State of Gold

Guest:
Stephen Moore, Economist; Co-Founder, Committee to Unleash Prosperity
Guest Bio: 
Stephen Moore is one of the country's best-known free-market economists. A co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and the Club for Growth, and a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, he served as a senior economic adviser to Donald Trump and, with Larry Kudlow, helped craft the tax cuts that passed in 2017. He first came to Washington in 1983, when the national debt was $1 trillion, and today he also sits on the board of Lightspeed, a company building houses with robots.
Show Summary
California's billionaire tax is headed for the November ballot. Moore's answer starts with a construction worker's line he loves to quote: "I was never hired by a poor person." His new Committee to Unleash Prosperity project puts a number on it, finding that a billionaire's benefit to everyone else, in jobs, wages, and taxes, runs about ten times what they keep. Tax billionaires, he argues, and you simply get fewer of them, and he explains why the national wealth tax Ro Khanna wants, with the floor dropped to $50 million, would put California in an even deeper hole.

Moore runs through the rest of the fiscal picture with the same bluntness: a federal budget he says could be cut by a third, a Social Security system he calls the worst investment of your lifetime after comparing his own $3,500 monthly benefit to the $10,000 an index fund would have paid, and a broken health care market.

The conversation closes on the two forces he thinks decide California's future. First, AI: the farm-tractor logic of creative destruction, the data centers he calls the ignition switch of the economy, and the cancer cures he expects within 15 years. Second, taxes: his advice to the next governor is one Prop 13-sized reform - a 5% flat tax, that he says could set off another California gold rush.

Chapters
00:00 – Welcome: Economist Steve Moore
00:11 – The $40 Trillion Debt: How Bad Is It Really?
00:48 – The Least Rotten Apple in the Cart
02:15 – Houses Built by Robots: The Productivity Boom Ahead
03:29 – Crafting the Trump Tax Cuts with Larry Kudlow
04:30 – Cut Washington by a Third, Get Better Government
05:40 – The 12% Fix: Social Security as a 401k
06:49 – The Worst Investment of Your Lifetime
07:27 – Insurance Companies Are Ripping Us Off
08:17 – The Question No Patient Asked in 30 Years
08:50 – No Prices, No Market: Health Care Transparency
10:32 – Iran, Oil, and the Price at the Pump
12:21 – "I Was Never Hired by a Poor Person"
12:35 – What Is a Billionaire Worth? The 10x Math
13:46 – The Myth of the Robber Barons
16:29 – Why a National Wealth Tax Buries California
18:06 – The Farm Tractor Rule: AI and Creative Destruction
19:50 – Curing Cancer, Restoring Sight: The AI Upside
22:40 – Data Centers: The Ignition Switch of the Economy
23:01 – Advice for California's Next Governor
24:33 – Prop 13 Then, a 5% Flat Tax Now
Connect with Stephen Moore
X : https://x.com/StephenMoore
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-moore-89bab738a/
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
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Website: www.stateofgold.com

Guest:
Alex Marlow, Editor-in-Chief, Breitbart News & Host of the Alex Marlow Show
Guest Bio: 
Alex Marlow is the editor-in-chief of Breitbart News, where he was the site's first employee and has run its newsroom since 2013. He is a bestselling author whose latest book, Breaking the Law, examines the six major court cases brought against President Trump. A Los Angeles native who came up through an elite LA prep school, UC Berkeley, and an early obsession with talk radio, he covers national politics from the perspective of someone still living in, and rooting for, Southern California.
Show Summary
Gavin Newsom is polling at or near the top of the 2028 Democratic field, and Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow joins host Jon Slavet with the obvious question: how does anyone run for president on that record? Marlow runs through the surplus that became a deficit, the fires, the homelessness, and the oppo file Axios reports is already being assembled - and explains why none of it may matter in a Democratic field he considers weak.

Marlow makes his calls: the Republican side is already settled for JD Vance (the one name he gave Trump when asked who should be vice president), Kamala Harris still in the driver's seat on the Democratic side, and a warning about the one kind of candidate who could take it from her. He and Jon dig into Scott Galloway's Newsom worship, why Woke 2.0 is just Woke 1.0 with new branding, and the question Marlow says decides whether California is salvageable at all: will the tech elite follow Elon Musk and Sergey Brin out of the Democratic coalition, or keep grading Sacramento an F and voting for it anyway?

The back half is a two-way report card on the Trump administration, from unsold victories like prescription drug pricing to the handling of the Iran strikes and tariffs, and it closes with Marlow's historical parallel for this moment: a new Gilded Age, where technology cured boredom and, in his telling, made us less informed, stupider, and crazier.

Chapters
00:00 – Welcome: Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow
00:17 – Newsom at the Top of the 2028 Polls
00:50 – The Record He'd Run On: Surplus to Deficit, Fires, Homelessness
02:08 – The Oppo File Is Already Being Built
03:12 – A Field So Weak the 10th Strongest Republican Wins
03:41 – Scott Galloway and the Newsom Aura
04:47 – The Tech Elite: Will They Follow Musk and Brin Out?
05:48 – Focus Groups: F Grades, Same Votes
06:16 – The 2028 Matchup: JD Vance vs. Kamala Harris
09:25 – Woke 1.0 vs. Woke 2.0: No Difference
12:41 – Can the Democrats Course-Correct Before 2028?
14:26 – Marlow's Honest Report Card on Trump
15:59 – The Unsold Victory: Prescription Drug Prices
18:20 – Jon's Case: Stale Bread on a Soviet Shelf
19:55 – The Historical Parallel: A New Gilded Age
20:29 – We Cured Boredom and Got Stupider
22:37 – The Positive Spin: This Gilded Age Builds Millionaires
Connect with Alex Marlow 
X: https://x.com/AlexMarlow
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marlownews/
Facebook: https://facebook.com/alexmarlowmedia
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AlexMarlowShow
Website: alexmarlow.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
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
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 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