Transcript Part 3: Nunez The Operator

Lots of chatter. On Assembly Speaker Nunez: "A political operator, coming from the union background. There is not much passion about specific things that he stands for, or anything like this. So for him it's all like politics. And because of that, everything that happens, he sees through those glasses, through the political glasses." Read the transcript after the jump.

(SS) = simultaneous speaking (UI) = unintelligible (IA) = inaudible (PH) = spelled phonetically

GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
Speechwriting Meeting
March 1, 2006
GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:
GOVERNOR: No. I think that it is important that when we put a speech together that
first of all we have to look at what is it that we are trying to get out of it. So if it is, for
instance, that we've got to make news, this is what is the news item. This we've never
talked about, it's a new policy we are developing here, and we've got to mention this
paragraph here. So we know that. But then after that, then we can go -- we should be
talking about what is the organic thing.
What concerns me about this, in policy speeches -- we need to do a straight policy
speech, and we go somewhere -- then it's one thing if you talk policy, and it is a dead
speech. But if you go to 2,500 people that have been struggling with charter schools
and now they find an ally, and it happens to be the governor and now he's coming to
talk to us. I don't want to waste their time with just reading off a speech. You've got to
give them something that makes them laugh a little bit, buy in on it, and feel that there is
an organic connection there.
Because the thing that -- there are a few things, I think, and I always like to utilize those
things, if it is after school programs, if it is education, with charter schools, if it is
vocational education, career-tech education, junior colleges, community colleges, city
colleges, whatever they may call it, university education in general, higher education,
things that have to do with immigration, immigration stuff --
REESE: That you have real live stories about.
GOVERNOR: Small business, service --
MALE VOICE: Right. Environment --
GOVERNOR: -- fitness, after school programs. All of those things connect personally
to me, so therefore we have to flesh out, I think, the personal story so you can get that
in there.
MALE VOICE: Right, yeah.
GOVERNOR: We always find something, you know, because there is a lot of stuff
there. So when I read that speech -- and my problem is always that I get the speech
late. I got it literally on the way back, on a plane ride yesterday. So that's when I saw it
for the first time. So then I can't work --
REESE: (SS) the problem is that you're back to back to back (SS)
MALE VOICE: Well, we didn't want to give it to you early because you were jammed up
so much in Washington.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: But then I don’t have a chance to talk to Gary about it. And so for us,
because it's easy for me to go through the speech and say, "Well, this sounds a little bit
kind of like a guy that really never had anything to do with this sentence here, with
charter schools." Or, "This is maybe a little too formal for me, you know? This maybe
takes me out." I'd rather just stand here and just tell them they're great, and this is
terrific, and this is my experience with this, and just tell them some stories and pump
them up, and find then a great ending, a page of a great ending.
MALE VOICE: Right.
GOVERNOR: Like for instance today, I never had time to really look for a good ending,
but that's something that I would have wanted to work on. If I were to do it over again,
this speech today, to come in at the end with a great page of an ending where it says,
you know, just to tie the charter schools to our future, to tie the future to the Golden
State, and that this is big, and California is the greatest place, and this is why, because
of the education and what you do. You know, we can build all the highways you want,
but what you're building is something that lasts forever. It's education, knowledge. And
just pump them up.
But like I said, I didn't have enough time. I came home tired yesterday, so then we were
just looking through it on the Life Cycle. I was kind of like thinking today, this morning,
about what to do, and yesterday I told Walter to take a few things out and to just retype
it and so on.
MALE VOICE: I think your point is right, is that you have a sort of library of excellent,
great stories.
GOVERNOR: Yeah.
MALE VOICE: And we have to get that library and get it into Gary's head, and then
your speeches will become essentially story one, story six, story five, plus this
paragraph of newsworthy information.
GOVERNOR: But remember one thing, that we don't have to necessarily always start
out with that, because I think that if Gary writes the speech --
MALE VOICE: Right.
GOVERNOR: And -- Susan, is there anything I can do for you?
KENNEDY: No, I just wanted, before I forget, to ask you if you want me to do
something on (IA)
GOVERNOR: Nothing other than he maybe wants to talk to you. And so give him
maybe a call back and just say sorry it didn't work out today, but I was told you're not
coming, so therefore I changed my schedule. But I talked to him.
KENNEDY: Yeah, you did.
GOVERNOR: Yeah, I talked to him.
KENNEDY: So he hasn’t called (IA)
GOVERNOR: No, I talked to him.
KENNEDY: Okay (IA)
GOVERNOR: I think it's maybe good to just call him and say, "Look, I know you were in
the office and I know we were supposed to meet, but it didn't work out because your
team --" He knows that his lawyer screwed up. He knows it, because I told him right in
front of his lawyer. I said, "Look, you can't go and tell my people five times you're
coming, you're not coming, you're coming, you're not coming." I said, "What's that? Are
you coming or not?"
KENNEDY: Don't make me call him.
GOVERNOR: Okay. So then don't call him. You asked me what you can do for me.
He's asleep probably now anyway. He goes to sleep early. He's one of those guys. So
--
KENNEDY: If you want me to call him, for you I'll call him.
GOVERNOR: Yeah, give him a call. Just say, "Hey, maybe next time."
KENNEDY: Okay. All right.
GOVERNOR: All just to make people feel good.
REESE: Would it be helpful to have like an hour staff time at the beginning, or
sometime during each week that he's here, to do a look ahead and say, "Here's what
we know is on the schedule for the next three weeks, and brainstorm ideas so you get
three weeks heads up of ideas, so you're not --
MALE VOICE: I think that we need to -- I'd like to start walking you through what we're
doing, and saying -- and you can start saying, "This is what I would like the speech to
be."
GOVERNOR: But in general, I think this is the important thing I think for you to know, is
in general the key thing is we can write all you want, and I can say all I want, but if we
don’t connect --
MALE VOICE: Right.
GOVERNOR: -- with the people -- you see, I can talk about infrastructure, we're
building these roads and we're spending 1.5 billion here, and we're putting in 16 more
bridges, and 4,000 tunnels, and we're going to connect this and do that, and all -- this is
great. But now, if we talk about this will get the fathers home to the baseball game
sooner so they can play baseball with their kid, let's get the people home from work so
they can spend more time with their families, this will get -- and just connect it with
people, of what does it mean when they can move around the state faster? And talk
about the frustration and things, and this will cut down -- you know, that the people,
instead of just getting this anger on the freeway, they will be driving home and they're
spending more time doing sports and doing fitness activities, being with their families
and doing things that you want to do rather than being stuck there and getting angry,
and taking a gun out and shooting the guy next to you kind of thing. It's all where road
rage comes from. On a freeway in Germany there is no road rage, because people go
180 miles an hour. What road rage do you want there?
