State of Gold

Guest
Mike Murphy, Republican Political Strategist; Co-Founder, EVs for All America
Guest Bio 
Mike Murphy is one of the Republican Party's most successful political consultants, having advised presidential and gubernatorial campaigns for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with dozens of GOP senators, governors, and members of Congress. A longtime media strategist and co-host of the Hacks on Tap podcast, he later founded EVs for All America and the EV Politics Project, organizations working to take the partisanship out of electric vehicle adoption in the United States.
Show Summary
Republican strategist Mike Murphy joins host Jon Slavet to lay out why he thinks California Republicans are mathematically doomed in the near term, what he actually advised Steve Hilton to do differently, and why he sees Democratic frontrunner Xavier Becerra as this cycle's Joe Biden. Murphy digs into the recent Berkeley poll showing deep partisan splits in trust of California's election system, explaining why the state still is not part of the multistate voter file compact most others use. The conversation turns to the 2026 midterms, where Murphy predicts Democrats take the House by a narrower margin than historical trends suggest, and where he thinks the real fight, and the real risk for Republicans, is the Senate.
He closes on lighter ground: The 3,000 mile electric Porsche drive he just completed for his nonprofit EVs for All America, why China's auto export numbers should worry every American policymaker regardless of party.

Chapters
00:00 – Cold Open: Can Republicans Take Back California?
00:15 – Welcome: GOP Strategist Mike Murphy
01:21 – What It Would Actually Take for Republicans to Win California
02:31 – His Advice to Steve Hilton's Campaign
05:05 – Is Becerra "The Joe Biden of 2026"?
07:03 – The $100 Billion Deficit That Could Force Real Change
09:30 – The Berkeley Poll: Trust in California's Elections and Voter ID
14:01 – The 2026 Midterms: What Happens to the House
15:01 – The Real Fight: Control of the Senate
17:00 – Why Trump's White House Won't Sell Its Own Economy
18:12 – One Trump Policy He Actually Likes
18:57 – His Break With Trump on Foreign Policy
19:33 – Hope for a Post-Trump Conservative Reset
20:18 – Driving an Electric Porsche Coast to Coast
21:45 – China's EV Dominance and the National Security Stakes
24:18 – What Gives Him Hope for California
Connect with Mike Murphy
X: https://x.com/murphymike
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelemurphy/
Substack: https://substack.com/@mikemurphy1
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X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
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Website: www.stateofgold.com

Guest Bio: 
Joshua Rauh is the Ormond Family Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution, where he leads the Fiscal Policy Initiative. He is also a Senior Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research centers on public finance, state and local government pension liabilities, and taxation. From November 2019 to March 2020 he served as Principal Chief Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He has testified before Congress on public pension debt and is best known for his "Hidden Debt, Hidden Deficits" series, which documented the true scale of unfunded pension promises across U.S. states. Find his finance Substack here: https://libertylensecon.substack.com/
Show Summary
In this episode of State of Gold, host Jon Slavet sits down with Stanford economist Josh Rauh to work through the numbers behind California's proposed Billionaire Tax and why Hoover Institution research puts the net fiscal impact at negative $25 billion. Rauh explains how the tax is already accelerating founder departures, how the legislation could be leveraged to sieze assets from any Californian, and what France's failed experiment tells us about what happens next. The conversation shifts to the federal debt, where Rauh makes the case that $40 trillion in accumulated deficits is the single biggest threat facing the American economy: The real reason mortgage rates won't come down, the reason 25 cents of every non Social Security tax dollar now goes straight to interest payments, and why the 1970s stagflation era is the closest historical parallel if Congress doesn't change course.

