Ep. 264: Convo with Mayor Bill Wells

[00:00:00] If you're a California conservative, a libertarian, a moderate Democrat, believe in common sense or just the sane person, this is the political podcast for you. It's the California Underground Podcast. What's going on everybody? Thanks for tuning

[00:00:28] into another episode of the California Underground Podcast. I am your host Phil. As always with me, my trusty co-host, the best and fastest researcher in the West. And tonight we have a special guest on the podcast. He is the current mayor of Alcahone here in San Diego County,

[00:00:43] and he is running for the 51st Congressional District here in California. Mr. Mayor Bill Wells, I put too many salutations, Mr. Mayor Bill Wells. I just didn't add the honorable Mr. Mayor Bill Wells. How are you tonight, Bill? I'm good. Nice to see you, Phil. I'm Camille.

[00:00:59] Nice to see you as well. You have the rare honor of being one of the few federal candidates we have on the show. We do like to focus a lot on state, but we do make exceptions.

[00:01:12] And I think you're a stellar candidate who has a lot to say. And I think you are someone of substance, so it's great to have you on the podcast. For those who don't know, why

[00:01:20] don't you take a minute and introduce yourself? My name is Bill Wells. I live in Alcahone. I'm the mayor of the city of Alcahone. I've been mayor since 2013. And before that, I was on city council in 2008. I'm a doctor of psychology, spent most of my life

[00:01:36] working in emergency psychiatric medicine. And I own a healthcare company and I am married with three grandchildren and four grandchildren, twins on the ways and almost six. And I'm running for Congress in the 51st because I'm extremely worried about the state of the

[00:01:53] world and the country. And I felt that I had the ability to take out somebody who is a really hardcore radical leftist. And I felt like it's my obligation to do so. So that's in a nutshell, that's me. And who is your opponent right now?

[00:02:09] Sarah Jacobs. Sarah Jacobs of the famous Jacobs family right here in San Diego. Yes, the Qualcomm family. She's got a few dollars. So that's a keep pointing that out to me that she's rich like I did.

[00:02:26] As if we didn't already know. If you live in San Diego County, you're well aware of her and her family. Most of the buildings I go into at least are partially endowed by her

[00:02:35] family in some way. So they've done great things that they should be proud of in San Diego. But I don't know what's accomplished. We can talk about them or the Spanos family. I feel like those are the two families here in San Diego anyone should know of.

[00:02:50] I want to talk a little bit about, I think you're, you know, you didn't obviously been mayor since 2013. But I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like you kind of stepped onto a bigger stage during COVID. And I think that's partially due to the fact that

[00:03:08] you were one of the few outspoken mayors who when all these lockdowns and all these restrictions came into place, you were one of the few mayors who stood up and said, Not going to enforce it, not going to punish my businesses. I'm going to make that stand.

[00:03:24] Do you want to talk about that a little bit as a mayor during COVID? What that was like? Yeah, I do. You know, first off, I should say that so I started off life, my adult

[00:03:36] life as a musician. And eventually I decided I had to figure out a way to make some more cash. So I got my R and then eventually got my doctorate in psychology. But what I was

[00:03:47] studying to be an RN, I had to learn a lot about infectious diseases. And I got very interested in the Spanish flu of 1918. And I studied quite a bit about that. So I kind

[00:04:02] of had some knowledge on my belt when we came to this pandemic. And my first thought was, wow, you know, the Spanish flu killed 100 million people. If you extrapolate that out to the number of people that we have living on the earth today, we

[00:04:13] could be seeing a billion people die. And I was pretty concerned based upon, you know, what they were telling all of us that maybe 3% of the population that got this disease would perish. And so I kind of went along with everybody that said, let's

[00:04:29] have two weeks to flatten the curve and keep things under control, make sure our ICU beds were open and that our ventilator capacity was not being used. But then when we got past that two weeks, we started going into three and four

[00:04:45] weeks. A couple of things happened. First off, like I think most people, I didn't have a lot to do. It was shut down. So I spent a lot of time researching. And it became pretty clear to me that if you could wade through

[00:04:59] all the propaganda, that most people that were dying of this disease were people that were 70 years and older. And very few younger people were dying. There were some people my age that were dying, but most of those people had

[00:05:14] significant comorbidities. And pretty quickly, my attitude about it all began to change. Remember, in those early stages, I didn't really feel that it was a partisan issue. I think that came a little bit later. At this

[00:05:30] point, I'm still thinking it was a medical issue. And so I started asking questions. Why are we shutting down the economy and ruining people's businesses and ruining their family lives and causing mental health concerns when

[00:05:45] the vast majority of the people that get this disease will be fine? And you know, I thought what we should do is be locking down the people that were 70 years of age and older and telling other people if you want to

[00:05:58] open your restaurant, if you want to go to work, go. And if you don't feel safe, then stay home, but make it more of a freedom of choice issue. And then I started getting phone calls and emails and texts from people

[00:06:13] throughout my city and people that I knew. I think because they know that I am a mental health professional, as it always is for me, people tell me their dark secrets. And I started getting a lot of people telling

[00:06:26] me how suicidal they were and how they're they were seeing more alcoholism in their family and more domestic abuse in their family and how the kids were not faring well, not going to school. And then I started really thinking

[00:06:39] why I've got to do something about this. And I think that the straw that broke the camel's back for me was Bob Taylor called me. I don't know if you ever heard of Taylor Guitars. Oh yeah. Yeah, I was a guitarist.

