Ryan explores the shifting political landscape of California with expert insights from John Phillips, a renowned radio host from Los Angeles. Discover how voter registration trends are changing, the impact of Kamala Harris, and the challenges facing both major parties in the state. It's a Numbers Game is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to a Numbers Game podcast, Ryan Gradowski, thank
you for being here on this Thursday episode. On our
last episode, we had a listener request from a woman
named Patty to do an entire thing on California politics.
So the second part of our show will be about California.
This is for you, Patty. I'm doing this show for
my listeners. I'm here for you guys. So if you
have an idea for a show with i' me an
(00:22):
email at Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com and I
will do my best. But before we get to California,
radio host John Phillips talking about the state, I want
to talk about Elon Musk for a second. Over the
fourth of July weekend, Musk announced that he was going
to start his own political party, called the America Party.
He conducted a poll on Twitter asking his audience if
(00:42):
we should have a third party. In sixty five percent
said yes. So the following day, on July fifth, he tweeted,
by a factor of two to one, you want a
new political party and you shall have it. When it
comes to bankrupting our country and with waste and graft,
we live in a one party system, not a democracy
today the America Party is formed to give you back
your freedom. At the full point of creating a new
(01:05):
party is Musk's frustration with Congressional Republicans and President Trump's
Big Beautiful Bill, which failed to balance the budget and
at trillions of new debt over the next decade. Musk
said he was hoping to target a handful of seats
in the House and Senate, which would give the party
leverage in the next Congress, especially with the margins between
Republicans and Democrats were tight. Basically, if Speaker Johnson needed
(01:29):
the votes of people from the America Party to become
Speaker because there wasn't enough outright Republicans, he'd have to
make certain some concessions on the debt and spending, and
vice versa if it was a Democrat speaker with a
similar margin. This instantly earned criticism from the media in
comparison to the last billionaire who decided to run for
president on a third party ticket in nineteen ninety two,
(01:50):
Ross Preroux, who led in the polls through most of
the early parts of his campaign until he dropped out
several months in, only to announce that he was going
to run again and then relaunch his campaign with much
lower poll numbers. He ultimately end up getting nineteen percent
of the election and never won a single state. He
probably would have won a state had he stayed in
(02:10):
the race. I think his numbers went from like thirty
five percent to eight and then grew to nineteen. But
in the end he lost, and he's perceived as the
spoiler that won Bill Clinton that election. I know this
has nothing to do with what I want to talk about,
but this is just drives me crazy. Proro was not
the spoiler that got Clinton elected. Once Proro dropped out,
(02:32):
most of his numbers went to Clinton, and when he
jumped back into the race, he took more votes from
Clinton than from Bush. In the summer, when Pero was
not in the race, Clinton actually led Bush by over
twenty points in some polls. He ended up going down
to the single digits once Perro jumped back in. Anyway,
side note a little bit of history of politics, because
(02:53):
it just drives me crazy when people say that, Okay,
let's go back to Elon Musk a chance. What are
the chances that Elon is successful in his bid to
launch the American Party. Well, he's not talking about a
presidential candidate running for president, at least not yet. He's
talking about the Senate and Congress, but that's basically just
as much of a long shot as president. Currently we
have two independents in the Senate, Bernie Sanders from Vermont
(03:16):
and Angus King from Maine, both of whom caucus with
the Democrats, and none in the House before then. The
last Senator who won a race by being a third
party candidate, not a Republican or Democrat who became third
party but a true third party candidate was New York's
James Buckley in nineteen seventy one when he won as
a member of the Conservative Party. Before him was Arkansas's
(03:39):
John Miller in nineteen thirty seven. The last time that
we elected an independent in the House was nineteen ninety
with then Representative Bernie Sanders. Before him, you got to
go back to nineteen seventy nine with William Carney when
he won a seed in New York and the Conservative
Party as a member of the Conservative Party. So the
chances of someone outside a major party winning his seat
(03:59):
as and it is extremely slim. Currently, out of the
thousands of state legislative seats in the country, only thirty
six are by people who are either independents or members
of a minor party like the Progressive Party of Vermont
or the Forward Party of Utah. Now there's also a
question of access to party lines. Some states make it
very difficult for non Republicans and non Democrats to even
(04:20):
get on the ballot. States like New York, Georgia, Illinois, Texas,
and North Carolina are very difficult because candidates need to
get a certain threshold of valid signatures based upon the
people who voted in the previous gubernatorial election, and they
have to do it in a very short window and
all those signatures are verified. There's lawyers that go through it,
and it has to sometimes go in front of a judge.
(04:43):
It's very hard. States that make it easy to get
get on the ballot are places like Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, Maine,
and Hawaii. But none of those states actually have a
lot of seats that compete in the House, and as
far as senence seats go, they're all Democrats except for
Susan Collins. Now, Elon brings a lot of resources at
the table, most notably money and press. Anyone running for
(05:04):
office under the America Party will definitely have access to both,
especially the first time, because they'll all perceive it as
being difficult. There's also a question of the America Party's platform. Sure,
the ideas of tackling the deficit and space exploration are
very popular. People are very interested in those two subjects,
and they're way more popular than Musk himself is. But
(05:27):
what are the other issues that this party is going
to stand for. What are they going to think about
gun control or abortion, or immigration or China, things that
Musk is far outside the mainstream of the GOP and
Democrats on. You can't run for office on only two issues.
That's not going to work. This is a very expensive
gamble where every grift or consultant, and I know a
(05:49):
bunch of them are going to sit there and try
to get their claws into and try to work for Musk. Listen,
if this is really about the debt, I myself and
most Republicans that I know I probably agree with Musky.
I know a lot of Democrats would agree with Musk.
They think the spending is out of control, They're worried
about the debt, their word about inflation from it. They
think Congress has failed us on this issue. But a
(06:12):
third party is probably not going to get him anywhere.
A better way forward, and this was echoed by Governor
Ronda Stansis, was to get states to move forward on
a balanced budget amendment added to the Constitution. Currently, twenty
seven states have signed onto a resolution supporting a constitutional
convention that would add the amendment. We need seven more
states in order to have the convention, and then eleven
(06:34):
states total, sorry, eleven more states on top of the
twenty seven thirty eight total to pass a constitutional amendment.
I wrote this on my substack, the National Populist newsletter.
It's on substec dot com. If you want to visual
I map the whole thing out. It's a free article,
so you don't have to sign up, although if you
want to, very much appreciate it. But there's already twenty
seven states that have signed on. There's also four more
(06:55):
with Republican trifactors who haven't signed on but could South
carol West, Virginia, Montana, and Idaho. If you live in
those states and you want your legislature and governor to
sign on to a balanced budget amendment at the Constitution,
you can absolutely do that, and Musk could probably spend
a lot less money lobbying legislators to bring that up
for a vote and getting the governor to sign it.
(07:17):
That would take him to thirty one, so he only
needs thirty forty even get the convention. There are two
more states with the Republican legislatures but a Democratic governor,
Kentucky and Wisconsin. You flip those two governorships and you're
at thirty three. All you need is one more. Musk
could invest a lot less money than starting a third
party by investing in places with either close legislative elections
(07:39):
where the Republicans Democrats have very small margins, or areas
that President Trump is gaining steam and has gained Steinman
over the last few election cycles. So places like Vermont,
which has a liberal Republican governor but where the GOP
made immense gains in the last election. They almost tied
the state Senate and they won more than a dozen
seats in the state House. He could invest in Vermont.
