Gavin is joined by New York Times opinion columnist and podcaster, Ezra Klein, to discuss what Democrats can learn from his and co-author Derek Thompson’s new book Abundance.IG: @ThisisGavinNewsomEmail: ThisisGavinNewsom@iheartradio.comPhone: 855-6NEWSOMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What can Democrats learn from 'Abundance'?
Well, coming up next, I have Ezra Klein here in studio talking about his new book that he co-authored with Derek Thompson called Abundance. In this book, Ezra does not hold back on taking a very critical look at democratic governance all across the United States of America, in particular, in my home state of California. This is Gavin Newsom. And this is Ezra Klein.
Ezra, it is great to have you here in studio. Thanks for having me here for this weird inversion. Weird inversion. And you've been, I mean, you've been all over the place. You got a new book, Abundance, and we'll jump right into that. But I want to just frame a little bit of the relationship that we have that goes back, and you may not even remember this.
I was a new mayor in San Francisco and was asked by Bill Maher to go on a show. I remember this. And you were one of the panelists. And I'll never forget just sparring with Bill, obviously, and then you. And after the show was done and we were all finishing, you had left. Maher goes up to me and he goes, who the hell was that? And I'm like, I know. Who the hell was that? And it was you.
We were like, whoa. Just both of us didn't have a, you know, I was relatively new. Bill's been seasoned pro.
You were Lieutenant Governor then. I don't think you were mayor then.
Maybe I was Lieutenant Governor. Was I still, was I Lieutenant Governor? I'm pretty sure you were Lieutenant Governor. So maybe I was Lieutenant Governor. But I was like, anyway, I'd been on the show a bunch of times, but you were, you had a next level capacity to analyze things and to deliver a point of view.
And so it's not surprising to me that so much of that, including that conversation we probably had on that studio and set, is reflected in what you've been focused on for decades and decades.
It's funny. I think about your book from that era. Republic 2.0 it was called, right? Yeah, it was Citizenville. Citizenville?
Yeah, how to take the town square digital and reinvent government.
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Chapter 2: How does California's governance impact housing?
They have, well, you established that in the book. In Houston, you make the point, I think it was 70,000 permits in 2023, just 7,500 in a much smaller city, San Francisco, but understandable contract. But a city with more demand. More demand, and it's simply because they have no zoning. They have land use considerations in Houston. But Austin has zoning.
Yeah, but not Houston in the context of that frame.
The thing I'm getting at here, which I really would like your, the thing you just said, right, about localism, it's so important. And like, this is so much the conversation I'd love for us to have here because the texture that you have been grappling with of why do things that you want to have happen not happen is I think a really interesting thing to add to it.
But when you're saying, well, you know, is this really a problem for liberals? It's easier to build in Texas and Florida than not just in California, but in California or New York. The cost of living crisis is worse in blue states. And a little bit of that is blue states are a place a lot of people want to live.
But you should be able to in places where you're governing for the working class in theory. Keep the cost of living.
And your point is a point, just to level set people listening, I completely agree. This notion of the supply-demand imbalance. I mean, you're making an econ 101 argument. And that supply imbalance is next level in the state of California. We're simply not building enough housing.
And that goes to, I mean, and you correctly identify nimbyism and people, you know, incumbent protection racket, so to speak, not just from a corporate perspective, but someone who's very satisfied with their backyard and their views and their home and their community. They don't want density. They don't want other people moving in. They don't want any infrastructure built around it.
As it relates to transportation, they're very satisfied with what they have. And I think, and they abuse in some respects, a lot of these rules that have been around decades and decades to advance that aim.
So you identified all this, I think, pretty well as a problem for the state and for you. So when you gave a state of the state a couple of years back, I'm genuinely forgetting the number. What was the housing goal you set?
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Chapter 3: Why is it easier to build in Texas than in California?
And Ezra Bridger, Spectre 6 from Star Wars Rebels.
Wait, I wasn't on Star Wars Rebels. Am I in the right place? Absolutely.
Each week, we're going to rewatch and discuss an episode from the series.
