.

[1388] Some of them, people say, and they go, come on, Michael, like, if you're a 75 -year -old heroin addict who's been using heroin for 40 years, it's going to be really hard for you to, you know, achieve recovery.

[1389] I agree, but most of these guys are not 75.

[1390] 25 -year -old.

[1391] The 75 -year -old, there's a case for a very small share of them to be getting effectively palliative care.

[1392] And they can get methadone or suboxone or maybe even heroin maintenance for the rest of their lives.

[1393] They still need to be in residential care.

[1394] The 25 -year -old who was a pothead and then became a fentanyl smoker just needs to go to rehab, get a job, and get reaffiliated with family and friends.

[1395] We know how to do that.

[1396] That sounds so easy because rehab is not that effective.

[1397] Like, what's the success rate of rehab in terms of the recidivism?

[1398] In terms of, I don't know, it's recidivism, but relapse.

[1399] It's high.

[1400] It's high, but it's also high when you don't have any consequences.

[1401] Right, but there are better solutions.

[1402] And this is what I want to bring up.

[1403] Psychedelic solutions.

[1404] One of the most effective things in terms of weaning people off drugs and getting them to quit and recognize their ways appears to be Ibogaine.

[1405] And Ibogaine is not a recreational drug by any strutely.

[1406] stretch the imagination, but it's illegal in the United States.

[1407] It's legal in Mexico.

[1408] And a lot of people go over to Mexico to kick drugs.

[1409] And my friend Ed Clay, he started a center over there because he had an experience, back pain, injury, got on pills, couldn't get off of them, was really fucked, and went over and got treatment.

[1410] And it was so radically successful that he decided to start his own treatment center over there.

[1411] I think that we need to take a much more radical, hey, there's that word again, a much more, you know, a more effective approach.

[1412] And psychedelics are a more effective approach.

[1413] And I know there's some use of psychedelics that's being sanctioned in the United States.

[1414] For instance, ketamine for depression.

[1415] You can get a prescription for ketamine, which is a, in some ways, a psychedelic drug.

[1416] It's not traditionally a psychedelic drug in terms of like mushrooms or all these other ones.

[1417] But The most effective one appears to be Ibegain.

[1418] It's not a good time, according to all the people that have done it.

[1419] I have not done it.

[1420] But according to all the people that I know that have done it that have gotten off pills, it's not fun.

[1421] And it's a 24 -hour experience, but when it's over, you're radically changed.

[1422] And you kind of understand in a very clear way.

[1423] It's apparently ruthlessly introspective in a way that, like, even acid isn't.

[1424] And it forces people to see, like, this is where your trauma comes from.

[1425] This is why you're hijacking your life with drugs.

[1426] This is the path forward.

[1427] Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say, look, California is exactly the place that there should be trials of these things, scientific trials under medical supervision.

[1428] For me, for me, the key thing is we have had, we need, there needs to be assertive case managers.

[1429] We need to have psychiatric evaluations.

[1430] Some people for those trials, California is exactly the place.

[1431] I mean, California is the home for experimental, you know, psychedelics and drugs, very open to all that.

[1432] I think a lot of other people in their recovery, they benefit from hard exercise.

[1433] Like we were just talking about, routine, work, love, relationships, reconnection.

[1434] I, you know, this is not, I always show, you know, it's not, this is not like nuclear engineering.

[1435] That's, like, hard.

[1436] Like, this is, this is social work.

[1437] Yeah.

[1438] This is case management.

[1439] This is, we're dealing in California with a breakdown of civilization, because the powers that be are in the grip of a radical woke ideology funded by George Soros and funded by ACLU over decades to basically not require people to take responsibility for their own behaviors, for their own health, for their own citizenship, their participation in society.

[1440] Those folks, we get them in our system, there's things that we're going to ask from them.

[1441] But I think I'm very open to, you know, we have all sorts.

[1442] I mean, it's not just psychedelics.

[1443] We also have injectable antipsychotics.

[1444] We have 30 -day suboxone, which is the opioid replacement therapy.

[1445] That's an improvement over methadone appears.

[1446] I'm very practical.

[1447] Like I, we want to, but the goal, this is what matters.

[1448] The goal right now is addiction maintenance.

[1449] That's what these guys are doing with everybody, including the 20 -somethings.

[1450] The goal should be recovery.

[1451] For those who can achieve recovery, the goal should be recovery.

[1452] I grant you there's a small minority of people for whom it's going to be palliative care, and that's a sad situation, but we can deal with that.

[1453] But what disturbs me is that we have a palliative care approach to the entire drug -addicted homeless population when each of those are individual human lives that have the potential for recovery and to come back from their addiction.

[1454] In the same way that so many people have before them, is there going to be some relapse?

[1455] Sure, there always is.

[1456] we need to have a system in place where that if and when those relapses occur they're not deadly that they're not they're things that we can deal with and then we get people back into it a lot of people are going to take some time to get into recovery but recovery should be the goal right now recovery is not the goal it's kind of crazy that that seems to be the number one problem in California is drug addiction in terms of when you're dealing with this homeless problem the number one problem is drug addiction and also dealing with childhood trauma.

[1457] Like a lot of these people come from broken homes and sexual abuse and all the other things that lead people to become drug addicts.

[1458] What do you do that's different from what they're doing now in terms of like what, you were talking about how much money is being spent.

[1459] How much money is being spent right now on homeless?

[1460] And what are they doing wrong?

[1461] Like, what are they doing with that money?

[1462] Yeah, I mean, it's astonishing some of money, right?

[1463] Officially, it was around $14 billion over two years, but that is a gross underestimate of it.

[1464] Is that for the entire state?

[1465] That's just the state spending.

[1466] There's billions spent in, so San Francisco's homeless budget is around a billion dollars.

[1467] For 10 ,000 people, Joe, that's 100 ,000 per person.

[1468] So you could just, you know, give them $100 ,000.

[1469] And they live, like, they've taken over, they've taken over some of them most beautiful plazas.

[1470] Yeah.

[1471] They live in tents.

[1472] Addicts, they live in tents.

[1473] They smoke fentanyl and meth all day long.

[1474] They have three meals a day delivered to their tents.

[1475] They don't even, they don't have to do anything.

[1476] They, their toilets are cleaned and paid for by people.

[1477] They have clothes brought to them.

[1478] There's no pressure put on them to get towards recovery.

[1479] It's insane.

[1480] And that doesn't even account, by the way, fire departments, EMTs.

[1481] These things are really expensive to send out five EMTs.

[1482] So let's just, we'll just, confronts, Francisco.

[1483] So that billion dollars that's spent in San Francisco, it's just a maintenance program, right?

[1484] Because it has no impact on the amount of homeless people.

[1485] A maintenance and magnet program.