MALE VOICE: Yeah, really.
GOVERNOR: It's over, exactly. And this is why no one ever falls asleep in Germany,
because you drive too fast and that raises the blood pressure and you can't fall asleep
this way. So that's why in Germany they always say that the faster you go the less
chances at night for you to fall asleep, because if you go (IA) so you fall asleep because
it's boring. But if you go with your car and you barely have to make the lanes and then
go between the traffic and then you blink, and it's kind of action over there. It's like a
racing kind of thing.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: So then it's a different thing. But here people are angry, because they
are stuck and they can't get out, you can't go over to this thing, and all this. So I think to
talk about this, and to able to verbalize that, it immediately makes people buy in on
those things.
The same is with education when you talk about the child, the development, and how
wonderful, and then you tell a personal story about how great it is. Can you imagine
when you have a choice? You're 18 years old, you have a choice. Do you want to be a
carpenter? Do you want to be a plumber? A hairdresser? Or do you want to be a
professor? Do you want to be a police chief? Whatever, because you're now equipped.
You have the basic -- the basic foundation is there of education, and so now you can
choose anything you want. Whereas if you don't have that education, you're limited.
GOVERNOR: You can only then learn a certain trade and you're limited. In your own
mind now, you say to yourself, "I cannot choose this, I don’t even want to go there,
because what is left for me is this. To go to a gas station and work, or to be a helper
somewhere at the plumbing store, or to work in construction. That's all that's left." So
that's the thing. One has to kind of speak about that, I think, you know? And so when I
see it written, then it is easier for me, because then I take those sentence structures and
I take the idea, and then I can even use that and weave it into a regular improvisational
speech. But I always like to see it written first, because I sort of don't know how to put
my sentences together the right way.
REESE: But yet, Landon, as fabulous a writer as he is, whatever the big occasion it is,
first, before he even does the first draft, he brings home a few ideas with him. So I don't
know that it wouldn't be --
MALE VOICE: It's important to talk to you, because I get --
REESE: So I don't know that it wouldn’t be helpful --
MALE VOICE: -- your energy and your vision and your passion.
REESE: Yeah.
MALE VOICE: And I know, from listening to you for two and a half years, the stuff that
resonates with you personally. The education stuff --
GOVERNOR: Right.
MALE VOICE: -- and all those things. When you talk about them, I get connected and
then I can -- because writing them over there in a vacuum --
GOVERNOR: Right.
MALE VOICE: I got here, and you've been on the road, and we haven't talked, and so
it's a little --
GOVERNOR: Oh, I know. It's been dreadful. But that's why I always said that we have
not connected; that you put the information on paper what you've been given, the policy
and all this stuff.
MALE VOICE: It's kind of bland.
GOVERNOR: But now we have to just put the personal stuff in there. So those are the
two things. We have to put the personal stuff in, we have make sure that we make the
human connections and dramatize that.
MALE VOICE: I was sitting next to one of my cynical reporter friends, and he said,
"That's the Governor at this best today." Because that ate that up, they loved that.
GOVERNOR: They loved it, exactly. But it is because you can get animated, and you
can get --
REESE: Same thing with Meet The Press. Everyone -- I'm hearing from family
members in different states, I'm hearing from Democratic people in this state.
Everyone, I've only heard positive, off the chart reviews about how they saw you. You
weren't reading a script.
GOVERNOR: Right, right.
MALE VOICE: The (IA) was the first I've seen you talk about some of your passion,
about the way you want to do it. And I look at you, and I say to myself, "This is what I
have to help him become every single time he gives a speech."
GOVERNOR: Right, right.
REESE: Which is why I think --
MALE VOICE: What was the topic?
MALE VOICE: Obesity. He took it and he just went, and we didn't even give him a
speech.
GOVERNOR: I was told I was doing a panel discussion so of course I don't prepare for
that, because I know the subject pretty well. And then all of a sudden I'm being told in
the morning before we go over there, "No, you're giving a speech."
MALE VOICE: Yeah.
GOVERNOR: I said, "Oh, God, -- "
MALE VOICE: That's why I started getting them Blackberries.
MALE VOICE: That night we were sitting there having a cigar, and he goes, "So what's
tomorrow?" I said, "You're giving a speech."
GOVERNOR: Someone told me at night, I think you said that there are some talking
points, and we were searching for those talking points. So we couldn't find it, but it
worked really well because I sat down with Maria at lunchtime and I said, "I'm not even
going to bother with it now before the Tim (IA)Show," because I never try to make my
brain scramble.
MALE VOICE: Keep it focused, yeah.
GOVERNOR: Yeah. So I did one thing at a time, you know?
MALE VOICE: Right, I understand.
GOVERNOR: It makes it easier.
MALE VOICE: Sure.
GOVERNOR: Even though you're not always as prepared maybe sometimes, but you
don't scramble. So I said, "I'll do the Tim Russell thing and then I will have plenty of
time, I'll go for lunch with Maria and we'll talk about it." So I talked about it to Maria. I
said, "We just did the Obesity Summit, the conference." I said, "Let's just look back to
those numbers." I remembered there were 360 million pounds that --
REESE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. From the Summit.
GOVERNOR: -- Californians gained, and there were 12 year old kids, 12 year old boys
that were gaining an average of 10 pounds in the last -- since when? Maria would
remember. She said it was since the '70s. So we started putting the pieces together
and then talking about my experience, and then I started recalling and telling Maria
about my experience with the President's Council, and then how hideous and stupid it is
that I was sent on the road for President Bush to travel around all 50 states, to go to
hundreds of schools talking about you must exercise and declare war on the couch
potato and all this stuff. I said, "And the other agencies never knew about it. The
Department of Agriculture, and they're sending the fattening foods to the lunch
programs, for the lunch programs for the kids. They'd have 1,000 calories. And at the
same time, the Department of Education didn't know about it, and they were laying off
physical education instructors all over the United States in the '90s. So here was no
coordination at all. And they made deals, the federal government, the education
department, with the governors, of what should the Healthy Kids be 2000. Made all
these deals, wrote it down and everything, never put physical education in there. There
was no coordination. So I talked about that experience, of how government can actually
be the worst enemy for achieving a goal like that, because they have the good
intentions, but somehow those agencies never talk to each other.