[00:06:52] Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. And Taylor is probably the best acoustic guitar in the world. It's up there with Martin and but Bob called me and said, hey, I just got to tell you, I'm getting ready to shut down, but I

[00:07:10] don't think I really want to. And if I do, that's going to cost me and he gave me a very large number. I don't want to rat him out, but it was a huge number. He's going to cost me this much money.

[00:07:23] And I said, you know, Bob, I don't see why you need the shutdown. And he said, yeah, but if if I don't, you know, somebody is going to come up and arrest me or, you know, lock the place down.

[00:07:37] And I said, well, who would do that, Bob? That would be me because you're an alcohol. We have our own police department. We don't take orders from anybody else. And then suddenly occurred to

[00:07:47] me, I had the power to help people in a different way. And so I next day, I did have a news conference and I told our police department to no longer enforce COVID regulations, to no longer enforce

[00:08:02] mask restrictions and to allow people to live the way they want to live without fear of the police coming in arresting them or giving them a ticket. And that's well also for the churches. That's a big deal for me. Go ahead.

[00:08:18] So yeah, I was just going to say we had Mayor Willow Nealon a couple weeks ago and he kind of went through the same thing where he said, look, we're not going to go forward with this because

[00:08:31] police are busy enough in our cities. They don't need to do all of this. And on top of that, start enforcing shutting down businesses that they probably know people or they're probably friendly with these people and enforcing mask regulations.

[00:08:47] Did you see that sort of? That was more, I guess you could say yeah, it's about the freedom. It's about letting people live their lives. But police also had their their own burdens that they had to do. So it's more important they focused on

[00:09:03] public safety rather than these restrictions, right? Yeah, yeah, I mean, absolutely. We have our own police department. And even though we have 120 sworn officers, at any given time, we only have five or six police officers on the street. They're backed up by sergeants and captains and

[00:09:23] lieutenants that work in the office. But you know, the guys out in the cars patrolling the neighborhoods is five or six people. And we were being inundated by phone calls saying there's a guy walking down the street without a mask. Go get

[00:09:38] him. And you know, there's somebody I saw somebody sneak somebody into the back of their hair salon for a haircut importment, you know, take the take the SWAT team and go get them. And we were at some point, you know, when I talked to my

[00:09:51] city manager about my plan, he said, Well, you know what, I'm with you because we're not doing it anyway, to be honest. It was a lot. It was symbolic. A lot. It was just telling people, Hey, I hear you. And you're not crazy. There's

[00:10:06] so much gasoline going on during that where people were just saying, Oh, no, no, no. If you're if you're not complying with this, you're you're a menace to society, you're dangerous and you're stupid. And so many people were saying, guy, am I the

[00:10:20] only one who thinks that this is a little nutty? And so I think that that was the symbolic part of that was just as important as the reality part of it, because people needed somebody in authority to stand up and say, Yeah, I don't

[00:10:33] think you're wrong about this. I think there's some valid valid concerns. Before we focus on probably the reaction that you got from Outer Forces in California, what was the reaction like sort of on the ground level? Did you see a lot of people kind of

[00:10:52] escaping to alcohol to go enjoy life as it was pre COVID like going to restaurants and doing their thing? Like did you see a lot of that happen in alcohol? Yeah, lots of stories like that. I mean, I think one of the

[00:11:03] first things I noticed that the churches who really didn't know the church and the synagogues who didn't really know how to deal with this problem. They you know, they were very frustrated because remember the churches were saying that they weren't essential or strip clubs

[00:11:19] and pot shops were considered essential. And they, you know, they were sending me angry emails saying, you know, why is the church being shut down? I think that when they saw me stand up and said, Hey, I've got your back. They

[00:11:36] felt empowered and emboldened to start staying open. And that's what we saw. We've got a lot of big churches in alcohol. And several of them just defied the law and stayed open. So that was good. But you know, some of

[00:11:53] the restaurants did the same thing. It really depended on what I found out later on, I think we all realized a lot of it had to do with your political bent. It quickly became clear to me that conservatives were ready to

[00:12:13] fight against this that that left us were really, really wanting to embrace it and really liked it. And so, you know, we like any diverse population, and we're actually my city, even though I've a Republican merit have been pretty popular here. We're outnumbered by Democrats by just about

[00:12:38] 2%. So, you know, we saw plenty of restaurants saying, no, we're going to stay closed. But the ones who did stay open were very happy about it. And it's funny, I got a funny story for you. I don't know if we have time for this, but

[00:12:52] Oh, we got time. We got plenty of time. So I was at a restaurant kind of as the whole thing was ending where people were still coming now, coming back into restaurants again. And this lady came up to my table. And

[00:13:06] she said, oh, I'm so excited to see you and thank you so much for what you do COVID. I said, yeah, you're sure, of course, you're welcome. She said, you know, whenever anybody gives me, I just show them your picture. And

[00:13:18] then I tell them my merit says that I don't have to wear a mask. I said, okay, I said, you have a picture of me? She said, oh, yeah, and she she had this, this like badge for her work.

