January 6, 2026 • 35 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (01/06) - Jeremy Padawer comes on the show to talk about the event tomorrow in Pacific Palisades to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Palisades Fire. California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton comes on the show to talk about the fraud he has uncovered in California.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We are on from one until four o'clock every day,
and then after four o'clock John Cobel Show on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That's the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
And if you're just joining us on the podcast, if
you missed the first hour, we had Joel Pollock on
opinion editor of the incoming California Post. It'll look just
like the New York Post, but it's entirely about California,
and they're going to bring that same New York Post
sensibility now to the media coverage of California. And this
(00:33):
is gonna be huge if they do what they do
in New York. This is really going to shake up
the media environment here and it badly needs it. So
listen to Joel Pollock on the one o'clock hour. Now,
we are going to talk with Jeremy Padawer this minute.
He along with Spencer Pratt, have organized a demonstration tomorrow.
(00:54):
It's entitled They Let Us Burn, and more than a
thousand people have already rsvped to attend. There's no tickets
or anything, but they just wanted to know what the
size of the crowd is, so they let us burn
dot com is the website you can read about it.
They're gonna have it in the Palisades Village ten thirty
in the morning, and they're gonna have speakers there at
(01:17):
residents and politicians, and it's at the Let me get
the right corner here and then we're gonna get Jeremy on.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Hold on, hold on? What did they do with it? Ah?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Here it is the corner of Antioch and Swarthmore. All right,
ten thirty tomorrow morning, let's get Jeremy padawer on. How
are you hey, I'm good. It's good to talk to you.
I'm glad to talk to you once again. Yeah, it
is good to have you on. There's a lot of
retrospectives already about the fire from a year ago, and
very little coverage of all the massive mistakes, all the
(01:53):
huge neglect, just criminal stuff in these media reports. I'm
going to go through some of them later. I mean,
it's got to be awfully frustrating when you can't seem
to find many media outlets that want to tell the
truth about how this happened, you know, the terrible lack
(02:14):
of preparation, the terrible execution in fighting the fire, and
then the complete disaster that the rebuild process has been.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yes, that's all. That's all very accurate. It's been incredibly frustrating.
And I would say as deep of a cut as
that fire was, and the realization that there was a
lack of prevention, precaution, bad policy and aptitude, gross negligence
and all of that, as deep as that cut is,
and seeing your neighbors hurt, the cut has even been
(02:45):
deeper post fire because of the gas lighting and misdirection
that has been coming from our leadership in a very
coordinated way and seeping into the media.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
So sure, I.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Would I would certainly say that the emotions that I'm
feeling and our community is feeling today, our frustration, anger, aggravation,
and and I would say some hopefulness. I mean the
fact that we're able to go out there and demonstrate
using the American ideal of free expression and freedom of
(03:21):
speech and doing so without worrying that we're going to
lose our place in society or our jobs. That's comforting.
I'm glad that our government allows for that.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Do you have anybody on your side when it comes
to the government, And I.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Mean, well, let's put it this way. But the Army
Corps of Engineers had a very fast cleanup of the debris.
They are a federal agency. On the state and city side,
it has not been very good. And I also want
to just express that none of this is coming from
ideal perspectives. Most of us are independents or Democrats, some
(04:04):
of us are Republicans. But the truth of the matter
is this is based on operational grounds alone. The city
and the state, they made a tremendous number of errors.
We can litigate through that during the course of this conversation.
But then afterwards again, no, they haven't been on our side.
They because being on our side means that they risk
(04:26):
they put themselves in the risk of liability. They put
themselves in the risk of not being able to perpetuating
their political careers. And unfortunately, they're in business for themselves
and not for the people.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
And they hold to that.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Even with twelve deaths and seven thousand homes destroyed, and
all the suffering and all the mayhem that followed, they
still are stonewalling, lying, covering up every you probably saw,
I'm sure in the Times over the Christmas break, there
were several articles about the fire department covering up its
(05:05):
own investigation.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Sure, no, absolutely no, this is coordinated. This is a
systematic cover up. And I believe the La Times even
requested Mahribas's texts days after the fire, and somehow they
were on a thirty day auto delete in the most
critical time perhaps in LA mayorial history. Yeah, she had
(05:29):
her text on an auto delete. Recently, the governor was
asked for anything that was responsive to Pacific Palisades in
the January time frame of last year. He said, there's
no results that are responsive. Apparently neither of them talked
about it at all in texts and phone calls. There
was just no discussion about this topic.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Fire. What fire?
Speaker 1 (05:52):
There was?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Yes, exactly that look and I have to tell you
it's offensive, right like it's offensive it and again it's
offensive not on ideological grounds, it's offensive on operational grounds.
It makes you look in the mirror and go Not
only did they not only did they on their own terms,
(06:15):
burn us down and I and again I'm not going
to say purposefully, I follow the gross negligence category. I
fall ineptitude category. But now they're going to now they
believe that we're this dumb a group of people that
are you know, that have done okay, that are that
are good critical thinkers, and they're going to treat us
(06:35):
like we are incredibly in ft ourselves.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
The the revelations from the La Times, from the UH depositions,
from the text messages they've uncovered.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
The Roger Bailey.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
The attorney for many of the plaintiff's Palisades homeowners, it
indicated that, like the original sin, there was obviously not
completely putting out the January first Lockman fire when the
ground was still hot and smoldering and smoking, and the
tree stumps and the rocks were hot, and the Alley
Fire Department gets pushed off the land by the State
(07:10):
park reps and rolled up their hoses and went home.
I mean, everything goes back to that moment, the day
after January first.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
That's entirely accurate, and I'm glad you said it. It
gives me the opportunity to not have to say it again.
That's exactly right. The origin of this is state malfeasance, okay,
and it starts there. The city reacted to a report
that the state had written the Tapangas something report that
(07:41):
are basically laid out that you cannot do certain things
in terms of mitigating a fire in this area, this
Lochman area, because of a weed, a shrub, the milk
fetch weed. Now what the hell is a milk fetch weed?
Let me tell you. It is a weed that occurs
naturally after for fire. But somehow this milk vetch weed
(08:04):
is considered endangered in and of itself, which I would
say is a good thing. Right. You don't want to
have a weed that's associated with previous fires anyway, because
that means that you have to perpetuate fires. Well, for
whatever it's worth. They here's what they did. The fire
begins on one one. They address the fire in their minds.
(08:25):
But the rule book for them is that in this
protected area you cannot drop fire retardant from above. You
cannot come in with bulldozers or mud the fire get
under it in any way because it will disturb the
milk vetch. And third, the other rule is if you
can't do those two things, then do thermal imaging. They
(08:47):
didn't do. And then, fourthly, if you're not gonna do
thermal imaging, at least have humans there to observe it
for a while. They didn't do that either. As a result.
