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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host David Axelrod.

He's the governor of the largest state in the nation. If it were a country, it would rank as the fourth largest economy in the world.

And as such, the state and its leader are often in the middle of the biggest stories.

I visited last week with Gavin Newsom, the governor of California in the state Capitol at Sacramento, to talk politics and his personal story of overcoming challenges that I think may surprise you.

Here's that conversation.

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Governor, it's great to see you again.

Thank you for the opportunity. Thanks for checking in.

Good to be in the capital of the nation's state of California.

The fourth largest now, arguably. We're still waiting for the data to fall in, but Bloomberg estimates the fourth largest economy in the world eat your heart out Germany.

Is this your goal to keep moving up in your second term?

Brexis helped us and now a lot of the, you know, Misha Gosh oversees. So it's working in our favor for the moment.

So listen, getting Gavin Newsom on the record on stuff is not all that hard. You're constantly in the public eye.

Here on this podcast, I'm more interested in sort of stories and your story.

So I want to just kind of explore that and we'll get around to all the stuff that animates you in the current debate.

But before, before we get there, I want to, I want to just go backward.

And let's start with your family. I know Irish immigrants on your mother's side, Scottish.

Yeah, Irish Scottish. And I mean, just the classic American story.

My great, great, great grandfather from County, Corke and made his way through Indiana out to San Francisco.

My father used to say about him, the first William Newsom. He said he doesn't know what came first.

The Irish beat cop or San Francisco where he was born in generations. Now I've been born.

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