Speaker 1: There's this funny guy, funny guy that I follow on Twitter.
Speaker 1: He goes by the handle Jarvis Best, and he tweets
Speaker 1: a lot of funny goofball stuff. He's like a lawyer
Speaker 1: from Denver, but he's made himself famous for tweeting about
Speaker 1: how thirsty, as the kids say, he is for various
Speaker 1: attractive female members of Congress, including Nancy Mace from North Carolina,
Speaker 1: or she's from South Carolina, I can't remember. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: believe South Carolina. And so he tweets stuff about how
Speaker 1: in love he is with Nancy Mace and lots of
Speaker 1: other funny jokes. Anyway, he had a tweet that I
Speaker 1: retweeted from my account that I think perfectly sums up
Speaker 1: my attitude on Iran. He writes, as a complete dumbass centrist.
Speaker 1: I am finding myself just automatically agreeing with the last
Speaker 1: Iran take. I see the last Iran opinion. I see
Speaker 1: someone will post something like we can't let Ron get
Speaker 1: a nuke, and I'm like, oh my gosh, you're right,
Speaker 1: And then someone else will post we can't get dragged
Speaker 1: into another war, and I'm like, well, yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: great point. I'm helpless I'm at your mercy, and that's me.
Speaker 1: I am worthless as a talk radio host. The point
Speaker 1: of having a talk radio host is to loudly get
Speaker 1: in front of a microphone and yell your opinion. And
Speaker 1: I am completely hopeless. So at the moment, it seems
Speaker 1: like here's where we stand as far as could the
Speaker 1: US get pulled into this. So up until now it's
Speaker 1: been all Israel. Now kind of all Israel, because the
Speaker 1: only reason Israel's able to engage in an attack like
Speaker 1: this is because of all the military aid that we
Speaker 1: have given them over the course of years and years
Speaker 1: and years and years and years. So it's not like
Speaker 1: we're totally not involved. Obviously we have been involved and Trump,
Speaker 1: I don't think Trump gave Israel the green light, but
Speaker 1: he didn't give them the red light. And also I
Speaker 1: think it might be a little unreasonable to expect that
Speaker 1: the United States can just dictate to Israel what it
Speaker 1: will and will not do. It seems as though Trump
Speaker 1: asked Israel to hold off for sixty days while he
Speaker 1: put this Iranian deal on the table. Iran didn't act
Speaker 1: on it, Israel started their attack, and now most of
Speaker 1: the people that the United States was negotiating with are dead.
Speaker 1: So it seems as though Israel is kind of doing
Speaker 1: this on their own, not necessarily with a green light
Speaker 1: from the United States, not necessarily with the red light
Speaker 1: from the United States. There is reporting that the United
Speaker 1: States is involved in some of the defensive stuff that
Speaker 1: Israel is doing to counter incoming Iranian ballistic missiles, so
Speaker 1: US military forces are involved in shooting down According to
Speaker 1: the story from the Wall Street Journal, US military forces
Speaker 1: are involved in shooting down incoming Iranian ballistic missiles that
Speaker 1: have been shot at Israel. Here's from Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1: Iran has fired about two hundred ballistic missiles in four
Speaker 1: barrages and more than two hundred drones toward Israeli territory
Speaker 1: so far in response to multiple waves of Israeli strikes
Speaker 1: in Israeli military official said before the retaliatory strikes even began,
Speaker 1: US jet fighters, Navy destroyers, and ground based air defense
Speaker 1: systems had positioned to help counter any attack. According to
Speaker 1: US officials, US ground based interceptors also helped defend Israel
Speaker 1: in the latest barrages. The officials said the US operates
Speaker 1: several Patriot anti missile batteries across the region, moving them
Speaker 1: around to address perceived aerial threats. They're concentrated in Arab
Speaker 1: countries on the Persian Gulf, where the US operates sprawling
Speaker 1: military bases, as well as Jordan and Iraq. So we're involved,
Speaker 1: but only in defensive operations. We're not involved in offensive operations. However,
Speaker 1: it seems that reading some of the more neo Khan
Speaker 1: leaning commentators like Jim Garrity writing a National Review, who
Speaker 1: I think is Leans, certainly he is solidly a you know,
Speaker 1: pro involvement in Ukraine of super pro Israel. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying neokon in a pejorative sense. I think I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that is the position he has staked them. Basically,
Speaker 1: it seems as though the temptation that's on the table
Speaker 1: for the United States actually become directly involved with this
Speaker 1: war or in Iran is the possibility that we could
Speaker 1: actually affect regime change, the tantalizing possibility that maybe the
Speaker 1: current Iranian regime under the Ayatola Komani, who is eighty
Speaker 1: six years old and all of his senior officers are
Speaker 1: now dead, that the whole regime could topple any minute,
Speaker 1: and that maybe if the United States intervenes with direct
Speaker 1: aerial bombardment something like that, maybe we could topple the
Speaker 1: Iranian regime and have something replace it. That is tantalizing.
