- The reason this state is so terrific is based on the work of millions of people over a really long period of time, working people built this state, working people make this state run the idea that you can come here from all over the world, which we want people to do, to create the future, to build the businesses of the future.

We want that, that's great for California, but you don't come here to rip us off.

- Hey everyone from KQED in San Francisco.

This is Political Breakdown.

I'm Marisa Lagos.

- And I'm Scott Shafer.

Today on the Breakdown we continue our series of interviews with the many candidates vying to be California's next governor.

Today, Tom Steyer, the billionaire and former hedge fund manager turned Democratic party activist - Steyer, who has lived in San Francisco for decades.

May his fortune at Faron Capital where he was known for taking big risks in volatile markets.

Bessel largely paid off.

He left the firm in 2012 and has spent his time and money championing progressive causes.

Tom Steyer, welcome back to Political Breakdown.

It's been a minute.

- Good morning.

Nice to see you guys.

- Great to see you.

So we're opening these interviews of all these candidates with the same question, which is who are you politically?

What is your vision for this state?

- Well, California is a dream for everybody here.

And the issue that people have is that they can't afford to live here.

And so to a very large extent, we have a state that is incredibly successful on average, but where so many people are struggling.

And so to me, you know, I love being here and I know everybody wants to be in California because it is such an amazing place, but the way that people are living and the way that income is being distributed, you know, leaves so many people at risk.

And so to me that is the, the issue in California is about how can afford, how can people afford to stay in California?

- Yeah, and we're gonna come back and dig into a lot of those issues, but we want to go back to when you were a kid.

You were born in New York City, your mom was a teacher.

I think at one point she was teaching inside of a jail.

Your dad was a corporate lawyer.

He worked for the firm representing Exxon.

He was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

What kind of childhood did you have?

- I had an incredibly fun childhood.

If you wanna know the truth, I'm from a family of three boys.

The rule was every single day you have to leave the house, you have to go out to the park and play.

So I had two older brothers and we went to school and we played in the park and my parents were very strict about no tv.

And so, you know, I had a very rambunctious, very fun, very physical upbringing.

- Were politics part of the conversations, like over the dinner table?

Were your parents engaged?

- My father was very quiet And my mother was very talkative.

And so she was the person, you know, I grew up at a time during the Civil Rights Revolution and during Vietnam and my mother was a extreme progressive and she voted for Shirley Chisholm and she was an absolute diehard civil rights person, which is why she, when she was a teacher and the reason she ended up teaching in prison, she was teaching in intentionally the most difficult public schools in New York City because that's where she wanted to be with those kids.

So she was a huge believer in the Civil Rights Revolution and she was a fierce opponent of the Vietnam War.

And so that what we, you know, that - Is, those were the dinner table conversations.

- And my mom, who I absolutely you can tell adored was somebody who was your best friend and you, but a tough person.

- And she was Episcopalian, your dad was Jewish, but not practicing.

So like how did religion figure into your childhood?

We said prayers - Every night.

If you said the Lord's Prayer every night, I think we all believed in God, I still believe in God.

- You think of yourself as Episcopalian or like - I go to church.

And I think, but I, you know, I, my opinion about it is everybody reaches that kind of eternal idea on their own.

And there's, you know, this is what we've learned is this is a huge world and whatever way you can get to a place where you've, your values are really good.

I'm behind because obviously nobody has, you know, a monopoly on wisdom.

No one has a monopoly on virtue and, but I think everybody should be seeking for that and I try to seek for that.

- That's so interesting.

So you ended up going to Yale.

I know you were captain of the soccer team there and I read that your first investment was in an agricultural equipment manufacturer companies after you spent a summer on a cattle ranch, explain like how did that all come to be and I mean, was that your kind of first taste of the finance world - Or horses?

- I mean both.

- So I worked as a cowboy and I had an amazingly fun summer and it was so hard scrabble.

It was hand to mouth.

I got paid a hundred dollars a month.

I worked six days a week from 8:00 AM till 6:00 PM and I milked the cows before breakfast and after dinner.

So I was not well paid, but what I could, I came home and I said to my father, all the money goes to the farm equipment people.

I wanted to buy shares and all the farm equipment.

- So is that what you did with that summer's money?

- I didn't have any money.

I got paid a hundred dollars a month and I spent a hundred dollars a month.

Okay.

Not $99 and 99 cents.

That's what it took.

I went to the movies.

