On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) held a press conference to discuss AI usage in the State Government.
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NewsTranscript
00:00all right good morning governor thank you for being here visiting our offices here at
00:19Accenture and thank you guests it's really an honor and a privilege to have you here in downtown Los
00:24Angeles I'll be brief I just want to start by saying 50% of all venture capital in the United
00:31States flows through California half of the world's 20 largest companies California there's
00:41a reason for that for advanced technology to biotech to renewables California leads the world
00:47and innovative companies want to be here it's not accidental that innovation is flourished here
00:54partnerships between the public and private sector are commonplace here and there's a reason for that
01:00and it's not because it can be 65 degrees here for most of the year it requires the conditions for
01:07that to happen and governor I want to thank you for your unrelenting focus to ensure that
01:12technology like AI things that the world needs to solve the big problems that you're leading the way
01:20and that that's happening right here in California as it should and thank you for allowing companies
01:26like Accenture to continue working with the state to tackle those hard problems and have an enduring
01:32impact I travel around the world and I work with governments of all different types that want to
01:38learn more and adopt digital technologies they want to be innovative and I start with California and that's
01:46not because I call California my home it's because there is something special here in California and
01:52that is that people want to come here to be creative companies want to come here to be creative to build the
01:59things that solve the big problems and California is a world leader in that we turn the bold ideas into that
02:08big long-lasting impact and so again it's my pleasure to be here and I will turn it over to Tino Cuellar
02:16who is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thank you very much
02:21good morning and thank you Mark you know 115 years ago my organization was founded by Andrew Carnegie with one singular purpose
02:31after he'd spent all this time building libraries around the world he wanted to make an investment in making peace and quality
02:36and cooperation across countries more effective and he came to understand that that involved the improvement
02:43of governance how it is that democracies worked as well today our organization works in multiple countries
02:48but with one singular purpose how to make the world a little bit more effective at cooperating in its governance
02:53more effective at responding to the needs of people here in California we have an enormous opportunity and my
02:59organization Carnegie has been pleased to partner with the state of California to take the conversation about the
03:05democracy to the next level we wanted to not only ask how do you protect democracy how do you make it work effectively
03:12but also what is the frontier how do you engage citizens in a different way on the hard problems that government is facing
03:18like rebuilding Los Angeles in a way that is effective and responsive to the needs of all Angelenos
03:24what can we learn from this terrible disaster that has played out here the answer to that question is found interestingly enough
03:31sometimes in the hearts and the minds of people all over the state of California and the question that we've been
03:37asking ourselves as we help design a program for the state of California to scale up is how do you select people
03:44to have meaningful conversations not just the quick sound bite not just the quick response to a pollster but the depth that you get
03:51when you're having an honest conversation listening to disconfirming ideas asking how to leverage your own wisdom and insight
03:57how do you then take those conversations and make them actual input into the decisions of elected representatives
04:04and leaders and executive branch officials integrate that with expert scientific knowledge
04:08and then how do you use that experience to make sure the citizens who participate learn something and go back to their communities
04:15and spread that knowledge as they go now as I've seen this project scale up and seen the interest from the governor and his team
04:22I've been struck by three things that really make this meaningful the first is anybody who cares about democracy
04:29should know that democracy has a crisis of delivering sometimes it's not enough to live in a democracy
04:35we have to ask how can it be more responsive more quickly to the needs of people to build things and have them respond to their needs
04:41second can we learn from the technology around us and not make this all about technology but use technological tools to improve deliberation
04:50and last can we make it so that the people who participate in these dialogues don't just feel good about it
04:57but get tangible clear indications that their input and their ideas are being acted on by their representatives
05:04so for all those reasons it's been a real privilege to have my organization the Carnegie Endowment be a part of this from day one
05:10and now I'd like to introduce somebody who's done terrific work showcasing how this can work around the world