[1486] Maybe it has the opposite effect.

[1487] It does.

[1488] Right?

[1489] You bring people.

[1490] Yes.

[1491] Yeah, I think that we're thinking is people get, we're confused about it because people, I think the ideas we go, I think, I mean, progressives think, well, we're just not spending enough money.

[1492] No, no, no, we have been spending, the money we have been spending created the problem.

[1493] You got to remember, the number of homeless people in California increased 31 % between 2010 and 2020 and decreased 18 % in the rest of the United States.

[1494] So they just moved to California.

[1495] So a lot of them moved to California.

[1496] Wow.

[1497] It's not to say there's not some people that there's, you know, I would say somewhere between 50 and 75 % of the unsheltered homeless are from outside the state at this point.

[1498] Okay.

[1499] So what they're doing now is ineffective.

[1500] They're spending all this money that's essentially just attracting more people and it's just a maintenance program.

[1501] So how do you wean them off of that?

[1502] How do you start?

[1503] Like, what's the first thing you do is do you ban camping and then force them into some sort of sheltered situation?

[1504] Do you stop them from doing drugs when they're in the sheltered situation?

[1505] And how do you do that?

[1506] Yeah.

[1507] And it's, it's, I wouldn't even say ineffective, I would say counterproductive, effective at making homelessness worse.

[1508] Yeah, I mean, look, the first thing is you have to have places for people to go, which we don't have.

[1509] You know, when I was in the Netherlands doing my research for San Francisco, and in the caseworker, we would interact with a homeless guy who was psychotic, and it was like, where's he going to go?

[1510] I would be like, where's he going to go?

[1511] He's like, well, we have a shelter bed for him.

[1512] Oh, what about the hospital?

[1513] Do you have a room at a psych bed in the hospital?

[1514] Yeah, we have that if he needs that.

[1515] Do you have a rehab for him?

[1516] Yeah, we've got that.

[1517] So you've got to have that.

[1518] So the Netherlands is like, what's the population of the Netherlands?

[1519] I think it's 17 million.

[1520] So the population is roughly like three quarters of L .A. Something like that.

[1521] Yeah.

[1522] And that is effective.

[1523] They've been able to do that.

[1524] I mean, I go Netherlands.

[1525] I mean, basically it's the Netherlands, Germany, France, Japan.

[1526] They have world class systems.

[1527] It's all tiered in that same way.

[1528] So it's kind of like, we have basic clean, safe shelter for you.

[1529] We also have, if you succeed, carrots and sticks the entire way.

[1530] So we, by making housing an entire way, entitlement rather than something earned, you're removing both the carrot and the stick.

[1531] So what we know, there's something, you know, rewarding good behavior is called contingency management.

[1532] So the classic studies that were done were homeless addicts.

[1533] They would be in shelter and they all want their own room because everybody wants the privacy of their own room.

[1534] So they'd say, if you pass your drug test, you can go into your own room.

[1535] They get their own room.

[1536] What happens if they fail their drug test?

[1537] They go back to the shelter.

[1538] do they go to the street no because that would be cruel and inhumane and we don't want to do that we want to we want to prevent public camping so but they go back to the shelter well i want to get my room back okay pass the drug test so you need shelter for 100 ,000 people and then you need the potential for them to get their own room as a carrot and stick so do you need it all additional 100 ,000 units that are available to these people you shouldn't need that much i mean you need it all you need you need universal shelter with capacity you need rehab facilities.

[1539] You need permanent residential care for mentally disabled, seriously mentally ill people, which I think we estimate around 10 % of the total homeless population.

[1540] And you need massive amounts of counselors.

[1541] So, and you need a whole, you need a cadre of well -trained.

[1542] I'm not saying they all have to have MSWs, but a cadre of super well -trained, assertive case managers.

[1543] But how many do you need?

[1544] I mean, if one per 100 people, you have a thousand?

[1545] There's a debate in the literature last time I checked.

[1546] I think it's somewhere like a single case manager can manage between 10 and 20 people.

[1547] Whoa.

[1548] But it depends on.

[1549] Think about how many people you need then.

[1550] Well, yeah.

[1551] And we have and the other thing is that we have a lot of people and it's completely inefficiently managed.

[1552] We have tens of thousands of counselors that are willing to get into this hard work.

[1553] We have, I don't know how the exact number and it's hard to know because some of them are at private nonprofit some of them are with government agencies they have a hard time finding people to work at Home Depot it's how they have a workforce problem yeah we have a real workforce problem yep well under the the extraordinary powers of governor you can you can get people into the right jobs and you can also use the National Guard and you can take extraordinary measures but this is what's going to take we're not going to let a crisis go to waste we've spent two hours just on homeless people there's obviously some we did fitness too that's a little bit And depression, but that's all connected to why people turn out to be homeless, right?

[1554] Yeah.

[1555] What other issues are of primary concern?

[1556] So I look at it, by the way, I put it in three broad categories.

[1557] Drugs, crime, homelessness, housing schools, infrastructure, energy, water environment.

[1558] We did a bit of those.

[1559] And like I said, I think we make success.

[1560] We have progress.

[1561] We get 60 to 70 % of the public on board, excited about what we're doing.

[1562] I think it gives us momentum we need.

[1563] LA public schools.

[1564] It's a disaster, job.

[1565] Disaster.

[1566] Okay, so we have, on average, 30 % math proficiency, meaning 30 % of the students are proficient at the basic levels of math in their grade, 50 % reading proficiency, black proficiency, about 10 % Latino at 15%.

[1567] This is a scandal.

[1568] I mean, this is shocking.

[1569] And we've put more money into schools.

[1570] We are in the top 20, per capita resources for schools.

[1571] Something's clearly not working.

[1572] Look, you know, my parents were public school teachers.

[1573] My mom was a union rep. I believe in great teachers.

[1574] At the same time, nobody hates a bad teacher more than a good teacher.

[1575] By the way, in part of my research, I just remember the cops say the same thing.

[1576] Oh, yeah, true.

[1577] So, look, we provide tenure for public school teachers.

[1578] There's a lot of questions about why we do that, because that is an obstacle to moving out bad teachers.

[1579] I would be open to negotiating that with the teachers union, which I think most people would expect.

[1580] Do you think they would be willing to do that?

[1581] Well, here's what I would say.

[1582] We're going to negotiate that.

[1583] But the other issue is just we need more parental choice over schools.

[1584] We need more innovation and choices for schools for kids.

[1585] I would love to see longer school days, better physical education like we talked about.

[1586] Longer school days.

[1587] Well, I think the school day needs to match the work day for parents.

[1588] It's hard for parent.

[1589] Like, like, why is it that kids have a completely different, if you're working a nine to six job as a parent, why is it that your kid is going to school from seven or eight a .m. to three p .m. to three p .m. Well, but they can, and they, and look, it's not for everybody.

