10x California with Grant Cardone

[00:00:06] 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.

[00:00:27] What's going on, everybody? Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the California Underground Podcast. I'm your host, Phil. And as always, with me, my trusty cohost, the best, the fastest researcher in the West, Camille. And today, we are proud to have a huge guest on the show. You probably know who he is. If you know anything about real estate, anything about personal wealth or anything like that, I'll let him introduce himself. Grant Cardone, welcome to the program. How are you? Grant Cardone, California Underground Podcast

[00:00:55] Hey, great to be with you guys and so excited to be talking about California and how to get this thing back on track because it's definitely off the tracks. Grant Cardone, California Underground Podcast That is, that's for sure. Well, we talk a lot about that. For those who don't know who you are, why don't you introduce yourself to all of our listeners? Grant Cardone, California Underground Podcast

[00:01:13] Yeah, so I own a number of privately held businesses that I started from scratch with no money. And because the American dream is real, I've been able to make those companies, you know, something I'm very proud of. We have 1500 employees. We've never used government money to start any of these companies. Grant Cardone, California

[00:01:39] Grant Cardone, California Grant Cardone, California

[00:02:02] And what you're doing is a wonderful company that I've been able to do with the companies. It's a great company that I've been able to do with the companies that have worked. And the states and the states and the state forums and New York Life and the Met Life. These are mega institutions that are worth trillions of dollars that control most of the real estate on the planet. And certainly most of it in the United States. So, just really proud to...

[00:02:30] And we will say we work with small companies around the country. I've written a number of books about business. Phil, I think you listen to one of them as a lawyer. That's that's cool. And Camille has done some brief scanning of the 10x rule. So, yeah, we work with regular people like we have a small company that does consulting for for startups and small companies that are in the beginning stages.

[00:03:00] We help them through their their startup phase and their funding and marketing and and how to increase their revenue. So we do the all around the country. And then once a year, we do this big event called the 10x Growth Conference. We're doing our last one this year in Las Vegas. This is the largest business conference in the in the in the world. And it's more like a rock concert or you're not quite sure what you're at.

[00:03:24] You're you're you're all these massive entertainers and ballplayers come in and politicians in some cases and business leaders talk about business and startups mostly coming from nothing and trying to build on the American dream. Yeah. And all that knowledge you're putting into you're wearing your shirt 10x California. I want to thank your team for reaching out to us to talk about California and the issues that are going on.

[00:03:51] So you're probably wearing this 10x California shirt. Tell us what is 10x California. Yes. So I lived in California for 25 years, visited there when I was 30 years old and was enamored by the place like it was like I was there literally three minutes and I'm like, oh, I'm moving here. I lived in Texas at the time. I grew up in Louisiana. I had never been to California, didn't know anything about the state except, you know, Hollywood. I knew Hollywood was there like most people. And I went on this free trip.

[00:04:23] And I was literally there. I'm telling you, I couldn't have been there more than a minute. And I was like, oh, my God, I was in La Jolla, California. And I made it. I made an instant decision. I'm going to live here one day. I had no clue. I didn't have any money. I didn't have any like there was no way for me to live there. And I just started my first company. And 18 months later, I was living in La Jolla, California, bought my first house there on Camino de la Costa and ended up living there for 12 years.

[00:04:53] Then moved to L.A. to meet my wife, which I did meet. I met her the first. I was there 10 minutes and met her. And then it took me like 13 months to persuade her to go out with me. And we lived in L.A. for another 12 or 13 years.

[00:05:10] And 13 years ago, unfortunately, I left California because of the taxes and the direction of the country, of the state, of the politics, the schools, the roads, the taxes, the regulations. I took a small company.

[00:05:28] I wrote the at that time was Jerry Brown was governor at that time and wrote him and just said, if you guys raise the taxes, I'm going to sell all my real estate, my cars, my home. And I'm going to close my companies and I'm going to move some other place that we didn't even know where we were going to move. Because it's impossible for me to grow my company. Keep in mind, this is 13, 14 years ago. This is before it got really bad.

[00:05:54] The crime and the homelessness and the drugs on the streets weren't as prevalent as they are today. Taxes were 10. They went to 13.3. Now they're going to go to 14.4. Place is going to hell, man. We took our little company. We grew our little company from I think I had 260 units at the time. Moved to Miami. We grew that to 15,000 units. Went from six employees to 1,500.

[00:06:21] From three or $4 million of revenue a year to almost $3 million a day. So it just goes to show you when you get the regulations out of the way and the litigators out of the way and the government out of the way. Somebody with an idea and with this willing to work hard. When the government's out of the way, you can actually grow your company. We still have a house in Malibu today. So I still own a home there. And you're fortunate that yours did not burn down.

[00:06:51] Yeah, it didn't burn down. It does have a lot of damage. My whole neighborhood's burnt to the ground. So sad. So sad. So question, because you are absolutely thriving. You're living in Miami. You've got a whole life. You've got your wife. You've got your kids. Your business is obviously doing amazing. So why California? Why now? Because clearly this thing's going to fall off a cliff if somebody doesn't come in and do something.

[00:07:19] So I think the fires, you know, with every crisis, there's an opportunity for change. You're either going to get better or you're going to get severely worse. So I think this is a precipice, a moment in time, a fissure, if you will, a crack in the universe that California is going to make or break itself at this moment in time. In the next 18 months, between now and the next election, California will decide whether it becomes California again or California never again.