05:16and that is Audrey Tang who is Taiwan's cyber ambassador at large welcome Audrey
05:21Thank you I'm Audrey Tang Taiwan's first digital minister and now cyber ambassador
05:3110 years ago in 2015 in Taiwan we entered the cabinet with this very simple idea that efficiency and engagement do not have to be a trade-off
05:42through participation we can actually make government much more efficient
05:47and in the short span of the first six years since I went into the cabinet as a full minister in charge of digital participation
05:54the approval rate increased from 9% to over 70% we shortened the tax filing from hours to minutes
06:02and we overcame the pandemic without a single day of citywide lockdown
06:06and all this is not my idea or really anyone's idea but rather ideas from the Taiwanese population
06:13and I'm really really happy to see that over the past two years the team here in California took that idea
06:20and amplified it with generative AI because Gen AI for the first time can accurately summarize people's common ideas
06:27and discover the uncommon ground despite polarization and for the first time generative AI can help closing the loop
06:34by going back to the actual statements proposed by a citizen saying
06:39now the government is doing this because of these words you said and resonated with
06:44so I'm very happy to keep helping the state of California and also building what we call pro-social media
06:51not the anti-social corner of social media but social media that really give the voice choice and a stake to everyone involved
06:59thank you and I'd like to introduce the State Transportation Secretary Secretary Omishakhin
07:04Good morning everybody Toks Omishakhin Transportation Secretary part of Governor Gavin Newsom's cabinet team
07:16so here to share a little bit of the perspective from transportation on this topic we're here today to talk about
07:24not only the efficiency of government but how government can become more effective and also how government can engage better
07:33two things I want to briefly talk about number one what we've been doing in the past
07:38and then the sort of renaissance to take off that we've also seen in the last 18 months since Governor Newsom signed an executive order on generative AI
07:48first of all some of the things we've been doing in the past before this responsibility I was the Caltrans director
07:55and I know for a fact that every major project that you start at Caltrans takes anywhere from 12 to 14 years to get from start to completion
08:07from start to completion 12 to 14 years meaning if a child is in kindergarten today and we start a project today
08:15that child will be in college before that project is done any major project so the governor challenges as a part of SB1
08:25many years ago to continue to identify ways to find efficiencies in how we do our work as a part of SB1
08:32also there was a 100 million dollars efficiency savings requirement in that requirement every single year
08:39we've exceeded that 100 million dollar requirement many years doubling and in some cases tripling the efficiencies that we've
08:47and savings that we found to get projects out to our taxpayers more quickly so delivering projects more efficiently and effectively from Caltrans has been a priority
09:01number two as far as some of the things that we've done in the past the DMV has been a shining star an example
09:09Steve Gordon the director there has really been focused on identifying ways to deliver better service to customers
09:16any customer that walked into a DMV six years ago compared to walking into a DMV today it will tell you it's a completely different experience
09:24those wait times significantly shorter part of the reason why is because we've moved so many things into a digital platform
09:32six years ago there were only roughly half a dozen or a dozen actually a dozen transactions that you could do online only 12
09:42today there are 50 transactions that you can start online at the DMV and complete more than 40 percent of vehicle registrations
09:50also happen online today that's those are significant jumps from five or six years ago at the DMV
09:58so a lot of advancement a lot of improvement one more example from the DMV we were just talking about it with the governor
10:04is the mobile driver's license we now have 1.4 million people in California who have their driver's license in a mobile format
10:12600,000 or with Google another 112,000 with Samsung and then another 600,000 roughly with a DMV wallet
10:22so a lot of advancements and improvement and effectiveness in delivering services both at Caltrans and at the DMV
10:30now specifically to the exciting announcement from the governor's signing of an executive order in September of 2023
10:41by the way one of the first governors in the country to do so we were excited from the transportation side to be a part of
10:51launching California into this from the government space the two projects that we're going to take on
10:57number one traffic management is number one number two vulnerable users of the transportation system
11:03from a traffic management standpoint California has more super commuters than any other state in the country
11:11more than 300,000 people in our state travel 90 minutes in one direction
11:17so you're talking about three hours a day people spending in traffic
11:21so we want to use generative AI to identify the bottlenecks and solutions to be able to address those bottlenecks