And share some fun behind-the-scenes stories. Sometimes we'll be visited by special guests like Steve Bloom, voice of Zabarelio Specter IV, or Dante Bosco, voice of Jai Kell, and many others.
Sometimes we'll even have a lively debate.
And we'll have plenty of other fun surprises and trivia, too.
Oh, and me? Well, I'm the lucky ghost crew stowaway who gets to help moderate and guide the discussion each week. Kind of like how Kanan guided Ezra in the Ways of the Force. You see what I did there?
Nicely done, John. Thanks, Tia. So, hang on, because it's going to be a fun ride.
Cue the music!
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Chapter 4: What is the status of California's high-speed rail project?
And by the way, that city's coming around. It's turning around in significant ways.
Objectively. I love SF too. Yeah, objectively. You know, as I say, what is it? Criticism is an act of love. Yes, God bless you.
There's a lot of love in this book.
A lot of love in this book, man. A lot of love in this book. But, and then this is, I think, always the great- Paradox of California. California is the frontier of the future. It always has been. And technologically, as you said, but also culture, right? You go to Northern California, we're inventing everybody's technology. You go to Southern, we're giving the whole world its culture, right?
It's a wild place. And to me, the reason the housing thing matters here, the reason I structure the housing chapter the way that I do with Derek is that you need to make it possible for people to be and prosper from that prosperity, right? It is good for people to be near the AI boom. I have friends, I mean, they fought fires in the city of San Francisco and couldn't afford to live there, right?
The point of California's riches is that they should be shared, not shared necessarily just through taxation and redistribution, but through the ability of people to go live in these super high productivity places, where as happened with like a young Steve Jobs and Wozniak, you sort of fall into this world where maybe if you have a genius for something, you have the connections to make it matter.
You know, I have this sort of line in the book that in making these cities so expensive, we did the real gating. We really closed the frontier because the true frontier isn't land, it's ideas.
You frame it with Horace Greeley, go west, young man, go west. And then you create that new construct.
Yeah, so I want to pull that. It's actually everything you say about California. And you know this, I'm not telling, I'm saying it for the audience that California, that makes it so important that like the working class families can be here and are not driven out.
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Chapter 5: How does liberalism affect infrastructure projects?
And a lot of these three lever agencies- I'm close to Nicholas Bagley, the more liberal law professor making these rules.
But I'll take the hit. No, well, it's not even a hit, but I mean, I think it goes to the sentiment. It goes to, I think it goes to the thematics of your book. It goes to what you're trying to stress test and what you're trying to stress upon us as Democrats that we need to be more accountable. Here's something- But let me make this point. I say this all the time to my legislative friends.
Right when I signed a bill, I said- This happens so often, it's not an indictment of any individual legislature. It's sort of institutionalized. They think the process is done. The process has just begun.
It's just beginning.
Program passing is not problem solving. And then that implementation application goes through exactly what you're saying. You mentioned no foes in the book. We have no fuzz, which are notice of funny availability, not opportunity. And then you stack all those things up with all these rules and requirements along the lines you suggest. just said. And I think there's absolute legitimacy.
I have this joke that everybody knows a schoolhouse rock song of like how a bill becomes a law, but what they don't know is how a law becomes or does not become like a reality, right? Like the things that happen after actually much more complicated.
But I want to say one thing about Elon Musk and Doge and this point I was just, I just referenced Nick Bagley, who is a great administrative law professor at U of Michigan. He was Gretchen Whitmer's, your gubernatorial colleagues, chief counsel. He wrote this piece that's very influential these days and very influential for me called The Procedural Fetish.
And one of the things he says in that that I think is really wise is that the Democratic Party is very legalistic. It's got a lot of lawyers in it. Between Tim Walz was the first person on a Democratic ticket since Mondale to not go to law school. We're very legalistic.
And lawyers and constitutional lawyers and administrative procedure lawyers, they grapple a lot with a very hard question, which is what makes government action legitimate? And the answer they often come to is procedure, right? It is following the procedure set out in the laws and the rules and the court orders, et cetera.
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