Questions at the World Economic Forum, Davos

But it's indicative, I think, of America, for those of you are not American. It gives you a sense of what we're up against and what's happening across my country and what happened here in Davos. I was going to speak last night, it was a well established event at the USA House, simple conversation, discussion. After Trump's speech, they made sure that I didn't. They made sure it was canceled. And that's what's happening in the United States of America. Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech. It's America in reverse. They're censoring historical facts. They're rewriting history. They're censoring books, 4,340 books, libraries, and in schools, banned, in the United States of America. You're watching institutions, any institution of independent thinking is under assault and attack by the Trump administration.

You're seeing what's playing out in the streets of American cities, what played out in California, the second largest city in the United States of America. 4, 000 National Guard were federalized. 700 active duty Marines were not sent overseas, they were sent to my largest city in the state of California. Masked men. Guy Greg Bovino dressed up as if he literally went on eBay and purchased SS garb. Greg Bovino, secret police, private army, masked men, people disappearing quite literally. No due process. Windows being smashed. Seat belts on being literally just cut off. People dragged in the streets, kids, separated from families, knocking on doors, racially profiling American citizens. So is it surprising the Trump administration didn't like my commentary and wanted to make sure that I was not allowed to speak? No. It's consistent with this administration and their authoritarian tendencies. Forgive me. These are objective facts.

Society becomes how we behave. We are our behaviors. We're not bystanders in this world. The world we're experiencing happened on our watch. So in the relationship to your question, yeah, they're complicit in some respects to this moment. And forgive me, you brought up a tweet, but part of my approach has been a little more aggressive than perhaps a lot of American politicians. I created a patriot site. On the site, you can go, there are knee pads that are available to purchase. The last round of knee pads sold out just as our law firms are selling out. Many American universities are selling out. And yes, many corporate leaders are selling out to this administration. Selling out our values, selling out our future, selling out what makes America great. And breaks my heart. And people need to stand up. People need to ... Courage in their damn convictions.

We're the 250th anniversary, the United States of America this year. It's a 250th anniversary. The best of the Roman Republic, Greek democracy, co-equal branches, the government, the rule of law, popular sovereignty. Tell me that that reflects the America you read about today. There's no rule of law. It's the rule of Don. For Europeans, it's dawning on you. It's not the rule of law. You don't have co-equal branches of government. You have a supine Congress. You don't have a Speaker of the House. It doesn't exist. Popular sovereignty being challenged every single day by voter suppression, trying to rig elections. I mean, heck, Donald Trump tried to steal the election, the last election, tried to light democracy on fire, and then pardoned everyone that participated in that. Is anyone paying attention to what the hell is going on in the United States of America?

So my state of mind is a little different perhaps than many others. I won't be complicit at this moment. I won't. I can't. I can't look my kids in the eyes. And so I'm just blessed that I get to represent a state that's larger than the size of 21 US states combined. 27% of us are foreign born, we practice pluralism. That's a word you haven't heard in America in a year. Where we dominate in every critical category in terms of energy and daring and entrepreneurialism and innovation. Look, give me a category and California outperforms. Fourth largest economy in the world. So we can punch above our weight. We can come here with formal authority and a little moral authority. And I tell you, we need a little moral authority in our body politic in the United States of America today.

Good morning, everybody.

I'm not handing them out. I do have a few if you'd like. I don't know.

By the way, I'm not kidding. They're the new Trump signature series knee pads. And they are available online. I told you the last one sold out. It's a serious moment. We laugh. Anyway, these are available, and in bulk too.

The US government. It sounds ominous when put it in those terms.

That was the US Secretary of Treasury.

Newscum.

I fight fire with fire.

