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This billionaire could be California’s next governor — and he wants to arrest Stephen Miller

Tom Steyer talks to Vox about using state power to fight the Trump administration.

The California governor’s race isn’t just important for Californians. At a moment where the federal government is sabotaging American democracy from within, the question of how the leader of the union’s wealthiest and most populous state responds — and the ways they use their powers to challenge federal authority — has major implications for the country.

The current governor, Gavin Newsom, has (at least rhetorically) positioned himself as a leader of the national anti-Trump resistance. But Newsom is on his way out, gearing up for an all-but-assured White House run in 2028. The real policy action will likely be up to his successor — a race that’s currently a toss-up between a handful of plausible candidates, all competing to make it to the runoff round after the June 2 “jungle primary” eliminates all but the two best polling candidates.

Tom Steyer has emerged as a favorite to make it to that final round. Steyer, a billionaire funder of liberal causes — including both an early effort to impeach Donald Trump in the first term and California’s recent gerrymandering to favor Democrats — is trying to solidify himself as the most progressive candidate in the race; he’s won an endorsement from Bernie Sanders’s Our Revolution group for his efforts and has promised to take on the administration, including by investigating ICE agents and even White House leaders for potential crimes.

But I wanted to understand more about how Steyer understands his role at this moment in American history. What does he think the role of states are in pushing back against the Trump administration? And how does he think about the risks here, either of breaking Americans’ civic trust or pushing the boundaries of law in ways that provoke a dangerous conflict with the federal government?

Steyer took some time to talk to us about all of this on Monday. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Do you think the state of American politics right now can be reasonably described as an authoritarian emergency?

I think that we are under absolutely authoritarian threat. It is absolutely a crisis. There is a deliberate attempt by the Trump administration to take away Americans’ democratic rights, including free and fair elections.

There is, this is a model, and we’ve seen it around the world, of authoritarian, anti-democratic parties trying to use the processes of democracy to destroy democracy. Is that going on? Absolutely that is going on. And so, is that a crisis? If you believe in democracy, which I fervently do, then it’s a crisis and it requires people to stand up and oppose it.

And I’ve been very disappointed in the establishment of the United States — however you want to define that — in its unwillingness to take those principled stands.

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Obviously I agree with all that. But in the past day or so, I have been thinking about how we talk about these sorts of issues.

What happened at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was an ordinary American — a Caltech grad, as it happens — who seems to go from seeing real abuses by the government to justify an action that both of us, I’m certain, think is totally indefensible and immoral. So how do you think about talking about democratic emergency in a world where some people take related worries in such directions?

Well, I don’t think there’s any way to describe that except the deep emotional divides in our country, the deep sense that democracy isn’t working, a strong belief that there’s no other choice, and obviously a terrible decision. I think it’s a symbol of how emotional and upset........

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