In this episode, Lisa and Steve Hilton discuss various political topics, including the White House's crisis communications, Bernie Sanders and AOC's "fighting oligarchy" tour, and Hilton's new book. Hilton shares his insights on the Democratic Party's direction, critiquing their leftward shift and its potential impact on upcoming elections. The conversation also delves into California's political landscape, highlighting issues like homelessness and ineffective policies driven by ideological commitments. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
Purchase Steve's NEW book HERE
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
So today we're diving into signal gate and the White
House's crisis comms. Our heads about to roll or is
it being overblown? We'll discuss. We'll also unpack Bernie Sanders,
an AOC's fighting oligarchy tour, pulling massive crowds twenty months
before the midterms. Should this worry us? I mean, they
claim to be populous, but are they Today's guest Steve
(00:24):
Hilton knows a thing or two about that, having been
a key voice in Brexit's leaf campaign, even clashing with
his old boss David Cameron. We'll get his take on
all of that. We've seen the UK have a lot
of issues with free speech, censorship as well as immigration.
How much of those issues are intertwined and what's the
future of the UK. And lastly, we'll dig into Steve
(00:45):
Hilton's new book, Cali Failure, Reversing the Ruin of America's
worst run State. Can a Republican save the Golden State?
And is that Republican? Steve Hilton? Well, Steve Hilton, it's
such an honor to have you on the show. You're
(01:07):
one of my favorite people at Fox News and I've
just enjoyed previously going on your show and just kind
of getting to know you throughout the years. You're just
You're a great guy, You're so smart, your friend, and
so it's it's exciting to have you on, and I'm
excited about your book that we'll get dig into.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Thank well, it's wonderful to be with you. I'm so happy.
I totally agree that. I feel like we kind of
came up together at Fox, and it's just great to
be with you today.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Well, we've also i mean, you know, the past few
years have just been so interesting in history, right, I
mean we kind of you know, I remember going on
your show during COVID, and you know, you were one
of the few people out in the media really questioning
things and allowing a space on your show to question things,
which I think was so important at the time because
people just weren't doing it. I mean, you were having
(01:51):
people on who you know, weren't for lockdowns and who
didn't think that everyone should go out and get vaccinated,
and you really allowed for a space for actual in
different opinions, and so I think you really played a
really critical role during COVID.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, thank you. Actually, my favorite thing, especially this week,
is to note that I was the first person that
put Jay Battachariot on TV. And of course he's just
being confirmed as the new head of NIH, which is
such a beautiful kind of revenge against all the lockdown lunatics.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, you know, it seems like a lot of these
people like Jay, and really I didn't realize you were
the first person. I mean, I knew that you had
him on. I knew that you were very brave and
sort of having these people on earlier than you know,
other people were willing to have them on. But that's
very cool. But it is nice to see a lot
of these people who got really beat up and really
battered and bruised and bloodied for telling the truth during COVID.
(02:45):
I mean, the amount that he went through at Stanford
and just through his viewers and you know, and then
to now to be in a position of authority in
the country on public health is poetic justice. If you
could ever write any you know, it's just it's a
beautiful thing to see and we'll all be better as
a result, all right. So I wanted to ask you
(03:06):
just out the gate, and we don't have to spend
a lot of time on this because obviously it's being
discussed enough, all right, so signal gait, what do you
make of it? And how is the White House doing
in its crisis communication response.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I honestly don't know what to make of it other
than clearly everyone agrees that it was a mistake, So
no one's defending it as yeah, this was a good
thing that happened. I think it is important, and they
are making the point, which I think is in a
way the main point that the actual substance here was
(03:42):
very positive. In other words, they were discussing something that
then happened and was very successful, and it was a
great example of American leadership, so that you know, we
cannot lose sight of that and all the conversation around
the process. And it's the kind of story that the
press absolutely loves because it's it is about process and
(04:02):
the kind of internal workings of things rather than you know,
real policy in the real world. Having said that, the
thing that I just keep coming back to is that
when we think about this, quite obviously the addition of
the journalist was just a mistake, and these things happen,
and I think they'll probably learn from it and make
sure that I think we're already hearing that in the future,
(04:23):
you know there will be much you know, there'll be
someone checking exactly who's on chains like this or whatever.
But the broader point, I think is security of communications
and how can you run that properly in the modern
world where people are running around and everything's on phones
and all the rest of it. And it takes me
back to my first days in working in the government
(04:45):
back in the UK, in the Camera and administration, and
I remember very clearly having the security briefing and they
were going up from the British Security Services and they
were on and on about how vulnerable smartphones were, and
they said, look, don't assume anything hostile. Foreign powers and
(05:05):
security services can get into any phone anyway they want that.
I remember that very clearly. They said, they can even
take over a phone that is not even turned on.
They can take it over and turn it remotely into
a listening device for any room that you're in. So
just be incredibly cautious about your phone. And the other
thing they said was this only applies to smartphones. And
(05:28):
at the time I had never I've never had a smartphone,
and I had an old fashioned Nokia phone and I
just held it up and said and the guy said, yeah,
that's it. That's secure. They can't get into that. So
I think for all the conversation and it's now become
known as signal GIT or whatever, I think actually the
real story here is about phones and the device, because
(05:49):
that's the real vulnerability.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And you've not if I can remember, you're not a
cell phone guy, right, I remember.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I have now got a flip phone, but it's still
it's an old fashioned flip phone. It's not a smartphone.
I'm on the road now a lot in California, so
I do need to, you know, just be a more
available and call people in text and whatever. So that's
what I have a flip phone, which enables me to
do that. I can make phone calls, I can text,
but that's it.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Although I kind of love that you've lived in tech world,
but you're like, you don't know, that's kind of cool.
I kind of like that, you know. I also just
think that the Democrats are overplaying their hand here, right,
because like it is a loss for the White House.
It's it's a win for Democrats to you know, try
to put some points on the board. It's not a
good news cycle for the White House. We can we
(06:36):
can all admit that, but then it's like they take
it so far to the point and like so hyperbolic
that it's like, Okay, like you know what I mean,
you're right about it being embarrassing. You know, you're right
to you know, knock the White House on this, but
then like you take it so far and try to
make these things it's not and then you sort of
lose the plot. And then also just after all the
(06:56):
incompetence we had to go through with the previous administration,
getting thirteen service members killed, you know, droning an AID worker,
the list goes on, it's like you don't really have
much of a leg to stand on here either, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I totally agree. I was just watching some of the
I was on Fox and Friends this morning and I
was just going watching They had a sort of compilation
of some of the comments from Democrats and media pundits
on you know, the Chris Hayes I think on MSNBC
was particularly gregious, just the insanity. They're so over the top.
This is the most appalling security breach in the history
(07:33):
of the country. I think it was literally as extreme
as that, and you just think that what are you
talking about?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You just sound like a fool, you know exactly. It's
like they just take it so far. They're too dumb
to even take a win.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
It's like, but so in this conversation, one thing that
came to mind that I wanted to ask you about. So,
we have an administration that's moving so quickly, right, Like,
it's like I feel like we're living through dog years.
Like it's just like it's going you know, it's it's
you know, it feels like we've already been through a
year of an administration. Right it's just going so quickly.
He's moving so quickly. How does that play out in
(08:07):
the midterms? Like it seems that it's been able to
throw Democrats off their games, sort of like the inability
to figure out how to outside of this, you know,
one incident with the signal gate sort of more self inflicted.
They've not really been able to land knocks against him
because it's like so much is happening. But how do
you make sure the American people are aware, you know,
(08:29):
that they're not just caught up in like the chaos
and go into the midterms feeling chaotic? You know, So
how do you you know, I guess how do you
sell that to the American people where you know, they
know that wins are happening, that things are good, without
just feeling like chaotic.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It's really interesting. I think that the driving factor will
be substantive, like what is actually happening in the real world,
particularly on economic matters. By the time people start thinking
about their votes are really I think opinions about how
things are going are going to be set, you know,
sort of summer next year. I think that's typically how
(09:08):
it works with elections, that, however people are feeling in
June July next year, is will be you know, determinative
of how the vote goes, honestly, and so I think
it's all about the the not just the process. Wins
in terms of initiating actions, whether that's tariffs or the
(09:29):
DOGE stuff, whatever it may be, that's great, and I
think that right now there's a positive sense of energy.
I think people overwhelmingly like that. You can see in
the approval numbers, which are the highest we've seen for
Donald Trump, and there you know, in comparison to other presidents.
It's all good news in that sense. But I think
(09:49):
by next year it's going to be, well, what's the
real news, what's actually happening, and so I think that
we just have to wait and see. I don't think
anything the Democrats are doing right now is likely to
be shaping perceptions. Then I do think that if they
continue down the path that they seem to be on,
which is moving, I would say even further left, or
(10:13):
at least, you know, doubling down on a kind of
left positioning, particularly if I mean, I will talk about
Bernie and AOC, you know, if that's where this is heading,
I don't think that's going to serve them well at all.
But I think the real driver will be what actually
happens in the real world, and it'll be a combination
of domestic and foreign posts. You know. For example, if
(10:33):
if if the if the administration does manage to pull off,
you know, an end to the war in Europe, like
a real end to it, that's a huge success that
they can point to. And the same same with you know,
jobs in the economy. I think that it's very possible
that actually you will see by the end by this,
you know, by early summer next year, really great stories
(10:57):
in terms of investment in the US and and jobs
being created in the sense that the America First Economic
Agenda really is delivering what it was supposed to do,
which is better jobs and higher earnings for Americans. But
that has to happen in order for people to feel
good about it.
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sponsored by Preborn. You know, we've had a lot of
(12:45):
these conversations on TV and everyone's like, oh, you know,
Democrats are lost, and they are obviously, but that doesn't
necessarily matter for the midterms. It matters for twenty twenty
eight when they have to pick a candidate, they have
to pick a direction for the party, and you know,
whoever the individual is that wins, you know, take on
that mantle and probably reshape the party. But for a
midterm it's really dependent on how President Trump is doing,
(13:06):
how this White House is doing, how the economy is doing,
how Americans feel about the direction of the country. And
so far we've seen pulling where. You know, I think Americans,
more Americans believe we're on the right track than two
thousand and four. So if that is how it looks
heading in the midterms, were good. But you know, I
think you kind of nailed it in the sense of,
like it really just comes down to what's the public
perception of President Trump and this White House heading into
(13:28):
the midterms.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yes, And I think one thing I'd add to that
is if you compare it to the last I mean,
I think the Democrats are very excited about the comparison
with twenty eighteen, which is obviously a good mid term
for them. And you had the whole resistance movement and
all of that stuff going on, and you had the
controversy over super you know, just a ton of stuff,
you know, Brett Cavanaught. You know, there was a lot
(13:51):
going on, and the rage against Trump was which was
totally amplified, of course by the media. It was really
strong and actually already by then you were having good
results on the economy in the first Trump administration, but
it was drowned out by the just the sheer kind
of level of the rage and hostility and the media
(14:14):
amplifying every single thing that went wrong and so on.