(08:00):
He could invest in Minnesota, where the Republicans hold the
state House not the state Senate, by one vote one
seat in both places. He could invest in Virginia, which
is also a one seat margin in both places and
has a very conservative Republican governor, there's all those opportunities
that is, you know, at you know, right in front
of us, right in front of us, that takes a
(08:22):
lot less money and makes huge gains on a number
of issues for people who live in those states. There's
also states like New Mexico and New Jersey which have
which are democratic but where Trump made huge, you know gains,
he increases support substantially. And there's also places like Rhode Island.
Rhode Island, even though being a democratic state, Republicans are
(08:43):
anemic in the state legislature, far less than what President
Trump receives. And they are the Democrats in the state,
A lot of them are extremely conservative. There's a running
joke in political circle circles that most of the Democrats
in the state legislator voted for Trump. So there's ways
to get around to get one to thirty four votes
in to get to a constitual convention going, and to
(09:04):
get thirty eight votes to pass a constitual amendment that
demanding Congress have a balanced budget every year. It's possible,
and it is much easier than hoping that you win
a dozen House seats and several US Senate seats to
make demands on the part of Chuck Schumer or John
Thune or Speaker Johnson or Rakeem Jeffries. That's actually much
(09:27):
more difficult than Elon Must thinks. So if this is
about if this is really about the budget and the deficit,
I'm with Elon. I think we have to get it
under control. I think going through the States is the
best and easiest way possible. But if this is not,
if this is about EV mandates or just a few
with Trump or you know who knows something else that
(09:48):
he's thinking about in that exact moment, then this is
a vanity project, one that he is going to spend
waste a lot of people's time, energy and getting people's
hopes up for nothing. Anyway, that's where Must should focus
his attention, because if he's really talking about EV mandates
or about you know, a few with Trump, he's going
to get people's hopes up a lot for very very little.
(10:10):
And if he wants to actually solve this problem the debt,
a const social convention is definitely the way to go. Now,
let's focus in on Wednesday, particularly, this is my episode
with John Phillips about the state of California. Coming up
next with me for this episode is my buddy, John Phillips.
He is a fantastic radio host out of LA. He's
(10:30):
on KABC Radio. He knows everything. He's expert on everything California.
So John, thanks for being here. Thank you for having
me So John. Most people don't realize, but Trump increased
his vote share in California in not one, but two
back to back elections. He lost California by thirty points
in twenty sixteen, twenty nine points in twenty twenty, and
twenty points in twenty twenty fours, a ten point jump
(10:51):
over twelve years. Despite Kamala that her being her home state.
Is it because voters knew Kamala or is there was
a bigger thing going on?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
In an odd sort of way, I think that Kamala
helped the Democrats in California because before Kamala became the
nominee they were running Joe Biden's rotting corpse, and Joe
Biden's rotting corps was not doing too hot, even in
places like California. And if you go back to when
Democrats in their internal caucus meetings started sounding the alarms,
(11:25):
one of the loudest voices was a Democrat from California.
Mark Ticano, who represents the Democratic district from Riverside County,
and he said that he had polling showing Joe Biden
losing his district and if that was going to happen,
then you were going to see essentially a landslide nationwide
and an even more dramatic shift in California. Kamala kind
(11:48):
of helped stabilize that a little bit. But if you
look at just voter registration numbers since the election, these
trends have all continued. Republicans are continuing to register voters,
Democrats from losing support, and the Democrats I think in California,
in part, pushed a little bit too far, where people
are upset at their performance on any number of state issues,
(12:09):
whether it's holmemless as crime, the budget, the bullet train insurance, whatever,
and right now they're starting to pay those consequences. It's
not enough for them to start losing statewide races yet,
but it's enough to make them concerned.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, you mentioned the voter registration. I have some numbers here.
So in twenty November twenty twenty two, California Democrats had
a five million, fifty one thousand, one hundred and sixty
four voter advantage by March twenty twenty five, that number
I'd fall into four million, five hundred and ninety thousand,
nine hundred and sixty five is a decline of four
hundred and sixty thousand voters in the voter advantage in
(12:47):
just three years in a party that, like the California GOP,
is not the Florida GOP. Right, they don't have the
tremendous political apparatus to register voters in and an effective
state like head of governor. They don't have any state
wide elected offices, but there's no one really directing that.
So although they did win I think three legislative seats
(13:09):
last year, they won two state House seats and one
state Senate seats. Why are voters seemingly in a state
that doing this organically or is there an organization apparatus
really trying to register these voters?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Well, I mean, you have some people who are doing that.
Rick Rernell has a group fixed California that's registering voters,
and you know, the state party chairwoman, the outgoing state
party chairwoman, Jessica Patterson, would take credit for some of it.
But I do think it's organic. I think it's it's
not something that any organized group is producing. I think
(13:44):
what you're seeing is you're seeing real movement among portions
of the Democratic coalition that are just not happy with
what they're getting. I mean, don't forget we pay a
fortune to live here, and you basically can't use many
of the public services. You can't use public trand it.
You can't use the parks, including MacArthur Park, which Gavin
Newsom has now declared to be beautiful, which is hilarious
(14:07):
because it's an open air prison. You know, you can't
use the libraries. That's where the bums look at porn.
You know, we've just given up our public spaces to
essentially the zombies. And and you know, if you're a
young Latino guy who's trying to start a family, or
you're a young Asian guy who's trying to start a
(14:29):
business or whatever, that pisses you off. And I think
that those are the groups where you're starting to see
the real movement. And it's totally understandable.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Is Kamala Harris going to be the next governor of California? Think,
oh god, I hope not. Well, who is a real
republic or Republican who could actually run a competitive state
wide race, and maybe even if they can, when they
can help Republicans down ballot.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So there's two schools of thought to this. One is
you need a a very rich person to come in
and essentially pull what Meg Whitman pulled, which is start
throwing crazy money in the state parties and county parties
and really funding a professionalized operation that can compete with
(15:16):
the Democratic Party and the money that the unions grow
into it in Hollywood and Silicon Valley and those sorts
of things. That's what we did with Meg Whitman, That's
what we did with Bill Simon, and certainly if Grant Cardone,
who is the Trump associate, jumps into the race for
governor and spends a ton of money, we would certainly
(15:37):
be moving along with that model. There's another model that
I think would actually work better that hasn't been spoken
of a lot, but it's what we used to do
in the past. So the way that California used to
work was essentially you had a few different groups, a
few different organizations let's call it, that would get together
(16:00):
and would get in a room and decide who would
be the nominee, and then they would put up the money.
It used to be the railroads, the oil companies, and
the Chandler family, the family that own the La Times.
And that's how Dick Nixon, for example, got picked to
be the US Senator. He was their fourth or fifth choice,
but it was that cabal of people that picked him
and then funded the candidacy so he could win the seat.
(16:23):
I think that we now have a cadre of people
who have the power to do that. Most of them
come from the tech industry. If Elon Musk wants to
make a contribution that pushes down debt or modernizes government,
whatever it is that's he's leaning into that particular day,
you can have someone like him and Peter Thiel and
(16:45):
David Sachs, a group of them get together and say, Okay,
here's what we're going to do. We're gonna put up
one hundred million dollars, which to them is nothing, but
in the world of politics is a huge sum of money.
