Catherine Rampell and Robert Garcia: China Is Starting to Eclipse the U.S.

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We've got a double header for you today in segment two. It is, I think alongside Ro Khanna, the other congressman who has been the most effective in the opposition for the Democrats in the House this year. That's Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee. We have much to talk to him about. But first, my colleague, my buddy, economics editor here at the Bullworks, he writes a newsletter, Receipts, which is published this evening, Thursday evenings. She also co-host MS Now's, the weekend primetime. It's Catherine Ampell. What's up, girl? Hey, good to see you. Long time no see. I know. We saw each other, everybody, yesterday at the Bullwork All Hands. And I'm still in the shit town in DC, as you can see from my background here. I was wondering where you were. Okay. So you haven't made it back. It's all the Bullwork books. I took down the Sarah Longwell QR code that she wanted me to promote in my background. I'm like, this isn't QVC. Okay. You should buy Sarah's book, but this isn't the QVC. QVC is bankrupt. So one of the many Trump victims. We got a lot of economics talking. And all China talk is at some level, all everything talk is at some level, economics talk. I think that's Tyler Cohen. But I want to talk a little bit about the summit first. Trump and all of our greatest CEOs and much of the cabinet all traveled to China to pay homage to the Communist dictator, Xi Jinping. In their opening session, Trump said this, we have a fantastic relationship. I have such respect for China, the job you've done. You're a great leader. I say it to everybody. You're a great leader. The top CEOs are all here to pay respects to you. It is an honor to be your friend. It's laying it on a little thick for me. I don't know what you think about the meeting. He's just a master diplomat right there. He's buttering him up so that he can swoop in and make the deal of the century. I think that's what's going on. I think what's actually going on is he brought a little entourage of rich people to, I think he thinks, impress President Xi, because that's how Trump operates. He thinks when you're surrounded by rich people, that means you're great and that means that they're paying fealty to you. Probably a lot of those rich people, i.e. the CEOs who are there, I think are really in harm mitigation mode. Maybe they're there. Probably they have multiple objectives. One of them is to do a little solid for Donald Trump or what Donald Trump thinks is a favor, but also make sure that they walk away without giant new tariffs on iPhones or any of the other supplies that they might be importing from China. I think all of that stuff is going on there. Yeah. Xi didn't seem quite as effusive when talking about Trump. I'm maybe it's a cultural gap there. I don't know. Though Trump was way nicer and more, he's almost prostrate on the ground with his praise of Xi. You can compare that to the treatment of Zelensky getting lectured in the Oval Office or how he treats a lot of our democratic allies. It's a notable gap. There was this picture that was posted on our Reddit page. I'm sorry for the audio listeners. I'll have to describe it to you. For the videos, folks will pull this up. Trump getting frame-mogged by Chairman Xi. They do the photo. It's the China flag, the US flag. Behind them, a little step and repeat. Then we have Chairman Xi just standing there quite casually looking at the camera, a little smirk, very comfortable, nice fitting suit. It doesn't seem almost bored a little bit. Trump, on the other hand, leaning over. There's the Green Line test on social media who's leaning in a relationship as a person with less power, leaning over aggressively, grimacing, sweating, orange-face, white hair, oompa-loompa face. Trying to grasp Xi's hand aggressively, very ill-fitting suit. Unhappy. You can overstate it, but the body language doctor, I think it says a lot. I don't know about you. Am I looking too much at this picture? I mean, I guess I don't know what frame this was in their overall interaction. It certainly looks like it shows the power dynamics that you just described. However, literal, this particular picture can be interpreted. I think it does reflect a general shift in the power balance between China and the United States economically, diplomatically, and basically all of the ways that matter. Look, there's been some good reporting recently about how China increasingly views the United States as a declining power. Not just China, presumably, for that matter, but it's pretty important that China views us that way. For a very, very long time, China kind of looked up to us as the right characterization, but in many ways wanted to emulate the United States in terms of our living standards, our influence around the world. They wanted to do it a little bit differently. Socialism with Chinese characteristics, rather than calling it capitalism, and their soft power was of a different form. They said that they weren't going to intervene or admonish economic partners if they committed human rights abuses, unlike the United States. But they wanted to have the same kind of power and influence and market share around the world that they envied the United States as having. I worked in China a very long time ago in the early 2000s, and I remember that- What city? In Beijing. I was working for NBC News. It was in the lead up to the 2008 Olympics. I remember this was seen as China's big coming out party. There was a lot of emulation of American culture and inviting American pop culture celebrities. I remember I went to the MTV Awards in China while I was there. There was a lot of knockoff versions of American pop culture icons and economic innovators and things like that. Now, China, I think in many ways, is trying to eclipse the United States or has eclipsed the United States, at least in select industries. That's a longer term story. I think that has been facilitated certainly by Donald Trump and hastened by the Iran War. The Iran War. Yeah. If you look at who President Xi has met with just in the past month or a couple of months, it's the leaders of a lot of Asian countries, Southeast Asian countries. Even before the war, you had the PM of Canada, the PM of the UK, the president of South Korea all coming to Beijing for the first time in many years, in part because they were seeking a relationship, a tighter relationship with a different authoritarian leader as opposed to Donald Trump. Donald Trump had forced them into the arms of the Chinese government. All of that is the subtext of that one photo. Yeah. It's not just Trump to arrangement syndrome, neo-lib, neo-con, Tucker Carlson, Foil, Catherine Rampell that has this assessment. We have a Washington Post report out today, a confidential US intelligence analysis, details of ways China is exploiting the war in Iran to further maximize its advantage over the US across military, economic, and diplomatic, and other fields. It goes through a list of a bunch of stuff, the ways in which China is reaching out to our allies who are dealing with shortages, and energy, and other spaces. It seems to me that it is a pretty blank assessment at this point that Trump comes to this meeting at a moment where China has been maximizing his their advantage. A brutal frame logging by the ASU frat leader, Chairman Xi, you might say. Other bad news for Trump is the broader economic forces. I want to go through things to point back with you, but I'm wondering what your sense is of the macro right now. We are in a moment where, I feel like we've told the story a bunch over the last year or two. If you're just looking at the stock market, you'd think things are going pretty swimmingly, frankly, but a lot of other indicators not as good. I'm wondering what your sense is of the macro state apply. Yeah. This is why no one should ever take financial advice from me, because I, frankly, do not understand what is going on in the stock market right now for pretty much the reasons you laid out. Stock markets seem almost euphoric. When there's bad news, they dip a little bit. Bad news like we don't have a deal with the Iranians, for example. When there's good news, they rock it upward. It seems very asymmetric to me. If you look at the valuation of stocks versus how much the underlying companies are actually earning, what is the stock price relative to what that company actually earns? Maybe ratio, isn't that what that is? Yeah, exactly. Look at me. I got a C minus in macro one-on-one. There you go. If you look at the long-term relationship, it seems totally out of whack. The last time it was this out of whack, that ratio was that this off was during the dot-com bubble in 2000. I don't know that that per se means it's a bubble. Maybe this time is different, as people like to say, but it certainly doesn't look great. I just don't know how much longer it can be sustainable, particularly if this war keeps going, if you keep on having these kinds of disruptions, not only in energy markets, but in fertilizer, in plastics, in aluminum, in almost anything