-Our first guest tonight is the Governor of California.
Please welcome back to the show Governor Gavin Newsom.
-It's great to be with you. -Thank you so much.
Obviously, this is an incredibly busy time for you.
We really appreciate you making time for us.
You were in the studio three months ago,
a very different world than just three months ago.
-Yeah, isn't it amazing?
I mean, I was not only in your studio,
I was here at the state capital, announcing
a $6 billion budget surplus in the state of California,
record job growth, record reserves.
And I'm about to update the budget
and talk about unprecedented unemployment and deficits.
And every day, I go in front of the press,
and I announce the number of lives lost --
another 95 human beings lost their lives
in the last 24 hours here in California alone.
It's remarkable what a few months -- how things can change.
-You were the first governor to issue a stay-at-home order.
And I think, in these really fractured political times,
people might forget that no governor ever wants
to tell the people in their state to stay at home.
That must have been an incredibly hard decision.
Can you talk about the difficulty in making it?
-Yeah. It's a hard decision because --
just 'cause you say something
doesn't mean people are gonna do something.
But all this happens with the speed of trust.
And if you don't have the trust of folks,
you're doing the right thing for the right reasons,
things could fall apart.
What I was so humbled by, so amazed by,
was how 40 million people --
I mean, this is the fifth largest economy in the world --
it truly is a nation-state
in terms of the size and scale and scope --
across every geographic and political difference,
overwhelmingly abided by the stay-at-home order
for at least the last 60 days.
The challenge is we're now in a period
where people have cabin fever
and they're very, very frustrated
and want to come back.
And so this is, I think,
the most challenging period for all of us --
not just for the folks in California,
but we were really, really humbled
by how people took to heart this crisis
and recognized their imperative
to do the right thing as individuals
so that they can help the state of California.
-Californians, justifiably so, brag about their beaches.
We saw footage this past weekend
of a lot of people crowding the beaches.
You just gave a press conference
where, I think specifically in Orange County,
you reinforced the importance of staying at home.
Is that -- That must be hard.
You mentioned cabin fever.
You know, people want to be outside.
-No, I've spent my entire political life
opening up beach access,
fighting for people's right to their beach.
And this state -- it's one of the reasons
Horace Greeley said,
"Go West, young man, go West," in the 1850s.
It's our natural beauty --
an 1,100-mile coastline, 800 miles of pristine beaches,
none more beautiful than down in Orange County,
one of the really most magnificent,
bucolic parts of the world.
And so I hated to do it, but I had to do it
on the basis of the advice and counsel
from my public health directors.
They're all saying the only way we can set this course back
to re-opening with modifications, our economy,
is to see the kind of concentration
that we saw on those beaches over the weekend.
And so we're going to do our best,
try to be collaborative and cooperative.
Most of the beaches -- over 100 did everything right,
and the communities there really met the moment.
But, unfortunately, people were really eager to get out,
a little too much so last weekend.
And so I just want to slow that down,
decompress a little bit,
and then have a pathway to reopen very quickly.
-You have announced a four-phase plan to reopening.
One of the fears, of course,
is we've seen in countries that have started to re-open
that there's an uptick in cases.
How strictly do you adhere to this four-phase plan,
and how often during the day are you checking in with the data
to back up the choices?
-Every single morning.
We're driven by data. We're driven by health.
We're driven by evidence.
We're not ideological about any of this.
You know, a lot of pressure to quote, unquote,
"re-open the economy."
If that is the best public health decision, I'll make it.
But it's not right now.
It would be devastating.
Just ask the folks in Singapore, parts of China,
that island off the coast of Japan
that's part of Japan,
where they had all this progress,
and, literally, in a moment,
they unwound all of that progress.
They ran the proverbial 90-yard dash.
We don't want to do that.
So our health directors -- not just our state folks,
but the local folks will guide that.
And we're also guided by this --
a recognition in a state as large as ours
that each jurisdiction's a little bit different
than the other.
And so we're looking at some regional variations,
regional constructs
that may allow some parts of the state
to move a little bit sooner than other parts.
-The last time we spoke, we talked about the fact
that you have sued the Trump administration
over 70 times.
There has been criticism from both sides towards each other.
And yet, you've also praised the federal government response
in the way they've helped California.
Does -- To the point
that the President has actually released a new campaign
with and both you and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
saying nice things about him,
can we say that the relationship is decent at this point?
-Well, we've filed two new lawsuits
since we were last together,
and we will continue to fight to protect our values,
and when it comes to diversity, clean air, clean water,
the health of this state,
we will always stand on principle and stand tall.
But, you know, my mom taught me be polite,
and when someone --
you ask for help and someone actually delivers,
you have to acknowledge it.
And so all I can talk to is through the prism and the frame
of the state of California.
When I've called the administration,
when I've called the President directly,
not only is he available and answers,
but he's also delivered on a lot of the requests.
And so I can make it up --
I could try to avoid any kind of non-partisan behavior
and just play hard in my lane as a Democrat
and a tribal mind-set.
But we're in a crisis.
I'm trying to save 40 million Californians,
40 million Americans that live in California.
And I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican.
I care that you care about your kids
and your community and your loved ones,
and we're all in this together.
And so that's the spirit we're bringing into this.
But it doesn't stop us
from having our points of disagreement, I can assure you.