Thank you all for joining us.

And I actually wanted to start you uh you or your you tweeted last week, posted last night, this was this was the tweet the conversation, and yes, thank you for joining US.

Governor, thank you so much for the WEF for hosting this.

This is the conversation that Donald Trump tried to cancel.

Don't miss at eleven thirty Pacific.

Thank you to our specific time viewers.

Yeah, in fact, it's a different conversation.

In the WEF's defense, it was the.

Privately run USA House, which is endorsed by the State Department, funded by big American companies, which did pull pull an event with you with fortune yesterday.

And I guess I wondered to begin with, what does that tell you about the way the US private sector, which is really very heavily represented here.

So you did go and get me in trouble right on the political moment.

I looked at the admit, looking at the list McKenzie and Microsoft and a few California companies.

Uh, so, have you what the hell they're even talking about?

Uh, but it's indicative I think of America.

Yea for those of you are not Marriay, it gives you a sense of what we're up against and what's happening across my country and what happened here in Davos.

I was going to speak last night.

It was a well established event at the USA House, simple conversation, discussion after trump'speech.

They made sure that I didn't.

They made sure was canceled.

And that's what's happening in the United States of America.

Freedom expression, freedom assembly, freedom of speech.

It's American reverse.

Their sensoring historical facts, they're rewriting history.

They're censoring books.

Four thousand, three hundred and forty books libraries and in schools banned in the.

United States of America.

You're watching institutions, any institution of independent thinking is under assaultant attack by the Trump administration.

You're seeing what's playing out in the streets of American cities.

What played out in California, the second largest city in the United States of America.

Four one thousand National Guard were federalized.

Seven hundred acts duty Marines were not sent overseas that were sent to my largest city in the state of California, Masked men Guy Greg Bovino dressed up as if he literally went on eBay and purchased ss GARB Greg Bravino, secret police, private army, masked men, people disappearing quite literally no due process, windows being smashed, seatbelts on being literally just sort of cut off, people dragged in the streets, kids separated from family, knocking on doors, racially profiling American citizens.

So is it surprising that Trump administration didn't like my commentary and wanted to make sure.

That I was not allowed to speak.

No, it's consistent with this administration and their authoritarian tendencies.

Forgive me, these are objective facts.

But I would say this was not Just to be clear, this was a private enterprise endorsed by this Age Department.

But these are a lot of decisions are being made by private companies right now.

This is you know, this is a capital, This is the probably the central global gathering of CEOs.

And I guess I wonder if you can give me a revise.

It's how you see these folks and you, you know, you know your way around this world, how you see those people behaving?

Society becomes how we behave.

We are behaviors.

We're not bystanders in this world.

The world we're experiencing happened on our watch so in the relationship to your question, yeah, they're complicit in some respects to this moment.

You know, and forgive me, you brought up a tweet.

But part of my approach has been a little more aggressive than perhaps a lot of American politicians.

I created a Patriot site.

On the site, you can go.

They're neepads that are available to purchase.

The last round of neepads sold out.

Just as our law.

Firms are selling out, many American universities are selling out.

And yes, many corporatelyleaders are selling out to this administration, selling out our values, selling out our future, selling out what makes America great and breaks my heart.

And people need to stand up.

People need to know courage of their damn convictions.

We're the two hundred and fifteth anniversary the United States of America.

This year it's a two hundred and fiftieth anniversary.

The best of the Roman Republic, Greek democracy, co equal branches, the government, the rule of law, popular sovereignty.

Tell me that that reflects the America you read about today.

There's no rule of low.

Its the rule of dawn.

I hope it's hoping for Europeans, that's dawning.

On you.

It's not the rule of law.

You don't have co equal branches of government, you have a supine Congress, you don't have a Speaker of the House.

It doesn't exist popular sovereignty and be challenged every single day by voter suppression, trying to reag elections.

I mean, heck, Donald Trump tried to steal the election the last election, tried to light democracy on fire and then pardoned everyone that participated in that.

Is anyone paying attention to what the hell is going on in the United States of America.

So my state of mind is a little different, perhaps than many others.

