08-05-2025
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GOOD MORNING. Happy Thursday from Beverly Hills where the Milken Institute Global Conference wrapped up last night. Drop us a line at dgardiner@ and mmason@ or on X — @DustinGardiner and @melmason. For the latest on other Golden State political news, don't miss this afternoon's edition of California Playbook PM.
LA-LA LAND'S CLOSE-UP — To paraphrase the late Tip O'Neill, all multi-day global issues conferences are local.
Okay, maybe that's a stretch. But many of the discussions on the final day of the Milken Institute confab were distinctly rooted in its host city — to the palpable relief of prominent Angelenos in attendance.
'I'm just so enthused by the amount of people that are in this room, and especially people that aren't from Los Angeles,' said Cinny Kennard, executive director of the Annenberg Foundation, who was clearly pleased that conference-goers cared enough about the city's wildfire recovery efforts to fill one of the venue's large ballrooms.
No one would call Los Angeles an overlooked backwater. But in this oversaturated news environment — and, let's face it, the national media's distinct East Coast bias — the city harbors a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to the power broker crowd.
For the politicians repping the city, however, the attention at Milken required a delicate dance: Celebrating the successes they've had in the months after the fires without sounding tone-deaf about the considerable challenges that remain.
GLASS HALF FULL: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told Playbook the No. 1 message she hoped to convey was that 'LA is doing okay. The entire city was not on fire. … We want the world to know that we are open for business.'
Bass and others appeared at an afternoon panel where an upbeat mood was established early — shoutout to whoever on the Milken team picked 'This Is How We Do It,' by LA's own Montell Jordan as the walk-on music.
Elected officials were quick to emphasize the speed of the recovery effort so far. One representative boast from LA County Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath: 'We have led the fastest debris removal process in history, which has been a wild success.'
The Annenberg Foundation's Kennard touted the considerable philanthropic heft that's been amassed: $800 million raised so far. And while the state is still waiting to see if President Donald Trump will approve the supplemental spending for wildfire recovery Gov. Gavin Newsom has requested, Bass praised the White House for keeping the funding spigot open.
'The message is, 'Thank you.' Listen — credit where credit's due,' Bass said.
BUT BUT BUT: Panel moderator Elex Michaelson, a news anchor for the local Fox affiliate, did an admirable job pressing officials for more specifics, such as whether permits were being issued too slowly or whether — two and a half months after Bass sacked the city's fire chief — more heads would roll.
'There are a number of people that should be held accountable, and we're in the process of doing that,' Bass said, although she specified that potential firings would likely be months away, pending investigations into the city's fire response.
POLITICAL UNDERCURRENTS: One person who remains unimpressed is Rick Caruso, Bass' former rival for the mayorship who has been fiercely critical of the mayor's fire response.
The billionaire developer had been flitting around Milken for the past two days but was not in the audience for the discussion, which he initially had been slated to participate in. Caruso told Playbook he pulled out when he saw he'd be alongside Bass on stage, saying he feared the conversation would be a 'campaign stop.'
Caruso did see fit to publish an essay on the website of his rebuilding nonprofit, Steadfast LA, Wednesday morning in advance of the panel re-upping his blistering critiques — and yes, the timing was purposeful.
'I didn't want to look argumentative, but I did want to get my point of view out,' he said.
Caruso, who is widely seen as weighing another mayoral run or even a bid for governor, denied that his remarks should be read through a political lens, but rather from the vantage point of 'a guy that lost three homes, had a business completely shut down and expects better from its government.'
Bass, meanwhile, shrugged off Caruso's rebuke and the broader missives from her detractors.
'There's a lot of different motives,' she said. 'There are motives from different news channels who are very critical of any Democratic-run city. But my job is to not get mired in division and get mired in politics, but to stay focused on making sure the people in the Palisades get home as fast as possible.'
And speaking of politics, Playbook asked Horvath, whose name has been floated as a potential mayoral contender, if she had her eye on City Hall. She waved off that speculation — but only after noting that her supervisorial district just happens to overlap with nine LA city council districts.
'I've opened my committee to run for county supervisor. I'm focused on that, and, of course, the recovery and rebuild that people deserve,' she said.
HOLLYWOODLAND
LIGHTS, CAMERA, TAX CREDITS — Top Hollywood brass who spoke at Milken on Wednesday said they are not exactly clamoring for the national film tariffs Trump proposed in a somewhat inscrutable fashion earlier this week.