Speaker 1: It is tantalizing, especially to the neo con types. Now
Speaker 1: why is it tantali Well, first of all, the existing
Speaker 1: Iranian regime is horrible. It is evil. They are terrible, terrible, terrible.
Speaker 1: They are the source of Iran is the chief exporter
Speaker 1: of Islamic terrorism worldwide. Iran has supported most of the
Speaker 1: most disastrous, chaotic bad actors in the Middle East who
Speaker 1: have caused the most disruption in the region. They armed, equipped,
Speaker 1: funded hamas. Iranians were involved in the planning for the
Speaker 1: October seventh, twenty twenty three attack. The Iranians fund the Huthis,
Speaker 1: The Iranians fund Hezbolah. So Iran funds its proxies all
Speaker 1: throughout the Middle East to engage in all kinds of
Speaker 1: terrorist attacks. They are a hugely destabilizing force in the
Speaker 1: world and to depending on who you talk to, it
Speaker 1: seems that they have been trying to develop a nuclear
Speaker 1: weapon for a long time. And that's sort of the
Speaker 1: trump card for me at least, is you know, I
Speaker 1: absolutely don't want the United States to be involved in
Speaker 1: a war in another Middle Eastern country. We have been there,
Speaker 1: done that, Iraq, Afghanistan, decades of being there, decades of
Speaker 1: being in Afghanistan, and what happens we get driven out
Speaker 1: in the Taliban's back in power. What was the point. Yes,
Speaker 1: we killed Osama bin Laden, Yes al Qaeda is diminished,
Speaker 1: But I don't want another twenty years long war. I
Speaker 1: don't want any other war. And especially I mean, this
Speaker 1: is more crystallized in my mind having my little brother
Speaker 1: who's an officer in the United States Army. My actually
Speaker 1: my brother just got promoted. He's now a captain in
Speaker 1: the Army, got promoted from lieutenant to captain just this
Speaker 1: past weekend. We're very proud of him. So don't I
Speaker 1: don't want another war. But Iran is really bad. They
Speaker 1: are a terrible, terrible, terrible, evil regime. And Iran also
Speaker 1: sort of has a history, like within living memory of
Speaker 1: many people of having a relatively western, open modern society
Speaker 1: prior to the nineteen seventies under the Shaw. Now the
Speaker 1: Shaw himself got toppled, he got regime, he got his
Speaker 1: rear end, regime changed. But under the shaw. Iran was
Speaker 1: a fairly open and modern society and it's still within
Speaker 1: the living memory of many people in Iran. So unlike Afghanistan. Okay,
Speaker 1: Afghanistan was a certain we got to Afghanistan in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, we toppled the regime. Afghanistan had had
Speaker 1: a certain way of life for way longer than we
Speaker 1: had ever been through. The Afghans had preserved that way
Speaker 1: of life against the Soviet invasion, beat off the Soviet
Speaker 1: invasion invaders. Iran is different. Run's a totally different culture
Speaker 1: from Afghanistan. So now I don't purport to know everything
Speaker 1: there is to know about Iran, but not by a
Speaker 1: long shot. But it's different. And the thought is, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the United States takes part in aerial bombardment and
Speaker 1: this and that and the other, and maybe we can
Speaker 1: topple this regime. Well, so that's the temptation, that's the
Speaker 1: tantalizing temptation for especially the neo con types, is what
Speaker 1: if we could actually do it? What if we could
Speaker 1: actually get rid of the current system in Iran with
Speaker 1: the Ayatolas, the theocratic, insane, Sharia based regime, and maybe
Speaker 1: replace it with something. Now there are two problems. One
Speaker 1: is what comes next. That's one of the big problems
Speaker 1: with a lot of countries in the Middle East is
Speaker 1: you know, you don't like such and such leader. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what's gonna come next. You know, we don't like Saddam
Speaker 1: Hussein Sadamasin's a very bad guy. What comes next? Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we get democratically elected sharia' that's what the people