I won't be complicit at this moment.

I won't.

I can't.

I can't look my kids in the eyes.

And so I'm just blessed that I get to represent a state that's larger than the size of twenty one US states combined, where twenty seven percent of us are foreign born, where we practice paralism.

That's a word you haven't heard in America in a year, where we dominate in every critical category in terms of energy and daring and entrepreneurialism and innovation.

And look, give me a category.

In California, I performs fourth largest economy in the world, and so we can punch above our weight.

We can come here with formal authority and a little moral authority.

And I tell you we need a little moral authority our body politic in the United States of.

America today, Governor, how do you morning everybody?

Sorry, yeah, I figured we would.

Yeah, you're you're you're a tough interview governor.

The uh.

Yeah, And when I think you have chosen us sort of if you can't beat them, join them strategy to the way you're talking about this stuff you talk, you know, you you know you're you're running around distributing knee pads to CEOs and I think it does and it does have a few if you like, you know, and honestly it sounds and by.

The way, I'm not kidding.

They're the new Trumps signature series pads.

Yeah, and they are available online.

I told you the last one sold out.

And uh and I just want to sit a serious moment it actually we laugh.

Uh.

Anyway, these are available and in bulk too.

But I want I want to read you a couple of things the US government has said about you in the last twenty four hours or so.

There.

The US government, the Treasury secretary put the Treasury Secretary described you as Patrick Bateman and meets Sparkle beach Ken.

The White House.

Communication was this, That was the US Secretary of Treasure.

I have a couple more and then and then you can respond.

The White House Communications respect director called you Gavin Nuskum and a and an official White House account, you know, the federal government account described you with a i'd say, very online sexual slur.

The people here probably don't want to hear a day thirty in the morning, and you're in some sense responding in kind.

And do you think should you?

I mean, is that kind of discourse from you from them good for America?

Oh, it's deeply unbecoming.

Come on, of course it is.

It's not what we should be doing.

But you've got to point out the absurdity.

You got to put a mirror up to this.

This is madness.

President.

You see what he's saying about European leaders.

You talking down to people, talking past people.

I mean, look the comments he made yesterday.

We're not even discussing because you're discussing all the other comments about windmills or whatever else that was happening.

Well, he talked about somaliasmmunity.

This is not normal, the deviation of normalcy.

We've got to call it out.

So I put a mirror up to Trump and Trumps in all caps, and it was ironic because Pravda, Fox News in America, others do.

They got offended by it.

They said, well, where's.

His mother to wash his mouth out with soap?

I said, where the hell have you been.

You've never said a word about Trump dressing up.

It's the pope tweeting out and cosplaying on the world stage.

And so look, the Treasury is secretary talked about a Barbie doll.

It was as if he was reading a diary and had just broken up with someone.

I mean, that was his Secretary of Treasury using valuable time yesterday on the world stage some sexual Thank you for not sharing that on the official White House account.

We're deeply in their head.

I think the affordability agenda appears to be I'm living rent free in the Trump's head.

Trump administration said.

The most talked about speech here in Davos actually isn't what was Donald Trump's address yesterday.

It was it was the.

Canadian Prime minister.

It was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Karney.

The day before who talked about I don't know in large terms of bit in the Middle Powers, everybody except for for for China and the US, we had to adapt permanently to a world without American leadership.

I guess I wonder.

I mean, that's in some sense a pretty anti American point of view.

That's that's a view that America is gone from the world stage.

That whether the next president is jd Vance, Gavin Newsom, somebody else, this isn't a deviation, as you said, this is permanent.

By that, Do you buy Carne's.

I was, you know, I felt there was moments and forgive me it, I should be cautious making the statement.

I don't want it to be over analyzed.

But when I was listening to EU president speak, there were moments where I said, that used to be US.

I used to I remember that.

So am I surprised by what Carney did quite the contract.

I thought it was I had more.

Leaders from the United States quietly, so I mean not publicly, a publicly the transcript of that speech saying wow, they were I mean god in Trump said yesterday he had brought it.

He brought it up.

You know everything about Trump because it's what's not in the teleprompter.