So it was an amazing fun summer.

I loved it.

I lived on a horse.

I am reasonably capable of all the ranch stuff, but it, I, I didn't, no one told me to invest.

I was just like naturally felt like, oh my god, all the money in this whole system goes to the equipment manufacturers.

They're making a fortune.

That's so interesting.

- You briefly worked in finance before moving to California.

You went to Stanford Business School, then you went back to New York, you came back here.

So what brought you back out west?

- So first of all, I'm married to somebody from California.

- 40 years, right?

- Yes.

40 years this year.

Yes.

But I think also we went hiking in New Mexico and we looked at each other and we said, we're living west of the, of the Mississippi.

No question.

And it's just a question of where, and then we thought about it and we thought, we have a ton of friends in the Bay Area 'cause we both went to Stanford grad school and her family lives in, lived in the, they're both dead, but they both live, her parents lived in the Bay Area and we felt like, okay, I, I'm gonna start a business.

I can choose where I wanna start it.

- Yeah.

- And let's go to the place where your family lives and where we all have a ton of friends from gonna grad school there.

- So you started FaralLon Capital, which was named for the Farallon Islands, I believe, of course off San San Francisco.

What was your vision at the time?

Like what did you think that the firm would do?

What did you want it to do?

- Basically what I thought we could do was invest in a way to avoid, this is gonna sound incredibly boring, so I'll apologize to avoid losses.

That basically we would invest in things that we were very confident about so that we could You know, I used to say to people, compounding's magic.

If you could take the $28 that they bought New York Island for and whatever it was, 1648 and compound it like an eight or a nine, you could buy all of New York with all of the buildings today.

Compounding is magic.

And what I was saying is, let's just compound, let's do things that we're highly confident of and if we can compound successfully and not lose money, then we're gonna compound it a great rate and make a lot of money.

- That's very risk averse.

But that was not your, your strategy all along.

In fact, in 1997, the Thai bot crisis, there was severe turbulence in the Asian financial markets and you swam against the grain.

Most hedge funds were shorting the currency.

What did you do at Farallon?

- Look, what we did was we went over there to buy assets that we thought were durable and valuable at, at a price where everybody was fleeing.

And so actually it was exactly what I was doing.

It seemed risky, but the risk had already gone out.

Hmm.

So to a very large extent, what we were saying was, let's go to places where we can buy things that are safe.

- Like farm equipment.

- I think what we bought was the, actually what we bought was the biggest bank in Indonesia.

- Oh wow.

- But I, but I, what I used to say to people is, the first rule of investing is don't lose money.

And the second rule of investing is don't forget the first rule.

If you can keep compounding.

So everyone was fleeing, as you said, it's extremely scary as you said.

And that means prices are really low.

So you've actually taken the risk out of the investment.

People are rushing out, you rushed in - People rushing.

Yeah.

I mean, you know as well as anybody that you've gotten flack in recent years for some of the investments that were made at the time in coal oil, private prisons.

I wonder like what you were thinking at the time about the sort of morality of investments.

Were you, how, like how do you sort of square that with where you are now politically?

- Absolutely.

I was, and that's why I left Farallon.

- But at the time, I mean before that, yeah.

- So lemme say, well let's talk about, so the, the one that people talk about is private prisons, which we owned more than 20 years ago.

We sold more than 20 years ago because we decided it was the wrong thing to do.

- At a time when the politics admittedly were very different around prisons.

Yeah.

- But it doesn't, but we decided on our own, this is something we don't wanna do.

Not because it was a bad investment, it was less than I, I don't know, 1% of what we were doing way less like in the context of that investment firm.

It was tiny, but I decided on my own, I don't wanna do this.

This is not something I approve of, so we're gonna sell it.

It's not a question of whether it's a good investment or a bad investment from a money standpoint.

It's just not something we want to do.

And you know, I really started to get involved in climate, to be aware of it at the second half of the two thousands after a trip to Alaska with my family.

And I was like, oh my God, this whole state is melting.

And so I became more and more involved in the idea of how are we gonna transition away from fossil fuels?

So, you know, do I think that, I wish I'd been faster to figure that out.

Yes, I do.

- Yeah.

- But did I figure that out before there any of the environmental groups?

Yes, I did.

And so there, you know, there was a, - Although Al Gore was talking about that, - Right?

Yes he was.

And there was an awareness of it.

But what really happened was I went, look, there's an awareness of a lot of things.