And I don't know if you've seen this overnight. There's
video that broke yesterday, actually left night. I have it
on my Instagram right now at Jeremy Pittauer where there
is smoke billowing at eight thirty seven am after city left,
(09:11):
after they were told to leave. If they had just
gone a few more steps, they would have found it themselves.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
And this is what day.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
This is on the first. I'm sorry, yeah, this would
be on the first.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
That is cor on the first.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yeah, yeah, lets me put this out. It could have
all ended. It would have all ended if the state
didn't have such a bizarre way to address something that
I don't think anybody's ever thought about as being an
important part of our ecosystem, ecological system. And the city
had just said, you know, let's stick with this.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
A little bit longer.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Let's look around to make sure. And by the way,
the thermal imaging, there's also thermal imaging images that were
done by private individuals that show hot spots everywhere. They
left hot spots everywhere, They left smoking billowing tree stumps
with hot with rocks hot to the touch, and that's
a quote. And they left us to burn. They let
(10:09):
us burn that's the name.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Of the rally.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
So they abandoned putting out the original fire because of
pressure from the state parks reps over these milk fetch plants.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
That's right. And not only pressure, but a written out document,
a procedural document that basically said here's what you can
and cannot do in these affected areas. They laid it out.
It's it's written in plain like, there's nothing to interpret.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Jeremy hang on the line, right, can you stay with us?
Jeremy paddlework and he is one of the organizers of
the rally Tomorrow, the demonstration they let us burn, and
that's going to be in Palisades Village, Pacific Palisades on
the corner of Antiocritus Worth more More with Jeremy Paddawer
coming up.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Follow us at John Cobelt Radio and social media at
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(11:21):
John Cobelt Show and you'll get notifications when we put
up another segment for all the other media social media platforms.
It's at John Cobelt Radio. And we continue now with
Jeremy Padawak because this is this week is the anniversary
of the Palisades Fire, and Jeremy and Spencer Pratt have
organized this demonstration tomorrow. They let Us Burn is the
(11:44):
title of it. More than a thousand people have already
RSVP to attend. You can go to they let Usburn
dot com and they have a link there to RSVP.
I mean, you know, have to RSVP, but they just
want to keep track of the crowd, know what kind
of what they're going to have to deal with. And
(12:06):
it is about the terrible preparation, the terrible response, the
terrible aftermath to the Pacific Palisades Fire, which is just it's,
I don't know how numb everybody's got to be in
the Palisades by now, Jeremy, I mean, it's difficult to
sustain your emotional resilience when something like this goes on
(12:27):
for twelve months and there doesn't seem to be any.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
End in sight.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
That is a very accurate description. Numb is the right
way to say it. And I'll just say this, A
lot happens over twelve months. I mean I have friends
whose marriages have ended, who have had illness in their family,
who've had job change. I mean, life still goes on.
Everything else in life still happens, except you're paying a
mortgage and a home that has burned to the ground
(12:53):
because of a city and state, and you're still paying
property tax, and you're still paying everything else as if
that home still there.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
They still are charging property tax.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Yes, now what we're what we're communicating is a vision
for the rebuilt that will bring as many human beings
back as possible. And it has ten imperatives. And one
of those imperatives is a less diabolical property tax assessment.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I would they have that.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You should get a Yeah, there should be a break
for everybody on the property tax at least for a while.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Well let me let me how about this. I love math,
and four of the ten imperatives are math oriented. We
live in a place that is not as math oriented.
It's taken them a full year, in fact, to even
figure out how to reduce permit fees because they can't
get their head around that budget, which is ridiculous. But
in terms of property tax okay, when your house burns down,
(13:52):
the local municipality has a choice in terms of what
to do. What ours has done is said, look, if
your house is gone, you're not paying for your house anymore,
but you are paying for the land. You're paying for
the land at what we consider the current value. However,
as you build back your house as the percentage that
is done on the first of January every year, that
(14:15):
is the percentage of your house that you need to
pay us in property taxes. That is wrong, that is
not reasonable. So for instance, if I have thirty percent
of my home built back on January first, twenty twenty seven,
they want thirty percent of that home's final value. If
it's eighty percent on January one, twenty twenty eight, they
weren't eighty percent of that home's value. That is how.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
They're doing it.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
That to me is very very bad taste. Not only
that not only didn't bad taste, but on the flip
side of all of this, because they forced people into
a situation where so many people have to move and
other folks will come in who were not harmed to
this level, the amount of money that they take in
property taxes seven to ten years from now will be
(15:00):
portunately higher. They could handle cutting people a little bit
of a break, but they don't do it.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
That is abusive.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
That is absolutely an abusive, mean, nasty policy for people
who have suffered way too much already.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Yeah, and guess what that one's That one pales in
comparison to the next one. I'm going to tell you,
so go ahead, So, yeah, you're ready. State taxes are
applicable to the entire rebuild. So, for instance, in the Palisades,
I think it's going to cost roughly twenty billion dollars
to rebuild the the residences in the Palisades, and about
fifteen billion dollars in Altadena, so thirty five billion dollars.
(15:39):
They are fully willing to accept the ten percent in
state and local taxes on that entire thirty five billion
dollars spend. There is currently no plan whatsoever to reduce
taxes on statean local based on the rebuild.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
This is the only thing that they do well. They
couldn't fill up the reservoir, they couldn't position the fire
trucks the night before the winds, they couldn't put out
the fire at a reasonable and a reasonable amount of time,
and on and on and on. None of that. They
found that everything every level of government fail. Well, they
did save the milk vetch plan, I guess for a few.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Days, and milk vetch is in great shape.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
In addition to the milk vetch being in great shape,
they're going to take in three and a half billion
dollars so they can care for the milk fetch because
they prioritize plants over people. But those are two things
for us. One of the ten priorities is no sales
tax in the rebuild state or city. Another priority is
do not charge us to move back into our homes
(16:41):
until we have a certicate ticket of occupancy.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Comes to the dwelling tax, Yeah, there shouldn't be a
property tax until you can use the property. They charge
you thirty or eighty percent of the of the tax
because you have thirty to eighty percent of the lot rebuilt,
but you can use zero zero percent of it.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So that's outrageous.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
God, they really are abusive, awful people.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Yeah, well, I'll give you one more, and I'm talking
about the homes that have burned down. What about the
person who has a home that is toxic, they can't
move in. Their insurance has certainly not done them any
favors because there's enough ambiguity where the insurance goes, Oh no,
your home is fine, but you know nobody else has
moved in on your block yet, and it's radioactive in
(17:29):
terms of what it's testing. Your property tax is relatively
unchanged to the pre fire tax because it did not
burn down. Those people are paying full property tax. They
have no accessibility to their homes.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yes, I know people who've gone through that. It's it's
just all of it's terrible. Well, Jeremy, you're gonna have
a big crowd tomorrow. You got a lot of facts
and a lot of emotions built up, and we're gonna
come there by the way, I'll probably show you tomorrow.