It tells you everything you need to know about where Trump's at.

Is on things.

It was incredibly effective.

The markets were more effective markets.

It's not mother Nature, thought the most powerful force on earth with mother Nature, but it's the markets, particularly the Trump administration.

Combine that with the comments of Macrome, find that with the EU Commission, but the clarity that came from Prime Minister of Canada, but the fact that he went to China came back with a deal, started introducing low costs, high quality electric vehicles not made in Michigan Detroit, but overseas into Canada.

It says everything you know about the recklessness of America's foreign policy.

Everything you need to know, you know it intimately.

But it's a remarkable thing to break down eighty plus years of alliances.

Takes decades and decades to build trust in organizations, to architecture of that.

It takes weeks, tweets, hours, minutes sometimes to destroy it.

Destruction is not strength.

The Trump administration is weakness masquerading as strength, and people need to understand that.

That's reflected in the tweets, that's reflected in canceling people that's reflected in sending mass Man into the American cities.

It's reflected at this moment.

So I respect what CARNEI did because he had kurds of convictions.

He stood up, and I think we need to stand up in America and call this out with clarity.

We can lose our republic as we know it.

Our country came out unrecognizable in a matter of months, just not years.

It is code read, blinking read in the United States of America.

So forgive me.

I feel this with.

Passion, some indignancy as someone frankly has taken it for granted all of the years.

And it's why I came here to Davos to call it out.

And I wish there were more of us doing the same, because there are more of us, and on that, I just forgive me.

I want you to know Donald Trump is an historic president.

That's absolutely correct.

He's historically unpopular in the United States of America in every category.

He's underwater.

He will be remembered in years, not decades.

He's not going to run again.

Time of life denies that, not a state of mind, but time of my life.

But we need to manifest that, and we need to do the hard work, and that hard work includes the difficult work of coming to Davos and calling that out.

This is not where I want to be spending I love you.

All my time.

And so anyway, it's an extension of the conviction that feel about trying.

A lot of people among Athen's aren't American and maybe be concerned for America, but are making decisions about their own politics, their own countries.

What Carney's core point was, this is a rupture, This isn't an anomaly.

Yeah, and there's no going back.

And do you think that, I mean, do you think there's always from an American leader?

Yes, can bring I think I think these relationships are in dormancy, They're not dead.

I don't use those binary terms.

Don't don't.

Don't fall prey to that.

That's a bit hyperbolic, and I'm prone to a little that at times.

Uh, dormancy, we can read he's an invasive species, Donald Trump, He's not.

He is.

Uh.

He took over the Republican Party.

They're just I mean, he's got you know a few of them.

Lindsey Graham, I mean to speak, you know, the kneepads.

Uh, I'm sorry, this is tough stuff.

It's tough stuff.

I don't recognize these people any longer.

I used to respect Lindsay.

I mean, Lindsey, you think what I'm saying about Trump's tough?

How about what Lindsay Graham said about Trump?

How about the Secretary of State Marco Rupe?

You do you think this is these are the same people, and this is why we for things to change, we need to change.

You think that's why I'm changing my approach and again gratefully altered.

I mean, I suppose do you think post Trump, there's a path back?

Because you see it's ever to kind of insult politics that you're doing here, which you see you said you don't really enjoy it.

You kind of see them too.

I just putting a mirror up.

No, I just you gotta I was doing my ten point plans before, and I don't think any of you would have been here this morning had I done that.

Oh, they would have been here.

No, because it just it wasn't working.

Everyone's trying to figure this out.

How do you Mark Carney crowd?

Yeah, but it's how do you how do you?

How do you communicate?

How do you respond to this moment?

And it's for me, it's about iteration, it's an entrepreneurial spirit.

It's a very California mindset.

You got to keep increasing the number of tries, and I was trying everything one working, wasn't breaking through.

Democratic Party were at large wasn't breaking through.

And we decided the only way to address Trump is quite literally to fight fire fire.

