Newsom's High-Speed Rail Contradiction, Explained

[00:00:00] Gavin Newsom promised that he is laying tracks, saying that they are actually laying tracks in his final State of the State speech. Turns out his own Inspector General said that's not true. They haven't laid any tracks for the high-speed rail. They don't even have trains to even try out the high-speed rail. Also, California Democrats met in San Diego and they don't seem to be able to agree on the billionaire's tax and other propositions. So is the party out of step with its leaders and its possible next governor?

[00:00:23] And also, the head of the minority group with the Assembly Republicans was just ousted over huge tabs that he ran up at a bar and a whole bunch of other stuff. We're gonna get into that on this episode of California Underground starting right now.

[00:00:55] What's going on, everybody? Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the California Underground, trying out a new studio. We got a ton of stories to get into tonight, including the high-speed rail. The California Democrats had a convention where they can't seem to agree on a lot of things, including the billionaire's tax and also Republicans ousted their own leader. And make sure if you are tuning in, make sure you like, share, subscribe, review, all that stuff. Also, if you're on audio, the best thing that can help us get discovered, because we're continuing to grow on audio,

[00:01:22] like platforms like Spotify, Apple, where you listen to us, make sure you leave a comment. We will comment back. That stuff helps as well. And without further ado, I want to bring in tonight's guest. Well, not really a guest. We want to welcome back to the show. Camille, welcome back to the show. Camille's back. Camille's back. I feel like I just got demoted.

[00:01:52] Kind of buried the lead there. But what's going on, Camille? I'm not a guest. Did I get demoted? No, I was gonna... Who's downgraded? It was a fake out because we've been having guests. So then we were like, okay, tonight's guest is gonna be our co-host Camille's back. So I just, I'm just learning for the first time. I'm a guest. I'm not permanent here. I am. I don't belong here. I feel like I'm one of those real housewives who was like demoted to the friend. Like she'll be here when she's here. Oh, yeah.

[00:02:21] Anyway. Hi. Hi. Hi. It's good to be back. Good to have you back. So it's great to see you. I took a medical leave. Here I am. I'm alive. She's alive. Proof of life right here. This is not AI. This is actually Camille. This is not like an AI replicant of Camille. So, yeah. Everyone in the chat, let us know where you are tuning in from. We got some people already tuning in from South San Diego, Palm Desert. Leslie says, hey, Phil. Hey, Camille. Everyone is so excited to have Camille back.

[00:02:50] Leslie is my faithful Orange County. You Orange County people stick together. As we're county people. We know what we have. No offense to LA as long as it's not LA. No, we know. Yeah, we know what we have in Orange County. Don't we, Leslie? We do. Got it good in Orange County. All right. Without further ado, we got a lot of stuff to get into tonight. So you ready to go over these three big stories? Camille? Do you feel a little rusty? Do you need to? I'm totally rusty, but you know, I'll just try to bring some sass and sarcasm and we'll see where this goes.

[00:03:20] That's all we can expect. I don't even know how to do makeup. So nobody to comment on my appearance. Okay. Like this is the first time and I'm not, no exaggeration. This is the first time in months that I put on makeup. So. So without that, we're just going to avoid that. Let's talk about this first story. Story came out this week that we, you know, we talk about the high speed rail a lot and how the high speed rail is costing a ton of money.

[00:03:44] These are all not things that is shocking to anybody who's tunes into this episode or the show or anything. Um, we spent a lot of money on the high speed rail. Not surprising. There hasn't been a lot of progress. Yeah. So we, what he says, we spent a lot of money, our tax dollars. That's why I say all of us, we have spent a lot of money on this. We have spent a lot of money on this high speed rail.

[00:04:09] And it turns out all the promises that Gavin Newsom made or said were happening with the high speed rail in terms of progress. I know you're going to be shocked, but guess what? They're not actually happening. Um, his own inspector general actually came out and said, none of this is happening as to what is what he said in his state of the state speech. But I want to go back in time. Let's get in the way back machine when we go all the way back to 2008. I was just graduating college.

[00:04:36] I was not a California citizen here, even though I was in Stockton at the time. Um, so I did not vote for this one way or another. So don't blame me. Here's what the proposition originally promised. And I'm going to go through this one by one, because I think it's important to frame where the promises were and what promises have not been met. So it was supposed to be an 800 mile system from SF to LA.

[00:05:02] As of right now, August 2026, it is 171 miles from Merced to Bakersfield. A little different. Sorry, did they, they trimmed it down to that? Like, like, that is, that's currently the, the leg that they're working on is this leg is this central valley leg. So the promise was they were gonna do this coastal 800 mile system. Um, and now it's central valley. That's what they're working on right now. Somebody asked Delta college or UOP. Nope. I'm a UOP tiger.

[00:05:32] Those fighting tigers. So go UOP. Uh, it's supposed to be SF in LA in two hours and 40 minutes. And as of right now, there's no SF to LA line. Amtrak takes about 10 and a half to 12 hours today. Um, also genuinely genuinely, I would have enjoyed a less than three hour ride from LA to San Francisco. That would have been amazing. It would have been nice. It sounded nice.

[00:05:59] I mean, if you ever take the coaster from San Diego to LA, it's actually quite a beautiful ride to ride up the coast on the train and look at the ocean. Um, that's not happening though. Uh, so instead you're stuck with a 10 and a half, 12 hour Amtrak ride, or you could do this other thing. This new fangled technology. You can go ride in an airplane. Um, that takes about 45 minutes to get from LA or San Diego to SF. It's like 45 minutes from here.

[00:06:26] So even farther, uh, the expected total that it was going to cost was $33 billion. That's what was promised in the original prop as of today. It's 231.3 billion. Just a little off. Just a little off. It's going to be $55 a ticket. And right now later projections put the fare around 105. Did you do any, did you run any math on this?

[00:06:53] I didn't, but like the percentage of, okay. So it was, it was originally going to be how many miles? 800 miles. Did you say it was? 800 mile system from. 800 miles. Now it's downgraded to like less than 200. What's the percentage on that decrease? Somebody, somebody in the chat who just quick at math. Let's just say it's like 200 out of 800. It's like a 75% decrease basically close to ish. Yeah.

[00:07:21] So they increased it by like 75%, but then how much of the budget has the percentage gone up? It went from 33 billion to how much? 231 billion. If anyone wants to do the math on that, I can't do the math off the top of my head. Almost. Is that almost a 700 increase? So 700%. I don't know. I can't do math.

[00:07:48] I like, I like to think I'm good at math, but I'm so in a long time. I know. I haven't been to school for a really long time. Sorry. No, I'm sorry. That I didn't mean to get off topic there, but I was seriously wondering. So they decreased it by nearly 75% of track and yet inflated the budget. 700%. Crazy amounts. Someone's going to fact check us on it, but it's about that much. It's a lot. It's a lot to increase the budget. All right. It says done by 2020.

