May 7, 2026 • 9 mins
Paul Corvino meets with Steve Hilton, candidate for Governor of California.Stephen Glenn Charles Hilton is a British and American conservative political commentator, former political adviser, and contributor for the Fox News Channel. He served as director of strategy for British prime minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2012.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Meet the Candidates with Division President of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Today I'm joined by Steve Hilton, the Republican running for
governor California. Welcome Steve.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Great to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
So my question is you've got a successful show, and
I asked this question to anyone that gets into politics,
why the heck would you want to get into politics.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Well, it wasn't the first step.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I mean, what really, as I've explained as we've gone
through the years, most of my career has been like
doing things, you know, running business, starting companies, just active,
making change, happening government or trying to.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But on TV it's great, Don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I loved that opportunity forever, appreciative of the amazing opportunity
to like have an hour where you can just you know,
and the box gives you amazing freedom.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I mean, you can literally put.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
That show together exactly the way you want, and that's
an amazing opportunity that I completely appreciate. However, you're just
talking in the end, and I just had an itch
I supposed to get into doing things again. And so
even before I guess stopped posting, I stayed a contributor
(01:15):
with Fox, but I wanted more time to go do things,
so I started, and I love California so much. I'm
in love with California and could see how it's going
so badly off track. So I set up a policy
organization called Golden Together, and I started really understanding what's
gone wrong in California, traveling the state, listening to people,
business people, families, whatever, but more importantly developing solutions. So
(01:39):
started publishing a whole range of policy papers about how
we can fix things in California. Not at that point
intending to run, just wanted to do something useful and tangible.
And then the real moment, I was working on housing
policy because it's such a mess and it's the number
one reason people are leaving the state, the high cost
of housing. And so, without getting into the details of
(02:00):
all of that, tried to get a balot initiative going.
That didn't work, didn't raise the money. Then I started
engaging with Sacramento, with the politicians, like what about this?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Can we do this?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
And I just found that experience unbelievably, I don't know, frustrating,
in raging. I just every time you go to Sacramento,
you just think this place is completely corrupt and dysfunctional
and broken, like it's unbelievably bad. And then I had
one meeting with this legislator that was supposed to be
good on housing and they said, oh, this plan you've got,
it's really great, be transformational. I said, great, let's work
(02:33):
on it together. I'm Republican, your democrat. Oh well, I
couldn't support you publicly.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well the unions would hate it, so I said, I know,
But so what you just said it's transformational. We're sitting
an office you could see the state capitol down below.
They waved their arm around like this and said, well,
the union's run this place. What You're an elected member
of the legislature and you've just told me that the
unions run this place.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
That is what I thought. And no, that's not how
it's supposed to work.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I'm not saying that night I decided to run for governor,
but it definitely was kind of a tipping point.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
And right now you're leading in the.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Polls I am, and the lead is growing. I'm please
to see.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Let me ask you, if elected, what would you say
is the number one issue facing the state, and what's
the solution.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So the number one issue is that is the word
that we use. It's on our banners where we're doing
these town halls up and down the state. More and
more people coming to those one word califfordable. We've got
to make our state califfordable because it's so expensive to survive,
especially for working class California's small business owners. It's a nightmare.
And so that's the number one issue, no question. And
(03:46):
the plan that I've got addresses that very directly. Three
dollar gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first
one hundred grand tax free, a home you can afford
to buy now. Behind each of those is a really
detailed reform plan which happy to talk about, but just
keeping it at at the high level right now. That's
the number one issue. But the real task, the real
(04:09):
work that's going to be top of my agenda when
I get to Sacramento, goes back to what we're saying earlier,
is really to take a sledgehammer to the bloated, bureaucratic,
nanny state government that is just churning out endless rules, regulations,
cost fees, taxes, endless hassle and delay in nonsense that
(04:31):
just make this state that's why we have the highest
poverty rate in the country, the highest unemployment rate in
the country, the highest cost of living in the country.