[1590] That's why you need more parental choice.

[1591] But the, a lot of kids, especially the kids that are underperforming, they need more time at school and often time away from from an environment that may not be the healthiest environment for them.

[1592] True, but a lot of times the school's an unhealthy environment because the kids from that environment and then contained inside the school.

[1593] And on top of that, if you're talking about keeping them for long periods of time because they need more time at school to get better, but they need is better education.

[1594] I don't think, I don't, I think it's exhausting.

[1595] It's not, it's not necessarily with the classroom.

[1596] Right.

[1597] But remember, if you're doing a sport, you're often on campus for a long period of time.

[1598] Right.

[1599] So you're talking more physically.

[1600] education.

[1601] The littler kids, no, they don't necessarily need a longer school day, but they may need nap time.

[1602] I'm also totally, I think, I think older kids might need nap time.

[1603] They need, they should, these are, you know, I'm really interested, when you go to Japan or Germany, kids are involved in cleaning the classroom, kids are involved in cooking.

[1604] It's absurd to me that children can graduate from high school and not know how to cook themselves a basic meal.

[1605] You know, it's absurd to me that kids don't know, like, because I've had interns, I've had been working with interns for over 25 years as a professional.

[1606] I'm shocked by the kids that graduate from college that don't know how to cook, they don't know how to clean, they don't know how to do basic life skills.

[1607] We've basically, we don't have proper vocational education.

[1608] We need to have personalized education.

[1609] Not all kids are going to go to college.

[1610] Most kids don't go to college.

[1611] A few kids go on to get graduate degrees.

[1612] A lot of those, you know, Germany has a beautiful program of apprenticeships.

[1613] We've got to open our educational system to more opportunities and choices.

[1614] for parents and kids.

[1615] That's the bottom line.

[1616] So, obviously, this must mean a massive budget increase for the school systems as well.

[1617] Not necessarily.

[1618] Really?

[1619] Not necessarily.

[1620] Maybe.

[1621] On the other hand, look at what the costs of poor education are, you know, and again, I think some of the stuff has to be negotiated.

[1622] I'm reluctant to say what needs to be, you know, because I think the budgets right now are so opaque.

[1623] We just don't know at this point.

[1624] The other issue is that there's so much disagreement on schools, on housing, and infrastructure.

[1625] I view my obligation as governor to build consensus in the society that can last for years and decades.

[1626] Otherwise, it'll just be undone by the people that come after me. So I would be doing the processes I want to do citizens juries when I have hundreds of people involved in deliberating on these issues in 2020, 23, 25.

[1627] for on these two big areas, housing schools, infrastructure, education, energy, water, environment.

[1628] You still have legislative hearings, but I want to get the public involved in building consensus.

[1629] I want to get beyond, I want to get into long form, slow thinking, beyond the kind of crazy social media, crazy politicized, advertising, news media, and really seriously deliberate and figure out how to do this.

[1630] I think we're going to be able to find solutions to this.

[1631] I don't think that the same solutions for the same kids everywhere.

[1632] but clearly parents need more choice in this matter than they've had.

[1633] One of the things that is in my mind that keeps popping up in regards to someone being a governor is very similar to what I think of someone being a president, that the idea of having one person that is somehow responsible for so many different insanely difficult things that require incredible amounts of time and effort.

[1634] for you to be one person that's involved with energy, education, homelessness, and then the financial issues that the state has, taxes, all these other things, there's so much work to be done in each individual thing that obviously you're going to have to allocate some of the work to other people.

[1635] So how will you make sure that those people are good enough for that task?

[1636] Like, I would assume that you can't devote the amount of time that's necessary to make sure the education system gets reformed.

[1637] It would take too much time.

[1638] If you're concentrating on cleaning up the homeless issue and if you're concentrating on cleaning up the crime, refunding the police and retraining the police and, you know, all the other issues that the state has, like each one of those seems like it would require a massive team of people, not just one person that would dedicate all their time to it, but many, many, many people.

[1639] Oh, my gosh.

[1640] And there's like thousands of agencies and boards and administrative bodies in California.

[1641] I think the governor appoints, you know, thousands, you know, points thousands of people.

[1642] There's still hundreds of people not appointed.

[1643] So, right.

[1644] So that's why I would say the first thing is we've got to deal with this immediate threat to civilization.

[1645] I've got a vision for doing that right away with significant executive action and then legislative action.

[1646] Homeless drugs and crime.

[1647] Okay.

[1648] That's the one that you think.

[1649] I'm going to come in on day one with a legislative package, and I'm going to deliver it to the legislature, and I'm also going to take a series of actions that we start to see real change in progress in the first few months.

[1650] By the time the elections come in 2024, voters are going to be excited about what they've seen.

[1651] They're going to want to see more of it.

[1652] During those same two years, on energy, we have an immediate need to stabilize the grid and prevent more blackouts from occurring.

[1653] So we're going to keep our nuclear plant operating.

[1654] We're going to make sure we have abundant energy.

[1655] Is there a potential to reopen the other nuclear power?

[1656] There is.

[1657] We need to understand it, look at it.

[1658] It's, it's unfortunately, some time has passed nine years since they shut it down.

[1659] So we've got some work to do there.

[1660] But yeah, I mean, we've got to guarantee abundant energy.

[1661] But then in terms of long -term change, you're right.

[1662] We've got to have a consensus.

[1663] We've got to have a common shared vision.

[1664] So if I'm governor for eight years, that's a good amount of time to get a lot of stuff done.

[1665] But it's got to last for 50 years.

[1666] It's got to last for a long time.

[1667] We have.

[1668] We were in, we were, I mean, basically the last time significant expansion of California and, you know, and of our infrastructure, of our educational system occurred was in the 1960s under the father of Jerry Brown, Edmund Brown.

[1669] That's when we created the water systems that bring water to Los Angeles and elsewhere.

[1670] That's when we created the UC system, our incredible school system.

[1671] We're, I mean, right now our schools, like the main agenda is just to wokeify the universities.

[1672] And I think there's some real questions about whether that's consistent with maintaining high educational quality.

[1673] How so?

[1674] Just an obsession with all of this identity politics of like it's just taken over.

[1675] It's like a religious crusade.

[1676] Meanwhile, our kids aren't getting the math and reading education they need.

[1677] Why do you think that happen?

[1678] I mean, why are we in the midst of the, of a woke?

[1679] Well, I think it's, I think we've, you know, this is the subject of, this is where San Francisco and Apoc.

[1680] is that really people have created a new religion, you know, that people are in search for meaning and they're looking for new purpose.

[1681] I think a much better purpose.