[00:08:18] Obviously that didn't happen. They're expecting passenger services projected 2032 to 2033. That seems optimistic. That's not that far away. That's six years away and they haven't laid any tracks yet and they don't have any trains. It's expected to go at 220 miles per hour. As of right now, this is where the story really gets interesting. Is there's been no trains purchased.

[00:08:45] So that's really the story that we're going to get into right now. And we're going to kind of walk down. CBS did a great job breaking this all down. CBS is actually we featured CBS last week with Randy on the show. Shout out to Randy for filling in and all the special guest co-hosts. We were thankful for them to come on. And this is from CBS. They've been doing great investigation work. It said Newsom blamed Trump for high speed rails for billion funding cut record show.

[00:09:15] California never bought the trains. It promised California's high speed rail authority reported repeatedly missed key deadlines to buy its train a failure. Federal officials cited when they pulled $4 billion in funding a year ago. More than a year and a half after the original deadline, the authorities still cannot say when it expects to award the contract. The state says the date remains TBD.

[00:09:38] So if you go back in the way back machine and love about last year, Trump administration pulled $4 billion in federal funding because they said they are not a reliable partner. Because let's give you a little little civics is when you get a federal grant, usually you apply for a federal grant. And then you have specific requirements to continue to get that federal grant. It's not just free money as much as people think it's just free money from the government.

[00:10:08] You get a federal grant because you say it's like asking for a loan from a bank and you say, here's our markers. Here's our progress. Here's what we're going to do. Turns out California shockingly was not meeting any of those milestones. So the Trump administration came in and said, we're not giving you any more money because you've blown past all of your deadlines. Basically, there was no viable path to completing the segment, which is the one we're talking about from Merced to Bakersfield and that it had promised the federal government.

[00:10:37] It was going to be major metropolitan cities, San Francisco and L.A. And now that it's basically just in the Central Valley, it's kind of not really what it was supposed to be. We're not what it was promised and not what the federal government was going to do. The CBS California investigation found that it was the California high speed rail authority that repeatedly failed to meet its own deadlines to buy the trains, a key requirement in the federal grant agreement. Imagine that you're building a high speed rail for train and. And.

[00:11:08] You didn't buy trains when you were supposed to kind of a key component. I think you're supposed to buy the trains, then quietly dropped this lawsuit weeks after missing the deadline, promised the federal judge it would meet. Goes on to say this is December of last year in sworn court filings. High speed rail short, a federal judge that it would execute a train contract by December 1st, 2025. Keep the project on schedule. And then they missed that one to canceling the board meeting where the train contract was expected to be approved.

[00:11:37] And then they quietly. Pulled the lawsuit, and this is what Rob Bonta said it was appropriate for us to pull the lawsuit. So they sued the Trump administration for pulling the money saying that you were supposed to you can't pull the money. They sued because that's what A.G. Rob Bonta loves to do. And then quietly a couple of days before Christmas, they pulled the lawsuit so that no one knew about it. They gave up on it.

[00:12:02] It was appropriate for us to pull the lawsuit Bonta told CBS California investigated two weeks later at governor's final state of state address. Minutes earlier during the governor's address, Newsom had boasted about the project progress. California is finally laying the tracks of the nation's first high speed rail system. But the state had not actually laid any high speed rail track. What the state did build was a rail head.

[00:12:28] So what he's saying as two tracks is a rail head, a logistics depot designed to receive store and stage the rail. So basically when you see all those trains come into one depot, that's kind of what it is. The state's own milestone announcement weeks later said the completed facility allows California to begin receiving and stage materials need to install high speed rail track. There's been a hot rail yard created that has track on it, but it's not high speed rail track.

[00:12:54] High speed rail inspector general Ben Belknap confirmed to CBS. High speed rail track as it's defined has not been laid yet. So question. Yeah. Would it be safe to say that the high speed railroad and AG Bonta's lawsuit regarding this completely went off the track?

[00:13:23] You could, you could say that. Yeah. Sorry. I had to. You could say that. Yeah. Thank you. No, it's the wrong one. There you go. We'll be here all night folks. We're here all night. Uh, we're playing around with our new studio. So sorry, regretting allowing me to come back. He's like, man, I should have stayed gone. Hold on. Let me just see if I can get Randy on the phone again. Um, all right.

[00:13:49] So are you surprised Camille that they blew past all of their deadlines on this issue? Uh, honestly, yes. Okay. I know I shouldn't be like the way that this project is gone. I know that I shouldn't be, but this whole, like, they did pull the funding. They were like, no, you can't get it together. So we're not going to fund you. And, and they could have gotten it together. They could have been like, guys, guys, we had one job. Let's, let's do this.

[00:14:18] They, they are allowing us a second chance here. Like you would think, you would think if this project really mattered to them that they would have made it happen. Or at least if maybe they couldn't make it happen, been like, Hey, we're in the works. We're, we're, we're working on it. We've got the, we're talking, we've got things going, things are moving. Can you extend it? Can we have till March first? Can we have till April? Whatever. Like really we're, we're trying to make this happen. So I guess, yeah, I'm surprised that it was just like, no, we don't care.

[00:14:47] And we'll just let another deadline pass and then we'll sue them because they didn't fund us. And then we'll pull the lawsuit because it turns out it's our fault. Well, no, I shouldn't be surprised. I know you guys. No, I'm, I don't think anyone's surprised if you're listening in the chat, it's, um, do you know, you're right. Because if this is such a big project and it's such a project that Newsom and everybody

[00:15:14] wants to hang their hat on and say, it's such a big accomplishment. Why are you missing all of these deadlines? And I want to go back to the fact that they said in sworn court filings in federal court, they promise. So when you swear in front of a court, you're basically signing under penalty perjury. Like, yeah, we're going to get this done. We promise we're going to buy the trains. We're promise we're going to be on track. We may have missed this deadline. Here's a fact that makes it even more to show that they are all full of it.

[00:15:43] But in their 2026 business plan, the line for train set procurement is blank. Meaning they, they don't, they still don't have a date. And in fact, it's just TBD when they're going to get trains. And their project was pulled because they couldn't say when they were going to get trains, which was a requirement under the federal grant. And they're just like, yeah, who knows when we're going to get the trains.

[00:16:12] So you first, you swear to a federal judge that you're going to get the trains, you cancel a board meeting, and then you just show up in 2026. And you're like, yep. Yeah. We don't have any plan to get the trains, which is probably why they pulled their lawsuit, because they knew they were going to get killed over the fact that they had these sworn statements to the court saying that they're going to get this stuff done. And then they didn't. So now, obviously, the DOJ and Secretary of Transportation would go after them and say, no, you didn't do what you were supposed to do.