11:29along our transportation system throughout the state and I can't think of a better tool to support what staff
11:37our engineering and traffic staff already do sometimes what takes months to do
11:43it could take two or three months to identify solutions sometimes
11:47two to three months will turn into two to three days of work once we start to use the generative AI tools to help us identify the problems more uniquely
11:57identify the problems more uniquely and come up with solutions to address those traffic congestion points
12:03and finally the vulnerable users of our transportation system people who are walking and biking in California
12:11I'll tell you a lot of people don't know this this fact but nearly 10 people a day die using the transportation system in our state
12:19nearly 30% of them are vulnerable users so nearly 3 in 10 a day is somebody either walking or biking
12:29so this is a this is a critical issue for us to address on our transportation system
12:33our numbers are can only be compared with Texas by the way they're the only other state that has a number that's above 4,000 as far as traffic fatalities
12:43so it's an important issue I was excited when the governor said he wanted transportation to be part of the initial outbreak
12:51to launch this using generative AI and I'm looking forward to the tools that we will be able to come up with
12:59and solutions we'll be able to identify to address traffic fatalities in the state and specifically
13:05the vulnerable users of our transportation system in California
13:09so again thank you everybody for being here
13:11I look forward to any questions that may come later
13:14but next I want to introduce a new colleague that the governor has recently appointed
13:19Secretary of GovOps Nick Maduros
13:22Nick
13:23Thank you everybody for being here and thank you for having me
13:27as Secretary Omishakin mentioned I'm Nick Maduros I'm the Secretary of Government Operations
13:33our agency's mission is to focus always on ways we can improve our service to Californians
13:39to make government work better that's our charge from the governor
13:43and under Governor Newsom's leadership the state has become a leader in using the latest technology to improve government service
13:50GovOps which includes the California Department of Technology as well as the Office of Data and Innovation
13:57another creation of Governor Newsom has been helping state employees to harness the latest tools
14:02so that they can work more efficiently and effectively on behalf of Californians
14:08as Secretary Omishakin mentioned since the governor issued his generative AI executive order in 2023
14:16the state has run under the leadership of GovOps eight proofs of concept across government to experiment with the use of Gen AI
14:26to see if we can harness this technology to improve government service
14:32one of those involved my prior department the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration
14:36which administers 42 different tax and fee programs on behalf of the state of California
14:42as you can imagine it's complicated to know about one tax program as all of you who just filed your tax returns
14:49can probably appreciate it's very complicated to know about 42 tax and fee programs
14:55and so what Gen AI the tool that was developed what Gen AI allowed our call center operators to do is to leverage the tool
15:07so that they could more quickly and more effectively answer taxpayer questions as they called in
15:13it would listen along to the call in a secure environment and immediately search through thousands and thousands of pages of California tax law
15:23to suggest answers to the operators
15:27it's especially helpful for those call center operators who are newer in their jobs
15:31and using this next generation assistant cuts down on call time allows for the call center operators to more easily take notes
15:43which immediately go into the taxpayers file so that we can next time they call if they have to call again
15:48it will bring up their prior conversation and allows us to leverage the team members that we have and keep others who may be doing collections or audits
16:00keep them doing their regular work instead of getting on the phones
16:04and we're taking the lessons that we learned and we can use those across the state's call centers
16:08GovOps is also through the California Department of Technology working on developing the first in the nation state digital assistance
16:18with the state's highest managed cloud and highest security managed cloud environment
16:24no state data leaves the state's secure environment
16:27and the pilots onboarding currently eight state departments to test how Gen AI can be used as a productivity tool to summarize and analyze state data
16:35rather in the proofs of concept we had very specific tools that we were testing out
16:42in this next phase we're now getting general tools and giving them to state employees and letting them discover how they can best use those tools to improve taxpayer or service to Californians
16:55anyway with that you know Governor Newsom knows that improving government efficiency isn't only about technology
17:02but he also knows that it's very difficult to meet the expectation expectations of today's Californians with technology that may be 10 or 20 years old
17:12so we're giving our team the tools they need to deliver to Californians the services that they need