[1682] I mean, look, I think part of this is that, and this is some of the craziness that we've been just talking about with the news media and the kind of the demonization is that I think people are losing, we're not, we don't feel like we're all in this together.

[1683] And that's what you sort of see the governor, you know, going places without masks while imposing masks on school children.

[1684] We've got to have a sense that we're all in this together.

[1685] We're all Californians.

[1686] We're all Americans.

[1687] I believe that when it comes down to it, we should all have the same goals, most of us, improve the quality of the education of our kids in the public schools, expand the choices that parents have so their kids get the right education for them, a more personalized education, functioning cities, energy, water, because water you can make with abundant energy through desalination or water recycling, you can recycle water.

[1688] We're not creating abundant energy and water supplies, even though that's the basis of our civilization.

[1689] So I think we've lost sight of our purpose, that civilization has a purpose, you know, that it's abundance, that it's opportunity, that it's realizing human potential.

[1690] That sounds very hippy, but I do think that that's one of the contributions that California has made has been the sense in which it's not just, you know, man does not live on Brighton alone, you know, that really there's, we all have this higher creative potential.

[1691] That's what the UC system, the University of California university system was designed to realize, was to realize the whole human, but also to help us to specialize and develop a more personalized education.

[1692] And what do you think is the primary factor?

[1693] Like what, what has caused this woke religion to take over the university system and the school system.

[1694] I think a big part of it is is declining belief in a higher power, and that's, I'm not proposing to, I don't have a way to solve that in the sense that I don't think government, I think we should keep government and religion separate.

[1695] I think that's what I want to do.

[1696] It's like there seems to be a default setting for people where they have almost like a religious gene or a thing that makes them want to buy into a, uh, uh, an ideology, hook line and sinker, just to show all the people around them that they're a part of the team.

[1697] Yeah, and there's some sense in which, you know, I think when people, you know, when the traditional religions go away, people start to lose sense of their ultimate purpose.

[1698] You know, I think it's, there's a lot of things going on here, especially with something like this, and it's hard to get at it exactly.

[1699] I mean, we talked about changes to lifestyle, that people aren't getting the physical engagement.

[1700] There's a loss of human connection, you know, the rise.

[1701] of, you know, this was happening before we had the rise of digital media.

[1702] And so I think that these, what I'm proposing is that these institutions that have been around, they need to basically be revitalized, reaffirmed.

[1703] It's not just that we need to re -inspire the police and rethink policing.

[1704] We do, and refund the police.

[1705] We need to do the same thing with our public schools.

[1706] We need to do the same thing with our mental health care system.

[1707] We need to do the same thing with our infrastructure.

[1708] You know, I mean, the governor was building, the governor, like this governor and the last governor had been building a high -speed rail.

[1709] Rail makes sense when you have high population densities, you know, like you need, like, trains are great in places where you have a lot of people.

[1710] But the idea of running these trains, I mean, they were spending tens of billions of dollars to build this high -speed rail.

[1711] It was like, what are we doing here, guys?

[1712] You know, meanwhile, our roads, you know, need repairs.

[1713] There's also a problem.

[1714] The culture of California is a culture of individual.

[1715] It's a car culture.

[1716] Cars provide mobility.

[1717] We love our cars.

[1718] Cars allow us all this freedom.

[1719] It's just hard to get people to switch that.

[1720] Yeah.

[1721] You know, the extensive subway system that they put it on.

[1722] No one fucking uses that.

[1723] Well, and now, like, it's been overrun.

[1724] I mean, the Bay Area was, I think, pretty widely utilized.

[1725] But part of it would be like, yeah.

[1726] But not in LA, right?

[1727] Well, yeah.

[1728] The LA system that they implemented.

[1729] Is that get used a lot?

[1730] It is used.

[1731] I mean, I think it's one of the things that we need to do these.

[1732] That's what I want to build some.

[1733] consensus around.

[1734] It's like, what do we doing?

[1735] There's been a war between the YIMBs and the NIMBs.

[1736] The YIMBs have a very specific vision.

[1737] Yes, in my backyard, of greater urban housing density, greater mass transit.

[1738] The NIMBs and 65 % of voters are homeowners.

[1739] The NIMBs want neighborhood.

[1740] They don't want a lot of change in their neighborhood.

[1741] They certainly don't want you to put big apartment buildings or big homeless shelters in their neighborhoods.

[1742] My view, because I've looked at how cities grow and it's the same everywhere.

[1743] Cities both become more dense in terms of the population near mass transit and they get more suburbs.

[1744] People are, this is the dogmatism.

[1745] People need to be more reasonable.

[1746] I think there is, there are solutions to have a significant expansion of housing and infrastructure and transportation.

[1747] Everybody needs to do their part, but we do also need to protect neighborhood quality.

[1748] Are you prepared for the amount of aging that you're going to experience over four years of this?

[1749] You know, I'm humbled by this, and I'm honored that folks are backing me and are excited about this.

[1750] You know, my kids are...

[1751] There's a lot of people excited about you, but...

[1752] Thanks, man. My kids are...

[1753] My kids are...

[1754] My son is 22, my daughter's 16.

[1755] My kids are...

[1756] This is the right time for me. I have more energy than I've ever had.

[1757] How old are you?

[1758] 50.

[1759] When you're 54, I want to see what you look like.

[1760] Like some people just hardcore age when they're, whether it was governor or president or anything.

[1761] I'm excited for the challenge.

[1762] I've, you know, I've made my own changes to diet and lifestyle to give me the energy I need and the focus we need.

[1763] Look, it would be an absolute thrill for me. I am, I'm in love with California.

[1764] I've always loved it, and it's just such a tarnished jewel.

[1765] Yeah, to me, it's like an ex -girlfriend that I used to really love hanging out with, but now she joined the cartel and she does meth.

[1766] that's what feels like it's like every time i go back i'm like oh you crazy bitch what are you what are you doing now it's so sad i was just back i was just back last weekend i did the comedy store oh you did how'd that go it was great the shows were fun but i was just like jesus driving around l .a it's like holy shit is it different yeah yeah yeah it's unacceptable no it's absolutely unacceptable it's totally unacceptable but it's also i think we're at a breaking point yeah i will say i can't tell you the number of people I've talked to over the last few months and years that start their sentences, they go, I'm a very liberal person, but...

[1767] Yeah, that's what the red pill thing.

[1768] Yeah.

[1769] People say that people have been red pill.

[1770] My message is you can still be a liberal person.

[1771] In fact, the only way to be a liberal person.

[1772] If you want to be a liberal person, a good person, you don't want to feel like you're living in an immoral society.

[1773] It's to make some of these institutional reforms that we need to make.

[1774] Yeah.

[1775] I have refused to change.

[1776] Like, you know, I am still at my heart.

[1777] a liberal.