MALE VOICE: You're just talking about telling real stories. Not dry --
GOVERNOR: Yeah, real stories. And the people were fascinated. They were sitting
there going like this. I saw them buying in on this whole thing.
REESE: The best way to sell a message is through a story. But --
GOVERNOR: And the people also like to hear about where does my enthusiasm for
fitness come from. So I was telling them that for me it was normal to walk out of our
house -- we had nothing. You have to imagine that we had -- there was nothing around.
But one thing I remember, we walked out of our house, and my mother took us, and she
pulled out the carrots, because we had a garden in front. She had her own garden. So
there were the potatoes, the carrots, every single thing that she used, salad, everything
that she used was fresh, and she was totally against steaming it or boiling it or cooking
it, or frying it or anything. She always said, "This is how you have to eat it." And it was
sometimes even dirty, it was crazy. But you get the idea? And you know, now when
you go and talk to --
REESE: Apple strudel.
GOVERNOR: No. But now when you to nutritionists, experts, now they talk about what
my mother said 4,000 years ago.
REESE: Yeah, I know.
(Brief Interruption in recording)
GOVERNOR: She talked about this. So I tell them the story. I say, "My mother, she
was ripping the carrots out, potatoes (IA) washing it down, and she says, 'That's how
you eat it.' And now today even I make my fresh vegetable juice every morning, and I
don't have them take anything out, and just drink that, because you've got to have the
real stuff." So if you talk about those things -- and people like the background, because
there's a difference between just saying, you know, eat well and do this and do that.
Everyone is going to go up to the stage and say something about how to do it better.
But how do you excite people, and how do you (SS)
REESE: But that's why I say to people during staff time on a regular basis, to
brainstorm and strategize. It's his best way --
MALE VOICE: (SS) say, Governor, "Okay, we're going to go to the charter school, and
there's going to be 2,500 people. What are you going to (IA) and then you can tell Gary,
"This is -- "
GOVERNOR: Absolutely. But (SS)
REESE: And whoever the policy (SS)
GOVERNOR: That says, this is the message we want to get across here.
REESE: Right, right.
GOVERNOR: We need to talk about that A. This is how much we are funding
education (SS)
REESE: Our policy people have all those things all ready when needed.
GOVERNOR: You've got to go and talk about this, you've got to talk that.
MALE VOICE: Let me ask you a question. One of the early speeches I wrote was -- it's
a different speech, SGP and the Economy, and you gave it in San Jose and L.A., L.A.
where the Long Beach mayor went on and on, right?
GOVERNOR: Right.
MALE VOICE: And I felt -- I wasn't here yet, I was actually working, finishing up and
coming over here. But I felt a lot of people weighed in on that, and we loaded it up.
And I know you like a certain amount of numbers and detail.
GOVERNOR: Right, right.
MALE VOICE: You want to tell people what you're getting for your investment, etc.
GOVERNOR: Right, right, because that's policy.
MALE VOICE: But I thought we went overboard on that, I thought, a little bit, and I don't
know if you feel that way.
GOVERNOR: No, I didn't. We can always edit it down if there is too much in there. But
you know something? Sometimes if you go in front of 30 mayors --
MALE VOICE: Different group, different speech.
REESE: No. Who's the audience? What's the (SS)
GOVERNOR: -- and then there are people, then the policy people, then there are the
people that help the mayors. I have this group of 100 people there, or 200 people. And
you know, I'll talk about -- like in Silicone Valley when we did this speech, for instance,
they ate it up.
MALE VOICE: They did, yeah.
GOVERNOR: They loved it because it was details. For each move that I made about
any money, it connected to someone in the audience, because he's running a
department. It has a direct impact on him. And that's why that's good, you see?
Because the important thing now for us is to get maybe a good joke in the beginning
that lightens it up so there is something in there also for the humor. So if you come in
there and say today I'll give you a policy speech with all these numbers, I feel like blah,
blah, blah. They go ha, ha, ha, and then you move in. Now they're laughing, they like
you, and now you go in. The old religious trick, you know? They played the organ --
this was in the Catholic religion -- they play the organ, then you open up and you get
relaxed, and you get vulnerable and then they move in with the message.
REESE: Pass the hat. Here's the money, baby.
GOVERNOR: It's the old trick. I'm sure in the Jewish religion they have the same thing.
They all have their tricks, you know? So what we have to do is you disarm them with
the jokes and with the humor, tell some personal stories -- that's always the trick, to find
those things.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: And then you move in. And then in the end you finish it off. The key
thing is always to finish off in an inspirational way. Even if it is a policy speech, I think
people like that, for me to say -- let's say as an example I say, "You know something?
We've got to move forward, and it is magic what we can do with this state."
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: "Think about it. If we fix this, we fix this, and fix this, we pull it together
again. Wow, I get excited again over this. It reminds me of when I came over in '68, we
had the best university system and everyone was bragging about the freeways, the
highways, and cars moving around. We can be like that again. We don't have to get
stuck in traffic. We don't have to go and let the kids be worried about overcrowding."
And really push this. "This is California. Anything is possible." And then we go, "So
let's do it. I need your help on this." The people like that.
MALE VOICE: Do you prefer seeing it written out or do you prefer just getting sort of
key point to work off of?
GOVERNOR: I think that is -- I think the speech can be -- I think the stuff that we're
giving Gary now, he gets the overall idea of what we're looking for in any speech, no
matter what it is. He can always write up the five, eight pages, and then I get it. But the
key thing is, I get it three days before rather than the day, because then I have the
chance --
REESE: And you get the (IA)
GOVERNOR: Because then I have a chance, because that's (IA) come over here, and
then I say to myself, "Look, another point, what is this here? This is an eye closer.
Let's throw something in there that is a little bit more spicy or something like that." And
they will rework it, and sometimes you are successful, sometimes --
REESE: But I can't say how strongly I feel that the more you don't -- even if Gary
writes the speech, the more you don't end up reading a speech, no matter how (IA)
unless it's for the Republican Convention or the State of the State, where you really
have a prepared speech --
GOVERNOR: But you can do a combination. Like today, I was (SS) or one-third, I
read.
REESE: That's ideal.
GOVERNOR: But you put it in smoothly, and then you go off again and tell stories.