It's very different this time because you have just just
a much more experienced team and unified team, and apart
from this this thing we've just been talking about, it's
basically been really professional and the chaos argument just doesn't
really stick. And I think that and also that just
(14:35):
doesn't seem to be the appetite for the kind of
universal anti Trump rage. It's just not like that. It's
not new anymore, you know, and people can see that
this is very different feel to the administration. So I
don't think if like last time. What I'm really saying
is that last time, there were already good results happening
in the real world for President Trump in twenty eighteen,
(14:57):
but it was drowned out by this chorus of rage.
I don't think that'll happen this time. If he does
have good results, if things are going well, I think
that will translate into good outcomes in the midtimes.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
That's a really good point. You know, we're sort of
I think America, especially just since the past four years
have been so bad. I think American's eyes have kind
of an open to like they sort of get the
game now, you know, with how the media works in
the left. That's a really good point. So I wanted
to ask you about the whole Bernie Standers and AOC
thing because you've worked in you know, the highest highest
places in politics, and you're also a proponent of well
(15:32):
positive populism. This is not positive, but you know, maybe
populism nonetheless, but or some form of it. But so, okay,
So they've been on their fighting lagarchy tour according to organizers,
which you know, take it for a grain of assault,
because take it with a grain of saul because it's
according to organizers. But they say nearly eighty seven thousand
people have attended five events last week. You know, that's
(15:55):
a lot of people, particularly so far out from a
midterm election. I mean, should we be worried about that?
Is that is there something brewing there that we should
be paying attention to?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I don't think so. I think, if anything, it could
be mildly encouraging depth for Republicans because what you've actually
got going on that look, I think it reflects the
you know, these are real partisans, these are people going
to be vote voting Democrat. It's the activist base. It
seems to me that's showing up and they are really,
(16:26):
you know, obviously hugely, hugely demoralized by the defeat of
Karmala Harris and President Trump's election, which they just couldn't believe,
you know how they used to talk about him and
still do, and they just were assuming that Karmla Harris
would win and so and then ever since then, they've
seen this really astonishing press coverage really of President Trump,
(16:48):
both in the in the transition period. In the first
you know, a few months of the of the administration,
they're just looking and thinking, oh, my goodness, what is this.
Trump's the monster, He's a devil. What's going on? And
then they see somebody in their party just making a
stand and showing up and being angry and kind of
channeling their emotions, and they respond to it. So I
(17:10):
think that's natural. I don't think it's anything to be
sort of particularly concerned about. And I think the really
interesting thing is if the lesson that Democrats take from
it is, yeah, okay, well there's support for this AOC.
Maybe we should have had Bernie all along. You know,
maybe he's right, Maybe AOC, that's the direction that we
want to set. And of course you're right that the
(17:31):
real direction setting will happen once they choose their presidential nominee.
But if in the interim it feels like this is
where the action is and it's all about the left.
I think that's really helpful for Republicans because it seems
to me that the defining feature of the Democrats post election,
you know, whatever you want to call it, collapse of morale,
(17:53):
is they really haven't come to terms with why they lost.
And it seems to me it's very simple. They lost
because they went too far left on all these issues
and you know whatever, you know, you pick an issue
around the climate, staff or immigration. Obviously in the Board
of Crime and gender and all this stuff, they went
too far left everyone, every normal person. It's obvious that
that's what happened. But they're not learning that lesson, it seems.
(18:16):
And if they go, if they if they get excited
about the energy or being on the AOC burning side
and they think, okay, fine, maybe left is the way
to go, that's helpful for Republicans.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
That's a good point. You know, It's like they're like
a little children and instead of just like, you know,
you lose a game, instead of just hitting the pieces
over like whatever, they're like firebombing, tatles. You know, it's amazing,
a little a little more excruis. They're like psychotic children.
It's like a little more extreme. You know. It seems
(18:49):
to me, you know, because I think looking at their
defeat this past election cycle, like it's not just a
political defeat. Like President Trump took down a system, right,
you know, he has a media with the most biased
coverage ever in like the history of campaigns against him.
He had you know, Hollywood working against him, big tech,
which are now you know, with him. But he had
(19:11):
like every you know, the deep state, like right, every system,
the court, like weaponize everything working against him, and he
defeated it. And so he sort of depleted their power structure.
And so I think that's why they're so angry and
so gammering, and you know, like right, I mean, do
you agree with that or what do you think exactly?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
They don't. They can't believe it. It's like what how
did this happen? You know? How how did I mean
even the first time around, it was like, how are
you kidding me? Hillary was supposed to be crowned, you know,
and now it's happened again and to a female candidate
and and it's just unthinkable to them, and they and
they completely you know, gobsmacked buy it, and and that's
(19:51):
why it's coming out in these weird ways. And there
hasn't been any kind of serious, you know, thoughtful, you know,
reassessment of where they went wrong. I suppose you could say,
I don't know Gavin Newsom's doing it a little bit.
I mean, I don't want to give him much credit
for it, because I think it's all about personal positioning
for him with his podcast and these new positions that
he's trying to stake out, but totally insincerely because he's
(20:15):
not actually doing anything about it because he happens to
still be the governor of California and so could be
acting to implement all these new things that he's discovering,
like how unfair it is to have biological men and
girls sports. He could actually be doing something about it.
So I don't want to give him too much credit.
It's not actually sincere about it. However, the fact that
he is, you know, trying to move in that direction
(20:37):
shows that I think at least he gets it. But
I don't think any of the others do.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, I agree with you. I think the only reason
he's having conservatives on his podcast is you know, he's
at least a student enough to realize that, like, that's
the direction he's going to have to go in if
he wants to run for president, right, and so he's
sort of like using Republicans as ponds in his game.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
One Pert, I just want to say who I you know,
and I should you know, be transparent about this. It's
someone I know and I like personally. Who I think
is just staking out kind of an interesting path here
is Rocanna. I think that what if you look at
what he's been saying and doing. He's a congressman from
California near I live, and he's a populist of the
(21:24):
you know in one sense, you know, I mean he
was I think co chair of Bernie's presidential campaign. So
he's definitely and the I think CoA chair of the
Progressive Caucus. I can't remember exactly what his title is,
but definitely you could say on the left. However, he's
the only one that I've noticed, I think, I really
is the only one in terms of a leading Democrat
(21:45):
who's very clearly and strongly condemned what's going on with Tesla.
So that has no place in this just really stood
up for that and also just speaks about things in
a much more reasonable way. And he goes on Fox
and he doesn't talk in an aggressive manner about you know,
he's just he's different to the others, and I think
it's interesting. But equally, he doesn't pander and he's been
(22:08):
consistent in his views. So I think he's one to watch. Actually,
I think he's got an interesting he's you know, taking
an interesting approach to all this, and.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
He seems authentic and you know, in having watched him,
he seems pretty consistent, you know, so I'll give him
credit for that. We've got to take a quick break
more with Steve Hilton on the other side, I want
to shift your book in just a second before we do,
I just want to what was it like you're publicly
involved in the Brexit campaign. You're even on the opposite
(22:40):
sides of your former boss, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
You know, what was it like to be a part
of Brexit and also what was it like to sort
of be on the opposite sides of your former boss
on it?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It was interesting. So I'd always felt like you talk
about consistency. I mean, I'd always, you know, as long
as I can remember, thought that the EU was just
outrageous the way it took power away from a national sovereignty,
away from elected governments and put it in the hands
of an unelected bureaucracy. And so I actually that was
(23:11):
very much the Conservative Party position. And in fact I
remember back before in meetings before David, before the election,
before David Cameron became Prime Minister, I as a senior advisor,
we would have meetings about for example, we were discussing
the possibility of leaving the EU as a policy matter,
and whether we would even put it in our platform
(23:33):
for the general election instead, and we were debating whether
that would be the right way to do it, or
whether we should have a referendum, and so, you know,
so it's not like this was some outlandish position that
they're leaving the EU. Position. It's pretty mainstream in the
Conservative Party. But then by the time it actually came
around in a classic manner, you know, people who've been
(23:55):
in power, they get you know, they the phrase in
England of it's a familiar phrase. They you know, they
go native kind of get attached to the way that
things work. I felt very strongly that this was a
really big decision for the UK. By that time, I
was living in America. We moved here in twenty twelve,
(24:17):
but I had just written a book. It came out
for in twenty fifteen called More Human, Designing a World
where People Come First, And then the paperback came out
in the UK the nexty in twenty sixteen, and I
did a forward for it. I kind of updated it,
as you do, and one of the themes of the
book was that everything's become too big and bureaucratic and
(24:40):
centralized and removed from the human scale. And I applied
that argument right across a whole bunch of policy errors,
from schools and healthcare and you know, the economy, everything,
and of course to government itself. It's just become too
big and bureaucratic and centralized. And there's no better example
of that than the EU. So I updated it in
the context of the referendum which had already been called,
(25:02):
and it got a lot of attention in the UK,
and I went back to campaign for it, and I
don't know, I felt good about it. I felt like
I was just saying what I thought, and actually it
was interesting. I didn't myself think of it as any
kind of personal disagreement, but I'm afraid David Cameron did
(25:23):
see it as that, because he very much saw it
as a referendum not just on Brexit, but basically on
his prime ministership, and indeed, as soon as he lost,
like literally the next morning, he resigned, And so I
think he felt it as a kind of personal betrayal
because his job was on the line, whereas I was
looking at it as as a question of political philosophy.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
The UK has got a lot of problems right now,
mass immigration issues as well as free speech issues. Are
those two intertwined and where is that all going?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well? I think it's all one thing actually, if you
look back over the last few years in the UK's again,
I wasn't involved in it. We've been here since twenty
twelve and I'm an American now. But the performance of
the I mean, you don't even want to use the
word conservative, you know, the Conservative government since Brexit has
(26:18):
just been totally lamentable and unconservative. I mean the whole
point for example of Brexit, not the whole point, but
like a really important central argument as prominent in the
Brexit argument as it was in President Trump's campaigns both
in twenty sixteen and just now, was the immigration argument.