[00:13:29] And she turned it around. There was my picture. And she she kept it around her neck like a talisman to ward off the evil people that wanted to make her wear a mask. That was a funny story. But you know, it was it was a

[00:13:44] controversial decision. But I'd say overall, probably 70 80 percent of the people were very, very encouraging about it, very happy about it. Yeah, and it's if I could tell an interesting story of there was a restaurant in national city that kind of became like a

[00:14:05] speak easy sushi. And once people started to find out about like, oh, this place is actually serving. And you could go in there and sit down have a normal meal like before COVID. The place was packed, you go there is absolutely packed.

[00:14:24] People loved it. They told me a story that even the police chief of national city was like they were coming there and having lunch and dinner and like, because they chose it. But it was funny because we went initially and you could tell like

[00:14:38] to your point about you could tell who the political bent was people who were there. You probably had an idea of what where they landed on the political spectrum. But then it got to a point where family members of ours who are on the opposite

[00:14:52] end of the political spectrum, the longer COVID went on. All of a sudden they were they went from the camp of we're never going out. We're gonna do all this we're gonna social distance and no one can come into our house and

[00:15:04] blah, blah, blah. Several months later, all of a sudden they're going so what's the name of this restaurant that you go to that we can come out? We're looking for like a normal meal. So it's interesting how people kind of shifted over time to

[00:15:17] be like, okay, this is normal. This isn't as scary. And I think that's thanks in part two people like you who kind of stood up and said no, this is this is crazy. We should be free to do these decisions as we see fit into all those

[00:15:33] restaurants that were like, no, we're gonna stay closed. We're gonna do this. Sure, that's your freedom. That's your prerogative. But to put it on other people to say well, everyone has to stay closed. I think that was where the line

[00:15:47] was for a lot of people was let people live their lives, let them make their decisions and live with that risk, right? Absolutely. Through the process, I really want to understand the way people fought. And I started studying totalitarianism because I really I smelled totalitarianism

[00:16:06] in this. And there's a book that I found called the Psychology of Totalitarianism by a guy named Matthias Desmond. And he is psychologist, and he wrote about mass formation psychosis, and how this particular thing that we saw with COVID has happened multiple times throughout history. And it always

[00:16:26] follows kind of a similar pattern if you're you or your solicitors are ever interested in a really comprehensively great book about how this kind of happened psychologically. I recommend that. Oh, I definitely got to read that. See you started that like, oh, yeah, this is not my alley.

[00:16:44] Say it one more time for the listening. What was the name of the book? The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Psychology of totalitarianism. Mass formation psychosis. Um, I think I'm gonna have to add it to my list. Sorry, my dog's a little upset right now about something probably

[00:17:03] are new neighbors. Mine's locked out of the room because he if the UPS driver comes again, so well, we just we just move so she's getting used to the whole neighborhood and I guess there's new dogs across the street. So don't worry about

[00:17:19] so now I want to kind of move into your decision to go from mayor of Alcahone and decide I want to run for Congress. What made you just pick Congress over maybe Assembly or State Senate or something like that?

[00:17:38] Part of that's practicality. I'm on sand egg right now. Same association government, and I'm in the deep minority there and I don't enjoy that very much. You know, it's it's nice to stand up for your principles and try to protect

[00:17:54] people. But boy, you just get ignored and beaten down constantly. So the idea of going and doing that for you know, my golden years to be in Sacramento being treated like a bug. It wasn't particularly appealing to me

[00:18:09] and frankly, I was getting a lot done as mayor. So it didn't seem like a good trade to me to go in and not get anything done in Sacramento when I could get lots done to protect people as mayor. And so I was happy to stay as mayor.

[00:18:25] But as we were talking about COVID, it became really clear to me that COVID was a test run of sorts for seeing what the tolerance level was for totalitarian thought and totalitarian impulses in America. And I was very disturbed to

[00:18:45] see how easily people were willing to give away their freedom and willing to give away their their rights for a little bit of security, even not even real security, but the promise of security or you let us have your rights, you let

[00:18:59] us have your freedom and we're going to keep you safe from this disease. That really bothered me. And of course, right after that, Biden won the presidency. And he had promised to come in as a unifier. And obviously, at least in my

[00:19:16] opinion, he did not come in as a unifier. He came as somebody who was extremely prejudiced against half the country really hated half the country and went on a rampage, I think, to try to destroy the Judeo-Christian ethic that this

[00:19:33] country was founded on and has always enjoyed it. Well, all of our laws are based on most of our customs are based on and I, like a lot of people was very unhappy about that. So my consultant who's been with me for a long time is usually kind

[00:19:51] of a gloomy Gus kind of guy. He doesn't usually come and tell me that we're going to do great things. He usually comes and says, oh, we can't win. We're gonna lose it. That won't work. He came to me and said, we should look at

[00:20:02] this seat. She's way too liberal for the district. She does have a high Democrat registration advantage, but the people of the district don't vote like that. They vote for conservative things. And they're going to like you a lot more than they

[00:20:17] like her. And then when I started really letting that ruminate in my mind, it really became clear to me that I had an obligation to run. See, you know, life's been good to me. I've got a great wife, a great family. I've got a business that