It's ten thirty tomorrow in the Palesades Village, the corner
of Antioch and Swarthmore. They let us Burn is the
name of the demonstration. We're gonna be talking to as
(18:02):
many people as we can and then play back some
of those interviews on tomorrow afternoons program. So I'll see
you tomorrow, Jeremy, Good luck with everyone. All right, thank you,
Jeremy Patterer, one of the organizers of They Let Us
Burn the Everybody's got to come out because this is
I can't believe that there isn't an ounce of remorse
(18:25):
from anybody in government, not Bass, not Newsome, most of
the city council, none of the bureaucrats.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
No remorse at all.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
They're not just grabbing people by the back of the
neck and grinding their heads into the ground, demanding more money,
more tax. Well, everybody paid a lot of tax money
and you didn't even get basic fire coverage. We're gonna
have Steve Hilton coming on next. This is an all
star day. Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate for governor. He's
(18:53):
coming on to talk about the massive fraud that he
and his staff have.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Uncovered in Gavin Newsom's government.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
That is, you're listening to John Cobels on demand from
KFI A six forty.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
After four o'clock, The John Cobelt Show on demand And
if case you missed what we've done in the first
hour and a half, you should be doing. You should
be demanding the podcast. Later, we had Joel pollackah on
the Opinion editor for the California Post. We talked to
him the entire one o'clock hour because there's a new
major media outlet coming. It is the California Post, sister
(19:27):
publication of the New York Post, and they're going to
cover California news and politics and sports and culture, just
like the New York Post does for New York and
Washington DC. And it is really I keep calling it
an earthquake. That's what it is, because the rest of
the media is going to have to respond and they
are going to dig up all the dirt on what's
(19:48):
going on here in LA and in and Sacramento. We're
going to talk now with one of the top candidates
for governor, Republican Steve Hilton. Steve has a lot of
political experience, business experience, television experience, and we're gonna talk
to him right now because he is very high up
(20:08):
in the polls and he has done his own investigating.
He asked for whistleblowers, he came on our show some
weeks back, and whistleblowers have responded as to the hundreds
of well, well, we'll let Steve talk about the numbers,
but there is a lot of fraud going on in California,
(20:28):
just like Minnesota. Steve, welcome, how are you.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I'm great. Happy new Year, John, great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Happy new Year.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
It's gonna be a happy new year in California. You
We're gonna kick these people out finally in November. That's
you know, it's a few months away. This is part
of the story because when it gets to the heart
of that basic question, which is how is it possible
that we have the highest taxes in the country and
yet the worst outcomes are the worst results. We have
(20:59):
the gas tax and the worst roads. We have the
highest spending on welfare, but the highest poverty, on and on.
You look at everything they're doing. Where does the money go?
And this is the answer. And we talk about on
another exignt, you know, we spend the most on homelessness.
That goes up every year. Homelessness goes up every year.
(21:20):
So this is what we've got to get to the
bottom of. So this is not just you know, some
story that's popped up because of Minnesota and we're on
it for a few days. No, this is central to
how we save California. Is stopping the corrupt, fraudulent, wasting
and abuse of taxpayer money, because if you stop the
spending and the waste and the fraud and the corruption,
you can cut taxes. That means people's living standards go up.
(21:44):
It's not everything's not so expensive. And there's ahole other
set of stuff we need to do, of course, to
bring gas prices down and rent all that stuff, But
a huge part of it is this bloated nanny state,
welfare state that they've built. So what we've done, exactly
as you said, about a month ago to the third,
we launched califraud dot com in the wake of the
(22:05):
Minnesota revelations because what was interesting about Minnesota was that
for years they have been whistleblowers the in state government
and local government in Minnesota, trying to alert people to
what was going on, and Tim Walls and the Democrat
machine tried to silence them and intimidate them. So I
said to myself, look, let's try and get those tories
out here. Obviously, I'm not yet the governor. I don't
(22:25):
have the power of audit and going in and stopping
the money, but let's make a start by trying to
at least identify the places and the areas where this
is happening. We've had hundreds of responses, as you said,
and so what we announced yesterday. When I say we,
it's me and a guy called Herb Morgan. Very important guy.
He's running for a very important position state Controller. It's
(22:46):
not you remember, it's not just about the governor's race
this year. We've got to elect Republicans at every level
and right across the board. State Controller has the power
of audit for any organization receiving state money, even a
dollar of state money. The state Controller can go in
and look at the books and stop the flow of money.
Really important. So Herb and I have been working together
(23:09):
on this. We launched califraud dot com a month ago.
Hundreds of tips we've been going through looking at the
areas that that identifies, putting that together with the scale
of spending the budgets in certain areas. What we already
know from audits that have been put out there, for
example by the state auditor on homelessness spending that was
twenty four billion fifty five billion loss through the Employment
(23:32):
Development Department. That's, by the way, where I did my
press conference with Herb yesterday outside the Employment Development Department
building in San Francisco to announce what we found, which
is that our preliminary investigation suggests to us that the
scale of the fraud in California is at least two
one hundred and fifty billion dollars two hundred and Yes,
(23:56):
Now I just want to be clear that is not
every year. That is basically the total that we think
that we can identify in the last few years. Really,
the simple way of thinking about this is this is
really the lockdowns and all of that, the forced lot.
I never want to say the pandemic, because it wasn't
the pandemic that did this. It was the lockdowns, which
(24:17):
were totally unnecessary and counterproductive, went on longer here than
anywhere else because of Newsom and so on. And then
what they did, they just opened this figure and massive
amounts of welfare spending ballooned the state budget in the
last ten In the last five years, nearly they've double.
In the last five years, they've nearly doubled. The state
(24:38):
budget doubled from about one hundred and eighty billion a
year to over three hundred and twenty billion a year
just in the last five years. That's what we're looking at,
and it's this massive splurge of spending around the lockdowns,
putting people on welfare, handing out money, and that's got
baked into the ongoing spending. It's become part of the
(25:01):
baseline of spending. That's why this is so important. And
so two hundred and fifty billion we think is just
the start. I mean, once we get in there and
open up the books, it could be a lot worse.
But what's helpful about this is that idea, just the
whistleblower tips have given us examples of the areas we
need to look at. Obviously, things like you see in
Minnesota with daycare and whatever, but actually here there's a
(25:25):
much broader range that has come to our attention. You've
got a big issue with public sector pensions and an
abuse of the pension system, retirement system for things like
double dipping of pensions, spiking of pensions. You've got an
issue that was brought to our attention from the school
system from K through twelve, where where people are telling
us that there's a massive fraud going on where job
(25:46):
descriptions are changed in order to qualify for a higher salary,
but the work saves the thing, so it looks like
someone's been promoted gets a higher salary, but actually, in reality,
nothing's changed. Stuff like that that's going on contracting where
you know, for buildings, and corruption in all of that
with roads and schools, and you know BART that we
(26:09):
had some tips about BART, the Bay Area rapid transportation
system and that got a huge amount of money in
the pandemic. And what's happened to that, no one knows.
They're now desperate for money. They want another tax increase
to pay for it. Look at our roads more generally
across the state, highest gas prices and gas taxes in
the country, the worst roads. Where does that money go?