Controlling our borders. That was really central to the Brexit
(26:40):
argument because in the EU you have zero control. It's
literally open borders within the EU. That's how it works.
They call it free movement of people. And so that
was like at the heart of the Brexit argument and
they haven't done anything about it. So you get Brexit,
but you don't get immigration control. In fact, the numbers
(27:00):
have gone up since Brexit in the UK, So like,
what were they doing? And I think on all of
these measures, you know, the clamping down on free speech
and all of this stuff, it just felt like you
had a conservative government that wasn't conservative at all, and
that's why they suffer this absolutely massive defeat. Now you've
got a labor government that's even worse, and it just
feels like the UK is really lost. Actually, it's very
(27:23):
sad to see.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Well, let's talk about your home stay, which is also
last Rate wrote the book about it call of Failure,
Reversing the Ruin of America's worst run State. You sure
know how to pick them? Stea kidding? Okay, So you
name California obviously is America's worst run state. I guess
(27:46):
what gives it that distinction from your point of view
and the argument you make in the book.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah, I mean the first thing I say is I
love California. It's my home. You know, I raised my
family there, started a business that you know, I still
think it's there's nowhere better than California. But it's just
so disastrously run and it breaks my heart. And that's
one of the reasons I wanted to write the book
because I'm more and more engaged in the fight to
save California. And you've got to make the argument about
what's gone wrong, how it's gone wrong, and how to
(28:13):
put it right. And I'd also say it's a warning
to the rest of the country because I mean, just
going back to what we were discussing AOC and Bernie Well,
that agenda, that policy agenda that Bernie and AOC are pushing.
We don't need to guess what it would look like.
That's basically what has been implemented in California for years now,
(28:33):
in these nearly two decades of one party rule by
the Democrats, and they've gone further and further left and
they've basically implemented all the things they want, the Green
New Deal, massive increases in the minimum wage, taxes, regulations,
everything that they want. That's California today. And so you ask, like,
how do you define it as the worst trund and say, well,
just look at the numbers. It's unbelievable how badly California
(28:55):
is doing on every single measure pretty much that matters.
California is the worst in America. Like not even like
in the middle or forty first out of fifty or whatever.
It's the work. We have the highest rate of poverty,
the highest taxes, the highest costs for pretty much everything
that matters, housing, gas, electricity, water, all of that, the
(29:17):
most expensive in America. We had the lowest income growth
last year in America, the highest unemployment. Right now it's
this month it's the second highest unemployment, but you know,
for a lot of last year it was the highest unemployment.
The worst business climate, which is amazing when you think
of California as the home of innovation and all these things.
(29:37):
Chief Executive magazine does a survey every year chief executives
around the country which states have the best and worst
business climate, and they rank them California has been last
for ten years, bottom and a not there are more measures.
I mean, it's just unbelievable everything. It's not just what
i've a homelessness. We have eleven percent of the US population,
(29:58):
five percent of the US homeless. It's just a terrible,
terrible record, a complete failure on every single front. And
they say, when you put all this to Democrats, they say, well,
we're still you know, we're the fifth biggest economy in
the world. And that's true. If you took California out
of the US on our own, wouldn't be the fifth biggest.
Commany great, but when you look at what that is
(30:20):
driven by, it's basically these giant tech monopolies with huge
revenue that boy up California's GDP, but they hardly employ
anyone in relatively speaking. And that's why you can have
this kind of thing at the same time, the fifth
biggest economy but the highest unemployment in America. And so
something is going really badly wrong. And this is what
you get when Democrats get everything they want. That's why
(30:43):
this is a real message for the rest of the country.
This is the Democrat plan in action. Look at it.
It's in California right now today, and it's completely failed, you.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Know, and we know that the decline's been ongoing, but
at what point did it excel?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So I think that the real answer that question is
is just over ten years ago when they got a
supermajority in the legislature. Because it's not just the government,
it's not just Gavin Newsom a lot of this, you know,
I mean just the stories. I mean, just to take
one step back, I think the sort of defining characteristic
(31:22):
of all of this and the reason everything's gone so
badly wrong is the massive growth of big, bloated, bossy
nanny state government. Just it's this enormous growth of the government.
They've doubled the budget of the state of California in
the last ten years pretty much, even though the population
has been falling. So everything is affected by that. It's
(31:43):
impossible to run a business, to build anything, whatever. It's
all a nightmare. And the real and when that really
started was when they achieved a supermajority in the legislature,
and that meant that they had no more you know,
need to get Republican votes on anything. Well, there's two
things that happened. They put in place a ballot initiative
(32:03):
called Proposition twenty five. I believe that was twenty ten
when they they changed the requirement for passing a budget
in the state legislature. It used to be that you
needed two thirds votes to pass a budget, and they
reduced that to just a simple majority in order to
make it easier for them to get their way without
(32:23):
any kind of input from the opposing party. So that
itself was the first step, but they didn't even need
that for very long, because in twenty twelve they did
achieve just through actually through gerrymandering, two thirds majorities in
the state Assembly in the state Senate, so total control
of the legislature. And it's been like that ever since,
(32:44):
which means that they've just there's been no challenge to them.
They've got so it's all the pressure is coming from
the left, from the activists who basically control them, the
unions who fund them. They especially the government unions, the
teacher unions and so on. They themselves are controlled by
far left activists. So just the insane legislation that's been
coming out and the governors have just signed it and
(33:05):
gone along with it, and they haven't stood up to
the party. So I think that's the origin of it
when they when they achieved the super majority of I
just want to make a point about that, which is
that if you look at and this is I think
the note of optimism for California, it's a much more
Republican state than people think. So even in a bad
year for Republicans, when you have like a you know,
a not particularly well known candidate with no money, That's
(33:28):
what happened last time in the governor's race, Gavin Newsom
was up for reelection. The Republican candidate was a guy
called Brian Dally, nice guy. You know, I did my
best to support in put upon my shows and all
the rest of it. He was a state senator from
the north of state. But he didn't have any money,
barely had a campaign, but he got forty one percent.
He got forty point eight percent. I believe it was like,
(33:48):
call it forty one percent of the vote with like
no campaign effectively, and in fact, the average share of
the vote for Republicans and statewide elections in the last
twenty years is nearly forty two So that's there's a
very solid, call it forty percent Republican support in California.
But if you look at the legislature, you don't have
forty percent representation for Republicans. It's not even thirty five
(34:11):
or thirty or twenty five is twenty percent, And that's
achieved through jerry mandering that the Democrats did. They hijacked
a ballot initiative that was the past in two thousand
and eight. It was called independent redistricting, but they totally
hijacked it to draw the districts in a way that
suited them. And now they have this supermajority and they've
(34:31):
completely you know, caved to the left on everything, and
so you end up this insane legislation going through a
plus also insane volumes of legislation. It's incredible how many
bills they passed, just the sheer volume of crap that
comes out of Sacramento. That's really the sort of defining
thing too. The supermajority in the legislature totally unchallenged by
(34:55):
the governor.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Well, and I think people were alarmed by just the
inability to govern on the basic level with the fires. Yes,
we recently saw with both Gavin Newsom's inability Karen Bass
as well, And then I was reading that there was
a reservoir specifically set up for the Pacific Palisades and
it was empty, and so it's like, you know, and
(35:16):
then you had the California legislature meeting about how to
stop Trump and see you know, so it's like, I
think it was alarming, you know. So it walk us
through that and sort of what that highlights, you know,
also some of the problems in California as well.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Well. Exactly. I remember I was in the I spoke
at a congressional hearing about the wildfires, and you know,
it's the classic sort of pantomiming after Democrats, you know,
doing their partisan stunts and whatever. And there was one
woman on there, a Democrat member of Congress from I
don't know where, I think Vermont, and she was and
(35:53):
there were four of us who were witnesses, and I'd
been very critical, you know, and I had made all
these points out the failures of policy, that the climate extremism,
that meant that all these regulatory agencies had literally stopped
residents from clearing the brush by their on the hillsides
near their homes even though they wanted to. They were
fined if they did proper fire maintenance, all on the
(36:16):
grounds of you know, cut carbon and air quality. It's
just ridiculous stuff. Right. So I was making all these
points and plus the reservoir and all the rest of it.
But this woman just she came in with these classic
congressional pantomime questions. He goes, do you believe the fires
were caused? You start made a little speech about DEI.
It's all you know, Republicans say, this is all DEI.
(36:37):
Do you remember about the fire chief and whatever? Do
you think the fires were caused by the fact that
the fire chief is a lesbian? Like? No, But the
point I made was like, actually, you take the acronym DEI.
It is the cause of all this. Just give it
a new name democrat, extremism and incompetence. And it's those
two things together. They're extremism and their incompetence that made
(37:01):
this fire disaster so much worse than it need have been.
I mean, that thing with the cover sort with the reservoir,
it's just so insane. Exactly as you say, that reservoir
was built in order to hold water in the event
of a fire in that part of the city, one
hundred and seventeen million galons, and it had been empty
for a year, and the reason that they it was
(37:22):
empty was because there's some regulation about covering it in
order to preserve the you know, from preserve the water
quality from you know, bird droppings or whatever. Fine, okay,
but there was a tear in the cover, that's the reason.
But they could have just fixed the cover, but they didn't.
(37:42):
They emptied the whole reservoir and they had it and
they didn't even realize or didn't think that it would
be a problem that it would be empty during fire season.
This is a totally predictable event, the Santa Anna winds
that kind of whip up these sides of every year.
These weren't even the worst ever. They were bad, but
there was not unprecedented and it's just unbelievable. But by
(38:04):
the way, the person in charge of that that comes
out of the La City Department of Water and Power,
the person that was hired to run that by Carabas.
Her salary is seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.
Oh my god, it's unbelievable. And you think, well, what's
going and you look at these the way these this
(38:27):
is what happens when they get completely complacent. There's no
accountability because there's no challenge from They don't think that
there's any political competition or threat. They get totally complacent.
There's total arrogance, and they do these things and there's
no kind of accountability for it because they don't feel
the pressure from any kind of political challenge. It's all
(38:50):
within their own party. And then the real thing is
you get all these machine politicians rising up through the ranks,
like Karen Bass, who are basically useless. They kind of
left wing, bureaucratic minded people. Their skill is managing you know,
the unions and the activists and all of that stuff.
