Inside Newsom’s plan to take on Trump | On The Road

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**Gavin Newsom** (0:15)
I don't wake up every day to try to find, you know, a crowbar to put in the spokes of his wheel. I don't. That said, I'm gonna stand my ground. I'm gonna fight. We're gonna have the backs of our diverse communities, and we're going to fight back. And yeah, fight fire with fire. And I know two wrongs don't make a right, but with all due respect, we'll lose this country as we try to win that argument. And Democrats are constantly trying to be right. The other side is ruthless. And with respect, my party needs to be more ruthless about winning because if we don't win back the House of Representatives, we may not have a fair and free election in 2028, and I really believe that.

**Jonathan Martin** (0:51)
Hey, folks, this is Jonathan Martin. Welcome back to On the Road, where we sit down with politicians and talk about what really matters. Food, politics and place. We're coming at you from San Francisco this week. The Waymo's are rolling by left and right, and we're going to be talking to Governor Gavin Newsom over a fantastic seafood meal at one of the legendary political joints here in the city, Sam's Grill. This is a place that's famous for welcoming judges, elected officials, the power players here. Most famously, the forever mayor of San Francisco, Willie L. Brown, who eats here almost every day. And I'm looking forward to talking to Governor Newsom about his new book, a memoir, that's really a chronicle of this city, his family, and his own upbringing in this extraordinary and singular place. This is On the Road, coming at you from SSAT.
I don't think I've ever done this. I've read so many politicians' books, so many of these memoirs, these quickie campaign books. They're all, to be totally kiddin, pretty crappy. This is a real book.

**Gavin Newsom** (1:59)
You may have your line.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:00)
Come on, you're a politician. There's plenty of political stuff in here, and you go a few places that you shade. But you obviously put a lot of time into this. It's not just about you. This is about this city. This is about your family story in this city, and this is about also, as you put it in the subtitle, about this feeling of discovery here.

**Gavin Newsom** (2:19)
Yeah, I know it is a memoir. Five years.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:21)
In the making.

**Gavin Newsom** (2:22)
Five damn years.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:23)
Why so long?

**Gavin Newsom** (2:24)
I had to go back. That's why it was a memoir of discovery, to learn not only about myself in relationship to San Francisco and its past, but moreover, to learn about my mom and dad and my grandparents and their parents, and as a consequence, learn more about this state and the state of mind that has defined so much of my childhood here in San Francisco.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:45)
And you are almost like a northern California forest gum. I mean, you have lived this life in which there's these incredible cameos from people across American history. So this is from memory, but your aunt was married to Ed Asner, the actor. Your mom briefly dated Rick Barry, the basketball player, who was famous for doing the underhand free throw shot.

**Gavin Newsom** (3:08)
Yeah, one of the best free throw shooters, one of the best basketball players.

**Jonathan Martin** (3:11)
But you've got this life in which you also were traveling all over the world, these incredible places, hanging out with the Spanish royal family, and you detail all of that, and you don't bullshit about the privilege you had in a lot of ways, but you also are emphatic to the point of almost being angry on one page, where you say, the reason I wanted to do this book is because it's not just about Gavin and the Gettys. It's not just about this incredible life I had on Pacific Heights. It's also the Latchkey Kids story. And you feel strongly about capturing this duality.

**Gavin Newsom** (3:42)
Yeah, no. And neither of my parents lived in Pacific Heights, but my dad knew folks that lived there. So there was this perception that somehow I was born with a suit and tie on. I was born into privilege.

**Jonathan Martin** (3:53)
You came out of the womb like this, right?

**Gavin Newsom** (3:55)
I should have taken this off.

**Jonathan Martin** (3:56)
The tie knot and everything.