(26:32):
There's and there's there's even more. I just I'll stop
there because I can talk endlessly about it. But here's
the point. This gives us a road map for finding
out what's been stolen and how we can stop it.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
All right, let me stop you here and you can
stay on for another segment and we'll talk further. Okay,
this is Steve Hilton, one of the leading candidates running
as a Republican for governor, and he's at the top
of the polls and we'll continue our interview with him next.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
You're listening to Sean Cobels on demand from KFI A.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Sixty moistline for Friday, eight seven seven moist eighty six.
You've heard a lot today eight seven seven moist eighty six.
Call and letter rip with all your ranting and ravings.
Talk back on the iHeartRadio app is another way you
can also contact us and leave your message. After three o'clock,
we're gonna have Roger Bailey on, one of the lead
(27:24):
attorneys for one thousands of Pacific Palisades residents who he's
filed a massive lawsuit on behalf of the residence. And
he now has a new drone video showing smoke coming
from the exact location that the ATF confirmed the Palisades started.
And this is after the fire. A state park ranger
(27:49):
said she saw smoke and didn't report it. That's what
he's telling us, and we are going to tell you
all about that and more about the avoidance areas in
the wildlands near the Palisades, you know where that milk
vetch plant was lurking, and the orders that the Alley
Fire Department were under not to work on mopping up
(28:13):
the fire because there'd be damage done to the milk
vetch plant.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Let's continue with Steve Hilton right now.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Steve Hilton, one of the top candidates running for governor
as a Republican here in the state, and some weeks
ago he asked for whistleblowers. He had a hotline number,
and people responded, and he and Herb Morgan, who was
running for the state controller job, have teamed up and
they've identified potentially two hundred and fifty billion dollars in
(28:40):
fraud over in recent years under the Newsom administration. Two
hundred and fifty billion dollars. Steve, you get in, what
are you going to do? You're going to run into
a lot of resistance in the bureaucracy and with the
Democrats still holding power in the legislature. I mean, we've
(29:01):
seen how much trouble Trump and his administration have run
into trying to reform the place.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
There. What are you going to run into and how
are you going to deal with it?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
So here's the This is why it's so important that
I'm working with Herb, because that really is a control
you know, it's a financial control position. And we're doing
the work now and getting ready and so we're going
to be And the other part of the good news
is that you do run the executive branch, you control
those agencies. You have the power to hire and fire people,
direct them with executive orders, and so there's a lot
(29:31):
that you can do. You can't do everything, You're right,
You'll have probably have. Look, we need to try and
break the supermajority. Now, I'm going to be working hard
to help elect Republicans into this, into the Assembly and
the State Senate so we can try and get rid
of the supermajority. But whatever, they'll still have dominant numbers
in the legislature. So you're right, it has to be
through executive action. But the state Controller has a lot
(29:52):
of power working with the governor and hopefully very strong
attorney general who can fight off the lawsuits. And that's
another reason that you know, right the start of this effort,
I've always said I want to do this as a team.
It's not just me, it's not just one job. It's
the team that can make all this happen. And actually,
you do like we don't have it. We laid out
the plan yesterday and people can read it at Steve
(30:13):
Hilton forgovernor dot com on my website, and we published
it actually the New York Post. You're just talking about
the California Post. I totally agree the huge, huge deal.
Jol is great and I'm in very close contact with them.
They did a story on our fraud investigation just yesterday
published our plan. We've got a Herb Morgan and I
laid out a specific plan for what we would do,
(30:34):
including a top to bottom audit which will have the
power to really open the books in the way that
Gavin I mean, here's another example of what they're trying
to cover this up. So just to be you know
that we know, we've heard that number for a few
years now. Twenty four billion dollars in homeless spending. Right.
That was an audit from the state auditor requested by
a Republican in the state legislature. They audited it, an audit,
(30:57):
and they looked at that and they said, there's twenty
four billion dollars in homeless spending that we can't account for.
We don't know where it went. So the legislature, even
with the Democrat supermajority, passed a bill requiring a detailed
audit of that spending to find out where that twenty
four billion dollars went. Newsome vetoed that bill, vetoed it,
(31:19):
and so the governor's got a lot of power to
actually put a red light or a green light for
this kind of investigation. We're going to have a top
to bottom investigation and for the past and for the future,
Herb Morgan and I have got a plan for real
time control of this spending, and the most important part
of that is transparency, so you will see the money
(31:41):
go out as it goes out. You can do that
using blockchain technology so that the payments are live in
real time. That is the kind of transparency that will
mean that you can find out where the money's going
and immediately start to see if it's made up, if
it bs fake services to fake people, or even for
(32:03):
fake services the real people for that matter, which is
what we saw going on in Minnesota, because this is
their business model right as I said earlier, they want
to expand the welfare state, get more and more people
on free stuff from the government. Then you've got a name,
then you've got a social Security number. Then you can
make up a fake invoice and start getting paid. That's
what's been going on, and we really can put a
(32:26):
stop to it if we get elected. That's why these
elections mean so much. I know that people are desponded
about California. Oh, nothing's going to change. Honestly, it really
will change if you put us in there, because we
are fired up about doing it, and we've done the
preparation work, so once we get there, we are ready
to go.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Steve, I want to keep talking with you over the
coming months. We've got the primary coming up in June,
so it's not that far away. Yeah, and you have
like such a thorough detailed analysis of a lot that's
gone wrong and also a detailed analysis on how you
can make things better. So I want to help you
get out that message as best we can. All Right,
(33:07):
appreciate it, all right, all right, Steve Hilton, talk to
you soon. Thanks for coming on and coming up. After
three o'clock, ever's going to do the news and then
we're gonna have Roger Bailey on Tomorrow is the anniversary
of the Palisades fire, and he found a new drone
video showing smoke coming from the exact location that the
(33:30):
ATF confirmed where the Palisades fire started. State park ranger
said she saw smoke at the same time, did not
report it. We've got new maps that he's given us
about how the Lockman fire was in an area there
where the firefighters were told to avoid when they were
doing the mop up duty, and they had to protect
(33:51):
the milk vetch plant.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And they chose.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
The milk vetch plant over everybody's home, and they chose
is it over human life? This is how fanatical these
environmental whack job activists are. They've embedded themselves in government.
And if you got a choice between twelve people dying
and saving the milk bench plant, they said, Eh, milkvetch plant,
that's more important. So we'll talk about that. I've also
(34:17):
got a clip another day. I got six hours worth
of show here, but we're gonna play a clip. CBS
interviewed Karen Bass about her reflections and regrets over the
Palistatees fire. You're gonna want to hear that as well.
A couple of stations did retrospective coverage on the fire.
(34:37):
Their stories came out today, and virtually nothing about the
litany of foul ups and competence and malfeasance on all
levels of state government. The massive failure of government hardly
given a mention in these stories from CBS and NBC four.
