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Ezra Klein: “Everybody says, and I believe California is a place where…”

Featuring: Ezra Klein, Liberal | New York Times Columnist and Podcast Host | National

How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show

Published December 10, 2025 | Video Starts at 05:42

I know some of these guys, I don't know some of the others, but the way they end up feeling embattled on the wrong side of history. Everybody says, and I believe California is a place where the future happens first. Yeah. And a lot of them felt like they were watching what they believed in get encircled. And it seems to me it created a kind of conservatism that is much more apocalyptic, much more ethnonationalist. (05:42–05:47)

CLAIM

Asserts that California is perceived as a place where future trends and developments occur first.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Ezra Klein

“They are the most alcohol addicted, most drug addicted, most suicidal, most depressed, most medicated generation in history.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 12:34-12:41
“California ranks 50th on affordability.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 35:04-35:07
“In Sweden, I think more than 80% of single family homes are now offsite modular or off site manufactured.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 41:29-41:36
“The net worth held by the top 0.1% of households in the US reached $23.3 trillion in the second quarter of this year.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 48:23-48:32
“That is up from $10.7 trillion a decade earlier.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 48:31-48:35
“The amount held by the bottom 50% increased to 4.2 trillion from 900 billion.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 48:35-48:42
“In California, there actually was subsidized government healthcare for undocumented immigrants.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:12:01-1:12:07
“If you look at the polymarket betting odds on who will be the 2020 Democratic nominee, [Gavin] Newsom is far ahead of anyone else.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 00:27-00:34
“California routinely ranks as the least affordable state in the nation.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 03:18-03:23
“If you can't get a house, if you don't see a path to get a house.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 18:09-18:13
“It's not even feasible in a lot of these cities to ever get a house.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 18:17-18:23
“Once you feel like you can get on that ladder, you're okay.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 18:27-18:30
“Liberal democracy will not work if policy cannot deliver at the speed of elections.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 24:57-25:04
“When Medicare passed, it took one year for the Medicare cards to go out.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 25:15-25:19
“When Biden... passed negotiating down Medicare drug prices... the first time people will pay those lower prices is next year.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 25:18-25:43
“The model where government doesn't deliver is also corrosive.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 28:07-28:13
“Savage's view is that California is a kind of hellscape.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 32:46-32:50
“You put a 3.5 million housing production goal.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 36:53-36:57
“But you're not on track for either goal.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 37:11-37:13
“I think of California having a big downturn in rents.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 37:33-37:37
“With Trump's tariffs and deportations is getting worse on a bunch of levels.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 39:17-39:21
“But we fundamentally tax income, not wealth.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 50:39-50:42
“It is difficult to tax wealth. It is not impossible to tax wealth. I mean we used to have a strong or a stronger estate tax in this country…”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 50:43-50:54
“Is a society that has that level of wealth inequality a politically stable or inevitably just.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 52:49-52:59
“Here's, I think the difficulty on taxes for Democrats people. I mean, polling on this is clear, including among many Republicans, people…”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 54:59-55:09
“Silicon Valley has become the epicenter of the global AI revolution.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 58:33-58:44
“The culture of Silicon Valley has changed. The politics of it have changed very rapidly in this period.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 58:46-58:51
“AI is going to be a big part of the next turn of politics.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 59:22-59:27
“I don't think we really know what AI is going to do to the job market or when or to whom.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:01:57-1:02:02
“The process of looking for a job has become hellish.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:02:10-1:02:14
“You're sending endless resumes to dozens of places. They're being read by AI.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:02:21-1:02:28
“Sometimes you're interviewing with AI.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:02:27-1:02:29
“Everybody's using AI to apply. The AIs are reading the AI applicant.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:02:35-1:02:39
“Growth and economic energy and activity have become unexpectedly in the digital era, more concentrated.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:05:48-1:05:56
“Democrats won rural and urban counties at about the same rates not that long ago.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:06:24-1:06:29
“Now Democrats dominate cities really struggle in rural counties.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:06:29-1:06:34
“A couple of years ago, what they [Republicans] figured out...is how much energy there is in the feeling of loss.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:09:37-1:09:55
“There was a big push to, let's call it, phase out cars with internal combustion engines [in California].”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:12:06-1:12:12
“Democrats really became Trump's mirror. He was cruel. They were going to be, be compassionate.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:16:00-1:16:05
“J.D. Vance gives the most interesting speeches of any Republican politician right now.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:19:03-1:19:17
“Vance goes to the Claremont Institute in California to accept an award and gives his speech.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:19:17-1:19:23
“Vance is trying to say that this idea that being in America, being an American is about what you believe is false.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:20:30-1:20:38
“What we have to do is recognize, admit that blood, bloodline, that length of time, numbers of your family buried in cemeteries.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:20:41-1:20:53
“Chuck Schumer did not endorse Zoran Mamdani for Instance.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:26:58-1:27:02
“That allowed Kamala Harris to break ties and pass mostly the Inflation Reduction Act.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:27:23-1:27:28
“The great sin of Democrats, attentionally, in recent years is that they are the party of the institutions.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:32:25-1:32:35
“That worked for a previous era of attention when everything was decided by who the New York Times decided to cover.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:32:48-1:32:54
“You can't do a podcast, a good podcast, with a politician, when you can watch them buffering before they answer.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:33:08-1:33:16
“To get attention, you need conflict.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:41:12-1:41:16
“But we are that divided, actually.”
How Gavin Newsom Became the Democrats' 2028 Frontrunner | The Ezra Klein Show | Uploaded December 10, 2025 | 1:44:22-1:44:25