REESE: Right. But the more each event has you speaking --
MALE VOICE: I read today's speech. The way (IA) set it up was good. And with the
text of the speech and then talking points, and you mentioned this school, that school
(IA) You know, that was a combination of a regular written speech and (SS) points for
you.
GOVERNOR: But because I couldn't remember all these 8 or 10 things. (SS) think
about that school.
MALE VOICE: Right. I've got to tell you, the more I could hear you get excited about
this stuff, the better the speeches will be. We're right at the early stage, and we can talk
about what (SS)
GOVERNOR: And I can always give you a story. You know, you as a journalist, you
just have to pump me for information, because this is always the trick, because I
sometimes have things in there that I cannot remember.
MALE VOICE: Right.
GOVERNOR: So then when you ask -- like for instance, Landon, what Landon always
does is, you know when we did the speech for New York, he would say to me, he'd say
--
REESE: "What do you admire most about Bush?" I was in when you were talking to
him.
GOVERNOR: Yeah, exactly. But also the thing is, you know, that Russia was still
occupying Austria. He said, "Is there any story that you have about Russia?"
REESE: Yeah.
GOVERNOR: And then I said, "Yeah, I remember driving to my relatives up north,
towards (IA) and there was the line where the Russians were." I said, "We were driving
through that line." I said, "We were always scared. There was a 'Shh, don't talk.' We
were in this little Volkswagen (IA) and we were driving through that, and it was always
kind of a really scary experience." So I was telling him that, because we had the stories
that they sometimes take people out of the car, send them back to Russia for slave
labor and all of those things.
REESE: That's true. He's absolutely right. (SS)
GOVERNOR: So we were scared about it. So he wrote that down and he used it in a
story.
REESE: (SS)
GOVERNOR: Exactly.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: So those are the kinds of things. Or, for instance, I remember there was
another speech I did about (IA) military, and I was telling him the story that we were
occupied and there were the British tanks driving around right in front of our house
where I grew up, where I was still a little kid because we were occupied between 1955 -
- and those huge tanks, those British tanks, had an impact on me, because we were
riding on top of them, driving around, and they were trying to do public relations, be nice
to the kids --
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: -- give them candies and all this stuff. So there was no hostility, because
they were burning the British (IA) all those things they do in Iraq they were doing then --
REESE: Right, of course.
GOVERNOR: -- during the occupation. Burning them, putting gas on them, burning the
jeeps or blowing them up and all of those things. So I said, "You know, that's when I --
when I grew up I wanted to go into the Army just to be a tank driver. I could not get rid
of that image, that I had to drive a tank." So I enlisted into the Army when I was 18
years old just so I could drive tanks.
MALE VOICE: Sure. It was cool.
GOVERNOR: It was right after when I was through with my trade school that I went. I
went into the Army for a year to be a tank driver, and I was driving around in tanks, and
I had the greatest time. You know, lifting weights in the afternoon, morning was driving,
and then some other schmuck was cleaning the tank, the mud, because I was
considered an athlete so I was allowed to train three hours during the time of the day,
not in the evening, and all those things, because I was lifting. They always -- you know,
in the military they always do everything for athletes. You can train, you can get extra
food, you can do this, you can work in the kitchen so you can eat all day long. So I
worked at night in the kitchen so I could eat all the meat, because at home we never
had meat. You know, once a week maybe there was a little bit of fish, but this was not
the thing to do. So I used that story, you know, about how I became a tank driver. It's
these personal little stories, and luckily I've had an interesting life, that there are a lot of
stories there.
REESE: And everyone is fascinated by it.
MALE VOICE: You've got to get those all out.
GOVERNOR: Oh, I know. But it's like --
MALE VOICE: (SS) after a few months, you say, "Okay, this story (SS)
REESE: It's not like we're going to get all the stories and then save them. It's going to
be more like this give and take. That's why this regular staff time --
GOVERNOR: Cheers.
MALE VOICE: Thank you, same to you. Thanks, Bill.
REESE: Cheers.
GOVERNOR: Cheers, cheers.
MALE VOICE: I think if we can -- it'll work. It's good.
REESE: For example --
GOVERNOR: It's a piece of cake. It's just for you to ask the questions, to anything
personal. Say, "Is there any story that you have? What about this, or what about that?"
Because you know enough about all my stuff, that you know what to ask.
MALE VOICE: Yeah.
GOVERNOR: You know (SS)
MALE VOICE: The other thing, Gary --
MALE VOICE: The same kind of thing you do when you go out and write a story.
GOVERNOR: Right.
MALE VOICE: You're doing the same thing.
GOVERNOR: That's right. Exactly.
MALE VOICE: The thing is you have to -- and this what you have to -- you're going to
have to fight, like we all do, to make sure that you get in -- you know, he's running
around, he's got this going and that going, and -- sometimes when I need him I go -- this
is not me. It's not me, I recognize that, but --
REESE: You have the power.
MALE VOICE: (SS) gets away from you, and so (SS)
REESE: (SS)
GOVERNOR: Gary doesn't have to be stuck over there.
MALE VOICE: No.
GOVERNOR: Gary can come in even when we have meetings, to hear the dialogue
and all this stuff.
MALE VOICE: I think the more stuff I can hear the better.
GOVERNOR: That's what I'm saying. So you should just -- and I know you're new
here, and you don't want to intrude and you don't want to impose and all this stuff. But
feel free of that. And if there is a meeting here where everyone wants to be alone, then
we will say that. But in most cases when we hang here that's not really the case.
MALE VOICE: Yeah.
REESE: There are some things that are obvious. The (IA) We do talking points. So
the talking points, they are -- your usual after school wrap, but then why (IA) here what
you need to emphasize is -- because now it's not just about the safety zone and danger,
now we're characterizing this as helping education.
GOVERNOR: Right.
REESE: Keeping the school doors open until 6:00 o'clock so our kids get help with
homework and reading, our English language learners. And the money that will be
available, you need to apply for grants and take advantage of this money. So usual
after school wrap, plus make the following points.
GOVERNOR: And this is where it gets tricky, because that's why I think you have to go
sometimes and come to those speeches, because there is a difference. For instance,
you may want to drive a policy about education, about something. Now you go in a
classroom or you go into a school where you have 300 students there, and you have
the press there, and you talk like -- you kind of ignore the kids. This is just a backdrop,
but you talk more for the press.
MALE VOICE: I've seen that happen.
GOVERNOR: And you deliver that, right?
MALE VOICE: Right.
GOVERNOR: But there is another time where you want to be able to stand there and to
say, "You know, you kids, you can do anything you want."