We'll talk more we come back. Jabber Mark Live the
(34:59):
CAFI twenty for our newsroom. Hey, you've been listening to
The John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI Am six forty from one to
four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course, anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We are on from one until four o'clock every day,
and then after four o'clock John Cobel Show on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That's the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
And if you're just joining us on the podcast, if
you missed the first hour, we had Joel Pollock on
opinion editor of the incoming California Post. It'll look just
like the New York Post, but it's entirely about California,
and they're going to bring that same New York Post
sensibility now to the media coverage of California. And this
(00:33):
is gonna be huge if they do what they do
in New York. This is really going to shake up
the media environment here and it badly needs it. So
listen to Joel Pollock on the one o'clock hour. Now,
we are going to talk with Jeremy Padawer this minute.
He along with Spencer Pratt, have organized a demonstration tomorrow.
(00:54):
It's entitled They Let Us Burn, and more than a
thousand people have already rsvped to attend. There's no tickets
or anything, but they just wanted to know what the
size of the crowd is, so they let us burn
dot com is the website you can read about it.
They're gonna have it in the Palisades Village ten thirty
in the morning, and they're gonna have speakers there at
(01:17):
residents and politicians, and it's at the Let me get
the right corner here and then we're gonna get Jeremy on.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Hold on, hold on? What did they do with it? Ah?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Here it is the corner of Antioch and Swarthmore. All right,
ten thirty tomorrow morning, let's get Jeremy padawer on. How
are you hey, I'm good. It's good to talk to you.
I'm glad to talk to you once again. Yeah, it
is good to have you on. There's a lot of
retrospectives already about the fire from a year ago, and
very little coverage of all the massive mistakes, all the
(01:53):
huge neglect, just criminal stuff in these media reports. I'm
going to go through some of them later. I mean,
it's got to be awfully frustrating when you can't seem
to find many media outlets that want to tell the
truth about how this happened, you know, the terrible lack
(02:14):
of preparation, the terrible execution in fighting the fire, and
then the complete disaster that the rebuild process has been.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yes, that's all. That's all very accurate. It's been incredibly frustrating.
And I would say as deep of a cut as
that fire was, and the realization that there was a
lack of prevention, precaution, bad policy and aptitude, gross negligence
and all of that, as deep as that cut is,
and seeing your neighbors hurt, the cut has even been
(02:45):
deeper post fire because of the gas lighting and misdirection
that has been coming from our leadership in a very
coordinated way and seeping into the media.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
So sure, I.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Would I would certainly say that the emotions that I'm
feeling and our community is feeling today, our frustration, anger, aggravation,
and and I would say some hopefulness. I mean the
fact that we're able to go out there and demonstrate
using the American ideal of free expression and freedom of
(03:21):
speech and doing so without worrying that we're going to
lose our place in society or our jobs. That's comforting.
I'm glad that our government allows for that.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Do you have anybody on your side when it comes
to the government, And I.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Mean, well, let's put it this way. But the Army
Corps of Engineers had a very fast cleanup of the debris.
They are a federal agency. On the state and city side,
it has not been very good. And I also want
to just express that none of this is coming from
ideal perspectives. Most of us are independents or Democrats, some
(04:04):
of us are Republicans. But the truth of the matter
is this is based on operational grounds alone. The city
and the state, they made a tremendous number of errors.
We can litigate through that during the course of this conversation.
But then afterwards again, no, they haven't been on our side.
They because being on our side means that they risk
(04:26):
they put themselves in the risk of liability. They put
themselves in the risk of not being able to perpetuating
their political careers. And unfortunately, they're in business for themselves
and not for the people.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
And they hold to that.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Even with twelve deaths and seven thousand homes destroyed, and
all the suffering and all the mayhem that followed, they
still are stonewalling, lying, covering up every you probably saw,
I'm sure in the Times over the Christmas break, there
were several articles about the fire department covering up its
(05:05):
own investigation.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Sure, no, absolutely no, this is coordinated. This is a
systematic cover up. And I believe the La Times even
requested Mahribas's texts days after the fire, and somehow they
were on a thirty day auto delete in the most
critical time perhaps in LA mayorial history. Yeah, she had
(05:29):
her text on an auto delete. Recently, the governor was
asked for anything that was responsive to Pacific Palisades in
the January time frame of last year. He said, there's
no results that are responsive. Apparently neither of them talked
about it at all in texts and phone calls. There
was just no discussion about this topic.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Fire. What fire?
Speaker 1 (05:52):
There was?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Yes, exactly that look and I have to tell you
it's offensive, right like it's offensive it and again it's
offensive not on ideological grounds, it's offensive on operational grounds.
It makes you look in the mirror and go Not
only did they not only did they on their own terms,
(06:15):
burn us down and I and again I'm not going
to say purposefully, I follow the gross negligence category. I
fall ineptitude category. But now they're going to now they
believe that we're this dumb a group of people that
are you know, that have done okay, that are that
are good critical thinkers, and they're going to treat us
(06:35):
like we are incredibly in ft ourselves.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
The the revelations from the La Times, from the UH depositions,
from the text messages they've uncovered.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
The Roger Bailey.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
The attorney for many of the plaintiff's Palisades homeowners, it
indicated that, like the original sin, there was obviously not
completely putting out the January first Lockman fire when the
ground was still hot and smoldering and smoking, and the
tree stumps and the rocks were hot, and the Alley
Fire Department gets pushed off the land by the State
(07:10):
park reps and rolled up their hoses and went home.
I mean, everything goes back to that moment, the day
after January first.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
That's entirely accurate, and I'm glad you said it. It
gives me the opportunity to not have to say it again.
That's exactly right. The origin of this is state malfeasance, okay,
and it starts there. The city reacted to a report
that the state had written the Tapangas something report that
(07:41):
are basically laid out that you cannot do certain things
in terms of mitigating a fire in this area, this
Lochman area, because of a weed, a shrub, the milk
fetch weed. Now what the hell is a milk fetch weed?
Let me tell you. It is a weed that occurs
naturally after for fire. But somehow this milk vetch weed
(08:04):
is considered endangered in and of itself, which I would
say is a good thing. Right. You don't want to
have a weed that's associated with previous fires anyway, because
that means that you have to perpetuate fires. Well, for
whatever it's worth. They here's what they did. The fire
begins on one one. They address the fire in their minds.
(08:25):
But the rule book for them is that in this
protected area you cannot drop fire retardant from above. You
cannot come in with bulldozers or mud the fire get
under it in any way because it will disturb the
milk vetch. And third, the other rule is if you
can't do those two things, then do thermal imaging. They
(08:47):
didn't do. And then, fourthly, if you're not gonna do
thermal imaging, at least have humans there to observe it
for a while. They didn't do that either. As a result.