[00:16:42] California leadership. What was that? California leadership. California leadership. There was this other guy, Chaudry was hired. He was in Newsom's own statement over the next four years, the dream of high speed rail in California become a reality. This was in August of 2024. As we begin to lay track design and build stations and buy trains. So that was Chaudry in 2004. He decides to train in November of 2024.

[00:17:10] He decides to change the train specs after the field already been narrowed to two finalists. Board member Ernest Camacho warns him in an open session could force a restart quote. We may have to cancel that procurement or rewrite a new specification. The authorities own lawyer interrupts and shuts the discussion down saying procurement can't be discussed in an open meeting because nobody loves transparency like the state of California. Board members are told to meet with the CEO individually.

[00:17:38] There was another thing I wanted to see. This was February of this year. Chaudry, the CEO and his fiancee are arrested in Folsom on suspicion of misdemeanor battery after a 911 call. So it sounds like a good guy. So that's, that's where we're at. And why is this coming out?

[00:18:00] And why is this kind of blowing back and becoming a big story right now is because in January, finally, we had always been joking about how Gavin Newsom hadn't had a state of the speech state of the state speech for years, right? Like every year we're like, is he gonna have a state of the state? We knew we would have one this year because it's his last year. But he said in his state of the state, his final one, he said, quote, finally laying the tracks of the nation's first high speed rail system.

[00:18:28] And again, it was not tracks. It was a lie. It was actually the rail head. So all of this to say, there's no tracks, there's no tracks. So if anybody on social media says, oh, yeah, they're laying tracks. The inspector general as of this month, recently, like at the time we're doing this episode. No tracks have been laid. Even the inspector general is like, nah, that's not true. There is no, there is no such thing as high speed rail tracks.

[00:19:00] Shocking. I want to hear what people say in the chat. Is anyone shocked that this is, has gone down as bad as it has? What are your other thoughts about the fact? Do you think this is ever going to really get moving? If let's say in Xavier Becerra gets, if Xavier Becerra gets elected and becomes the next governor? I don't think it matters who becomes the next governor. I think that this is going to keep getting extended, extended until like, they just literally can't anymore.

[00:19:27] Cause you and I even, it's been a while and I should have pulled it up, but we had looked at the, some of the salaries of the people that are on the high speed rail. And they were, I forget now, but like, I want to say like 600 K or five, at least half a million a year for like the CEOs of these projects and stuff. Like insane, insane salaries. And for, for what?

[00:19:57] And okay. This is another silly call. I know I make silly comments, but I'm one of those people that like, when you say something and I've liked the person that associates a song with it, you know, and I luckily I don't do that so much on the podcast, but that's, that's kind of how I do. And I wish I, I meant to pull it up to send you because those of you who watch South Park, like vintage South Park back in the day, there was an episode and I don't remember what it was about, but I remember the song and it was South Park.

[00:20:23] So it's stupid, but they had this like, like float, like this like balloon, hot air balloon ride or something like that. And they're singing the song that's like, imagination, like literally the whole, all the only lyric in the song is imagination and they're singing it in different ways. So like, they're going through the song and they're like, imagination, imagination. And the whole thing is just imagination.

[00:20:47] And I really wanted to send that to you because that's what, when I think of this whole project, like that's, I get that clip in mind, like dead serious. It just feels like it's a cartoon imagination world because it is so, how can anybody take this seriously? Except again, we're talking billions, billions in taxpayer dollars. And that's where it's sickening because it's the project is, is still in people's imaginations, but the money is real. And like, we're paying for that. And our kids and our future grandkids are going to pay for that.

[00:21:17] And like, that's sickening and devastating. I was actually thinking of another cartoon. This is an old, I'm sure people in the chat, if you remember this from the Simpsons, when they sold Springfield, the monorail and they paid all this money or they, that is like a OG Simpsons episode where they sell in the monorail and they're all excited. And they're like a monorail, monorail. And then they end up not completing the monorail.

[00:21:44] It's just a bunch of tracks with songs. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what it feels like. Like, it's kind of like, you know, the Simpsons predicted this, that they would sell us the train station or the trains and there is no train. Before we move on, I want to show you, or I want to go ramble off some numbers here just for some math to, to really hit home. Um, so right now it's roughly $279 million per mile for the Central Valley segment.

[00:22:14] So this is a 2024 estimate. Based on what the budget is and how much, what we're planning on doing between Merced and Bakersfield. Brightline West, a privately led project, which is Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga is about $120 million per mile. So less than half. So the private enterprise is beating the government by a lot. And it's actually going to someplace people want to go. They want to go to Vegas. That's the whole point is that it's going to make it easier for people to get to Vegas.

[00:22:42] One lawmaker on the $231 billion figure said that's more than the entire state budget was 10 years ago. I think when Governor Brown left, I think the budget was, uh, yeah, around $230 million. And now the budget is ballooned to $335 million is what this year's proposed budget is. To give you an idea, they spent an entire year's budget right now. That's the project.

[00:23:08] Um, the route will actually serve Merced, which is a population around 90,000 to Bakersfield, which is around 420. And that's why they said these are not major metropolitan areas. This is not San Francisco and LA. Uh, so historical, this is something I wanted to bring up. A field poll found that by 2011, three years after the passage, this is only three years. This was passed in 2008.

[00:23:33] Only three years after voters said they'd reject Prop 1A 59 to 31, if given a redo. So that's only three years in, if given a redo. And 37% of the people who voted yes said they'd switch. I honestly don't remember how I voted on this and I may not have even voted on it. I was swimming in babies in 2008.

[00:23:59] And I was like being a social media war against Barack Obama. Priorities. You weren't really worried about a high speed rail. I wasn't. At that time, I mean, it was sold pretty well. I mean, $33 billion for San Francisco to LA. People are like, that's a no brainer. Why wouldn't we do that? We all want high speed rail from San Francisco to LA. Maybe not all of us. I mean, there's still planes like we said. I mean, because again, it's a nice idea.

[00:24:28] Even if you're like, well, and at the time, San Francisco was still like a thriving thing. It wasn't the San Francisco that it is today. You know, I had only been to San Francisco once prior, but certainly I would have enjoyed going back. And so, yeah, it was like a happy thought. You know, like, oh, this could be really convenient. Get there quickly. The California is beautiful. We don't deny that here. We agree. California is a beautiful state.

[00:24:57] And to, and, and, you know, I've been to Europe a few times. I know you've been to Europe. Part of the, like, one of the best parts of my last trip to Europe was literally the trains from, like, we took, where did we take? Mostly around Italy. Yeah. It was around Italy, but like, and two, three hour train rides. And we had so much fun. Like my husband and I and our four kids, we all loved the trains. It was so fun. Oh, we took advantage of it in Switzerland too.