MALE VOICE: Right.
GOVERNOR: "Anything. You can be this, you can be a champion, you can be an
actor. Hey, how about being another Terminator, or maybe governor? You're all
winner. This is unbelievable. You're winners. I want you to say no to drugs and no to
gangs and violence, and yes to this. " And then you say, "What do we say to drugs?"
REESE: No.
GOVERNOR: I say, "I don’t hear you." Now you have interaction, now it's a whole
different speech --
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: -- because now you want to suck them in.
MALE VOICE: Pep rally kind of thing.
GOVERNOR: Because now, in the end, you want to make sure that they understand
that you're asking, that you're really working with them, not the teachers.
REESE: Right, right.
GOVERNOR: It's now directly a conversation between you and the students.
REESE: But by the way --
GOVERNOR: So that's a whole different thing. But that's hard to write. So this is why
that is improvisation.
KENNEDY: Right.
GOVERNOR: Or maybe you have part of it to the policy and say, "Today I'm here to
talk about this." Let's say after school programs. "And you know, I just want to say why
this is absolutely important." Now you go to the point and all this, and you drive the
story. "But I would make a big mistake here today if I just talk about policy, which of
course doesn't interest you boys and girls here at all. Let me just talk to you." Now, if I
say, "When I was your age --" Now you switch.
REESE: Right, right.
GOVERNOR: Now you can do a double thing. You do something for the press, and
now you do something that also could be for the press --
REESE: Right, right.
GOVERNOR: -- they'll say, "Schwartzenschnitzel really connected with the kids."
REESE: Yeah.
GOVERNOR: So that also works.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: So it's -- the key thing is, I think, to be organic, and --
REESE: But by the way, (IA) because I forgot to tell him this. The After School
Summit, we had a room at the convention center for 800. We had to move to another,
we had to expand. We (IA) 1,100 school principals, school superintendents, after
school providers --
GOVERNOR: When is that?
REESE: That's for the 15th of March, in two weeks. 1,100 people from around the
state. School principals, school superintendents and after school providers, have all
subscribed to coming to that.
GOVERNOR: Right. That's great. But that, we don’t need to write anything.
REESE: That's what I said to Gary. Just additional talking points about --
GOVERNOR: Exactly. We'll write down the talking points.
REESE: I did already, for the briefing.
GOVERNOR: Because then as long as I have that, because otherwise I forget the
different things that (SS)
MALE VOICE: One thing we can do to get that time -- I could (SS)
REESE: We'll have to work (SS)
MALE VOICE: I know you like to be focused on the speech you're going to make. I
think Will said you could fly down to L.A. and then I can come back on my own or
something. If we can get that time, it's important.
GOVERNOR: Oh, absolutely. But I think we should set time aside --
REESE: Regularly.
GOVERNOR: -- like we're doing right now.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: We should set time aside here, because sometimes even if for instance
before I go for lunch, we were sitting here just like for 15 minutes sometimes and talk
about giving some stories or something like that, or going through the speech. I take
the speech home at night, and I read through it over there. Then I make notes, go
through it with Walter, because I practice on him everything.
REESE: I know.
GOVERNOR: We mark things up, re-write it. He runs off to his room -- I don't know
where he goes to write all this stuff always. And then he puts it underneath my door,
then I read it in the morning when I ride my Life Cycle, because I have to (IA)
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: So then I read it and go through it. Then we can meet here in the
morning, or just before lunch, and then just go through it. Because now if we go a little
bit over, it doesn't matter.
MALE VOICE: Yeah.
GOVERNOR: Because there's not --
(Brief interruption in recording)
REESE: -- both such freaking over-achievers.
GOVERNOR: No, no.
REESE: Susan and Adam both.
GOVERNOR: Susan didn't know, because I believe very strongly -- like for instance
Andy Card told me the most important thing for him, for his job as Chief of Staff, is to
guard Bush's time. That Bush loves to have thinking time.
REESE: But Susan came back saying, "The Governor wants thinking time."
GOVERNOR: But he said to me, he said, "I have to put this hour aside every day. It's
like a religion. He does not want to just go from one thing to --"
REESE: Yeah, you don’t have time --
GOVERNOR: He says, "He wants to have people over, he likes to talk, have the
legislators over. But then after that meeting, he wants to just sit with us, not to book
anything, and to talk about what was just going down."
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: Because you can imagine his thing, the stuff is so heavy. I mean, you're
talking about the world. It's amazing. So you've got to talk about this. If you talk about
Iraq, the violence, security -- you've got to digest all this stuff.
REESE: By the way, yours isn't that light.
GOVERNOR: So you need time.
REESE: Yours is pretty --
GOVERNOR: I understand it's different. But you need thinking time. You need to go
and start sitting here by yourself or just with someone, and to go through all the things,
about the strategic growth plan. "Why are we doing this this way? Why can't we go
along with it?"
REESE: Right, right. Where are we at with the levees? What's happening with
Corrections? What's happening -- yeah.
GOVERNOR: Where are we, what is (SS) like. And to just think about all this stuff so
when you then meet with Perata and with Núñez, you just have talked through it, and
not just reacting.
MALE VOICE: Sure, of course.
REESE: Right. Not just (SS) but have had thinking.
GOVERNOR: So then you just have to do a better time with scheduling.
MALE VOICE: But I thought if I saw the schedule I could -- I'm sensitive about --
GOVERNOR: Yeah. I don't know why -- why are you hogging over the schedule?
What's the --
REESE: Well, you were concerned it was way going out to too many people.
GOVERNOR: But in our office here, yeah. He can have the schedule. What we have
been doing is, we were putting our schedule on an email, and there were people getting
it that were working for us six months ago and have left already, and we were still giving
copies out. That was crazy.
REESE: I know. Yeah, yeah.
GOVERNOR: The appointment person, or the scheduling person that has left us two
weeks ago doesn't need to get a copy of my schedule.
REESE: I know.
GOVERNOR: That's incredible. There were like 12 people on that list.
MALE VOICE: I heard that.
REESE: Sheryl was on leave.
GOVERNOR: But that's not you.
MALE VOICE: No, I know. And I'm sensitive about it, I know how busy you are, and
I'm not going to intrude. But I figure if I know that you're here from 11:00 to 12:00 doing
such and such, I can poke my head in and ask Chris, "Hey, is this a good time?" and I
can --
GOVERNOR: I'm a big believer that there are certain jobs that we have here where
people have to connect more than just on the policy level. I think communication and
writing speeches is one of those things. Because you are out there trying to sell me to
public, to be me, so the people get to know me. Well, the only way you're going to do
that is if you get to know me. And that, you only get to know also when you hang. You
know what I'm saying? So this is why it is not just a meeting, it's like hanging. It's like
going for lunch and just sitting around and just talking and having a good time.
