Fox anchor drops MAJOR NEWS on Trump-Newsom

Fox anchor drops MAJOR NEWS on Trump-Newsom

I’m joined now by the anchor at Fox LA, Alex Michaelson. Alex, thanks for joining me. Great to see you, Brian. So, when it comes to California politics, you’re the guy. You are the main California uh politics reporter out here, and right now, California is very much in the news as this redistricting fight really starts to heat up. So, first and foremost, and I spoke with this about Gavin Newsome when I interviewed him a couple uh a couple of weeks back, but do you think that this is actually going to happen? Do you think that Newsome is fully committed to moving forward with this? I think Newsome’s fully committed. This week, I spoke to the chair of the DNC, Ken Martin, uh, Nationwide, and that they are fully committed to California doing this. I mean, as long as Texas move forward, um, they’ve said that if Texas doesn’t, they’re not going to do it. But if Texas moves forward, and all indications are that Texas is, uh, California is going for this. Uh, for a variety of reasons, it’s completely in Gavin Newsome’s best interest to do this. uh he realizes I think that his way to be uh a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination is to be seen as the strongest fighter. You if you go back to Mortal Kombat when we were kids, it’s like choose your fighter, right? And he’s trying to be seen as somebody who’s the fighter that you would choose. Uh and so this is a real way that he can use California’s super majority in both the Assembly and the Senate uh to produce actual results for the Democratic party and give the Democrats a real shot at winning the House. If Texas moves forward and California doesn’t do this, uh Democrats are essentially shut out most likely of any chance to win the House. You look at the map for the Senate, they’re probably not going to win the Senate. And obviously we know for the next two years they’re not going to have control of the White House. So, this is kind of the one shot. Uh Nome uh is all in on it. Uh the DNC is going to be all in in giving him money to do it. Uh I think you’re going to see a lot of Democratic donors rally to this cause. Uh but it’s not a a 100% slam dunk for sure thing that California voters are going to say yes to it. uh they have a special election that would probably happen on November 4th near when we’re going to have these uh you know uh elections in New Jersey and Virginia, but now there’s going to be a California election on an off year. Uh and there’s going to be tremendous pressure uh for California voters to basically make the decision to take less power uh for themselves, less power for independent redistricting, and try to make the system more partisan. Yeah. I mean, but look, I mean, the reality is that what we are doing right now is just unil. I mean, I can make the case to you. I think you understand the case that I would make, which is that and you’ve been and and let’s give you credit. You’ve been ahead of this issue for years and way ahead of other people. You’ve seen this fight coming for a long time. You’ve been trying to encourage people to be part of this fight for a long time when a lot of people frankly dismissed you. And now that it’s happening, uh, all of a sudden everybody wants to get behind this concept, which is something that you’ve been, uh, talking about for a while. Yeah. Well, I I appreciate that. And look, I I think that there is no virtue in unilaterally disarming, and that’s what we’ve done for so long. And we’ve watched Republicans gerrymander the everlasting hell out of Ohio and North Carolina and Wisconsin and Florida and Texas one time already and Utah and and just states across the country while Democrats engage in good governance uh in hopes of ushering in some reciprocation that never arrives. And so at this point, we can continue to unilaterally disarm and hope that Republicans are going to see that goodwill and respond. And when they don’t, we’re going to recognize that we’re just we’re just permanently um permanently pushing ourselves out of government. And and I don’t think that that I don’t think that that’s what anybody wants. And it certainly isn’t ushering in an era of good governance to watch Republicans run rough shot over the country. Um I mean, you end up with a system where, you know, a lot of people were taught as kids, you know, two wrongs don’t make a right. Uh so if you really believe in this concept uh that there should be independent redistricting that it shouldn’t be driven by partisan politics uh that that then for you to make the choice to get rid of that system is hard for some people to get there. That being said, if you are a partisan, which in California a uh majority of people are Democrats, 25% more Democrats than Republicans, uh and you see what Trump is doing, and you’re fearful about everything else, uh then you say, “All right, this is what we got to do for now.” The problem is, um you know, you know, in the Cold War, they talked about mutually assured uh destruction. Um what we’re doing, both parties are doing here, is destroying democracy. Uh now I know you would say Republicans bear more responsibility for that and in fact they are the ones taking the charge on this. So let’s be clear about that. But what’s happening I with this democratic response is we are making the system less democratic, less fair, and