CNN State of the Union interview with Dana Bash: his memoir and 2028

Yes.

Yes, at 19, when she was pregnant with me -- she had two kids, a father, which I discovered only through the process of researching his life and writing this book, had a breakdown, ran for county supervisor in San Francisco, lost, ran for state Senate, lost both races, was broke and said he had a breakdown that required him just to leave.

And he just took off to Lake Tahoe, Truckee area. And that was it. We saw him episodically when we were growing up. He was there every three or four weekends, maybe a week or so every summer and came back into our lives much later.

But it was my mom, hard work, grit, never complained, explained, came from no wealth, single bedroom. And she just made ends meet, made things work and gave me the grit and gave me a work ethic that's, frankly, allowed me to survive in politics this many years.

Yes, look, I mean, the title has meaning, "Young Man in a Hurry." I have been in a hurry. I have been always trying to chase something. I put a mask on and my face was growing into it.

I was becoming -- I wasn't becoming myself. It was the biggest fear my mom had of me getting into politics. She never wanted me to go into politics, which I never understood until I learned in the process of writing this that was the reason for their divorce.

She never explained that. They never talked about that when I grew up. I lost my mom almost 20 years ago to breast cancer, and I was hustling back then. I was a small business person. I had opened a number of small businesses, restaurants and hotel, smaller winery.

I was a county supervisor. I was thinking about running for mayor. She was getting sick and sicker and I was distant. And she called. She left a voice-mail. It's in the book. How about getting this voice- mail? Literally, hi, it's your mom. Next week, I will be taking my own life.

If you want to visit me, I would encourage you to do so before next Thursday. That was literally -- I still have the voice-mail. I kept it.

And it was a big wakeup call. And I realized how selfish and self- absorbed I was. And I started spending time with her, but it was too late. She already made the decision. The cancer metastasized. She was in so much pain.

And I had the privilege and the burden, the worst experience and, in hindsight, the most blessed experience I have ever had, and that was being there for her when she took her last breath, my sister and I there at her assisted suicide with a brave doctor. It was against the law.

And it was a brave doctor who was willing to help her and take her out of her misery. And I was there for that last moment.

Yes.

Yes, I was there. She had a -- anybody who has been in this position with someone who's suffering and struggling.

So we came there. And she took some pills. And she started to doze off a little bit. And she had an old binder of photographs. And she was talking. My sister and I were the two that were with her, both sides.

And then she started dozing off a little more. And my sister said: "I can't do this anymore." She didn't want to be there for the end. And she took off. And about 10 more minutes of that, it was just my mom and I.

And the doctor came in and administered the final dose. And those last breaths, I will never forget it. And I really -- I was angry that I was there. I was angry with her at the time. I was for years and years.

Why would you do this? Why would you -- there was nothing -- it wasn't -- there wasn't calming about it. It was not a romantic end. She struggled. And she would -- she had struggled her whole life. And I'm realizing I can -- and now I realize it, how selfish and self- absorbed, as I suggested I was, that I never had a chance to thank her, never really had a chance to say I love you. Thank you for all your sacrifices.

But over the years and through the process, I'm telling you, what a gift to be able to write something. I started realizing, ah, that last breath, I have still -- that's extended through me today. That hand I'm holding is her hand.

And she's -- I'm an expression of her. She's still alive in me. And I have been able to come to grips with it in a deeper and different way. And it's also allowed me to recalibrate my life. And so much of this is about an honest assessment of self, just grinding, trying to be something, trying to make up for someone I felt I wasn't.

I'm not smart enough. I mean, we talk about my dyslexia, my learning disabilities, how I struggled, how insecure I was, sweaty hands, and always trying to be something, and how, in this process of understanding that and uncovering some of those -- where those anxieties come from, it's allowed me to let a lot of things go.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. I'm both/and. I'm all of these things, but I'm not just the caricature that FOX News paints me out to be.

This book is not about victimhood. Quite the contrary, it's about agency. It's about resilience. It's about -- it's about the journey that we're on. It's a human story that I think a lot of people can connect to with divorced families, kids that are struggling, the good and bad of life, the serendipity of life, marriage, divorce, I mean, all of that. It's all there.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, of course.