17:19and with that let me introduce a man who needs no introduction our Governor Gavin Newsom
17:26there you go thank you thank you thank you Mark thank you for having us here we appreciate it and all the I appreciate I don't know if you're working back there
17:36or this is part of the job but thank you to the Accenture employees that are that are here in the background and thank you for your engagement and thank you for being part of this we're announcing a new partnership with you and partnership with
17:48with a number of other employers and Gen AI leaders in this state but I'm very grateful and humbled by the opportunity to be here with you
17:55I want to thank Audrey in particular for those you don't know Audrey is a big deal Audrey is one of the world's leaders in this space and Audrey has been foundational in terms of establishing a framework of expectation that allowed us to be able to
18:16and be bold in terms of what we are announcing today and what we're sharing with you
18:23I want to thank Tino for his stewardship and leadership for being there in the beginning and having our back at Carnegie in partnership with the Magruan Institute and others and a number of other philanthropic partners that helped establish the platform engaged California that Tino was referencing I want to thank Tokes for his leadership and stepping up for his leadership and stepping up for the
18:46there's not there's not a secretary transportation in the United States of America by definition doing more with Gen AI
18:53than his agency period full stop nothing is happening in the United States of America at the scale and scope that is happening here in the state of California so I appreciate Mr. Secretary your leadership and as Nick laid out his leadership in his former role at the department of tax and fee administration and now running government
19:15operations and now responsible for a larger portfolio of agencies and department heads I'd be remiss and I'll get to my comments but I want to also just acknowledge Amy Tom who has been our principal leader for brought fans with her on all of this and it is stitching together all of these pieces and I say stitching together because candidly this is hard to communicate for
19:22to many of use it's hard to distribute for many of us it's hard to communicate for the media and it's hard to distributeaho
19:50the essence for the public I could have easily come in here with sunglasses and
19:57you know chainsaws you know where I'm going and gotten your attention I could
20:06regale you and give you stories about how we're tearing things down and we can
20:13celebrate the conflict and the energy and that would run with the news and
20:18people feel like well at least they're doing something and people would say well
20:22you know they seem to be taking action government is bloated it's not effective
20:26it's not efficient it's not engaged we want to shake the machine and that's a
20:32pretty effective communication strategy there's no doubt about it I was sitting
20:36literally on Sunday front court of my nine-year-old's basketball game and a
20:44father spoke to me said you know governor I didn't want to talk politics as the
20:50kids halftime he goes but you know is there something you know wouldn't it be
20:53good if the blue states would come together and do a doge a doge for blue
20:58states I know I know and I was I was trying to explain I said what do you I
21:02said no let me explain because no no I said well we have been he goes well you
21:07really should do that I said no no we have been he goes I really encourage you
21:11to do this and and I started explaining what we're doing and his eyes glazed over
21:17he wants to see the chainsaw he wants the sunglasses he wants the theatrics the
21:23performative side of this he wants the friction he wants the protests because
21:29then it's a proof point of the concept without that he struggles and without that
21:36we have struggled to communicate this let me give you a proof point the
21:39announcement we're making today was done in partnership with state workers and
21:44employees they're celebrating it because we're not doing things to them we're
21:49doing things with them SCIU 1000 one of the largest bargaining units in the state
21:53of California they helped us design this that's the difference to our approach and
21:59by the way it's an approach we began not in response to doge when we got here six
22:06years ago one of my first acts was to remind people that I wrote a book on
22:12this subject matter I'm not here to promote it but you can buy it the best
22:17way to buy it is in bulk citizenville how to take the town square digital and
22:23reinvent government and it was inspired by the original doge back when I was very
22:30engaged as a county supervisor with then former vice president Al Gore and the work
22:36they did on reinvent government and it inspired me I remember Al Gore working
22:42with me as a candidate and we did something called great cities great ideas
22:45and was really about taking best practices and we did a white paper on
22:48this and I brought that in some of the work I did in County of San Francisco and
22:53efficiency plans and customer service plans and strategic plans and focusing on
22:57outcomes as lieutenant governor I put this book together my thoughts as it
23:01relates to platform thinking not machine thinking I was inspired by this guy