And I don't know if you've seen this overnight. There's
video that broke yesterday, actually left night. I have it
on my Instagram right now at Jeremy Pittauer where there
is smoke billowing at eight thirty seven am after city left,
(09:11):
after they were told to leave. If they had just
gone a few more steps, they would have found it themselves.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
And this is what day.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
This is on the first. I'm sorry, yeah, this would
be on the first.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
That is cor on the first.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yeah, yeah, lets me put this out. It could have
all ended. It would have all ended if the state
didn't have such a bizarre way to address something that
I don't think anybody's ever thought about as being an
important part of our ecosystem, ecological system. And the city
had just said, you know, let's stick with this.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
A little bit longer.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Let's look around to make sure. And by the way,
the thermal imaging, there's also thermal imaging images that were
done by private individuals that show hot spots everywhere. They
left hot spots everywhere, They left smoking billowing tree stumps
with hot with rocks hot to the touch, and that's
a quote. And they left us to burn. They let
(10:09):
us burn that's the name.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Of the rally.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
So they abandoned putting out the original fire because of
pressure from the state parks reps over these milk fetch plants.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
That's right. And not only pressure, but a written out document,
a procedural document that basically said here's what you can
and cannot do in these affected areas. They laid it out.
It's it's written in plain like, there's nothing to interpret.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Jeremy hang on the line, right, can you stay with us?
Jeremy paddlework and he is one of the organizers of
the rally Tomorrow, the demonstration they let us burn, and
that's going to be in Palisades Village, Pacific Palisades on
the corner of Antiocritus Worth more More with Jeremy Paddawer
coming up.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Follow us at John Cobelt Radio and social media at
John Cobelt Radio on all the platforms, but for YouTube,
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It's YouTube dot Com slash at John Cobelt's show, So
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(11:21):
John Cobelt Show and you'll get notifications when we put
up another segment for all the other media social media platforms.
It's at John Cobelt Radio. And we continue now with
Jeremy Padawak because this is this week is the anniversary
of the Palisades Fire, and Jeremy and Spencer Pratt have
organized this demonstration tomorrow. They let Us Burn is the
(11:44):
title of it. More than a thousand people have already
RSVP to attend. You can go to they let Usburn
dot com and they have a link there to RSVP.
I mean, you know, have to RSVP, but they just
want to keep track of the crowd, know what kind
of what they're going to have to deal with. And
(12:06):
it is about the terrible preparation, the terrible response, the
terrible aftermath to the Pacific Palisades Fire, which is just it's,
I don't know how numb everybody's got to be in
the Palisades by now, Jeremy, I mean, it's difficult to
sustain your emotional resilience when something like this goes on
(12:27):
for twelve months and there doesn't seem to be any.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
End in sight.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
That is a very accurate description. Numb is the right
way to say it. And I'll just say this, A
lot happens over twelve months. I mean I have friends
whose marriages have ended, who have had illness in their family,
who've had job change. I mean, life still goes on.
Everything else in life still happens, except you're paying a
mortgage and a home that has burned to the ground
(12:53):
because of a city and state, and you're still paying
property tax, and you're still paying everything else as if
that home still there.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
They still are charging property tax.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Yes, now what we're what we're communicating is a vision
for the rebuilt that will bring as many human beings
back as possible. And it has ten imperatives. And one
of those imperatives is a less diabolical property tax assessment.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I would they have that.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You should get a Yeah, there should be a break
for everybody on the property tax at least for a while.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Well let me let me how about this. I love math,
and four of the ten imperatives are math oriented. We
live in a place that is not as math oriented.
It's taken them a full year, in fact, to even
figure out how to reduce permit fees because they can't
get their head around that budget, which is ridiculous. But
in terms of property tax okay, when your house burns down,
(13:52):
the local municipality has a choice in terms of what
to do. What ours has done is said, look, if
your house is gone, you're not paying for your house anymore,
but you are paying for the land. You're paying for
the land at what we consider the current value. However,
as you build back your house as the percentage that
is done on the first of January every year, that
(14:15):
is the percentage of your house that you need to
pay us in property taxes. That is wrong, that is
not reasonable. So for instance, if I have thirty percent
of my home built back on January first, twenty twenty seven,
they want thirty percent of that home's final value. If
it's eighty percent on January one, twenty twenty eight, they
weren't eighty percent of that home's value. That is how.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
They're doing it.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
That to me is very very bad taste. Not only
that not only didn't bad taste, but on the flip
side of all of this, because they forced people into
a situation where so many people have to move and
other folks will come in who were not harmed to
this level, the amount of money that they take in
property taxes seven to ten years from now will be
(15:00):
portunately higher. They could handle cutting people a little bit
of a break, but they don't do it.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
That is abusive.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
That is absolutely an abusive, mean, nasty policy for people
who have suffered way too much already.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Yeah, and guess what that one's That one pales in
comparison to the next one. I'm going to tell you,
so go ahead, So, yeah, you're ready. State taxes are
applicable to the entire rebuild. So, for instance, in the Palisades,
I think it's going to cost roughly twenty billion dollars
to rebuild the the residences in the Palisades, and about
fifteen billion dollars in Altadena, so thirty five billion dollars.
(15:39):
They are fully willing to accept the ten percent in
state and local taxes on that entire thirty five billion
dollars spend. There is currently no plan whatsoever to reduce
taxes on statean local based on the rebuild.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
This is the only thing that they do well. They
couldn't fill up the reservoir, they couldn't position the fire
trucks the night before the winds, they couldn't put out
the fire at a reasonable and a reasonable amount of time,
and on and on and on. None of that. They
found that everything every level of government fail. Well, they
did save the milk vetch plan, I guess for a few.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Days, and milk vetch is in great shape.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
In addition to the milk vetch being in great shape,
they're going to take in three and a half billion
dollars so they can care for the milk fetch because
they prioritize plants over people. But those are two things
for us. One of the ten priorities is no sales
tax in the rebuild state or city. Another priority is
do not charge us to move back into our homes
(16:41):
until we have a certicate ticket of occupancy.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Comes to the dwelling tax, Yeah, there shouldn't be a
property tax until you can use the property. They charge
you thirty or eighty percent of the of the tax
because you have thirty to eighty percent of the lot rebuilt,
but you can use zero zero percent of it.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So that's outrageous.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
God, they really are abusive, awful people.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Yeah, well, I'll give you one more, and I'm talking
about the homes that have burned down. What about the
person who has a home that is toxic, they can't
move in. Their insurance has certainly not done them any
favors because there's enough ambiguity where the insurance goes, Oh no,
your home is fine, but you know nobody else has
moved in on your block yet, and it's radioactive in
(17:29):
terms of what it's testing. Your property tax is relatively
unchanged to the pre fire tax because it did not
burn down. Those people are paying full property tax. They
have no accessibility to their homes.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yes, I know people who've gone through that. It's it's
just all of it's terrible. Well, Jeremy, you're gonna have
a big crowd tomorrow. You got a lot of facts
and a lot of emotions built up, and we're gonna
come there by the way, I'll probably show you tomorrow.