[00:07:49] And I really believe that. That's not a like. I love this state. It is unbelievable. It's the fifth largest economy on planet Earth. It matters that California makes a good decision right here for all of America, by the way, because the economy is so massive. And when they came out, Camille, and said this was going to be a $50 billion loss, I said, that is impossible. This is going to be closer to $500 billion.

[00:08:15] That estimate now in less than 30 days is, you know, the headlines now went from 50 to 80 to 125 to 250. And I promise you, it's going to go north to 500 billion. And that's very, very important to the whole all of America. If you live in Iowa, you need to be concerned about California right now, number one.

[00:08:38] Number two, the speed at which they move to fix the problem on the ground, Malibu, Altadena, this being forgotten, Pasadena and the Palisades. The Palisades is getting all the attention, as you guys know. But the reality is, if all four of these locations are not cleaned up, this cannot take 18 months. This has to be done immediately. The debris cleanup should be done in 30 days or less from today.

[00:09:06] And if they don't do it, the Democrats are going to lose control of the state of California forever. And that would be a shame because what the people in California have been wanting, this progressive socialism, everybody's going to be treated fairly. The truth is, people are not being treated fairly now. Homeowners are homeless. The rodents have priorities over the residents. You have the highest home prices, the highest insurance prices, the highest gas prices, highest car prices,

[00:09:35] the worst schools in the country, the worst roads in the country, like on and on and on. And so this is a make or break point. And I came back, I spent three weeks in California trying to rile people up like, hey, you guys could make a difference now. The people that haven't been voting, that have been sitting on the sidelines thinking your vote doesn't count. It can actually count now. And the people that are independent in the middle and the Democrats that are still looking for common sense.

[00:10:02] Like you could literally make a difference right now and put so much pressure on Newsom and Bass and the Coastal Commission to get out of the way of the people. Mm hmm. Yeah. So everybody should build a Florida home in California. There's no reason not to have housing for for people. But you have so much regulations. The regulations, when it takes seven years to build something, that means it's going to cost seven X. Yeah. More money to build that thing.

[00:10:32] Right. So I'm there to basically hopefully get enough people riled up. The goal would be to register people to to vote red in the next cycle, not independent. That won't work to literally register as a red voter. You don't have to vote red. You just need to register red because they count those in Sacramento every day. And if they see enough of those blues flipping to red, it will terrify them into change.

[00:11:01] It's just a negotiation. Yeah. Well, I'm glad someone of your caliber is out here doing this because we started this podcast for the exact reason of being like, look, you're not alone here. There are people who agree with you. If you're, you know, literally just right of center or if you're a moderate Democrat. And we, you know, I get so many DMS in Instagram of like, oh, is it worth it? Is California failed? Is it like, is it worth fighting for anymore?

[00:11:29] And I keep telling people, I'm like, it's, I think it's worth fighting for. I think there's an opportunity to change here. And obviously you have way more experience. I think you, you, you, when you're a speaker, you're a little bit more motivational. And I think that's what people need is someone who can get them kind of charged up to really believe like there is an opportunity to change. This state, if enough people actually start to believe they can change this state, that's really what it comes down to. Right? Yeah. You have to know you can win. Right.

[00:11:58] Otherwise nobody will fight the battle. Like I've met with a number of political organizations that are like, look, this is a six year plan. I'm like, six years will not work. Six years. You lose this thing. It's over. You have 18 months. Okay. All targets need time, short periods of time to attain any great target. Like Elon Musk, he is going to compress time on a target in order to achieve it. Because if you don't get gains fast enough, people will give out, they'll go back into apathy and say, it's too big.

[00:12:28] It's too complex. This is what your voter base is doing right now. They basically tapped out over the last 20 or 30 years of saying we're too big. There's 40 million people. The problems are too big. We got too many issues, too many problems, too many fringe groups. But the weather's so good. Somebody else will solve the problem later. And this is what got you in trouble. This is what caused the problem. In just 13 years, I've left. Mark Wahlberg left. Tony Robbins left.

[00:12:57] Elon left. Like Toyota left. Like Chevron left. These are jobs leaving. That's a major problem. And the people are worried about all these jobs leaving. Then you have all the people that came into the to the state. For free. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. They don't have money. You already have a homeless problem. You just exacerbated a homeless problem by letting more homeless in. You have a housing problem.

[00:13:25] You let more people in that don't have a house. You exacerbated your your housing problem. And somebody just needs to stand up right now and say enough is enough. Let's get our priorities back in place. Housing should be affordable. Taxes should be lower. You're giving the government in Sacramento too much money to waste. And these fires might be the thing that heats the people up enough.

[00:13:54] That fires them up enough. Okay. That they say okay. We cannot as much as we want to take care of every fringe group. And micro group. We need to take care of the masses. So that we don't lose the whole estate. Right. And to the point. I was literally reading an article right before we hopped on. Rick Grinnell and the secretary of EPA are on the ground.

[00:14:22] And they're working to help with the cleanup. And Rick Grinnell basically said. He heard that they were trying to do DEI for the subcontractors who are trying to help. And Rick Grinnell came in and put like a stop to that right away. So to your point. It's almost like California gets in its own way. With these utopian ideas of oh well we have to make a DEI. And it's like well no. Like just get this cleaned up. So people can start rebuilding.

[00:14:52] Like not you know this isn't the time to push this specific social agenda. But that's California seems to keep getting in its own way. Rather than just doing the common sense thing. Which is clean up LA so people can start rebuilding. Yeah. Yeah I agree with that. And I think Phil one of the tricks that has been played on the state and the people for 30 or 40 years now is the complexities. The DEI. It's not really. They don't really care about diversity.