They have no clue. They've never done a real job.
Kamala Harris is exactly the same, and it's just a
(39:13):
disaster because they don't know how to run things properly
and they have bad ideas that are just left wing
ideology instead of common sense practical quick.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Break more, Steve, you identify nine pathologies that have led
to the state's failure. How did you come up with
those and sort of what was the thought process and
trying to yeah, identify.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
What is this, you know, like, how did this happen?
And you know, I've talked about some of the sort
of practical things, you know that the two thirsd majority
all that kind of stuff. Also, it's a very important point,
which is the whole process was really initiated by Reagan
when he gave collective bargaining rights as governor to the
government union starting with firefighters and police and so on,
(39:58):
and then Jerry Brown extended that. So that's created this
incredibly powerful political force which is the government unions in California.
They spent about a billion dollars a year on political activity,
and of course in exchange for that, they get you know,
luxury pensions and health care and so on. It's totally corrupt.
So that's a very big factor in it as well.
(40:20):
But I was just thinking was going through. I didn't
just want to say, well, this is this is how
they screwed up homelessness or whatever. I wanted to go
a bit deeper than that, Well what's going on here? Why?
And so I went through all the failures and was
trying to think honestly about, well, why do they do that?
What's that about? And as I went through, I just thought,
(40:43):
you know, that's why I came to these these different
as I call them pathologies, because it is pathological none
of this really makes sense. For example, if you look
at the homelessness crisis, there's a law that was passed
in twenty sixteen called how First, the only one of
its kind in the country at any state level, which
(41:04):
makes it illegal for anyone offering homelessness services that have
any kind of state funding in California to require sobriety
or mandated drug treatment or anything. And given that eighty
percent plus of people who are living on the streets
have a drug problem or alcohol or both mental health problems,
(41:29):
it's just insane that it's illegal to deal with those
problems and it makes no sense. But what's behind that.
It's pathological. It's like if we force people off the
streets and into drug treatment somehow, that's not compassionate, and
that we have to be compassionate and let people do
(41:50):
But that's not actual compassionate. That's why I call it compassionism.
Is this ideological, demented kind of view that I want
to look compassionate by not you know, forcing people to
do things that they don't want to do, and it's
just ridiculous, makes no sense, and that informs a lot
of their stuff. You know, even in schools, you know
(42:10):
where they've basically made it impossible to discipline unruly kids
and it all has to be restorative justice whatever. It so,
all this this pathology of compassionism rather than true compassion,
and you go through all the issues, it's all like that.
The climate stuff makes no sense. It's you know, they're
literally shutting down our own oil and gas industry, which
(42:31):
is used to provide eighty percent of the fault of
the oil and gas we're using California. We still use
basically the same amount. It's gone down a little bit
in the last few years, but it's pretty much. You know,
I mean, eighty percent of our total energy use in
California is fossil fuels. But now instead of producing eighty
percent of that in state and importing twenty percent, it's
(42:54):
the other way around. We import most of the oil
and gas we use, and they're shipping oil. They're shutting
down oil wells and oil fields in Kern County, California,
you know, one hundred miles or so from Los Angeles
where the refineries are. You could send it there in
nice pipelines and clean and safe, instead of which they're
(43:16):
literally shipping it in halfway across the world from places
like Iraq on giant supertankers, which run on the most
filthy fuel it's called bunker fuel, the most polluting form
of transportation on the planet. They're shipping it halfway across
the world. So in the name of climate, they are
(43:36):
literally increasing carbon emissions. It's insane, it makes no sense.
But it's this ideological pathology. It's like climatism, that's what
I call it. It's like, we want to look like
we are fighting fossil fuels, but it's insane, and you
go through all the issues, that's what it comes down to.
It is this totally extreme ideology above any kind of practicality.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
That's wild. I wanted to ask you, So your parents
escaped communism, how has it shaped your political views and
also how you view California.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, it's interesting. I never really thought it did very much,
but now I'm more engaged in it. I realized that
it does. And it's that real instinctive kind of rejection
of overbearing government that just you know, tries to control people,
and and you know, it's really interesting. I remember I've
(44:39):
thought about this more recently, particularly in the context of speech.
Free speech. When I was a kid, so I was
born in the UK, but all of my family, my
parents are Hunger and my stepfather's Hunger. Everybody's Hungarian, and
most of the family is still in Hungary. And when
I was a kid, we used to go there all
the time. Less so now, but I spent every summer
(44:59):
there from Christmas as well. And I remember I had
two cousins and I remember, you know, ten or eleven
years old something like that, walking around on the streets
of the town, our hometown, which is a town called
sege s z e g Eds in the south of Hungry,
beautiful town. And I remember, I don't know why I
was doing this. I guess I was always, you know,
(45:19):
a bit of a I don't know what this says
about me, but anyway, I was walking around and in
Hungary and I speak Hungary, was yelling on the street
the name of the then communist leader of Hungary, guy
called Kadad Kadar Yad, and I was saying in Hungary,
cawd who yeah, which means idiot, like Cad is an idiot,
(45:41):
you know. Just I don't know why. Anyway, that night,
I remember my aunt taking me to one side and said,
I heard about what you said today. And I know
in England that's fine, it doesn't matter. You can say
things like that. But here you just can't say things
like that in public. Your cousins could really be punished
for that at school, that I could even lose my job.
So just don't say things like that. And as you
(46:04):
remember thinking, I hardly thought about it, and then it
came back to me in the context of what's going
on in California. Like one of the chapters in my
book is called Maoism, which is the kind of the policing.
A lot of these terrible things that have infected the
rest of the country started in California. The speech controls,
the race, the race extremism, equity agenda, the gender extremism,
(46:26):
the green you did. So many of these things started
in California, and the speech control staff really got going
in California universities. And I'm just thinking, what is this,
what's going on because there are so many people in
America today, In California today, I've heard so many people
who said, I can't say what I think is I'm
going to lose my job. And you know, I think
(46:47):
it's now with the last election was a real fight
back against that. So that's great, and of course elon
with X et cetera. But we really got to a
point where this comparison of the left here with communism
was not outlandish. Actually it was really the same kind
(47:07):
of mindset. And I think that for me, it's very
much about I just can't stand, you know, over mighty
arrogant institutions, whether that's the government or unions or anyone else, like, no,
don't tell me what to do. That's why I feel
so at home in America and so proud to be
(47:27):
an American, Like we're the home of that and that spirit,
and California should be the most like that in the
sense that we were built as a state, you know,
the pioneers and the rebels and the and if you
think about all the great things that you know, whether
that's Hollywood or Silicon Valley, it's a rebel mentality. It's
a it's a it's disruptive. It's not this kind of
(47:48):
nanny state bullshit, you know. And I think what we
see now in California is just the absolute opposite of
the spirit of California, which is, let me follow my
dream and live my life and don't tell me what
to do, and we have the opposite and I feel
really strongly about it.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
I think that's why we're friends. Don't tell me what
to do, same mentality, Steve. Before we go, we saw
President Trump make in roads in California. Can Republican win
a gubernatorial race there? And is that Republican?
Speaker 2 (48:22):
You? Yeah, well, look, I'm very dirrected about it. Thank you.
I'm very strongly considering it. I've been working along those lines.
I haven't made a final decision yet. Kamala Harris tells
us that she'll make a decision by the end of
the summer. I'll make my much sooner than that. I
think that the signs are encouraging. I'm not saying it's
going to be easy, but good, good, encouraging signs. I mean,
(48:45):
as you say, President Trump did really well, best of
any Republican candidate for generation. You saw ten counties flip
from blue to red last time in November, including you know,
you know, not just kind of tiny, you know, important
ones like Fresno County, the fifth biggest city in California,
(49:07):
so that's all good. You saw Prop thirty six, which
reversed the disastrous Prop forty seven, Kamala Harris's pro crime
initiative pass overwhelming the seventy percent. George Gascon lost in LA,
the far left da same in Oakland, et cetera. So
those were good signs. Also another thing I'll point to,
which is really just a bit. It's local, but it
(49:28):
gives you a sense of what you can achieve. There's
Huntington Beach, well known beach city in Orange County, Surf City, USA,
home of the beach was you know, they they like
just over when twenty twenty that the city council Huntington
Beach was six' to One. Democrats and then in twenty twenty,
(49:50):
two a friend of, Mine Tony, strickland longtime political guy In,
california he put together a team of, candidates four of
them run for the city council on a very clear
common sense but you, know strongly you could say maga.
Platform AND i think for too Long republicans In california
(50:11):
have had this idea that the way you the only
way you can win is to be kind of slightly
in a little bit like A democrat and water it.
Down and It's, california so he can't be too kind of. Conservative.
Whatever they went totally the opposite, direction very Strong maga,
direction and they won four to. Three they took control
of the, council and then they started to implement a
very aggressive conservative agenda on homelessness and, crime what was
(50:35):
available in the, libraries you. Know they challenged the really
aggressive lawsuits Against Gavin newsom on all his statewide, mandates
and they passed VOTER id In Huntington beach in a ballot.
Initiative so they did all these things and then just
now In, november they and they ran seven candidates this,
time the seven on the council and they literally called
themselves The magnificent seven honing To. Beach they, Won they all,
(50:59):
won and so now seven Zero. Republicans so in the
space of four, years they've gone from six to One
democrat to seven Zero. Republican AND i just think that,
spirit that fight is really infectious and that's what we
need to. Do and then that's all of that is
before the, fires which of course totally woke everyone up
(51:20):
to the complete calamitous you, know mismanagement and the. Fires
it's very important that they're In la Because La county
is the biggest, county twenty three percent of the, electorate
So republicans have to do better IN la if they're
going to have a, Shot and so all of that comes,
TOGETHER i think in to create conditions WHERE i think
this is the best chance for you, know at least
(51:43):
two decades for A republican to. Win so it's not
going to be, easy but it's definitely. Doable there was
a poll just, NOW i literally this, week forty eight
percent Of californians would consider voting for A. Republican SO
i think it's definitely all to play.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
For very interesting stuff that the book is Calif, Failure
reversing The ruin Of america's worst run. State Steve, Hilon you're,
brilliant my, friend really interesting. CONVERSATION i enjoyed it very.