[00:25:25] Beautiful, beautiful train rides. The trains were nice. It was just a fun, leisurely ride. You know, you get to see the different architecture or just the different nature and everything. And Europe is beautiful. And then even traveling around London, once you figure out their underground system, it's really cheap and really easy to navigate. And, like, those things could, maybe it's too late for California, and certainly this project isn't.

[00:25:51] But it was a nice idea that it could have been appreciated and enjoyed by many. Luckily, we asked, is this a nonstop train? No. Well, it's going to be nonstop from Merced to Bakersfield if you want to take that ride. I think the idea is they moved it because it's easier to build through the Central Valley and then have two branches go off to San Francisco and L.A. Again, we're talking about they can't even get, like, the first leg of this done. Forget the other two legs. That's going to be a whole other thing. There's no trains.

[00:26:21] There's no tracks. There's no trains. There's no tracks. And this started in 2008. So whether or not we even get this first part done is going to be a whole different story. I feel like at this point they're just like it's that sunken cost fallacy of, like, we've spent so much money, so how can we not continue doing it? I mean, it's textbook sunken fallacy. This has been gone. I mean, I know we talked about it before, and a bunch of it has gone to change orders, which is also sickening. But for real, what have they actually done with this money? Plans.

[00:26:51] Plans. There's a lot of money for plans. Change orders on. Yeah, plans. Well, plans are expensive, and then they keep doing the change orders. So that's. And then whoever is making these plans is probably taking advantage. And I kind of don't blame them because they can. You know, like, oh, well, they're just going to keep paying so we can just keep hiking up our rates. And, you know, every change order, we can make it a little bit more expensive. And we'll just do this all day long and keep ourselves in business. Cool, cool.

[00:27:21] Someone's making a lot of money off the high-speed rail. And it's not us, and we're not getting a train. It's not me. It's not me. All right. Moving on to our next story. This past weekend here in San Diego, it was not Comic-Con. We had a convention of other people down here. And that was California Democrats. They met about endorsements and some other issues. We're going to watch this video to kind of go over what they went, what they talked about, what they discussed,

[00:27:50] and some discourse between California Democrats in terms of what they agree on and what they don't agree on. They might be out of step with their own leaders. So let's watch this video. One of the most controversial ballot measures this year is the so-called billionaire tax. And even the Democratic Party isn't totally uniform in their support of the proposition. NBC7's political reporter, Joey Safchick, tells us who's for it and who's against it.

[00:28:19] Prop 40, also known as the billionaire tax, would help compensate for federal funding cuts to health care. The power brokers behind the scenes of the Democratic Party want you to vote yes. But some of the most high-profile public-facing Democrats in the whole state actually oppose it. A deepening divide in the Democratic Party as the California Democrats endorse the so-called wealth tax,

[00:28:45] while Governor Gavin Newsom and gubernatorial candidate Javier Becerra oppose it. Very simple. Tax billionaires to save lives. Like the state party, the San Diego Democrats are... Tax billionaires to save lives. So many things we're doing to save lives. Stay at home, we're wearing masks. We're taxing billionaires. Save lives. Tax billionaires to save grandma. Does that line still work anymore or is that just more 2020? Democrats are putting their weight behind the billionaire tax,

[00:29:15] which is a one-time 5% tax on billionaires' assets to fund health care. This is a one-time measure meant to ask wealthy people who are doing better than they've ever done, the wealthiest of the wealthy, to give a little bit more to help people and to save lives. But... Give. Save. But give. Give. Asking people to give. Asking people to give more.

[00:29:40] Well, first off, Mr. Rodriguez-Kennedy, it's not a one-time tax. I know that that's what you've been told to push. If you go to page 25 or 26 of the proposition, language, we've gone over this before, but it's worth repeating because it's so, so important that everybody knows about this. It is not a one-time tax. It's literally written into the proposition that the legislature with the majority can go ahead and just change the parameters and tax again.

[00:30:09] So this is a perpetuity tax. It's not going away. They can change it from billionaires to multimillionaires to millionaires to just basically anyone. Didn't we predict that? I feel like we literally predicted that. I think everybody, I think everybody just predicted that this was not going to be a one-time tax. And then, you know, people like this, Mr. Rodriguez-Kennedy out there in San Diego saying that it's a one-time tax.

[00:30:33] It's like the, you know, it's like just NPC talk of like, they just keep saying the same thing over and over again and they don't want to face it. But again, he says it's one-time tax for the people who have a lot to save lives. So we have the lie that it's a one-time tax. That is a complete fabrication of a lie. Okay. That they are supposed to give their money because they're doing better than ever. Okay. A lot of this is not liquid assets.

[00:30:59] It's a lot of people are billionaires because they have a divestment, like a whole diversified portfolio of real estate, stocks, bonds, investments in businesses and stuff like that. It's not Scrooge McDuck. It's not Scrooge McDuck in a pile of gold coins. They can't just go to their vault and pull it out. Right. And to save lives. Okay. How are you saving lives? Because you're increasing healthcare.

[00:31:23] Because the healthcare, the Medi-Cal that we had broke because Gavin Newsom allowed every single undocumented citizen, illegal immigrant to come in and get Medi-Cal regardless of age. And it broke in 11 months. So that's why they're asking for more money. But like Governor Gavin Newsom and his likely successor, there is ample resistance to the proposition.

[00:31:49] The president of the California Business Roundtable worries billionaires will flee California. There are more than 200 billionaires who call California home. The worst thing we could possibly do is to be able to create a system that convinces them it's better for them to leave California and move to another state than it is to stay here and continue their investment and grow jobs. Even among labor unions, there's a rift.

[00:32:21] But the president of the California State Council of Laborers and United Domestic Workers oppose it. This really is about taxing everyone in the future. It's only starting with billionaires. And so it's a very clever, deceptive measure. But the chair of the San Diego Democrats is hopeful the narrow focus on health care and the backing of the state and local parties will convince voters to get behind this measure.

[00:32:50] In order to uproot from California, you have to like move. You have to like do a bunch of irritating things. I think it would say something about people and their values if they decided to leave the state of California. That's his argument as to why he thinks billionaires won't move. It's like really annoying to like move. So like it's like really irritating.

[00:33:17] Like I moved last time and it's I moved from like PB to MB and like it's it's really annoying because I had to like pack everything up and do things myself. They're billionaires. They don't do any of this. They hire a whole bunch of people who come and do it and they show up in their new home in Florida or Texas. And everything's done for him. I want to shake his shoulders and be like that's it's so irritating to move.