[00:15:22] They really care about the complexity. They get they get with the diversity. The Coastal Commission is another layer of complexity. They'll be like oh but it's the Coastal Commission. There's always another group to blame or something else to do. When the truth is what needs to happen right now. DEI shouldn't even be a conversation about the debris cleanup. Number one thing they should do is do the cleanup for the cheapest fastest way possible.

[00:15:47] And that would be to let the homeowners that are willing to get a truck and clean up clean up. Now what they're going to do is they're going to use another complexity. Oh it's the environment. The environment has already been destroyed. Okay. There's already toxins in the environment. But they're going to hide under FEMA now. Another complexity. Another layer. Another group. They'll always have another group to throw at you. And the thing that I would tell your listener is like quit.

[00:16:14] Just understand every time they add a group they're adding a complexity in order to put you in apathy. Because it becomes so complicated that you can't figure the way out. So what I would tell Rick. Okay. And I'm going to meet with Rick at fixamerica.com to see how I can help them facilitate and accelerate the process.

[00:16:38] I would tell Rick, hey Rick, let's get approval from Karen Bass that anyone that's willing to risk their health, they sign an amendment. I'm willing to risk my health and let them clean up their own home. If there's 18,000 homes that have been destroyed, I'll promise you there's 5,000 or 6,000 homeowners right now. It'd be like give me my truck. I'll get my own truck. I'll pay for my own truck. It won't cost the taxpayers a penny.

[00:17:06] And I'll put my own self at risk in order to move my shit. And get it out of state. Do it the right way. But what they're going to do is they're going to bring FEMA in. And FEMA is going to say, no, no, no. We need to first, we need to hit it with a retardant to prevent it from spreading anymore. Number two, we need to bring in sealed trucks, only our trucks. Okay. This way you add time and time adds money so that FEMA ends up stealing more money from the process.

[00:17:34] And if people don't believe that money is being stolen there, you're wrong. I promise you. When they add time, they add money. And when they add money, they steal money. And so like, for instance, I have 18 homes next to me. I know that 15 of those people of the 18 would be willing right now to clean up their own homes on PCH. Yeah. Cost taxpayers. Yeah.

[00:18:01] And it wouldn't be some boondoggle of agency on top of agency handing out hefty contracts to politically connected buddies or whatever, subcontractors. Just let people just go in and fix it. The fact that any property owner has to ask the government for permission to even go enter their property is a problem. It's a problem. Because they're going to be like, yeah, it's your health. Yeah, that's right. It's my health. And it's my property.

[00:18:30] It's my property and my health. I know there's toxins. I know there's lead. I know there's asbestos. I know what the risk is. By the way, it's already in the environment. We have the biggest environmental disaster. It did not need to happen. But the Coastal Commission has allowed those homeowners or not allowed them to rebuild over the last 20 years. Yeah. Because if you allow me to rebuild, okay, imagine a rich guy wants to buy three homes on the PCH.

[00:18:59] And then he has the money. And the owners that live there now are willing to sell. I'm talking about pre-fire 10 years ago. Some rich guy walked in and said, I want to put three of these homes together and build a big mega mansion. Well, that was prevented. The Coastal Commission would say yes, but they say yes with it's going to take seven years. And so the rich guy's like, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go to Maui and build there. Or I'm going to go to Florida and build a big house there. The money just moves.

[00:19:29] And so what happened was those homes have been there 50 and 60 and 70 years that are made of old timber. And I've told my wife for 20 years, one day somebody's going to come along, throw a cigarette out the window, and one of those homes is going to catch on fire. And the entire beach is going to light up because it was old timber. And the Coastal Commission stood in the way with their regulations saying they want to save the whales and the coast.

[00:19:58] And they prevent 12 people basically sit on the Coastal Commission. They only meet 12 times a year. And they prevented that coastline from being redeveloped into concrete, glass, and steel. Modernized. Rick Caruso has all his stuff built out of concrete, glass, and steel. Okay. Notice the village in the Palisades, none of his stuff was burnt down. He has water provided on each of his properties.

[00:20:27] He has glass and steel. He has fire-retardant roofs, fire-retardant walls. Okay. Because he's got a lot of money. So he can go the seven or eight years and develop the grove. Because he's got the time and he's got the money. So the rich guys end up being protected. And the middle class ends up with no home. Yeah.

[00:20:50] And we had done an episode a couple weeks ago where we talked about the California Coastal Commission came in and stopped the Palisades from renovating and making it wildfire-proof with steel electrical lines, wildfire walls. All because of one endangered weed, a milk bench or whatever. And that's when normal citizens, I think, sit back and go like, why does the Coastal Commission have this much power?

[00:21:19] They're unelected. We didn't pick who they are. But they get to come in and create what essentially is chaos. Because now how many people have lost their homes because the Coastal Commission goes, oh, you can't trample on this weed, which is now gone because of the fire, or this little thing. And it's weeds over people. It's fish over people. It's kind of that mentality of like, we don't come first. The weeds and the fish come first. Yeah.

[00:21:46] And this is a time where people in California could say enough is enough. We want the Coastal Commission. I'm hoping Donald Trump says, number one, hey, the voter ID, he wants voter ID, you know, whatever that is, what it means. I'm not quite sure. But he wants to release the water. But he should tell the Coastal Commission they need to step aside for the next 18 months and let people clean and rebuild. And the rebuild should take place.