MALE VOICE: I like a cigar.
GOVERNOR: Exactly. There you have it. He likes a cigar also.
REESE: But by the way, on the thinking time --
GOVERNOR: We have another cigar smoker here.
MALE VOICE: That's right.
REESE: On the thinking time --
MALE VOICE: That's true, that's true.
REESE: (SS) can help on this, Adam. What Susan interpreted that as, let's just block
in a half hour in the morning. What I think the Governor, what would be helpful, is not
just a half hour in the morning. What I've been noticing is the meetings are stacked one
against another, against another. So thinking time isn't just a half hour in the morning.
It's cushioning the meetings with a little extra time so there's a little debriefing after the
meeting. A little time for "Okay --"
GOVERNOR: And maybe what I should do is, I should not -- the other thing that could
work is to just come in and -- maybe come in a half and hour early, and so they have
time that no one books, and just have that for that purpose, so you can go through that.
REESE: Right. But the pacing of the meetings, it can't be -- if they put down a meeting
saying it's going to last 45 minutes, I look at some of those, "There's no way that
meeting is lasting 45 minutes, it's going to last an hour." So not only aren't you building
in any time for him to debrief with anyone afterwards --
GOVERNOR: Official meetings can only get you so far. You know, meetings where
you talk about it, and you debate over it and then you leave. In the movie business --
REESE: (IA)
GOVERNOR: Yeah, but in the movie business you can go into a room -- I can go into
Ivan Reitman's office and say, "I want to do a comedy with you." I could be sitting there
talking to him for half an hour, and nothing will click. But I never did that. But what
happened was, I was with him in Aspen -- actually, in Vale. And -- no, it was in Aspen.
And there was Robin Williams and some other entertainers, and we were all skiing, and
we were hanging out at night at the fireplace down below, after skiing when we came
back. We were hanging out there for two hours, drinking a little bit of beer, having a
good time, laughing with Robin Williams, he always entertains everybody.
REESE: I know.
GOVERNOR: -- in a great way. And I was also on that night. And so I, out of nowhere,
said, "Here's this guy right there I wanted to do a movie with in the worst way, because
this action movie stuff only gets you so far, I've got to branch out."
REESE: And he saw the funny side of you that night.
GOVERNOR: So he says to me, he says, "Remember when you talked to me half a
year ago at the movie premiere? You came up to me and said, 'Hey, Ivan, we must do
a movie together.'" (IA) my accent. So he says, "Well, when I was sitting there and I
watching you, I finally got it." He said, "That's a side I've never seen on the screen." He
says, "I can put something on the screen that is you, and that's a comedy." He said,
"Let me figure out something." And then he wrote 5 ideas, five movie ideas, 20 pages
each, with some writers, and one of them was called The Experiment, which then
became Twins. "The Experiment -- Austrian -- not a good name. Let's change that
quickly," I said. So he got it right away. So anyway, we changed the name, and when I
read it, I said, "Danny DeVito. You have to go the opposite. Not finding some -- the
opposite," I said. And he loved that idea. And so that's how Twins came about. It was
out of just him finding something in me that he thought would be great for the screen,
that would be good for the movie.
And so I think that there is -- that's what I do with Landon. I hang out with him and talk.
REESE: That's right.
GOVERNOR: He comes over to the house and we schmooze, and he talks to Maria,
"Do you know some stories?" And she tells him some stories. Of course then she
never -- poor guy, you know, he never hears the end of it, because she will call him all
day long, every day, until the speech is done, with new ideas, because she's relentless.
She's relentless, she will not stop. And then I just say to her, "Call Landon."
REESE: To get him off of you. That's fabulous.
GOVERNOR: So I'm out of there. It's just the thing, because I can only talk about
things for so many times, but then I like to lock it in, even if it's not perfect. You know,
with a speech like for a convention or something like that. But she goes until the last
day, she will continue, "There are two lines that I think you should change." I said,
"Maria, it's over. It's locked in, it's in the teleprompter. It's over."
REESE: Locked and loaded, baby. Yeah.
MALE VOICE: Gary, we'll take care of this. We're going to get you -- the last four
weeks have been brutal.
MALE VOICE: I know.
MALE VOICE: There's been no way.
MALE VOICE: That's why --
GOVERNOR: It was unusual, the last three, four weeks.
REESE: (SS) regular basis, right?
MALE VOICE: When you go sneak off to the tent for a stogie or something, and you
want to just kind of sit back and bullshit about what the speeches should be like, you get
Gary on the phone and you bring him in.
REESE: But that's only going to work if we start to give a better pace to his daily
schedule.
MALE VOICE: I agree. It's just been a brutal couple of weeks, and we're going to kind
of go back, and --
GOVERNOR: It could easily still be tough. Like for instance today, most of the stuff we
did this afternoon was improvised, which is perfect for me.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: Because when the negotiations are going on we want to make sure that
we can at any given time call them down and just talk about it. Like I had Perata come
down today and talk about it. I called Fabian also, because of course he only talks
about that there's an urgency.
REESE: Right, yeah.
GOVERNOR: But then when you call him, he has a meeting or something like that.
REESE: Right.
MALE VOICE: They were jamming you today, with the --
REESE: Yeah, about the (SS)
MALE VOICE: Did you make any progress with them?
GOVERNOR: About what?
MALE VOICE: You know, moving toward some kind of middle ground?
GOVERNOR: He was concerned about -- you know, Fabian is so much a -- what do
you call it? A political operator, coming from the union background. There is not much
passion about specific things that he stands for, or anything like this. So for him it's all
like politics. And because of that, everything that happens, he sees through those
glasses, through the political glasses. So for instance when I went to Washington and I
met with Feinstein, he thought that was a trick to show kind of that I can't work with the
Democrats in California, but I can work on the national level with Democrats. He saw
something --
REESE: Really bizarre.
GOVERNOR: -- all when I said that --
MALE VOICE: He thought there was some big trick to that?
