Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, nationwide support for the death penalty has dropped tremendously over the last three decades.

And now nationwide, it hovers, you know, just above it's around 52 percent right now, down from around 80 percent in the 90s.

And certainly in other parts of the country, the death penalty is accepted.

And in California, when Governor Newsom did the moratorium back in 2019, he did face criticism for going against the will of the voters.

Even in the recall in 2021, that was actually some of the argument that the supporters of the recall put out there was that he had defied the will of the voters by putting an end to the to the death penalty when voters had just said a few years earlier that they supported it.

But still, maybe politically, Newsom is being smart here, even though right now most of the country or a majority of the country, I should say, still favors the death penalty.

Do you feel like he's kind of occupying the same lane as Swalwell where he's almost telling folks what they want to hear or is vague enough that he has been able to kind of, I don't know, navigate this in a way that, you know, Steyer has staked out this very progressive lane?

I think it's more like that he's feeling for a lot of interest groups in Sacramento, like the Safe Choice right now, after they took a gamble on Swalwell, who was not very well known in state government circles at all.

Obviously, he had a huge profile on national television, but he really wasn't at all a player or had relationships at the state level.

And Becerra does, you know, from his time as the attorney general and Long before that, he was briefly in the legislature.

And he so he is he is more of a known quantity as far as like health, the health related professions.

I mean, he was the secretary of health.

His wife has been a doctor for decades.

No, I'm

Their argument is basically that the state has a lot to lose from this tax, not just the billionaires.

Absolutely.

All of those billionaires who would have to pay this wealth tax on their assets, they already pay lots of income tax, and that income tax is what keeps most of the state of California running.

It pays for schools and public safety and the roads and all of the other things that the state funds.

And that is one of the reasons that Governor Gavin Newsom is so vocally against this tax.

He's very concerned about a short-term bump in tax revenue from the billionaire tax, but a long-term loss from that ongoing loss of income taxes from people who leave.

Meanwhile, some of the most influential unions in the state, the teachers union, the umbrella group for SEIU, they haven't publicly taken a position, and privately, they're concerned about the idea of a tax that gets locked up in this special box and doesn't fund the programs that most tax dollars do.

Just talk about how exactly that would work.

How was this received, this idea of this new independent commission? 'Cause it's, uh, basically the opposite of what was happening in your description.

Yeah.

It was contentious.

So this question goes on the ballot in 2008 for California voters, and it was a big fight, and it was a close vote.

The first measure in 2008 passed by just under 51%, but then California voted to expand the power to include drawing lines for Congress, and that one passed overwhelmingly.

About 60% of voters were for it.

And also during this time, there was an attempt to repeal the independent commission, and that was defeated.

Like, what about just, I don't know, old-fashioned persuasion to win elections?

But what is, what is your sense of what propels Newsom to actually file this lawsuit against Fox News?

We've really seen the governor just escalating his antagonism against the president in the last several weeks.

Um, and that's been a huge turn since these immigration raids really cranked up in Southern California this month.

Um, and it's, it's notable because at the beginning of the year when the president was first inaugurated, um, Governor Newsom was very friendly and really kind of holding back some of the normal fire you might expect, um, a Democratic governor to launch at, at President Trump.

Um, he was seeking aid from the president then and, um, and was really trying to be friendly and cooperative.

But in recent weeks, we've just completely seen the tone shift.

And this lawsuit and this sort of highlighting this, the way that Fox covered these events around this phone call seem to be part of that trend.

trend.Laurel, take us through the fact pattern, if you will.