[00:22:16] They could rebuild California by the end of this year. This is what the California people should be pushing for or rebuild this year. Now, they're going to say that's impossible. It's not impossible in Dubai. Yeah. Okay. They can go from a design architect and a build. They could build 200 floors in seven months and do 10 of those before the end of the year because the regulations are out of the way. They move the complexities out.

[00:22:43] So if they wanted to do that, if California wanted to do that, they would do it. But I think California wants to benefit a handful of super rich people. I'll be able to get what I want because I can spend the money and the time. But it's not fair to all my neighbors that only have $3 million worth of insurance. By the way, the people in California should be really, really upset about California getting involved in insurance premiums.

[00:23:11] Because California shouldn't have anything to do with how much all state charges. If all state and state form and nationwide could have increased their premiums, everybody would have been covered. Okay. I'm covered, completely covered. My house could have burned to the ground. They'd have to rebuild a house because my insurance, I have insurance that provides that. But most people didn't.

[00:23:33] And this is, again, the government over-regulating companies on behalf of the people, rent control, on behalf of the people. You have the highest rents in the country. You have the highest home prices in the country. Right? You have the worst homeless problem in the country because you regulate too much. And this is where government always screws things up. The speed rail they spent $38 million on, or $38 billion on, I'm sorry, goes nowhere. Yeah.

[00:24:01] They haven't even really started it yet, so. It's out in the middle of nowhere. I think you were supposed to be finished five years ago. Yeah. We're way behind schedule and they changed the destination. Now it's Bakersfield to Stockton or something. It's not the most. Nothing against Bakersfield or Stockton, but I don't think that's where the majority of people want to go. Right. I'm going to make a kind of connection here and stay with me, Grant.

[00:24:30] Like I said, I remember listening to your audio book in law school. And if I could boil it down for listeners, correct me if I'm wrong, 10X is sort of this abundance mentality of, you know, you got to think bigger for yourself. And subtle plug for us. We had started a PAC called the Calipublican Caucus, which was based on this idea of like, there is enough of California to go around.

[00:24:57] And that we should be thinking in California policy wise from a place of abundance, not scarcity. And that's where California in my mind is. Everything's scarcity. We can't do this. Can't do that. You can't build. You can't do this because we got to hold on to water. In reality, it should be. We should be creating as much water as possible with desalination. We should be creating as much electricity as possible in nuclear reactors.

[00:25:20] We should be drilling for oil here in California under our own laws, protecting the employees and the workers, providing good middle class working jobs. Like there is enough here. This is literally a land of milk and honey here in California. But for some reason, people in charge have this scarcity mentality when we should have an abundance mentality about California. Yeah, it's the most abundant place in the world. It's the greatest resources America has.

[00:25:49] Mm hmm. And 10 X basically means there is no shortages and we should get bigger, better, faster. Not try to hold on to what you have. Yeah. So I would go back. Sorry. No, go ahead. I want to go back to the TEDx California because you have both a federal and a state PAC.

[00:26:14] And I know you're doing a statewide kind of tour right now and you really try to activate and motivate the people, which I'm all about that. Thank you. I appreciate that. But people still tend to need leadership. You know, you can gather them all up, rile them all up, get them all angry, passionate, excited, all the things. And then once they're released back into the wild, they kind of, you know, what do we do? Where where's our leader? I need someone to tell me what to do.

[00:26:43] So what do you specifically plan to do with the PAC, with both PACs, the federal and the state PAC? Like, where do you see the money going? Are you planning to help candidates, good candidates that want to run or like what? Sorry, I don't want to make you keep you. I don't know what your thought is here. Yeah. Look, I'm not a political person. I've never been involved in politics.

[00:27:08] This is the first time that I've ever engaged in an activity like this. I was propelled to do it. Literally woke up, called to like, I'm going to go do what I can to help California. And so we started these two super PACs. The goal is to raise money to help start controlling the narrative. Now, because I'm not a politician and I'm a ground roots or grassroots business guy that

[00:27:36] has democratized a number of things from real estate to small businesses expanding. I tend to talk to people in a way that's very simple, direct, authentic. It's not political. I don't have friends on the aisle. I like, I actually don't. None of these people are my friends. I don't like none of them. Zero. Zero. I don't, I wouldn't trust anybody that's lived in California to change California right now.

[00:28:03] If you've been there and got rich being there, I would like, no, you got to take them off the ballot because I don't care if they're red, blue, white, whatever they are. They got rich under this freaking mafia rule. Stop the madness. Get rid of everybody that's participated in the crime. It's been complicit in things getting worse for California people. So the goal would be number one, to rally people, bring them together. See if there's even energy, Camille, for this.

[00:28:30] If it's not wanted and needed, then you can't sell it anyway. But number two, then organize these people that want to get involved to simple, easy things. Everybody wants to recall Newsom right now and recall Bass. That costs about three to four million dollars to recall. I think it's a waste of time to try to recall either one of them. I agree. It's a waste of time. It's not going to be effective. Even if you, even if you, from what I understand, even if you recall her, they're just going

[00:29:00] to put whoever they want in there. The people don't have a choice about who goes in for the next 18 months. So the thing to do is the voters become consumers. When the consumer says, I will not buy this product anymore, the manufacturers that are selling the product, in this case, the Democrats, will have to change their product to fulfill the wants and needs of the consumer, the voter.

[00:29:28] And so the best way to send that message is with a review, a Yelp review. And the Yelp review in California is, hey, I'm going to vote red next time. You could hate the Republican Party. You might hate Donald Trump. If you were the most blue of blue and you've been voting Democrat like I did for the first 35 years of my life, and you actually registered today online, costs nothing, costs zero, takes about three seconds to do it.