that you can imagine. But now, that said, if you look at the actual hard economic data, not the market data, but what's happening to consumer spending or investment, it's not like it's falling off a cliff. It's not great, but it's chugging along. The job numbers that we got last week, they were fine. They were actually better than expected, but they still weren't spectacular. There have been a bunch of big layoff announcements since then. I think it was at Walmart announced that they were going to be laying off a bunch of people. Goodyear Tires, they're closing a plan, but I think it's closing next year. So there have been a bunch of big corporate layoff announcements, like how that shakes out relative to other kinds of job growth. I don't know. But basically, the economy has not imploded, which is good, but it's still at a, it's okay, whereas stock markets are booming. And the thing that I worry about is that, well, A, markets are just too ebullient. They're too polyanna-ish, and that B, the actual economy is just like one more little shock away from a really bad crash. We're not there yet, but it seems like there's enough fragility in the underlying economy that I'm worried about it. All right, one nice thing about working at home is that you can change easily. Some of you who monitor my clothes closely might notice that sometimes I'm changing outfits in between podcasts, even if I'm taping them on the same day. But even though that option is available, it's nice to have flexibility. It's nice to have basics. It's nice to have something that I can wear on the pod, wear to a concert, wear to dinner with my friends, wear to do school pickup. And one of our long time sponsors helps me do just that. It's our buddies at Quince. Quince has pieces that feel easy, comfortable, and still put together. Still sharp, you might say. Quince has all the wardrobe staples for spring, like 100% European linen, shorts and shirts from 34 bucks, and 100% pima cotton tees with a softness that has to be felt. Best of all, it's reasonably priced, which is important in this economy. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman, so you're getting premium materials without the markup. I was in Quince's linen shirt last night at dinner, as a matter of fact. We went out to a little dinner, even though it was Mother's Day, we don't have any personal mothers in our house. I have my mother in Denver. I had to send her some flowers. I was unfortunate, but here in New Orleans, where we don't have any mothers, we still decided to get a little dressed up and go to dinner. I wore a nice Quince linen shirt. I looked very handsome, I thought. I got some compliments on it. I also mentioned this before, if you got some kiddos, I've been putting mine and some Quince shirts, and we actually have little matching his and hers Quince linen shirt outfit that we're doing now that I think makes us look pretty cute. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com slash the bulwark for free shipping under order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too, that's quince.com slash the board for free shipping and 365 day returns, quince.com slash the board. One of the invoked terms in 2020 from economists and it was a lot of democratic campaign folks were talking about this was the K shaped economy. You were seeing this where basically like the upper middle class and upper class was continuing to do well. Wow, things are getting worse for lower middle and lower class. People kind of stopped talking about that a little bit and like the post COVID era because wages were kind of going up for people in the bottom quintile. You're starting to see that theme pop up again, and I think which is related to the stock market, which is this kind of K shaped recovery. Yeah, it's totally related to the stock market. And actually if you look at like the University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers, they broke out the share of people who talked about their personal finances deteriorating because of higher prices. They broke it out for those who own a lot of stocks and those who own no stocks. And as you can imagine, the people who do own stocks are much more copacetic, I guess. Like they're mad about gas prices and they're mad about grocery prices going up as because they are going up. They're mad about all of those things, but then they look over at their 401k and they're like, meh, you know, maybe it's worth it. Maybe it's worth the trade off. Whereas people who do not have those financial assets who are lower income, they can't just eat it on those higher gas prices or other higher prices that they're paying. And they don't have that nice little nest egg to think about. So yeah, you are seeing a divergence, but in general, I mean, people are still pretty unhappy with the economy, even the people who are higher income. They're just less unhappy than the poorest people out there. One of the things driving this, just as you mentioned there with prices, is as the inflation kind of starting to rise again. I think I got this number a little wrong on yesterday's podcast. So my apologies and my notes, but we had this producer price index number that came out yesterday, which is a measure of cost that businesses are paying for goods and services. And that rose 1.4% in April, which means it's up 6% year over year. So that's more than what we're seeing in consumer inflation, which I guess, I guess you tell me, but this sort of signals that more inflation is coming for the consumers, I guess. Yeah, it's the prices that are charged by wholesalers. I think that's a good way to think about it. And those prices are rising a lot. And one reason why, as you point out, is they're more likely to be dealing with the energy shock. It takes a little bit longer for some of that energy shock to work its way down the supply chain. They're dealing with those higher plastic packaging costs. And so yeah, that's going to work its way through the system that you do normally see the PPI numbers shift a little bit earlier when there's like a big shock than the CPI number. So the producer's prices versus the consumer's prices, that totally makes sense. And that is concerning. And again, it's hard to know how long or how disruptive this straight of Hormuz situation is going to be. There are a bunch of circumstances where it looks like people are being a little optimistic about... I think people are being a lot optimistic. I think people are being a lot optimistic. Yeah, about how quickly things will resolve themselves. And there have been a bunch of like energy CEOs who have basically said, you know, I'm not sure markets have fully priced in how much more expensive things are going to get or how much longer this disruption is going to be. And exactly, it's that optimism, which I don't entirely understand because again, I feel like I hear these conspiracy theories about, oh, like companies are just trying to support Donald Trump. And that's why they have these forecasts that seem optimistic. Or that's why oil futures prices aren't higher than they are. And it's like, no, that's not how they work. They're trying to make money. All of these traders are trying to make money. If there is an arbitrage opportunity to be made because everybody else is like, trying to make Donald Trump look good and you have the opportunity to make money, you're going to make the money. So I don't think it's about that, but it's animal spirits, I guess is the best way to characterize it. There's weird stuff happening. Yeah, an optimism madman theory, madman theory, just a feeling like, oh, Trump is not this stupid. Like we're not going to actually get into a war. Like it's got to end any day now. I don't know. They're not listening to the board podcast enough. I don't think traders are listening to the board podcast enough. This is not financial advice either, but we've been right about this. I was, I forget if it was Goldman, it was one of the big firms like that. And they had like a projection the week of the war or the week that Trump started for when gas prices were going to come back down. And it was like now, because we've been in the 70 days now. And somebody posted this graph, the golden was circulating a couple of months ago. And I was like, maybe I should be a Goldman, not at the bulwark. I may actually make more money. Maybe they should hire me. I have a pretty high rate, like an hourly rate. And I call them to do like guys, like this, this is a quagmire. Even if he tried to get out of it immediately, like Iran now realizes that they have power there, they're going to make it harder to go through. Like Iran now has the TPS report that they're sending the ships that you're going to send to them if you're going to come through. And there was free passage, right? So I don't know how these numbers are funny, but like, if you, I've looked at the infographics of like how many ships were going through the straight before the war started. And so even if it reopens, but it slowed because they don't know where the mines are, because you know, Iran is vetting the ships that come through. Like all of that will also have an impact on the