Matt Mahan is the Mayor of San Jose and a candidate for Governor of California. He is one of the only prominent Democrats in the state willing to say out loud that California's failure to fix housing, homelessness, and energy costs has handed the MAGA movement its best ammunition. It isn't a partisan argument. It's a governance one.
In this conversation, Eric sits down with Matt to get into why California has spent $20 billion on high speed rail and delivered nothing, why the billionaire wealth tax will backfire, and how San Jose reduced homelessness by a third without raising taxes. They also get into his break with Gavin Newsom, the tech industry's growing political power, and what a competence first Democratic message actually looks like in practice.
They also talk about what's next — the jungle primary on June 2nd, what Matt thinks California needs from its next governor, and why he believes fixing the state is the most powerful counter to what's happening in Washington right now.