[00:20:38] supports me well. I could retire and go enjoy myself. But I think I'm in this position. It's there. How many people are in the position in San Diego County to take out Sarah Jacobs, a 34 year old billionaire. And even though

[00:20:56] it's gonna be a heavy lift for me, I could do it. And when I started really looking into her and realizing how incredible leftist she is, basically a communist, I said, you know, I have an obligation to my kids and my grandkids and everybody I

[00:21:14] love to try to do my best and try to win this thing. So that's what got me into it. Yeah, I mean, that does make more practicality sense in terms of running for Indiana and I could understand where it going to Sacramento could

[00:21:30] probably feel like you're just pushing a boulder up a hill that's gonna come down and crush you anyway. So I had a good question. Camille, if you have any good questions, jump in here because I just Sarah, she's she's currently in

[00:21:45] office right now, right? She's in her third year. And that's I was looking that that district flips back and forth every couple terms. Yes, am I correct? It seems like no, I don't want to correct you but yeah, it's

[00:22:05] No, it's been firmly entrenched. Well, first off, one of the reasons you probably think that is because it was recently journey. So so it is in the makeup of the district has changed. Okay. So Darrell Isis seat right now was a lot

[00:22:25] of the 51st was a Darrell Isis district is now not. So that has is probably what you're thinking about. But before Sarah Jacobs was Susan Davis, I think she was in for like 25 years. Pretty hardcore left us as well. But you know,

[00:22:42] it's interesting is that a conservative with real credentials has never run in this race. They just kind of assumed that it's unwinnable. And you know, it's a pretty daunting task to run for Congress. I think most people won't do it unless they're very assured that

[00:23:02] they're going to win to go on and take a heavily Democrat seat and to kind of burn your political capital and you know, raise a couple million dollars that you know, that may not end up in a win. I

[00:23:16] think a lot of people think about their career and they say, well, this is not what I want to do for my career. But I think differently. I never intended to be a politician. I fell into this. I always felt

[00:23:30] like when the people were tired of me, they would send me home. That's why when I had to make the decision about COVID, I didn't listen to any of my advisors. I said, I'm going to do what I think is the right thing to do and that's always

[00:23:41] served me well. So I just am the right kind of person to run for this because if this ends up being a disaster for me, which I don't think it will be, but if it didn't end up being a disaster

[00:23:54] for me and people said he's a big loser because he can't win the congressional race, I can retire. I'd be okay with that. So I'm also just a random who's like, I'm going to run for Congress. You've put your time in. You worked

[00:24:10] your way up and like you said, the makeup has kind of changed. I feel like the makeup has changed, especially in California, where everyone is getting set up at this point with everything, with the politics. And so you're right that like the time is ripe for

[00:24:25] you. You're absolutely not going to have to race that we don't run in. I think there's guys like me and women too, men and women all around the country who are taking on incumbents right now, taking on people that were thought to be unbeatable and

[00:24:38] they're going to win in November. Just like we're seeing France turn more conservative and Italy turn more conservative and Sweden and, I don't know, was Brazil and Argentina and I think Canada is moving back to the right. I think there is a an unstoppable force

[00:24:59] happening in the world right now. I kind of like it to a college basketball game where maybe at halftime everybody's kind of tied up but somewhere in the third quarter one team just catches on fire and it's clear to anybody who's watching, oh they're going

[00:25:19] to win. It's inevitable and that's why how I feel about conservatism right now. That was my question or my comment was it's interesting in California how people will vote because there's a D next to someone's name but when it comes to actual issues, it's

[00:25:38] always interesting to look at how voters break and we see a lot of that with like propositions where propositions will propose a new tax and then I'll get voted down or they'll propose some policy, social policy that people look at and go that or we're voting that

[00:25:54] down. So it's always interesting that there's this kind of disconnect between well people in California actually support these ideas but it just takes the right messenger to kind of comment and bring those to the people and especially in your district like you're saying they vote conservative

[00:26:14] so you have to be the messenger who comes out and says hey I'm your guy to kind of implement these things you're already voting for. Well the first thing I have to do is not come at them with the republican maxim of Republicans good

[00:26:30] and pure and Democrats evil and stupid and you know I can tell you when I'm on the dais people oftentimes come up to me at a council meeting and say okay first off I want to tell you you're a Nazi and a fascist and you know and I

[00:26:45] know you're not going to do anything to help me but let me rip into it. You know I mean they're right I'm kind of like I cut them off once they call me a Nazi and a fascist I'm pretty much not listening anymore

[00:26:54] and I think Republicans do that too much to Democrats. I understand why people are angry but I think for the most part Democrats are good people and independence as well. I think we have to reach out to them and talk to them in a way that is not

[00:27:13] trying to talk them into being like us but into saying that there's common ground where we can all agree on important issues. Yeah and then kind of remind them say some of the issues that you think are so important or are not really that

[00:27:27] important. Abortion is to me the number one now I hear people screaming all over California saying abortion is super important but in California it's not it's it's codified into the Constitution there's not anything I or anybody else could do to make more or less abortions in California.