supply chains. And this report came out, the oil inventories are already falling like everywhere around the world and that they're going to continue to fall for months. And so some of this is being buttressed by like backlogged infant doories. But anyway, long story short, I think it's way worse than people are saying. Yeah. And the question is how credible is it if the United States says the street is open? If the Iranian government says the street is open, if you are a company thinking about sending your commercial tanker through that straight, do you believe it? Right? Do you believe that you're not going to get hit by a drone or a mine or anything else? Does your crew believe it? Let's say, let's say it is officially open. Insurance company, all of those things add costs. Even if the tankers, you know, resume going through, resume transiting at the same rates that they were before, which I think is not likely to happen anytime soon, it's going to be much more costly because of all of that risk that's baked in there, because people cannot unsee the fact that it has been closed and dangerous for a very long time. You know, you can't just like pretend it goes back. Yeah. And just being with the insurance, like, you know, again, not a macro economist, but I moved to New Orleans where the roads are shitty. And guess what? My car insurance went up a bunch because there's more wrecks here than there is in Kansas or whatever. And so like, that's going to happen to the whole economy, right? Like the people that are insuring and re-insuring these tankers, you know, the numbers crunchers back there at Tanker Insurance HQ are going to be like, I think we need to up the rates. Okay, if we're going to be sending these ships, right? So it's like, anyway. 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That's 15% off. OneSkin.co with code BULWARK. After you purchase, I'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. You're writing tonight about the bond rate. Everybody immediately, their eyes start to glaze over. It's nap time now. Once we start out the bond yield, but it's quite important. The craziest thing about all of this to me is one of Trump's big things when he came back in was he wants to get interest rates back down. And obviously he did it in a corrupt way, and he did it in that ham-fisted way, and he's not in the economy. He doesn't know anything. There was something to the fact that in addition to inflation, one of the other reasons I think why people were so down on the Biden economy was because interest rates were so high that people felt stuck. If you're a senior and you went to downsize, you're like, I'm going to downsize and pay more because the mortgage rates are so much higher, right? Or us. If you moved for a job, you're like, you're not going to have to move just one. Or if you had another kid, you're like, I want to move out to the suburbs and get into a bigger house and upsize. Or buy a car. Yeah, or buy a car. It just wasn't affordable. It wasn't affordable to do all of that because the interest rates are so much higher than they were pre-COVID. And that was starting to come back down. I was looking to refinance. We're watching it. It's like we're almost like a couple quarters away from being like, where there's a little bit of slack out there for people. And I think that that was going to have a real impact that was going to benefit Trump economically. People are happier about the state of the economy if interest rates are lower. Not everybody, not the people collecting the interest, but most of the economy. And he just fucked all of that up in two months. To be fair, it's more than two months because it started with Liberation Day when he raised tariffs. Because what happens is interest rates are related to what's happening in inflation. Typical consumers are like, well, higher interest rates make things more expensive. So they're part of the problem. They're actually the solution to the inflation. It's not super intuitive. But basically what happens is when you have prices going up a lot, that means the Fed is more often than not going to raise interest rates to try to like squelch inflation. And then eventually you hope to get to this equilibrium where prices are lower and interest rates are lower. But you kind of need the inflation thing to go down first before you can bring down interest rates. And what Donald Trump has done instead is he's reaccelerated inflation. He did it with tariffs and now he's doing it with the war. And the real question for the Fed is, well, is it like a one time increase in prices? That was the hope with tariffs that it would be a one time increase. It's not like an ongoing increase in prices that you really have to worry about inflation kind of spiraling out of control. Same deal with a massive oil shock. Is it a one time increase in oil prices? And what happens is there's this fear that there's like this one, two punch of those things together that will reset people's expectations so that they start to expect ever higher prices. Even if the oil shock was kind of a one time thing, people start worrying about prices going up so they preemptively raise their own prices, which becomes self perpetuating because nobody wants to get caught off guard being the only chump out there, essentially, who isn't raising their prices when everybody else is. I was thinking of more vulgar words for that. But yes. I don't like the vulgar word. I want to hear you cuss. Give me something. Sucker. Anyway, so that's the real problem here that Trump himself has reaccelerated inflation and now the Fed doesn't know what to do about it. When we started this year, it looked like, you know, markets kind of thought that like the Fed was going to cut rates a couple more times. As you mentioned, they had cut rates last year. It looked like they were going to cut rates a couple more times. And now that seems to be off the table. Markets do not think that there's going to be a rate cut this year, maybe not even next year. In fact, it looks more likely that they're going to raise interest rates rather than cut them by the end of next year, which none of which is good for consumers, none of which is good for voters when they're going to the voting booth, for all the reasons you just mentioned. It's also really shitty for Kevin Warsh, who just got confirmed to be the Fed share. He just got confirmed yesterday. Yeah, let's talk about that. He is really in a, like, what do you do if you're Kevin Warsh? I guess maybe you don't care because you got the job you always dreamed of by sucking up to Trump and now you just do whatever you want. I guess it would be the hope. But I... Yeah, he screwed. He's in a real tough spot. He's screwed because he got the job because Donald Trump thinks he's going to cut interest rates. There were a number of reasons to think that that would be difficult for Kevin Warsh to do. One is that he historically is considered an inflation hawk. Whatever he's been saying recently about cutting interest rates and he has publicly, at least like last year when he was auditioning for the job, he has said that he wanted to cut interest rates. He is known throughout his career as like airing more on the side of higher rates, tighter monetary policy because he was so worried about inflation. So like he seems to be constitutionally primed. I'm not constitutional like our founding document, but like in his character, right? He seems to be like more likely to lean towards higher rates, not lower rates. Then you have the actual inflation that you are seeing throughout the economy. Again, largely instigated by Trump's own policies because Trump doesn't seem to understand what his policies do. That makes it harder for Kevin Warsh to get on board with rate cuts. And then the biggest challenge is that Kevin Warsh is one of 12 people who will be voting on interest rates, even if he wants to cut rates lower either because he believes that's the right path, which I don't think, or because he's worried about wrath from Donald Trump, which I do think. He can't do it. And so the real question is how does he manage that? How does he manage Donald Trump? When he comes into the Fed, he's supposed to be sort of like operating by consensus, getting everybody onto an agreement about where interest rates and other monetary policy should go. He's supposed to be marshaling the troops and getting them to more or less they vote as a block. There are a couple of dissents recently. That's unusual. Usually they vote as a block. So he's trying to get them all on the same page. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is going to be breathing down his neck saying, why aren't you cutting rates? And even if he wanted to, he can't force this group of people to do it. So I wonder what Kevin Warsh is going to do. Is he going to be the first Fed share ever to dissent from the rest of the Fed board? I don't think that's going to happen, but he's going to have to manage expectations for Donald Trump. If I was him, I'd do a Trump and I would start tweeting, trash talking the other Fed board members, the other governors, and just blame them and just be like, these losers won't let me do what I want to do. That's what I'd do if I was Kevin Warsh. Yeah, except that Warsh's vote on interest rates will be public. So is he actually going to tweet? 