No, it's deeply unbecoming. Come on. And of course it is. It's not what we should be doing. But you've got to point out the absurdity. You got to put a mirror up to this. This is madness. You see what he's saying about European leaders, you, talking down to people, talking past people. I mean, look, the comments he made yesterday that we're not even discussing because you're discussing all the other comments about windmills or whatever else that was happening. Well, he talked about Somalia's community. This is not normal. It's a deviation of normalcy. We got to call it out. So I put a mirror up to Trump and Trumpism in all caps.

And it was ironic because Pravda, Fox News in America, others, they got offended by it. They said, "Well, where is his mother to wash his mouth out with soap?" I said, "Where the hell have you been? You've never said a word about Trump dressing up as the Pope, tweeting out and cosplaying on the world stage." So the Treasury of Secretary talked about a Barbie doll. It was as if he was reading a diary and had just broken up with someone. I mean, that was the Secretary of Treasury using valuable time yesterday on the world stage. Some sexual ... Thank you for not sharing that on the official White House account. We're deeply in their head. I think the affordability agenda appears to be I'm living rent free in the Trump's head, Trump administration's head.

Forgettable speech yesterday.

I felt there was moments, and forgive me, I should be cautious making this statement. I don't want it to be overanalyzed. But when I was listening to the EU president speak, there were moments where I said, "That used to be us. I remember that." So am I surprised by what Carney did? Quite the contrary. I thought it was ... I had more leaders from the United States quietly saying, not publicly, not enough standing up publicly, the transcript of that speech saying, "Wow." I mean, got in Trump's head yesterday. He brought it up. You know everything about Trump, because it's what's not in the teleprompter that tells you everything you need to know about where Trump's head is on things. It was incredibly effective.

The markets were more effective. Markets. It's not mother nature, thought of most powerful force on earth was mother nature, but it's the markets, particularly the Trump administration. Combined that with the comments of Macron, combine that with the EU commissioner, but the clarity that came from Prime Minister of Canada. But the fact that he went to China, came back with a deal, started introducing low cost, high quality electric vehicles not made in Michigan, Detroit, but overseas into Canada, it says everything you know about the recklessness

... of America's foreign policy. Everything you need to know. You know it intimately, but it's a remarkable thing to break down 80-plus years of alliances. Takes decades and decades to build trust and organizations, the architecture of that. It takes weeks, tweets, hours, minutes sometimes, to destroy it. Destruction is not strength. The Trump administration is weakness, masquerading as strength. And people need to understand that. That's reflected in the tweets. That's reflected in canceling people. That's reflected in sending masked men into the American cities. It's reflected at this moment.

So I respect what Carney did because he had courage of convictions. He stood up. And I think we need to stand up in America and call this out with clarity. We can lose our Republic as we know it. Our country had become unrecognizable in a matter of months, just not years. It is code red, blinking red, in the United States of America.

So forgive me, I feel this with passion, some indignancy, as someone frankly who's taken it for granted all of these years. And it's why I came here to Davos to call it out. And I wish there were more of us doing the same because there are more of us. And on that, I just... Forgive me, I want you to know, Donald Trump is an historic president. That's absolutely correct. He's historically unpopular in the United States of America. In every category, he's underwater. He will be remembered in years, not decades. He's not going to run again, time of life denies that. Not a state of mind, but time of life.

But we need to manifest that and we need to do the hard work. And that hard work includes the difficult work of coming to Davos and calling that out. This is not where I want to be spending... I love you all... my time. And so anyway, it's an extension of the conviction I feel about this moment.

There's always going back.

Yes. I think these relationships are in dormancy, they're not dead. I don't use those binary terms. Don't fall prey to that. That's a bit hyperbolic and I'm prone to a little of that at times. Dormancy.

Look, he's an invasive species, Donald Trump. He's not... He is. He took over the Republican Party. I mean, he's got a few of them, Lindsey Graham, I mean, speaking of the knee pads. I'm sorry. This is tough stuff. It's tough stuff. I don't recognize these people any longer. I used to respect Lindsey. I mean, Lindsey, you think what I'm saying about Trump's tough. How about what Lindsey Graham said about Trump? How about the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio?