I don't know about struggle.

Yes.

Well, I wish it was that intentional. I wish it was that Machiavellian of sorts. I wish I was that political about it.

Well, I keep referring to this mask, because I think all of us put out -- I think that it was Oscar Wilde talked about in life we all sort of -- our first thing in life is, we all have a pose. And the second thing, no one ever really figures out. I'm trying to figure out the second thing.

I sort of had that pose. And now I'm just trying, you know what? Just let it go. I am who I am, imperfect as I am. Have a swing at it. You don't like it, I get it. And so it's just -- it's a little -- and I think it's reflected.

And I think you have seen it in my politics, the way I have addressed Trump and the way -- how I'm navigating even going overseas and how I'm talking in the political realm, how we did Prop 50. I'm punching back. I'm just on the other side of it now. I'm just less risk- adverse.

I have always been -- I have always taken risks.

That's well-defined here. But there's a freedom now.

Yes. Yes.

She was -- that's tough. I -- God bless. She loves me and I'm blessed, my aunt.

My mom did too, but she didn't know how. She didn't -- I mean, I talk often in the book, she didn't have the language for some -- she was a kid. She was a kid marrying -- my dad was in his mid-30s.

And she -- so she didn't know how to deal with it.

That's why she said it's OK to be average, because she was probably just trying to get to bed. And I was trying to figure out a book report and I wasn't reading. I was doing CliffsNotes. I was literally copying the back of CliffsNotes and putting it on a piece of paper. And I got -- I mean, it was just -- and she watched me struggle and scream.

And she says: "It's OK." She was basically just saying, just let it go. But at the time I just thought, no, she's just consigning me to this sort of -- being stuck on stupid.

Come on, it's the greatest thing, in hindsight, that happened to me. I mean, it just allowed -- I mean, I have the freedom of not having to be stuck on the written text and the freedom of having to work harder, more reps behind the scenes. I'm doing -- if you think you're working hard, trust me, I'm two to three X in terms of the work.

Yes, and you can read the room. You have an emotional intelligence. You can see that you're about problem-solving, you're about iteration, you're about trial and error, your willingness to make mistakes, your willingness to seek to understand before you're understood, because you have to.

You have to feel something. I do think it's a superpower, those that discover that side of it. If you never discover it, you will struggle with it the rest of your life. But some of the most dynamic and extraordinary leaders that I know all have one thing in common, dyslexia.

It's almost as if it's the sort of creative gene. So this notion of a gift, I feel that. That said, for my mom, it was the curse, because her poor kid sitting there was trying to drop out of school, faking being sick every day. I was going into community college, which luckily I got lucky with a baseball call from a few coaches and got into a four-year college.

But it's -- yes, it's turned out to be a blessing, and, in politics, a huge blessing.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, I'm San Francisco now. She's L.A. So we're a little -- there's a little distance between the two of us.

That's -- fate will determine that.

And I've never gotten in the way of her ambition ever. I haven't. And I don't imagine I would in the future. But I don't... BASH: Well, if you run against each other for president...

Yes, just that's fate. I don't -- I don't know.

See, I -- you can -- only can control what you can control. I think this entire book is that fundamental lesson, and this notion of controlling what you control and taking responsibility for what you control is a big part of what I try to communicate in this book.

That's the third thing. It's like how this book will be received. It's the third thing. I can't control that. I can't control whatever decisions she makes.

Well, what does anyone do? You're going to move your factory from overseas and onshore it with a 150-day certainty on a 15 percent tax or tariff?

I mean, the whole thing is a farce. I talk about petulance. It was 10 percent two days ago, maybe 20 percent tomorrow. I mean, this is madness. He's flailing. He's a punch-drunk boxer. He's just trying to hit anything, a shadow. And he's a shadow of himself. He's lost a step or two.

Under the IEEPA, we were the first state to sue. I was out there in the Central Valley talking about how this is going to impact ranchers and small businesses and farmers, the ag community, in my state larger than any other state in the country.