11 to 1. Yeah, I mean, he can tweet saying they did what I, the opposite of what I wanted them to do, but A, he looks ineffectual and B, like his vote will be a matter of public record. Did he vote along with them? He's going to vote just like Susan Collins. He's going to vote how Trump wants and then Sam Berry concerned about what these other people are doing over there, but I'm covered. I don't know. I'm just joking. And I wonder how worried he is or should be about Trump weaponizing the state against him, like Trump has against Jay Powell and against Lisa Cook, who's another Fed governor. He's probably less concerned about that because his father-in-law is Trump's buddy, Ron Louder, and they were doing the mine deal in Ukraine and he was trying and Louder's been pushing for the Greenland thing, and they're both in the Epstein files. I don't know. He might have a little more cover than Jerome Powell on that, that little Epstein class love. I don't know. I mean, Trump has certainly turned heel on lots of other people who thought that they had more of a shield than Kevin Warsh has. All right. I have one other topic, but before I just, I just want to let you know, like I've got an apple bomb to cuss on this podcast, Bill Crystal and Jim Comey. Bill Crystal and Jim Comey cussed on the podcast this week. So whatever vulgar word you had in your mind, this is the place for it. Just let it loose. Let your animal spirits loose. That's all I'm saying, Catherine. All right. I saw you talking about the ag economy this week on a social clip and I do just want to close with that because I think it's important because we care about the well-being of our farmer brothers and sisters who feed us. So for earnest reasons, it's important. For political reasons, it's pretty important because if the Democrats are going to take the power back that they need this fall, they're going to have to win in some farm areas like Iowa, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas. This is where the Senate is being fought and the economies there are shitty. And I was interested this morning to see Roger Marshall on Sputnik Fox Business, his senator from Kansas, talking about how things are going in his state. Let's listen. China knows that he means business as well. So we're trusting it. We trust in Trump that he's over there making a great deal for us. No one's done more for American agriculture and rural American than President Trump, Secretary Rawlins and a Republican only Congress. Hmm. Excuse me. That's Sputnik, the Newsmax, not Fox Business. Hard to tell the difference between the three sometimes. Roger Marshall is the Kansas Senator on Newsmax. He's got an election coming up. What do you think about that assessment? Nobody's done more than Brooker Owens and Trump in farm country is just having a golden age right now. I think few people in American history have done more to screw over farmers than Donald Trump has in a very compressed period of time. If you look at what's happened to farm bankruptcies, they rose 46% last year. And that's not only because of Trump policies to be clear, but it's largely because of Trump policies through tariffs, which raise their input costs for things like fertilizer, for the equipment that they need. The tariffs also led to countries around the world basically boycotting American goods. China stopped buying soybeans entirely for a while. And that's obviously hurt farmers in a lot of the states that you just rattled off. You have Trump deporting a large share of their labor force. The interest rates are really hurting farmers as well. And then you have little noticed, I think by much of the media, but the cancellation of a bunch of food aid programs that helped these farmers, not just USAID and foreign aid programs that have been cut off that US farmers historically have been very supportive of because their crops and their meat products are being used to feed the world, but also here in the United States. You have SNAP getting huge cuts, which the administration is bragging about, of course, saying that they've lifted people off of SNAP. No, they've pushed people off of SNAP. That hurts farmers. And then a lot of other, like more niche programs related to school lunches and other kinds of domestic food assistance programs that historically have supported farmers and have given them a little more cushion, particularly because they get hurt by all sorts of shocks that are, again, not policy-driven, things like droughts, which we're also dealing with in parts of the country right now. So all of these things have tremendously hurt farmers, which, as you point out, is historically one of Trump's core constituencies. And then, of course, the war, right? The war has accelerated all of this stuff. Higher diesel prices, higher fertilizer prices, everything has gotten more expensive. So I think that's why you've seen a number of these kind of like, I don't know, sob stories or whatever, you know, this genre of news story where you have farmers saying, I thought he was going to help us and then he didn't help us and he's done all of these things. And why can't he look out for us? And it's really hard to know how much of it is about him not understanding the impact of his policies and his just total indifference to the impact of his policies. Not caring, I think. Not giving a fuck about them, actually. No, I was covering this during Doge. There's a farmer in North Louisiana that cold called me, kind of threw friends, just trying to trying to get attention on this. And it was, they did the kind of like healthy greens for the local schools, right? Like for that food program, right? Like the, you know, lettuces or like grown in Louisiana that didn't have, this is not my area of expertise, but didn't have all the nonsense that the mass market lettuces have. And like in addition to that, you know, there's less travel, so it's fresher, right? And that program was canceled. It was just like, that was my bit, I was like half the far, that was what our food was going to. And instead, now the school kids are giving, you know, whatever iceberg lettuce sent in from Nebraska. And it's like, this is crazy. So anyway, that's it. And then this week, we had the beef thing also on top of that, where Trump talked about lowering tariffs again on beef to help give beef prices down to get more foreign beef in. But the domestic farmers were like, what the fuck? Like you keep, you just keep screwing us left and right. And so he kind of backed off that. So I don't, they're in a bad way on this. I think that food prices are going up in and farm countries bad off. Anything else we're missing out there in Econ World? Do you want people to know about? I don't know. I'm sure there's stuff we're missing because there's always stuff we're missing. All right. We're doing our best. You send any tips to Catherine Rampell. The receipts newsletter out tonight. There'll be more on Kevin Warsh. Actually, can I make one call out? Yeah, I do it. Which is I am working on a piece about the tariff refunds that are being issued. They've started trickling out and I want to hear from people who have applied for them or who are considering applying for them or who are afraid to apply for them because they're worried about retaliation. I want to hear your stories because I'm trying to get a sense of how it's going out there. All right. So if you want to send a tip to Catherine on that, or if there are any other tips, things you should know about us, we have a tip line, thebullwork.com slash tips. So go check that out. Catherine, appreciate you very much. Everybody subscribe to the receipts newsletter. We have a million subscribers now. Email subscribers on the Bullark. Isn't that crazy? It's awesome. We appreciate all you guys. And up next, Congressman Robert Garcia. And we're back. He's a Democrat representing California's 42nd congressional district. He's a ranking member of the oversight committee and has been part of the effort to force the Trump administration to release the Epstein files. It's Robert Garcia. What's up, man? Good to see you again. Good to see you. Been a minute. Been a minute. Yes, we had you at the free undri event. That's right. That was a win. That was a huge win. C-COT. Nobody's in C-COT right now. I mean, we know. I mean, there's Salvadorans in C-COT. We can only do so much here. Congressman in America. But none of the folks that we sent there are still there. People don't talk about that stuff anymore. I think it was kind of like Minnesota for me, an example of aggressive resistance can work, actually. And there's a lot of stuff to be upset about. There's a lot of frustrating stuff. But I do think it was kind of an early sign that if he was pushed back against that there actually are levers to put pressure against this administration, even though they've, you know, have control of D.C. Yeah. And I think also it shows that if you actually fight and like take action and be aggressive, you can