And we're going to find someone who has the ability
to answer questions in a coherent way on a debate stage,
has a resume, has a name, and run that person.
(17:06):
Just think if you had one hundred million dollars behind
Lonnie Chit or someone like that, who would otherwise never
be able to raise the money. But you just have
the money. People stay in their lane and put up
the money that's necessary to make that campaign viable. And
instead of trying to make themselves the candidates, which is
always just you know, Asiana going in the SFO, you know,
(17:29):
just let them do what they're good at, let them
raise money, and let someone who understands the vocation of
politics be the candidate, and then boom, there you go.
You have a credible candidate. You have money.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, and I mean with so much of AI regulation
coming out of California for the national standard, you would
imagine they would be invested in getting somebody. I have
a question of your current governor, Gavin Newsom, who by
all looks of it, seems to be planning a run
for president. He is on his third version of himself.
He's now back to being a Centri's podcast host. He
(18:03):
was a progressive fighter. He was a progressive actually most
of his life, I think post marriage to Kimberly Guilfoyle,
he was very very far left, but he was He's
smoothed away from a noticeable number of things. He was
a race conscious white guy during the BLM riots. Now
he is a Now he's going to be the centrist
(18:23):
boys who could talk to regular white Americans. What do
you make of his evolution? And if he I don't
think he has a real chance. But what do you think?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I think you're probably right. He does not connect with
blue collar whites at all. You look at at his
performance in California. He's very popular along the coast, He's
very popular in the big cities. He's popular with the
wine and bree crowd. But that's that's enough to get
(18:53):
by in San Francisco and enough to get by state
wide in California if you have the teachers' unions behind you,
which he did when he initially ran for governor. But
it's not enough to win a Democratic primary, and it's
certainly not enough to win a presidential election. He is
in a feat gentry class San Franciscan and that just
(19:15):
doesn't sell right now. I know Nancy Pelosi was able
to become the Speaker of the House and was a
very successful Democratic Speaker of the House, but those are
internal caucus elections. It's very different trying to win over
blue collar people in Michigan or Pennsylvania, or even in
the Democratic primaries. I mean one of the places he's
(19:36):
going to in South Carolina, besides all the diners or
you know, a guy who wouldn't need a carb if
it's mac him in the face, is now hitting every
waffle house along the Eastern seaboard. But he's going to
the black churches. And it's like, Okay, here's this rich
(19:56):
guy who owns Plump Jack Winery, who dines at the
French Laundry, who's going to start showing up to the
black churches in South Carolina with an amos and andy
drawl and he thinks that that's going to work.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
I speaking of Nancy Pelosi, I didn't even have this
question written down, but it just dawned to me. What
do you think of her getting a primary challengement with
state senator?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Well, that's not entirely what's happening. So she is eighty
five years old right now and has opened up an
account to run for reelection, although she hasn't gone on
the record saying what she's going to do. For sure,
her daughter, Christine, who is very active within the California
Democratic Party, wants that seat. Scott Wiener has been an
(20:40):
elected official in that area in the state legislature and
the Board of Supervisors for a very long time, and
he has long coveted that seat. If the election were
held today, my guest is that Scott Wiener would probably
beat Nancy Pelosi's daughter, and everyone understands that Solosi will
(21:00):
likely do, in my opinion, is pull some kind of
stunt that benefits her daughter and screws over all other competitors,
with Scott Wiener being at the top of the list.
So if she decides right before the filing deadline that
she's not going to do it, tells the daughter, doesn't
tell anyone else, then the daughter obviously benefits from that.
(21:21):
If she were to resign so that a special election
would take place on a date where they think it
benefits them, then she's going to go ahead and do that.
And I think Weiener understands that they're going to pull
some dirty trick that will help her daughter. So he
has opened up an account not because he intends on
running against Nancy Pelosi, but because he is. It's a
(21:44):
defensive mechanism just in case she decides to pull a stunt.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
That's interesting. I can't imagine the Democratic Caucus without Nancy Pelosi.
I really, I mean it's she is kind of like
that one figure who never goes away. But California, like
my home state of New York, suffers from the same
sort of problems that the population is leaving. Life is unaffordable,
the urban areas, in some parts of the urban areas
(22:08):
are just horror shows with drug addiction and crime, and
people are just they won't take it anymore. And we're
replacing very productive members of society who pay a lot
of taxes with illegal aliens, with some legal aliens who
just don't bring the same number in tax revenue. And
Democrats answer to I think voters' concerns. This was the
case of Andrew Cuomo, and I think it's the case
(22:30):
a lot of times with some California people. Though they
pretend it's more optimistic, but their ad in New York was,
I will manage your decline. That's basically what they're saying constantly.
Who says I will manage the decline better than anybody else?
What is a What is the answer then for a
Republican Because for so long people would say we were
(22:51):
the state back in the fifties sixty seventies, no one,
no real voting block that is alive or members that
time when California's public schools were the best in the country.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, Democrats survived their poor performance by nationalizing every election.
Every election is about abortion, it is about climate change,
it is about the Supreme Court, it is about Donald Trump.
It has nothing to do with anything regarding issues they
would have influence over. And because we've become so tribal
(23:24):
with our politics, the moment you let the voting electorate
know that you're the Democrat who hates Donald Trump and
that the other guy is the Republican who loves Donald Trump.
That's usually good morning, good afternoon, good night. And in California,
don't forget. That's how Gavin Newsom saved himself during the recall.
There was a moment in time where I think we
(23:45):
had two or three polls in a row that showed
him losing, and he was able to write the ship
by making the election essentially a federal one. And it's
not just Gavin Newsom. I mean you look at racist
for city council and water or school board or whatever.
It's all the same thing which leads to the death
of local government. And if you want to find the
(24:08):
most gross example of the liberal democratic excess in California,
it's not even San Francisco, it's Oakland. Oakland looked like
the day after the End of the World. I went there.
I'm an Angel fan and I went there last season
(24:29):
to watch the Angels play the A's. And you get
on the bar in San Francisco and you go under
the bay and you come out and what you see
is like something that you would see out of one
of those zombie apocalypse movies, where every spot on the
road is taken by an RV that had been set
on fire that is non operational, and the graffiti is
(24:54):
not only on public spaces, like single family homes are
all tagged up. The amount of trash on the streets
is shocking. It looked like images of South Florida after
Hurricane Andrew hit, where you just had just you know,
trash and debris everywhere. And when you get out off
(25:15):
the subway and you walk on this like enclosed catwalk
that has a chain length fence around it, you walk
over a homeless encampment full of RVs where they just
set things on fire. So you're walking over these RVs
that are on fire to get to the baseball stadium
to watch the game. And that is that is a
(25:36):
level of government, the Oakland City government that is run
entirely by Democrats. Everyone on the council, the mayor, the
DA school board, whatever like they own that. That should
be the city on the hill for them. That shows you, like,
you give us everything we want, this is what we produce. Well,
(25:57):
guess what, it's a horror movie if you go along
with that. And for Republicans, I think the goal is
to take the focus off of those federal issues that
don't have anything to do with the failures in California
and just bring it back to the basics. Throw the ball,
catch the ball, hit the ball. Every time they talk
about Trump, every time they talk about immigration, every time
(26:19):
they talk about abortion or things that don't have anything
to do with anything at the state level. You just
have to keep bringing it back to the nuts and
bolts of their failure in running the government.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
So you're saying, you're flying to San Francisco and I
have to go to a wedding in the area and
not not Oakland. Oh, if you.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Rent a car in Oakland, there's a street called the
hagen Berger right near the airport. If you rent a
car in Oakland, they will give you a whole list
of places that you can't go to because if you do,
you will get carjacked, or they will break into your
trunk and steal all your clothes, steal all your bags
while you're pumping gas in the car or sitting through
(26:59):
a drive through or whatever, and their insurance policy won't
cover it if you go to one of those places.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
It's a long list that is that is very wild.