MUCH i hope to see you. Soon, yes love being with.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
You thank, You.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
LISA i got to see you at the. Inauguration we
were on air, together which was a. Treat so, hopefully,
hopefully hopefully we see each other.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Again, absolutely thank.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
You appreciate you guys at home for listening Every tuesday And,
thursday but you can listen throughout the week until next.
Time
So today we're diving into signal gate and the White
House's crisis comms. Our heads about to roll or is
it being overblown? We'll discuss. We'll also unpack Bernie Sanders,
an AOC's fighting oligarchy tour, pulling massive crowds twenty months
before the midterms. Should this worry us? I mean, they
claim to be populous, but are they Today's guest Steve
(00:24):
Hilton knows a thing or two about that, having been
a key voice in Brexit's leaf campaign, even clashing with
his old boss David Cameron. We'll get his take on
all of that. We've seen the UK have a lot
of issues with free speech, censorship as well as immigration.
How much of those issues are intertwined and what's the
future of the UK. And lastly, we'll dig into Steve
(00:45):
Hilton's new book, Cali Failure, Reversing the Ruin of America's
worst run State. Can a Republican save the Golden State?
And is that Republican? Steve Hilton? Well, Steve Hilton, it's
such an honor to have you on the show. You're
(01:07):
one of my favorite people at Fox News and I've
just enjoyed previously going on your show and just kind
of getting to know you throughout the years. You're just
You're a great guy, You're so smart, your friend, and
so it's it's exciting to have you on, and I'm
excited about your book that we'll get dig into.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Thank well, it's wonderful to be with you. I'm so happy.
I totally agree that. I feel like we kind of
came up together at Fox, and it's just great to
be with you today.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Well, we've also i mean, you know, the past few
years have just been so interesting in history, right, I
mean we kind of you know, I remember going on
your show during COVID, and you know, you were one
of the few people out in the media really questioning
things and allowing a space on your show to question things,
which I think was so important at the time because
people just weren't doing it. I mean, you were having
(01:51):
people on who you know, weren't for lockdowns and who
didn't think that everyone should go out and get vaccinated,
and you really allowed for a space for actual in
different opinions, and so I think you really played a
really critical role during COVID.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, thank you. Actually, my favorite thing, especially this week,
is to note that I was the first person that
put Jay Battachariot on TV. And of course he's just
being confirmed as the new head of NIH, which is
such a beautiful kind of revenge against all the lockdown lunatics.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, you know, it seems like a lot of these
people like Jay, and really I didn't realize you were
the first person. I mean, I knew that you had
him on. I knew that you were very brave and
sort of having these people on earlier than you know,
other people were willing to have them on. But that's
very cool. But it is nice to see a lot
of these people who got really beat up and really
battered and bruised and bloodied for telling the truth during COVID.
(02:45):
I mean, the amount that he went through at Stanford
and just through his viewers and you know, and then
to now to be in a position of authority in
the country on public health is poetic justice. If you
could ever write any you know, it's just it's a
beautiful thing to see and we'll all be better as
a result, all right. So I wanted to ask you
(03:06):
just out the gate, and we don't have to spend
a lot of time on this because obviously it's being
discussed enough, all right, so signal gait, what do you
make of it? And how is the White House doing
in its crisis communication response.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I honestly don't know what to make of it other
than clearly everyone agrees that it was a mistake, So
no one's defending it as yeah, this was a good
thing that happened. I think it is important, and they
are making the point, which I think is in a
way the main point that the actual substance here was
(03:42):
very positive. In other words, they were discussing something that
then happened and was very successful, and it was a
great example of American leadership, so that you know, we
cannot lose sight of that and all the conversation around
the process. And it's the kind of story that the
press absolutely loves because it's it is about process and
(04:02):
the kind of internal workings of things rather than you know,
real policy in the real world. Having said that, the
thing that I just keep coming back to is that
when we think about this, quite obviously the addition of
the journalist was just a mistake, and these things happen,
and I think they'll probably learn from it and make
sure that I think we're already hearing that in the future,
(04:23):
you know there will be much you know, there'll be
someone checking exactly who's on chains like this or whatever.
But the broader point, I think is security of communications
and how can you run that properly in the modern
world where people are running around and everything's on phones
and all the rest of it. And it takes me
back to my first days in working in the government
(04:45):
back in the UK, in the Camera and administration, and
I remember very clearly having the security briefing and they
were going up from the British Security Services and they
were on and on about how vulnerable smartphones were, and
they said, look, don't assume anything hostile. Foreign powers and
(05:05):
security services can get into any phone anyway they want that.
I remember that very clearly. They said, they can even
take over a phone that is not even turned on.
They can take it over and turn it remotely into
a listening device for any room that you're in. So
just be incredibly cautious about your phone. And the other
thing they said was this only applies to smartphones. And
(05:28):
at the time I had never I've never had a smartphone,
and I had an old fashioned Nokia phone and I
just held it up and said and the guy said, yeah,
that's it. That's secure. They can't get into that. So
I think for all the conversation and it's now become
known as signal GIT or whatever, I think actually the
real story here is about phones and the device, because
(05:49):
that's the real vulnerability.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And you've not if I can remember, you're not a
cell phone guy, right, I remember.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I have now got a flip phone, but it's still
it's an old fashioned flip phone. It's not a smartphone.
I'm on the road now a lot in California, so
I do need to, you know, just be a more
available and call people in text and whatever. So that's
what I have a flip phone, which enables me to
do that. I can make phone calls, I can text,
but that's it.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Although I kind of love that you've lived in tech world,
but you're like, you don't know, that's kind of cool.
I kind of like that, you know. I also just
think that the Democrats are overplaying their hand here, right,
because like it is a loss for the White House.
It's it's a win for Democrats to you know, try
to put some points on the board. It's not a
good news cycle for the White House. We can we
(06:36):
can all admit that, but then it's like they take
it so far to the point and like so hyperbolic
that it's like, Okay, like you know what I mean,
you're right about it being embarrassing. You know, you're right
to you know, knock the White House on this, but
then like you take it so far and try to
make these things it's not and then you sort of
lose the plot. And then also just after all the
(06:56):
incompetence we had to go through with the previous administration,
getting thirteen service members killed, you know, droning an AID worker,
the list goes on, it's like you don't really have
much of a leg to stand on here either, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I totally agree. I was just watching some of the
I was on Fox and Friends this morning and I
was just going watching They had a sort of compilation
of some of the comments from Democrats and media pundits
on you know, the Chris Hayes I think on MSNBC
was particularly gregious, just the insanity. They're so over the top.
This is the most appalling security breach in the history
(07:33):
of the country. I think it was literally as extreme
as that, and you just think that what are you
talking about?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You just sound like a fool, you know exactly. It's
like they just take it so far. They're too dumb
to even take a win.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
It's like, but so in this conversation, one thing that
came to mind that I wanted to ask you about. So,
we have an administration that's moving so quickly, right, Like,
it's like I feel like we're living through dog years.
Like it's just like it's going you know, it's it's
you know, it feels like we've already been through a
year of an administration. Right it's just going so quickly.
He's moving so quickly. How does that play out in
(08:07):
the midterms? Like it seems that it's been able to
throw Democrats off their games, sort of like the inability
to figure out how to outside of this, you know,
one incident with the signal gate sort of more self inflicted.
They've not really been able to land knocks against him
because it's like so much is happening. But how do
you make sure the American people are aware, you know,
(08:29):
that they're not just caught up in like the chaos
and go into the midterms feeling chaotic? You know, So
how do you you know, I guess how do you
sell that to the American people where you know, they
know that wins are happening, that things are good, without
just feeling like chaotic.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It's really interesting. I think that the driving factor will
be substantive, like what is actually happening in the real world,
particularly on economic matters. By the time people start thinking
about their votes are really I think opinions about how
things are going are going to be set, you know,
sort of summer next year. I think that's typically how
(09:08):
it works with elections, that, however people are feeling in
June July next year, is will be you know, determinative
of how the vote goes, honestly, and so I think
it's all about the the not just the process. Wins
in terms of initiating actions, whether that's tariffs or the
(09:29):
DOGE stuff, whatever it may be, that's great, and I
think that right now there's a positive sense of energy.
I think people overwhelmingly like that. You can see in
the approval numbers, which are the highest we've seen for
Donald Trump, and there you know, in comparison to other presidents.
It's all good news in that sense. But I think
(09:49):
by next year it's going to be, well, what's the
real news, what's actually happening, and so I think that
we just have to wait and see. I don't think
anything the Democrats are doing right now is likely to
be shaping perceptions. Then I do think that if they
continue down the path that they seem to be on,
which is moving, I would say even further left, or
(10:13):
at least, you know, doubling down on a kind of
left positioning, particularly if I mean, I will talk about
Bernie and AOC, you know, if that's where this is heading,
I don't think that's going to serve them well at all.
But I think the real driver will be what actually
happens in the real world, and it'll be a combination
of domestic and foreign posts. You know. For example, if
(10:33):
if if the if the administration does manage to pull off,
you know, an end to the war in Europe, like
a real end to it, that's a huge success that
they can point to. And the same same with you know,
jobs in the economy. I think that it's very possible
that actually you will see by the end by this,
you know, by early summer next year, really great stories
(10:57):
in terms of investment in the US and and jobs
being created in the sense that the America First Economic
Agenda really is delivering what it was supposed to do,
which is better jobs and higher earnings for Americans. But
that has to happen in order for people to feel
good about it.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
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sponsored by Preborn. You know, we've had a lot of
(12:45):
these conversations on TV and everyone's like, oh, you know,
Democrats are lost, and they are obviously, but that doesn't
necessarily matter for the midterms. It matters for twenty twenty
eight when they have to pick a candidate, they have
to pick a direction for the party, and you know,
whoever the individual is that wins, you know, take on
that mantle and probably reshape the party. But for a
midterm it's really dependent on how President Trump is doing,
(13:06):
how this White House is doing, how the economy is doing,
how Americans feel about the direction of the country. And
so far we've seen pulling where. You know, I think Americans,
more Americans believe we're on the right track than two
thousand and four. So if that is how it looks
heading in the midterms, were good. But you know, I
think you kind of nailed it in the sense of,
like it really just comes down to what's the public
perception of President Trump and this White House heading into
(13:28):
the midterms.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yes, And I think one thing I'd add to that
is if you compare it to the last I mean,
I think the Democrats are very excited about the comparison
with twenty eighteen, which is obviously a good mid term
for them. And you had the whole resistance movement and
all of that stuff going on, and you had the
controversy over super you know, just a ton of stuff,
you know, Brett Cavanaught. You know, there was a lot
(13:51):
going on, and the rage against Trump was which was
totally amplified, of course by the media. It was really
strong and actually already by then you were having good
results on the economy in the first Trump administration, but
it was drowned out by the just the sheer kind
of level of the rage and hostility and the media
(14:14):
amplifying every single thing that went wrong and so on.