we’re making our politicians less responsive to the needs of the actual people. Uh and so we’re going to have a system that only increases partisanship and decreases actual connection to real voters. And so my push back to that would be, look, it is one party, the Democrats, that are pushing for a ban on partisan gerrymandering. And they’ve tried to push that through with HR1 rep, not a single Republican voted for it. And so, look, I I understand that it’s easy to to look at this in a vacuum right now as if we were all just born today and to see, oh, look, this is a race to the bottom. But the end of the line for Democrats is that we have a ban on partisan gerrymandering nationwide. The end of the line for Republicans in their ideal world is just all of the Republican states are gerrymandered to within an inch of their lives. So there is a different goal at the end of this for both parties. The Democrats don’t want to engage in a process where we just gerrymander all of our states and that’s just how it goes. Our goal at the end of this is to actually ban partisan gerrymandering and to have fair maps across the country. We tried one avenue where we have these independent redistricting commissions in our major Democratic strongholds like California and New York. it was never reciprocated by Republicans. And so now, if we’re going to try to have good governance at the end of this, then you need to get in power to be able to do anything. And the only way to get in power while Republicans are gerrymandering is to fight back, fight fire with fire, get in the majority, and then pass some of these reforms that we actually want to see. Well, I mean, when we when we there was actually a push to do independent redistricting in California, uh, like 2008, 2010, that period, there weren’t a lot of Democrats that were behind it. Gavin Newsome was one of them who was uh but most were not because it would be bad for the party. Uh and when Democrats had a chance to have full control of government a few times in the last you know 2530 years they did not pass uh independent gerrymandering around the country. So most parties operate for whatever’s in their particular best interest. But it is it is obvious and objective that Republican party and many people in the Republican party do not believe in the government system itself. Think the whole thing is flawed. So they do not have the reverence for the institutions that Democrats have and have no problem tearing it down because they don’t believe in it in the first place. Yeah. I mean look there is a difference there. I would I would push back and say this is this is well beyond reverence for institutions. This is not us defending the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Like this is this is this is a basic respect for the core tenants of democracy. This is just allowing equal rep like fair representation in the House. This is allow giving Democrat daining to allow Democrats to have a majority when they get more votes. I mean we’ve seen the ways in which they’ve jerrymandered their states that they’re continuing to do this midcycle redistricting. This is not just a lack of reverence for institutions. This is Republicans completely abandoning democracy and and our democratic institutions as we know it. And and and President Trump has not demonstrated a whole lot of love for objective truths. Yeah. I mean, look at what he did this week with the consumer, you know, the the the numbers from the labor department. You don’t like the numbers, so get rid of the person who delivered you the numbers. Pretend like the numbers don’t exist. You look in the first term uh when COVID testing showed a lot of positive tests. He said, “Let’s stop testing because if we aren’t testing, we don’t have positives.” Uh I mean, you think about the way that he has created his own reality uh by just denying things. I mean, think about Georgia uh in in 2020. Find me the votes. I mean, he’s essentially doing the same thing now in Texas by saying, “Find me the votes.” Uh it’s President Trump uh you know, using his will to create a new reality and and honestly give the guy credit. I mean, it’s a it’s a you know, he’s very good at doing it and he’s he’s been able to get his way time and time again in a lot of these instances. Obviously, not all of them. Wasn’t able to do it in 2020. Uh but he is, you know, thing by thing imposing his will on the entire world. And if you’re a Republican voter, a base voter who voted for Trump, in a lot of instances, it’s promises made, promises kept in terms of his agenda. You look at the way in which Trump, to your exact point, is manifesting into reality whatever existence he he is looking for, right? And I think in large part, that’s exactly why Democrats have to push back that because because he has been so successful in barreling through and getting whatever he wants. And then you have Democrats who are historically much more cautious, much more careful than the Republicans anyway. And so to contrast the two parties where you have Trump who will barrel ahead, get whatever he wants, not be deterred by the law or certainly democratic norms or institutions, small D democratic norms and institutions or even the US Constitution or judges. And then meanwhile, we’ve got Democrats trying to practice good government in in hope that Republicans are going to reciprocate. They don’t. And