[1778] I grew up on welfare.

[1779] I was on welfare when I was a kid.

[1780] I'll never forget it.

[1781] We were on food stamps.

[1782] That, to me, it's like social programs made sure that we had food, and I'll never forget that.

[1783] They work for families that are struggling and that are in bad situations.

[1784] They're important.

[1785] And the idea that they're not, and all this pull yourself up by your bootstrap shit that you hear from successful Republicans, like, bro, save that.

[1786] Save that shit because not everybody's bootstraps are in the same place.

[1787] Like some people start out in horrible environments.

[1788] And for you to come out of the suburbs and do well and have this attitude that people just need to work hard, it's crazy talk.

[1789] It doesn't accurately represent the problems and the challenges that people in poor communities face.

[1790] And I know that because that used to be me. Absolutely.

[1791] I mean, it's sad because there's a way in which both liberals and conservatives say things that are true.

[1792] Right?

[1793] Like mentality, hard work, discipline.

[1794] These things are really important.

[1795] They really matter.

[1796] Having structure.

[1797] These things are super important.

[1798] At the same time, so do good schools.

[1799] So does a functioning social safety net.

[1800] You know, people with, you know, I have found when I'm able to really engage, especially in these kind of long, slow conversations with conservatives, I'm kind of like, look, people with schizophrenia are not out.

[1801] there like shopping the market for health care.

[1802] You know, drug addicts are, are, you can sit there and like judge them.

[1803] But at the end of the day, they've lost control.

[1804] That's the central character.

[1805] That's the main characteristic of addiction is they've lost control.

[1806] And there needs to be an intervention.

[1807] Yeah.

[1808] I am that intervention.

[1809] I'm going to intervene in this in ways that I think will restore our humanity, restore the cities, restore democratic liberal civilization.

[1810] Someone told me recently, I don't know who said it, but, you know, libertarians fight for freedom.

[1811] Liberals fight to care for the least among us.

[1812] And conservatives fight for civilization.

[1813] I mean, who among us?

[1814] I mean, I guess there are some radicals or some extremes, but I think most of us think you need all three.

[1815] The people that don't think we need our three are so damaged.

[1816] That's all it is.

[1817] When I see people saying that, you know, civilization needs to be burnt to the ground and replace with what right shut the fuck up you you're you're doy right you're just a doughy sloppy person talking nonsense and you get away with it because we have civilization that's the only reason why you're surviving right now you're not like a fucking super predator out there like dominating all the other species you you exist inside this civilization that was created by people far smarter and far more accomplished than you and to say we should burn the civilization to the ground because it has flaws no it's filled with people people that have children and families families and loved ones, we should make it better.

[1818] Absolutely.

[1819] Don't burn it to the ground.

[1820] That's nonsense.

[1821] So those people that say that, they should just be discounted.

[1822] They're just silly.

[1823] I think that, you know, we were in a kind of mass shock for the last.

[1824] I think you're a guy on here that was said what we're called it mass psychosis.

[1825] Mass formation.

[1826] Mass formation psychosis, which, you know, psychosis refers to basically being in a dream state or being disconnected from reality and having all sorts of fantasies.

[1827] We've been through a lot over the last couple of years.

[1828] the pandemic, the riots, the defund, the spike in crime.

[1829] I think people are ready, because I think you asked earlier, you know, people are going to say terrible lies about me and they're going to say all sorts of things.

[1830] Yes.

[1831] And when I come in, when I make it to the runoffs on June 7th, we're going to have from June 7 until November 8th, we're going to have five months for people to really look at what I'm saying and proposing and contrast it to the chaos on the streets.

[1832] And I think there is a moment where there's going to be a moment where people are going to like, oh, Michael Schellenberg, whatever they'll say, I'm the white face of white supremacy, the green face of white supremacy.

[1833] They'll say all sorts of lies.

[1834] And then I think people will be like, okay, I've heard all the lies.

[1835] You know, what did he, let me listen to the three hours or the six hours with Joe Rogan or maybe read about it because this is the best time ever to be smeared because people are so skeptical.

[1836] Yeah.

[1837] They don't believe the mainstream media nearly as much as they did four, eight years ago, 10 years ago.

[1838] It's just they don't have the same.

[1839] Yeah.

[1840] They don't have the same credibility just across the board.

[1841] Right.

[1842] So when you do get smeared, it's not going to have the same impact.

[1843] That's right.

[1844] Do you think that there's a potential for Gavin and his people to recalibrate, to recognize that you're a threat and then maybe try to diffuse that threat by pretending to focus more on the homeless situation and try to clear things up a little bit?

[1845] I mean, one scenario.

[1846] is that they all just do the right thing for political survival.

[1847] I mean, Sun Su says the best way to win is by not fighting, right?

[1848] So if I, if my candidacy results in the entire, you know, ruling class of elites in California changing their mind on everything and doing the right thing, awesome, all of one by not having to be governor.

[1849] That'd be ideal.

[1850] I think it's unlikely that they'll be able to do that.

[1851] I think these ideologies are pretty baked in.

[1852] They're in the grip of a religion.

[1853] And Gavin, you know, he's a pretty linear guy at the end of the day.

[1854] I think he doesn't, I think he kind of goes, he's got his vision.

[1855] He's going to, you know, he sees Biden and Kamala failing.

[1856] He wants to, he's going to take, he's going to grab the brass ring in 2024.

[1857] His mind's focused on that.

[1858] If you listen to his state of the state address, which he gave a couple of weeks ago, I mean, I couldn't believe it.

[1859] I was just like, like, it was just, it was arrogant.

[1860] It was perfunctory.

[1861] I mean, here, like, the homeless crisis is far worse than it was two years ago.

[1862] Well, two years ago, he gave this a, he gave a pretty darn good state of the state address on homeless, mostly on homelessness.

[1863] This time, it was just a kind of, you know, just a kind of a little bit of, you know, frippery.

[1864] It was like, it was like, kind of, just a little bit of nothing.

[1865] I've never heard, have you ever heard fripper?

[1866] Fripery.

[1867] Fripery.

[1868] I hope it's a word.

[1869] I may have made it up.

[1870] A little bit of nothing.

[1871] I mean, it was like bullet points.

[1872] It was bullet points.

[1873] And it was like, it was almost disrespectful for.

[1874] It's a real word.

[1875] Showy or unnecessary or a. Yeah, it was just kind of.

[1876] Ooh, I love that.

[1877] New word.

[1878] I picked up a new word.

[1879] Thank you.

[1880] And so I don't see.

[1881] I think they're just, they're really confident.

[1882] He's got, look, he's got $20 million in the bank.

[1883] I mean, that's why people, that's why a lot of the people were like, dude, what are you crazy running for governor?