I went up to Alaska and saw the whole state was melting.

- Hmm.

Was there an aha moment for you?

Because I think at one point, like Yale students targeted your firm Farallon investments.

I mean, what was it that, like when did the light bulb go off?

Or was it then in, in Alaska - In terms of climbing?

It was Alaska, no question.

Because we all went up there.

I wanted to show my family what the world looked like before Europeans came to North America.

And what we saw was, it's just melting.

I worked in Alaska first summer because I wanted to see the outdoors and I wanted to travel it.

And we were all like, oh my God, this is so overwhelmingly obvious, let's go home and see if we can do something about it.

And so it was a transition from that trip.

It wasn't like I said, okay, I'm gonna change my life today.

I said, oh, we should, this is something we can address.

Let's start addressing it.

And then it just got progressively more serious in terms of what I did.

- Well, as you well know, this is a crowded field and you've never held elected office as we've just gone through.

You have spent the better part of really the past two decades working in politics, funding state and national campaigns.

What's your case for why you would be better equipped to lead this state than say a member of Congress?

Just, just to throw that out as an example.

- Well I think, as you said, I have spent, I left my business something like 14 years ago.

And I've spent the last 14 some odd years working basically around political issues and pushing as a private citizen to get things done running.

I ran three statewide propositions, all of them taking on funded interests, you know, taking on the oil companies, taking on the tobacco companies, taking out of, taking on out of state companies to pass propositions that the people couldn't get done in Sacramento.

And you know, I feel as if for the last, whatever that is, 14 years, I have been working in the public interest in a variety of ways as a full-time job.

- You know, in some ways though, what you just described is kind of top down.

You are the decision maker.

You know, if you go to, if you become governor, you're gonna have to work with the legislature.

You have to compromise.

Is that something you feel comes naturally to you?

Like giving and taking and you know, not getting your way?

- Well I was talking about propositions to be fair, but we also have 20 people in Sacramento working on issues on a day-to-day basis.

So the idea - That, but still they work for you.

- They do, but they work within the, what you're saying is, Tom, you're working within the context of a political system.

And that's exactly what I've been doing for the last 10 years, working within the context of a political system.

If I win the governor's race, actually they'll be working for me too.

But the truth is, I will always be having to partner with people.

I will always be having to convince people, listen to people, and build consensus.

And if you actually look at what we've done through that group NextGen Policy, which has been run by the same guy for the last 10 years, and we have an extraordinary staff of 20 people.

We have been involved in so many of the things in California.

And so that is part, do I think that this is part of building consensus, knowing people and working together.

Yes.

And have we been doing that for the last 10 years?

In my mind?

Extraordinarily successfully, yes.

- Yeah.

You know, one of the big sort of parts of your campaign as you laid out at the beginning is this idea of affordability.

And one thing you've been talking about a lot is energy.

You wanna, you say break up the utility monopolies and lower electric bills by 25%.

I mean, I've been covering PG&E since I moved to San Francisco over 20 years ago.

It, it, our investor on utility structure is incredibly complicated, very dependent on Wall Street.

I guess just first lay out like, what does that mean?

What do you mean break up the monopolies?

How would you lower these bills?

- So there are two things going on there, and let's be clear.

We pay an amazingly high price for our electricity in this state about twice the national average, to be honest.

And they're monopolies, it's illegal to go around them.

So they're stuck in place.

I've said we'd reduce it by 20 by a quarter, which would get us to being only 50% more expensive than the rest of the country.

So when I think about it, how is that gonna work?

There are two things I've said that we do.

First of all, I don't know how many of your viewers are aware of how the electric companies make their money, but basically it's not by charging money, having costs, right?

And getting the difference - By building, basically - It's actually by getting things into the rate base and getting a guaranteed return on that.

And as a result, we've ended up with ex, you know, there's an, they're doing their job of trying to get as high as many things into that rate base as possible.

And as a result, at a time when the cost of energy is going down at a dramatic rate around the world, our rates are doing nothing but go up.

And so what I've said I will do, one of the things that I'm gonna do is try to change the way we oversee the existing utilities.

Because in fact what we're doing is incenting to get things to be approved so they can get a return on it.

And that's why we've ended up with such high prices.

And the second thing I've tried to say is we're gonna try and introduce competition at a local level so that people can actually produce electricity.

And let me give you some numbers so that you guys can get a sense of what, what's going on here.