23:04David Kettle who wrote a piece which to this day is perhaps the best peach piece
23:10about government is the government is nothing more than a vending machine you
23:16vote we decide and you get limited choices police fire healthcare education if you
23:20don't like the machine you shake the machine you kick the machine and his
23:25argument was government needs to be a platform platform thinking and really
23:29radically changed my approach to the way I thought about government effective
23:33efficient more engaged engaged government not you vote I decide two-way
23:40conversations so this engaged.ca.gov platform we've created first of its kind in
23:48the country inspired by the work in Taiwan is about engaging you particularly here in LA as it relates to the
23:55wildfire recovery and it's a deliberative process it's a process by the way that
24:00over the course of just the last few months has now received over 7400
24:05individuals that want to participate in it we have a 28% conversion rate to
24:11people that signed up to people that are participating in it industry standards
24:15about 5% and it's proving that people do want to be engaged between elections and
24:21they don't all want to be engaged in a town hall or lining up with other voices
24:25because some people are just a little more timid some people want more choice as
24:30it relates to how they engage and deliver the process so engaged California is a
24:35process that continues to unfold in a process that will conclude in about five to
24:42six weeks and it's a process that's already proven its success we have engaged thousands
24:51of people they have engaged each other and now they'll be in the final phase of a
24:57deliberative process to build consensus around what they want to see as relates to
25:02the recovery in Altadena and Palisades but that's one component part the broader part is
25:08the introduction of generative AI and doing it at scale to solve some of the
25:12most vexing problems in this state and we went through a process where we're able to
25:17do this because we changed our procurement process years and years ago something
25:21called RFI 2 which is just a fancy way of saying innovation ideas the 2 a request
25:28for innovative ideas and it's a sandbox rather than going through a lot long
25:33process as talks was describing that takes years and years and years and
25:37RFI RFQ RFP request for proposals lobbyists getting involved and people
25:43frankly protecting incumbency we created a sandbox to iterate and people are able
25:49to iterate in real time that's what led to nation leading technology in
25:53firefighting we announced all that a couple days ago people always say well
25:57you need to do more in technology in firefighting well people travel the world
26:01to see California's leadership as it relates the introduction of artificial
26:05intelligence and what we're doing as it relates to real-time monitoring and
26:09predictive analysis through Technosilva and other partners that we have in the
26:13space so we're taking that same mindset in the RFI 2 frame into the gen AI space
26:18yes aided by another executive order but now it's happening and it's happening at a
26:24scale again not happening in any other state in the country and what Nick just
26:28referenced is a component part I'll close on this that now we're also engaging in
26:34this sandbox with all kinds of AI partners it's piloted just in these eight
26:39departments it will spread out more broadly where everybody's in where
26:43Gemini is in which is Google or AWS and Amazon is in where you know the folks that
26:49open AI are in and others and employees can start to iterate and choose what they want learn how these
26:56technologies can aid in advance their work to make them more productive to make
27:01them happier and to provide more choice and more voice for customers and users
27:06taxpayers in this state and so that is an exciting space that is a preview into the
27:14future that is taking place and shape here first in the state of California so we
27:21we talk about this as the three E's E3 we can call it as it relates to being more efficient yes more
27:29engaged and and more effective because at the end of the day it's about outcome and it's about results and so across the spectrum that's our framework that's our mindset we've been at this for years and years and years and years billions and billions of dollars of
27:45savings partnerships that have led the nation in terms of paperless transactions in terms of technological advancements in terms of the customer service that has been provided and and efforts that continue to this day through generative AI and in tomorrow that will I think produce results worthy of your tax
28:15dollars so forgive the long-windedness you know this is exciting stuff but it's hard to communicate in a way that you know can break through the five o'clock news that said this is about traffic LA so if you care about traffic you care about getting to work on time getting home getting the kids
28:45podcast get the kids bigger just give the kids bigger the kids bigger because they know this is going to come here they're going to grow the kids bigger and you are this will sempre the but they're hard to envire a story B
29:03Well, with Tino and others, we're actually having a big roundtable on engaged California
29:10because we want to take that model, that process of a deliberative democratic model.