[00:27:48] Supreme Court has said that it's a states rights issue but you watch my opponent is going to spend 90% of her oxygen talking about abortion rights even though it does not affect a single human being in California. Yeah and to your point before I get to the next

[00:28:06] thing that I want to bring up just like not all Democrats are bad I think it's also important and we on this show sometimes we get flak for pointing out that not all Republicans are inherently good and that you should just implicitly trust them I

[00:28:24] think you should listen to them as well and hear what they have to say and make sure that they're of substance that they're actually doing it for the right reasons that they're not out here doing it for the wrong reasons or you know in glorification of themselves

[00:28:39] or anything like that. So I do want to go in and kind of make this switch now because You're sure you do everything. Well actually let me respond to that last point if you want to respond to that about what I just said in terms

[00:28:54] of you know don't take everyone just because they're an R.R.D. and just blind faith like just we have to take people as people. We're never going to get out of our problems if it's all DNR we're going to

[00:29:04] be at it until the start of the next hundred years. I think people realize now that that tactic is not working so somebody has got to be the one who blinks first and I think that this is a good time for Republicans to be

[00:29:20] magnanimous and say we're willing to discuss things we're willing to look at your point of view and give you the benefit of the doubt that you have something to say. And I'm not coming at you with the same we've got to meet halfway so

[00:29:40] I don't necessarily think that. I think that there are some things that are so important that you have to remain true to your values no matter what but I think it's the way in which we talk to people the the way in which we defend our values

[00:29:57] is oftentimes by demonizing the other person and saying you're evil you're stupid you're without morals and that's why you scum of the earth that's why you're promoting the ideas that you're promoting. I think we do that too much and you know I can see the Democrats do

[00:30:14] it with us all the time and it's always frustrates me. So now I want to pivot to you had brought up what Sarah Jacobs is going to claim you're going to do in Congress and I want our listeners to hear from you the difference

[00:30:29] between what happens when someone goes to Congress and what they are focused on what they're working on as opposed to people who are elected here in the state because I've heard a lot of congressional candidates say well I'm gonna if I'm elected to

[00:30:47] Congress I'm gonna come back to downtown LA and fix up Compton I'm like okay maybe that's not what you're really focused on but explain to the viewers or listeners what are what are the priorities of what you'll be working on as a representative in Congress in California.

[00:31:03] Well I think to be completely honest nobody knows until you get there right I I have ideas about what Congress would be like and they're probably no more educated than most people's ideas about what Congress would be like but I have I have served in government for

[00:31:19] a long time and I can tell you what I've done and what I've done is try to represent the people that that elected me I try to make their lives better and we try to do that by making sure the streets are safe but there's enough

[00:31:32] cops and firefighters you know I have a balanced budget and a 70 million dollar reserve I think that's what they people hired me to do to be careful with the money so that we would be safe for decades into the future these are the kind of things I would

[00:31:48] try to do in Congress as well if I had the opportunity to have some pet projects certainly mental illness has been a big issue for me all my adult life and I would love to champion mental illness causes and we could talk all night long

[00:32:02] about what those are specifically but and I also think that touches homelessness significantly I I believe that there's a lot the federal government can do about homelessness and mostly it's the carrot and the stick approach in the sense that California is indignant

[00:32:18] and says we're going to do the social experiment and we don't care that everybody hates it we don't care that our constituents hate it we don't care that the rest of the country hates it we are proudly going to do this in my

[00:32:30] opinion I would lobby for cutting off funding to California I would say you know why should we give them health and human service money if they're going to let people die on the side of the road from dug at drug addiction why are we going to give them

[00:32:41] transportation money if they are not doing anything positive for transportation you know forcing people out of their cars and doing things they don't want to do why should we participate in that as a federal government I would try to use the levers pull the levers that it could

[00:32:57] pull to make things uncomfortable for California so that they would start having more reasonable choices I want to I want you to expand on the mental health homelessness etc and the government's role what do you feel is the government's role in that how far should they

[00:33:18] well I mean that's a really broad question but I look I mean I write a lot about homelessness I go speak a lot about about homelessness I'll try to distill it down in the very short little thing but basically the reason that we have

[00:33:33] so much homeless in California which means we have 175,000 people on the streets of California whereas the next closest states would be Texas and New York with 25,000 apiece so we have about a five-fold more homeless people on the streets than other states do

[00:33:51] and most states have a very small number the reason that is is California has decided that homelessness is a viable lifestyle they wanted to encourage it so they've encouraged it by changing the laws it's almost impossible to arrest anybody for using drugs or selling drugs or stealing things

[00:34:08] or defocating on the streets or having sex out in the open or stealing bikes and just a litany of things which I'm sure you've talked about in other podcasts that was by design California wanted to make it very easy to be homeless

[00:34:25] then they also passed a series of laws that said the cities are not allowed to do the normal things that cities would do to keep their streets safe so we're not allowed to wake somebody up in their cars sleeping we're not allowed to arrest somebody for

[00:34:42] trespassing we're not allowed to arrest people for committing vandalism I mean you can even have sex with an unconscious person and not get arrested so they made it very easy to be homeless and then on top of that they give lots of money out

[00:35:00] there's just a massive amount of benefits when I was doing psychiatric evaluations in the emergency rooms I would get several people a night they were coming from Arcus on Louisiana and Tennessee and I would say why are you here in California you say because the