[00:29:58] Anyone can do it, by the way. If you're 16 and a half years old, you should register your kids right now because they're going to vote in the next election. They can start today by registering and that gets sent to Sacramento and Sacramento would see 10 registered red, a thousand registered red, a million registered red, maybe even people flipping or people that have never registered are starting to register and they're registering red. It would send a message to the Democrat factory, the business of being Democrat.

[00:30:28] Uh-oh, our consumer's not happy anymore with this product. Now what are we going to do? And that would put pressure, Camille, on the Democrats to start confronting all these other agreements they have with Coastal Commission, the environmentalists, the water company, the electrical company. All these, they'd have to either unwind those deals, which I don't think they can, by the way. And if they can't unwind the deals, it's kind of like what Elon's doing at Doge right now. Yeah.

[00:30:55] He's putting so much pressure on these groups that the transparency is popping off about how much crime there's been. And then the California, the California people could actually see this is what, this is what they've been saying. They're protecting the gays. They're protecting the trans or protecting the fish. They're protecting the water. They're protecting your environment. It was all bullshit. It was a lie to make things, make you feel bad for more taxes, to justify higher taxes. So that would be the first thing.

[00:31:25] And then find who is going to come up, who's going to bubble up to lead that and become the governor and the mayor, the mayor of Los Angeles and the governor of California. Yeah, I agree with you that. And we saw it recently with this recent election where I don't know how many counties flipped where I did the math. It's like now 55% of counties in California actually voted red in this past election. And in 2022 is actually the same counties.

[00:31:53] But once Newsom saw all those counties that flipped red, he couldn't run out of Sacramento fast enough to go to these counties and be like, well, why are you guys upset? Why are you voting for Trump? And here's what we're doing. He's trying to sell it to your point. Like he's trying to sell, well, this is a great product and you guys should believe in us. And in reality, I don't think those counties believe in him. So that pressure does, it does resonate with politicians in Sacramento.

[00:32:22] If they see more red voters, they do start to get a little antsy. We saw it with Newsom recently where they go, oh, maybe we're losing our grip on this a little bit more. But you touched upon Doge. The recall, Phil, if I could just say this, the recall is a red herring. The recall is basically, it's a trick. It's a trick they use because the moment you try to recall a governor, he gets to start raising money to protect himself. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's definitely.

[00:32:52] Yeah. Go ahead, Camille. I was just going to say, as much as we don't like Newsom, we're definitely anti the recall. I mean, we tried to recall him in 2021. It failed. He was reelected in 2022. And, you know, we have 80 assembly members in California and 40 state senators. And we're very big on local elections here. Like we're like local elections matter. Newsom may be the governor. And we may, you know, in 2026, elect another Democrat governor who may be even more extreme than Newsom.

[00:33:22] But if we can flip assembly members and senators, then we're not going to have these crazy bills going to the governor's office. We can render the governor useless, basically, by, you know, working on our local elections and flipping those seats. And then these absurd bills that we see coming through, like Scott Wiener and, you know, Buffy Wicks and just those really outspoken far left Democrats that we have running our state.

[00:33:51] Like they're not going to get their bills voted on anymore. Those bills are never going to stand a chance at going to the governor's office. If we can really focus on, we don't need to focus on getting rid of news. Somebody's going to be a lame duck in 18 months. Let's really focus on flipping these local seats. Let's put our time and energy there. And yes, red, vote red, vote down the line red. But because we're going to also in 2026 be voting for all these other state offices,

[00:34:17] you know, superintendent of public education and attorney general, insurance commissioner, like all those top state offices are, they're coming down the line again. We're about to be voting for them. Next year. And it's just like, let's concentrate on those offices. And because I personally believe as much as it seems like California has hit rock bottom, people are still going to vote for a Democrat governor.

[00:34:44] I just, I believe that's going to happen unless something crazy happens in the next year. And I don't want craziness to happen in the next year, but that's just how it's, you know, the pattern's been going. It's how it's been. And so if we flipped a few seats, we did. And if we can just keep up that momentum and really flip and break the super majority, then California can, it will turn purple and then eventually it will turn red. And it just each election cycle. I'm sorry. This is the reason.

[00:35:14] No, I appreciate that because there's a lot about your state. I don't know, right? Like there's a bunch of stuff, you know, like me doing these rallies. I don't know what's going to happen by me coming there. I know I'm going to end up meeting you guys. It's going to open something up. Like the Sacramento, the Republican convention just asked me yesterday, hey, will you speak at the convention in March? I think it's March.

[00:36:05] Oh, awesome. You're not in it. You're in the soup every day, right? You're getting beat up and hammered every day with the complexities, the problems, the overwhelm, the more voters, the history, blah, blah, blah. The outsiders come in and they see things in a company or in a real estate market. I think that there's a crack in the universe right now that people are upset enough. You can't wait for another fire. Okay. You're going to lose another 18,000 homes.

[00:36:32] Like, um, you're going to have some of these people never moved back to California again, by the way, they're probably going to be 3000 families. Like I'm out, I'm tapped out. I'm done. COVID is enough. The fires enough. The insurance you got, you got another problem over there. Who's going to insure these homes tomorrow? Like not a lot. That's for sure. This is the story we need to be telling the unregistered voter, the people that haven't been involved in politics.