So if you look at like I was making a
joke with that because I'm flying into I have a
wedding next month. I'm flying into uh San Francisco over there.
But I looked at the Oakland I'm like, oh, the
Oakland prices for flights aren't that bad. Now I know
why the divorce. Well. The the last thing is we've
(27:31):
seen in California. One one sign of hope is that
some moderate Democrats have won, like the DA's race in
Los Angeles and in San Francisco and the school board
in San Francisco. Is there any cities that you can
point to that are a sign of hope for Republicans
where they're really making a ground over in Imperial County.
(27:51):
There's been tremendous movement from Republicans. Someone in Riverside County.
I think it's San Jose. I was looking this up.
San Jose also had amendous growth for Republicans in it.
I think certain precincts are actually going Republican for the
very first time. That seems to me like there is
a potential because Republicans can't just give up these massive
(28:12):
urban centers and say, what do you want? Let it burn.
I here's the New York and Mondonia time, what do
you want? Who cares it's just New York? No, Like
this is I mean, we shouldn't have to surrender every
major city in this country, and that's what they're essentially doing.
I mean, is there any place that you're saying, wow,
Republicans have a chance to pick up even local seats in.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Well, historically that city has always been San Diego. Where
San Diego has had Republican mayors. Pete Wilson at one
point in time was the Republican mayor of San Diego.
Most recently we had Kevin Faulkner who was the mayor
before the current mayor, and they had very good city
government in San Diego, and then they gave it to
(28:56):
this left wing Democratic assemblyman and it just went to hell.
And now San Diego looks like Los Angeles and San Francisco,
and not quite like Oakland, but looks like the other
big cities in California. And I think that the Republicans
should certainly focus on that city because it's not ancient
(29:18):
history when that city was run well, and they can
go back to that if they choose to. And even
though it's a democratic city now, and you know a
lot of the people who work in the defense industry
are gone and a lot of people who work in
the military are gone, it's still a city where Republicans
should have a fighting chance, both citywide and in certain districts.
(29:39):
So that's where I would focus on on the Democratic
side of the isle. The only city where they're actually
doing anything productive right now is San Jose with Matt
Mayhan the Democratic mayor there, and given his political profile
and how he is just unwilling to put up with
crime or homelessness, that homeless people that won't accept help,
(30:04):
you know, they're going to cast him out of that party.
He is not going to be a Democrat in good
standing much longer because he's driving them crazy. He's not
backing down. He's very vocal about it. He was vocal
and supporting Prop thirty six directly against Gavin Newsom's wishes,
and Gavin Newsom got real bitchy with him during that elect.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
And I well Philip so much. I'll tell you exactly
how he.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Feels if you want to be real bitchy. By the way,
look at his press team on social media Newsome. Oh yeah,
it's like he hires all these twenty year old Paul
Lyns and then gives him the passwords.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
That's a reference that I get and you get, and
no one else under fifty we'll understand. But anyway, I
love it, John, Thank you. So where can people go
to read more about what? Because you're right, you write constantly.
I read your stuff, and you're also the great radio show.
So where we go to hear more about you?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You can find me online at KABC dot com or
KSFO dot com. I think it is in San Francisco.
I'm on KMJ and Fresno now too, wow, And you
can listen to me live nowon to three in those
markets and then read me in the pages of the
Orange County Register and LA Daily News.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
John Phillips, thank you for coming the show. Thank you
for having me. You're listening to It's a Numbers Game
with Ryan Grodowsky. We'll be right back now for the
Ask Me Anything segment. If you want to be part
of the Ask Me Anything segment, please email me ryanat
Numbers Game Podcast dot com. That's Ryan at Numbers Plural
Numbers Game Podcast dot com. I read every question, every email.
(31:46):
I try to respond everything. If I don't do it
on the show, I do it privately, So please I
love your emails. Thank you for doing it. This question
comes from Tristan Shelby. He writes that he's trying to
figure out why younger gen Z is more conservative than
older gen Z. He said, the first people bring up
is COVID lockdowns, but I don't see how they're necessarily
related to other ideas. I think that the COVID lockdowns
(32:08):
definitely affected people differently based upon the age in which
had happened. Remember it happened five years ago, and if
you were living in certain places, the lockdowns were two
and a half years long. So if you were thirteen
when it happened, or fourteen when it happened, you may
not have had a lot of political ideas. You may
(32:29):
not have had your thought process fully built out. So
you spent your time in those two and a half
years when you were couldn't do anything besides going on
the interrant. Especially that one and a half year you
were probably listening to Charlie Kirk or Joe Rogan or
Ben Shapiro. You were hearing them talk about lockdowns. You
were hearing them talk about Florida and that it was open,
and maybe you saw videos of kids doing things in
(32:52):
other states. If you were in New York or New
Jersey or California or Hawaii. You saw kids in Georgia
and Texas and Florida, you know, going to soccer games
and baseball games and having a regular life. And that
could be the big divider is when your formative years
where you start getting political thoughts in your head, then
(33:14):
you are opening yourself up to kind of more right
wing ideas than you would have. Let's say, if you
were twenty one or twenty two and you're still gen Z,
but you're an older gen Z, and so your ideas
were kind of already formed. Maybe some people changed their
minds on some things, but maybe others didn't. Probably most didn't.
(33:35):
So that change among young people. I think that was
the key with COVID. There's also I actually emailed David Shore.
He's the Democratic polster and analysis person who I think
so highly of, and he was the first person to
really flag this issue among younger gen Z versus older
gen Z. It was his I think it's called a
rose in Rose Rose policy of Rose Polling. His company
(33:59):
was going to say that white men in I think
eighteen to twenty year old white men seventy five percent
voted for Trump, which was the largest share of any
demographic that there was. And he said, and this is
fascinating because I never thought of this before. He said,
the difference between older gen Z is that they their
parents in many times are young baby boomers. Still. You know,
(34:23):
a twenty five year old could have a sixty year
old parent. They could have had a kid in the
thirty five years old, it makes complete sense, or forty
years old if they're sixty five. But younger gen Z
are almost entirely gen X parents unless they're millennial parents.
But they're almost all gen X parents. So the gen
X generation is the most right wing generation. And it's
(34:47):
possible if the most right wing generation raised a generation
that was right wing, and then COVID added fuel to
that fire and put gasoline on the fire and made
it made them, you know, very right wing. I think
that's completely possible. I think of who raised them could
possibly be one of the things that motivated them to
(35:07):
be more conservative and vote more for Trump. Anyway, something
to think about. I'll loveitely do more researcher on it though.