Chapters
00:00 – Josh Rauh Joins to talk Billionaire Tax and the Federal Debt
00:54 – The France Parallel: What Macron's Repealed Wealth Tax Proves
02:17 – The $25 Billion Math: Why the Tax Would Lose the State Money
03:36 – Founders Already Fleeing: "Raise the Series B, Then Leave"
04:09 – The Legislature Loophole: One Word From a Millionaire Tax
05:35 – Could This Become a 2028 Democratic Primary Weapon?
07:37 – If It Passes: The Zuckerberg January 1 Cutoff Problem
08:50 – Revenue for the State or Prosperity for the People?
10:00 – Proposition 42, Teachers' Pensions, and MediCal for Undocumented Immigrants
12:59 – Tariffs & Spending: Why They're Not the Biggest Threat
15:28 – The Real Crisis: $40 Trillion in Federal Debt and Your Mortgage Rate
18:07 – Clinton's "Balanced Budget" and the Accounting Fiction
18:55 – Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security: Half the Budget Nobody Will Touch
22:26 – What a Federal Debt Crisis Would Actually Look Like
26:41 – California's IOU Playbook When the Market Corrects
29:22 – Reasons for Optimism in California
Connect with Joshua Rauh
X: https://x.com/joshrauh
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-rauh-01a02017/
Stanford Website: https://web.stanford.edu/~rauh/about.html
Personal Website: https://www.joshuarauh.com/
Enjoyed the episode? Subscribe to our podcast, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and join the conversation on Instagram and LinkedIn with the hashtag #stateofgoldpodcast

Connect with State of Gold
X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

Guest:
Elizabeth Barcohana, Attorney & CAGOP Delegate 
Guest Bio: 
Elizabeth Barcohana is a California Republican strategist, political commentator, and founder of Vote Gold, a 501(c)(3) voter education organization working to register 460,000 Republican voters in Los Angeles County. She serves as Chair of Jewish Community Engagement for the California Republican Party and is a prominent voice on California politics, election integrity, and Jewish community issues. Her family fled Iran just before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a history that shapes her urgent perspective on antisemitism and political displacement. With over 95,000 Instagram followers, she has built one of the most engaged conservative audiences in California.
Show Summary
Elizabeth Barcohana joins host Jon Slavet for a wide-ranging conversation about rising antisemitism in American cities, the accelerating leftward shift of California's Democratic Party, and what Republicans can actually do about it in Los Angeles County. She describes, for the first time publicly, her family's contingency planning for possible displacement from Los Angeles, drawing a direct line from her parents' flight from Iran months before the Shah fell to what she sees forming in American cities today. From there the conversation covers why so many Jewish voters remain with the Democratic Party despite rising antisemitism in its progressive wing, why Barcohana believes the DSA takeover of California's Democratic establishment is already complete, what the LA City Council's non-citizen voting proposal actually contained and how far it exceeded anything California law currently permits, and why Vote Gold is targeting voter registration as the single highest-leverage play available to California Republicans right now.

Chapters
00:00 Rising Antisemitism & Contingency Plans: Discussing safety concerns and family history in Los Angeles.
01:17 Lessons from the Iranian Revolution: Comparing historical Jewish diaspora persecution to modern urban realities.04:48 Demystifying the Jewish Democratic Vote: Analyzing historical alignment and the post-Oct 7th political shift.
08:47 The Progressive Democratic Takeover: Explaining why far-left factions have already captured urban party leadership.
10:17 Auditing the LA Mayoral Primary: Assessing Spencer Pratt's campaign and the Bass-Raman runoff.
14:05 Non-Citizen Voting Push: Unpacking the LA City Council's proposal and progressive voting strategies.
19:34 The Vote Gold Initiative: Outlining the 460K LA campaign to educate and register voters.
Connect with Elizabeth Barcohana
 X: https://x.com/E_Barcohana
 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethfromcalifornia/
 Official Website: https://www.elizabethbarcohana.com/
Enjoyed the episode? Subscribe to our podcast, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and join the conversation on Instagram and LinkedIn with the hashtag #stateofgoldpodcast

Connect with State of Gold
X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

Guest
Nick Gillespie, Editor-at-Large - Reason Magazine
Guest Bio
Nick Gillespie is an acclaimed libertarian journalist, cultural critic, and Editor-at-Large at Reason, the magazine of free minds and free markets. The former editor-in-chief of Reason.com and Reason magazine, Gillespie hosts The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie podcast and is co-author of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America. Recognized as one of America's leading classical liberal commentators, he offers sharp, principled analysis on technology, government overreach, free speech, and the future of human agency.
Show Summary
As artificial intelligence rapidly accelerates toward recursive self-development and human-level intelligence, a high-stakes debate is unfolding over who should control its safeguards. Libertarian commentator and Reason Editor-at-Large Nick Gillespie joins host Jon Slavet on State of Gold to discuss why handing AI regulation to politicians will stifle technological progress and entrench corporate monopolies.
Gillespie exposes how entrenched tech giants utilize "regulatory capture" under the guise of public safety to write rules that protect their market share and block emerging competitors. Addressing the global AI race, Gillespie argues that attempting to out-regulate an authoritarian state like China is a losing strategy, insisting that America's true competitive edge lies in free-market dynamism and first-to-market innovation. Finally, Gillespie rejects apocalyptic AI job doom-saying, offering an optimistic vision of AI as an empowering tool - that will ultimately expand human agency, creativity, and economic opportunity.