[00:36:58] Look, this thing got me hostile, angry enough, upset enough, conscious enough to come all the way across the country and leave my family for the, for the last 30 days to do something. So if I'm coming from Florida to do something, there's gotta be some people, millions of people in California. Like I want to get involved. I just don't know what to do and how to do it. Right. I was going to bring up, you talked about Elon and Doge and all the stuff they're kind of

[00:37:26] exposing at USAID. And, um, on a California level, I just kind of think like, man, if we could figure out what California is spending money on, you want to be shocked. I'd be shocked to see what California is spending money on because they don't open their books for, for whatever reason. They don't think it's the citizens should know what we spend money on. Um, but man, if someone could get in there and look at the books here in California, I

[00:37:54] bet people would be horrified to see what their billions of dollars of tax dollars is going to. I've been saying for years, I want that job. I mean, not just me alone, but I like put me on it. I, I am great at research. I enjoy it. I would love to open those books and start going down the line of where is this going? So, so imagine if we put together groups that every day was doing viral video on three things.

[00:38:20] One going around to these cities that are burnt, trying to remove debris and the city won't let you. That video will go viral. Nobody wants to see me being stopped, bringing a truck in by anyone to remove my debris and I can't do it. So imagine a small crew of people doing guerrilla marketing, just capturing how much

[00:38:45] suppression there is for my property and to, to manage my property. I want to rebuild. Okay. It takes 18 to 19 permits to rebuild my home. Okay. Imagine somebody videoing. I got to go from the water department, the electric department, you know, like the on and on. Okay. That's going to make people hostile. It's permits over people now. Yeah. Now imagine another one where we're requesting on a daily basis.

[00:39:12] We want to see the books and we can't get access to them or they're saying no to us. You can't have it. You can't get it. Like if we put together, and this is what we put these packs together for to figure out how we can create some kind of guerrilla ground fair. Something that will resonate and be a visual sales pitch to the people, that the people actually have a voice. To put pressure on these, what did you say? 80 assembly people? Yeah. They don't give you any credit.

[00:39:42] And 40 centers. The 12 coastal commissioners. When you go to the coastal commission and you look at who's the bios of the, of the 12 commissioners, half of them don't even have pictures, man. There's, you know, they're hiding. And we put, start putting pressure on those people, um, and calling them out for their crimes. The only reason not to be transparent is you have crimes. Right. Exactly.

[00:40:08] Well, I, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but there's been rumors and speculation that, uh, maybe you're interested in running for governor. Um, I'm not announcing anything. I'm just throwing this out there. So I want to play a little hypothetical game. Um, you know, it's, it's 2027. Grant Cardone is being sworn in as governor of California. Uh, you know, what, what's something you do in your first, first day or first week as

[00:40:37] governor of California, just hypothetically, I'm not saying you're running. Yeah. Let me just say that I'm not running. I'm not running. I am running up and down the coast is all I'm doing right now to see what I can help organize so that I ended up meeting people like Phil and Camille. And they're like, we want to do something. Now we figure out what we're going to do. Um, I'll just say to you, if, if California waits for 18 months to have a governor to figure out what they're going to do on day one, you guys are effed. It's too late.

[00:41:07] Okay. You, you have your last fire was what? Four years ago. What, what, what was that big fire? Uh, oh yeah. That was, uh, not, uh, paradise. 2018 when Trump was in office. Only 3,500 of those homes have been rebuilt. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Maui, Maui's been two years. Nothing's happened. The homeowners there got a $700 loan. Ukraine in the same period of time, Ukraine got $250 billion. This is insanity, man. Yeah.

[00:41:36] So all I'm saying to you, Phil is like, if I was governor today, I can answer that question. Got it. Go to all the homeowners and say, you can start cleaning up your shit right now. Get it off your property. This is where we need to move it. Designate it to this location. Go. Number two, I would have kiosk systems put in place today. No people. I would remove people from the permit process. I come up with four requirements to rebuild. You can rebuild on the footprint you have.

[00:42:06] You can expand it by 10 or 15%. As long as you use these four materials and hit these four conditions, okay, you will be approved instantly to rebuild. Yeah. So debris, the debris cleanup would be in the next 28 days because it was 30 days, two days ago. Now I got 28 days. That's 60 days from fire to finish. We rebuild. We start rebuilding at the end of March. People start seeing homes go up. They start seeing my neighborhood go up.

[00:42:36] They're like, oh shit, California's back. You know, the power of momentum is so unbelievable. Because right now what happens if it takes 18 months to clean up, that's what they said yesterday, 18 months before a cleanup and then add four or five years before the rebuild. You're talking about, what is that? Five, six, 20. You're talking about 31 or 32 before the Palisades is back. Nobody's waiting six years.

[00:43:02] Yesterday, Karen Bass said yesterday or the day before, we need to get our, we need to get our, we need to get our, we need to get these people back to their homes. Bro, the home is gone. We need to get the kids back to schools. The schools are burnt to the ground. Okay. Yeah. So those schools, we should be rebuilding those schools at the end of, end of February. But why build a school if I'm not living there anymore? So that's, that's all I would say, Phil, is that if you're going to wait until you have a governor, it's too late.

[00:43:31] And, and, and if you put, I know all the players, I know all the guys that are guys and gals that are players. They're there. They're there. She was at a Lakers game last night, Kamala. So she's trying to find out if she's popular enough. God, please. No, we've already ignored enough here in California. We don't need another. By her name. Who? Yeah, but they're, you know, they want to run her. Yep. And they want to make her relevant again.