It's very different this time because you have just just
a much more experienced team and unified team, and apart
from this this thing we've just been talking about, it's
basically been really professional and the chaos argument just doesn't
really stick. And I think that and also that just
(14:35):
doesn't seem to be the appetite for the kind of
universal anti Trump rage. It's just not like that. It's
not new anymore, you know, and people can see that
this is very different feel to the administration. So I
don't think if like last time. What I'm really saying
is that last time, there were already good results happening
in the real world for President Trump in twenty eighteen,
(14:57):
but it was drowned out by this chorus of rage.
I don't think that'll happen this time. If he does
have good results, if things are going well, I think
that will translate into good outcomes in the midtimes.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
That's a really good point. You know, we're sort of
I think America, especially just since the past four years
have been so bad. I think American's eyes have kind
of an open to like they sort of get the
game now, you know, with how the media works in
the left. That's a really good point. So I wanted
to ask you about the whole Bernie Standers and AOC
thing because you've worked in you know, the highest highest
places in politics, and you're also a proponent of well
(15:32):
positive populism. This is not positive, but you know, maybe
populism nonetheless, but or some form of it. But so, okay,
So they've been on their fighting lagarchy tour according to organizers,
which you know, take it for a grain of assault,
because take it with a grain of saul because it's
according to organizers. But they say nearly eighty seven thousand
people have attended five events last week. You know, that's
(15:55):
a lot of people, particularly so far out from a
midterm election. I mean, should we be worried about that?
Is that is there something brewing there that we should
be paying attention to?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I don't think so. I think, if anything, it could
be mildly encouraging depth for Republicans because what you've actually
got going on that look, I think it reflects the
you know, these are real partisans, these are people going
to be vote voting Democrat. It's the activist base. It
seems to me that's showing up and they are really,
(16:26):
you know, obviously hugely, hugely demoralized by the defeat of
Karmala Harris and President Trump's election, which they just couldn't believe,
you know how they used to talk about him and
still do, and they just were assuming that Karmla Harris
would win and so and then ever since then, they've
seen this really astonishing press coverage really of President Trump,
(16:48):
both in the in the transition period. In the first
you know, a few months of the of the administration,
they're just looking and thinking, oh, my goodness, what is this.
Trump's the monster, He's a devil. What's going on? And
then they see somebody in their party just making a
stand and showing up and being angry and kind of
channeling their emotions, and they respond to it. So I
(17:10):
think that's natural. I don't think it's anything to be
sort of particularly concerned about. And I think the really
interesting thing is if the lesson that Democrats take from
it is, yeah, okay, well there's support for this AOC.
Maybe we should have had Bernie all along. You know,
maybe he's right, Maybe AOC, that's the direction that we
want to set. And of course you're right that the
(17:31):
real direction setting will happen once they choose their presidential nominee.
But if in the interim it feels like this is
where the action is and it's all about the left.
I think that's really helpful for Republicans because it seems
to me that the defining feature of the Democrats post election,
you know, whatever you want to call it, collapse of morale,
(17:53):
is they really haven't come to terms with why they lost.
And it seems to me it's very simple. They lost
because they went too far left on all these issues
and you know whatever, you know, you pick an issue
around the climate, staff or immigration. Obviously in the Board
of Crime and gender and all this stuff, they went
too far left everyone, every normal person. It's obvious that
that's what happened. But they're not learning that lesson, it seems.
(18:16):
And if they go, if they if they get excited
about the energy or being on the AOC burning side
and they think, okay, fine, maybe left is the way
to go, that's helpful for Republicans.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
That's a good point. You know, It's like they're like
a little children and instead of just like, you know,
you lose a game, instead of just hitting the pieces
over like whatever, they're like firebombing, tatles. You know, it's amazing,
a little a little more excruis. They're like psychotic children.
It's like a little more extreme. You know. It seems
(18:49):
to me, you know, because I think looking at their
defeat this past election cycle, like it's not just a
political defeat. Like President Trump took down a system, right,
you know, he has a media with the most biased
coverage ever in like the history of campaigns against him.
He had you know, Hollywood working against him, big tech,
which are now you know, with him. But he had
(19:11):
like every you know, the deep state, like right, every system,
the court, like weaponize everything working against him, and he
defeated it. And so he sort of depleted their power structure.
And so I think that's why they're so angry and
so gammering, and you know, like right, I mean, do
you agree with that or what do you think exactly?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
They don't. They can't believe it. It's like what how
did this happen? You know? How how did I mean
even the first time around, it was like, how are
you kidding me? Hillary was supposed to be crowned, you know,
and now it's happened again and to a female candidate
and and it's just unthinkable to them, and they and
they completely you know, gobsmacked buy it, and and that's
(19:51):
why it's coming out in these weird ways. And there
hasn't been any kind of serious, you know, thoughtful, you know,
reassessment of where they went wrong. I suppose you could say,
I don't know Gavin Newsom's doing it a little bit.
I mean, I don't want to give him much credit
for it, because I think it's all about personal positioning
for him with his podcast and these new positions that
he's trying to stake out, but totally insincerely because he's
(20:15):
not actually doing anything about it because he happens to
still be the governor of California and so could be
acting to implement all these new things that he's discovering,
like how unfair it is to have biological men and
girls sports. He could actually be doing something about it.
So I don't want to give him too much credit.
It's not actually sincere about it. However, the fact that
he is, you know, trying to move in that direction
(20:37):
shows that I think at least he gets it. But
I don't think any of the others do.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah, I agree with you. I think the only reason
he's having conservatives on his podcast is you know, he's
at least a student enough to realize that, like, that's
the direction he's going to have to go in if
he wants to run for president, right, and so he's
sort of like using Republicans as ponds in his game.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
One Pert, I just want to say who I you know,
and I should you know, be transparent about this. It's
someone I know and I like personally. Who I think
is just staking out kind of an interesting path here
is Rocanna. I think that what if you look at
what he's been saying and doing. He's a congressman from
California near I live, and he's a populist of the
(21:24):
you know in one sense, you know, I mean he
was I think co chair of Bernie's presidential campaign. So
he's definitely and the I think CoA chair of the
Progressive Caucus. I can't remember exactly what his title is,
but definitely you could say on the left. However, he's
the only one that I've noticed, I think, I really
is the only one in terms of a leading Democrat
(21:45):
who's very clearly and strongly condemned what's going on with Tesla.
So that has no place in this just really stood
up for that and also just speaks about things in
a much more reasonable way. And he goes on Fox
and he doesn't talk in an aggressive manner about you know,
he's just he's different to the others, and I think
it's interesting. But equally, he doesn't pander and he's been
(22:08):
consistent in his views. So I think he's one to watch. Actually,
I think he's got an interesting he's you know, taking
an interesting approach to all this, and.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
He seems authentic and you know, in having watched him,
he seems pretty consistent, you know, so I'll give him
credit for that. We've got to take a quick break
more with Steve Hilton on the other side, I want
to shift your book in just a second before we do,
I just want to what was it like you're publicly
involved in the Brexit campaign. You're even on the opposite
(22:40):
sides of your former boss, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
You know, what was it like to be a part
of Brexit and also what was it like to sort
of be on the opposite sides of your former boss
on it?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It was interesting. So I'd always felt like you talk
about consistency. I mean, I'd always, you know, as long
as I can remember, thought that the EU was just
outrageous the way it took power away from a national sovereignty,
away from elected governments and put it in the hands
of an unelected bureaucracy. And so I actually that was
(23:11):
very much the Conservative Party position. And in fact I
remember back before in meetings before David, before the election,
before David Cameron became Prime Minister, I as a senior advisor,
we would have meetings about for example, we were discussing
the possibility of leaving the EU as a policy matter,
and whether we would even put it in our platform
(23:33):
for the general election instead, and we were debating whether
that would be the right way to do it, or
whether we should have a referendum, and so, you know,
so it's not like this was some outlandish position that
they're leaving the EU. Position. It's pretty mainstream in the
Conservative Party. But then by the time it actually came
around in a classic manner, you know, people who've been
(23:55):
in power, they get you know, they the phrase in
England of it's a familiar phrase. They you know, they
go native kind of get attached to the way that
things work. I felt very strongly that this was a
really big decision for the UK. By that time, I
was living in America. We moved here in twenty twelve,
(24:17):
but I had just written a book. It came out
for in twenty fifteen called More Human, Designing a World
where People Come First, And then the paperback came out
in the UK the nexty in twenty sixteen, and I
did a forward for it. I kind of updated it,
as you do, and one of the themes of the
book was that everything's become too big and bureaucratic and
(24:40):
centralized and removed from the human scale. And I applied
that argument right across a whole bunch of policy errors,
from schools and healthcare and you know, the economy, everything,
and of course to government itself. It's just become too
big and bureaucratic and centralized. And there's no better example
of that than the EU. So I updated it in
the context of the referendum which had already been called,
(25:02):
and it got a lot of attention in the UK,
and I went back to campaign for it, and I
don't know, I felt good about it. I felt like
I was just saying what I thought, and actually it
was interesting. I didn't myself think of it as any
kind of personal disagreement, but I'm afraid David Cameron did
(25:23):
see it as that, because he very much saw it
as a referendum not just on Brexit, but basically on
his prime ministership, and indeed, as soon as he lost,
like literally the next morning, he resigned, And so I
think he felt it as a kind of personal betrayal
because his job was on the line, whereas I was
looking at it as as a question of political philosophy.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
The UK has got a lot of problems right now,
mass immigration issues as well as free speech issues. Are
those two intertwined and where is that all going?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well? I think it's all one thing actually, if you
look back over the last few years in the UK's again,
I wasn't involved in it. We've been here since twenty
twelve and I'm an American now. But the performance of
the I mean, you don't even want to use the
word conservative, you know, the Conservative government since Brexit has
(26:18):
just been totally lamentable and unconservative. I mean the whole
point for example of Brexit, not the whole point, but
like a really important central argument as prominent in the
Brexit argument as it was in President Trump's campaigns both
in twenty sixteen and just now, was the immigration argument.