Speaker 1: vote for. Okay, you don't like, uh, you know, Israeli
Speaker 1: control of Gaza, Well, the Israelis leave, and what happens
Speaker 1: the Gazans elect Hamas you know, giving people in these
Speaker 1: regions the right to vote, the right to self determination
Speaker 1: doesn't always lead to good outcomes because look, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of populations there who may want to vote
Speaker 1: for something that is incredibly anti Western and incredibly medieval
Speaker 1: in its way of thinking. So you know, be careful
Speaker 1: what you wish for. I mean, it's hard to envision
Speaker 1: anything worse, anything more illiberal, anything more pigheaded, anything more
Speaker 1: terror supporting than the Ayatolas. But you could affect regime
Speaker 1: change and then just go, you know, out of the
Speaker 1: frying pan into the fire. Secondly, to affect state regime
Speaker 1: change is not as easy as one, two three. It's
Speaker 1: not as easy as snapping your fingers. You know, Syria,
Speaker 1: which has been fighting a civil war for years and
Speaker 1: years and years. They finally the one side overthrew the
Speaker 1: existing regime of Bashar al Asad. Bashar al Assad, who
Speaker 1: had been the president kind of dictator of Syria for
Speaker 1: the prior you know, twenty four years. He gets overthrown,
Speaker 1: and he was a terrible guy. He was bad dude.
Speaker 1: He was kind of I think he was kind of
Speaker 1: a also an Iranian proxy. Iran would use Syria under
Speaker 1: Bashar al Asad and before Bashar al Asad was his
Speaker 1: father was kind of the dictator. Before that, they would
Speaker 1: use Syria as their sort of through point for getting
Speaker 1: arms and weaponry transferred from Iran to the Syrian to
Speaker 1: their various little proxy militant entities throughout the Middle East.
Speaker 1: The Huthis, Palestinian Palestinian groups has blah things like that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the guy who overthrew As'ad, who's now in charge of Syria,
Speaker 1: he had been a former al Qaida guy, and now
Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh, he's this moderate rebel because everyone disliked,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone within the American foreign policy establishment. Understandably
Speaker 1: he did not like Asad, but they are trying to
Speaker 1: gussie up this new guys if he's some wonderful saint,
Speaker 1: and it sort of remains to be seen how this
Speaker 1: new guy is going to govern, and it also remains
Speaker 1: to be seen, like, you know, how stable is this
Speaker 1: guy gonna be? This guy Ahmed al Sharrah, so you know,
Speaker 1: how stable is that guy going to be? You know,
Speaker 1: we replaced the Taliban in Afghanistan and we had twenty
Speaker 1: years of constant fighting. We replaced Saddam in Iraq and
Speaker 1: we have, you know, twenty years of constant fighting. So
Speaker 1: the idea of you know, oh, the US will just
Speaker 1: engage in a couple of air strikes and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden up regime change done. Hooray, mission accomplished. Boys,
Speaker 1: we did it that. I don't think that's how that works.
Speaker 1: I think there's a good chance that you can't achieve
Speaker 1: regime change, you know. And that's the thing. I feel
Speaker 1: like people of neo cons love doing this. I've been
Speaker 1: following politics since I was I don't know, fifteen, sixteen,
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, and I feel like I've heard for
Speaker 1: the last decade US certainly, and maybe longer than that,
Speaker 1: especially about Iran. Like remember the Green Revolution those happened
Speaker 1: all these different Middle Eastern countries during the Obama years
Speaker 1: we're having you know, the Egyptian government got overthrown and
Speaker 1: then got reoverthrown back to basically the same government they
Speaker 1: had before. All these Green revolutions were actually uh, people
Speaker 1: wound up with a lot worse governments during that time.