GOVERNOR: There was some big trick. Well, today you should have seen him. He
was like so concerned, he started really getting wound up here today, which he does
twice a year, but only when he really scrambles. And so then he said that he felt like
because we said with the levees, that we should declare an emergency, that I was
getting too much play, that that was a trick against him and the Democrats, that they
show no leadership, because (IA) calls him, obviously, and says, "He's getting all the
news media. What's the matter with you? I laid the groundwork for you last year, and
they're now chipping away on you again, they're taking everything away, you idiot." So
he goes like, "Oh, my God, they're getting all the media attention." So now he gets back
with declaring a state of emergency, so he thinks that's a trick. So then they go and you
have -- they had an ad in there which I never saw.
REESE: Ten days from the (IA), yeah.
GOVERNOR: Ten days. So I never saw the ad, never even heard of it.
MALE VOICE: Yeah.
GOVERNOR: So he's now bringing it up today, and he's saying, he says, "You guys
are really fucking me with the ads, putting the pressure on me to make us look like
losers, and you're going to Washington, and you're doing this -- what's going on?
You've got to tell me. Do you want the deal, or don't you want to have a deal? I think
that we can have a deal, and you're doing this, and then we all look like losers here, the
Democrats, and you're setting me up." I said, "What are you talking about?"
REESE: Yeah. There was a National Governors Association meeting in Washington.
GOVERNOR: I said, "Let's make it simple." I said, "Let's make it simple. I have my
papers right here." I said, "Why don't we all get together today and negotiate?" I said,
"I'll give you a call later on. We'll get together and we'll sit here and let's -- as a matter
of fact, I'll go even as far as this." I said, "Why don’t we set a deadline for this week?
That this week the deal has to be done, and we'll sit here and we do not leave the
building until it's done."
REESE: And what did he say?
GOVERNOR: I said, "How about that?" He says, "All right." But then of course he
doesn't come down when you call him. So it's all like a big thing, you know, that I want
to push the agenda. Then when you say, okay, let's sit down and talk --
MALE VOICE: What do you make of --
MALE VOICE: You know what he said to the media, right?
GOVERNOR: No.
MALE VOICE: He doesn't want to do a deal.
REESE: He's going to the Arnold Classic --
MALE VOICE: He's going to the Arnold Classic, he doesn’t want to cut a deal. He just
wants to jam you, he wants to box you in. He comes in here and says, "Okay, I want a
deal." And then he goes out there --
REESE: Petty, petty, petty stuff. And we're not taking the bait. Let them be petty.
GOVERNOR: Right.
MALE VOICE: Now, what do you make of Perata? Perata said the administration is
confused, you want to go further with the state only on the levees, because you came
back empty handed from Washington. He's out in the hallway jamming you with the
press, right? Before he comes in here, and probably after. I saw him before. What's
that --
REESE: They look like idiots with the levee stuff when they do that.
GOVERNOR: They are scrambling, because we drove the press, and we were out in
the media and they were not doing anything, so they --
MALE VOICE: They had to get back in the game.
GOVERNOR: -- kind of tried to figure out, how do we go and make them be on the
defensive, and us be on the offensive. How do we turn it around?
MALE VOICE: Yeah.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: So that's their big thing, rather than solving it and come up with an
agreement.
MALE VOICE: What's his tone when he comes in here face to face?
GOVERNOR: Believe me when I tell you that it is shocking. And it took me a while to
understand it, because I was, and I am still naïve a little bit about it, because I always
take -- when he comes in here and he's nice, I take it as such, and I want to work with
him.
REESE: Right. And then he goes out and says --
GOVERNOR: But those guys, as soon as they step out of here, or before they come
in --
REESE: Right. Both.
MALE VOICE: Before and after, yeah.
GOVERNOR: -- they are absolutely different personalities. They change like this.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: It's all about the program, about what is the Democratic program, how do
we jam him, how do we go -- I remember that the night after my -- after I declared the
special election, I announced the special election, they were out there pounding away
on me. Then they came down here and drank in the tent. "Hey, this is great. Don't
take it personally, because we had to do it. You know, Gil told me to do it. But we like
you, we can work something out with you."
REESE: M-hmm. Yep. The only reason they came down was because you called
them.
GOVERNOR: Exactly.
MALE VOICE: What do you think? How much do you hold out for a deal by March
10th? Is that the deadline, the drop-dead deadline?
REESE: Yeah. It won't happen.
GOVERNOR: Everyone says that it won't happen.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: So I will push forward, and will do everything I can to make it happen.
And then if it doesn't happen then we have to set another deadline, which is most likely -
- Dick Ackerman said we should set a deadline for Easter. He said Easter Sunday,
before we ever get into the May Revise or any of that stuff, we have to put that to bed.
REESE: Well, we've got to be careful on deadlines. The only deadlines that really
matter are the constitutional ones for what it takes to get on the ballot.
GOVERNOR: Well --
MALE VOICE: But the further you get into it, the more political the process gets.
GOVERNOR: That's right.
REESE: Right.
MALE VOICE: And then they're not going to want to give you anything.
GOVERNOR: That's right. That's the thing. As soon as you get into -- but also, I don't
want to mix the budget with that.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: That becomes then very tricky.
MALE VOICE: Right.
REESE: A separate thing I just was thinking of -- did you ever get a chance to call Bill
(IA) to kind of thank him for everything?
GOVERNOR: No.
REESE: Can I remind you to do that tomorrow?
GOVERNOR: Absolutely.
MALE VOICE: All right.
GOVERNOR: So what's your take on it?
MALE VOICE: On what?
GOVERNOR: On the Democrats, the negotiations?
MALE VOICE: I think that's right. I think if it doesn’t happen, it becomes much more
complicated if it doesn't happen by March 10th or whatever the date is, because once
you get into the -- you're approaching May Revise, and then that gets tangled up. And
then you've got June, the primary --
GOVERNOR: Well, the only other possibility is to do it, to still set a deadline so we do it
before all of the other stuff starts happening, the May Revise and all that.
REESE: Before the May Revise.
MALE VOICE: Fabian is saying he only wants to do what, 30 billion or whatever? It's
just so he gives you a minimum. He doesn't want to give you a full victory, he doesn't
even want to give you a half victory. But --
GOVERNOR: Well, neither do the Republicans.
REESE: Yeah.
MALE VOICE: The Republicans are the ones who are killing us.
REESE: Yeah. The Republicans.
MALE VOICE: Those guys are -- they can't see more than two feet in front of their
faces.
GOVERNOR: My Republican friends upstairs, they also talk about 30 billion dollars.
