- 13 hours ago
Speaking with DW, California Governor Gavin Newsom praised European leaders: "What he [Donald Trump] respects is strength, unity, conviction. And I think that's on display here in Munich."
Category
đ
NewsTranscript
00:00Governor Newsom, you were described to me just a moment ago by an analyst as the rowdy opposition in the
00:05United States.
00:06You are by far the most vocal opponent of Donald Trump.
00:11You've just come from a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, which of course you can't tell us about, but
00:16tell us about it.
00:17No, well, I appreciated his graciousness for sitting down, and we talked about sub-national cooperation.
00:22We talked about existing partnerships we already have in Germany,
00:26and we talked about the importance and imperative of strengthening those, particularly at the sub-national level.
00:32With the prevailing winds, with politics, and not only Washington, D.C., for that matter, globally,
00:37the one thing that we maintain is a willingness and desire to have stability at the local level, at the
00:44state level.
00:44And so I share that, and the Chancellor was gracious enough to share that as well.
00:49For him, that is a bit of a political risk as well, to meet with you,
00:53because it is a clear symbol also towards the Trump administration.
00:57How do you read it?
00:58Well, I...
00:59God bless.
01:00I mean, the idea that it's a risk, and I appreciate you framing it like that,
01:03which says everything you need to know about Donald Trump.
01:06The petulance that marks so much of American politics today.
01:11That petulance is, well, understood now.
01:14I wasn't as convinced in Davos a few weeks ago.
01:18I came across, perhaps a little strident, maybe a little critical, not of any individual leaders,
01:24but broadly of the sentiment and lack of what I thought was understanding the depth of what Europe is up
01:31against,
01:31what we're up against within the United States of America with Donald Trump.
01:35He exploits weakness.
01:37He exploits weakness.
01:39No one is more skilled at exploiting weakness.
01:41What he respects is strength, unity, conviction.
01:46And I think that's on display here in Munich.
01:48It was on display in the last few days of Davos.
01:52I mean, Prime Minister Carney's speech.
01:54But I also applaud the Chancellor yesterday.
01:56We talked briefly about his speech.
01:59Every one of my colleagues, regardless of their political stripes that I spoke to,
02:03that are here from the U.S., all were very favorable about that speech.
02:07So I thought it was a...
02:08I thought he met the moment in a very important way.
02:11And I think we need more of that, not only domestically in my country, but I think globally.
02:17At Davos, you brought knee patches for Europeans kneeling to Donald Trump, symbolically.
02:23Symbolically and substantively.
02:25And look, I brought knee pads because I wanted to express something.
02:28Stop bending the knee.
02:29Don't sell your soul.
02:31We can lose...
02:31You're going to lose one of the most important allies you have in the world, the United States of America.
02:35U.S. can lose its republic.
02:36Look, we're celebrating the historic project of our founding fathers' 250th anniversary this year.
02:43And we've got...
02:44President of the United States is trying to wreck our country, trying to steal the last election on January 6th
02:48in the open.
02:49He's trying to do it again today.
02:50And so what I'm trying to express, it's not just foreign leaders.
02:53It's universities, it's law firms, it's corporate leaders that are selling out, and they're not speaking out.
03:00And my frustration is this.
03:02The reason I came with those knee pads, symbolically and substantively, is I hear too many people say one thing
03:07privately, but they're not expressing that conviction publicly.
03:11And this is it.
03:12We can lose this whole thing.
03:14We can lose the transatlantic relationships and the alliance, which is not dead, from my humble perspective.
03:19We also can lose the United States if we don't stand up and meet this moment.
03:23So now looking back at the conversations you've had here, including the German Chancellor, the speech you heard, but also
03:29Marco Rubio's speech.
03:30When you go home to California and someone asks you, so what did the Europeans do?
03:34Are they standing up to Trump?
03:35What's the answer you're going to give?
03:36Look, I think the tone that Rubio came in with, certainly very different than Vance last year, you can read
03:44between the line a little bit, I mean, what Rubio was saying, what he wasn't said.
03:50But that is a very different speech.
03:52It was certainly different than the tone and tenor in Davos just a few weeks ago from the president of
03:55the United States.
03:56I think that's in response to this new reality.
03:59So I think, yes, Europe is expressing itself in a more unified manner.