I'm gonna talk the, these numbers make sense if you understand per kilowatt hour, which nobody does, but that's okay.

'cause they're just numbers and you can get the difference.

It costs between one and 2 cents per kilowatt hour to create solar energy and a little bit more for wind energy.

It cost a couple of cents per hour for storage.

We pay the, the, the retail rate for electricity in the, in, in pg e's territories, 48 cents, - Which is distribution, right?

I mean that's what we're paying for.

- Yeah.

But let me say I understand that point.

But my point is, does that seem a little high?

Because the rest of the country's paying half as much as us.

There's something going on here and there's no ability to compete.

And every monopoly in the world will explain to you this is the only way it can work.

There's no choice, blah, blah, blah.

But every monopoly in the world is not telling the truth, including this one.

- But they also have a lot of lawyers, a lot of lobbyists.

They probably like things just the way they are.

And so wouldn't anything you're trying to do up there be mired in lawsuits and challenges and so on.

And also last, you know, in at the end of the 1990s, there was deregulation and it led to blackouts.

And you know, that was of course en Rohan fooling around with our energy markets.

But like, it's complicated and it, it seems like it would be hard to deliver on your promise of 25% rate cuts.

- I completely disagree.

At 25% rate cuts, we're paying 50% more than the national average at a time when the actual cost of electricity is plummeting, the cost of electricity has gone down.

Think, think about what I just said to you.

- Is it lowering their rate of like guaranteed return?

I mean you've talked about expanding.

- There is a system in place that is, look, I'm not mad at these people.

They're, they've been given a box of how to make money and they're playing that box.

And that box is not good for the people of California.

'cause we're paying way too much for - Electricity.

Can I ask you this?

Do you think investors should, or utilities should be investor owned?

Should be they, they be traded on Wall Street.

- I'm happy to have investor owned.

My issue is we are not regulating them.

Right.

And we're not allowing people to compete with them.

And if you have, look, the history of monopoly, the rule of a monopoly is we charge as much as we can and we deliver the worst service we can.

That's the rule.

And you know what?

That's what we're getting.

So when people say this is the only, and monopolies always tell you the same thing, this is the only thing that can possibly work.

- Yeah.

- That's not true.

That's absolutely not true.

So what I'm saying is we're gonna, we're going to have a different rule at the Public Utilities Commission about how they get paid.

And we're gonna introduce local competition.

Because the truth is, I don't know if you guys have noticed, but actually there's a gigantic electric revolution going on in the world and they're saying we need to keep charging you the rates based on the 20th century.

It's like, no you don't.

And we had this terrible experience as a state, - Right - When we tried to deregulate and the people didn't know what they were doing.

And as a result there were all these failures because they mis, you know, diagnosed it.

And so as a result, people are now very scared to touch this.

'cause it's like the, you know, we're scared to have another political disaster.

I'm not scared because I've spent decades looking at this system.

I'm not scared.

The truth is the tech is here to do this at a fraction of the cost.

And these guys are saying, you can't do that to us.

We need to make our money.

And my answer is no.

The people of California come first.

We are gonna make sure that the people of California get served with an electricity revolution that is sweeping the whole world.

And they're saying, except for us, nope, not doing that.

- We could spend all day on energy, but we do wanna move on to some other issues.

- Well, nobody can be mad at me for dropping their electric rates got started and it is very doable.

Well, and every monopoly in the world will say, this is the only way it can ever work.

And that's not - True.

All right, well I wanna talk about taxes.

We are in a moment where not only is the state facing ongoing structural deficits, but obviously huge attacks on funding from the Trump administration.

First talk about where you stand on this very controversial proposal by S-E-I-U-U-H-W to impose a one-time 5% tax on folks with wealth above a billion dollars.

- So let me start by saying, should we be taxing the richest people in the state more?

Hell yes.

So theoretically this tax makes sense.

I have real issues with the way it works specifically.

So for instance, it's a one-time tax, right?

For a long-term problem.

It distributes the money very specifically to the people who are, you know, 90% to the people who are proposing the tax.

That is not the way that California distributes money, - Which is a union - Healthcare Yeah.

Proposing healthcare.

Healthcare workers.

Yeah, yeah.

But, but my point is, if this were the only thing in the world, does it address a real problem, a real shortfall of money?

Yes.

But I'm saying it's not the only thing we can do.

I am proposing closing a corporate real estate tax loophole that's existed for over 40 years that brings in more money to the state that is permanent.