[00:33:44] How did we get all these illegal immigrants here? Like somehow they got here. Irritating move and all, you know. That is one of the worst arguments as to why he thinks billionaires will not leave California because it's irritating. It's really hard to move. It's actually not that hard to move. It's not that expensive to hire movies movers either. Now imagine what billionaires have at their disposal if they want to move. I don't worry. Everything.

[00:34:13] They can have everything done for them. They don't have to lift a finger. They'll wake up one morning in their house in California and then they'll go to sleep in their new house in whatever state they're going to and everything will be there already or in a luxury hotel. So. Yeah. Because we asked them to do a little bit more to help save people's lives. I want to know how many people that guy has employed. Because that's one way to help save lives is employment.

[00:34:41] And I would love to know how many people he employs, which most of these billionaires, that's exactly what they do. They help our economy thrive and they employ hundreds, if not thousands of people. I mean, look what Elon Musk has done for so many people. People got all mad about, what was it, SpaceX? So many of his employees became millionaires overnight with their stock and stuff.

[00:35:09] Like, oh, that evil billionaire. Yeah, there was a story of a janitor who had SpaceX stock granted to him or given to him as part of his compensation. Ended up being a millionaire overnight because of SpaceX. But it will save lives and moving is annoying. So that's why we're pushing it. Just do a little bit more. Just give a little bit more.

[00:35:32] And according to a poll from the Public Policy Institute of California, some 76% of Democrats say they would support this tax. Joey Sapchick, NBC7. Okay. Okay. All right. So that's one issue is obviously the billionaire's tax.

[00:35:55] Regardless of what Mr. Rodriguez Kennedy says, that it's annoying that people will not move and they'll stay here and you should be a nice guy and just give more money. Why not? Yeah. The reason I say they're out of step with their leaders is because Gavin Newsom has already come out and said he's not in favor of this. He is in favor of a national billionaire's tax because he understands, as people rightly pointed out in the chat, you can vote with your feet and move to another state. So he wants a national billionaire's tax because that way you can't escape it no matter where you go in the country.

[00:36:24] He's not a fan of it here in California because doing so would, he knows, scare a lot of billionaires off, which is already happening. A lot of billionaires. There is that Chamath is the CEO who's been keeping track of how many billionaires have left. And I think like a trillion dollars worth of assets and wealth has already left the state. So he's been, and that was like months ago. He's been keeping track of this and kind of posting on X about it.

[00:36:49] He was offered a deal, Gavin Newsom, SEIU, the one that wrote this proposition. They were offered a deal that if they passed a billionaire's tax through the legislature for 2%, they would remove the prop and it was still rejected. Which again, you're still taxing billionaires at 2%. So even Gavin Newsom doesn't want this.

[00:37:18] He wouldn't settle for 2%. And that's why I really want to get into how this is like the party leadership and the party itself are starting to get out of sync. And we've talked a lot in the past couple of weeks about democratic socialists and how they're kind of on the rise. And now Xavier Becerra also came out and said he's not in favor of Prop 40.

[00:37:43] So now you have the probably odds on favorite to be the next governor is not in favor of this proposition. So you have this supposed next governor is going to be the leader of the California Democrats, not in favor of it. So they're out of step a little bit in terms of what's going on here. As for opposition, there's already PACs because these billionaires have a lot of money. Building a better California has raised $118 million from billionaire donors. Sergey Brin alone has put in $82 million.

[00:38:11] A second PAC, Golden State Promise, founded by Ripple Executive Chairman Chris Larson with Ripple Labs, gave about $5 million each. It sits about $10 million. Why did I just give that to healthcare? No, I'm so serious. Could just give it to healthcare. You could write a check. And you could write a check to our state treasurer and say, here you go. Here's more money. Like I willingly want to give the government more money.

[00:38:39] There's nothing stopping people from giving the government more money. Like this Mr. Rodriguez Kennedy. You can give the government more money if you want to. Don't force a lot of other people. You can also go and donate to your local hospital. You can do that as well. A lot of hospitals have fundraising. You can give and donate to that. Help fundraisers. So Brent is worth around $266.5 billion. And a one-time 5% tax would be somewhere near $13 billion.

[00:39:05] And he's only spent about $82 million to stop it, which means that he's got a lot more left in the bank. That's roughly six-tenths of 1% of what the tax would cost him. So keep in mind, these billionaires who have a lot of money and want to stay in California and fight and defeat this, they have a ton of money to throw at this. And if they have to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at it, it's like a drop in the bucket for them in terms of fighting this. So there's going to be a ton of money that's going to be thrown at this.

[00:39:38] Before I keep going, what are your thoughts so far on Democrats being out of step with their leaders on this billionaire's tax? I mean, that's not – for people to break away from the party standard, that's not too crazy. But it is interesting how – I mean, we know what Newsom's motives are. Like you mentioned, he wants the national kind of billiarder's tax. Like, okay. So he doesn't believe that doing it at the state level is enough.

[00:40:08] He wants the national. But Becerra, you know, we don't know if he has presidential dreams after governor of California, so I don't know what his angle is here. But it is interesting that then 75%-ish of the actual voting party is for it. But it just – I think it just shows how out of touch and how selfish they are. It's – and I'm not saying that anyone who I don't agree with politically is, like, selfish or out of touch.

[00:40:37] But when it comes to this, they don't get it. Because, again, it's not just billionaires. It's going to be the multimillionaires and then the millionaires. And that's – it's not the Scrooge McDuck scenario. We're talking about people who have own homes that, you know, it's California and that their homes are now worth the millions. But if they, you know, have to get taxed on it, they probably have to sell their home and move out of state because then it's not like you can just downgrade.

[00:41:07] Like, okay, I think – I don't know if I mentioned this here before because I don't remember if I was talking about this on here or if this was after the fact. Recently, I was kind of like, like, oh, my kids are still home, but they're getting older. And I was like, maybe my husband and I should downgrade. And I was looking at homes just – and I do for fun. I was just looking at real estate in my city. Ed kind of felt like a smaller, already remodeled home. And, you know, it was like I had a pool and stuff. And I was like, oh, it's a beautiful home.

[00:41:33] And if I sold my home, we would still have X amount of dollars left ever. And – but, like, would we want to pay cash, that much cash for an overpriced home right now? Or would we want to take out a mortgage for it? And then I'm, like, thinking if we took out a mortgage, we couldn't even afford the mortgage. We couldn't afford our house right now because we were one of those fortunate people who bought over 10 years ago and have a very low mortgage. We're staying.

[00:42:07] And, you know, we're paying our lower mortgage rate and our lower – what do you call it? Sorry. Like, lose my train of thought. But, like, anyway, it's just – we're staying put in our worth-a-lot-of-money house that's going to fall down on us because it's a fixer-upper. But, hey, at least we got the land. That's the point.