Thank you for the question so much, Tristan, and thank
you guys for listening for this episode. Please like and
subscribe to this podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
wherever you get your podcasts, and I will see you
guys on Monday.
Welcome back to a Numbers Game podcast, Ryan Gradowski, thank
you for being here on this Thursday episode. On our
last episode, we had a listener request from a woman
named Patty to do an entire thing on California politics.
So the second part of our show will be about California.
This is for you, Patty. I'm doing this show for
my listeners. I'm here for you guys. So if you
have an idea for a show with i' me an
(00:22):
email at Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com and I
will do my best. But before we get to California,
radio host John Phillips talking about the state, I want
to talk about Elon Musk for a second. Over the
fourth of July weekend, Musk announced that he was going
to start his own political party, called the America Party.
He conducted a poll on Twitter asking his audience if
(00:42):
we should have a third party. In sixty five percent
said yes. So the following day, on July fifth, he tweeted,
by a factor of two to one, you want a
new political party and you shall have it. When it
comes to bankrupting our country and with waste and graft,
we live in a one party system, not a democracy
today the America Party is formed to give you back
your freedom. At the full point of creating a new
(01:05):
party is Musk's frustration with Congressional Republicans and President Trump's
Big Beautiful Bill, which failed to balance the budget and
at trillions of new debt over the next decade. Musk
said he was hoping to target a handful of seats
in the House and Senate, which would give the party
leverage in the next Congress, especially with the margins between
Republicans and Democrats were tight. Basically, if Speaker Johnson needed
(01:29):
the votes of people from the America Party to become
Speaker because there wasn't enough outright Republicans, he'd have to
make certain some concessions on the debt and spending, and
vice versa if it was a Democrat speaker with a
similar margin. This instantly earned criticism from the media in
comparison to the last billionaire who decided to run for
president on a third party ticket in nineteen ninety two,
(01:50):
Ross Preroux, who led in the polls through most of
the early parts of his campaign until he dropped out
several months in, only to announce that he was going
to run again and then relaunch his campaign with much
lower poll numbers. He ultimately end up getting nineteen percent
of the election and never won a single state. He
probably would have won a state had he stayed in
(02:10):
the race. I think his numbers went from like thirty
five percent to eight and then grew to nineteen. But
in the end he lost, and he's perceived as the
spoiler that won Bill Clinton that election. I know this
has nothing to do with what I want to talk about,
but this is just drives me crazy. Proro was not
the spoiler that got Clinton elected. Once Proro dropped out,
(02:32):
most of his numbers went to Clinton, and when he
jumped back into the race, he took more votes from
Clinton than from Bush. In the summer, when Pero was
not in the race, Clinton actually led Bush by over
twenty points in some polls. He ended up going down
to the single digits once Perro jumped back in. Anyway,
side note a little bit of history of politics, because
(02:53):
it just drives me crazy when people say that, Okay,
let's go back to Elon Musk a chance. What are
the chances that Elon is successful in his bid to
launch the American Party. Well, he's not talking about a
presidential candidate running for president, at least not yet. He's
talking about the Senate and Congress, but that's basically just
as much of a long shot as president. Currently we
have two independents in the Senate, Bernie Sanders from Vermont
(03:16):
and Angus King from Maine, both of whom caucus with
the Democrats, and none in the House before then. The
last Senator who won a race by being a third
party candidate, not a Republican or Democrat who became third
party but a true third party candidate was New York's
James Buckley in nineteen seventy one when he won as
a member of the Conservative Party. Before him was Arkansas's
(03:39):
John Miller in nineteen thirty seven. The last time that
we elected an independent in the House was nineteen ninety
with then Representative Bernie Sanders. Before him, you got to
go back to nineteen seventy nine with William Carney when
he won a seed in New York and the Conservative
Party as a member of the Conservative Party. So the
chances of someone outside a major party winning his seat
(03:59):
as and it is extremely slim. Currently, out of the
thousands of state legislative seats in the country, only thirty
six are by people who are either independents or members
of a minor party like the Progressive Party of Vermont
or the Forward Party of Utah. Now there's also a
question of access to party lines. Some states make it
very difficult for non Republicans and non Democrats to even
(04:20):
get on the ballot. States like New York, Georgia, Illinois, Texas,
and North Carolina are very difficult because candidates need to
get a certain threshold of valid signatures based upon the
people who voted in the previous gubernatorial election, and they
have to do it in a very short window and
all those signatures are verified. There's lawyers that go through it,
and it has to sometimes go in front of a judge.
(04:43):
It's very hard. States that make it easy to get
get on the ballot are places like Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, Maine,
and Hawaii. But none of those states actually have a
lot of seats that compete in the House, and as
far as senence seats go, they're all Democrats except for
Susan Collins. Now, Elon brings a lot of resources at
the table, most notably money and press. Anyone running for
(05:04):
office under the America Party will definitely have access to both,
especially the first time, because they'll all perceive it as
being difficult. There's also a question of the America Party's platform. Sure,
the ideas of tackling the deficit and space exploration are
very popular. People are very interested in those two subjects,
and they're way more popular than Musk himself is. But
(05:27):
what are the other issues that this party is going
to stand for. What are they going to think about
gun control or abortion, or immigration or China, things that
Musk is far outside the mainstream of the GOP and
Democrats on. You can't run for office on only two issues.
That's not going to work. This is a very expensive
gamble where every grift or consultant, and I know a
(05:49):
bunch of them are going to sit there and try
to get their claws into and try to work for Musk. Listen,
if this is really about the debt, I myself and
most Republicans that I know I probably agree with Musky.
I know a lot of Democrats would agree with Musk.
They think the spending is out of control, They're worried
about the debt, their word about inflation from it. They
think Congress has failed us on this issue. But a
(06:12):
third party is probably not going to get him anywhere.
A better way forward, and this was echoed by Governor
Ronda Stansis, was to get states to move forward on
a balanced budget amendment added to the Constitution. Currently, twenty
seven states have signed onto a resolution supporting a constitutional
convention that would add the amendment. We need seven more
states in order to have the convention, and then eleven
(06:34):
states total, sorry, eleven more states on top of the
twenty seven thirty eight total to pass a constitutional amendment.
I wrote this on my substack, the National Populist newsletter.
It's on substec dot com. If you want to visual
I map the whole thing out. It's a free article,
so you don't have to sign up, although if you
want to, very much appreciate it. But there's already twenty
seven states that have signed on. There's also four more
(06:55):
with Republican trifactors who haven't signed on but could South
carol West, Virginia, Montana, and Idaho. If you live in
those states and you want your legislature and governor to
sign on to a balanced budget amendment at the Constitution,
you can absolutely do that, and Musk could probably spend
a lot less money lobbying legislators to bring that up
for a vote and getting the governor to sign it.
(07:17):
That would take him to thirty one, so he only
needs thirty forty even get the convention. There are two
more states with the Republican legislatures but a Democratic governor,
Kentucky and Wisconsin. You flip those two governorships and you're
at thirty three. All you need is one more. Musk
could invest a lot less money than starting a third
party by investing in places with either close legislative elections
(07:39):
where the Republicans Democrats have very small margins, or areas
that President Trump is gaining steam and has gained Steinman
over the last few election cycles. So places like Vermont,
which has a liberal Republican governor but where the GOP
made immense gains in the last election. They almost tied
the state Senate and they won more than a dozen
seats in the state House. He could invest in Vermont.