I mean, these are the same people. And this is why for things to change, we need to change and that's why I'm changing my approach. And again, grateful you all took that well.

I'm just putting a mirror up. No. I was doing my 10-point plans before, and I don't think any of you would have been here this morning had I done that.

No. It wasn't working. Everyone's trying to figure this guy out-

Yeah. No, but it's how do you communicate? How do you respond to this moment? And for me, it's about iteration. It's an entrepreneurial spirit. It's a very California mindset. You got to keep increasing the number of tries. And I was trying everything, weren't working, weren't breaking through. Democratic Party at large, wasn't breaking through. And we decided the only way to address Trump is quite literally to fight fire with fire.

I did an initiative Prop 50 in California, it was to reflect the fact that Donald Trump called an American politician and said in the middle of the decade to the governor of the state of Texas, "I am entitled, Greg Abbott, to five seats. And I need you to redraw district lines." Mid-year redistricting to rig the 2026 election before one vote is cast. What the Trump administration expected we were going to do, as good Democrats do, we might write an op-ed. And we may all go out and just say, "This is just so wrong." And all of us would be applauding and say, "Yes, yes." As he's consolidating power, instead we went out and we redraw our maps and we also drew a line in the sand. And I think that's what's required at this moment.

And he susses out weakness like no one else. That's his great strength. That's his gift. But you punch back, you fight fire with fire, you display conviction and strength, it's a different relationship. And so my relationship to this moment is reflected in that. I'm not naive. These guys are going to try to take me down, not just my state. I'm not naive about what I've said this morning and how that will be reflected in the official White House account. I'm not naive about the fact that he threatened to prosecute the Fed Chief in the United States of America. That has a subpoena against another sitting governor, Tim Waltz. Who's literally going after his enemies with the FBI and the DOJ, and these power ministries. I'm not naive about any of this.

I'm not naive about the corruption and the graft at scale we've never seen in American history. I'm not naive about folks writing billion dollar checks to Witkoff, to Jared Kushner for this new peace deal they're announcing today. I'm not naive about the fact that president of the United States made a billion and a half plus dollars in the last 12 months personally.

How the hell are we putting up with this? We have to call this out. Unprecedented in American history, happening in real time on our watch. We have to be held to a higher level, all of us, myself, notably, to a higher level of accountability at this moment.

Well, I'm proud of my state. We have more Fortune 500 companies than any other state in America, more scientists, engineers, more Nobel laureates in my state than any state in America. The finest system of higher public education in the world. We have 18% of the world's R&D. China, 22%, Germany, 21, California, 18% of the world's R&D. We're the center of the universe as it relates to AI for 32 of the 50.

Well, the governance, we're one of the lowest uninsured rates in America. You mentioned healthcare. We just did our state of education report, which showed in every category, every classroom, making progress with our test scores. Our investments are paying off. Just did a big state of the state.

I don't know. Higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, lower gun death rates, more productivity, higher wages, higher quality of life. $83.1 billion, that was the net contribution that we provided to the federal government versus red state, like Texas, that was a taker state of $73.1 billion. So we're producing more. And people are, I think, creating more opportunities. So look, are there problems?

I absolutely accept that we all should be held to a higher level of accountability in terms of our governance. And I think there's many areas of reforms that are necessary, so many areas of reforms that were underway. We can get into the specifics of any one of these issues. But the general notion that in the middle of winter, with 100 mile an hour winds that were attached to a fire... By the way, there were 16 major fires in Southern California over a two-week period... that somehow that had to do with fire hydrants is rather preposterous. And it was shape-shift because of the complete bullshit that came from Donald Trump and Elon Musk, saying somehow the sprinklers didn't work and the fire hydrants didn't work because we didn't turn on a valve in Northern California. These are literal words from the Trump administration. So I do reject that.

Do I reject this notion of being self-critical about governance and management across the spectrum? No, that's fair game.