[00:42:32] Like, and that's – we're extending this argument out, which is it's not just a billionaire's tax. It's going to filter down sooner or later. And someone in the chat said Ro Khanna already came out and said this will end up being a millionaire's tax. And if you're doing it based on assets and your worth, then that puts a ton of Californians in the crosshairs. Because if you have a nice home, most nice homes in California go for over a million dollars.

[00:42:59] And let's say, okay, now the limit is a million dollars if your net worth is over a million dollars. And you have a house that's worth a million dollars and you have other assets. You're going to be subject to pay this 5% tax. And they could change what they think the 5% tax should be. Because the language on this proposition, again, page 2526, you can go look at it for yourself. It's right in there. As long as it goes to the purpose of the proposition, which is to fund healthcare and education.

[00:43:28] And there's something else, I think. Is it food assistance or something like that? There's three things. But we spend almost 80% of our budget on these three things. So you're talking about as long as it supports 80% of the budget, we can change our minds and tax however we want. And that's the nightmare scenario is that it continues to filter down where they go, Okay, we've scared off all the billionaires and we've taken their money. Okay, now it's the multimillionaires. Then it's the millionaires.

[00:43:57] And they're going after assets. It's not a million dollars in the bank. It's a million dollars in assets and net worth. And that's for a lot of people who own a nice home in California, that's you. You own assets. It doesn't have to be nice. Like, I'm going to say this. I'm just going to be really transparent right here. And I don't say this to, like, I am not bragging in any way whatsoever. So we bought our house, like I said, over 10 years ago. It's our second home. We bought our first home. And it was a short sale.

[00:44:27] And it was a nice home, but we totally fixed it up and upgraded ourselves over the five years that we lived there. And it was like a beautiful home. And it showed like a model. We sold it. And we sold high. We did well with that home. So we had a good down payment. And we were able to get, and again, this is Orange County. This is California. So 10 years ago, a little over 10 years ago, we got into our current home, fixer-upper. But we're like, this is probably our forever home.

[00:44:54] We're going to do what we want as we can. And so we have. There's a lot left to do. Again, total fixer-upper, outdated. But it is like, it's on a cul-de-sac. It's a single-story home. We have a pool. We've got a good, decent-sized property. And we're in a very safe city and a great school zone. So my house today, right now, is worth close to $2 million.

[00:45:24] We did not pay $2 million for this house. And that's based on, I often check based on the local sales and run comps and stuff. I have studied real estate. I took all the real estate testing and everything. And I worked in real estate at my last job. I know how to figure this out. It's worth close to $2 million. And again, that's not, we don't have anywhere close to that kind of money, you guys. We only have that money if we sell the home and move to Oklahoma or something.

[00:45:54] And then like, yeah, we're sitting pretty. But here it's, we have to budget. We have to make ends meet. You know, we're, and my house isn't done being remodeled because it's not cheap and we can't afford it. And I do stay home. I homeschool. Now I'm just down to one, but we have homeschooled all of our kids. So we're single income. And we have done, most of what we have done has been DIY. My husband's extremely handy. I love designing. I always come up with the design concepts. He makes it happen.

[00:46:24] Like that's how we've just always operated. And so there's a lot left to do. There's a lot left to do. But again, we don't have, we are not swimming in money by any means at all. Okay. My, my car. And I asked my husband for a new car like once a month than I have for years. My car is 15 years old. It was nothing fancy to begin with. Even then base model car, 15 years old. That's honestly, we are fortunate to have a home.

[00:46:54] We are fortunate to have a home where we have a home. I am so grateful for it. We're staying. I'm just saying if this tax gets down, it will affect us. It will absolutely affect us. And we'll be like, wait, we don't, we don't, we're just because you guys decided or somehow somewhere along the way, it was decided our house is worth X amount of dollars. Like we need the housing market to crash to avoid this tax.

[00:47:18] And yeah, I, I'd put in the chat cause I did the numbers, uh, just assuming and drum roll made a, in the chat made a good point, which is it's not just the tax on your property. It's everything. So everything you have, what's in your bank, stocks, bonds, all of that stuff is part of what they're going to tax. But let's just say for clean numbers sake, if you're $2 million in assets, they're going to ask a hundred thousand dollars in taxes. Imagine just forking over a hundred thousand dollars in taxes.

[00:47:47] You don't have a hundred thousand dollars in taxes. I don't have, and again, I don't want to like shame my husband. We don't have a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. We don't. So it's, how would anybody pay that? Um, and that's sort of the door you're opening is that you're allowing the state to, to do this. Uh, all right. A couple more things before we get to our last story. Cause we're coming up on the hour here. It did say in reporting that it took two tries and a heated floor fight for them to endorse it.

[00:48:16] So it wasn't necessarily a clean vote, but it did eventually pass. Uh, but Sarah doesn't support this specific tax. He does favor prop three, which we're going to get to again. We're going to do all of these propositions starting next week. We're actually going to be talking a lot more about this proposition and the other tax propositions. We're going to cover every single proposition. So you guys know, um, prop three makes the existing higher earner income tax surcharge permanent.

[00:48:44] So it's not that he doesn't support higher taxes. It's just which tax. And then they talk a lot about all the unions that are not actually in favor of it. The California police chiefs association, unite domestic workers, the state building trades council and the California state council of laborers have all pushed back on this. So it's not all unions. It's just SEIU, which I think SEIU and them and the California teachers association are the root of all evil here in California there. I've said it. I don't care.

[00:49:13] Not teachers themselves, not teachers themselves. It's the California teachers association. So, Oh, the one last thing before we leave, we leave this story. Uh, they also do not want to support CEQA reform. So for the party that's always going on and on about affordable housing and how they need to build more housing, they don't want to reform CEQA to make it. So it's faster to go through the CEQA process. I just want to throw that out there.

[00:49:41] So this, the party that sits there and goes, we need to build more affordable housing. Don't support CEQA, which would streamline the process so that they could build more housing. I think that some areas affordable housing is like, it starts at like 600,000 and possibly even more. And so give it like two to three years. If this prop passes in two to three years, um, the affordable housing people who, who like they own one of these affordable houses, they're going to be in that millionaire.

[00:50:08] They're going to, they're going to be owing like 50,000 in taxes for the, cause they'll be in the millionaire bracket in their assets, even though it was like an affordable housing. Like this is insanity. Absolutely. Uh, all right. Let's move on to our next and final story of the night, which is to do with Republicans. Uh, a lot of people always critique us and say, all you got to talk about is Democrats. You always go after Democrats. Well, because Democrats run the state. What do you want us to do?