29:15We want to take it well beyond just wildfire recovery here in Los Angeles.
29:19It's interesting, and Audrey can talk about this.
29:21This started as an idea in Taiwan, I think, around the issue of Uber versus taxis.
29:28And government said, well, what do the people think?
29:32And they said, well, we'll just do a poll.
29:33And they said, no, no, a poll is sort of static.
29:36Why don't I have a deliberative process?
29:37They said, how do you do that?
29:38Town hall?
29:39It's a country.
29:39They said, no, well, let's use the digital platform, engage everyone in the country,
29:43and have this two-way conversation.
29:45And that inspired a whole movement that has now inspired our movement in this space,
29:50and we want to extend it in all other areas of our democracy here in California.
29:56But, Audrey, maybe you can explain just a little bit more because I think this is really fascinating,
30:00just that first process as it relates to Uber versus taxi, the past versus the future.
30:06Thank you, Governor.
30:08So, to your question, I think, first of all, in Taiwan, when we talked about the Uber issue,
30:15we do not use abstract like, is this extractive or is the sharing economy,
30:20was the future of ride-sharing, nothing like that.
30:23We simply ask people one very simple question.
30:26How do you feel if somebody with no professional driver license driving to work,
30:31picking up a stranger they met on the app, and charging them for it?
30:34And so, something very specific.
30:36And we ask for people's feelings because people are experts in their feelings.
30:40And very quickly, we visualized that people, some people feel sympathetic to the taxi driver,
30:46some people to Uber, some people to the rural places, so on and so forth.
30:50But the great thing about this kind of bridge-making or pro-social media
30:54is that they showed what are the uncommon grounds, the common ground that was hidden in plain sight.
30:59For example, the software analyzed it with AI and showed everybody loved search pricing
31:04but not undercutting existing meters, and so on and so forth.
31:07The more nuanced idea came to the top,
31:10and instead of the more polarized things being amplified by the engagement through engagement algorithms on social media,
31:18this is the pro-social algorithm that just upholds the bridges made by the people.
31:22And so, by the end of the three weeks, we have a set of nine very concrete proposals,
31:27and then we check with all the stakeholders.
31:29And as recently as last year, we also used the same process to deliberate about generative AI's harm,
31:36namely deepfakes, fraudulent advertisement, and so on.
31:40And again, working with Facebook and YouTube and so on,
31:43we settled on a set of very coherent proposals,
31:47crowdsourced by us sending SMS text messages to 200,000 random numbers in Taiwan,
31:53basically asking, again, how do you feel about online fraudulent advertisement?
31:57That was in March, the stakeholder conversation in April,
32:00and we proposed a draft law to the parliament in May,
32:03and last July it was all passed,
32:04and so this year when you scroll in Taiwan,
32:07you don't see fraudulent advertisement anymore on Facebook or YouTube,
32:11but all that is because the people collectively drawn the overtime window,
32:15what was to be expected to overcome this urgency
32:19without the government overstepping on censorship or things like that.
32:22People had very sensible suggestions like KYC and so on and so forth.
32:26So I think the two keys here are the shared common urgency
32:29and also the air cover, the pre-commitment from the president or the government
32:34to really consider the uncommon ground coming from the people.
32:38So I don't know, this is exciting stuff because it goes to the central question
32:43we're all asking ourselves, how the hell can we work together?
32:47How do we get along?
32:49All these people screaming and yelling, talking past each other down to one another,
32:53how do we find consensus?
32:54This is the how.
32:56And so we're in the how business, not in the what and why business any longer,
32:59and we've created this platform.
33:01And it's exceeded expectation already in L.A. just on this regional wildfire issue.
33:06And imagine putting that to use in the largest subnational democracy
33:12in the United States, California.
33:14And I think it's a pretty exciting and limitless possibility.
33:17But to that question of how do you get along,
33:19you and Elon Musk used to get along pretty well back in the day.
33:22Yeah.
33:23How are you getting along now?