Speaker 1: And for years people have been saying, the Iranian people
Speaker 1: hate the regime they live under. They are suffering under
Speaker 1: the regime they live under. They they are chafing for
Speaker 1: They're they're champing at the bit yearning for freedom, to
Speaker 1: which I say, well are they? Though? Are they really?
Speaker 1: I mean that there were some of the Green Revolution
Speaker 1: protests like in the Obama era, But if so many
Speaker 1: millions of Iranians really don't like this regime, there's really
Speaker 1: no way that they could have overthrown this regime on
Speaker 1: their own without us prior. I don't know, That's the thing,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like we always want to overestimate this
Speaker 1: idea that the people genuinely hate their current existing government
Speaker 1: that the United States also hates. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how dissatisfied the Afghans were with the Taliban. I
Speaker 1: don't know how dissatisfied the Iraqis were with Saddam Hussein.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know how dissatisfied, which leads
Speaker 1: me to my point. I don't know how dissatisfied the
Speaker 1: Iranians are with the current setup. I mean, will we
Speaker 1: actually be like and it's just that that narrative again, Well,
Speaker 1: we'll be treated as liberators, will we? I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: they used to have the Shah, and they used to
Speaker 1: have this more open, you know, western open societ that
Speaker 1: was like fifty years ago, and they overthrew that guy
Speaker 1: and replaced him with the most not that kind of
Speaker 1: regime possible. You know, we bring up that they'll shoot
Speaker 1: women or execute women for walking around without a heye job.
Speaker 1: We think that's terrible. I don't know that most Iranians
Speaker 1: think that's terrible. I don't know. Maybe there are a
Speaker 1: lot of them who think it's terrible. Maybe, but I
Speaker 1: don't know that. And I don't feel like anyone in
Speaker 1: America has really the most solid grip on just how
Speaker 1: unpopular or popular the iatolas are in Iran. At the
Speaker 1: same time, there's the nuke thing. So we'll talk about
Speaker 1: the nuke thing, the big trump card in this after
Speaker 1: the break. This is John Girardi Show. As I said
Speaker 1: at the start of the show, I think my opinions
Speaker 1: on Iran are sort of wildly all over the place.
Speaker 1: I feel like I just kind of agree with whatever's
Speaker 1: the last thing I read. So if the last thing
Speaker 1: I read was we cannot allow the Iranians to get
Speaker 1: a new because we should, We should intervene, we should
Speaker 1: topple the regime now while we got the chance, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's pretty persuasive. And then I read someone else being like, really,
Speaker 1: you wont another war in the Middle East that's gonna
Speaker 1: drag on for twenty Oh, that's pretty persuasive. And you know,
Speaker 1: you're trying to do. Regime change is obviously not so simple.
Speaker 1: It's not like you snap your fingers and it just
Speaker 1: happens very often. It requires twenty years of dedicated, you know,
Speaker 1: ground forces, and maybe it's not super stable and god
Speaker 1: knows how committed the Iranians are. The one thing, the
Speaker 1: one thing with Irun that makes it a little more
Speaker 1: dicey than everyone else is whether they are well, let
Speaker 1: me put it this way, whether they were close to
Speaker 1: getting a nuke before the Israeli strikes, whether they are
Speaker 1: close to getting a nuke now after the Israeli strikes,
Speaker 1: whether long term they're going to be close to getting
Speaker 1: a nuke, whether they even want a nuke to begin with, Okay,
Speaker 1: which it seems that all of those points are disputed now,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not. I give more credence to the
Speaker 1: idea that, yes, Iran would like to have a nuke,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, and then also the idea of, well,
Speaker 1: how will Iran act with a nuke? Most countries with nukes,
Speaker 1: even really bad countries like North Korea, don't use them
Speaker 1: willy nilly. It gives you negotiating leverage, but most countries
Speaker 1: don't actually use them. North Korea has a nuke, they
Speaker 1: don't use it. It strengthened, it strengthens their negotiating position
Speaker 1: in various kinds of ways. But they're not firing the