04:03Now, the one thing that Donald Trump has done that I deeply appreciate, and he's done it almost single-handedly,
04:08is unified Europe in a profound and consequential way.
04:13I think it's stronger than it's been in years.
04:16And I applaud Donald Trump for making that happen.
04:18Now, while we're standing here at the Munich Security Conference, everybody's debating the speech that we heard from Marco Rubio
04:25here in Munich, which essentially was a bit of a love letter.
04:28Recalling the joint history, we belong together, the concept of the West, while at the same time maintaining the same
04:36issues that divide Europe and the United States.
04:39So is there progress on the U.S. side?
04:43Should the Europeans take this as kind of an offering from the U.S. side?
04:47Well, Donald Trump's in retreat, and I think it's important people understand and shape the consciousness in this way.
04:52He's in retreat on Greenland.
04:54Tonally, you saw the retreat in terms of the tone and tenor that was expressed by the Secretary of State.
04:59He's in retreat in the United States of America.
05:02He's pulling the secret police, his masked men, ICE agents, 3,000 of them.
05:07He's taking them out of Minnesota.
05:09He is historically unpopular in the U.S.
05:12They're in a reset because economic conditions.
05:16He's underwater in every key category, including his number one issue, which was immigration.
05:21And now he's underwater in terms of public opinion polls on that.
05:24So he's increasingly weak, and he's shown to be weak.
05:29When people stand up to Trump, when you fight back, fight fire with fire, he backs down.
05:34And I think he's been testing boundaries.
05:37It's what he does, throws things out, and if people are too complicit, you sit back and say,
05:42we don't take him seriously, he'll take whatever he wants.
05:46If you see something he wants, he'll take it, unless people push back with clarity and conviction.
05:50This is happening within the United States, and it's obviously happening in real time around the globe.
05:56And I think people are figuring that out, and it couldn't come too soon.
06:00So are you hopeful when you look at the withdrawal from Minnesota of ICE, but also how are things going
06:07in California?
06:08Do you feel safe from any kind of further interference by ICE agents?
06:13I want to remind everybody, it happened in my state first.
06:16In June of last year, he federalized 4,000 National Guard and sent 700 active-duty Marines,
06:24not overseas, but to the second largest city in the United States of America, in Los Angeles.
06:29And now he has a private police force that appears to have taken the oath of office to Trump,
06:34not the Constitution of the United States, in ICE, that has billions and billions of dollars of new appropriated money.
06:40And he's currently recruiting to build the ranks of that.
06:43So I'm not naive to your question that we could see these kinds of efforts revisited.
06:49But the difference is, the American people are starting to stand up.
06:52Real citizens standing up, weren't asked to do it.
06:55Self-organizing, organic, bottom-up movement.
06:59No king's rallies.
07:00People saying, hold on, this is not what we voted for.
07:03It's not what we believe.
07:04You're going too far, Mr. President.
07:06And he is now forced to react.
07:08He's going to get crushed in the midterm elections.
07:10He's going to be neutered.
07:12That's happening just in a matter of months.
07:13It's going to be a new Speaker of the House.
07:15More oversight, more accountability.
07:16He will lose, mark my words, he will lose in the United States Supreme Court on his tariff authority.
07:22The unilateral authority that he's asserting under the IEPA, this International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
07:29He doesn't have that authority.
07:30I say that biasly because California was the first to sue on that basis.
07:34But that will change the dynamic in terms of how he uses tariffs for personal dealings, not just policymaking as
07:44it relates to trade.
07:44Now, you're the governor of the second largest state, but also one of the world's largest economies in its own
07:49right.
07:50Now, you can't have a trade agreement with Europe separately from the U.S.
07:54But where do you see the dynamic changing?
07:57Because we also heard from the Chinese foreign minister here in terms of supply chains.
08:02That's an issue that also came up in the bilateral between Rubio and the German chancellor, of course, on the
08:08European level.
08:09So how do you see the dynamics shifting there?
08:12And how can you, as a state governor, because German politicians always stress that they're seeking those close relationships now,
08:18enforce closer ties and keep closer ties with Europe?
08:21Well, we're blessed.
08:22California is the only state in America with rare earth minerals, MP materials, is in my state.
08:27And so this is a supply chain issues are near and dear to the work we're doing in California.