so just the asymmetry between the two sides where Trump is not impeded by anything and yet you look at the other side where Democrats are often impeded by everything and that’s the asymmetry that I think so many Democratic voters are so sick and tired of which is why this fight is such a welcome fight that we’re seeing right now because it’s the first time that Democrats are actually willing to fight fire with fire if it of course does go forward with which I guess leads to this next question which is now that Newsome has engaged in this fight do you think that there’s some risk here because if he fails then that does feel like more of the same. And so now that you’ve kind of jumped in the water, you have to make sure that you can swim to the other side. Yeah, he’s going to be all in on this and give everything that he has. Reminds me sort of of the recall uh which we had in in 2021 where he had to fight that thing all in. And I think we’re going to be seeing a whole lot of Gavin Newsome. you know, he’s clearly made a calculation, which by the way, I think is the same calculation he made in 2022. Uh, if you remember back then after Roie Wade was overturned, Gavin Newsome came on with me and with other people with this line, “Where the hell is the Democratic Party? Where’s my party?” basically slamming the Democratic party for a weak and ineffective response and making the calculation that the party needs a social media fighter who’s willing to punch President Trump in the face. And he was going forward, I think I think with the assumption that Joe Biden was not going to uh run for re-election. Uh and that was going to be the basis of his presidential campaign. Uh obviously Democrats won just enough votes in the House for Biden to stay. We all know what happens there. Newsome has to do a body hug of Biden because he thought that would be better for him. Uh, also having Kla Harris be president would not be great for him. Uh, and now he’s in this place where he kind of was in 2022 when he made that original theory which is saying that Democrats desperately want somebody to punch back, somebody to be tough. He had a a brief moment with Charlie Kirk and and some others on his podcast where he tried this idea of centism. He realized that that didn’t work. that lasted for like a week and a half for him and now he’s back to this this this theory. I mean, Gavin Newsome is somebody who obsessively looks at u you know what’s working on social media. He looks at TV ratings. He watches Fox News. He’s like very plugged in to sort of where the electorate is and what people are doing in the way in similar ways that Trump is frankly. Um, but that gives him a sense, I think, an instinctive sense of of what people are yearning for. And especially if you do that a lot in the social media space, it probably makes you even more wanting to do that fighter thing. Uh, which is different, I think, than a lot of his Democratic colleagues who who frankly don’t, I think, spend a lot of time in those spaces. Uh, so they have a different instinctive feel. You speak to a lot of Republicans on your show. You’re one of the few people who is able to to really engage in conversations with folks from both sides. would love to have some Republicans. Not well, look, I would love to have Republicans come on. They don’t respond to my emails. Um, it’s I’m still waiting for that. Marjorie I mean, I’ve legitimately emailed the offices of like Marjorie Teller Green and and and Lauren Boowbert. Nobody Nobody responds. Surprise, surprise. Lauren Boowbert’s busy doing other things. Keep going. Yeah, that’s right. Heading into watching uh um uh Beetleju. Beetleju. Okay, keep going. Patroniz patronizing the local musical. Um, with that said, when you speak about Gavin Newsome to some of these Republican folks, how effect how effective of a villain does he serve for them? And the reason I asked that is because for so long, Republicans have relied on on these villains to really fuel their own their own prospects. And we saw that with Hillary Clinton for the better part of a decade. It’s often been George Soros. Uh Nancy Pelosi was it as well. So, you know, California Democrats do have a long history of of occupying this role. Adam Schiff, but but when you talk about Gavin Newsome, you know, he has made overtures to the right, but but that notwithstanding, how does he fit into this mold of the new villain uh of of this new era uh for these Republicans? Uh to use a Gavin Newsome phrase, he’s next level. Period. Full stop. you know, he’s uh No, I mean, you see it, you see, I look at the EP social media numbers, too. Um, he drives a level of anger and hatred and disgust and vitriol on the right that very few people do. Um, and it’s part of the reason that he gets such great social media engagement numbers when you talk to him or when he puts stuff out because a lot of that’s driven by people who like him. And there’s a lot of people who hate him and especially in California um there’s a lot of people that have not forgotten about co um and that see him as somebody who was one of the first to lock down the state that he kept public uh schools closed longer than most. They obviously remember the French Laundry incident when he was dining out when other people were told not to even though it was technically illegal, it was a bad look and all the rest of it. And so, um, he provokes an