[1884] And it was kind of like, say the serenity prayer.

[1885] The serenity prayer isn't just to take peace in what you can't do.

[1886] It's also to have the courage to do what you think you can.

[1887] And it felt like we could do this.

[1888] And this was a natural extension.

[1889] You know, we've built this beautiful movement of people who have come to love of parents of kids killed by fentanyl, of parents whose kids are homeless drug addicts, of recovering addicts, including our mutual friend, Bridget Fetasy.

[1890] Amazing.

[1891] I mean, recovering addicts are amazing, right?

[1892] And they're so honest.

[1893] and some of the most incredible people because they've gone through so much and there's so much humility in that Bridget's hilarious by the way her podcasts are amazing and go find them because they're some of the best podcasts and she has some of the best takes on everything anything that's wacky shit that happens in the news I always go to Bridget to get my takes Yeah I mean so if you look at Shellenberger for governor .com which is the website It flows right out of California Peacecoalition .org.

[1894] I mean, we built this incredible coalition.

[1895] We've been, we did four protests, two in San Francisco, one in Venice Beach, one in Sacramento.

[1896] We've been campaigning.

[1897] And we got to the place where it was like, okay, we have put this in, I mean, I literally went up to Gavin Newsom in person in medical scrubs and a stethoscope and said, sir, would you please support Cal Syke?

[1898] And he's like, I'll take a closer look at it or something like that.

[1899] I have him on video saying it.

[1900] Did you like corner him outside?

[1901] I did.

[1902] I cornered him outside.

[1903] No, it was in Chinatown.

[1904] San Francisco at an event.

[1905] I cornered him and he was like, follow up with my people.

[1906] And I did, of course, crickets.

[1907] So we did the work to take this as far as we could, the lawmakers.

[1908] Why did you're scrubbed in a stethoscope?

[1909] Because I was trying to, I was trying to perform calcic.

[1910] How much is like a stethoscope involved in psychiatric evaluations?

[1911] Not much, probably.

[1912] But we, you know, look, we did it.

[1913] We pushed it as far as we could.

[1914] And then I was kind of like, guys, I'm not sure.

[1915] what else I can do here.

[1916] You've never held office before.

[1917] I have not.

[1918] How much of an issue do you think that is?

[1919] And how much of it?

[1920] I mean, how much will it benefit my campaign?

[1921] How much maybe will it benefit your campaign and benefit you when you get in?

[1922] And how much of it is you don't necessarily understand what's involved until you get in there?

[1923] Oh, thank heavens.

[1924] Beginer Mind.

[1925] Super important concept.

[1926] I don't know.

[1927] I'm not, I haven't been, Gavin is persuaded.

[1928] So CalCyke, which is the statewide psychiatric addiction care system, Gavin's guy told me, his top mental health advisor told me that basically, in a roundabout way, he basically said Gavin doesn't think he could do it because it may involve, I'm not sure it would, but it may involve changing the Constitution.

[1929] Okay, that sounds daunting, but we know how to do it.

[1930] You do with ballot initiatives.

[1931] So maybe then at 2024, I got to go back to voters, change the ballot initiative.

[1932] We can do that.

[1933] California voters, we love to change the Constitution.

[1934] We do it all the time.

[1935] Right.

[1936] I'm like, you know, look, I'm, I truly, there's a ways in which I'm the same person I always was.

[1937] I'm still an activist.

[1938] We didn't even talk about it.

[1939] But, you know, when I, after I broke the story of the supervised drug use site in United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, I went back and without revealing my reporting methods, I found a way to get into the site and shoot video and document what was going on.

[1940] And I was, I was kicked out of the site, kind of with the bum's rush, so to speak.

[1941] bounced out by the security guards.

[1942] That's how I'm going to be with all these agencies.

[1943] I'm going to go into the agencies, like in person, into the agencies and find out what the fuck is going on and fire everybody who was in charge of whatever thing went wrong until I get somebody there that can sort it out and can run that place.

[1944] Are there enough qualified people to replace the people that you're firing?

[1945] Absolutely.

[1946] Absolutely.

[1947] Because we're talking about how there's a crisis.

[1948] of lack of workers for all sorts of industries right now.

[1949] First comes the vision, then comes the leadership, and then you find folks that are going to get on board with it.

[1950] The famous thing is California lost $22 billion in unemployment benefits through the EDD.

[1951] Lost it?

[1952] What do you mean?

[1953] Well, it was stolen, often by criminals in these criminal gangs.

[1954] It's like the media has not properly reported on it.

[1955] $22 billion was stolen in COVID stimulus money during the, yes, it's insane, $22 billion.

[1956] Just in California.

[1957] Just in California.

[1958] And Gavin goes, I'm going to send in a strike force to figure out what went wrong.

[1959] Really, bro?

[1960] What went wrong?

[1961] No, I am the strike force.

[1962] I'll go into the, this is the cool thing about governor.

[1963] You can just, you're like all, hi, yeah, I'm going to go over unannounced.

[1964] Go right in.

[1965] Like, I'm the governor of California.

[1966] California, I can go into the agencies and be like, yeah, we're opening up the files.

[1967] I'm going to look in the files.

[1968] We're going to look at the computer.

[1969] I can get the guy in the room privately and be like, start explaining the shit show that is your agency.

[1970] And they can give me a good answer, but what happened and how they're going to fix it and they may get a chance to do that or they're fired.

[1971] I'm going to do that.

[1972] I have those powers as governor to fire people.

[1973] I have the whatever it takes attitude that we need those assertive social workers to have with homeless drug addicts.

[1974] I can have it with my government bureaucracy.

[1975] So, yes, I'm assuming that the people in power right now would go, oh, my God, you could never do that.

[1976] The unions would be so angry with you if you did that.

[1977] Well, I don't fucking care.

[1978] I'm not beholden to them.

[1979] I'm an outsider.

[1980] I'm going to go in and get it done.

[1981] That's what needs to happen.

[1982] It's a big state.

[1983] It needs to be grabbed by the lapels.

[1984] And people need to be starting getting fired.

[1985] they're going to be scared of me is what's going to happen.

[1986] This is why they're going to come after me for the campaign.

[1987] But I'll be able to explain to the voters.

[1988] This is what I'm going to do.

[1989] They're going to come after you no matter what, right?

[1990] Yeah.

[1991] I think that's fair to say.

[1992] I think the fact that my mother was a union rep isn't going to stop the teacher's union from attacking me. No, they're probably going to say your mother be ashamed.

[1993] Yeah.

[1994] Is your mother still alive?

[1995] She is, my dear mother.

[1996] How does she feel about all this?

[1997] They're excited.

[1998] They're excited.

[1999] You know, they're lifelong Democrats and progressives.