So it could very well be that we will end up settling and just do two election cycles, the
bonds and then take it up again later on.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: And just do part of it.
MALE VOICE: The public seems to really -- I mean, the polling is amazing on that.
GOVERNOR: Oh, it's amazing, yeah.
MALE VOICE: Except prisons and courts. They don’t like that.
GOVERNOR: Yeah.
REESE: Yeah. And you know what? It's a shame to have it underfunded, because if it
means having violent criminals out on the frigging street, or sexually violent predators
out on the street -- they don't get it.
GOVERNOR: No, but they don't think of it that way.
REESE: They don't think of it that way.
GOVERNOR: They think of it that we are kind of like building nice things inside and
adding another wing. (SS)
REESE: Instead of (SS)
GOVERNOR: -- guys, they should be in these old dungeons. Why do we give a shit?
MALE VOICE: There's not really much of a constituency for that.
GOVERNOR: No. The CCPOA. They don’t like our plan because we want to build it
with the counties, and build jails.
MALE VOICE: The other thing I know you're planning is a week or more on the
environment. I think that's a shame, that people don't understand what you've done on
the environment.
REESE: Well, it's a shame because for a year and a half -- for a year and a half it
wasn't a priority.
MALE VOICE: They don't get that. I think we really need to hit that.
GOVERNOR: But remember it's just -- I think the odd thing is, and I think this is a very
interesting subject to debate over, which is that if you have automatically because the
party always had the environmentalists as the enemy. The Republicans and the
environmentalists, it was always like a water and oil kind of thing.
REESE: Right.
GOVERNOR: It just didn't match, it didn't fit together. So now I'm a Republican. So no
matter what you do, the information will never ripple throughout the state to everyone
that cares about the environment, because they will just choke it off right at the
beginning.
REESE: Paint you with the Republican brush.
GOVERNOR: As soon as they see -- you can be announcing all kinds of things, but it
will never go out there with enthusiasm, it's always done in a critical way. So that is the
big -- as much as if a Democrat does something that is pro-business, it never really hits
the same way as if a Republican does something.
REESE: Well --
GOVERNOR: Go ahead.
REESE: I was going to say that in part that's true, but in part we had a communication
strategy for two years -- in two years you did four environmental events. Because we
had a communication strategy that didn't think that was an important thing to push out
there.
MALE VOICE: I think the administration hasn't done enough to sell (SS)
REESE: Four events in two years.
GOVERNOR: But let me tell you something, that you can be doing five events, but
they're going to go and take that freeway thing down in Orange County, the toll road.
MALE VOICE: Yeah.
GOVERNOR: And they're going to blow that up and make me look like a big villain. So
that's what they do.
REESE: But before that --
GOVERNOR: But you're absolutely right, we could do better. Absolutely we could do
better.
REESE: At the end of the first year, when you were at 70 percent approval rating, at
the end of the first year before the special election and people perceiving you as
partisan because of 60 million spent or whatever -- at the end of the first year with 70
percent approval rating, when we sat with (IA) and we did the focus groups, they didn't
perceive you as being a friend of the environment. So that obviously had nothing to do
with any Republican brush. We were not out there. So maybe they'd have less ability
to hurt you on the toll road if we pushed -- what you've done with ocean policy, never
did events on what you've done on ocean policy. And you know that you got an award
for your ocean policy.
GOVERNOR: Well, but I screwed it up, the ocean policy.
REESE: Well, I know.
GOVERNOR: Because I talked about stem cell research.
REESE: That's just it. And that was one of the four events.
MALE VOICE: The same day?
REESE: So you had four events, and one --
MALE VOICE: I remember that.
MALE VOICE: But Rolling Stone picked it up. They list you as one of the top people in
the country, and the Press Office never promoted that.
REESE: And Vanity Fair. Never.
MALE VOICE: That was a mistake.
REESE: That's right.
GOVERNOR: You're absolutely correct.
MALE VOICE: I meant to write that story.
GOVERNOR: And now there's supposed to be a huge picture in --
REESE: Vanity Fair.
GOVERNOR: Vanity Fair.
MALE VOICE: You know, I wanted to write that story. When Rolling Stone did that, I
wanted to take a look at the environment. And they're not interested in a story about
you doing good things about the environment.
GOVERNOR: No.
MALE VOICE: I'm not going to win any points at my office writing a story, the
Governor's good on the environment. They want a story that you're an asshole on the
environment.
GOVERNOR: Exactly.
REESE: But Gary --
MALE VOICE: And then I get a nice little --
GOVERNOR: That's right.
REESE: But Gary, if we had --
MALE VOICE: But the administration can do more.
REESE: Much more. And I can't tell you, it was one of the greatest sources of
frustration, seeing what kind of Teddy Roosevelt environmentalist he was, and in two
years four things, and one of them he stepped on his own message, because they didn't
put it out there.
MALE VOICE: Well, I talked to Terry the other day. He's got a lot of good ideas on stuff
we can say.
GOVERNOR: (SS) Adam?
MALE VOICE: Oh, nothing. I just had a phone call I had to make.
GOVERNOR: Oh. I thought that you had something (SS)
MALE VOICE: No, no, no (IA)
MALE VOICE: So there's plenty of good stuff we can do there, I think.
GOVERNOR: Yeah. We were just talking about doing more on the environment.
Spicing it up.
MALE VOICE: Yeah. You know, we've talked about this. But there will be a week
dedicated to the environment, and that week is going to happen every four to five
weeks.
REESE: There'll be a cycle.
MALE VOICE: Every four or five weeks we're going to spend an entire week on the
environment. And it also needs to be -- I know where Bonnie was going when I walked
out of the room. You and me and Bonnie had a long talk about this. I am not a -- I do
not believe it's smart politics here in California to not talk about your environmental stuff.
GOVERNOR: Say again?
MALE VOICE: I will not shut down the environmental stuff for you to talk about. I think
that we should be -- climate action report, all the things you've been doing. I think we
should be out there screaming about it.
GOVERNOR: Oh, yeah.
MALE VOICE: I'm not afraid of --
MALE VOICE: Especially because campaign stuff, because the Democrats -- they're
both going to somewhat disingenuously claim they're big environmentalists.
GOVERNOR: Right.
REESE: And Angelides is absolutely not.
GOVERNOR: Oh, no. That was funny. (IA) criticized me about something
environmental.
MALE VOICE: He invented urban sprawl.
REESE: Yeah.
MALE VOICE: All right.
GOVERNOR: But he's a really famous guy.
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