get some stuff done or bring attention to issues. And I think going down there, whether it was for Kilmer or Brigham Garcia, for for Andrew, of course, I mean, elevating his story. It was the first time that folks are at the State Department and heard his even his story. It was important. And I mean, look at and he's actually doing fine now. I mean, he's he's out there. I've actually talked to him since. I know you've talked to him since. So I know that he'd love to come. He would love to come here to the U.S. and which has been great. Maybe 2029. Maybe 2029. We'll get to that in a minute. The other example that as I mentioned that you were spearheading on where pushback against the administration has been effective and maybe not maybe we haven't gotten everything that we wanted. But you've seen the differences on Epstein. Earlier this week you were in West Palm Beach getting testimony from Epstein victims. Talk about that hearing and, you know, what what else is ahead? Yeah, I mean, look, I think first the the Epstein case is it is a single largest government cover up in modern American history. Number one, this is the single largest international sex trafficking ring we think in modern American history as well. So the issue is front and center, I think, in the public. It's also Donald Trump's most unpopular issue. It's bipartisan Republicans and Democrats agree. Everyone agrees that this is a big issue. People got to be engaged. The reality is is that there has been a huge cover up going on being directed by this White House and failures going back multiple administrations. Like I put a lot of blame also on Merrick Garland, for example, like why the hell weren't we prosecuting folks? Why was information out during during that during that administration? But now we're at a point where the current president has called us a hoax. The Attorney General, former AG, Pam Bondi and the current one have wanted to move on for months and months. And the survivors have yet to receive justice. There have been co-conspirators. There have been other men that have caused the abuse and there's been no convictions as well. And so we're trying to highlight the stories of the survivors who try to work when possible and by partisan way to get support for subpoenas. Even in the majority, we have fought really hard, been really aggressive and we've gotten information. I mean, the only reason why you've had those emails out that got released earlier from Trump and going to Maxwell and the only reason with all those photos and videos of the island and all of those, all that information has been out and and quite frankly, the files that we've seen was because Democrats have fought to get it out, even though half of the files are still in the possession of the DOJ, half 2.5 million documents at minimum. And so this is not an issue that's going to go away and we're going to push it all the way until we get justice for the survivors. The Democrats and Thomas Massey, he's got a primary next week. Thomas Massey, the huge, absolutely. Well, and look, and credit to some of the Republican women. Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, Annapalina Luna, while I disagree with them on almost everything, have actually been quite good on this issue. The one frustrating thing about, and maybe this is part of the other documents that they have, but anything the one thing that from those of us in the outside are wondering is, it still seems like there's a dearth of like co-conspirator information. Like we know what what Jeffrey Epstein was doing, maybe not everything, but like, you know, we know what going Maxwell was doing. Overseas have been some examples, Prince Andrew, etc. But there really hasn't been any kind of big breakthroughs or accountability about other co-conspirators who were sexually abused girls. What do you think? What do you make of that? I think that is partly true. I think one is we can't know the full story until we get all of the files. I think one thing that Donald Trump has been saying, and he's told this to other members, and Marjorie Taylor Greene recently said it as well, is that if all the files get released, a lot of his friends are going to get in trouble, and he doesn't want to see his friends go through this. Well, some of these friends are likely these co-conspirators and or folks that actually rate and abuse women and children. And so we have to get to the bottom of that. You cannot complete an investigation when over half of your evidence is still in the possession of the DOJ. And of the evidence that they've released, released in the current files, some of those names are still redacted, and we haven't had access to. And so when you're redacting the names of co-conspirators of men that possibly committed the harm and you're, don't give a shit about exposing the women and the survivors and doxing them and putting their names out there so that they're actually in danger, that's a problem. And so there's still a lot of work to do. And look, we know and we have heard of certain folks that could have been involved, but the evidence and to actually build that evidence is ongoing. Yeah. Has there been anything like, as you were reviewing the files going through all this, like what was this, what was the thing that shocked you the most? I mean, honestly, what has shocked me the most is that the level of effort by our government, current and former to not aggressively prosecute anyone or conduct through investigations. So give you an example. Folks like Les Wexer, who was of course Epstein's chief, you know, financier, benefactor, his former attorney and his former accountant, Daren Indike, Richard Kahn, those three were never once interviewed by any law enforcement agency. The FBI or the DOJ over the last few decades, not once. And it's not just them, it's multiple other folks. So for the very first time, we are interviewing these key figures. The oversight committee is not law enforcement, but a congressional committee in trying to put this investigation together. The folks who should have been interviewing these people were the FBI, were the Department of Justice, were the local police departments, but no one did anything. And so that part to me has been stunning and clearly points to a cover up of where folks were pulling strings to ensure that people weren't being interviewed and that the truth wouldn't get out. So that part has been, I think, the most surprising. The second one I'll say is all signs point back to Alex Acosta. And I think what people don't realize is when the 2008 sweetheart deal happened with Jeffrey Epstein, which was essentially given to him by Alex Acosta, numerous prosecutors in Florida had gone to Acosta and said, look, we have evidence to go after strong federal charges. We have evidence to go after co-conspirators. There's a lot here. For whatever reason, Alex Acosta makes a decision to say, we're not going to do any of that. And instead, we're going to give Epstein this slap on the wrist. He serves less than a year and has his own house arrest. He gets to walk around. And not only is it like walk around town, walk around the prison yards. He's basically not in prison. I mean, it's basically a fake conviction. And then he goes on to continue to rape and abuse women and children. And he begins this international sex trafficking ring post 2008, where he's bringing in women from Eastern Europe and other places. And this only happens because Alex Acosta chooses to essentially not listen to the prosecutors in his own office. So the question is, why did Alex Acosta do this? Did anyone direct Alex Acosta? And then, of course, Alex Acosta goes on to become Donald Trump's labor secretary. And so I think those two things have been kind of ominous when you say, did anyone direct like who do you have someone in mind? I mean, look, I think there's a lot. I suspect that this investigation has so many layers. There's so much money involved here. So many people were clearly engaged at the highest levels of government. Look, when you have the monarchy and you have former princes engaged, this is at a very high level of influence in people that are involved in this investigation. We might come back to this when I talk about what's ahead in 2027, but we've got little news stuff first. So there's a War Powers vote coming up probably today in the House on the Iran War, even though it failed in the Senate. Thanks to our friend John Fetterman, who voted with the Republicans to continue to give Trump these war powers. I guess I'm just wondering at the broadest level before we get to the politics, like what's your sense for how the war is going? Terribly. I mean, what are we doing? There's no mission. There's no outcome. We call it a war, then we don't. That's an attack. Then it's not. There's no real consistency with what's going on as relates to the Strait of Hormuz. Our international allies are all over the place. We're being condemned by folks that should be working with us. There's no end in sight. I have no idea what's going on from day to day. There's really no briefings happening to the Congress. And so it's been going to, we're spending what, a billion dollars a day to do what? The same family is still in power. And when you talk to folks, look, even when you talk to Iranian Americans or folks that are here, and I have a large group in my community, even many of them that early on wanted that regime change. We all did, right? We were talking about a horrible situation. Now are wondering what the fuck is going on? You are seeing a change when kind of backspots. 