anger that you don’t see for very many people. Um, and you know that I think he would hope and Democrats would hope that he creates a positive uh response in people on the left and and and we we don’t know that yet. Uh we’re going to see uh because we still have a ways to go obviously. Um we were talking about this a bit before we got on. The kinds of candidates that have traditionally won the Democratic presidential uh nomination and then gone on to win the presidency are more centrist consiliatory candidates. Yeah. you know, uh, Bill Clinton, the governor of Arkansas who’s like talking about, you know, welfare reform and and, you know, uh, Barack Obama who ran as there’s no, you know, blue states and red states. It’s the United States. Joe Biden, uh, running as sort of, you know, your nice grandpa, but I mean, not too extreme. The time has changed. It’s clear that the time has changed. Right. Exactly. And so, the question is, are we in a different era? And do Democrats want a different kind of leader? And can that work? We do not have an example so far of a Democrat in that mold winning the presidency, but we had never had an example of a Republican in that mold winning the presidency until Donald Trump did it. Right. And and also I I think that this is the first time that the moment would call for something like that. When when Biden was coming into office, I think people were exhausted at at at what they viewed as a fluke, a one-off. It was like, “Okay, we had Trump. We want to get rid of Trump. We want to go back to normal. But but I I don’t think that there is a world that’s normal in the aftermath of Trump. I think that the the Republican party has has just be has fallen into the mold of what Trump is right now. And there’s not getting there there is no coming back from this for these Republicans. I mean they vote in lock step lock step with Trump. They are wholly owned subsidiaries of Trump. There is no more shame in today’s Republican party. Trump says jump. They say how high. That’s why we’re seeing these these Texas maps get jerrymandered midcycle. There is a complete um abandonment of democracy across the country in deference to a consolidation of power by this MAGA GOP. And so I I mean look I can speak for myself. He he I know I this is I know you’re not going to want He takes care of his base though. I mean if you think about it Trump takes care of his base. Think about it. uh his first off he’s great at branding and if if you ask the average Republican what does the Republican party stand for they would say we make America great again we’re uh tough on immigration we lower taxes and we’re tough on trans rights right like that’s that’s what they do and you know what he’s done all those things right he’s he’s in he’s gotten tough on the border right he’s he’s uh he’s you know he’s done uh the culture war stuff. He’s like leaned into that fight. The only one I would push back on taxes for rich people, right? I mean, lower taxes for rich people, raise taxes in the form of a consumption tax with the tariffs. But but yes, but I’m just saying but I’m saying if you’re in that camp, right? You understand what he’s going for. He says the same simple thing over and over again. And to his credit, he’s tried to deliver for you and and and has put some points on the board. The challenge for the Democratic party right now is what is the Democratic brand? What is the one sentence that defines what the Democratic what is the Democratic Party for? What are the the the two or three policy objectives other than we don’t like Donald Trump? Uh to to bring the party to relevance to make it seem more interesting to people who have not maybe loving Trump, but are disgusted with the system and have just said, “F it. I’m out.” And aren’t voting. uh is there a way to get to those people and uh we haven’t I don’t think we’ve seen that yet. Do you think that there is an opening by virtue of the fact that look you you you name some things that Trump has delivered on. There’s also the fact that the guy has run populist platforms and he doesn’t deliver populist platforms certainly not economic populist platforms. He’s pro he ran mostly on on running to to lower the cost of groceries. That that that brand new shiny word groceries that nobody’s ever heard of before. lower the cost of eggs, lower the cost of rent, lower the cost of housing. He’s raised raised all the prices of those things by virtue of his trade war. He he I mean, and and this is what he does. He does these he he’s presented populist platforms before. In his first term, he ran on an infrastructure law, a jobs boom, a a manufacturing renaissance, a health care plan that was cheaper and more comprehensive. None of those things happened. He gave himself a tax cut. And this second term, promised again lower prices on everything, promised to end the Ukraine Russia war on day one, promised to bring uh inflation down. inflation’s going up right now. Uh promised to release the Epstein files. Won’t do that. Promised free IVF for everybody. Just announced today that that’s not going to happen. And so we’ve seen plenty of these populist platform platform planks that he has refused to deliver on. And I think people are recognizing that as well. And look, yeah, if you want to attack trans people, he’s your guy. If you want somebody who’s going to be a culture warrior, he’s your guy. But I wonder if