Speaker 1: nuke because they know if they actually fire a nuke,
Speaker 1: we will eliminate them from the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: So they don't fire a nukes. They have a nuke,
Speaker 1: it's a negotiating leverage point. They don't use it is
Speaker 1: the Ayatola Komane, an eighty six year old man, by
Speaker 1: the way, and there are these news stories about how
Speaker 1: he's kind of feeling totally disconnected because all the people
Speaker 1: he worked with are now dead. And frankly, I think
Speaker 1: it's a fair question of whether any you know, given
Speaker 1: that we in the United States just went through this
Speaker 1: with an octogenarian president, you know how loose it is he,
Speaker 1: how stable is here, and how stable is whoever's going
Speaker 1: to replace him? Is an iatola in Iran, either the
Speaker 1: current one or whoever's the next one, who is going
Speaker 1: to step up after Komane. Are they crazy enough, suicidal
Speaker 1: enough to actually use a nuke, to give a nuke
Speaker 1: to approx see to explode in Jerusalem? Is that even
Speaker 1: physically possible? I guess. I don't know all that. Do
Speaker 1: they have actually the ballistic missile technology to deliver said
Speaker 1: nuke a long distance? Do they have the ability to
Speaker 1: detonate a nuke in a city, to smuggle it into
Speaker 1: a city and there by detonate it. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. But that is the big threat. That is
Speaker 1: the one thing that the Neokon side has in its
Speaker 1: favor is this is a unstable suicide bomb loving martyrdom,
Speaker 1: Islamic martyrdom, jihad, embracing theocratic government. It genuinely embraces these
Speaker 1: principles of theocracy and martyrdom for the cause of Jihad
Speaker 1: and Sharia. And they're going to have a nuke. You know,
Speaker 1: you think that they won't use the new You hope
Speaker 1: they would act rationally with the nuke, but that's not
Speaker 1: always a guarantee. One person can make one bad decision
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, no Tel Aviv, no Jerusalem. No,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if it's possible to smuggle
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon into a city in the West, you know,
Speaker 1: No Paris, no, you know, whatever it is. So I
Speaker 1: guess I can't I acknowledge that that is maybe the
Speaker 1: trump card. Now, maybe the Israeli strikes have completely decimated
Speaker 1: their nuclear capacity. I would want to know that one
Speaker 1: way or another before I'm supportive of regime change. But
Speaker 1: the nuke angle is the one trump card. And all
Speaker 1: this all right, when we return, will go away from
Speaker 1: foreign policy to domestic stuff. Gavin Newsom Gavin's Last gasp
Speaker 1: An update on his lawsuit against President Trump. That's next
Speaker 1: on the John Gerardy Show. I had a piece published
Speaker 1: by National Review today. You can check it out at
Speaker 1: my Twitter account Twitter dot com slash Fresnojohnny at Fresno Johnny.
Speaker 1: It's a piece basically about Gavin Newsome, And as I've
Speaker 1: talked about before, my thesis is that I think non
Speaker 1: Californians and even a lot of Californians, don't realize just
Speaker 1: how politically damaged Gavin Newsom is right now, and how
Speaker 1: he has really isolated himself within California and has racked
Speaker 1: up just a string of really embarrassing and devastating failures
Speaker 1: that and critically, it's failures that are non partisan in nature,
Speaker 1: that have outcomes that are non partisan in nature. Things
Speaker 1: that he said were a priority in twenty eighteen that
Speaker 1: he just didn't deliver on. Things that are just bad homelessness,
Speaker 1: lack of new home construction, when he's been saying since
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Oh, there's a serious problem, we need to
Speaker 1: fix it. The high speed rail having zero point zero
Speaker 1: inches of operable track. Wildfires. Wildfires were a huge problem
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, they were still a big problem
Speaker 1: at the start of twenty twenty five. He has issue
Speaker 1: after issue after issue after issued like that where it's like,
Speaker 1: it's not a thing where Republicans really don't like it,
Speaker 1: but Democrats really like it because it's a super liberal policy. No,
Speaker 1: it's a wildfire. Nobody likes a wildfire. Homelessness. Nobody likes homelessness.