(08:00):
He could invest in Minnesota, where the Republicans hold the
state House not the state Senate, by one vote one
seat in both places. He could invest in Virginia, which
is also a one seat margin in both places and
has a very conservative Republican governor, there's all those opportunities
that is, you know, at you know, right in front
of us, right in front of us, that takes a
(08:22):
lot less money and makes huge gains on a number
of issues for people who live in those states. There's
also states like New Mexico and New Jersey which have
which are democratic but where Trump made huge, you know gains,
he increases support substantially. And there's also places like Rhode Island.
Rhode Island, even though being a democratic state, Republicans are
(08:43):
anemic in the state legislature, far less than what President
Trump receives. And they are the Democrats in the state,
A lot of them are extremely conservative. There's a running
joke in political circle circles that most of the Democrats
in the state legislator voted for Trump. So there's ways
to get around to get one to thirty four votes
in to get to a constitual convention going, and to
(09:04):
get thirty eight votes to pass a constitual amendment that
demanding Congress have a balanced budget every year. It's possible,
and it is much easier than hoping that you win
a dozen House seats and several US Senate seats to
make demands on the part of Chuck Schumer or John
Thune or Speaker Johnson or Rakeem Jeffries. That's actually much
(09:27):
more difficult than Elon Must thinks. So if this is
about if this is really about the budget and the deficit,
I'm with Elon. I think we have to get it
under control. I think going through the States is the
best and easiest way possible. But if this is not,
if this is about EV mandates or just a few
with Trump or you know who knows something else that
(09:48):
he's thinking about in that exact moment, then this is
a vanity project, one that he is going to spend
waste a lot of people's time, energy and getting people's
hopes up for nothing. Anyway, that's where Must should focus
his attention, because if he's really talking about EV mandates
or about you know, a few with Trump, he's going
to get people's hopes up a lot for very very little.
(10:10):
And if he wants to actually solve this problem the debt,
a const social convention is definitely the way to go. Now,
let's focus in on Wednesday, particularly, this is my episode
with John Phillips about the state of California. Coming up
next with me for this episode is my buddy, John Phillips.
He is a fantastic radio host out of LA. He's
(10:30):
on KABC Radio. He knows everything. He's expert on everything California.
So John, thanks for being here. Thank you for having
me So John. Most people don't realize, but Trump increased
his vote share in California in not one, but two
back to back elections. He lost California by thirty points
in twenty sixteen, twenty nine points in twenty twenty, and
twenty points in twenty twenty fours, a ten point jump
(10:51):
over twelve years. Despite Kamala that her being her home state.
Is it because voters knew Kamala or is there was
a bigger thing going on?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
In an odd sort of way, I think that Kamala
helped the Democrats in California because before Kamala became the
nominee they were running Joe Biden's rotting corpse, and Joe
Biden's rotting corps was not doing too hot, even in
places like California. And if you go back to when
Democrats in their internal caucus meetings started sounding the alarms,
(11:25):
one of the loudest voices was a Democrat from California.
Mark Ticano, who represents the Democratic district from Riverside County,
and he said that he had polling showing Joe Biden
losing his district and if that was going to happen,
then you were going to see essentially a landslide nationwide
and an even more dramatic shift in California. Kamala kind
(11:48):
of helped stabilize that a little bit. But if you
look at just voter registration numbers since the election, these
trends have all continued. Republicans are continuing to register voters,
Democrats from losing support, and the Democrats I think in California,
in part, pushed a little bit too far, where people
are upset at their performance on any number of state issues,
(12:09):
whether it's holmemless as crime, the budget, the bullet train insurance, whatever,
and right now they're starting to pay those consequences. It's
not enough for them to start losing statewide races yet,
but it's enough to make them concerned.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, you mentioned the voter registration. I have some numbers here.
So in twenty November twenty twenty two, California Democrats had
a five million, fifty one thousand, one hundred and sixty
four voter advantage by March twenty twenty five, that number
I'd fall into four million, five hundred and ninety thousand,
nine hundred and sixty five is a decline of four
hundred and sixty thousand voters in the voter advantage in
(12:47):
just three years in a party that, like the California GOP,
is not the Florida GOP. Right, they don't have the
tremendous political apparatus to register voters in and an effective
state like head of governor. They don't have any state
wide elected offices, but there's no one really directing that.
So although they did win I think three legislative seats
(13:09):
last year, they won two state House seats and one
state Senate seats. Why are voters seemingly in a state
that doing this organically or is there an organization apparatus
really trying to register these voters?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Well, I mean, you have some people who are doing that.
Rick Rernell has a group fixed California that's registering voters,
and you know, the state party chairwoman, the outgoing state
party chairwoman, Jessica Patterson, would take credit for some of it.
But I do think it's organic. I think it's it's
not something that any organized group is producing. I think
(13:44):
what you're seeing is you're seeing real movement among portions
of the Democratic coalition that are just not happy with
what they're getting. I mean, don't forget we pay a
fortune to live here, and you basically can't use many
of the public services. You can't use public trand it.
You can't use the parks, including MacArthur Park, which Gavin
Newsom has now declared to be beautiful, which is hilarious
(14:07):
because it's an open air prison. You know, you can't
use the libraries. That's where the bums look at porn.
You know, we've just given up our public spaces to
essentially the zombies. And and you know, if you're a
young Latino guy who's trying to start a family, or
you're a young Asian guy who's trying to start a
(14:29):
business or whatever, that pisses you off. And I think
that those are the groups where you're starting to see
the real movement. And it's totally understandable.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Is Kamala Harris going to be the next governor of California? Think,
oh god, I hope not. Well, who is a real
republic or Republican who could actually run a competitive state
wide race, and maybe even if they can, when they
can help Republicans down ballot.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So there's two schools of thought to this. One is
you need a a very rich person to come in
and essentially pull what Meg Whitman pulled, which is start
throwing crazy money in the state parties and county parties
and really funding a professionalized operation that can compete with
(15:16):
the Democratic Party and the money that the unions grow
into it in Hollywood and Silicon Valley and those sorts
of things. That's what we did with Meg Whitman, That's
what we did with Bill Simon, and certainly if Grant Cardone,
who is the Trump associate, jumps into the race for
governor and spends a ton of money, we would certainly
(15:37):
be moving along with that model. There's another model that
I think would actually work better that hasn't been spoken
of a lot, but it's what we used to do
in the past. So the way that California used to
work was essentially you had a few different groups, a
few different organizations let's call it, that would get together
(16:00):
and would get in a room and decide who would
be the nominee, and then they would put up the money.
It used to be the railroads, the oil companies, and
the Chandler family, the family that own the La Times.
And that's how Dick Nixon, for example, got picked to
be the US Senator. He was their fourth or fifth choice,
but it was that cabal of people that picked him
and then funded the candidacy so he could win the seat.
(16:23):
I think that we now have a cadre of people
who have the power to do that. Most of them
come from the tech industry. If Elon Musk wants to
make a contribution that pushes down debt or modernizes government,
whatever it is that's he's leaning into that particular day,
you can have someone like him and Peter Thiel and
(16:45):
David Sachs, a group of them get together and say, Okay,
here's what we're going to do. We're gonna put up
one hundred million dollars, which to them is nothing, but
in the world of politics is a huge sum of money.