you think that there’s an opening by virtue of the fact that a lot of the things that he promised has refused to deliver on. And and And I’ll say this one last thing. Um, he’s refusing to deliver on these things while simultaneously heaping these opulent benefits onto himself, which doesn’t exactly help him in the optics front. When you are giving yourself a $200 million ballroom, when you are gifting yourself a billion dollar retrofitted Qatari jet that you get to keep after the presidency at the same time that you’re refusing to lower costs and cutting healthcare for 17 million Americans and food assistance to the tune of $300 billion. All of those together tell a very clear story about the kinds of people you’re looking to help and the kinds of people that you’re perfectly content to over despite what you promised them during the campaign. Yeah. I mean, I don’t think there’s any way that you could talk to a Republican if they’re giving you straight uh that if Barack Obama did a billion dollar Qatari jet for himself, they would be okay with that. But, uh, look, yes, his Achilles heel, uh, is the economy. Uh which is why he literally fired the person who gave the jobs numbers because he realizes that his biggest weakness is if is that um he knows that that lowering it’s why you see on this tariffs thing you know that the taco Trump always chickens out if it gets to be too bad he just changes the numbers um because he’s he’s recognizing that that is of course his potential weakest position and that is something that Democrats have as the potential potential way forward, right? This idea of uh there are no ma even though in our media universe we pretend like there aren’t objective truths, there are some objective truths. If you go to the grocery store, that number is a number like it’s either higher or it’s lower. Uh you go to the gas station, that number is either higher or lower. I mean, people uh can feel they go to the doctor and all of a sudden some of what they had before isn’t paid for by insurance and now they’re having to pay it out of cost. All these things, real people that don’t watch shows like this, that are living dayto-day, that are struggling to get by because shit’s just too expensive, they all of a sudden now feel this in a different way and they say, “What the fuck?” Right? Like that’s a real thing. And so, yes, that is a huge uh potential problem for him. And to your point about the elites, the reason why the Jeffrey Epstein story is so big for the MAGA base is because Jeffrey Epstein is a story about protecting elites. That’s what it is. It’s this idea of the deep state. This pedophile cabal. That’s the corner uh stone of what KQanon’s all about. That’s what KQanon started with. this this premise uh that there’s this ring of powerful people that are molesting and abusing children and they all protect each other in order to hurt these kids. And so when you say we’re going to uncover that, we’re going to expose that. We’re going to root that out. And then you don’t do any of that, what does that make you seem like to these base people? It makes it seem like you’re a part of it. Yeah. So that’s why that issue hits so much. uh Epstein is connected to the idea of of the economy and costs going up because both are the same thing which is like we can afford it. It’s not hurting us. So you, right? And that’s that is the weakness. Now the Democrats need to be able to do it in a way where people buy into what they’re saying and they don’t look weak and they don’t look pandering. Um, and and some of it is hard because some of these Democrats who never talked about Jeffrey Epstein when Joe Biden was in charge for four years all of a sudden seem obsessed with the idea because Trump is there and they seem kind of craven and opportunistic. There needs to be an authentic messaging uh happening on issues that that people genuinely care about. Yeah. Well, look, on the Epste thing, I’m one of those people who was not moved by the Epstein story while Joe Biden was in office and certainly wasn’t moved in it moved by it when he when Trump came into office. But I think like a lot of people in this country, including you know, non-political folks as well, when you see Donald Trump fall over himself to prevent you from looking at the at the thing that everybody that he told everybody to look at, and suddenly starts calling for the arrest of Barack Obama so that we don’t look at it, suddenly calls for the arrest of Kla Harris that we don’t look at it. And then Oprah and Al Sharpton and Beyonce, and then maybe we should change the the the name of the Washington Commanders to the Washington Redskins. And look, there’s cane sugar and Coca-Cola now. and uh you know, anything under the sun that he can think. Let’s denaturalize Rosie O’Donnell. And then we start to get the drip drip drip of what he’s actually done and and the fact that he’s in the files and was alerted by the DOJ. All of that makes it pretty obvious that he is trying to cover up something. And so I don’t think you lose points for not being interested in the Epstein story um only to then want to focus on a story that is so evidently salacious and and such a blatant cover up in terms of what he’s doing. I I think that I think that anybody regardless of your interest beforehand uh would would recognize that it’s well placed to start focusing your attention on this now. Well, a