I did an initiative PROP fifty in California was to reflect the fact that Donald Trump called an American politician and said in the middle of the decade to the governor of the state of Texas, I am entitled Greg Abbott to five seats, and I need you to redraw district lines mid year, redistrict to rig the twenty twenty sixth election before one vote is cast.

What the Trump administration expected, we were going to do, as good Democrats do.

We might write an ophed and we may all go out and just say this is just so wrong, and all of us would be applauding and say it's yes, yes, you know, as he's consolidating power.

Instead, we went out and we redraw our maps, and we also drew a line in the sand.

And I think that's what's required at this moment.

And he sesses out weakness like no one else.

That's his great strength, that's his gift.

But you punch back, you fight fire with fire, you display conviction and strength.

It's a different relationship, and so my relationship to this moment is reflected in that I'm not naive.

These guys are going to try to take me down, not just my state.

I'm not naive about what I've said this morning and how that will be reflected in the official White House account.

I'm not naive about the fact that he threatened to prosecute the FED chief in the United States of America that's had subpoena against another sitting governor, Tim Waltz, who's literally going after his enemies with the FBI and the DOJ and these power ministries.

I'm not naive about any of this.

I'm not naive about.

The corruption and the graft at scale we've never seen in American history.

I'm not naive about folks writing billion dollar checks to Wick Coough, to Jared Kushner for this new piece deal they're announcing today.

I'm not naive about the fact that President United States made a billion and a half plus dollars in the last twelve months.

Personally, how are the hell are we putting up with this?

We have to call this out unprecedented in American history, happening in real time on our watch.

We have to be held to a higher level, all of us, myself notably, to a higher level of accountability at this moment.

And and and you know, one of I think one of the main reasons that you know that that he has been successful is because the Democratic Party is so discredited in the eyes of so many voters.

I have a couple of questions about that.

One is big picture about California people.

You know, you're in the midst of a you know, enormous economic boom right now, and yet the state is on one hand running deficits and on the other not always delivering services that it's you know, from education to healthcare that your citizens are delighted with.

And I I guess I wonder, how can you know, how are voters looking at California, looking at New York, looking at Chicago, you know, supposed to say, yeah, this is the model world we want.

Well, I brought them my state.

We have more fortune, five hundred companies in another state in America, more scientists, engineers, more, more noble laureates my state than the state in America.

The finest system of higher public education in the world.

We have eighteen percent of the world's R and D China twenty two percent, Germany twenty one California eighteen percent of the world are in D where the center of the universe as it relates to AI.

Fiftel.

But what about the governance, Well.

The governance with one of the lowest ensured rates in America.

You mentioned healthcare.

We just did our State of Education report which showed in every category, every classroom making progress with our test scores.

Our investments are paying off.

Just did a big state of the state idea that these blue states have trouble.

You know, are are spending more for less results.

I don't know, higher life expenses expect see lower infant mortality, lower gun death rates, more productivity, higher wages, higher quality of life.

Eighty three point one billion dollars.

That was the net contribution that we provided to the federal government versus red state like Texas that was a taker state of seventy three point one billion dollars.

So we're producing more and people are I think creating more opportunities.

So, look, are there problems.

For instance, you're supporting the mayor of la for re election after these these terrible fires that a lot of you know, a lot of your citizens do feel was part in part because of government mismanagement.

Do you just reject that narrative that the government doesn't anything.

I absolutely accept that we all should be held to a higher level of accountability in terms of our governance.

And I think there's many areas of reforms that are necessary, so many areas of reforms that were underway.

We can get into the specifics of any one of these issues.

But the general notion that in the middle of winter with one hundred mile an hour winds were attached to a fire that somehow, by the way, there were sixteen major fires in southern California over a two week period, that somehow that had to do with fire hydrants is rather preposterous.

And it was shape shift because of the complete bullshit that came from Donald Trump and Elon Musk saying somehow the sprinklers didn't work and the fire hydrants didn't work because we didn't turn on a valve in northern California.

These are literal words from the Trump administration.

So I do reject that.

Do I reject this notion of being self critical about governance and management across the spectrum?

No, that's fair game.

And probably the biggest governance issue policy issue fueling right wing parties in the United States around the country is immigration.