Chief Executive magazine gives US fifty out of fifty for
business climate, on and on.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Everywhere you look.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
We have fifty US US and World Report ranks US
fifty out of fifty for opportunity wallet HLP fifty out
of fifty for affordability. Everywhere you look. It's a total disaster.
And the driver of that is the floated nanny state bureaucracy.
And so that's the actual Functionally, what we need to
do to turn things around is just just massively cut
(05:09):
that back.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
What would you say when you start the job on
day one, what's the lowest hanging fruit in the quickest
way to accomplish something.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Well, there's a quick thing I can do, which is
vehicle registration. I know it's not like some major reform
in one sense, but it's just an example of how
they're gouging us, just totally pointlessly, just endlessly stealing from
us to throw into their bottomless money pit. And in
most states it's under one hundred bucks to register your vehicle. Here,
(05:36):
you'd be luck, you know, four or five hundred and
six or so many people over a thousand. Some people
I've heard say it's over two thousand. Of course, it
depends on your make and model and year and whatever.
It shouldn't it's ridiculous. So the end is classic example
a ridiculous micromanergy bs bureaucracy for no good reason.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So what I'm and I've looked at the details of
how that money's collected, what it goes for you. You
look at what they say about where it goes. Most
of it you couldn't even tell you where it goes.
They got a big chunk of it to what they
call the Transportation Improvement Fund.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
What's that? Nothing is being improved. We have the worst
roads in the country.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
So we're going to cut all of that or the
extra fees and charges and have a flat fee. You
just take the flat fee registration fee, which is seventy
one dollars. That's it per person per vehicle.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It seems that there are a lot of simple issues
that are almost too simple that they can't get done.
And is it just the Sacramento swamp very similar to Washington.
Do you think that that is the biggest issue facing
Is that a lot of it's the way it's always
been done.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
We can be more specific than that, because there's three
components of it that dominate. And this is why Democrats
can't make the change that we need, because they're basically
captured by these interests. The three things when we say
the swamp, here's the three biggest components. Number one, the climates,
(07:00):
the climate dogma. So much of this cost and household
is driven by their climate stuff. I don't even want
to call it climate policies because it's not even helping
the climate. It doesn't do anything for the climate, literally nothing,
no impact on the climate, global temperatures, nothing is purely
to make themselves feel good about looking like they're doing
(07:20):
something about climate. In the process, they've given us the
worst business climate, higher taxes, all this crap. And so
that's number one the climate dogma. Number two we touched
on it earlier, union power. Wherever you look, the unions
are driving policy, driving up the cost, including on housing
and everything else. And then in schools, for example, the
(07:42):
teacher union's disasters. So the second thing is union power.
The third thing, which isn't discussed nearly enough is lawsuits, litigation,
the nuisance lawsuits. Like going back to restaurants I used
to run. Pretty much every restaurant owner, unless you're very lucky,
will know about pager lawsuits. Pager lawsuits Private Attorney General Act. Again,
don't need to get into the weeds on they're ridiculous,
(08:04):
extortionate lawsuits. The legislature has given endless what they call
these private rights of action where anyone can file a lawsuit,
endless opportunities for nuisance and exploitative lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And that's a huge driver.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Of the cost of everything and the delay in the
hassle in California, you know, I sat down with Lindsay
Snyder in an outburger and her executive team just one example.
You know, they were telling me it takes the same
exact building that they get that they would need to
build pretty standardized in an out burger. They just did
it in Tennessee two years, California seven years, Wow, three
(08:46):
or four times is expensive. Lawsuits, environmental review just endless
bloat and ridiculous nonsense. So those are the three things.
Climate union power, lawsuits, and then you look at why
Democrats can't get it done because they are owned by
those interests. The climate activists completely control these people. You
(09:08):
look at donations. Look at Gavin Newsom's donations by category
in the sixteen years he's been running statewide. Number one,
government unions, number two, trial lawyers, number three, non government unions.
They own the Democrats. That's why nothing changes. That's why
the only hope for California is to kick out the Democrats,
(09:30):
elect a new governor to take us in a new direction.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
That's me right now at you're leading in the polls
and you've got a strong start, and thank you so
much for coming on. We've been speaking with Steve Hilton,
Republican front runner right now running for governor. Thank you
so much for coming on.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Steve, Thank you great to be with you.