And we're going to find someone who has the ability
to answer questions in a coherent way on a debate stage,
has a resume, has a name, and run that person.
(17:06):
Just think if you had one hundred million dollars behind
Lonnie Chit or someone like that, who would otherwise never
be able to raise the money. But you just have
the money. People stay in their lane and put up
the money that's necessary to make that campaign viable. And
instead of trying to make themselves the candidates, which is
always just you know, Asiana going in the SFO, you know,
(17:29):
just let them do what they're good at, let them
raise money, and let someone who understands the vocation of
politics be the candidate, and then boom, there you go.
You have a credible candidate. You have money.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, and I mean with so much of AI regulation
coming out of California for the national standard, you would
imagine they would be invested in getting somebody. I have
a question of your current governor, Gavin Newsom, who by
all looks of it, seems to be planning a run
for president. He is on his third version of himself.
He's now back to being a Centri's podcast host. He
(18:03):
was a progressive fighter. He was a progressive actually most
of his life, I think post marriage to Kimberly Guilfoyle,
he was very very far left, but he was He's
smoothed away from a noticeable number of things. He was
a race conscious white guy during the BLM riots. Now
he is a Now he's going to be the centrist
(18:23):
boys who could talk to regular white Americans. What do
you make of his evolution? And if he I don't
think he has a real chance. But what do you think?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I think you're probably right. He does not connect with
blue collar whites at all. You look at at his
performance in California. He's very popular along the coast, He's
very popular in the big cities. He's popular with the
wine and bree crowd. But that's that's enough to get
(18:53):
by in San Francisco and enough to get by state
wide in California if you have the teachers' unions behind you,
which he did when he initially ran for governor. But
it's not enough to win a Democratic primary, and it's
certainly not enough to win a presidential election. He is
in a feat gentry class San Franciscan and that just
(19:15):
doesn't sell right now. I know Nancy Pelosi was able
to become the Speaker of the House and was a
very successful Democratic Speaker of the House, but those are
internal caucus elections. It's very different trying to win over
blue collar people in Michigan or Pennsylvania, or even in
the Democratic primaries. I mean one of the places he's
(19:36):
going to in South Carolina, besides all the diners or
you know, a guy who wouldn't need a carb if
it's mac him in the face, is now hitting every
waffle house along the Eastern seaboard. But he's going to
the black churches. And it's like, Okay, here's this rich
(19:56):
guy who owns Plump Jack Winery, who dines at the
French Laundry, who's going to start showing up to the
black churches in South Carolina with an amos and andy
drawl and he thinks that that's going to work.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
I speaking of Nancy Pelosi, I didn't even have this
question written down, but it just dawned to me. What
do you think of her getting a primary challengement with
state senator?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Well, that's not entirely what's happening. So she is eighty
five years old right now and has opened up an
account to run for reelection, although she hasn't gone on
the record saying what she's going to do. For sure,
her daughter, Christine, who is very active within the California
Democratic Party, wants that seat. Scott Wiener has been an
(20:40):
elected official in that area in the state legislature and
the Board of Supervisors for a very long time, and
he has long coveted that seat. If the election were
held today, my guest is that Scott Wiener would probably
beat Nancy Pelosi's daughter, and everyone understands that Solosi will
(21:00):
likely do, in my opinion, is pull some kind of
stunt that benefits her daughter and screws over all other competitors,
with Scott Wiener being at the top of the list.
So if she decides right before the filing deadline that
she's not going to do it, tells the daughter, doesn't
tell anyone else, then the daughter obviously benefits from that.
(21:21):
If she were to resign so that a special election
would take place on a date where they think it
benefits them, then she's going to go ahead and do that.
And I think Weiener understands that they're going to pull
some dirty trick that will help her daughter. So he
has opened up an account not because he intends on
running against Nancy Pelosi, but because he is. It's a
(21:44):
defensive mechanism just in case she decides to pull a stunt.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
That's interesting. I can't imagine the Democratic Caucus without Nancy Pelosi.
I really, I mean it's she is kind of like
that one figure who never goes away. But California, like
my home state of New York, suffers from the same
sort of problems that the population is leaving. Life is unaffordable,
the urban areas, in some parts of the urban areas
(22:08):
are just horror shows with drug addiction and crime, and
people are just they won't take it anymore. And we're
replacing very productive members of society who pay a lot
of taxes with illegal aliens, with some legal aliens who
just don't bring the same number in tax revenue. And
Democrats answer to I think voters' concerns. This was the
case of Andrew Cuomo, and I think it's the case
(22:30):
a lot of times with some California people. Though they
pretend it's more optimistic, but their ad in New York was,
I will manage your decline. That's basically what they're saying constantly.
Who says I will manage the decline better than anybody else?
What is a What is the answer then for a
Republican Because for so long people would say we were
(22:51):
the state back in the fifties sixty seventies, no one,
no real voting block that is alive or members that
time when California's public schools were the best in the country.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, Democrats survived their poor performance by nationalizing every election.
Every election is about abortion, it is about climate change,
it is about the Supreme Court, it is about Donald Trump.
It has nothing to do with anything regarding issues they
would have influence over. And because we've become so tribal
(23:24):
with our politics, the moment you let the voting electorate
know that you're the Democrat who hates Donald Trump and
that the other guy is the Republican who loves Donald Trump.
That's usually good morning, good afternoon, good night. And in California,
don't forget. That's how Gavin Newsom saved himself during the recall.
There was a moment in time where I think we
(23:45):
had two or three polls in a row that showed
him losing, and he was able to write the ship
by making the election essentially a federal one. And it's
not just Gavin Newsom. I mean you look at racist
for city council and water or school board or whatever.
It's all the same thing which leads to the death
of local government. And if you want to find the
(24:08):
most gross example of the liberal democratic excess in California,
it's not even San Francisco, it's Oakland. Oakland looked like
the day after the End of the World. I went there.
I'm an Angel fan and I went there last season
(24:29):
to watch the Angels play the A's. And you get
on the bar in San Francisco and you go under
the bay and you come out and what you see
is like something that you would see out of one
of those zombie apocalypse movies, where every spot on the
road is taken by an RV that had been set
on fire that is non operational, and the graffiti is
(24:54):
not only on public spaces, like single family homes are
all tagged up. The amount of trash on the streets
is shocking. It looked like images of South Florida after
Hurricane Andrew hit, where you just had just you know,
trash and debris everywhere. And when you get out off
(25:15):
the subway and you walk on this like enclosed catwalk
that has a chain length fence around it, you walk
over a homeless encampment full of RVs where they just
set things on fire. So you're walking over these RVs
that are on fire to get to the baseball stadium
to watch the game. And that is that is a
(25:36):
level of government, the Oakland City government that is run
entirely by Democrats. Everyone on the council, the mayor, the
DA school board, whatever like they own that. That should
be the city on the hill for them. That shows you, like,
you give us everything we want, this is what we produce. Well,
(25:57):
guess what, it's a horror movie if you go along
with that. And for Republicans, I think the goal is
to take the focus off of those federal issues that
don't have anything to do with the failures in California
and just bring it back to the basics. Throw the ball,
catch the ball, hit the ball. Every time they talk
about Trump, every time they talk about immigration, every time
(26:19):
they talk about abortion or things that don't have anything
to do with anything at the state level. You just
have to keep bringing it back to the nuts and
bolts of their failure in running the government.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
So you're saying, you're flying to San Francisco and I
have to go to a wedding in the area and
not not Oakland. Oh, if you.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Rent a car in Oakland, there's a street called the
hagen Berger right near the airport. If you rent a
car in Oakland, they will give you a whole list
of places that you can't go to because if you do,
you will get carjacked, or they will break into your
trunk and steal all your clothes, steal all your bags
while you're pumping gas in the car or sitting through
(26:59):
a drive through or whatever, and their insurance policy won't
cover it if you go to one of those places.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
It's a long list that is that is very wild.