[00:50:39] Republicans don't really have a say in anything, but this story is kind of interesting. Camille's getting all cozy in the middle of August with her blanket. I look like a, like a mob wife with my blanket on. Look at you wearing a big fur coat. Uh, there was a, the Republican minority leader, Heath Flora was just ousted by California Assembly Republicans over some controversial issues. So let's watch that story. And they elected a new leader.

[00:51:03] An expected shakeup in leadership today at the state Capitol. Republicans today abruptly voted to remove Ripon Assemblyman Heath Flora as their minority leader. Yeah, the new leader of the Republicans in the Assembly is Tulare Assemblywoman Ali Macedo. And our KCRA 3 political director, Asha Zavala was at state Capitol. All of this was unfolding. Do we know why this happened? Yeah. Well, honestly, I mean, this really was sprung upon the Democrats.

[00:51:31] It was sprung upon journalists. I mean, really, no one was tracking this. This was a big surprise. I'm told this is the result of a series of events and disagreements within the Assembly's Republican caucus this year. The new Republican leader, Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo, noted that Assemblyman Heath Flora recently sided with Democrats to pass new taxes across the state through the state budget process earlier this year. Now, we did see Flora walk into floor session briefly today, then quickly walk out. We did not see him again.

[00:52:00] You're just looking at file video of him right now on your screen. I'm just going to say if you're a Republican in California and you're siding with Democrats to raise taxes, that's pretty disqualifying on its own. I was going to go ahead and say that. I think that's kind of disqualifying. You should be ousted just for that. But there's more. There's more as to why this guy got ousted. My sources said as soon as Republicans met at the state capitol in their closed-door meeting at around 1230 this afternoon,

[00:52:29] Macedo called a leadership vote. This comes a day after the California Post reported Flora was at the center of ethics investigations and reported some questionable use of thousands of taxpayer dollars taking meetings at an East Sacramento bar. Macedo said that was not the reason and called some of that reporting inaccurate. Some of my Republican sources expressed serious concern about the timing of this, specifically ahead of an election where Republicans in the state assembly are trying to pick up seats.

[00:52:57] Democrats do not need a single Republican vote to pass anything in California because there are so few Republicans. I asked Macedo about this when she spoke with reporters. Some members are worried that this is happening before an election. And this presents the perception that there's possible instability in your caucus. How would you respond? There is absolutely no instability in our caucus. Our candidates are amazing candidates who are locked in. They are ready to fight, as is the rest of our caucus.

[00:53:26] And they have my commitment that I will spend every minute, all the way through the time that the new members are sworn in, fighting for every vote. We want to bring Republicans home. We want to make sure that they show up to vote in November. And we also want those that are jaded by the California policies that have left this building, that have left them behind, and tell them that voting for a Republican means voting for common sense and voting for money staying in their bank accounts that they worked hard for.

[00:53:52] I reached out to the Democratic leader of the state assembly, Speaker Robert Rivas, for comment. I'm waiting to hear back from his spokesman. Okay, so Flora was known for being a more moderate Republican. What could we expect with Macedo? Yeah, well, just off the bat, I should note that she was just elected this past term. She is one of the youngest members in our state legislature right now. This leadership change really represents something that we're seeing broadly in politics, not just here in California, but really across the country.

[00:54:19] This really marks a win for the further right-wing section of the Republican Party in California. Macedo is not moderate the way that Flora is. Macedo was asked about bipartisanship and the way her predecessor valued it. She said bipartisanship can come when everyone acknowledges the state's problems and takes decisive action to act on solutions. So we will see. I'll note that I did see her waiting for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas when all of this was said and done,

[00:54:47] hoping to talk, and I guess we'll see what comes out of the room. Well, we know Robert Rivas doesn't like talking to reporters. He doesn't like talking to anybody. He's got his whole host of own issues with his brother, the bully in Sacramento. All right. So this guy's out. I thought this was an interesting story that we had to cover because a little bit of a shakeup in the California Republicans. There's not a lot, like they said.

[00:55:17] There's not a lot. It's a supermajority. Basically, they really have no say in what's going on in California. They don't need any of their votes. So, excuse me. Democrats don't really care about what's going on. That's probably why Robert Rivas didn't even show up because he was like, what do I care? It doesn't really do anything. Yeah. But it is interesting. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. I'm a Republican, and I'm not trying to make California Republicans.

[00:55:43] I'm not trying to make it all like right-leaning or MAGA or whatever. But you and I often talk about we do need more. We are crazy, crazy left, and that's how this whole tax situation, like we're being taxed to death because Democrats love the taxes. And that's what we want from our Republican Assembly and State Senate leaders is we want them to vote against these taxes.

[00:56:10] And as pointed out in the video, Democrats don't need their Republican votes. They have plenty to pass these, and so the fact that he would side with them on a tax increase is mind-blowing because it's like, no, no. I get that there are some things that need to be more moderate in politics. I do. But when it comes to the taxes, like we already have too many. We need people to stand up against these.

[00:56:33] That's what we want from our right-leaning, our Republican leadership is to help us defend ourselves against these crazy taxes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we've said this on the show before, which is the California Republicans are not going to gain any ground or make any noise or get any eyeballs by acting moderate because Heath Flora, if he's moderate

[00:57:01] and is siding with Democrats, to your point, they don't need your vote. It doesn't make any difference. So you could just always be against taxes, whether you are personally for it or not. But you do need Republicans who are a little bit louder and brasher because right now, you're not winning by being moderate or trying to appeal to the middle. So maybe their strategy is we have to be a little bit more aggressive. Maybe that's why Macedo is now the minority leader.

[00:57:30] It does seem like the caucus is getting a lot younger, which is something that is interesting is that you have people like David Tangipa who's getting more and more popular. Macedo is getting more and more popular. It seems like the caucus is getting a lot younger. So that is interesting to see. And you just got to be bold and brash. And right now, it's you need those people who are going to stand up for these principles and call them out loudly and forcefully.

[00:57:58] Even though they said that this was not the reason, I think the taxes were probably the most disqualifying thing that he sided with Democrats over taxes. This is the article. The Post also revealed that Flora's campaign spent more than $11,000 at Chargin's Bar and Grill, an East Sacramento watering hole more than 50 miles from his district. Sources told the Post that Flora frequently drank at the bar and sometimes remained there for hours. Flora did not respond to detailed questions about the expenses or investigations before Sunday's story was published.

[00:58:28] Flora's removal was also growing anger, also followed growing anger among Republicans over his vote last month for legislation. We just talked about that. That only Flora and Assembly Republican caucus chairman Juan Alanis joined Democrats in voting for the measure, angering conservatives who accused the two GOP leaders of helping Democrats advance tax increases during a statewide affordability crisis. There was also an alleged affair, whatever that's about. And then it said everyone is privy to his excessive drinking.