Speaker 1: Davin Newsom spent twenty four billion dollars on homelessness and
Speaker 1: it hasn't helped the problem at all. So no one
Speaker 1: likes homelessness. No one likes high how costs. No one
Speaker 1: likes the fact that we can't build anything quickly in California,
Speaker 1: including new homes. Nobody likes wildfires. Nobody blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah, issue after issue after issue, or
Speaker 1: what he has is something that's like a liberal policy
Speaker 1: that he's had to backtrack from because it's been such
Speaker 1: a disaster. He extended medical eligibility to illegal aliens. It
Speaker 1: wound up being way more expensive than he thought, so
Speaker 1: he has to pull back on it. So that looks
Speaker 1: bad to everybody. It's not a thing that just Republicans
Speaker 1: are mad at because Republicans don't support giving medical coverage
Speaker 1: to people who aren't supposed to be in the country.
Speaker 1: This is something that looks bad to everyone. Liberals are
Speaker 1: far angrier at Gavin Newsom right now than conservatives are
Speaker 1: over the medical for illegals thing. All right. Conservatives are
Speaker 1: just like, okay, well, you know, just another thing that
Speaker 1: we don't like. I mean, you know, it's a thing
Speaker 1: that we would expect from Gavin Newsom. Liberals in Sacramento.
Speaker 1: Liberals in the state legislature like Joaquin A. Rambula, for example,
Speaker 1: are really upset at the withdrawal of coverage from illegal aliens,
Speaker 1: really upset. Advocacy groups all up and down the state
Speaker 1: are super angry at Gavin Newsom for the withdrawal of
Speaker 1: some medical coverage from some illegal aliens, not all, but some,
Speaker 1: so they are just fit to be tied. Most of
Speaker 1: the state legislature, in fact, is unhappy with it, and
Speaker 1: the state legislative proposal for the budget. The state legislator's
Speaker 1: proposal from the budget sort of moderates even the Newsom position,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of Democrat legislators aren't even happy with that.
Speaker 1: So Newsom is hugely politically damaged right now. He has
Speaker 1: isolated people in California. You've got because of his cuts.
Speaker 1: You've got teachers unions mad at him, public workers, public
Speaker 1: workers unions mad at him. You've got the abortion industry
Speaker 1: mad at him. You've got Planned Parenthood was furious at
Speaker 1: the cuts he proposed in the May revision. He's got
Speaker 1: environmentalists getting mad at him because now he's belatedly trying
Speaker 1: to do more water delivery stuff for southern California to
Speaker 1: equip them for wildfires, and they're mad at some of
Speaker 1: the stuff he's trying to do there. You've got legislators
Speaker 1: really mad at him. You've got advocacy groups really mad.
Speaker 1: Everyone is mad at him. So he has all these
Speaker 1: non partisan failures. He's got fellow liberals really ticked off
Speaker 1: at him. He's the ultimate lame duck. He's only got
Speaker 1: a year and a half. He's got a year and
Speaker 1: a half left as govern and you can see the
Speaker 1: tenor of conversations that happened in Sacramento. It's shifting away
Speaker 1: from a Newsom centric focus. The legislature sees his May
Speaker 1: revision of the budget and they're like, well, we don't
Speaker 1: want that. We're gonna give our own proposal. That doesn't
Speaker 1: cut as much as you cut, and they sort of
Speaker 1: I think they're taking this attitude of they're not afraid
Speaker 1: of Gavin Newsom anymore. I think Gavin Newsom, especially around
Speaker 1: the time of his recall, Newsom at the time of
Speaker 1: his recall clearly had more power, more clout, more money
Speaker 1: behind him, more support within the Democrat Party than he
Speaker 1: had ever had, and he was able to intimidate every
Speaker 1: elected Democrat in California and basically say, if any Democrat
Speaker 1: dares to run in the recall election, their career is over.
Speaker 1: And he was able to do that. He had the muscle,
Speaker 1: the money behind him to do that. He had organized
Speaker 1: labor all behind him, he had the environmental groups all
Speaker 1: behind him. He had his traditional, you know, magic circle
Speaker 1: of donors. The CEO of Netflix was giving like tens
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars to the anti recall campaign because
Speaker 1: there wasn't a there's no dollar contribution limit on a
Speaker 1: yes or a no on a recall campaign like there
Speaker 1: is for individual races giving a donation to a candidate.