And I think liberal parties, again in the US and around the world, had a posture of welcome, welcoming immigrants that it just turned out a lot of Americans, a lot of Californians, but more Americans are unhappy with illegal immigration, the out of control border.

But also it's the last issue on which Trump, though his numbers have been sliding, remained somewhat popular.

And I guess, I wonder do you think do you think that your party went too far or that you went too far?

And I think, for instance, you know, in extending medical to the California Healthcare Program to undocumented immigrants, like, do you well, I guess on the big picture.

In the small picture, yeah, I feel like you went too far.

Two different questions.

Do I believe in universal health care, Yes, regardless of pre existing conditions, ability to pay, and your status.

I campaign on that, we delivered on that, and I'm proud of that.

We're one of sixteen states to provide care to people regardless of immigration status.

By the way, we have universal care in emergency rooms, and you pay the price on the back end at least Americans for that, regardless your immigration status.

But the issue of immigration, Toronald Trump is very unpopular in immigration.

He's successful on the border separate issue connected.

And yes, the Democratic Party failed the last few years on the border, and yes I was critical of that, and yes, I.

Put our own national Guard on the border.

Of the day I got elected into office in twenty nineteen, sent three hundred and ninety four National Guard down to the border, and we were very, very pointed with the Biden administration that we were failing to deliver border security for a number of years.

On the larger immigration issue, I happened to share the same old office of Ronald Reagan, governor of California, who decided in his last day in office at the White House, and he gave a love letter to immigrants from around the world, was love letter in America and what distinguished is America from the rest of the globe.

He talked about Lady Torch, Lady Liberty's torch, and he talked about the vibrancy of newcomers, people coming all over the globe for riches and new beginnings, becoming Americans and what defines our great nation.

And that's the spirit that defines my mindset.

Getting first round draft choices around the rest of the world is what makes California so vibrant.

It's because of that diversity, and it's.

Because of people's willingness to dare and to match up with ideas and perspectives and backgrounds to come in to make a go of it.

That has made California the fourth largest GDP in the world.

But we have failed on the border, and Donald Trump is failing on immigration.

He is economic policy is not complicated.

It's tariffs, which is a regressive tax.

It's mass deportations which is having a major impact on supply change.

And you've seen the American jobless rate.

You're seeing it growing, the unemployment rate in America.

Besson didn't talk about this.

They had the worst jobs numbers in the first year of the Trump administration outside of recession since two thousand and three, forty nine thousand jobs a month.

The Biden administration last year was averaging one hundred and sixty eight thousand jobs a month.

Inflation is not lowering still at two point seven percent.

Asked folks what a pound of beef costs in the United States of America or a brand new car.

Everything you heard yesterday was b s and it's impacted by these policies of tariffs that are impacting ranchers and farmers and small business folks, a major tax that they celebrate, a tax that they celebrate collecting, which is ironic from a Republican party.

And the third leg of the stool is a.

Massive tax cut away from the wealthy and the privileged, taxing now the burden on small businesses and working folks.

That's the policy.

Easily described of America's economic strategy, and it's a failed strategy.

And the impacts of that strategy are being felt all throughout the United States of America, including my state that has been disproportionately impacted by these policies.

So I'm very critical of those.

I'm critical of our assault on institutions, higher learning, research institutions that have literally been I mean, they're part of that formula for success.

The rest of the world gets that, and he's putting sand in the gears across that spectrum in cal again is fighting and pushing back.

And some of those those first round draft picks got you know, incredible contracts and are now in made quite a lot of money and are now very freaked out threatening to leave California over a proposal that, just to be clear, you oppose to tax to for a sort of one time tax on the wealth of the very, very very wealthy Californians.

And I guess I want to ask you two questions.

One is, I was talking to somebody progressive here who said, this guy's basically a fake populist.

He talks a good game about the billionaires.

Here is an actual proposal that they're unhappy about.

And you're on the other side.

You're standing with you know, Elon Musk and David Sachs on this.