and the most potentially outrageous outcome of this entire Epstein thing when the Republican base largely for years have been pushing for accountability when it comes to Gain Maxwell. There is a not% chance that this ends with Galain Maxwell being let out, potentially being pardoned, orchestrated the whole thing. At the end of the day, nobody is held accountable. And the one person who actually has been held accountable could use her dirt on President Trump potentially, we don’t know if she has it, this is just supposition, but could use that as a leverage tool to get herself out of prison. And then there’s literally nobody held accountable at all. So everybody that’s been pushing for this, it could end up with literally the opposite. Yeah. Go from release the Epstein files to release Epstein’s accomplice. That’s a that’s a hell of a jump. Okay, let’s let’s pivot over to the last topic here and that is uh the California gubanatorial race. First and foremost, what do you what was your take on the fact that Kla Harris announced that she wasn’t running for governor and do you think that she’s setting the stage for her to be able to engage in a presidential run in 28? Uh she’s leaving the door open to a presidential run in 2028. I think she genuinely hasn’t made that decision yet. It didn’t it didn’t seem like a particularly uh uh compelling argument when she was on Coar and talking about it didn’t sound like someone who was primed for a 28 run. No, I mean look, I think she’s exhausted. I think she’s uh been through a lot uh having talked to people that are close to her. She just kind of came to the decision that she didn’t really want to be governor. Um she hasn’t really been interested or active in a lot of these California issues in a very long time. uh she was never an executive in this state in the traditional sense. She was never a mayor. She was never a supervisor. She was never obviously a governor, lieutenant governor. Um she was a attorney general. She was a senator. She was dealing with issues that aren’t like homelessness and housing affordability. A lot of the things that are sort of at the core of what California uh is is struggling with right now. Um I think it would have um frankly lessened her to run for governor. Uh right now, whatever room she walks into, she’s madam vice president. She’ll always be madam vice president. She’s the first female vice president. She was the Democratic nominee. Um, you know, with with respect to myself, like if she would have run for governor, instead of doing that first interview on Co Bear, she would have probably done it with me, right? It just wouldn’t have felt as cool as being in the Ed Sullivan theater with like all those people and a hundred million dollar budget. like it’s, you know, she’s she’s actually, I think, makes herself bigger by not running for governor and sort of getting in the mud of going up and down the central valley talking about water issues. Just just as a as a quick aside, when you become governor after being vice president, do you retain the madam vice president moniker or does the or does the lower I mean objectively a governor is not not as as uh as you know um impressive as as a vice president. Does that forever take the place of that vice presidential moniker? I think it’s kind of whatever you choose, right? You know, somebody like like uh Coen Pal when he was secretary of state, not a not a bad title, preferred to be called general uh because he, you know, thought that that was a more impressive title and that was that’s pretty four-star general and chairman joint chiefs. Pretty impressive title, too. I mean, guy’s done a lot. Um but yeah, that’s an interesting uh question and we haven’t had that. And when Richard Nixon was vice president and ran for governor of California, he lost. So, we didn’t get to have that uh that I guess it’s whatever you make it, which I guess raises the question now. Uh who are you looking at in terms of the top contenders for the governor of California? Uh I think the race is is wide open. Um you know, we we you got to think about so like all this stuff with redistricting reminds you that it’s like about the rules, right? And so you got to play to the rules. So, in California, for people that may not know, we have a top two primary system uh which is open to everybody. Everybody can run. There is no Democratic primary. So, you could have a situation where you have two Democrats running. You could have a Democrat and Republican. You could have any sort of split. Uh so, the the most likely outcome based off of the numbers uh is that one Democrat and one Republican end up in the top two. A Republican gets 25 30% in the first round. uh then the Democrat wins in a landslide in the general election. Um the interesting thing is could there be a situation where you end up with two Democrats that make the top two? They’re able to box out that Republican and you end up with a a real competitive race. Um there’s a fight uh for this the the lane of the Democratic establishment leftist person uh that’s like Katie Porter and Javier Bera and Elenni Kunalakis and a bunch of people that you most people probably don’t know. Uh there may be a fight for this sort of centrist Democrat lane. There’s a guy named Steven Kubc, a billionaire businessman who I had on my show this week who’s an interesting character. Rick Caruso I think probably