100%. I mean, when I talk to my Iranian American community back home, I have seen the shift. I mean, early on, there was strong support, hoping that there would be some kind of major change. And now you have seen a lot of them going, a lot of them actually believe, some of them, that they are worse off because now their dreams have been crushed. The idea of rebelling or overthrowing the regime for many now is gone. And so we're spending endless amounts of money. So why aren't we spending that money here to help people back home? And so I think there is no end or mission. And that I think is a clear problem. Yeah, Kim shows you how bad it's going that I laughed at myself as if it was a ridiculous question to ask how the war is going because it's just so obviously going terribly. And I do wonder, I've been almost surprised a little bit that there hasn't been more pressure on your Republican colleagues from their home districts to start to push back on this. I mean, again, it's party line vote. The Senate, I expect will be close to a party line vote today in the House. We'll see. But what is your sense for your Republican colleagues about why they're going along with this? And they can't even offer a plausible argument for what's happening. Look, I think it's supportive. Donald Trump, I think they just want to support the president. I think many of them are also wondering what we're doing. But they have decided to essentially, you know, march lockstep with the president on everything. But now I think back home, it's a different story. I think you're starting to see folks within the party in the base and Republicans back home going, what are we doing? My gas is still six bucks a gallon like it is in California. I'm not, I don't, I don't, I'm not getting any more money from the government. Where the hell is no tax on tips? Where the hell is my, my check I was getting from Donald Trump? I mean, they're not safe or I wasn't scared of Iran in the first place. Exactly right. And why are we launching all these foreign wars when you said you were going to be the president of peace or whatever the hell he was calling himself? So I think that there is a clear break that's happening at the base level that has not yet reached the Congress. Here's my political question for you on the democratic side about this. And feel free to tell me that I'm wrong. But I, when you took over the oversight committee, I noticed that there was like a big change in like the level of aggression and oversight and kudos to you, particularly on immigration and ICE issues and Epstein, right? And it was like, we know that Garcia and Con are the guys that are going after the Epstein, you know, files that are doing oversight. They're on, they're in the media, they're on social media. They're pushing this. Given the scale of the disaster of the Iran war, like the democratic response has felt a little tepid to me. It's like, I feel like if I was a democratic house member, I would be essentially Cindy Sheehan during the Iraq war. Remember her code? I think she was outside but W's house. Like I feel like I would be outside Jared Custer's house or something with a bullhorn screaming. Like it is an insane war that the economic damage that's happening to Americans is only going to increase. And I just wonder like, do you feel that like that there's maybe not as much fight as you might expect? Or do you have a suggestion for a good person who might be the former Robert Garcia of the Iran war within your caucus? Look, I think there's, there's so much horror happening at once that I think folks are trying to, to push back in ways that they can. And I, and I understand, first of all, the anger. I am of the belief that we should be angrier about everything. Sure. Not just Epsin and not just ICE, but we should be angry about the Iran war. We should be angry about affordability issues. We should be angry about what's happening with voting rights. So all of those issues we should be angry about. I also think that is where it's important to bring in newer folks. And, you know, when, when I got elected to the caucus, I think I was the first sophomore in a hundred years to be elected to lead a committee in our party. And I think that tells you that for too long, I think we have elevated just whoever's next. And I think it's really important that to, to match the anger that you're seeing, we elect new folks, bring in new ideas and bring in next generation Democrats. As far as the Iran war, look, I think, I think people are pretty pissed and they're pretty pissed in Congress. And I hear it. I wish we would be anger. And I think, I think there's plenty of opportunity for us to push back even harder. Get out on Fox. I don't know. If you have some congressional buddies who are looking to make a name for themselves, I do think this, this is the moment. And I say this, like kind of cheekily, but have you ever done the Piers Morgan arguing show? Have you ever done the Jerry Springer Piers Morgan show? I've never done Piers Morgan. Okay. Well, I, I, I, they asked me all the time. And I always choose to do it when Trump is the weakest, because that's when it's the most fun when he's done something particularly stupid, because it's like, I know that the other people on the food fight, like aren't, aren't going to be able to put forth a compelling counter argument. And I, I felt like this is the moment for that for like the last month. I mean, maybe Fox won't have Democrats on right now. I don't know. But like, I do feel like it's the moment to kind of go into mega territory and, and make the case that you don't have to be condescending about it or a dick about it, but like go in there and just say, Hey, he's betraying you. And this crisis is going to get worse. And anyway, that's not really a question. It's more of a comment that I tell you colleagues get out there, do this. Look, I think, I've been Fox a few times, we're going to continue to do that. But I think we actually have, I think some of our best communicators have some of their best moments on Fox. And Jason Crowe has been on recently. Jason Crowe is, Jason Crowe is actually somewhere, I think in our caucus, it is a excellent communicator. And because he's a veteran also, he brings a really great perspective. I think we got a lot more of those folks in the Congress and we should encourage it to uplift them. Let's talk about the, this fall election and the prospects in the House. And I think a week ago, before the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, there's no assurances in life or in politics, but everybody felt very strong that the Democrats were going to win the House and that Hucking Jeffries is going to be the speaker. And, you know, Republicans might try to cheat, but that just the dynamics, the political dynamics, the map would start to just be very challenging for them to hold the House. Now, after that ruling and after the ruling in Virginia, I think the Democrats are still favored. I think you guys are still favored to take back the House, but it doesn't feel like a guarantee. And I'm wondering what the feeling is among your colleagues. I think that is about the feeling. I mean, look, I think, I think we're, if we, we fight like Cal, we're going to win. And I think that, that the leader is mapping out a path to victory and has. But I think that the attack on voting rights and what's happening right now with redistricting is incredibly serious. And I've said this often, but the response from our state and our governor should have been that level of action should have happened everywhere immediately and that level of intensity. And I don't think we saw it everywhere. And I, I, Republicans are always going to have that level of intensity. They're always going to push hard, go all the way. We're seeing what's happening now again in South Carolina. I mean, they're, they are pushing. And so I, I think we are going to win the majority. I think it's going to be hard and a big fight. And I think that redistricting makes it infinitely more difficult. And I also worry about not just redistricting this year, but in 28, because whatever they don't do in 26, they're going to do in 28. And so we've got to make sure that when we win the House this fall, that we hold it. Because at the, at the end of the day, we're going to pass a lot of great policy, hopefully something that we can get through when we're in the House. But are we going to have the Senate? I hope we have a, we have a shot at it, but we need the presidency in 28. We have got to get to a place where we hold the White House and the Congress. So we can actually make real change in this country and reverse some of the horrors of Trump. And so what's the answer to that? Is that maximum