Newsom talks AI, Epstein files and immigration in 4-hour podcast
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FOUR HOURS LATER
As the MAGA movement continues to tear itself apart over the Department of Justice’s refusal to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, Gov. Gavin Newsom weighed in on President Donald Trump’s ties to the deceased sex trafficker. Calling Attorney General Pam Bondi an “old friend,” Newsom told podcaster Shawn Ryan that it was “interesting” that after Elon Musk accused him of being in the files, “Trump defensively jumped in” to defend her after the DOJ said it would not release any related court records.
“That was the most defensive I’ve seen him in a while,” Newsom said of Trump, with whom he’s been feuding over federal immigration raids in California. “Look man ... Epstein and Trump knew each other. That’s not even, there’s no fake videos. Those aren’t AI videos of those guys hanging out ... I don’t know. I’m going to leave it to more objective minds. I have no objectivity.”
After his trip to South Carolina last week, Newsom stopped in Nashville to record an interview with Ryan, who hosts Spotify’s 9th most popular show in the U.S. Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, gifted the governor a California-compliant SIG Sauer pistol. Newsom, a self-described bow hunter, said he had taken his kids to the Wing & Barrel Ranch in Sonoma County on Mother’s Day to go skeet-shooting, which he bragged he was “not good, but great” at.
Over the course of four hours(!), Newsom talked at length about his background, starting with his parents’ divorce and his struggle with dyslexia; his thoughts on the COVID vaccine (“saves lives”); his French Laundry scandal (“everyone who criticized me is [expletive] right”); Musk’s plan to build a third political party (“I think it’s going nowhere”), and Trump’s targeting of transgender athletes (“He told me, ‘you got abortion, I got this’”).
He also talked up his business bona fides as the “entrepreneurial mayor” and claimed that former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown named him to the city Parking and Traffic Commission in 1996, his first foray into politics, because he had incessantly complained about the cost of city business permits: “I’m trying to create jobs, and you’re telling me I have to put in a mop sink for a carpeted business?”
Newsom demurred (“who the [expletive] knows, that’s fate”) when Ryan asked about his supposed 2028 presidential aspirations and praised other potential Democratic contenders like Pete Buttigieg, Mark Cuban, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
After repeating his usual talking points about California’s low rates of crime and growth in homelessness compared to other states like Florida and Texas, Newsom said that the Golden State remained the top state for artificial intelligence companies, whose competition with Chinese firms like DeepSeek he called “the most definitive race of our lifetime.”
The governor’s staff did not make him available for an interview with The Bee, which on Monday published a wide-ranging story about his legislative record on AI, including questions about whether proponents’ claims about the technology’s capabilities were overstated, and whether companies like OpenAI’s business models were sustainable, given how much more money they hemorrhage compared to what they generate in profit.
“Thirty two of the top 50 AI companies on the planet are in my state,” he told Ryan. “NVIDIA just came out this week, $4 trillion market cap. Elon’s company is in California for a reason, because he couldn’t compete anywhere else in the AI space. He put his world (research and development) headquarters back into California ... because he needed to get back the superstar talent.”
Newsom said Trump’s tariffs and crackdown on immigration threatened the U.S.’s ability to dominate the AI world.
“The question is who’s going to win that (expletive) race (between China and the U.S.)? Is it going to be the American stack, like the American dollar, or is it going to be stack coming out of China?” he said.
“That’s why it’s absolutely essential we have an immigration policy that encourages the ability for folks to come to our country to continue to make the investments, not just in, not just in terms of capital investments into new business, but also research and development opportunities and develop patents and IP in our country to the extent we can compete as it relates to IP in China and the issues around national security.”
STATE OF THE GOVERNOR’S RACE
Via Nicole Nixon...
California’s gubernatorial primary is still more than 10 months away, but a new poll offers a look at how it could shake out — with Republican Steve Hilton advancing from the top-two contest to face off against a Democrat: either Katie Porter or Kamala Harris.
Overall, the largest slice of likely voters — 29% — are still undecided, according to the survey conducted by London-based firm Stack Data Strategy. But when asked to pick from a list of declared candidates, likely voters’ top two choices were Hilton (27%) and Porter (24%).
When Harris is added into the mix, she catapults to the top with support from 40% of poll respondents. All seven of the other Democratic candidates had support in the single digits under each scenario.
The poll was commissioned by Hilton’s campaign and shared exclusively with The Bee. It surveyed 2,012 likely California primary voters between July 3-10.
The survey highlights a problem for Porter and other Democratic candidates: if Harris gets into the race — a decision she said she’ll make by the end of summer — the former presidential nominee will likely suck up votes and fundraising dollars on the left.
Many of the Democrats in the race told The Bee they will stay in no matter what Harris decides to do.
On the right, the two most well-known Republicans in the race — Hilton, a British-American former Fox News pundit and Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco — are fighting to win a top-two spot in next year’s June primary. The poll showed Hilton ahead of Bianco in every scenario.
“This poll confirms what we’re hearing everywhere across the state: Californians want new leadership, and Steve Hilton is the Republican who can win,” Hilton campaign manager Matt Ciepielowski said.
Though it’s been nearly two decades since a Republican won a statewide election in California, nearly half of likely voters surveyed earlier this year said they’ll consider voting for a GOP candidate to lead the state
ALUMNI AT WORK
Via Amelia Wu....
University of California graduates are more likely to increase their earnings over the course of their careers thanks to their UC degrees, according to a new data dashboard from the UC released yesterday.
The new tool aims to demonstrate the value of a UC degree, showing that graduates are more likely to secure well-paying jobs and increase their earnings. Pulling from 25 years of information, the dashboard primarily focuses on career outcomes including common employers and job titles of UC alumni.
Employers like Google employed more than 17,000 UC alumni, in the past 25 years The University of California system workforce currently has the most UC alumni with about 40,000 employees with a UC education.
In collaboration with data firm Lightcast, the dashboard can filter and search across different disciplines from health care, tech and other industries. Additionally, skills in high-demand are featured, based on Lightcast job postings.
Filters on the dashboard can allow for searches to be specific to disciplines, graduation years and UC campuses.
“This new data is further evidence of UC’s commitment to connecting academic excellence with workforce development,” UC Provost Katherine Newman said in a press release. “Our graduates climb the economic ladder because they leave our campuses with rigorous and experiential learning experiences to lead in their fields.”
A NEW VOICE
Amelia Wu, a graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, joins The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Bureau this summer covering the state worker beat. While at Cal Poly, Amelia studied journalism and served as editor-in-chief of Mustang News, the student paper. She previously reported for the Dallas Morning News and CalMatters. In her free time, she enjoys playing tennis, spending time outdoors, and watching nature documentaries. Send tips to awu@sacbee.com.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Taken together with his other attacks on education, President Trump seems comfortable risking the academic success of a generation to further his own misguided political agenda. But as with so many of his other actions, this funding freeze is blatantly illegal, and we’re confident the court will agree.”
— Attorney General Rob Bonta in a press release on suing Trump over an education funding freeze
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