This is Meet the Candidates with Division President of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Today I'm joined by Steve Hilton, the Republican running for
governor California. Welcome Steve.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Great to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
So my question is you've got a successful show, and
I asked this question to anyone that gets into politics,
why the heck would you want to get into politics.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Well, it wasn't the first step.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I mean, what really, as I've explained as we've gone
through the years, most of my career has been like
doing things, you know, running business, starting companies, just active,
making change, happening government or trying to.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But on TV it's great, Don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I loved that opportunity forever, appreciative of the amazing opportunity
to like have an hour where you can just you know,
and the box gives you amazing freedom.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I mean, you can literally put.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
That show together exactly the way you want, and that's
an amazing opportunity that I completely appreciate. However, you're just
talking in the end, and I just had an itch
I supposed to get into doing things again. And so
even before I guess stopped posting, I stayed a contributor
(01:15):
with Fox, but I wanted more time to go do things,
so I started, and I love California so much. I'm
in love with California and could see how it's going
so badly off track. So I set up a policy
organization called Golden Together, and I started really understanding what's
gone wrong in California, traveling the state, listening to people,
business people, families, whatever, but more importantly developing solutions. So
(01:39):
started publishing a whole range of policy papers about how
we can fix things in California. Not at that point
intending to run, just wanted to do something useful and tangible.
And then the real moment, I was working on housing
policy because it's such a mess and it's the number
one reason people are leaving the state, the high cost
of housing. And so, without getting into the details of
(02:00):
all of that, tried to get a balot initiative going.
That didn't work, didn't raise the money. Then I started
engaging with Sacramento, with the politicians, like what about this?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Can we do this?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
And I just found that experience unbelievably, I don't know, frustrating,
in raging. I just every time you go to Sacramento,
you just think this place is completely corrupt and dysfunctional
and broken, like it's unbelievably bad. And then I had
one meeting with this legislator that was supposed to be
good on housing and they said, oh, this plan you've got,
it's really great, be transformational. I said, great, let's work
(02:33):
on it together. I'm Republican, your democrat. Oh well, I
couldn't support you publicly.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well the unions would hate it, so I said, I know,
But so what you just said it's transformational. We're sitting
an office you could see the state capitol down below.
They waved their arm around like this and said, well,
the union's run this place. What You're an elected member
of the legislature and you've just told me that the
unions run this place.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
That is what I thought. And no, that's not how
it's supposed to work.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I'm not saying that night I decided to run for governor,
but it definitely was kind of a tipping point.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
And right now you're leading in the.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Polls I am, and the lead is growing. I'm please
to see.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Let me ask you, if elected, what would you say
is the number one issue facing the state, and what's
the solution.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So the number one issue is that is the word
that we use. It's on our banners where we're doing
these town halls up and down the state. More and
more people coming to those one word califfordable. We've got
to make our state califfordable because it's so expensive to survive,
especially for working class California's small business owners. It's a nightmare.
And so that's the number one issue, no question. And
(03:46):
the plan that I've got addresses that very directly. Three
dollar gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first
one hundred grand tax free, a home you can afford
to buy now. Behind each of those is a really
detailed reform plan which happy to talk about, but just
keeping it at at the high level right now. That's
the number one issue. But the real task, the real
(04:09):
work that's going to be top of my agenda when
I get to Sacramento, goes back to what we're saying earlier,
is really to take a sledgehammer to the bloated, bureaucratic,
nanny state government that is just churning out endless rules, regulations,
cost fees, taxes, endless hassle and delay in nonsense that
(04:31):
just make this state that's why we have the highest
poverty rate in the country, the highest unemployment rate in
the country, the highest cost of living in the country.
Chief Executive magazine gives US fifty out of fifty for
business climate, on and on.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Everywhere you look.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
We have fifty US US and World Report ranks US
fifty out of fifty for opportunity wallet HLP fifty out
of fifty for affordability. Everywhere you look. It's a total disaster.
