New York Times’ Ezra Klein asks Newsom about President Donald Trump, his potential run for President in 2028, and how Newsom is dealing with affordability in California:

EZRA KLEIN, NEW YORK TIMES: How do you learn? GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM: It’s just, I absorb a lot. I observe, I absorb. It’s just harder. I have to do hundreds and hundreds of reps. For one, some folks do one or two reps. But in that process, you overcompensate and you then develop all of these other skills that have been gifts. It allows you to read a room. It allows you to pivot. Allows you to be a little bit more flexible. Yes, dare I say, even more authentic. And so that’s who I am. I’m just, I can’t be someone I’m not. I’m not good at being someone I’m not. It’s, I’m not comfortable faking it. And there’s so many things in politics I’m not good at. The one good thing though is, I think politics is radically changing. I think it’s rewarding a little bit more authenticity. I think Trump is sort of broken through this morass. It’s, you know, we’re all getting roughed up a little bit here and we’ve all made mistakes. We haven’t talked about my legendary mistakes and you got to own up to them and it’s who you are. It shapes you as long as you learn from them and don’t repeat them. And so I’m just constantly trying new things. I don’t have all the answers. I seek them. But again, with a willingness to fall flat on my face and I’ve tried to be, I try to govern in that space. And so I’ll take the hits. We tend to be months or years ahead of others on a lot of issues and that’s risky. And you get a lot of, you know, you get a lot of arrows in your back, but you also pave the way for others to be smarter and learn from that. And, you know, tack in a perhaps more electorally successful space. So I’m happy to be that guy. I don’t need to be president. There’s not about that. There’s no, I didn’t wake up with some strategic plan. The idea that I’m even sitting here and people talk about this 20, that’s beyond me. I thought one last throw, recall. You talk about humility. Seeing your name on a recall ballot, having your kids, one of my kids had to be homeschooled because it was so humiliating for her. Can’t go outside. You can’t walk the streets without seeing signs and getting through that and getting the other side. And Deena, I mean, this has been a hell of a seven years as governor of California. I mean, the most blessed and cursed state from historic wildfires and droughts and floods and, you know, unrest, social unrest. I’m one of the few governors left in the COVID era. There’s only a handful of us that could talk about all those scars and the mistakes that were made and the lessons learned and the humility that comes to that. And so I’m on the other side. And I think people have noticed anything about me is you feel that a little bit, but I’m smash mouth about some of this stuff. I think Trump is one of the most destructive presidents and human beings in my lifetime. I think this Republic is at real risk, this country being unrecognizable. And I have no patience for people that want to indulge it. I can’t stand the corny capitalism. I can’t stand all these supplicants that are sitting there bending the knee to this president. I can’t stand the universities have done that, the law firms that have done that, the individual corporate leaders that have done that, other governors, maybe Democrats and Republicans that have been complicit at this moment. This guy is reckless. He’s a wreck. This country will not have a fair and free election if we don’t continue to fight. I’m just, that’s what matters to me, seriously. I’m the future ex-governor and who the hell knows what happens the rest of my life. Except one thing I know that matters in the rest of my life is I have to look at my kids in the goddamn eye. I mean that, seriously. That’s not like a politician thing to look them in the eye and say that I, you know, not a parallel being judged not to have lived in the moment. So that’s what animates me, but it’s not some grand plan. So paradox, bring it on. Contradictions, bring it on. Contradictions, but that I think I can explain, perhaps. Evolutions, we didn’t get into transports. That’s an issue no one wants to hear about because 80% of the people listening disagree with my position on this. But it comes from my heart, not just my head. It wasn’t a political evolution. Your position being that? I don’t think it’s fair. I want to see trans kids. I have a trans godson. There’s no governor that’s signed more pro-trans legislation than I have and no one has been a stronger advocate for the LGBTQ community. But you have to accommodate the reality of those whose rights are being taken away as we advance the rights of the trans community in terms of the fairness of athletic competition. And I just think that’s not a bigoted position. And it’s an example of some of the things I’ve been saying about being judgmental, dismissing people, throwing that person out of the party. I mean, you want to talk cancel culture. I’ve lived it on that issue alone, despite a record of four to 30 years that people are willing to say I’m done. Friendships I lost on that position. And that position, by the way, came to me two years prior where I had to try to accommodate for a trans athlete and another athlete that were in the state finals in track and field. And they both dropped out because we couldn’t figure out a way to make it fair. And it was so unfair to both their families. Broke my heart. And I tried for two years to figure out how do we do this? And so I was asked, is it fair? I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know how to make it fair. But these people just want to survive. Where’s our grace and dignity about this community and at the same time? So this is life. It’s not linear, circular here. It’s not just politics. And I think I just want to bring a little life back to my politics. I got a year left. I got an expiration. Sell by date. I’m on a milk carton. And to the extent I want to hold the line and push back against Trump, I’ll take no backseat to anybody else. And to the extent, one, you throw me into the mix with these 12 other remarkable leaders. They’re all friends. I’m going to see them all tomorrow at the DGA. Half of them governors, the other half great senators and legislative leaders in Congress. Um, what a humble and extraordinary thing. That’s something you pinch yourself back to that 960 SAT kid that couldn’t read.

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