[00:35:14] benefits are so good and you don't get in trouble for anything so California has done that now here's my cynical reasoning I think they're doing it because there's so much money to be involved some people say they're doing it to tear society down to a studs

[00:35:31] and maybe to some degree that is kind of a communist utopian way of looking at it but I also think there's a practical reason and that is we've spent 25 billion dollars on the housing first project in in California most of that money is going to NGOs non-governmental organizations

[00:35:49] which are all very closely aligned with labor and other democrat politicians and democrat politicians swing massive amounts of money to labor and to the NGOs who then swing massive amounts of money back to their campaigns and this is perpetual circle and so the way to solve homelessness

[00:36:10] is number one admit that drug and alcohol addiction is the problem it's not housing it's not financial reasons number two we have to change the laws so that the city has cities have the availability to arrest people when they refuse to get off the streets

[00:36:28] when they when they commit crimes and then number three we're going to have to take that 25 billion dollars and invest at least that much money again in rebuilding psychiatric institutions and treatment centers so that people can get off of the massive amount of drug and alcohol

[00:36:44] that they're involved in right now which is going to be a pretty heavy lift well we had to your point we had done a whole episode a month ago I feel like they all kind of blend together after a while we had talked about

[00:36:59] where the heck all that 21 billion dollars went and we were flabbergasted when we watched the video of people testifying in Sacramento and I believe it was oh god is it Phil Chang from the Bay Area who is by no means a maga republican grilled these women

[00:37:20] who showed up and said where did the money go and they go we don't know and they just kind of shrug their shoulders and he goes you showed up to a hearing and you don't know where 21 they go yeah we we have no idea where it went

[00:37:34] so it is a money game you follow the money and you see where it goes if you're making 500,000 as the CEO of a non-profit that helps homelessness why would you ever want to solve homelessness because you'd be giving up your job of half a million dollars

[00:37:51] right like it's it's a good gig to try and fight homelessness right now in California especially it gets worse and worse every year and people seem to have no problem with just throwing more billions at it every year they come back and say the same thing

[00:38:05] if you just give us another you know what you gave us last time plus a few more billion we'll solve it this time we're gonna we're gonna fix it yeah yeah or that's like just keep homelessness population yeah it's freezing it's almost like the timing on prop one

[00:38:22] they were able to get it before the voters before that audit came out and I think if it was flipped there's no way prop one would have passed if they saw 21 billion dollars was wasted and then they're asking for how much more money on top of that

[00:38:37] I think that would have flipped so they kind of got what they wanted which was got ahead of the audit speaking of homelessness I want to get your quick take on the Supreme Court ruling regarding homeless encampments because I'm sure as mayor you've dealt with that as well

[00:38:53] and and how that can affect homelessness and and kind of tackling homelessness in places like California because right now you have everyone on the left to say you're criminalized being homeless like you've as Sotomayor said you could either be homeless or if you there's no other option

[00:39:11] you can just go kill yourself yeah so what Sotomayor said specifically was that sleep is a biological necessity and you can't criminalize people for sleeping and that is so disingenuous and so myopic she's missing the point completely it's not that you're criminalized for sleeping it's you're criminalized

[00:39:33] for not availing yourself of the shelter that's available to you and I'll tell you what so we have we have not allowed encampments on the streets in almost five years now and we get away with that because we built a lot of homeless shelter beds and we always

[00:39:49] generally have about 50 open beds probably tonight we have 50 open beds and we'll probably have 600 people sleeping on the streets tonight we go and talk to those people every day and say hey you want to get off the streets they say no I don't want to go

[00:40:01] because they're not going to let me use drugs there they're not going to let me bring my dog they're not going to let me do whatever it is I want to do and so people are not sleeping on the streets because they have no choice

[00:40:13] they're sleeping on the streets because they prefer that lifestyle to the lifestyle of going into a program and I so I think that's a a vastly different issue muted again to protect myself from my barking dog just in precaution out of abundance of caution because you never know

[00:40:32] when dogs are just going to jump up and start barking at something so in congress you'll have and I've known you've spoken a lot about this and you've done a lot of videos about this congress and the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over the border

[00:40:47] it's no secret what's going on at the border here in san diego county and that's something you'll be able to hopefully or hopefully work on as a member of congress tell us a little bit about your ideas of what's going on at the border

[00:41:02] and when you're elected to congress ideas you would have to propose or work with others for yeah thank you for the last part I'll work with others yeah you know I'm not not so narcissistic as to think that I'm going to go and fix america's problems

[00:41:17] as the super congressman but I do think that there's a shift happening I think by the time I get to Washington there's going to be enough realistic and common sense people that things can be done I think that also means Donald Trump will be president

[00:41:36] I think that the senate will be in republican hands and I like democracy I like I like there being a mix I don't like California being a one party state but this is such a mess I think we're going to have to have a few years

[00:41:52] of controlling all three branches of government to really make a difference yeah I think anybody who's to me the people that say that the border is not a problem are the same people that say Joe Biden is not the mentor you know they're saying don't believe your eyes

[00:42:13] don't believe what you're seeing on the tv cameras believe me when I tell you that this is not a problem and as we're seeing all those people crossing the border are just cheap fakes right their cheap face yes yeah and Steven Spielberg's