[2000] I mean, my mom, you know, my mom was sucked into the whole Rushagate thing because she's a big Rachel Maddow fan.

[2001] My mom's always like, my mom was like, how come you never go on Rachel Maddow?

[2002] You know, why do you just, why is it just, I'm like, Mom, I would love to go on Rachel Maddow.

[2003] Why don't you ask her if I could go on?

[2004] I would love to go on Chris Hayes.

[2005] They never invite me. The farthest left person that's invited me on their show is Anna Kasparian of the Young Turks.

[2006] But I do think that, you know, look, they'll demonize me, they'll trash me, they'll lie about me. but there is going to be a moment when ordinary people are going to be like, hey, I'd actually like to see what he stands for.

[2007] How much of a difficulty do you think it's going to be to not be affiliated with a traditional party?

[2008] I mean, this is the great thing about our system.

[2009] This is the one reform that Schwarzenegger got done is this open primary system.

[2010] When was the last time an independent one, the governor?

[2011] Was it Jesse Ventura?

[2012] Oh, that's interesting.

[2013] I don't know outside of, maybe outside of California.

[2014] Nobody's ever done it in California.

[2015] You know, and part it's just Probably nobody did in Minnesota before Vendura.

[2016] I don't know that though.

[2017] I hired a great team.

[2018] I have a bunch of the former Schwarzenegger people, but I also have Chesa Bodine's former advertising guy.

[2019] So I've got a really cool nonpartisan team.

[2020] And one of my guys was like, he kind of, when I told him, when he was sort of interviewing me, because I was happy to get these guys, you know, they were kind of like, we've been looking for somebody like you.

[2021] You know, there's like somebody that needs to do this that has your, you know, your energy, your spirit.

[2022] And your understanding of politics, too.

[2023] Or my non -understanding of politics.

[2024] I mean, I know how to get shit done.

[2025] I want to get stuff done.

[2026] At least you know what's going on.

[2027] You know what the problems are.

[2028] You know, it's that thing, the thing that I've suffered from and has been a hard thing in my entire life has been being disagreeable.

[2029] You know, this personality, this is a big five personality characteristics.

[2030] And there's a spectrum of agreeable, disagreeable.

[2031] and I've always been disagreeable.

[2032] Sometimes people say I'm contrarian, and I don't really love that word, because contrarian sort of implies that you're trying to be contrarian.

[2033] But, like, I'm not trying.

[2034] Like, I'm just trying to get things done.

[2035] I'm trying to make things better.

[2036] And if that means I need to go protest, you know, I tried to commit civil disobedience to save our last nuclear plant.

[2037] I couldn't get arrested because it was San Francisco.

[2038] But, I mean, I'm not doing that because I'm trying to be difficult.

[2039] I'm doing that because I'm trying to save the last nuclear.

[2040] clear plan, or I'm trying to figure out why the $22 billion was stolen, or I'm trying to create Cal Syke, I'm going to get it done.

[2041] And they can sit there and be like, you can't do it that way, because that's not the way anybody's ever done it, or you're going to have to modify the Constitution.

[2042] Well, then let's modify the Constitution.

[2043] What's that?

[2044] Oh, you're saying the whole agency needs to be, you know, changed or destroyed and we need a new agency.

[2045] Then let's do that.

[2046] I mean, this is what the founding fathers meant when the founding fathers said, one of them said, Domnock, don't quote me, I think one of them was like, we need a revolution every decade or so.

[2047] It's not every decade, but you need new institutions after the old ones become corrupted and fail.

[2048] We need to create new institutions.

[2049] That's what we're going to do with Cal Syke.

[2050] That's, you know, it's going to work with the police departments.

[2051] I don't control the police departments, by the way.

[2052] That's still controlled by the local government.

[2053] So I've got to do everything I can in my power as governor to then put the pressure on the mayors to do their part.

[2054] But if they have a functioning psychiatric and addiction care system that their people can go into, then they're not going to be able to give me any excuses about why people are still camping on the streets.

[2055] What about state police?

[2056] Are they controlled by the governor?

[2057] Well, California Highway Patrol and the National Guard.

[2058] So we can do some workarounds to this workforce problem that we have.

[2059] That was one of the things that was proposed in Austin by the governor, Governor Abbott.

[2060] When they were talking about defying the police, he was saying that he would use a state, state police yeah absolutely you have i don't know if it's highway patrol or state police but but we can certainly use california highway patrol for this we need to hire a bunch more people i mean whether we have a 45 billion dollar surplus or something less than that we're going to get it done because with the emergency powers that we have we can get this done and we have to get it i understand look like if i don't make progress on this issue over the first two years before the midterm elections in 24 presidential elections nationally, but in California, then there's no point.

[2061] I'm not running for governor to be governor.

[2062] I'm running for governor to save our civilization.

[2063] And that means that I've got to make significant progress in months of taking office.

[2064] And we can do that.

[2065] We need to make a difference to that people like you are like, damn, you know, L .A. sure is beautiful now.

[2066] And Skid Rose coming along nicely.

[2067] And I could see myself coming back here.

[2068] That's cute.

[2069] Yeah, that's a tall order at this my life.

[2070] Yeah.

[2071] Well, your settle's here.

[2072] Yeah, I like it here.

[2073] But if I was a younger man, and I didn't have kids.

[2074] Yeah.

[2075] But what do you think that, let's, let's, you know, try to end this on a positive.

[2076] Is there anything that the governor of California does well?

[2077] The current governor?

[2078] Yeah.

[2079] Yeah, the guy who's there right now.

[2080] Wow, you're really, really, sorry, I didn't, I should have prepared for this.

[2081] I'm sure he's, look, I suspect he's a very fine father and husband and nice guy.

[2082] I think he's war.

[2083] He's captive by the system?

[2084] I just, yeah.

[2085] I mean, look, I think he's, I think he's, I think he, I think he's, I think he, I think he wants to be president for reasons he doesn't even understand.

[2086] I think he wants to be governor.

[2087] I think he wanted to be governor for, like, what do you mean by reasons he doesn't understand?

[2088] Well, I mean, I just mean, I just think he's, they just, they're all chasing the brass ring.

[2089] I mean, you may remember, there's a famous incident where, where they discovered there's a viral video that went out of the, of the trains that had been looted in L .A. And there was all this, like, looted Amazon packages in Los Angeles and the Union Pacific trains.

[2090] And he kind of shows up, Babylon B did a parody of it.

[2091] And he shows up, and he gives his press conference, and he's kind of like, what the heck is going on around here?

[2092] You know, and the Babylon B was like California governor vows to get to the bottom of who's in charge of California.

[2093] That's what some of the shit that got them suspended off Twitter.

[2094] So I look at the whole, you know, ruling elite, the mayor of San Francisco.