33:24Have you talked about ADD?
33:25This is why we never, I need my chainsaw.
33:29I haven't talked to him lately, unsurprising.
33:34But a lot of folks that knew him for decades haven't talked to him lately.
33:38I've talked to a lot of those folks comparing notes.
33:42And, you know, hopefully he comes back around and feel like he's been, you know,
33:49there's some new challenges he's facing.
33:51And I think, you know, one of them is fulfilling the expectations that he set for Doge.
33:59Doge, which seem unfulfilled.
34:02They haven't come close to the savings they've asserted.
34:05And even the savings they have asserted, when you stress test it, shows holes.
34:11So I think it's been very damaging, including, by the way,
34:15the fact that Doge cut $400 million from AmeriCorps.
34:20That was Sarge Shriver in 1965, you know, the best of people coming together across their differences for shared experiences in service to our nation.
34:36That was a baton that was passed from Republican administrations to Democratic administrations.
34:41Just eliminated, wiped out $400 million while we're advancing our 16th lawsuit against the administration.
34:49If that's his legacy, it's tarnishing the legacy that he should otherwise be proud of,
34:57creating one of the world's great automobile companies and rocket companies.
35:02You reference Elon Musk, and a lot of people are going to see this and think about Doge.
35:07I know, I know.
35:09We're Doge, but better.
35:11And we've been Doge, but better for literally six years.
35:17You know, you can go back.
35:19There's amazing that we still have the tapes of our announcements around ODI and all of these reforms and efficiencies
35:30that we've been advancing for years and years and years.
35:32It's just, again, difficult to sort of break out of that, you know, the detention challenge.
35:38And, again, we want conflict.
35:41We want friction.
35:42And this is why I'm really proud of this.
35:44We haven't provided that because we've been doing it with people, not two people.
35:48Your reaction regarding President Trump's statement of order yesterday,
35:53other countries, cities and states.
35:55Are you concerned about that?
35:56Yeah, I mean, I don't know why he needed to do his own analysis.
36:01It's well described the number of sanctuary municipalities, jurisdictions, states across this country
36:07that have existed for decades and decades, generation.
36:12But, obviously, we're concerned.
36:14What does he mean to do with this executive order?
36:18Identifying sanctuary status hardly is novel, is the point.
36:23So it's what's his intention behind it?
36:25We know there was an effort.
36:28San Francisco led the effort to push back with other cities to begin the process of starting to defund sanctuary jurisdictions.
36:39But well established.
36:40I've got one of the world's leading minds when it comes to courts, his honor himself.
36:45But the Ninth Circuit adjudicated upholding California's sanctuary status a number of years ago.
36:53And that same judge used that frame, that appellate decision, federal court decision,
36:59to allow an injunction to be filed on behalf of San Francisco and these other cities as it relates to Trump's latest efforts.
37:06So we'll see what the intent is ultimately, but we're not naive, and we remain vigilant.
37:13Do you have an idea of how much funding can be or is for the state?
37:16Look, California's sanctuary status is legal, period, full stop.
37:26We apply rigor to aligning ourselves with federal law.
37:31And again, that was stress tested independently by the federal courts, and they upheld our point of view and our sanctuary status.
37:43So I think we are in good, good, sound footing.
37:47That said, it's a very hyper-political environment, and he's trying to score political points.
37:55But our job is to remind communities of their rights, to remind our diverse communities that we have their back.
38:04And I'm here to remind you the reason I called for this special session in the state legislature was to do just that.
38:09And we appropriated resources, that's why we've been able to file 16 lawsuits without supplementals to the Department of Justice.
38:17And also remind you that component part of that was millions and millions of dollars for legal defense for our diverse communities,
38:23money that just, by the way, notices of funding availability that went out last week,
38:28specifically because of the special session, and to continue to do more in terms of our protecting our diverse communities.
38:36And, again, doing what we can to assert ourselves, as only California can, as the largest state in our union, and push back aggressively.
38:47Governor, it's the President's 100th day.
38:50I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about, especially with the podcast, having conversations about how effectively to work with them and how effectively to push back.