It's ten thirty tomorrow in the Palesades Village, the corner
of Antioch and Swarthmore. They let us Burn is the
name of the demonstration. We're gonna be talking to as
(18:02):
many people as we can and then play back some
of those interviews on tomorrow afternoons program. So I'll see
you tomorrow, Jeremy, Good luck with everyone. All right, thank you,
Jeremy Patterer, one of the organizers of They Let Us
Burn the Everybody's got to come out because this is
I can't believe that there isn't an ounce of remorse
(18:25):
from anybody in government, not Bass, not Newsome, most of
the city council, none of the bureaucrats.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
No remorse at all.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
They're not just grabbing people by the back of the
neck and grinding their heads into the ground, demanding more money,
more tax. Well, everybody paid a lot of tax money
and you didn't even get basic fire coverage. We're gonna
have Steve Hilton coming on next. This is an all
star day. Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate for governor. He's
(18:53):
coming on to talk about the massive fraud that he
and his staff have.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Uncovered in Gavin Newsom's government.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
That is, you're listening to John Cobels on demand from
KFI A six forty.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
After four o'clock, The John Cobelt Show on demand And
if case you missed what we've done in the first
hour and a half, you should be doing. You should
be demanding the podcast. Later, we had Joel pollackah on
the Opinion editor for the California Post. We talked to
him the entire one o'clock hour because there's a new
major media outlet coming. It is the California Post, sister
(19:27):
publication of the New York Post, and they're going to
cover California news and politics and sports and culture, just
like the New York Post does for New York and
Washington DC. And it is really I keep calling it
an earthquake. That's what it is, because the rest of
the media is going to have to respond and they
are going to dig up all the dirt on what's
(19:48):
going on here in LA and in and Sacramento. We're
going to talk now with one of the top candidates
for governor, Republican Steve Hilton. Steve has a lot of
political experience, business experience, television experience, and we're gonna talk
to him right now because he is very high up
(20:08):
in the polls and he has done his own investigating.
He asked for whistleblowers, he came on our show some
weeks back, and whistleblowers have responded as to the hundreds
of well, well, we'll let Steve talk about the numbers,
but there is a lot of fraud going on in California,
(20:28):
just like Minnesota. Steve, welcome, how are you.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I'm great. Happy new Year, John, great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Happy new Year.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
It's gonna be a happy new year in California. You
We're gonna kick these people out finally in November. That's
you know, it's a few months away. This is part
of the story because when it gets to the heart
of that basic question, which is how is it possible
that we have the highest taxes in the country and
yet the worst outcomes are the worst results. We have
(20:59):
the gas tax and the worst roads. We have the
highest spending on welfare, but the highest poverty, on and on.
You look at everything they're doing. Where does the money go?
And this is the answer. And we talk about on
another exignt, you know, we spend the most on homelessness.
That goes up every year. Homelessness goes up every year.
(21:20):
So this is what we've got to get to the
bottom of. So this is not just you know, some
story that's popped up because of Minnesota and we're on
it for a few days. No, this is central to
how we save California. Is stopping the corrupt, fraudulent, wasting
and abuse of taxpayer money, because if you stop the
spending and the waste and the fraud and the corruption,
you can cut taxes. That means people's living standards go up.
(21:44):
It's not everything's not so expensive. And there's ahole other
set of stuff we need to do, of course, to
bring gas prices down and rent all that stuff, But
a huge part of it is this bloated nanny state,
welfare state that they've built. So what we've done, exactly
as you said, about a month ago to the third,
we launched califraud dot com in the wake of the
(22:05):
Minnesota revelations because what was interesting about Minnesota was that
for years they have been whistleblowers the in state government
and local government in Minnesota, trying to alert people to
what was going on, and Tim Walls and the Democrat
machine tried to silence them and intimidate them. So I
said to myself, look, let's try and get those tories
out here. Obviously, I'm not yet the governor. I don't
(22:25):
have the power of audit and going in and stopping
the money, but let's make a start by trying to
at least identify the places and the areas where this
is happening. We've had hundreds of responses, as you said,
and so what we announced yesterday. When I say we,
it's me and a guy called Herb Morgan. Very important guy.
He's running for a very important position state Controller. It's
(22:46):
not you remember, it's not just about the governor's race
this year. We've got to elect Republicans at every level
and right across the board. State Controller has the power
of audit for any organization receiving state money, even a
dollar of state money. The state Controller can go in
and look at the books and stop the flow of money.
Really important. So Herb and I have been working together
(23:09):
on this. We launched califraud dot com a month ago.
Hundreds of tips we've been going through looking at the
areas that that identifies, putting that together with the scale
of spending the budgets in certain areas. What we already
know from audits that have been put out there, for
example by the state auditor on homelessness spending that was
twenty four billion fifty five billion loss through the Employment
(23:32):
Development Department. That's, by the way, where I did my
press conference with Herb yesterday outside the Employment Development Department
building in San Francisco to announce what we found, which
is that our preliminary investigation suggests to us that the
scale of the fraud in California is at least two
one hundred and fifty billion dollars two hundred and Yes,
(23:56):
Now I just want to be clear that is not
every year. That is basically the total that we think
that we can identify in the last few years. Really,
the simple way of thinking about this is this is
really the lockdowns and all of that, the forced lot.
I never want to say the pandemic, because it wasn't
the pandemic that did this. It was the lockdowns, which
(24:17):
were totally unnecessary and counterproductive, went on longer here than
anywhere else because of Newsom and so on. And then
what they did, they just opened this figure and massive
amounts of welfare spending ballooned the state budget in the
last ten In the last five years, nearly they've double.
In the last five years, they've nearly doubled. The state
(24:38):
budget doubled from about one hundred and eighty billion a
year to over three hundred and twenty billion a year
just in the last five years. That's what we're looking at,
and it's this massive splurge of spending around the lockdowns,
putting people on welfare, handing out money, and that's got
baked into the ongoing spending. It's become part of the
(25:01):
baseline of spending. That's why this is so important. And
so two hundred and fifty billion we think is just
the start. I mean, once we get in there and
open up the books, it could be a lot worse.
But what's helpful about this is that idea, just the
whistleblower tips have given us examples of the areas we
need to look at. Obviously, things like you see in
Minnesota with daycare and whatever, but actually here there's a
(25:25):
much broader range that has come to our attention. You've
got a big issue with public sector pensions and an
abuse of the pension system, retirement system for things like
double dipping of pensions, spiking of pensions. You've got an
issue that was brought to our attention from the school
system from K through twelve, where where people are telling
us that there's a massive fraud going on where job
(25:46):
descriptions are changed in order to qualify for a higher salary,
but the work saves the thing, so it looks like
someone's been promoted gets a higher salary, but actually, in reality,
nothing's changed. Stuff like that that's going on contracting where
you know, for buildings, and corruption in all of that
with roads and schools, and you know BART that we
(26:09):
had some tips about BART, the Bay Area rapid transportation
system and that got a huge amount of money in
the pandemic. And what's happened to that, no one knows.
They're now desperate for money. They want another tax increase
to pay for it. Look at our roads more generally
across the state, highest gas prices and gas taxes in
the country, the worst roads. Where does that money go?