[00:58:57] Hughes told the Post, whoever Hughes is. Hughes told the Post, whoever's going to do it, he was going to do it. So this could be an issue of they knew he was not a great leader. He was not acting in the best interest. A lot of things are going on behind the scenes. And crossing the aisle to vote for a tax increase was probably the final nail in the coffin. It was the thing that they could really grab onto and say, okay, policy-wise, you're not in line with California Republicans. So you're out.

[00:59:23] And he was in that position for less than a year. Excuse me. I don't know where my voice is going. Because James Gallagher was the Assembly minority leader. And then he ran for Congress when, sorry, what's his name? Passed away unexpectedly. Oh, Malfa or something? Yeah. So he ran for the special election and won that seat.

[00:59:50] So James Gallagher stepped out of the Assembly and into Congress. So they had to elect a new member. So Heath Flora was unanimously voted in less than a year ago. And now he's out. And yeah, I sent you an article. I think it was the California Post had covered it, that they've determined there was two different affairs, two different mistresses or something in a lot of these campaign funds.

[01:00:14] We're allegedly going to, spoiling these women, like trips and restaurants and possibly jewelry and golfing or stuff like that. And while he was never actually elected into Congress, couldn't help but think about Omar Navarro, who ran for Congress over and over again and is currently serving time in federal prison for those crimes. Yeah. Doesn't sound like he was a great leader.

[01:00:43] I am surprised that Carl DeMaio was not the one who was picked to lead the Assembly. Yeah, I'm surprised too. Maybe he didn't want it. Maybe he didn't want it because he's kind of a power player in the Assembly. So for all those people who say we never call out Republicans, well, here we are calling out a Republican who misused funds and appeared to have a lavish and drunken lifestyle. And now he's gone.

[01:01:12] And Republicans got rid of him. So that's the scandal on that. He's still in the Assembly. He's still in the Assembly. Yeah. Yeah. He's still in the Assembly. He's not going anywhere. He's just out as leader. But I do wonder, and I didn't look up his race, like how this will affect the November election. Because I don't know if he's in like a super Republican area. And if he's, I don't know if he's the only one on the ballot or if he's up against a Democrat or if he's up against another Republican. So I do wonder how this will affect November elections.

[01:01:42] Like I said, I didn't check the race, so I have no idea. I guess we'll find out what happens with Heath Flora. All right. That's our show for tonight. Any other final thoughts before we log off for tonight? We've been on for a little bit over an hour. Thanks to everyone for tuning in. Thanks for everyone in the chat. As always, somebody said seeing Camille bundled up in a thick blanket while I'm sweltering in the desert heat makes me a bit envious. I'm sorry. I just, it's been hot here, but the AC is on.

[01:02:12] And I guess, I don't know, I'm like right near a vent and I'm just sitting here. I'm kind of cold. I mean, because I am, I am currently injured. We don't need to get into about me, but I am injured, which is one of the reasons why I was like off the podcast for a while. But so I can't do much right now physically. And I do just kind of sit on the couch and I'll usually have like a fan blowing because I like, like, I don't like to breathe stuffy air. So I'll have a fan blowing, but then I get cold.

[01:02:39] And so I'm like, I'm under a heated blanket wearing fuzzy socks, like reading or watching TV. Like it's not a hundred degrees outside. I know. I know. Sorry. Meanwhile, everybody in Calvary is sweltering and you're, you're in a mob boy. I'm getting depressed. I need out right now. But like, I, I, again, this podcast isn't about me, but I fell and I broke my tailbone.

[01:03:07] I may or may not be facing surgery because I may have caused nerve damage. Still have to like wait on tests to find out. It's, it's not fun. I'm in pain. This is not what was me. But again, the podcast isn't about me. So that's where like I've been, but I'm just like, yes. Being honest that right now my life is like, I sit on the couch and I read and I watch whatever I want on TV because I can't do anything. And it's, it's kind of sad, but at the same time, yeah, laugh at me because while you're

[01:03:36] out there miserable in the heat, I'm sitting on the couch with a heated blanket and a fan. So don't cancel me. So there you go. You can trade it for heat or an injured tailbone. That's your choice. All right. We're going to be back next week. Like we said, we have a mad dash from, I mean, it's already August. We have a mad dash from now until November. Going to be covering all of the props in different episodes.

[01:04:05] We're going to be hitting every single one, explaining what they're all about. So if you have questions about propositions, Camille and I do this every single year. We go through every single prop. So, you know, so we're going to break it down, cut through all the BS, cut through the lines about, oh, this is to help people. You want to save lives and everybody should just give more. Like now we're going to cut through all of that stuff, give you the real scoop on what all these propositions are. So you can have that reference. Again, we don't have a voter guide. We'll just say that right up now. We do not do a voter guide. We don't do endorsements.

[01:04:34] We don't do stuff like that because we believe that it is better. We give you the information. We believe that our listeners and followers are much smarter and they can decide for themselves. We don't need to tell you what to do because we trust that you are smart enough. You're tuning into the show. So we know you're smart enough to figure this stuff out on your own. We don't need to spoon feed you endorsements and what to vote for and what not to vote for. Also, September 8th is going to be the official date for The Gilded State, my book coming out.

[01:05:04] So that is the date coming up. So if you want to get exclusive access, early previews, all of that stuff, go to thegildedstate.com where you can sign up for your email. We're going to start sending out free preview chapters so you can get an idea of what the book is going to be like. But I'm very excited about it. So it's been a long road to get here. So yeah, September 8th, the book will be coming out. That is the Tuesday after Labor Day for everyone who is trying to figure that out. All right.

[01:05:32] Any other final thoughts before we log off for the night, Camille? Welcome back. It's good to see you again. Glad to have you back on the show. Yeah, maybe I'll get to be a guest next week too. We'll see. Well, it's debatable. So, you know, there's a long roundtable of guests. Maybe we take a poll. Look at the audience. Pull the audience on who we are. I'm going to be here regardless. Okay. So we already got our guests locked in for next week. So that's good to know. I'm just kidding. All right. Glad to have you back, Camille.

[01:06:01] We're going to be doing this Tuesday, every Tuesday, 8 p.m. And if you listen on audio, make sure you review, comment. All that stuff helps with the algorithm as well. Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, chat. Seriously. Love you guys. Yeah. Love having everyone here live on Tuesday. With that, I think I already said all the other stuff. The best thing you can do to support the show that is 100% free is send it to somebody who you think will find this interesting. And that's a lot of people in California.

[01:06:29] I bet there's a lot of people in California who you would say, you know what? Bill down at my office would probably find this really interesting. I should probably send this podcast to him. That's what you should think about. You should be like, if you're talking about California politics, you should send them to this podcast. All right. We'll see you on the next one. Later.