[00:42:31] while he was working on the other side but you know somebody I don't is there a famous republican director I don't even know if there is Clint Eastwood maybe Clint I don't think he understands CGI though for some reason that's probably not anyway I you know

[00:42:46] I look this this BS about the only reason they haven't fixed the border is because the republican Congress won't fix it for them you know I think anybody who's paying attention realizes that the border issue stems from executive orders from president Biden president Biden does not

[00:43:04] want the border to be solved he's vastly committed to changing the landscape the the political landscape and sees this as a way to secure democratic rule for the next 100 years and so that's why they're doing it I think what we need to do is it's not that complicated

[00:43:28] we need to turn it turn off the board we we we need to turn off the broken pipe and so we need to stop people from coming in we need to tell people that if they want to apply for asylum they've got to apply in the embassy

[00:43:41] that's closest to the country that they left and wait to have a hearing and wait to be to have their their trial so that they can be vetted and find out if they're really seeking asylum and then if they are seeking asylum or they

[00:43:55] they provide some kind of special service to the country that we can't do without then I say sure let them in and we're always going to have immigration I'm not talking about no immigration but this kind of fill out a an app

[00:44:10] half an hour before you get to the border and then sign a couple of papers and walk right through be given a court date five years into the future we're asking this may be the biggest problem our country's ever faced do you think

[00:44:26] do you think when it comes to the issue of immigration right now do you think Democrats in Washington are coming around too tough for immigration because it's a losing issue for them or because they we see right now Biden is pulling so horribly on immigration

[00:44:45] and I think it's on top of the economy and inflation it's just immigration is one more thing that people are just like what will why am I paying $18 for a Big Mac and borders wide open as well like something's going on here this doesn't look right

[00:45:00] do you think Democrats are truly there are Democrats in Congress that are truly coming around to it from common sense or do you think they're coming around because of politics and they see that they have to get a little bit tougher on it Congress is a big place

[00:45:14] I'm sure that there are Democrats that that are very concerned about what's happening and and would like to see a different approach but having said that the Democrats who are charged I don't believe that they're serious about immigration in any way whatsoever I think

[00:45:31] they're serious about retaining power and so as we get to four months away from an election that looks like they're going to be slaughtered in almost every area and immigration is a big part of that the reason for that I think they're willing to slow things down

[00:45:49] for a few months pretend like they've seen the light pretend like they can fix it and then as soon as they take power back full speed ahead four more years of wide open border policy and by then all the big metropolitan areas that are blue will be reapportioned

[00:46:06] two three four congressional seats they'll own Congress completely and then they can just do whatever they want that's cynically how I look at it in terms of so I wanted to kind of pivot now you'd brought up President Biden in Congress

[00:46:21] you will be working with the executive branch and whoever president is polls came out I don't know if you saw it today that had leaked from internal democratic polling open labs and it was all over the internet about the swing post debate for Biden

[00:46:40] you went down two points and basically all swing states their projection is like three fifty six for Donald Trump right now what are your thoughts on the current commander in chief post debate and what's your reaction to that and how the Democrats are scrambling

[00:47:00] I just think it's hilarious everybody woke up on Friday morning he said oh my god he's got dementia we never noticed that before even though we've been watching you know everybody's been screaming for three years now okay sorry this is your show but

[00:47:19] it baffles me that America is failing I mean we we are in debt we are funding these wars inflation is out of control people are having to get two and three jobs while everyone else is getting laid off like you know crime is up all

[00:47:36] then we have all these horrific issues going on and suddenly Friday morning or Thursday night even they're like oh no we don't have a great precedent and it's like really really you didn't notice that from like all the crime and the homelessness

[00:47:51] and the fact that you can't afford to eat anymore it was just that he got on stage you couldn't speak and that's that's your issue I'm baffled by that I'm sorry I am absolutely baffled by that well you and I are in agreement I think answer your question

[00:48:08] I never agreed with Joe Biden's policies but you know I didn't agree with Obama's policies I didn't agree with Clinton's policies and I didn't see any reason to impeach them I didn't see you know I figured we just take our lumps for the time they're in office

[00:48:24] and do better the next time Joe Biden's a different case he's dangerous look having I spent 30 years working in emergency rooms and when people had to mention they they brought mom and dad to the hospital I'm the one who evaluated them

[00:48:39] I'm the one who set a treatment plan for them I've seen this he's got dementia he's probably he probably has Lewy body dementia and um he's dangerous other countries were watching the debates that night as well and I think that the reason that China has been so emboldened

[00:48:59] Russia has been so emboldened and the Taliban is so emboldened is because they know he's inherently weak and there's probably disarray at the White House where it's almost impossible to make a decision because the White House is being run by a committee of Ivy League kids

[00:49:16] it's very sad I uh my grandpa died in 2020 and a few months before he died he was definitely showing signs of dementia and I think he was 93 prior to that his brain was very very sharp it declined quickly and that's true

[00:49:31] my parents he was living with my parents his last few months and they had gone out of town to visit one of my sisters so my other sister went and took care of my grandpa while my parents were gone and he didn't know who she was anymore