At 'The Future of Filmed Entertainment,' CNBC's Julia Boorstin asked an array of execs about Trump's trial balloon, and more broadly if the increase of filming abroad was a problem for the industry. While the studio bosses deftly avoided commenting directly on the president's proposal they all largely agreed declining production is a Golden State-specific woe, contrary to the president's claim that overseas film shoots amount to a threat to 'national security.'.
'While it's true a lot of production has left the United States, it's even worse for California,' said Ravi Ahuja, president and CEO of Sony Pictures.
The execs laid the blame on the state's film tax credit, which is substantially less than the perks offered by other states, such as Georgia, as well as other countries. Part of the issue is that California's available tax credits are capped, meaning that productions aren't guaranteed access to the incentives.
'Because it's capped, you can't plan,' said Casey Bloys, who runs HBO and Max Content. 'You have to get into a lottery, and you're not sure if your show is going to get the tax break or not. That uncertainty makes it very difficult, when you're looking at that versus Atlanta, versus Canada and others [where] you're guaranteed the incentive.'
Newsom and top Democrats have been working to double the tax break from roughly $330 million annually to $750 million. Negotiators have already hammered out a number of proposed changes to the existing program. But given the state's dire budget straits, an uncapped tax break is not in the cards, meaning it will be hard to match the largesse offered elsewhere.
'Certainly our credit, as proposed, will not be as competitive as a couple of the other jurisdictions. At the end of the day, we're going to lose production to Georgia, Vancouver and elsewhere,' acknowledged state Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat from Los Angeles. 'We did know we had to make this work, we needed to increase the amount. It will bring a significant amount of work back, but do so in a way that makes everybody feel comfortable.'
Allen along with Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur and Newsom's chief economic adviser Dee Dee Myers delved deeper into the effort to keep Hollywood closer to home at a Wednesday afternoon panel that was, alas, off limits to reporters and off the record.
But Allen gave us a broad sense of the tone of the conversation, which he said centered on the urgency of getting an expanded California tax credit done — regardless of the curveball thrown by Trump about some federal-level help for the industry.
'The national conversation is intriguing and important. ... Especially everyone agrees on a national incentive [though there are] mixed reviews about tariffs, he said. 'But even if we do the most robust national program in the world, there's still going to be a challenge for California to keep work here vis-a-vis the Georgias and New Yorks and other parts of the country.'
TRADE
STARK WARNING — Citadel founder Ken Griffin used his conference-closing Q&A with institute Chair Michael Milken to reaffirm concerns that tariffs were 'contrary to the promise the president made to the American people' to ease inflation and improve cost of living concerns. While plenty of Wall Street heavyweights on the conference's main stage raised concerns about how trade policies could weaken markets, Griffin was one of the few to frame his criticism through the lens of the American consumer.
Griffin — a billionaire and powerful voice for the pre-Trump GOP orthodoxy — expanded on his concerns in an interview with our colleague Sam Sutton. 'Tariffs open the doors to crony capitalism. The government starts to pick winners and losers,' Griffin warned. Read more in today's edition of Morning Money.
ON THE GROUND
QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'Some of us have felt, in the last few years, there's no win being the president of a university.' — Michael Milken, as he posed a question to Dartmouth President Sian Beilock during the closing plenary session about … happiness.
PUPPY THERAPY — During the same panel, Franklin Templeton Investments CEO Jenny Johnson brought her bulldog on the stage. When Milken inquired about her 'financial adviser' on the stage, Johnson had a one-liner ready to go: 'The fact is, when you come home, your spouse or partner might be happy to see you. Your kids might be happy to see you. But your dog is ALWAYS happy to see you!' The camera panned to her canine companion as the audience laughed and cheered.
SPOTTED
AT THE BEVERLY HILTON: DAY FOUR — former California Gov. Gray Davis walking through the hallway
… California Community Foundation CEO Miguel Santana chatting with Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Mayor Karen Bass in the lobby
… Golden Globes President Helen Hoehne, picking up her paper name plate outside the invite-only LA session
… Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav milling in the hallway
… Sony Pictures chief Ravi Ahuja having a one-on-one meeting with Bass
… Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur ordering a to-go lunch in the Hilton lobby bar
… Allen chatting in the lobby bar with Jonathan Nolan, the screenwriter and producer who made Westworld and Memento
