Gavin Newsom
3/9/202628 min
California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks with Anderson about growing up the child of divorced parents whose pasts were rarely talked about. Newsom witnessed his mom's death by doctor-assisted suicide and says it's only now that he has come to terms with what happened and the impact it had on him. This and other episodes of All There Is are available at cnn.com/allthereis or wherever you get podcasts.
Host: Anderson Cooper Showrunner: Haley Thomas Producers: Chuck Hadad, Grace Walker, Emily Williams, Madeleine Thompson Associate Producer: Kyra Dahring Video Editor: Eric Zembrzuski Technical Director...
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First 90 secondsAnderson Cooper· Host0:01
Welcome to All There Is. Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, I'm glad you're here. My guest today is a politician, but we aren't talking politics. Gavin Newsom is the governor of California. In 2002, his mom Tessa left him a voicemail. "Gavin, if you wanna see me," she said, "you should probably do so before Thursday, because that's gonna be my last day on Earth." She'd been battling breast cancer for four years and had decided to die by doctor-assisted suicide, which was illegal in California. Newsom was by his mom's bedside when she died. He's written a book about his life called Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery. I spoke to him last week. You had a really interesting childhood, and a really strange bifurcated existence- Yeah ... in a lot of different ways.
Gavin Newsom· Guest0:49
Yeah. My father just took off, was sort of broken by two campaigns for local office.
Anderson Cooper· Host0:54
He, he ran for two offices back to back, lost- Yeah ... spent the money he had.
Gavin Newsom· Guest0:58
Yeah.
Anderson Cooper· Host0:59
He said he had basically a nervous breakdown later.
Gavin Newsom· Guest1:01
Yeah.
Anderson Cooper· Host1:01
But, but the extent to which, like, your dad and your mom did not talk about stuff with you.
Gavin Newsom· Guest1:07
Never. And I didn't even know why they got divorced. I never knew that story about my dad until I discovered some audio recordings that were done, that my dad did, uh, near the end of his life with other family members. And I listened to them, and I'm like, "This explains everything." Not only does it explain the thing they never talked about, Mom and Dad never talked about the, the reason they divorced, but also explained why my mom was so aggressively