Controlling our borders. That was really central to the Brexit
(26:40):
argument because in the EU you have zero control. It's
literally open borders within the EU. That's how it works.
They call it free movement of people. And so that
was like at the heart of the Brexit argument and
they haven't done anything about it. So you get Brexit,
but you don't get immigration control. In fact, the numbers
(27:00):
have gone up since Brexit in the UK, So like,
what were they doing? And I think on all of
these measures, you know, the clamping down on free speech
and all of this stuff, it just felt like you
had a conservative government that wasn't conservative at all, and
that's why they suffer this absolutely massive defeat. Now you've
got a labor government that's even worse, and it just
feels like the UK is really lost. Actually, it's very
(27:23):
sad to see.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Well, let's talk about your home stay, which is also
last Rate wrote the book about it call of Failure,
Reversing the Ruin of America's worst run State. You sure
know how to pick them? Stea kidding? Okay, So you
name California obviously is America's worst run state. I guess
(27:46):
what gives it that distinction from your point of view
and the argument you make in the book.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah, I mean the first thing I say is I
love California. It's my home. You know, I raised my
family there, started a business that you know, I still
think it's there's nowhere better than California. But it's just
so disastrously run and it breaks my heart. And that's
one of the reasons I wanted to write the book
because I'm more and more engaged in the fight to
save California. And you've got to make the argument about
what's gone wrong, how it's gone wrong, and how to
(28:13):
put it right. And I'd also say it's a warning
to the rest of the country because I mean, just
going back to what we were discussing AOC and Bernie Well,
that agenda, that policy agenda that Bernie and AOC are pushing.
We don't need to guess what it would look like.
That's basically what has been implemented in California for years now,
(28:33):
in these nearly two decades of one party rule by
the Democrats, and they've gone further and further left and
they've basically implemented all the things they want, the Green
New Deal, massive increases in the minimum wage, taxes, regulations,
everything that they want. That's California today. And so you ask, like,
how do you define it as the worst trund and say, well,
just look at the numbers. It's unbelievable how badly California
(28:55):
is doing on every single measure pretty much that matters.
California is the worst in America. Like not even like
in the middle or forty first out of fifty or whatever.
It's the work. We have the highest rate of poverty,
the highest taxes, the highest costs for pretty much everything
that matters, housing, gas, electricity, water, all of that, the
(29:17):
most expensive in America. We had the lowest income growth
last year in America, the highest unemployment. Right now it's
this month it's the second highest unemployment, but you know,
for a lot of last year it was the highest unemployment.
The worst business climate, which is amazing when you think
of California as the home of innovation and all these things.
(29:37):
Chief Executive magazine does a survey every year chief executives
around the country which states have the best and worst
business climate, and they rank them California has been last
for ten years, bottom and a not there are more measures.
I mean, it's just unbelievable everything. It's not just what
i've a homelessness. We have eleven percent of the US population,
(29:58):
five percent of the US homeless. It's just a terrible,
terrible record, a complete failure on every single front. And
they say, when you put all this to Democrats, they say, well,
we're still you know, we're the fifth biggest economy in
the world. And that's true. If you took California out
of the US on our own, wouldn't be the fifth biggest.
Commany great, but when you look at what that is
(30:20):
driven by, it's basically these giant tech monopolies with huge
revenue that boy up California's GDP, but they hardly employ
anyone in relatively speaking. And that's why you can have
this kind of thing at the same time, the fifth
biggest economy but the highest unemployment in America. And so
something is going really badly wrong. And this is what
you get when Democrats get everything they want. That's why
(30:43):
this is a real message for the rest of the country.
This is the Democrat plan in action. Look at it.
It's in California right now today, and it's completely failed, you.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Know, and we know that the decline's been ongoing, but
at what point did it excel?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So I think that the real answer that question is
is just over ten years ago when they got a
supermajority in the legislature. Because it's not just the government,
it's not just Gavin Newsom a lot of this, you know,
I mean just the stories. I mean, just to take
one step back, I think the sort of defining characteristic
(31:22):
of all of this and the reason everything's gone so
badly wrong is the massive growth of big, bloated, bossy
nanny state government. Just it's this enormous growth of the government.
They've doubled the budget of the state of California in
the last ten years pretty much, even though the population
has been falling. So everything is affected by that. It's
(31:43):
impossible to run a business, to build anything, whatever. It's
all a nightmare. And the real and when that really
started was when they achieved a supermajority in the legislature,
and that meant that they had no more you know,
need to get Republican votes on anything. Well, there's two
things that happened. They put in place a ballot initiative
(32:03):
called Proposition twenty five. I believe that was twenty ten
when they they changed the requirement for passing a budget
in the state legislature. It used to be that you
needed two thirds votes to pass a budget, and they
reduced that to just a simple majority in order to
make it easier for them to get their way without
(32:23):
any kind of input from the opposing party. So that
itself was the first step, but they didn't even need
that for very long, because in twenty twelve they did
achieve just through actually through gerrymandering, two thirds majorities in
the state Assembly in the state Senate, so total control
of the legislature. And it's been like that ever since,
(32:44):
which means that they've just there's been no challenge to them.
They've got so it's all the pressure is coming from
the left, from the activists who basically control them, the
unions who fund them. They especially the government unions, the
teacher unions and so on. They themselves are controlled by
far left activists. So just the insane legislation that's been
coming out and the governors have just signed it and
(33:05):
gone along with it, and they haven't stood up to
the party. So I think that's the origin of it
when they when they achieved the super majority of I
just want to make a point about that, which is
that if you look at and this is I think
the note of optimism for California, it's a much more
Republican state than people think. So even in a bad
year for Republicans, when you have like a you know,
a not particularly well known candidate with no money, That's
(33:28):
what happened last time in the governor's race, Gavin Newsom
was up for reelection. The Republican candidate was a guy
called Brian Dally, nice guy. You know, I did my
best to support in put upon my shows and all
the rest of it. He was a state senator from
the north of state. But he didn't have any money,
barely had a campaign, but he got forty one percent.
He got forty point eight percent. I believe it was like,
(33:48):
call it forty one percent of the vote with like
no campaign effectively, and in fact, the average share of
the vote for Republicans and statewide elections in the last
twenty years is nearly forty two So that's there's a
very solid, call it forty percent Republican support in California.
But if you look at the legislature, you don't have
forty percent representation for Republicans. It's not even thirty five
(34:11):
or thirty or twenty five is twenty percent, And that's
achieved through jerry mandering that the Democrats did. They hijacked
a ballot initiative that was the past in two thousand
and eight. It was called independent redistricting, but they totally
hijacked it to draw the districts in a way that
suited them. And now they have this supermajority and they've
(34:31):
completely you know, caved to the left on everything, and
so you end up this insane legislation going through a
plus also insane volumes of legislation. It's incredible how many
bills they passed, just the sheer volume of crap that
comes out of Sacramento. That's really the sort of defining
thing too. The supermajority in the legislature totally unchallenged by
(34:55):
the governor.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Well, and I think people were alarmed by just the
inability to govern on the basic level with the fires. Yes,
we recently saw with both Gavin Newsom's inability Karen Bass
as well, And then I was reading that there was
a reservoir specifically set up for the Pacific Palisades and
it was empty, and so it's like, you know, and
(35:16):
then you had the California legislature meeting about how to
stop Trump and see you know, so it's like, I
think it was alarming, you know. So it walk us
through that and sort of what that highlights, you know,
also some of the problems in California as well.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Well. Exactly. I remember I was in the I spoke
at a congressional hearing about the wildfires, and you know,
it's the classic sort of pantomiming after Democrats, you know,
doing their partisan stunts and whatever. And there was one
woman on there, a Democrat member of Congress from I
don't know where, I think Vermont, and she was and
(35:53):
there were four of us who were witnesses, and I'd
been very critical, you know, and I had made all
these points out the failures of policy, that the climate extremism,
that meant that all these regulatory agencies had literally stopped
residents from clearing the brush by their on the hillsides
near their homes even though they wanted to. They were
fined if they did proper fire maintenance, all on the
(36:16):
grounds of you know, cut carbon and air quality. It's
just ridiculous stuff. Right. So I was making all these
points and plus the reservoir and all the rest of it.
But this woman just she came in with these classic
congressional pantomime questions. He goes, do you believe the fires
were caused? You start made a little speech about DEI.
It's all you know, Republicans say, this is all DEI.
(36:37):
Do you remember about the fire chief and whatever? Do
you think the fires were caused by the fact that
the fire chief is a lesbian? Like? No, But the
point I made was like, actually, you take the acronym DEI.
It is the cause of all this. Just give it
a new name democrat, extremism and incompetence. And it's those
two things together. They're extremism and their incompetence that made
(37:01):
this fire disaster so much worse than it need have been.
I mean, that thing with the cover sort with the reservoir,
it's just so insane. Exactly as you say, that reservoir
was built in order to hold water in the event
of a fire in that part of the city, one
hundred and seventeen million galons, and it had been empty
for a year, and the reason that they it was
(37:22):
empty was because there's some regulation about covering it in
order to preserve the you know, from preserve the water
quality from you know, bird droppings or whatever. Fine, okay,
but there was a tear in the cover, that's the reason.
But they could have just fixed the cover, but they didn't.
(37:42):
They emptied the whole reservoir and they had it and
they didn't even realize or didn't think that it would
be a problem that it would be empty during fire season.
This is a totally predictable event, the Santa Anna winds
that kind of whip up these sides of every year.
These weren't even the worst ever. They were bad, but
there was not unprecedented and it's just unbelievable. But by
(38:04):
the way, the person in charge of that that comes
out of the La City Department of Water and Power,
the person that was hired to run that by Carabas.
Her salary is seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.
Oh my god, it's unbelievable. And you think, well, what's
going and you look at these the way these this
(38:27):
is what happens when they get completely complacent. There's no
accountability because there's no challenge from They don't think that
there's any political competition or threat. They get totally complacent.
There's total arrogance, and they do these things and there's
no kind of accountability for it because they don't feel
the pressure from any kind of political challenge. It's all
(38:50):
within their own party. And then the real thing is
you get all these machine politicians rising up through the ranks,
like Karen Bass, who are basically useless. They kind of
left wing, bureaucratic minded people. Their skill is managing you know,
the unions and the activists and all of that stuff.
They have no clue. They've never done a real job.