Why is that, well, one time wealth tax at a state level that almost exclusively goes to solve one problem healthcare, and not solving for larger issues like education, supporting police officers and firefighters, and starves the rest of the general fund that has had already the impact of people moving out of our state and impacting then the annual income tax collection.

Is not something I support, and by the way, vast majority of labor does not support as well.

Uh, and that's reflected in my opposition.

What's not reflected in my opposition quite the contrary, is my advocacy for progressive taxes that does tax the wealthy disproportions.

I've had a strong advocate for that.

You have a theory on how to tax this particular group who often kind of live in this company.

And I'm sure you know maybe people in this room who do this, but who live on debt, you know, who have no income and live on the sort of giant revolving loans.

Yeah, I mean, when you could have that conversation's sort of an attempt to get at that.

Yeah.

But at a national level, we're competing with fifty states capital flows and move that's real.

It's not imagined, it's very very real.

So we have a progressive tax structure, the most progressive in the country by the way, States like and four the most regressive tax structures.

They tax their lowest wage earners more than we tax our highest wagers.

They are the high tax states.

We have a highest tax rate for the one percent, but for working folks in middle class, it's a very different tax structure.

That's the approach we promote, that's the approach that we advance in our state.

But again, our state of mind is relates to the issue of a state by state wealth tax.

The impact of that has to be considered in the context of how freely capital can move and how that's already occurred.

It's not just an assertion, it's in evidence already in the state of California, as it relates to a proposal that hasn't got on the ballot, a proposal that has never gotten through the legislature, and a proposal that likely if it did get on.

The ballot, will lose.

Would you campaign against it?

I'm opposed to it.

It's already had, I think, a very negative impact on the state.

And it's a badly drafted initiative again that literally takes teachers and takes our educational system out of any consideration of support, and impacts all the parts of our general fund.

It is a flawed initiative.

And then I think conversely, these these folks who control are a ton of capital, and as you said, some are actually already leaving, have been leaving.

How do you you know over this?

But I think also over a sense that California that democratic leadership.

Broadly, you complains about billionaires a lot doesn't is not does not give them the uh you know, love and respect that they feel that they're entitled to know.

How do what you mean?

You actually you talk to these folks, Some of them support you, some don't.

But what are you saying as you call people up and say, hey, please don't leave California, what's.

Your Well, California's population three years in a row, continues to grow, and so does our footprint as it relates to more fortune five hundred companies and we've added over two decades, and our innovation ecosystem and startup because of a second to none.

We have half of the country's unicorns in our state.

The largest market cap private sector company, open Ai just headquartered in San Francisco.

They could have chosen any other state in the country.

Look, I don't begrudge other people's success.

I've never been that kind of democrat.

But I also recognize in a world businesses can't thrive in a world that's failing.

Ten percent of the wealth is concentrated, or rather, two thirds of the wealth in the United States is concentrated in the hands of just ten percent, ten percent of our consumer spending.

Imbalance.

I mean it was Plutarch has said it to the Athenians two thousand years ago.

The imbalance between the rich and the poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

Fast forward today.

So this concentration, it's a very real issue, and we're going to have to address that.

But we have to address it, I think, very thoughtfully and systemically, and I think we have to have it through the lens of.

A national reform.

What we've done is the exact opposite with HR one, which is going to explode deficits in the United States of America and debt and again is transferred the tax burden to small businesses, farmers, and ranchers.

It is an abomination and it's a policy unfortunately the Trump administration is very proud of.

Do you think a national reform is enough?

I mean, a lot of this capital is really global.

It's I mean, this is a challenge for all of us across the globe.

And so the challenge is do you have a redistribution mindset or a predistribution mindset?

Do you have a progressive tax structure that can balance these things.

And this is the iteration in the state of California, and this is our approximation.

And I think California's figured it out in many respects.

I mean, our economy, our entire entrepreneurial system is thriving in our state where I think found that balanced.

We had the highest contribution of venture capital last year in our history, one hundred and six billion dollars, sixty eight percent of it went back into the state of California, despite our progressive tax structure.

Well, from the tweets to Plutarch, thank you, thank you so much, Governor, Thank you

Guys, thank you everybody for being a doyk your fifteen stand