[00:44:00] She's favorite, favorite in the polls. I think anybody can beat her. Do you have anybody in mind that you would like to see run for California governor? I would like to see someone run that, that is a real person that has not benefited from California that doesn't have any financial stakes in the state of California.

[00:44:24] I would love to see an outsider come in that, that, that is going to tell the truth and tell the people the truth that you're never going to buy a home here. This is what the people in California, you'll never own a home if things don't change. Okay. Our taxes are too high here. They should not be this high. They should be lower. If we want those people from Arizona and Texas and Florida to come back, you have to drop property taxes. The only people that you have to drop, not property taxes, income taxes, state income taxes have to be lowered.

[00:44:53] The only people that don't want lower income taxes are the politicians because that's how they derive their budgets. That's how they steal the money. That's how they travel across the country. That's how they go to Africa and have their little trips. There's no reason these politicians should be going anywhere other than the state of California. No money should be spent on trips outside the United States. It should be on California in California.

[00:45:20] And, and so, you know, I don't have a person in mind. I know that some of the players like Steve, Steve Garvey ran last time. Steve didn't, wasn't willing to get, you know, honest enough. Everybody wants to be friends with everybody there. You're going to have to offend some groups. I want somebody that's willing to offend and lose some people because they're willing to tell the truth. And this is what I like about Trump, you know, and, and he, you know, he, he does it.

[00:45:48] He doesn't put it all together. I was listening to the Rick Caruso, Joe, Joe Rogan interview, you know, Rick's so political. So, so political. And, and he's, he's so professional and so articulate. That scares me. And he's benefited. He's been there. He says, he says he's a businessman, but the truth is Rick Caruso has been involved in politics his whole life and made two or $3 billion.

[00:46:17] Yeah. While he's almost a little too polished. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I, you know, my whole life, I want non-politicians. I, every time they say my friend on the other side of the aisle, it makes me want to puke. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think people are kind of fed up with the polished politician at this point. I think they want real.

[00:46:43] And if anything, you need someone who's going to be bold in what they say and not be afraid to like talk about these issues boldly. Not be afraid to lose some constituents, not be afraid. Right. You know, so Camille, you'd be great. Camille would be a great governor. Governor. Camille would be a great governor. Governor Camille. Governor Williams. Governor Williams.

[00:47:10] Well, I know I never want, I never want to run. I like doing podcasts more than public. I don't want to be in the public eye. Well, I guess I am in the public eye, but not that way. Well, I know you're a busy man and I want to thank you again for coming on. Love open door. If you ever want to come back on, keep discussing what's going on with 10 X California. Um, to meet up next time you're here. Yeah. Let us know. Missed you. You were in Irvine.

[00:47:39] I'm in Orange County, but I had other obligations and I was very disappointed that I didn't get to go to the rally. Yeah. I'm down in San Diego. Yeah. And like we, we, we literally came down there. We had 72 hours. I went on my social platforms and said, Hey, I'm coming to California. You guys want to do a meetup. You want to do a rally. You want to get California back. You want to, if you fed up enough is enough. We had, I don't know, three or 400 people show up in Irvine, three or 400 people show up in San Carlsbad and about 600 people show up in San Diego.

[00:48:09] And I was talking to some other groups yesterday. I said, why don't we do a hundred of these in LA? Yeah. Do one every day. Do one every day for the next 18 months. I think a lot of people want to be involved. I think most people don't know how to be involved. I think they're very overwhelmed and I get it because it just, but people just don't understand. They just have to start somewhere, anywhere, but they, again, they don't really know where that is.

[00:48:38] And so I just, I'm going to say here, you know, just start attending your central committee meetings, uh, start sending your, attending your city council meetings, you know, the county board of supervisor meetings, school board meetings, like just go to some of those meetings, start observing and, and see, like, just take note. You don't, you can attend, you can sit in the back, you know, you don't have to talk to anybody, just start attending. And then you'll start to see, wait a second, I'm seeing a pattern here.

[00:49:07] I'm seeing these issues here. And then you're going to start talking to your city council members and your mayor and, and your school board members and your county board of supervisors. And then from there, your assembly members are, they are accessible. Your state centers, they are accessible. You're going to start talking to these people and you're going to start coming up with solutions with them and you're going to activate your friends. And I just want to encourage people that it doesn't have to be this overwhelming thing. You don't have to save California by yourself. You just start somewhere within your own community.

[00:49:36] And that's how, you know, a chain reaction of that. But we have to, like you said, we have like 18 months. You have to start today. You have to start now. You know, this isn't, don't wait till next year. Don't wait for somebody to come to knock on your door and tell you what to do. You, you know, you got to start and attend your rallies. I know, is it 10xcalifornia.com? Is that the website? 10xcalifornia.com. There's hats and t-shirts there. People want to donate.

[00:50:03] Also, we're doing a thing where I have a conference in Las Vegas in March 19th, 20th and 21st. And anybody that donates $100 can actually get a seat to that conference. You said that's in LA. No, the conference is in Vegas. I just happen to be in Vegas. So we opened up some seats. So anybody that wants to donate $100 to 10xcalifornia.com can actually get a seat to that conference. Those are $2,500 seats.

[00:50:33] So it's a freaking great deal for the person that wants to donate. And then I'm coming back there the end of next week to, I have my helicopter there. So I'm bouncing around. So if we could do something in Riverside or San Diego or LA, I don't even know if I want to waste time going to San Francisco because they're probably too far too gone. But you don't need San Francisco to flip.