That is completely fair.

And as a first step, that's what I'm saying.

I'll call a special election to pass that because we do need the money.

We are at a structural deficit and it's necessary for us to respond.

But I wanna do it in a way, you know, it's kind of, I agree with that idea theoretically, but it's really important long term that you get the details right.

Yeah.

So that you actually do, do the work at the ground level to get it ru - So are you saying you would oppose this if it makes the ballot, the tax, the billionaires?

- Yeah, I didn't say that.

What I said was if it were the only thing we could do to solve this problem, I'd be for it.

- But you're saying there are other things that you could do.

- I think that we're gonna be able to solve this problem in better ways.

And I'm proposing one of them.

And I've proposed another, you know, I've also proposed, I don't know, you know, I came out with an AI plan that involves taxing every AI transaction at a very, very low rate.

But that is a way for us to get the state to have an interest in what is being created in this state, to change the world in which they're using this state to do it.

- I mean, there's a national proposal by Bernie Sanders.

It's not gonna go anywhere anytime soon.

But for a 5% annual national tax on billionaires, I wonder why, I mean, would you support that but also like why focus on corporations versus individuals?

What is the like thinking there?

- Well, let me say this.

I want this state to continue to be what it has been, which has been a place where people come to start new ideas, to create the future, to build the businesses of the future.

And that's what we've been doing.

And it seems to me that is the critical thing to get right.

And so when everybody's focused on the ownership, do I, I just said to you, I believe that the richest people in this state should be paying more.

Absolutely.

But to me, the critical thing is to make sure that we have a great place for businesses to come to be invented and that they pay a fair share.

Because let's face it, the reason this state is so terrific is based on the work of millions of people over a really long period of time, working people built this state, working people make this state run the idea that you can come here from all over the world, which we want people to do to create the future, to build the businesses of the future.

We want that.

That's great for California, but you don't come here to rip us off.

This is an ecosystem that working people have built over a long period of time.

They continue to build.

And it's like, you come here, you're part of this ecosystem, knock it out of the park, but you're gonna pay your fair share.

You're gonna be part of this state.

We're doing something extraordinary.

We're trying to show the world what the 21st century is supposed to look like.

Don't come here and think you're gonna rip us off and sear at us.

Not gonna happen.

- Well, speaking of working people, unions, of course are one of the most, if not the most powerful interest group in democratic party politics in the state of California.

And for that reason, it's very hard for Democrats in office to say no to unions oftentimes.

And sometimes we've seen contracts that are agreed to and passed and enacted only to see very shortly thereafter.

They're not affordable and people get laid off or schools close or whatever it might be.

Do you, do you feel like you would stand up to unions when necessary?

Do you feel like in some ways the state has been too generous?

Are there specific cases where you think this, you know, we've kind of given away the bank.

- Well, lemme say this, the number one issue in California, I said to us that California's can't afford to live here.

I basically feel like for the last 40 to 45 years working, Californians have gotten the short end of the stick.

So I am very much in the position of wanting to work with working people very much in the position of wanting to work with organized labor and unions in particular to say, let's get this to a place that's fair where people can afford to live here.

But let me say this too.

What I've said to everybody is we're gonna agree on the vision, we're gonna agree on where we're going.

We may argue about the details along the way because it's really important that we get the details right.

But along the way, what we're seeing here is honestly working.

People are really struggling in the richest state, in the richest country in the history of the world.

And what I'm talking about is what I call shared prosperity.

I look, I'm a business person.

I was a business person very successfully for a long time.

I want this state to crush it.

I want us to invent the future.

I want all the great companies of the world to feel like this is the place that they need to be.

I wanna make that possible for them.

And I want everybody to go along.

I want, I don't wanna leave people by the side of the road.

I want to deliver the services people need.

And I want people to be paid fairly.

So an answer to your question, I believe organized labor is a critical part of this state in terms of representing working people.

And I think, are we gonna agree on everything?

No, but what we're gonna agree on is where we're trying to get to.

And we're gonna argue the way everybody argues along the way to make sure that we get there in the best way.

- Yeah.

Only a few minutes left.

But you know, one of the areas we're really seeing labor flexes power is around schools.

We just had a school strike here in San Francisco.

You've said that California schools are starved of funding.

I've heard other people in this race say that's not the issue.

We fund schools well and we're still, you know, below national averages in achievement.