[2095] Francisco, the mayor of Los Angeles, the governor of California, these are all people who basically brown -nosed their way to the top.

[2096] Then they get to these, they get into a position of authority and there's a crisis and they're like, okay, like, what do we do now?

[2097] And everyone around them is like, you know, you're the guy that is in charge and they're like, they don't know how to deal with a crisis.

[2098] These are people that came up during normal times.

[2099] Well, we're not in normal times anymore.

[2100] But they are so oriented to just getting that next job that they've completely, they don't have any experience actually solving these big problems.

[2101] They just follow whatever.

[2102] That's why they went so far on COVID.

[2103] I mean, some of it I agree with some of it I think is nuts.

[2104] But they went so far on it because they just basically became captive to these experts that tell them what to do.

[2105] Well, the experts made the situation catastrophic at the local level in California as the experts who caused the problem in the mass exodus and the mass exodus well Michael I wish you well I it would be amazing if you pulled it off if you said all these things and then we go to 2024 and California's looking amazing I mean when you I mean if you can do it I mean when we can do it one of the elections June 7 it's at this point there's no reason we shouldn't come in second on June 7.

[2106] We just need support.

[2107] People go to Schellenberger for governor dot com.

[2108] And then November?

[2109] And then we become the biggest political news story in the world when we come in second because there's a heterodox not easy to classify a person outside of politics who's going to compete for the fifth largest economy in the world and become a model for dealing with addiction and mental illness, saving our civilization from radical wokeism.

[2110] And then the battle is joined and then we're in a race we have five months then from June 7th to November 8th to make our case and win the election If Gavin wants to be president why doesn't he just...

[2111] I know I was going to say why don't you just go ahead and do that go do that go do that I mean listen He's got to be better than what we have what we have is a fucking disaster I'm not I guess I look at Gavin's record as a guy who's been in power for 20 years and during that time it's created this catastrophe human moral catastrophe and I wouldn't want to put that guy in the White House.

[2112] Do you think that that's because of who he's obliged to support?

[2113] Like what has gotten him to the position?

[2114] Like who has funded his campaigns?

[2115] Yeah.

[2116] I had a former member of the Board of Supervisors that he was, he was a member of the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco before he ran for mayor.

[2117] And this person told me that there was some vote coming up and that, that he inadvertently insulted Gavin by saying, hey, just tell me who's making the decision so I can meet with them.

[2118] In other words, who's making the decision for you?

[2119] Oh, wow.

[2120] And he said, I inadvertently insulted him, but Gavin wasn't insulted.

[2121] Like, he sort of under, he, like, was like, well, yeah, like.

[2122] So, I mean.

[2123] So it's understood.

[2124] But this is kind of anecdotal, right?

[2125] Like, yeah.

[2126] It's sort of anecdotal.

[2127] On the other hand, you look at the decisions that are being made.

[2128] I mean, this.

[2129] This is why Gavin's failure is such an indictment of the expert class because he's actually followed the expert recommendations on these things and made the situation worse.

[2130] They did housing.

[2131] The experts all said housing first, housing first, housing first, just give people on the street their own apartment unit.

[2132] Don't require anything in return and that will solve homelessness.

[2133] I mean, that's what that's the, he pioneered housing first.

[2134] It is kind of astonishing that experts have been wrong about everything, whether it's the way they handled COVID, the way they handled homelessness, the way they handled crime and violence, energy, energy.

[2135] Every single thing.

[2136] There's not one thing they can point to to a large uptick.

[2137] Joe, I would go to, I went to Europe for the last six years, and I meet with, like, except for the Netherlands, but in most of Europe, I would be like, you guys are becoming too dependent on Russian gas.

[2138] You've got to keep your nuclear plants operating so that you're not wholly dependent.

[2139] on Putin and they'd go no no you don't understand Putin's dependent on us for our money to buy his gas you silly American cut to you know and it was like great so then like when they when when Putin invades then Europe's like well will some they don't have an answer well it's it's I wish there was a superpower that we could point to that's doing it correctly you know and that used to be what people thought of America.

[2140] They used to think of America is it's like one place where it's not perfect, but at least they have the most amount of freedom and freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

[2141] And there's, is it just kind of a different?

[2142] The Dutch.

[2143] The Dutch do.

[2144] The Dutch in the fall announced that they were going to expand nuclear before Putin's invasion to Ukraine.

[2145] They were going to do nuclear in part because of our work with them.

[2146] It's a really beautiful relation.

[2147] I'm close with the member of parliament who brought me there.

[2148] she's the one that introduced me to her husband who's the character in San Francisco who taught me about carrots and sticks and who I shadowed the Dutch have I think what I'm inspired by is that her political party came to power addressing the open drug scenes in Amsterdam.

[2149] They shut down the open drug scenes.

[2150] They got people the care they needed.

[2151] They then took power over the subsequent decades because they were offering tough love.

[2152] You know, nuclear, I I mean, I always kind of think about how I don't want to over, you know, egg the comparison.

[2153] But, I mean, there is something about nuclear and this approach, which is like, yeah, nuclear's, nuclear is hard, but there's a right way to do it.

[2154] And the benefits are so enormous and not doing it creates more risks than doing it.

[2155] So it's kind of like, you know, I have people, there's definitely, I mean, becoming governor and doing what I need to do entail significant risks.

[2156] I'm aware of that.

[2157] Like, you know, it's, we're in a humanitarian disaster, but that doesn't mean that we couldn't make it worse.

[2158] Of course we could.

[2159] It requires great care, great responsibility for taking on that challenge.

[2160] But you have to lean into it.

[2161] You know, it's really, sometimes I think, when I look at how everything has failed at every level, I go, it's basically people, it's not just they follow the experts, is that they don't really take responsibility.

[2162] And so it's really the refusal to take responsibility.

[2163] at every step of the system.

[2164] I'll end, let me just end with one anecdote, which is that my favorite, one of my favorite thinkers is Victor Frankel, who wrote Mansearch for Meaning, and he loved America.

[2165] He wrote this book about surviving the death camps in Nazi Germany through mentality and a tough mind.

[2166] And he said, you know, I love America, but the project is incomplete.

[2167] You have a statue of liberty on the East Coast.

[2168] You need a statue of responsibility on the West Coast.

[2169] So one thing that I've decided that I'll do as governor is build a statue of responsibility in the San Francisco Bay.

[2170] Wow.

[2171] Complete the American project.

[2172] That's a great idea.

[2173] It means symbolically.

[2174] It'll mean a lot.

[2175] You really can't have true freedom.

[2176] You can't care for people without first taking responsibility.

[2177] And on that note, Michael Schellenberger, good luck to you, sir.

[2178] Thanks for having you, Joe.

[2179] My pleasure.

[2180] Bye, everybody.