What do you think it was that they needed to see more of to get conviction in your brand? Like, what did you feel like the feedback was early on? And what do you think the tipping point was for people to start getting really excited about wanting to lean in and really commit to the investment?

Ryan said about our business early that was a strength is also a weakness is that 65% of our revenue through 2024 was in places that gave our product away for free.

So like offices and airport lounges, which were really great for getting the brand out there for driving high margin revenue.

And it helped us scale our production so that we could even set up margins so that when we launched nationally, our margins were already in the top tier.

Now, when we tried to raise money off of that, we constantly got feedback of we need to know how this is going to perform in retail.

Like we need revenue that's coming from retailers that's repeat, that's over time.

And it was a challenge to get funds and investors that are knowledgeable of the industry to put in money.

Yeah.

If you push Silicon Valley out of the state of California, what do we have left?

I mean, that's the reason we are the fourth largest economy in the world is almost entirely because of Silicon Valley.

I mean, as you know better than anybody.

Rich people, really, really, really rich people pay almost all the bills in California.

So as long as we're in that system, how does it make sense to have something that pushes all the people that pay all your bills out? Then who pays the bills? Who pays for all this stuff? We clearly don't have enough money to pay for the stuff as it is.

based off of the way things are at.

So all of these unions who enjoy the payoffs that they have from a system which has been set up to pay them off, all of a sudden, if daddy who pays the checks is no longer paying the checks, they're not going to get their money either.

It's going to be very difficult, if in fact those things are true, for him to portray this as the Trump administration coming after him If, in fact, it started under Biden and started out of the California office, particularly when you're running in a Democratic primary against, oh, I don't know, the former attorney general, the state of California.

Alex, can I have your response to what Donald Trump just said, where he's claiming that the numbers are, quote, "looking strange because without any vote counting, the numbers drop very precipitously for the Republicans"? Obviously, this is, uh, um, kind of the second wave of Donald Trump's, uh, election denialism now for the 2026 midterms.

Well, first up, Brian, good to be with you, and welcome to the LA County Vote Processing Center, which is the biggest vote ca- processing center in the world.

You see behind me right now, people are hard at work, uh, going through ballots right here.

They're separating the ballots, uh, from the envelopes, getting them ready to be processed.

In terms of President Trump's argument that there's been widespread fraud in California, there is no evidence to that point.

He has not provided evidence to that point.

The Republican Party has not provided evidence to that point.

So where do we stand right now?

Obviously, this is kind of the second wave of Donald Trump's election denialism now for the 2026 midterms.

Well, first off, Brian, good to be with you and welcome to the L.A. County Vote Processing Center, which is the biggest vote processing center in the world.

You see behind me right now, people are hard at work going through ballots right here.

They're separating the ballots from the envelopes, getting them ready to be processed.

In terms of President Trump's argument that there's been widespread fraud in California, there is No evidence to that point.

He has not provided evidence of that point.

The Republican Party has not provided evidence to that point.

So where do we stand right now?

Mm

... has the most momentumHe is the secretary of, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, former attorney general, former member of Congress.

He has seen his stakes rise after Eric Swalwell dropped out.

He was the biggest beneficiary.

We're just looking at a poll there.

Um, that's one of the polls.

It shows Tom Steyer in a, in a good position.

So are we seeing the Democrats try to own that record or distance themselves from it?

No

...

in a state where there are two to one Democrats, the bluest state at the height of the Trump resistance, that there could be two Republicans in the final two, and that the Democratic Party could be completely boxed out of leading the biggest, most populous state in the union, is a remarkable thing.

Uh, and it's why the Democratic Party itself is pushing back so hard to try to get some of these guys out of the race.

[laughs]

...

Team Trump.

Um, because Swalwell, uh, is running on, "I'm gonna be the biggest fighter against Donald Trump." And in a state like California, that might work.

Issue Is.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry and Chris Matthews and they're all going to this retirement party for him that I'm introducing them at.

So they're going to be joining me on Thursday night, which I'm excited about, which I know I know are a lot of your favorites all in one place.

Have you ever been to the White House? I have many times.

Yeah.

I'd love to see the White House.

How is that money going to be read or refunded to people or refunded to businesses?

I don't think there's any clarity.

I mean, President Trump said he didn't know.

It's not really described by the courts in the opinion.

Right.

Governor Newsom went out there and said, we want a check.

I don't know if all of a sudden there's a bunch of checks that go out to people right before the midterms that have Donald Trump's name on it, if that would be something that might actually help.

Right, and it's not only the tariffs that have taken hundreds of billions of dollars, but it's also companies overseas that have committed to building plants here in the United States so they didn't have to pay any tariffs, and now they don't have to do that anymore either.