(26:32):
There's and there's there's even more. I just I'll stop
there because I can talk endlessly about it. But here's
the point. This gives us a road map for finding
out what's been stolen and how we can stop it.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
All right, let me stop you here and you can
stay on for another segment and we'll talk further. Okay,
this is Steve Hilton, one of the leading candidates running
as a Republican for governor, and he's at the top
of the polls and we'll continue our interview with him next.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
You're listening to Sean Cobels on demand from KFI A.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Sixty moistline for Friday, eight seven seven moist eighty six.
You've heard a lot today eight seven seven moist eighty six.
Call and letter rip with all your ranting and ravings.
Talk back on the iHeartRadio app is another way you
can also contact us and leave your message. After three o'clock,
we're gonna have Roger Bailey on, one of the lead
(27:24):
attorneys for one thousands of Pacific Palisades residents who he's
filed a massive lawsuit on behalf of the residence. And
he now has a new drone video showing smoke coming
from the exact location that the ATF confirmed the Palisades started.
And this is after the fire. A state park ranger
(27:49):
said she saw smoke and didn't report it. That's what
he's telling us, and we are going to tell you
all about that and more about the avoidance areas in
the wildlands near the Palisades, you know where that milk
vetch plant was lurking, and the orders that the Alley
Fire Department were under not to work on mopping up
(28:13):
the fire because there'd be damage done to the milk
vetch plant.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Let's continue with Steve Hilton right now.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Steve Hilton, one of the top candidates running for governor
as a Republican here in the state, and some weeks
ago he asked for whistleblowers. He had a hotline number,
and people responded, and he and Herb Morgan, who was
running for the state controller job, have teamed up and
they've identified potentially two hundred and fifty billion dollars in
(28:40):
fraud over in recent years under the Newsom administration. Two
hundred and fifty billion dollars. Steve, you get in, what
are you going to do? You're going to run into
a lot of resistance in the bureaucracy and with the
Democrats still holding power in the legislature. I mean, we've
(29:01):
seen how much trouble Trump and his administration have run
into trying to reform the place.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
There. What are you going to run into and how
are you going to deal with it?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
So here's the This is why it's so important that
I'm working with Herb, because that really is a control
you know, it's a financial control position. And we're doing
the work now and getting ready and so we're going
to be And the other part of the good news
is that you do run the executive branch, you control
those agencies. You have the power to hire and fire people,
direct them with executive orders, and so there's a lot
(29:31):
that you can do. You can't do everything, You're right,
You'll have probably have. Look, we need to try and
break the supermajority. Now, I'm going to be working hard
to help elect Republicans into this, into the Assembly and
the State Senate so we can try and get rid
of the supermajority. But whatever, they'll still have dominant numbers
in the legislature. So you're right, it has to be
through executive action. But the state Controller has a lot
(29:52):
of power working with the governor and hopefully very strong
attorney general who can fight off the lawsuits. And that's
another reason that you know, right the start of this effort,
I've always said I want to do this as a team.
It's not just me, it's not just one job. It's
the team that can make all this happen. And actually,
you do like we don't have it. We laid out
the plan yesterday and people can read it at Steve
(30:13):
Hilton forgovernor dot com on my website, and we published
it actually the New York Post. You're just talking about
the California Post. I totally agree the huge, huge deal.
Jol is great and I'm in very close contact with them.
They did a story on our fraud investigation just yesterday
published our plan. We've got a Herb Morgan and I
laid out a specific plan for what we would do,
(30:34):
including a top to bottom audit which will have the
power to really open the books in the way that
Gavin I mean, here's another example of what they're trying
to cover this up. So just to be you know
that we know, we've heard that number for a few
years now. Twenty four billion dollars in homeless spending. Right.
That was an audit from the state auditor requested by
a Republican in the state legislature. They audited it, an audit,
(30:57):
and they looked at that and they said, there's twenty
four billion dollars in homeless spending that we can't account for.
We don't know where it went. So the legislature, even
with the Democrat supermajority, passed a bill requiring a detailed
audit of that spending to find out where that twenty
four billion dollars went. Newsome vetoed that bill, vetoed it,
(31:19):
and so the governor's got a lot of power to
actually put a red light or a green light for
this kind of investigation. We're going to have a top
to bottom investigation and for the past and for the future,
Herb Morgan and I have got a plan for real
time control of this spending, and the most important part
of that is transparency, so you will see the money
(31:41):
go out as it goes out. You can do that
using blockchain technology so that the payments are live in
real time. That is the kind of transparency that will
mean that you can find out where the money's going
and immediately start to see if it's made up, if
it bs fake services to fake people, or even for
(32:03):
fake services the real people for that matter, which is
what we saw going on in Minnesota, because this is
their business model right as I said earlier, they want
to expand the welfare state, get more and more people
on free stuff from the government. Then you've got a name,
then you've got a social Security number. Then you can
make up a fake invoice and start getting paid. That's
what's been going on, and we really can put a
(32:26):
stop to it if we get elected. That's why these
elections mean so much. I know that people are desponded
about California. Oh, nothing's going to change. Honestly, it really
will change if you put us in there, because we
are fired up about doing it, and we've done the
preparation work, so once we get there, we are ready
to go.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Steve, I want to keep talking with you over the
coming months. We've got the primary coming up in June,
so it's not that far away. Yeah, and you have
like such a thorough detailed analysis of a lot that's
gone wrong and also a detailed analysis on how you
can make things better. So I want to help you
get out that message as best we can. All Right,
(33:07):
appreciate it, all right, all right, Steve Hilton, talk to
you soon. Thanks for coming on and coming up. After
three o'clock, ever's going to do the news and then
we're gonna have Roger Bailey on Tomorrow is the anniversary
of the Palisades fire, and he found a new drone
video showing smoke coming from the exact location that the
(33:30):
ATF confirmed where the Palisades fire started. State park ranger
said she saw smoke at the same time, did not
report it. We've got new maps that he's given us
about how the Lockman fire was in an area there
where the firefighters were told to avoid when they were
doing the mop up duty, and they had to protect
(33:51):
the milk vetch plant.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And they chose.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
The milk vetch plant over everybody's home, and they chose
is it over human life? This is how fanatical these
environmental whack job activists are. They've embedded themselves in government.
And if you got a choice between twelve people dying
and saving the milk bench plant, they said, Eh, milkvetch plant,
that's more important. So we'll talk about that. I've also
(34:17):
got a clip another day. I got six hours worth
of show here, but we're gonna play a clip. CBS
interviewed Karen Bass about her reflections and regrets over the
Palistatees fire. You're gonna want to hear that as well.
A couple of stations did retrospective coverage on the fire.
(34:37):
Their stories came out today, and virtually nothing about the
litany of foul ups and competence and malfeasance on all
levels of state government. The massive failure of government hardly
given a mention in these stories from CBS and NBC four.
We'll talk more we come back. Jabber Mark Live the
(34:59):
CAFI twenty for our newsroom. Hey, you've been listening to
The John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI Am six forty from one to
four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course, anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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