Katie Porter—Democratic Candidate For California Governor—Discusses Key Issues Facing Voters

3 days ago

On CNN, former Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) spoke about her run for California Governor.

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Transcript

00:00at a time when Democrats are struggling to find a strategy forward during

00:04President Trump's second term. With me now is former Congresswoman Katie Parter

00:08who is now a candidate for California governor. Thank you so much for being

00:12here with us this morning. All right, here's the bad news. Things not looking

00:16good for President Trump's initial policies, his doge layoffs, his tariffs,

00:20the way he handled Ukraine so far, the way he's just not doing enough about the

00:27economy, all of that is highly unpopular in polling. And yet, Democrats somehow

00:31have no cohesive message that resonates, no sense of togetherness, and no strong

00:36leadership. How is that possible?

00:40We're a Democratic Party, but I can't tell you what I'm doing,

00:44which is stepping up in this moment to talk first and foremost about the need

00:49to bring down the cost of living. And in California, the biggest issue is the cost

00:53of housing, something we haven't seen Democrats or Republicans take much action

00:58on in recent administrations. And so really being able to talk about how the

01:02cost of living is the biggest problem, and it is being made worse by Donald

01:07Trump. So when people say, do you have to stand up to Trump and deal with Trump

01:11and what he's doing, or do you have to bring down the cost of living? The answer

01:15is they are now the same thing, because these tariffs and other policies are

01:19only going to push the economy into a worse place and hit families harder.

01:23Do you blame Gavin Newsom for the cost of living crisis and the homelessness

01:27crisis in California?

01:32Housing has been a challenge for California for decades, and this has always

01:36been a little bit of a boom, boom, bust kind of housing economy.

01:40We do need to make structural changes, including reducing, reforming

01:45how our environmental laws, our bedrock environmental law called the CEQA, is

01:50applied to housing. We need to make it cheaper to build. That means innovating

01:54around the kinds of building materials we use, thinking about how to build

01:57things in ways that are more fireproof, for example. The next governor is going

02:01to have to head on tackle the crisis that we're facing with home insurance,

02:05and I'm ready to do that.

02:07All right. I do want to ask you about this latest CNN polling because you were

02:10a congresswoman and you are still a Democrat, and I know you're running for

02:13California governor now, but we're seeing these polls and it's the lowest

02:17approval rating for Democrats that we have seen in modern history.

02:20Just 29 percent among the American public overall think that the Democrats

02:25are doing well. And this was before Chuck Schumer angered Democrats farther by

02:30helping pass the Republican bill to keep the government open.

02:33Do you think that Democrats as a whole need a change in leadership?

02:37Well, look, I when I I'm running in part because I we're going to have a change

02:41in leadership in California, in Congress, I push several times to try to change

02:46up some of our rules to make sure that we were rotating leaders in and out,

02:50that we were giving those who were new to Congress a voice. I do think that

02:55there is a sort of natural evolutionary process here of electing different

02:59leaders because the world has changed. Right. So I went to college in a world

03:03where student loans were a 10 year problem after you graduated.

03:07There are now lots of people for whom student loans are a lifetime problem

03:11after they graduate. So I do think that because the world has changed,

03:14we need people who have experiences living in the world where our voters

03:18are struggling. So child care now costs more than college in college tuition

03:23in half of all states. If you understand that, if you've tried to pay that bill

03:27like I have, then I think you prioritize, for example, the cost of

03:31child care policy differently. I've said for a long time that the Democrats

03:35need stronger messages, messengers on the economy. And I think what we've seen

03:40sometimes is the Democratic Party be drawn toward messengers about Trump,

03:45people who are anti-Trump. You can and you must be both because, as I said,

03:50Trump's economic policy is a cost of living problem in and of itself. But

03:54that's how we should be talking about Trump. We should be talking about how

03:57is Trump hurting you? How is Trump going to make it impossible for your

04:01small business to thrive? How is Trump going to make your retirement more

04:04difficult? All right. You famously used a whiteboard to explain complex ideas

04:09in very simple ways, and it did catch on with many voters. If you had your

04:14whiteboard today with you, how would you fix the Democratic Party?

04:20Oh, I think I would remind them. I would put a number one up, a great big number

04:24one. That's the only thing I would write on the board. And then I would remind

04:29people that in every single election cycle in my lifetime, and I am 51 years

04:35old, the number one issue is the economy. So we have got to focus on that, and we

04:45have to tie things back to the economy. So even Trump's chaotic kind of social

04:50policies, his attacks on DEI, things like that, those all create economic

04:56upheaval. People lose their jobs. They have to spend time doing nonproductive

05:00work, like changing websites. It's all about the economy, and frankly, it

05:04always has been. You cut out a little bit. You said if you wrote a number one

05:10on your board, there will be a single thing on the whiteboard that you used.

05:14And what would that number one say?

05:16It would be the economy. So I would tell people and remind people that in every

05:21single election for multiple generations, the number one issue has been the

05:25economy. So we have to start looking at the lens of what Trump is doing through

05:30the economy. So even Trump's sort of so-called social issues, like DEI,

05:35attacks on DEI policy, those are extremely economically unproductive.

05:40Former Representative Katie Porter, now former Democratic candidate,

05:45now throwing her hat in. Former California governor. Thank you so much.

05:48Appreciate your time. John?

05:49Well, let's talk a little bit more about the economy. Just moments ago,

05:54the markets opened on Wall Street. Stocks a little bit down for the day.

05:59Actually, the Nasdaq down more than a percent so far. Uncertainty over

06:04President Trump's policies, particularly tariffs, have sparked.

Katie Porter—Democratic Candidate For California Governor—Discusses Key Issues Facing Voters

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