Speaker 1: Newsom had that muscle back then. He doesn't have that
Speaker 1: muscle anymore now. The most innovative kinds of legislative proposals
Speaker 1: that are happening in the legislature. They're sort of happening
Speaker 1: independent of Newsom. It's not a Newsome proposal. You got
Speaker 1: Buffy Wicks from Oakland who's proposing all these new things
Speaker 1: having to do with trying to reform SEQUA. That's all
Speaker 1: kind of a legislative initiative. It's sort of Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: tagging along after the fact. He's not the chief driver
Speaker 1: of things in Sacramento anymore. They know he's gone a
Speaker 1: year and a half, even with a lot of his cuts.
Speaker 1: I mean, you had these advocacy groups saying we look
Speaker 1: forward to working with the legislature to fix this, not
Speaker 1: working with the governor, working with the legislature to fix this,
Speaker 1: because they all know he's not long for this world.
Speaker 1: We're not scared of him anymore. He's not the kingmaker
Speaker 1: that he was because his political mortality is coming up.
Speaker 1: He's you know, after the twenty twenty six elections, he's done.
Speaker 1: He turns out as governor and he's not coming back
Speaker 1: into California politics. That's the other thing is I don't
Speaker 1: see a credible path to ongoing political relevance for Newsom.
Speaker 1: For anything short of the presidency. What's Newsom gonna do
Speaker 1: after this? Well, he can't realistically run for the Senate
Speaker 1: right now. The two US Senate seats are filled, so
Speaker 1: and they're filled with it's not aging Dianne Feinstein or
Speaker 1: aging Barbara Boxer anymore. You've got Alex Padilla, whom Newsom appointed.
Speaker 1: Newsom appointed Alex Padia in twenty twenty one to replace
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris after Harris became the vice president, so Newsom
Speaker 1: appointed him. He appointed him to the Senate in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. Padilla got re elected in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: So Padilla is in office through twenty twenty eight, and
Speaker 1: you know, odds are he's gonna run for president in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight, So Newsom can't get Padia's seat. Probably
Speaker 1: if if Padea runs for reelection and he's he's not
Speaker 1: that old, I don't think. Yeah, he was born in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, so he's only like fifty something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like fifty two years old. Padilla is likely going
Speaker 1: to run for reelection twenty twenty eight. I don't know
Speaker 1: how Gavin Newsom can incredibly run against him. It's not
Speaker 1: I you know, what's he going to do? Primary the
Speaker 1: guy that he appointed? The other Senate seat is filled
Speaker 1: by Adam Shiff. Shift just got elected in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: so you know that seat's not open to Newsom at
Speaker 1: least until twenty thirty. And again, Shift's a relatively young guy.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't you know, in the grading on the curve
Speaker 1: of the American gerontocracy where we've had eighty year olds
Speaker 1: be president, I would imagine Adam Schiff is going to
Speaker 1: run for reelection twenty thirty, And again, what's Newsom going
Speaker 1: to do? Try to primary the guy they don't really
Speaker 1: disagree on much. So Newsom can't take one of the
Speaker 1: two California US Senate seats. Running for the House seems
Speaker 1: like a bit of a step down. Frankly, I don't
Speaker 1: know that he wants to be one of you know,
Speaker 1: three hundred and four or however many members of the
Speaker 1: House there are members. That's a step down to be
Speaker 1: a state representative, forget it. So Newsom has nowhere to
Speaker 1: go other than try to run for president. So when
Speaker 1: we return, I want to talk about how that's the
Speaker 1: main reason I think he is so desperate to get
Speaker 1: into and win this current little legal fight he's having
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump. That's next on The John Gerardy Show.
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom has nowhere to go but up. It's his
Speaker 1: only route to any kind of ongoing political relevance. He
Speaker 1: can't run for either of the two US Senate seats.