Why do you see resources of the problem and, and how do you think we could really like fundamentally change this education system with more - Well let, let's talk about that because there is a sense among a lot of people in California and some of the people running for governor want to make this true.

If you look at a cost adjusted basis per pupil, California is 31st outta 50 states.

So when we say we spend so much on a cost adjusted basis, we don't.

And so when we're saying, you know, per pupil that, you know, why are people not doing well?

And it's like we're spending all this money, it's like actually on a cost adjusted basis, we're not spending all this money - Right.

When you look at - How much it cost.

So yeah, you know, the first thing we have to do is actually supply the schools with enough money to that.

That is absolutely.

Now the second thing I said is, look over 90% of the kids in California go to public schools.

We are working through the public schools, we are working with the public schools teachers, they run the classrooms.

The idea that we're going around them, that's not true.

They run the classrooms.

It's really critical that we work on this together and come to the right decision together.

Well, - Speaking of kids, you've got four of 'em.

They're grown.

I'm wondering how do they feel about dad being on TV all the time running for governor and I'm, I'm also curious to have they adopted all of your values in terms of what they're doing with their lives?

- So do they like the fact that I'm in the public eye?

I don't know, but I honestly believe we have an incredibly close family.

And I believe that they think that I'm doing what I think is right and trying to do the right thing.

And they want me very much to do that.

And I want that for them.

And so when I look at what they're doing with their lot, you know, we have only two roles.

We hard be nice.

Those are the two roles and they're absolute roles.

And if you look at what my kids are doing, what the jobs they're having, how hard they're working, what kind of people they are, how they participate, I'm incredibly proud of my wife and four kids.

Incredibly proud.

And I hope they're proud of me and I know they're rooting for me.

So, you know, do, do some of them think differently about some things than I do?

Sure, I'd be ashamed if they didn't.

But the truth is, they're all in my mind trying to be as objective as a loving father could possibly be.

Incredibly productive, incredibly positive members of society who really care about this state and are doing jobs that they think, you know, my son, my oldest son is an AI researcher.

My second son is a, is an architect who really works from nature.

My daughter, I have three sons and a daughter.

My daughter is an investor in early stage food and ag from a climate standpoint.

And my fourth child, who's a boy, is a doctor who wants to be, who's a, wants to be a cardiologist for kids.

He's a third year resident down at in, in Los Angeles.

So every one of those people in my mind is doing an amazing positive job for society.

That they is a hell of a lot of work and they're trying their asses off to be good members of society.

I'm super, super, super proud.

My kids and my wife Kat works her ass off trying to be an advocate for economic environmental justice.

- Yeah.

All right.

Before we let you go, we've asked all the candidates this one question, which is, where would you take somebody from out of state to give them like a flavor, a taste of California?

I'm guessing it'd be outdoors given I - Was a hundred percent.

I didn't even realize there was a chance it wouldn't be 14,000 up.

Probably.

I mean, look, I've been trying to climb the fourteeners, but y you know, it's kind of like, would you take them to Yosemite or you take them to - Tahoe?

An embarrassment of riches.

Yeah.

You take to Stinson - Or you take 'em to Big Sur.

Would you take 'em down to San Diego?

I mean, I love the Pacific Ocean.

I love the mountains.

This is the most beautiful state, you know, every, everyone says, you know, do, where are you going for vacation?

I'm like, why would I be going someplace else?

But here you may go someplace else to learn cultural things, but this is I, this is the most beautiful state.

Look, if someone were coming to see me, the truth of where we'd probably go, honest to God it's Stinson.

'cause it's the closest.

But we, you know, I, we live on the ocean.

I adore the Pacific Ocean.

I love the mountains.

It's like this state in front of everyone wants to live in this state that that's the problem.

Everyone wants to live in this state.

We need to run this state better.

- Alright, we gotta leave it there.

Tom Star candidate for governor.

Thank you so much for coming in today.

- Thank you for having me.

- I know before we go, you're gonna be able to find all these interviews for governor in our podcast feed in the coming weeks.

You can also watch them on the KQED News YouTube channel.

We're gonna be posting a lot more content there this year in general.

That is a wrap for Thursday, March 12th.

Political breakdowns of production of KQED.

- Our engineer today is Christopher Beal.

Our producer is Izzy Bloom.

Our video team includes Alex Tran, Matt Morales and Vivian Morales.

I'm Scott Shafer.

And I'm - Marisa Lagos.

We'll see you next time.