redistricting and all of the other blue states turn Illinois into a computer chip? Or is it trying to find the Thomas Massey of redistricting to try to get some compromise bill passed? And it's kind of almost impossible to imagine Trump signing some sort of anti-jerrymandering law. So I don't, I don't think there is any other solution than maximum warfare, right? Maximum, I think maximum aggressive warfare has to be it. And, and it has to also be something coming from the States. And so, you know, look, when you have had governors in blue states not excited about redistricting, I think it's a disservice not to just, not just to your state, but to the country and democracy. This is, this is like bigger than how we might feel about redistricting. In California, we had an independent commission. I supported it. I didn't want to redistrict, but we had to get it done. And so we look at California, we may have to go back and redistrict again. And I think 51 to one, baby. Look, and I think that people are prepared to do whatever it takes to stop the Trump agenda and to stop what's happening right now with the extreme right. So I think we got to get it done. Speaking of maximum warfare coming from the other side, news that today, JD Vance and his so-called fraud commission or whatever he's doing, he's the, he's the, he's the fraud czar for democratic fraud, for fraud, I guess only put it this way. He's the fraud czar where he looks into fraud unless you've donated to the Donald Trump campaign and then you get a pardon. Actually, who knows? You might, you might get honored in the ballroom. But the latest move is like pretty shocking where they're looking to denying California Medicaid funds because of accusations about Medicaid fraud in California. And I kind of see this as a, of a piece with the gerrymandering war where they're going to step it up even more. And it's not just that they're going to try to cut out representation in red states, but in blue states, they're going to try to deny citizens that didn't vote for Trump Vance access to services. Well, and I think where Vance and Trump get it wrong is that a lot of the folks that they're denying services to actually voted for them. You're talking about oftentimes working class whites in communities that voted for Trump, that are some of the highest users of government assistance. And so that is, that is something that I hope folks see that are these kind of Trump voters in communities across the country, that they're being impacted. This attack on, essentially on healthcare in California is really serious. And we're talking about people, some of the most working class, they're low income folks, they need access. This fraud stuff is complete bullshit. Look, any government or private entity, anyone, whether it's federal, local, private company, you're always fighting fraud in ways always, there's always going to be mistakes made. There's always going to be some try someone trying to cheat the system. And you got to take it on as you go. What you shouldn't do is for a small problem that will always exist, somehow eliminate enormous amounts of amounts of services for people that really need it. The tax on SNAP, for example, or food assistance, is there frauds in food assistance? Of course, just like there's fraud in any large at Microsoft or at the largest companies in the Trump corporation, lot of fraud, a lot of fraud there. But I think that they sold cell phones to a bunch of people that never got them, for example. Tennis shoes, cell phones, the Trump Bibles. Yeah, might be something for JD to look into. Exactly. And so I think that this idea that we're going to punish the working poor, because there are shysters out there, I think is discussing. Same. Let's say the gavel is taken back. Let's say that their attempts to fuck with the midterms are unsuccessful. You're in charge next January. There's so much fraud. There's so much corruption. There's so much shit to look into. There's not enough time in the day for you. I hope that you're not a big sleeper. What's at the top of the list for you? Yeah, top of the list is a real investigation on Jeffrey Epstein's where we have actually access to all the documents, subpoenas. I really, having met now so many of the survivors in conversations, one-on-one in person, I feel very committed to ensuring that there is justice for them and that there are criminal prosecutions of the men that cause the abuse. So that's going to be important. And we've got to get the job done there and do right by them. The second one is Trump family corruption. Look, this is the most corrupt administration and family in American history. They're running this like some criminal operation. The fact that Jared Kushner gets $2 billion from the Saudis when he walks out of the White House, that the Trump boys... Do you know, can we just pause and Jared for a second? Do you know when the last time Jared Kushner testified before Congress was? I googled that this morning. Do you know? No, because I can't even imagine it would actually happen. Yeah, he did. I guess 2022. Yeah, it's been a long time. What? I mean, he is taking money from the Saudis and he's the point person on our diplomacy in the Iran war and he's on the take from all kinds of interests. And we don't even know. Like, we don't even know where he's getting his money from. We don't know anything. It's crazy that he isn't testified in front of Congress. Crazy. Well, and of course, the administration would argue that he doesn't have an official government job. He's on background to ask you this as a senior American official. It seems like a government job to me. He's negotiating the end of the Iran war. And benefiting. I mean, getting enormous amounts of money, billions of dollars for this investment fund that he runs, who's giving him God knows what. Who's giving him the money besides the Saudis? Well, there's been no investment. And by the way, right, the Saudis have actually made zero return on their investment directly, indirectly. I'm sure they're benefiting plenty. And so the level of Trump corruption with Kushner, with the Trump sons who basically, you know, fly in or fly with their dad when he's doing diplomacy. Eric's going to China. Eric's going to China. Well, I'm sure we'll see a Trump hotel there pretty soon and they'll be announced in the next few months. And so the real estate deals are happening. This crypto scheme, which is like in Sammi, I'm not sure there's ever been a bigger level of corruption by an American president than basically opening up. They're definitely is not. No. I mean, Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm. Peanut farm. Opening up basically this account where infinite amounts of money just get poured in and with no record of who's giving all this money to the president. We still don't know. And we know some of them because they've gotten pardons. So we learned that, you know, Justin Son and CZ. And now there's this IRR. Now he's going to get this $10 billion from the federal government and the IRR. So the amount of Trump family corruption, like to the question, is I think key to our work, along with like abuses at ICE and abuses at HHS and so on. So the pushback you get is, well, they're not going to testify. They're not going to give you any more Epstein files. They don't care. And you're dealing with this right now with question Bondi, whether she's going to testify or not. She's ducking subpoenas. How do you guys think you're going to address that? Well, that shouldn't stop us from trying really hard, right? And I think what we've shown on the committee is even in the minority, like we push really hard and we get some shit done. Every subpoena that we've had in front of us, every interview, every piece of paper and email has been because we have fought, used public attention, got the public to join us. And we pulled one or two Republicans, whether it was Massier, whether it was Mace or whoever, to go along. And so I think we're going to have to continue that same approach. We're going to make the strong requests. And there's no compliance. What I tell the folks is you are going to be in front of us at some point. And either do it voluntarily, do the right thing, because when we get to the point where we actually can force that testimony, it's going to be infinitely worse. And what we're not going to do, do you want one thing? I like one of my not annoyances, but oftentimes I hear from folks in the party or you know, whatever, that we're going to move on like, you know, when we get, when we in the majority, you sound to move forward and we're going to have this forward looking agenda. That's fine. We're going to have a forward looking agenda, but there has to be accountability. And if we just move on and don't spend time actually saying this shit is actually really fucked up and we've got to show people that there has to be accountability. People have to be accountable for the crimes they committed. I don't think we can move on. I think we, this is the moment where there has to be accountability. Great. I love that. There are a couple hundred other members of Congress. They can focus on going forward and you can have the account trust in accountability. 