[00:50:59] If you just got the middle class that's being punished, by the way. And the middle class is very different in California than it is in the Midwest. The middle class in California could be somebody with a $5 million home. It could be somebody with a $10 million home, to be honest. That makes $80,000 a year, but they inherited this house 20 years ago. And their grandmother had it for $40,000. And one day they looked up and it was worth $8 or $10 million. It could be burnt down, or maybe it's not burnt down.

[00:51:29] Maybe you're in a neighborhood or a suburb next to it. You got the same problems they do. You're just not burnt down. You can't even get insurance. You have a $10 million asset. You're real estate rich. You're cash poor. And the insurance is probably going to get canceled. And you probably don't have a house you can actually sell now. You're trapped in your own equity. And again, none of the politicians are going to tell anybody this.

[00:51:56] They're going to do the, we need to make change. We need to work with the people across the aisle, the police commissioner. No, man, you need to get rid of the damn crime in your city. Okay? The homelessness needs to go away. Quit spending money on it. You know how you stop it? You stop spending money on it. Okay? You stop giving drugs to people. You get people arrested. You deport the illegals. I mean, I'm sorry, but you have to do the tough stuff. You quit giving money to transgender groups. You're broke.

[00:52:26] The state of California is broke. Okay? Get your money back in order. Get your streets back in order. Get the schools back in order. Camille, you took your kids out of school. I took my kids out of school because I don't want them in the schools. It's not because I want to homeschool my kids. It's because I don't want them in the schools. Yeah. And so, yeah. I'd love to. It's not just that we're failing in education, but it's, you know, this government dependency didn't just happen overnight.

[00:52:56] Somehow we were taught somewhere along the way that we need the government in all aspects of our life. And I think that really started at the public school level. And, and I don't want my kids to grow up believing that and also being in a failing public school system. But, you know, school needs to get back down to the basics of teaching literacy, you know, reading, writing, math, and just leave all the other nonsense out of it and make school days shorter. Kids need to be kids.

[00:53:26] Kids need to be outside. Kids need to be creative. They don't need to be sitting in a school all day. That's telling them, get a job so that you can pay taxes. And so that you could, you know, your government can do more for you. And that's what public school is. That's what they're teaching. Yeah. You know, higher education, take out a loan. Oh, look, conveniently, the loan is a government backed loan. And, you know, and it's just the whole thing. It's just like, let's start them at two years old.

[00:53:54] Let's just get them government dependent right from the start. Let's get the moms out of the homes. Let's make sure that the government is raising your kids and not the, you know, a parent in the home with the kids. It's Camille. This is a great opportunity. Like what you're talking about right now, we could do, I could get a bunch of my buddies that are educators together on the internet that do internet training and e-commerce stuff, all these other things that you can do to make money today. I could literally do 50 to a hundred of those events between LA and San Diego for free,

[00:54:25] not government subsidized. And we could go around and use financial literacy to bring people in and then register them while they're there as voters. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. They would get the education. Hey guys, when, when do you buy a home or when do you not buy a home? How could you start your own business? Do you go to college or not? I mean, college is a big scam for most people. Like it's just a lot of debt and a lot of time to become a barista. Okay.

[00:54:53] You could actually go get the barista job tomorrow and skip the college. Like just start confronting. Do you save money today? Where do you invest your money? What is Bitcoin? How do you start a business? Should you start a business? How do you, the things that schools don't teach, we could go around. And do is a front door to bring audiences. And there could be thousands and tens of thousands of people come to these events. And we just got to organize that. So anything I can do to help you guys, I'll let you know when I'm coming back.

[00:55:22] And I'd love to come back on the show at some point. Awesome. We would love to have you. Absolutely. Love to have you. And good luck with everything. And yeah, hopefully we see you out here soon. And I can understand when you came out and saw La Jolla why you didn't want to move to California. Yeah. I wouldn't. I don't know why you left La Jolla. As a San Diego guy, I think La Jolla is one of the most beautiful places in the country. But look, Phil, they're ruining it. Have you been to La Jolla lately? I used to work in La Jolla a year or so ago. Yeah.

[00:55:49] But it's getting worse because the homeless are starting to move in to La Jolla thanks to public transportation. They're not working in. They're being allowed to move in. Okay? Yeah. So somebody just needs to be. Making themselves comfortable. Yeah. So. But yeah, thank you so much for coming on. This is a great conversation. Like I said, come back on as you begin to be out there and figure out what's going on on the ground. And we'd love to meet up with you, hopefully at a rally sometime soon.

[00:56:17] And for everyone, check out 10xcalifornia.com. Any final words, Grant, before we log off for the day? Well, the final word would be this. California is worth saving. It needs to be saved. Fifth largest economy in the world. It is, without a doubt, to me, one of America's greatest resources. And you can't let this one go. And I believe that this is. We actually have a shirt on our website that we sell. It says California is worth saving. Oh, yeah.

[00:56:47] 100%. Yeah. And any of your listeners out there that are in California, you want to help organize with us to, if I can be abuse, if I could somehow be a resource in any way, shape, or form to turn this thing on its head, just reach out to me. I'm happy to help. Yeah. Awesome. Sounds good. Thanks again, Grant, for coming on. Thanks, guys. Everyone, tune in and make sure you like, share, subscribe, review.

[00:57:16] And best thing you can do, share this show. That's 100% free to support us. So we'll see you on the next one. Later. Camille for Governor. Thank you for listening to another episode of California Underground. If you like what you heard, remember to subscribe, like, and review it.

[00:57:41] And follow California Underground on social media for updates as to when new episodes are available. We'll see you next time.