38:59I'm curious, what have been the big things you've learned from some of those conversations in terms of where to go on that part?
39:06Well, look, I'm not naive.
39:08You know, we're here in L.A., and we have a lot at stake here in terms of federal support.
39:16I also think it's important to remind you and your viewers, California is a donor state, $83.1 billion more.
39:23We provided the federal government, the federal government provided us.
39:26I'll put that in perspective.
39:28Texas received $71.1 billion more than they provided the federal government.
39:34I'll repeat that, $83 million the taxpayers of California gave the federal government.
39:39The federal government gave $71 million more to the folks in Texas.
39:44We punched way above our weight, was Mark's opening statement.
39:48And so we feel we've done a lot, and we feel the people of Southern California deserve that support in return at a time of emergency.
39:59So our approach remains steady after 100 days, open hand, not a closed fist when it comes to these areas that are nonpolitical.
40:08For me, when it comes to emergency preparedness, emergency management, emergency response and recovery, that's not political.
40:13It's non-negotiable.
40:14And you saw that approach as it relates to Trump and COVID in relationship to the two years I served as governor under his first administration.
40:23As it relates to our values and the question that was just asked around diverse communities and attacking vulnerable communities, we'll stand tall.
40:30We'll stand firm.
40:31Going after things we hold dear across the spectrum of issues from environmental stewardship to areas around service and the contributions of our diverse communities, we will assert ourselves and we'll do it boldly and firmly.
40:49And so that's the approach.
40:50We're trying not to be performative.
40:52We're trying not to extend sort of virtue signals.
40:54When something is critical and important, we'll assert ourselves.
40:58Otherwise, we try to sort of avoid moving in too many distracted directions.
41:06Last question.
41:06Governor, you mentioned the wildfire relief.
41:10Are you satisfied with the federal response and are you worried about the future?
41:15Well, I'm not only satisfied.
41:17I've been inspired by the partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by the federal EPA.
41:24We were able to move more quickly with phase one of the hazardous debris removal than any jurisdiction in decades.
41:32And we're on pace to do the same as it relates to the main debris removal, getting that done in a number of months, which would be historic and unprecedented.
41:40So at the moment, I'm extraordinarily satisfied by that partnership.
41:45There's been no politics to date in this space, and you've got to call balls and strikes.
41:52And I want to also just make this point.
41:54I spent 90 minutes with the president of the Oval Office, and I don't think this.
41:58I know this.
41:59He put the EPA administer on a speakerphone, surprised him, got him at the airport, and said he was here with the governor of California, and he wanted to know the president right then and there.
42:09He was going to do everything in his power to get things done for the state, that the president, long-winded point, the president himself has been directly engaged and supportive of the recovery efforts to date.
42:21And that's remarkable, and that's important, the people of the state know.
42:27Going forward, as it relates to the supplemental and making sure that we're made whole, we look forward to continuing to dialogue with the administration, and we're hopeful that past
42:39this prologue.
42:40Are there any lessons you learned from Elon Musk's theatrics?
42:43I mean, in terms of communicating, are there anything to think about?
42:46Look, I think we joke about the theatrics of a uniform or something, but I think the most difficult thing is when you're tearing something down, it's easy to get attention.
43:00The easiest thing in the world is to tear something down.
43:02I could do all that in 10 days.
43:03I don't even need 100 days to tear everything down.
43:06It took decades and decades to build up.
43:09Building things is hard.
43:10You know, starting from scratch, improving things, reforming things.
43:15That's what we're promoting, efficiency, engagement, better outcomes and results.
43:21That's real work.
43:23And so I think my reflection is that's, you know, that's unfortunate because the amount of outsized attention that's gotten versus the attention builders are getting and people are trying to build bridges and bring people together get is disproportionate.
43:44You know, there's an asymmetry there, and that's a broader societal conversation.
43:47And candidly, that's what engage.ca.gov hopes to address a new, deliberative platform to provide consensus, more voice, more choice, and trust the coin of the realm.
44:01Thank you guys very, very much.
44:02Thanks.
44:04Thanks.