#464 — The Politics of Pragmatism and the Future of California
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Waking Up with Sam Harris
4.6 • 29.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2026
⏱️ 82 minutes
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Summary
Sam Harris speaks with Matt Mahan, mayor of San Jose and Democratic candidate for governor of California, about governance, pragmatism, and California's policy failures. They discuss the dysfunction of progressive governance, the homelessness crisis and what San Jose has done to reduce it, the proposed wealth tax and its likely backfire, why California can't build housing affordably, rent control, mandatory psychiatric holds, the influence of special interests in Sacramento, and other topics.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I am here with Matt Mayhan. Matt, thanks for joining me. |
| 0:24.6 | Thanks for having me, Sam. |
| 0:25.6 | So you are the current mayor of San Jose and running for governor of California as a Democrat. |
| 0:31.6 | And you are much celebrated privately. It should happen much more publicly, and I'm hoping to put my shoulder |
| 0:40.8 | to the wheel on that front for being someone who's just pragmatic and not crazy in the Democratic Party, |
| 0:47.3 | and that has been all too rare in recent years. So welcome to the podcast. Great to have you. |
| 0:52.5 | Thank you. I'm looking forward to our conversation. |
| 0:54.9 | So let's just talk about the beginning here. How did you get into politics and how did you decide to be mayor of San Jose? |
| 1:02.2 | You know, I think it really goes back to being a kid. I grew up in Watsonville, which is a little farming town. And we had a lot of challenges in our town. We had high unemployment, |
| 1:11.5 | a lot of crime. When it was time for high school, our local high school had a higher dropout |
| 1:16.5 | rate than graduation rate. And my mom, who was a teacher, really cared deeply about my sisters |
| 1:23.0 | and me getting a good education, encouraged me to look farther afield. And I applied to this all-boys Catholic |
| 1:28.8 | prep school in San Jose and got a work study scholarship. So I worked on the grounds crew and they |
| 1:33.7 | forgave my tuition. And so I made this long journey by bus over to San Jose. So I had a lot of time |
| 1:38.5 | every day to read the newspaper, think about the world. And I got really interested in politics, in public policy, and trying to |
| 1:46.7 | figure out why was Silicon Valley so prosperous in my hometown struggling so much. And so it was always |
| 1:52.2 | an interest. I ended up in my career, sort of having other careers before I got into politics. |
| 1:58.0 | I was a public school teacher. I worked in the tech sector for a long time. |
| 2:02.2 | But about seven years ago, our city council seat in San Jose opened up. And it was just kind of serendipitous. |
| 2:08.2 | Our company had been aqua hired. I was sort of in this transitional moment. And I decided to throw my hat in the |
| 2:14.2 | ring. You're in your second term as mayor? As mayor. So I served two years as a city council member. |
| 2:20.4 | To be perfectly honest, I didn't love being a council member, but I decided when the mayor's seat opened up, that it was kind of up or out for me. |
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