And the driver of that is the floated nanny state bureaucracy.
And so that's the actual Functionally, what we need to
do to turn things around is just just massively cut
(05:09):
that back.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
What would you say when you start the job on
day one, what's the lowest hanging fruit in the quickest
way to accomplish something.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Well, there's a quick thing I can do, which is
vehicle registration. I know it's not like some major reform
in one sense, but it's just an example of how
they're gouging us, just totally pointlessly, just endlessly stealing from
us to throw into their bottomless money pit. And in
most states it's under one hundred bucks to register your vehicle. Here,
(05:36):
you'd be luck, you know, four or five hundred and
six or so many people over a thousand. Some people
I've heard say it's over two thousand. Of course, it
depends on your make and model and year and whatever.
It shouldn't it's ridiculous. So the end is classic example
a ridiculous micromanergy bs bureaucracy for no good reason.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So what I'm and I've looked at the details of
how that money's collected, what it goes for you. You
look at what they say about where it goes. Most
of it you couldn't even tell you where it goes.
They got a big chunk of it to what they
call the Transportation Improvement Fund.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
What's that? Nothing is being improved. We have the worst
roads in the country.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
So we're going to cut all of that or the
extra fees and charges and have a flat fee. You
just take the flat fee registration fee, which is seventy
one dollars. That's it per person per vehicle.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It seems that there are a lot of simple issues
that are almost too simple that they can't get done.
And is it just the Sacramento swamp very similar to Washington.
Do you think that that is the biggest issue facing
Is that a lot of it's the way it's always
been done.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
We can be more specific than that, because there's three
components of it that dominate. And this is why Democrats
can't make the change that we need, because they're basically
captured by these interests. The three things when we say
the swamp, here's the three biggest components. Number one, the climates,
(07:00):
the climate dogma. So much of this cost and household
is driven by their climate stuff. I don't even want
to call it climate policies because it's not even helping
the climate. It doesn't do anything for the climate, literally nothing,
no impact on the climate, global temperatures, nothing is purely
to make themselves feel good about looking like they're doing
(07:20):
something about climate. In the process, they've given us the
worst business climate, higher taxes, all this crap. And so
that's number one the climate dogma. Number two we touched
on it earlier, union power. Wherever you look, the unions
are driving policy, driving up the cost, including on housing
and everything else. And then in schools, for example, the
(07:42):
teacher union's disasters. So the second thing is union power.
The third thing, which isn't discussed nearly enough is lawsuits, litigation,
the nuisance lawsuits. Like going back to restaurants I used
to run. Pretty much every restaurant owner, unless you're very lucky,
will know about pager lawsuits. Pager lawsuits Private Attorney General Act. Again,
don't need to get into the weeds on they're ridiculous,
(08:04):
extortionate lawsuits. The legislature has given endless what they call
these private rights of action where anyone can file a lawsuit,
endless opportunities for nuisance and exploitative lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And that's a huge driver.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Of the cost of everything and the delay in the
hassle in California, you know, I sat down with Lindsay
Snyder in an outburger and her executive team just one example.
You know, they were telling me it takes the same
exact building that they get that they would need to
build pretty standardized in an out burger. They just did
it in Tennessee two years, California seven years, Wow, three
(08:46):
or four times is expensive. Lawsuits, environmental review just endless
bloat and ridiculous nonsense. So those are the three things.
Climate union power, lawsuits, and then you look at why
Democrats can't get it done because they are owned by
those interests. The climate activists completely control these people. You
(09:08):
look at donations. Look at Gavin Newsom's donations by category
in the sixteen years he's been running statewide. Number one,
government unions, number two, trial lawyers, number three, non government unions.
They own the Democrats. That's why nothing changes. That's why
the only hope for California is to kick out the Democrats,
(09:30):
elect a new governor to take us in a new direction.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
That's me right now at you're leading in the polls
and you've got a strong start, and thank you so
much for coming on. We've been speaking with Steve Hilton,
Republican front runner right now running for governor. Thank you
so much for coming on.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Steve, Thank you great to be with you.
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