ends up getting into the race for governor at the interesting You don’t you don’t think he’s going to challenge Karen Bass for mayor of LA again? I think that running for governor may be an easier path. I think he’s I know he’s doing polling right now. He’ll probably make a decision in the next couple months, but you know, if he gets in and then you’ve got the Republican lane, too. So, it’s uh there’s no clear dominant front runner. Um, but it’s it’s going to be challenging for a bunch of people to try to get attention in the most expensive uh media markets in the country and the most uh crowded um field that we’ve had in a very long time. Who do you think Katie Porter is the immediate front runner given Kamla’s refusal to run? A uh a very weak front runner. Yeah. I mean, she’s got the most name ID. Um a lot of polls show that people know her the best. Um but as we saw when she ran for Senate statewide, she didn’t win and she came in a distant third. So um you know when they voters had a chance to embrace her statewide, they didn’t. Um so maybe she’s going this is the time. This is the right field for her. But um it’s going to be it’s going to be tough and and I don’t know. You know, it’s hard. Um you know, this race doesn’t happen until June of uh next year is when the primary happens. And as we’ve seen, a lot can happen in politics uh you know, be before then. just this year in in California. You know, we started the year off with the biggest wildfires we’ve ever had, most devastating. Uh and then we had the ice raids, both of which uh you know, completely changed our politics on the ground locally. Um and so we don’t know what could happen between now and and next June. Um stories that we haven’t even thought about that could change the dynamics of the race, too. Well, to that point, um, you know, in in those instances where California is in the news, I always find myself texting you to let me know if I’m if if I’m in immediate danger. So, like with with those wildfires, I mean, I was literally texting you, can you please let me know if um we we have something called Runan Canyon in in the middle of Hollywood and the fire was contained on Runan Canyon. But Renion butts up against against Beverly Hills um to the west. Uh West Hollywood uh east of that Hollywood to the east of that. Um on the other side of the hill, it’s Burbank and Studio City. And so all of the places that people know when they think of Los Angeles, the Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Hollywood, uh Burbank, Studio City, like all of those places were at imminent risk with Runan Canyon. That fire is in the middle of all of those things. It’s a very famous hiking trail. And so, uh, I was texting texting Alex all night to let me know if I was going to have to, you know, leave the leave the city and and try to try to, uh, uh, vacate my my my house here. And then recently with the tsunami was the same thing. I was like, please let me know if if a tsunami is going to engulf engulf my home at some point. So, so ultimately that’s what the job I mean that’s kind of what the job of a local news anchor is in crisis. I mean, local news is really really important. Uh, and your job is to kind of hold people’s hands through a crisis. Um, sort of like a father figure, you know. Uh, it’s it’s a weird a weird place to be in. And and and to you’re the natural the natural disaster father of Los Angeles here. Yeah. And to the point on the fires, just not to get too in the weeds, but what we saw with that Ren Canyon instance is how important it is to have firefighting helicopters. The reason the Eaton fire and the Palisades fire were so devastating was because we had a 100 mph winds and we weren’t flying helicopters. So, they weren’t able to get the water on them in the same way. Couple days later, Renan Canyon fire started, wasn’t as bad of winds. They were able to get helicopters up and within an hour, the whole thing was pretty much taken care of. So, that shows the P those guys, those firefighters in the helicopters do such amazing work. They made uh Newsome made an announcement today about about having the the biggest fleet of of uh of firefighting helicopters I think in the world at this point. So yeah, including choppers that can fly 24/7, which is really important for those night operations. Yeah, I mean I remember looking out my window and seeing those helicopters every every 45 seconds or so, another another dump at the hands of those helicopters. So uh yeah, pretty wild stuff that I hope I never see again. Uh, with that said, Alex, how can folks who are listening right now and watching see and hear more from you? Yeah, they can check out youtube.com/ellixelsson. That’s alex with an e. Uh, you can check out our work also uh the issue is podcast and see some of our past episodes including episodes with Brian. Um, and uh, and then social media. I’m Alexson, Alex Michaelelsson on X, but Alexson on Insta and Tik Tok and all the rest. and would love to be able to engage with you and and if you could subscribe to my YouTube page. Awesome. I will put the link to your YouTube channel right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Alex, I appreciate your time. Thanks, Brian. [Music]

INTERVIEW: Fox anchor @elexmichaelson talks about Newsom’s response to Texas gerrymander and the CA governor’s race.

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