Speaker 1: They're not open to him. He appointed Padilla Adam Schiff
Speaker 1: just got elected. I don't think he wants to go
Speaker 1: back down to be like a member of the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives or something, or in the state legislature. God forbid.
Speaker 1: So what does he have left the presidency. That's his
Speaker 1: only option left for any kind of continuing political relevance,
Speaker 1: and it's an office he has obviously coveted for a
Speaker 1: long time. Problem is he has so many failures on
Speaker 1: his resume, non partisan failures. Wildfires. We had bad wildfires,
Speaker 1: He had opportunity time to do stuff to correct it.
Speaker 1: We had more bad wildfires. Homelessness was a big problem
Speaker 1: when he started. It's a worse problem now. And he
Speaker 1: spent twenty four billion dollars on it, and no one
Speaker 1: knows where the money went. No new housing constructs, you know,
Speaker 1: bad low housing, new housing construction. When he started as
Speaker 1: governor it continues to be a huge problem. No high
Speaker 1: speed rail, No high speed rail, just problem after problem
Speaker 1: after problem after problem. You know, he he extends medical
Speaker 1: coverage to illegal aliens. Now he has to pull it back.
Speaker 1: All of his problems are non partisan coded in nature.
Speaker 1: And if he goes to a Democrat primary and he's
Speaker 1: on that debate stage, Josh Shapiro can skewer him, not
Speaker 1: with you did this super liberal thing and a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't like liberal things. Shapiro can skewer him
Speaker 1: with non partisan failures. You said you were going to
Speaker 1: address homelessness. Homelessness is worse than when you started. You
Speaker 1: said you were going to address the fact that housing
Speaker 1: construction takes too long. You know, you said you were
Speaker 1: going to high gas prices. During your time as governor,
Speaker 1: gas prices expanded enormously. You signed this law in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, and then within a year two years, gas
Speaker 1: prices shot up enormously. You know, you did this, You
Speaker 1: did that, you did that, and all of it is
Speaker 1: non partisan aligned, it's non partisan coded. It's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that other Democrats in the Democrat primary can
Speaker 1: demolish him with. So what does he have left? Trump
Speaker 1: the white whale for all Democrats. If Newsom so Newsom
Speaker 1: filed this lawsuit to stop Trump from activating the California
Speaker 1: National Guard, he gives this wildly over dramatic speech about
Speaker 1: how the democracy is at stake, it's on the line.
Speaker 1: He pretends like he's gonna cry and stuff. He gets
Speaker 1: the lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California, even
Speaker 1: though the riots are happening in southern California, and the
Speaker 1: Northern District of California is the judicial district that's centered
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, seven hours north. Why does he do
Speaker 1: that because sixty three of the sixty five federal judges,
Speaker 1: the Federal District Court judges who serve in the Northern
Speaker 1: District of California are Democrat appointees. Each of the Bush's
Speaker 1: got one judge, and they're both at senior status, so
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, not full time judges. He gets,
Speaker 1: of all people, Steven Bryer's brother, who gives a predictably
Speaker 1: wildly left wing ruling while during the oral arguments, he
Speaker 1: was talking about how Trump can't be a king, you know,
Speaker 1: just coincidentally, the same language that's being used for all
Speaker 1: the protests that took place over this past weekend, the
Speaker 1: No Kings protest. So that's the thing. Newsom has a
Speaker 1: lot of failures. But if he can get into a
Speaker 1: showdown with Donald Trump and somehow win and come off
Speaker 1: as a sympathetic figure, all that other crap could go away.
Speaker 1: That could cover up the multitude of his failures. If
Speaker 1: he's in the debate stage and say, I'm the only
Speaker 1: person here who's been able to take on and beat
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. None of you other people have. I'm the
Speaker 1: one person who knows. I stood toe to toe with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and I stopped him when he was trying
Speaker 1: to be a dictator and use the California National Guard to,
Speaker 1: you know, impose martial law. I think that's why he's
Speaker 1: so invested in this. It's his only shot, his only
Speaker 1: shot at relevance, his only shot at the presidency, his
Speaker 1: only shot at the Democrat nomination, to cover up his
Speaker 1: laundry list of failures. That'll do it. John di already
Speaker 1: shows you you next time on Power Talk.