100% Yeah, I totally understand. And the inconsolidations are. Oh yeah, that's exactly, I feel, as part of our role. That's good. Here's just one little thing on this for me is the, I don't know whether Jared Kushner will come before Don Jr or what they'll do, but they are in business with a lot of people right now. And I think that that is what would be my strategy. Going to Justin Sun, going to the companies that have put Don Jr on the board and they're going to, they'll come testify. And it's like not to compliment Trey Gowdy, but it's, I mean, it's the Hillary, it's the Benghazi thing. Right? Like the craziest thing is that like the Jim Comey letter about the, about the, you know, Clinton emails, like along a long, a long weird string of oversight started at the Benghazi hearings, you know? And so you just don't know what you're going to uncover and there's going to be a lot of shit for you guys to uncover. So get on it. And why? Right? Let's fight about California for a second. I'll let you go. This governor's race is a shit show. It's a total shit show. And I don't understand why we're at even Doris Katie Porter, I guess. Why don't we start there? Maybe make the case for why Katie Porter. Well, first, let me just say, I think that there's a couple of folks that are running that would be good governors. And so Katie was the first person to endorse me when I ran for Congress. My first supporter, we actually shared neighboring communities and overlapping, overlapping cities. When I got to Congress, besides being my strongest supporter, she was immediately a mentor on oversight. And when I got to over the oversight committee, I honestly saw what she was doing and the way she'd grill CEOs, the way she fought really hard. And I try to model a lot of what I do in oversight off of what she taught me as a true mentor. And so for me, the decision to support Katie was not hard. But look, I think I've known Secretary Rosara, Tom Steyer, we've got candidates. We're not sure this is a very fluid race who's going to win. At the end of the day, we're going to support whoever the Democratic nominee is. We're going to get behind. I will say about Katie Porter and the Ezra Klein town hall they had over the weekend. I'll put this link in the show notes. He asked her about about housing stuff, something that's the biggest issue in California, among others. I was pretty impressed with her answer. A little less so Javier Becerra. And I'm like the mayor of San Jose. But my issue with with all of that. You like Matt? Yeah, I like Matt. Yeah, I like Matt too. Look, I think I know that some of my party have problems problems with Matt. He was he is a good mayor. I was mayor of my community. Long standing relationship got to know him in San Jose. What I like about Matt is that he we have to be a party that also embraces technology in the future. And we can't just turn our back on innovation and tech. And so I think that he understands that. And so he's a viable candidate. What I like about Matt is he was the only one on the stage in the debate when asked about the current governor that didn't just talk about how great he is. And there's things to like about Gavin. I've given him nothing but love about what he did on the redistricting effort. He's a good fighter. Katie Porter, the person you endorsed set called his leadership as governor is bold. And I just like people are leaving California, you know, and California is taxed higher than any other state. The services are not as not the highest of any state. It's really expensive. It's hard to be a working in middle class person in California. That's not all Gavin Newsom's fault. But to me, if like you're you're running to run California, I want somebody that's like we need to change things and like make things better. Like we don't need a status quo governor for the state. And like that to me is the issue I have with some of the main candidates running for governor on the Democratic side. And it's also kind of my issue with Gavin as a presidential candidate. It's like it's you know, he's good at the tactical stuff, but it's a lot of baggage in your state. What's your what's your pushback on that? I disagree with some of that. First, a lot of the issues that have existed in California have existed for decades. And I'm not anyone running for governor should want to make change period. So I agree with that. For example, even constructing a railway for 18 years. So that's been happening for a long time now. You have a couple of tracks down now. And having the single largest state in the country, you're going to have oversized challenges. And so all what you said is true. And the area where I think as a state we have we have we have failed has been on housing on housing. We have done we have pushed hard, but it's not only in California an issue of the governor. We've had cities, we've had the legislature, we've had the counties that have all essentially created this NIMBY system, we haven't produced enough housing. And so the governor has pushed and I actually credit the governor for going after cities that have actually not produced enough housing. He has ensured that the economy and California stay strong. He has pushed, I think, bold progressive ideas. I think he has actually been an excellent governor. I think he'll be an excellent candidate for president if he runs. You're smiling. This is my this is my and at the end of the day, what the thing I love about our governor is he is obsessed with winning. And he has won every fucking election. I like that too. He pushes really hard against the legislature. He's independent. And he he is really smart. And he's not just out there pushing ideas. Because you know, this group or that group, he believes something and he pushes really, really hard. And he wants to win. Look at redistricting. How many governors, I'll name them zero in this country on the Democratic side, did what he did. Because he he he's obsessed. He's obsessed with winning for the American public, for California. And I have over time learned to I just really respect him, to be honest. I think he's a great governor. And we'll see what happens with the presidential. Total shout out to him on that. Just using as a progressive coded issue as an example, I saw this chart this week, where Texas has passed California in production of like solar and green energy stuff. Because there's because the NIMBY ism isn't just about the houses, it's about building other things. And it's just like if a blue state can't build green energy, and if working class people can't afford to live in a blue state, then like something's wrong in the blue state and we need to reform and we need something to fix it. I don't disagree with you. So and I think and I think the governor would will say this as well. Our biggest challenge has been housing production. And we the burden that we have put on housing production, which is not just the government, but you have a legislature. We have allowed, unfortunately, our love of being an environmental leader, in many cases, to stifle housing production. The reality is it's just too expensive to build housing in California. And our land use policy is completely fucked up. We don't allow enough housing. It's not dense enough. We don't invest enough in transit. And so those that have been our biggest issue in California is when we have to continue to fix. Do you have any fun? I don't know. Do you get to go to hunters in Palm Springs or hamburger marries in Long Beach? I like both hunters and hamburgers. What do you do? Do you go to hunters? I've been to hunters in Palm Springs. Yeah, it's not like Palm Springs isn't really, I'm not really, I go to spot, but you know, I went there for my buddy's 40th about a year ago. We had a good time. I don't know. What else? Dude, are you doing anything? Are you getting a hand? California is beautiful. California is beautiful. You know, do you get to do anything? Are you just sitting at your computer thinking about what the oversight, what oversight we're going to do? And maybe that might be the right answer for you. No, I do say that actually, most of the time, sitting around, what are we doing over there? But I also think it's important that we're like, we're regular people and we do fun things. And of course, I try to do fun things. Long Beach Pride's coming up in just a few days. And so I'll be there and I'll be there. What's the best gay bar in Long Beach? Oh, my favorite gay bar in Long Beach for a long time has been a place called the Sweetwater. It's a little neighborhood bar on Broadway in the gay neighborhood. Great place, jukebox, old school vibes. It's by my favorite spot. I'll have to check it out. Robert Garcia, thanks for coming by the office. All right, I appreciate you very much. Thank you. All right. How good was that? Thanks so much to my colleague, Catherine Rampell and to Congressman Robert Garcia. We'll be back tomorrow. I'll be back in my home studio. Hope to see you all then. Peace. The board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer, Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.