Kamala Harris is exactly the same, and it's just a
(39:13):
disaster because they don't know how to run things properly
and they have bad ideas that are just left wing
ideology instead of common sense practical quick.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Break more, Steve, you identify nine pathologies that have led
to the state's failure. How did you come up with
those and sort of what was the thought process and
trying to yeah, identify.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
What is this, you know, like, how did this happen?
And you know, I've talked about some of the sort
of practical things, you know that the two thirsd majority
all that kind of stuff. Also, it's a very important point,
which is the whole process was really initiated by Reagan
when he gave collective bargaining rights as governor to the
government union starting with firefighters and police and so on,
(39:58):
and then Jerry Brown extended that. So that's created this
incredibly powerful political force which is the government unions in California.
They spent about a billion dollars a year on political activity,
and of course in exchange for that, they get you know,
luxury pensions and health care and so on. It's totally corrupt.
So that's a very big factor in it as well.
(40:20):
But I was just thinking was going through. I didn't
just want to say, well, this is this is how
they screwed up homelessness or whatever. I wanted to go
a bit deeper than that, Well what's going on here? Why?
And so I went through all the failures and was
trying to think honestly about, well, why do they do that?
What's that about? And as I went through, I just thought,
(40:43):
you know, that's why I came to these these different
as I call them pathologies, because it is pathological none
of this really makes sense. For example, if you look
at the homelessness crisis, there's a law that was passed
in twenty sixteen called how First, the only one of
its kind in the country at any state level, which
(41:04):
makes it illegal for anyone offering homelessness services that have
any kind of state funding in California to require sobriety
or mandated drug treatment or anything. And given that eighty
percent plus of people who are living on the streets
have a drug problem or alcohol or both mental health problems,
(41:29):
it's just insane that it's illegal to deal with those
problems and it makes no sense. But what's behind that.
It's pathological. It's like if we force people off the
streets and into drug treatment somehow, that's not compassionate, and
that we have to be compassionate and let people do
(41:50):
But that's not actual compassionate. That's why I call it compassionism.
Is this ideological, demented kind of view that I want
to look compassionate by not you know, forcing people to
do things that they don't want to do, and it's
just ridiculous, makes no sense, and that informs a lot
of their stuff. You know, even in schools, you know
(42:10):
where they've basically made it impossible to discipline unruly kids
and it all has to be restorative justice whatever. It so,
all this this pathology of compassionism rather than true compassion,
and you go through all the issues, it's all like that.
The climate stuff makes no sense. It's you know, they're
literally shutting down our own oil and gas industry, which
(42:31):
is used to provide eighty percent of the fault of
the oil and gas we're using California. We still use
basically the same amount. It's gone down a little bit
in the last few years, but it's pretty much. You know,
I mean, eighty percent of our total energy use in
California is fossil fuels. But now instead of producing eighty
percent of that in state and importing twenty percent, it's
(42:54):
the other way around. We import most of the oil
and gas we use, and they're shipping oil. They're shutting
down oil wells and oil fields in Kern County, California,
you know, one hundred miles or so from Los Angeles
where the refineries are. You could send it there in
nice pipelines and clean and safe, instead of which they're
(43:16):
literally shipping it in halfway across the world from places
like Iraq on giant supertankers, which run on the most
filthy fuel it's called bunker fuel, the most polluting form
of transportation on the planet. They're shipping it halfway across
the world. So in the name of climate, they are
(43:36):
literally increasing carbon emissions. It's insane, it makes no sense.
But it's this ideological pathology. It's like climatism, that's what
I call it. It's like, we want to look like
we are fighting fossil fuels, but it's insane, and you
go through all the issues, that's what it comes down to.
It is this totally extreme ideology above any kind of practicality.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
That's wild. I wanted to ask you, So your parents
escaped communism, how has it shaped your political views and
also how you view California.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, it's interesting. I never really thought it did very much,
but now I'm more engaged in it. I realized that
it does. And it's that real instinctive kind of rejection
of overbearing government that just you know, tries to control people,
and and you know, it's really interesting. I remember I've
(44:39):
thought about this more recently, particularly in the context of speech.
Free speech. When I was a kid, so I was
born in the UK, but all of my family, my
parents are Hunger and my stepfather's Hunger. Everybody's Hungarian, and
most of the family is still in Hungary. And when
I was a kid, we used to go there all
the time. Less so now, but I spent every summer
(44:59):
there from Christmas as well. And I remember I had
two cousins and I remember, you know, ten or eleven
years old something like that, walking around on the streets
of the town, our hometown, which is a town called
sege s z e g Eds in the south of Hungry,
beautiful town. And I remember, I don't know why I
was doing this. I guess I was always, you know,
(45:19):
a bit of a I don't know what this says
about me, but anyway, I was walking around and in
Hungary and I speak Hungary, was yelling on the street
the name of the then communist leader of Hungary, guy
called Kadad Kadar Yad, and I was saying in Hungary,
cawd who yeah, which means idiot, like Cad is an idiot,
(45:41):
you know. Just I don't know why. Anyway, that night,
I remember my aunt taking me to one side and said,
I heard about what you said today. And I know
in England that's fine, it doesn't matter. You can say
things like that. But here you just can't say things
like that in public. Your cousins could really be punished
for that at school, that I could even lose my job.
So just don't say things like that. And as you
(46:04):
remember thinking, I hardly thought about it, and then it
came back to me in the context of what's going
on in California. Like one of the chapters in my
book is called Maoism, which is the kind of the policing.
A lot of these terrible things that have infected the
rest of the country started in California. The speech controls,
the race, the race extremism, equity agenda, the gender extremism,
(46:26):
the green you did. So many of these things started
in California, and the speech control staff really got going
in California universities. And I'm just thinking, what is this,
what's going on because there are so many people in
America today, In California today, I've heard so many people
who said, I can't say what I think is I'm
going to lose my job. And you know, I think
(46:47):
it's now with the last election was a real fight
back against that. So that's great, and of course elon
with X et cetera. But we really got to a
point where this comparison of the left here with communism
was not outlandish. Actually it was really the same kind
(47:07):
of mindset. And I think that for me, it's very
much about I just can't stand, you know, over mighty
arrogant institutions, whether that's the government or unions or anyone else, like, no,
don't tell me what to do. That's why I feel
so at home in America and so proud to be
(47:27):
an American, Like we're the home of that and that spirit,
and California should be the most like that in the
sense that we were built as a state, you know,
the pioneers and the rebels and the and if you
think about all the great things that you know, whether
that's Hollywood or Silicon Valley, it's a rebel mentality. It's
a it's a it's disruptive. It's not this kind of
(47:48):
nanny state bullshit, you know. And I think what we
see now in California is just the absolute opposite of
the spirit of California, which is, let me follow my
dream and live my life and don't tell me what
to do, and we have the opposite and I feel
really strongly about it.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
I think that's why we're friends. Don't tell me what
to do, same mentality, Steve. Before we go, we saw
President Trump make in roads in California. Can Republican win
a gubernatorial race there? And is that Republican?
Speaker 2 (48:22):
You? Yeah, well, look, I'm very dirrected about it. Thank you.
I'm very strongly considering it. I've been working along those lines.
I haven't made a final decision yet. Kamala Harris tells
us that she'll make a decision by the end of
the summer. I'll make my much sooner than that. I
think that the signs are encouraging. I'm not saying it's
going to be easy, but good, good, encouraging signs. I mean,
(48:45):
as you say, President Trump did really well, best of
any Republican candidate for generation. You saw ten counties flip
from blue to red last time in November, including you know,
you know, not just kind of tiny, you know, important
ones like Fresno County, the fifth biggest city in California,
(49:07):
so that's all good. You saw Prop thirty six, which
reversed the disastrous Prop forty seven, Kamala Harris's pro crime
initiative pass overwhelming the seventy percent. George Gascon lost in LA,
the far left da same in Oakland, et cetera. So
those were good signs. Also another thing I'll point to,
which is really just a bit. It's local, but it
(49:28):
gives you a sense of what you can achieve. There's
Huntington Beach, well known beach city in Orange County, Surf City, USA,
home of the beach was you know, they they like
just over when twenty twenty that the city council Huntington
Beach was six' to One. Democrats and then in twenty twenty,
(49:50):
two a friend of, Mine Tony, strickland longtime political guy In,
california he put together a team of, candidates four of
them run for the city council on a very clear
common sense but you, know strongly you could say maga.
Platform AND i think for too Long republicans In california
(50:11):
have had this idea that the way you the only
way you can win is to be kind of slightly
in a little bit like A democrat and water it.
Down and It's, california so he can't be too kind of. Conservative.
Whatever they went totally the opposite, direction very Strong maga,
direction and they won four to. Three they took control
of the, council and then they started to implement a
very aggressive conservative agenda on homelessness and, crime what was
(50:35):
available in the, libraries you. Know they challenged the really
aggressive lawsuits Against Gavin newsom on all his statewide, mandates
and they passed VOTER id In Huntington beach in a ballot.
Initiative so they did all these things and then just
now In, november they and they ran seven candidates this,
time the seven on the council and they literally called
themselves The magnificent seven honing To. Beach they, Won they all,
(50:59):
won and so now seven Zero. Republicans so in the
space of four, years they've gone from six to One
democrat to seven Zero. Republican AND i just think that,
spirit that fight is really infectious and that's what we
need to. Do and then that's all of that is
before the, fires which of course totally woke everyone up
(51:20):
to the complete calamitous you, know mismanagement and the. Fires
it's very important that they're In la Because La county
is the biggest, county twenty three percent of the, electorate
So republicans have to do better IN la if they're
going to have a, Shot and so all of that comes,
TOGETHER i think in to create conditions WHERE i think
this is the best chance for you, know at least
(51:43):
two decades for A republican to. Win so it's not
going to be, easy but it's definitely. Doable there was
a poll just, NOW i literally this, week forty eight
percent Of californians would consider voting for A. Republican SO
i think it's definitely all to play.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
For very interesting stuff that the book is Calif, Failure
reversing The ruin Of america's worst run. State Steve, Hilon you're,
brilliant my, friend really interesting. CONVERSATION i enjoyed it very.
MUCH i hope to see you. Soon, yes love being with.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
You thank, You.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
LISA i got to see you at the. Inauguration we
were on air, together which was a. Treat so, hopefully,
hopefully hopefully we see each other.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Again, absolutely thank.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
You appreciate you guys at home for listening Every tuesday And,
thursday but you can listen throughout the week until next.
Time
Host
Lisa Boothe
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