So if you look at like I was making a
joke with that because I'm flying into I have a
wedding next month. I'm flying into uh San Francisco over there.
But I looked at the Oakland I'm like, oh, the
Oakland prices for flights aren't that bad. Now I know
why the divorce. Well. The the last thing is we've
(27:31):
seen in California. One one sign of hope is that
some moderate Democrats have won, like the DA's race in
Los Angeles and in San Francisco and the school board
in San Francisco. Is there any cities that you can
point to that are a sign of hope for Republicans
where they're really making a ground over in Imperial County.
(27:51):
There's been tremendous movement from Republicans. Someone in Riverside County.
I think it's San Jose. I was looking this up.
San Jose also had amendous growth for Republicans in it.
I think certain precincts are actually going Republican for the
very first time. That seems to me like there is
a potential because Republicans can't just give up these massive
(28:12):
urban centers and say, what do you want? Let it burn.
I here's the New York and Mondonia time, what do
you want? Who cares it's just New York? No, Like
this is I mean, we shouldn't have to surrender every
major city in this country, and that's what they're essentially doing.
I mean, is there any place that you're saying, wow,
Republicans have a chance to pick up even local seats in.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Well, historically that city has always been San Diego. Where
San Diego has had Republican mayors. Pete Wilson at one
point in time was the Republican mayor of San Diego.
Most recently we had Kevin Faulkner who was the mayor
before the current mayor, and they had very good city
government in San Diego, and then they gave it to
(28:56):
this left wing Democratic assemblyman and it just went to hell.
And now San Diego looks like Los Angeles and San Francisco,
and not quite like Oakland, but looks like the other
big cities in California. And I think that the Republicans
should certainly focus on that city because it's not ancient
(29:18):
history when that city was run well, and they can
go back to that if they choose to. And even
though it's a democratic city now, and you know a
lot of the people who work in the defense industry
are gone and a lot of people who work in
the military are gone, it's still a city where Republicans
should have a fighting chance, both citywide and in certain districts.
(29:39):
So that's where I would focus on on the Democratic
side of the isle. The only city where they're actually
doing anything productive right now is San Jose with Matt
Mayhan the Democratic mayor there, and given his political profile
and how he is just unwilling to put up with
crime or homelessness, that homeless people that won't accept help,
(30:04):
you know, they're going to cast him out of that party.
He is not going to be a Democrat in good
standing much longer because he's driving them crazy. He's not
backing down. He's very vocal about it. He was vocal
and supporting Prop thirty six directly against Gavin Newsom's wishes,
and Gavin Newsom got real bitchy with him during that elect.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
And I well Philip so much. I'll tell you exactly
how he.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Feels if you want to be real bitchy. By the way,
look at his press team on social media Newsome. Oh yeah,
it's like he hires all these twenty year old Paul
Lyns and then gives him the passwords.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
That's a reference that I get and you get, and
no one else under fifty we'll understand. But anyway, I
love it, John, Thank you. So where can people go
to read more about what? Because you're right, you write constantly.
I read your stuff, and you're also the great radio show.
So where we go to hear more about you?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You can find me online at KABC dot com or
KSFO dot com. I think it is in San Francisco.
I'm on KMJ and Fresno now too, wow, And you
can listen to me live nowon to three in those
markets and then read me in the pages of the
Orange County Register and LA Daily News.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
John Phillips, thank you for coming the show. Thank you
for having me. You're listening to It's a Numbers Game
with Ryan Grodowsky. We'll be right back now for the
Ask Me Anything segment. If you want to be part
of the Ask Me Anything segment, please email me ryanat
Numbers Game Podcast dot com. That's Ryan at Numbers Plural
Numbers Game Podcast dot com. I read every question, every email.
(31:46):
I try to respond everything. If I don't do it
on the show, I do it privately, So please I
love your emails. Thank you for doing it. This question
comes from Tristan Shelby. He writes that he's trying to
figure out why younger gen Z is more conservative than
older gen Z. He said, the first people bring up
is COVID lockdowns, but I don't see how they're necessarily
related to other ideas. I think that the COVID lockdowns
(32:08):
definitely affected people differently based upon the age in which
had happened. Remember it happened five years ago, and if
you were living in certain places, the lockdowns were two
and a half years long. So if you were thirteen
when it happened, or fourteen when it happened, you may
not have had a lot of political ideas. You may
(32:29):
not have had your thought process fully built out. So
you spent your time in those two and a half
years when you were couldn't do anything besides going on
the interrant. Especially that one and a half year you
were probably listening to Charlie Kirk or Joe Rogan or
Ben Shapiro. You were hearing them talk about lockdowns. You
were hearing them talk about Florida and that it was open,
and maybe you saw videos of kids doing things in
(32:52):
other states. If you were in New York or New
Jersey or California or Hawaii. You saw kids in Georgia
and Texas and Florida, you know, going to soccer games
and baseball games and having a regular life. And that
could be the big divider is when your formative years
where you start getting political thoughts in your head, then
(33:14):
you are opening yourself up to kind of more right
wing ideas than you would have. Let's say, if you
were twenty one or twenty two and you're still gen Z,
but you're an older gen Z, and so your ideas
were kind of already formed. Maybe some people changed their
minds on some things, but maybe others didn't. Probably most didn't.
(33:35):
So that change among young people. I think that was
the key with COVID. There's also I actually emailed David Shore.
He's the Democratic polster and analysis person who I think
so highly of, and he was the first person to
really flag this issue among younger gen Z versus older
gen Z. It was his I think it's called a
rose in Rose Rose policy of Rose Polling. His company
(33:59):
was going to say that white men in I think
eighteen to twenty year old white men seventy five percent
voted for Trump, which was the largest share of any
demographic that there was. And he said, and this is
fascinating because I never thought of this before. He said,
the difference between older gen Z is that they their
parents in many times are young baby boomers. Still. You know,
(34:23):
a twenty five year old could have a sixty year
old parent. They could have had a kid in the
thirty five years old, it makes complete sense, or forty
years old if they're sixty five. But younger gen Z
are almost entirely gen X parents unless they're millennial parents.
But they're almost all gen X parents. So the gen
X generation is the most right wing generation. And it's
(34:47):
possible if the most right wing generation raised a generation
that was right wing, and then COVID added fuel to
that fire and put gasoline on the fire and made
it made them, you know, very right wing. I think
that's completely possible. I think of who raised them could
possibly be one of the things that motivated them to
(35:07):
be more conservative and vote more for Trump. Anyway, something
to think about. I'll loveitely do more researcher on it though.
Thank you for the question so much, Tristan, and thank
you guys for listening for this episode. Please like and
subscribe to this podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
wherever you get your podcasts, and I will see you
guys on Monday.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.