Chapters
00:00 Recursive AI Growth: Examining AI's evolution toward breakout self-development.
00:53 Industry vs. State Safeguards: Explaining why self-policing beats political control.
01:24 The Regulatory Capture Trap: Detailing how Big Tech uses rules to crush competition.
02:12 Beating China in Tech: Leveraging free markets vs. state-directed AI.
02:46 AI & Job Doomsday Myths: Viewing AI as an empowering tool for human agency.

Connect with Nick Gillespie
X: https://twitter.com/nickgillespie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nick.gillespie.940
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gillespienick/?hl=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gillespie-2ba38786/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheReasonInterview
Enjoyed the episode? Subscribe to our podcast, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and join the conversation on Instagram and LinkedIn with the hashtag #stateofgoldpodcast

Connect with State of Gold
X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

Guest:
Chef Andrew Gruel, California Business Owner 
Guest Bio: 
Andrew Gruel is an acclaimed chef, television personality, restaurateur, and elected official serving on the Huntington Beach City Council. Renowned for founding Slapfish and American Nightcap, Gruel has become a leading national advocate for small business freedom, food quality reform, and fiscal realism. His hands-on experience navigating California's heavy regulatory environment, labor mandates, and municipal challenges provides an authoritative critique of local governance, state legal overreach, and the economic policies impacting working families.
Show Summary
Los Angeles is hurtling toward a financial abyss, driven by exploding pension liabilities, mismanaged city budgets, and an unsustainable administrative apparatus. Following the primary election, the city faces a November runoff between progressive incumbents whose primary solutions remain expanding government, adding regulations, and raising taxes on a depleted tax base. Chef, restaurateur, and Huntington Beach City Councilmember Andrew Gruel joins host Jon Slavet to deliver a candid audit of the fiscal collapse facing Southern California's largest municipality.
Gruel explains how the flight of productive taxpayers and businesses has left Los Angeles unable to maintain basic municipal infrastructure, creating an administrative power vacuum. Rather than waiting on an inept municipal government, Gruel emphasizes the need for grassroots civic action and neighborhood-level self-governance. He also exposes the destructive legal mechanisms crippling California employers, placing particular focus on the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) - a unique legal framework that allows trial lawyers and state agencies to turn minor errors into ruinous class-action lawsuits.
The conversation pivots to broader economic and health reforms, evaluating the real-world fallout of Sacramento's fast-food minimum wage mandate on price inflation, job losses, and forced automation. Gruel contrasts LA's municipal decline with the independent charter city model implemented in Huntington Beach. Drawing on his work with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, Gruel outlines a practical vision for dismantling top-heavy food supply chains, and restoring free-market transparency.
Chapters
00:00 LA’s Financial Abyss: Examining municipal budget paralysis and election fallout.
01:05 Pension and Overtime Traps: Auditing police overtime costs and pension liabilities.
02:23 Power Vacuum and Local Agency: Reclaiming neighborhood control amidst government failure.
04:37 Grassroots Civic Action: Funding local safety and infrastructure outside government.
05:36 The PAGA Threat: Explaining how labor law litigation destroys small businesses.
06:59 How PAGA Class Actions Work: Detailing $500k lawsuit penalties over minor errors.
09:12 Huntington Beach Charter Model: Utilizing local control to counter Sacramento mandates.
10:56 Fast-Food Mandate Fallout: Analyzing job losses and price inflation from wage hikes.
13:11 MAHA and Food Supply Reform: Dismantling corporate food monopolies and supply chains.
16:07 Rapid Fire & Culinary Secrets: Sharing the secret to a perfect roast chicken.
17:31 Demand vs. Unit Economics: Finding hope in California’s unmatched natural assets.
Connect with Chef Andrew Gruel
X: https://x.com/ChefGruel
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewgruel/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewgruel/
Website: http://www.chefgruel.com
Enjoyed the episode? Subscribe to our podcast, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and join the conversation on Instagram and LinkedIn with the hashtag #stateofgoldpodcast

Connect with State of Gold
X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com