08:31And I received very positively, and I imagine most Americans did, Rubio's comments about the opportunities around supply chains for
08:40Western democracies to engage, to address those constraints, current constraints vis-a-vis China.
08:46And I think that's an imperative and self-evident coming from the invasion in Ukraine, coming from all the supply
08:53chain disruption that we've experienced in the last number of years.
08:56So there is opportunities, and that was encouraging.
08:59Those are pathways that can happen at the subnational level as well as nation to nation.
09:04So we'll continue to try to build those partnerships, build those paths.
09:08You're right.
09:09I represent a state's larger than 21 state populations combined in the U.S., the fourth largest economy in the
09:14world, but also that dominates in AI and fusion and robotics and quantum in all of the technologies of tomorrow
09:22with an entrepreneurial mindset, with more venture capital, more research and development than any other state in the nation.
09:28And that entrepreneurial energy needs to be unleashed for good in the spirit, I think, of what Rubio tried to
09:35bring to this conference, in the spirit of openness, in the spirit of liberal democracies and freedom, and in the
09:44spirit that defines the best of the Roman Republic and Greek democracy, co-equal branches of government, popular sovereignty, the
09:50rule of law.
09:51Not the rule of law, not the rule of law, not the rule of law, not the rule of law,
09:56but the rule of law that defines the last 70 years.
10:00I just have two more brief questions.
10:02First of all, what advice did you give Europeans you had bilaterals with, not just German sans, but you had
10:09many European meetings?
10:10Well, I'm old enough to know I need advice, not dispense it.
10:17So I'm here with humility and grace, seeking to understand, not just to be understood, but look, I think the
10:26biggest problem with my party, domestically, in the United States of America, is this perception of weakness.
10:31And I think weakness defines the larger conversations we've been having.
10:37He'll exploit weakness, given the choice, we say this in America, given the choice, the American people will always support
10:44strong and wrong versus weak and right.
10:48And I think this notion of strength, conviction, clarity, and in the spirits of an old African proverb, if you
10:54want to go fast, go along, but if you want to go far, go together.
10:58Alliances, alliances, the European Union, I feel, is more centered than it's been in some time because they recognize what's
11:05at stake.
11:06The success of Europe is the success of the United States.
11:09There's an interdependence here.
11:10It was implied, expressed by Rubio today, and that's important.
11:15Western civilization, these values, and they need to be enduring and they need to be embraced.
11:19They need to be celebrated and not tolerated.
11:21And so that's my approach, strength, conviction, courage, standing on values, and not trying to be complicit at this moment.
11:34That's all.
11:35And then to your own role, because I've spoken to many analysts who told me, look, a Californian is never
11:39going to get elected U.S. president if you have any further ambitions.
11:42Also in rallying the Democratic Party together, which is really struggling, to come up with a concept to counter Donald
11:49Trump.
11:50So you're putting yourself out there pretty hard.
11:54What are you hoping to achieve in terms of reinvigorating the Democrat Party?
11:59I don't want to be in peril of being judged not to have lived.
12:02I'm saying what a lot of people are thinking, and I'm willing to put myself out there and demonstrate not
12:07just rhetorically, but substantively.
12:09We just had a big ballot initiative in California to push back against the election rigging by Donald Trump in
12:15another state, Texas.
12:16It was our Election Rigging Response Act, Proposition 50.
12:20We fought fire with fire.
12:22Ronald Reagan would disagree with this idea that Democratic, you know, in a now currently Democratic state of California, that
12:30a Californian can't become president.
12:32Richard Nixon would beg to disagree with that analysis of some of those pundits as well.
12:37But that's not what this is about.
12:38It's not about presidential politics.
12:40It's about being accountable to the world I'm living in.
12:43No state is more impacted by what's happening globally than my state.
12:49Number one in direct foreign investment.
12:50Number one in two-way trade.
12:52We talk about a $4.3 trillion a year economy.
12:5627% of my state is foreign-born.
12:58We're a universal state.
13:00So this is part of my day job.
13:02And a lot of that day job is marked by the success and failure of others around the globe.
13:08And so, again, when I talk about interdependence, I mean that literally, not just figuratively.
13:13The importance and imperative that we all thrive together.
13:17Gavin Newsom, governor of California.
13:18Thank you so much for talking to us today.
Comments