And Justice Roberts, by the way, basically, our arguments were literally laid out in detail in his response. So it was always an illegal act. He needs to return that money. He needs to refund that money with interest. He could do that in a nanosecond. They could do that electronically.

They can do it electronically. They have the tariff codes. They have the ability. They do refunds all the time.

They have the ability to do that. The problem is, for families, it's been about $1,701 a year. That's a different requirement that I think he has to pay the American people back. I saw Bessent out there almost gleeful.

He was gleeful that, no, we won't be doing it. This is dumb and dumber, Trump and Bessent. They have wrecked this economy, 1.4 percent GDP growth in the last quarter, inflation back up to 3 percent, the worst jobs market we have seen since 2013, 2.2 percent GDP for the entire year. He inherited 2.8.

[09:35:02] It's a wrecking ball presidency. He's wrecking this economy. His entire economic paradigm is mass deportations, tax cuts for billionaires, and tariffs. And he's been exposed. He's a fraud. And, by the way, the tariff, this is a self-dealing operation.

This is about his personal portfolio. You know exactly what he did in Vietnam with the tariffs. He used them to get a deal on his golf course to fast-track his development. Connect the dot. This is unprecedented grift happening in real time.

That's reflected in what just happened with the tariff decision in the Supreme Court. It was a profound moment for this administration.

Yes, we have had hundreds of thousands of people move into California. The last two, three years, we have seen population growth. As you know, we moved from six to the fourth largest economy in the world. And we dominate now in every key industry, from A.I., quantum, robotics.

We dominate in ag. We dominate in forestry. We dominate in manufacturing.

And that's why we did $11 insulin, first of its kind in the United States. It's why we have universal health care and the lowest uninsured rate in the country, 6.4 percent.

That's why we just subsidized over 300,000 childcare slots, more than any other state in the nation. That's why 65 percent of people graduate from the U.C. and CSU with zero debt. That's why we have the highest minimum wage for health care workers, $25, in the United States, for fast-food workers, $20 minimum wage.

So we're looking at it from both sides. That's why we have a parents agenda that expanded paid sick leave and extended to eight weeks of paid family leave, all to support families, to address cost of living and to address the affordability crisis that goes back literally 70 years in California, for one reason.

We're as dumb as we want to be on housing, and we haven't been able to get out of our way. It explains more things in more ways and more days of what's wrong with our state. And, finally, we moved forward with historic housing reforms that even our worst critics, including some on the left, like my friend Ezra Klein, acknowledged were the most progressive and perhaps most impactful reforms in a generation to finally address that issue.

There's five of them, Dutch, Brooklyn, Hunter. You get the drill.

No, you don't.

(LAUGHTER)

But the biggest one is Jennifer.

So, it's going to -- look, this book was dedicated to them. I wish this was a book my parents wrote.

And it's going to be -- that's -- I don't know. It depends on the day.

My son wrote me. It was very powerful, texted me a few months ago when there was some headline that suggested that I had made some decision.

And he goes: "Dad, are you running for president?"

I said: "No, I -- we will do this decision as a family."

He goes: "You can't."

I said: "Why?

He goes: "I'm too young. You need to spend more time with us."

I mean, how do you deal with that one? I screenshotted it. If I still had my phone, I'd show you.

Exactly. I'm asking you. Come on.

No, that's the point. And the point is the point. And so what matters is what matters. Like, what matters is what matters.

And that's hard.

Yes.

And I think this is -- this is what -- that -- that text, I don't -- this why I talk about fate. But it will be done as a family and it'll be done as a unit and it will be done in a partnership with these magnificent creatures.

I'm just so blessed, the two boys, two girls. And they're -- people say their kids are perfect. Mine are not. They're perfectly imperfect because they're all composites of everything in the book, me, and they're all works in progress. But, God, are they beautiful and loving and they just have huge hearts.

And they have the one thing that matters. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry to the great Elon Musk. It's the most powerful force on planet Earth, empathy. And that's a superpower. And that is, because of the grace of God, I married a rock star wife who gave them that. But also I'm blessed because my parents had that as well.