[00:49:43] and uh he he thought she was someone named Mary Ann who was taking care of him and when so when my parents got back and they were kind of asking oh how did it go and he was like oh you know Mary Ann Mary Ann was fantastic

[00:49:55] she did such a great job she was so kind to me and this is of course his granddaughter he had known for 30 something years and it was it was cute and sweet and sad you know and in like uh oh he's in his last months

[00:50:07] and he he didn't know who she was but he still enjoyed his time but I see videos of Biden doing exactly that where you know he's just he doesn't know where he is or who he is or who anybody is that he's talking to

[00:50:20] and it reminds me exactly of my grandpa in his last few months of life and it's just like Biden doesn't have much time this is elder abuse this is like this is literally elder abuse I think Joe Biden will go down in history as one of the

[00:50:36] the most uh hated people after what she's did to the country and she what she did to him I think she the only first lady who could rival her would be who was Woodrow Wilson's wife who Edith Galt Edith Galt I think yeah and she basically

[00:50:57] he was sick in his last couple of years and she was basically he had a stroke right and he couldn't do anything and she was basically running the country on his behalf and would tell his advisors what to do so funny story about this debate last week

[00:51:14] how and it just proves what an echo chamber I think people were in about it I was at a work event when the debate happened so I didn't watch any of it I had gotten home flipped on CNN to see what the post coverage was

[00:51:29] and watched the entire meltdown for two hours I just couldn't stop watching it was it was amazing it was like watching a trainwreck or something and I'm saying you're going man it must have been really bad for Joe Biden that CNN of all people is saying

[00:51:46] we need to replace them like this is you know Defconn 3 or whatever Defconn 1 and I'm like okay I'm gonna watch it the next day I watch it the next day and I'm watching it and I go this is exactly how I expected Joe Biden would do

[00:52:02] like it didn't shock me I felt like CNN was exaggerating but I think it's because people like us are aware of how bad it is we weren't in denial so I texted Camille and I said I feel like CNN was kind of exaggerating because I watched it

[00:52:19] and I was like he did about as well as I thought he was going to do and he mumbled and stumbled and he got through answers and stuff like that so just goes to show you how we're kind of siloed off in our own little tribes

[00:52:32] in America where it's like one side could be just so completely blind to what's happening and then wake up when they go oh this is a problem and the rest of us are going yeah this is a problem if they won't show it if you don't watch Fox

[00:52:46] and you watch the rest of the media and they won't show you anything how are you supposed to know although the reporters should know they're part of the game so I I think I honestly think that their reaction was oh the jig is up

[00:53:04] we've got to save our reputations and besides it would be better for us if we got Gavin and or Gretchen Whitmore or somebody instead so I think they they just flipped on a dime there's no loyalty in that in that group now I think it was

[00:53:18] like to your you said it exactly it's people watched it and they went there's no way we can fake or say this is a cheap fake or lie or spin about this this is exactly what it is and we have to try and save our phony baloney jobs

[00:53:35] so we have a couple minutes left and I want to just kind of get a summary from you and I know you you you've mentioned you have to work with other people we don't know what's going to happen when you get to Congress but when you get to

[00:53:48] Congress you're sworn in January 2025 what are your top three priorities when you get to Congress but we have to stop the border you know work with other people in Congress to stop the flow of illegal aliens across the border number two we have to do

[00:54:07] something about the economy I think the best way to do something about the economy is to have realistic energy policies I think we're throwing our country away based upon these phony baloney energy policies that are hurting people we could talk about that for a

[00:54:26] long time but I think you probably get where I'm going with that and we have to to deal with the homelessness slash mental health crisis that's happening in America and we have to we have to stop that those three things I'd fix in the first month

[00:54:45] and then I'd go on other things oh they all sound good to me before we finalize it Camille you have any more questions I never want to cut you off if you have any follow-up questions no thank you though where can people find you

[00:54:58] and support you and donate if they want to support you tell us a little bit about that yeah if you go to Wells for Congress 2024.com and Forest F.O.R Wells for Congress 2024.com you can learn more about me you know I of course need donations

[00:55:16] but what I really need is people to volunteer we're going to be very aggressively ballot harvesting and talking to Republicans who may be late lack of days ago about their voting and encouraging them to vote and helping them get their votes in

[00:55:33] and I need manpower to do that so if you want to help me and you want to volunteer some time with that it would be fantastic I just want to remind everyone you don't have to live in his district you can be anywhere in the

[00:55:43] US to phone bank yeah absolutely we'll put you to work a promise and you know it's not just for the 51st district it's for San Diego county as for the country as a whole we all have to we all have to band together and say enough is enough

[00:55:58] with the craziness all right well you heard him if you need have any time to volunteer or donate go check out his website mayor bill wells of alcon congressional candidate for the 51st district of Congress thank you so much for coming on best of luck in the race

[00:56:17] if open invitation if you want to come back before election time and have more conversation I'm sure there's stuff we didn't get to talk about in this hour so if there's anything else you want to discuss feel free to reach out to us again thanks very much

[00:56:31] as a smart show and I really enjoyed it thank you as we always end every show make sure you like share subscribe review comment helps with the algorithms for people can find us and if you want to support this show the best thing you can do

[00:56:44] that is 100% free is go share this with somebody else who would be interested and with that see you on the next one good night