The Debate Breakdown: What Becerra Didn't Answer

[00:00:01] Last week, two candidates met. One came with policies and receipts and proposals of how to actually try and improve California. The other blamed Trump for about an hour. I bet you can guess which one that ended up being. We're going to break it all down on tonight's episode of the California Underground starting right now.

[00:00:36] What's going on, everybody? Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the California Underground. I am your host, Phil. We have a ton of stuff to get to. If you didn't know, I don't blame you because the media seemed to have some sort of blackout on the fact that there was a lot of people who were going to be. There was a gubernatorial debate last week between Javier Becerra and Steve Hilton, the two men who are running for governor in just a couple of weeks. Republican Steve Hilton versus Democrat Javier Becerra.

[00:01:00] And a lot of comments were nobody really even knew it was going on. So we're going to go over it. We're going to recap it. We're going to talk about it. We're going to break down some parts of it. We're going to watch it. That's basically going to be the show is we don't have different stories tonight. We're just going to focus in on this because this is such a big deal.

[00:01:18] But first, if you are tuning in, make sure you do the same thing, which is support this show by subscribing, like, sharing, reviewing, all that stuff. I don't know why I tripped up on that. Also, if you haven't already, my book, The Gilded State is out now.

[00:01:33] If you want to talk about proposing policy proposals and recommendations of how to fix California, you can check out my book, The Gilded State, which has a whole history going from the gold rush and all the way up through to today with all these examples, all these footnotes, all this well-researched stuff. Also, at the end, there is optimism. There are policy solutions. There are policy recommendations.

[00:01:57] So with that, let's discuss this debate. I'll give you my first initial thoughts of this, which is one that I was frustrated watching this debate because, as I said at the top of the show, obviously there's one candidate who showed up who actually came with policy proposals and ideas of how to actually try and fix California.

[00:02:21] And one came with the strategy that I'm sure his advisors told him about, which is blame Trump for everything. Just blame Trump and say it's all Trump's fault and scare everyone into thinking that if you vote for Steve Hilton, you will be voting for Donald Trump. And that Donald Trump will somehow get into Sacramento and change all of the laws in California and destroy California. That was basically it. That's basically a debate. I mean, we could just end the show there and say that's basically the debate and talk about other things.

[00:02:50] But I did want to like actually go through the debate because there are things that I want to talk about. And obviously, as I watched this, I got more and more frustrated. So I said, it sounds like, I just sounded like I needed to, it was something that I needed to discuss. It was something that I needed to, you know, obviously go into depth. Obviously, as I was getting more frustrated, I was like, this is a good topic for a show. And obviously, we need to discover, discuss it because a lot of people didn't even know this debate actually happened.

[00:03:20] So it's important that this debate is resurfaced and talked about again so that people have a better idea. We're not going to go through the entire debate. Obviously, that would take a long time. We're going to go over some of the highlights of this. So without further ado, let's get started in this first story. This is all about Javier Basar and Hilton talking about taxes and housing, which we're going to go through and I'm going to add some commentary as we go along. So let's get started.

[00:03:49] Let's pull this up and we will get going on this. And as always, if you have any comments or questions, if you're tuning in live, make sure that you let me know in the comments. Let me know where you're checking in from all over California. I'd love to see where everyone is checking in from. And yeah, let's get started with this. I want to start with what voters say is the most important issue here in California, and that is the cost of living, which is among the highest in the nation.

[00:04:17] Secretary Becerra, your opponent says he's going to eliminate state taxes on the first $150,000 in income and get rid of the $0.63 per gallon gas tax. He says those tax cuts are the quickest and most direct way to bring relief to Californians. Is he right? Absolutely. He's wrong. What he would do is he would damage our state even further, make it harder for working families. He'd make it tough for folks like my parents who came to this country with $12 and they settled in California.

[00:04:46] They were able to build a California drink. Right off the bat. If you didn't see the news that broke this week, that story that Javier Becerra likes to tell about the fact that his parents were immigrants and they came here with $12, we can't verify that they actually came here with $12. That might be an exaggerated story, but there was a story that broke that it turns out that one of his parents,

[00:05:12] his father was actually born in Sacramento in 1928 and was the eldest of eight children. Now, his mother was from Guadalajara, so she is an immigrant, but his idea, his kind of talking point that they were both immigrants and they came to this country with $12 in their pocket is not entirely true, but he loves to play that up. So wrong right off the bat. But they had to work hard. They needed to make sure that the government was there with them.

[00:05:38] If you start cutting taxes, and Steve Hilton's plan actually goes beyond just the $150,000 he claims he'll try to cut, he wants to give the richest Californians, millionaires and billionaires, a 40% tax cut, which means, of course, he'll take it out of our schools, he'll take it out of health care, he'll take it out of housing, and make the conditions even worse. We have to have sound policy, whether it's tax policy or spending policy, to make sure that we can bring our California dream back to life.

[00:06:07] Right now, we have a situation where if you start making tax breaks for the wealthiest, you damage our working families like my parents. Mr. Hilton? I love the way that Javier says the wealthiest of people who are earning less than $150,000, he is struggling. But first of all, I just want to say thank you to CNN for bringing Javier out of hiding. He's barely been seen in public since the primary four months ago. It's very important we have this debate.

[00:06:34] And the simple point is that the quickest way to get more money in people's pockets is for the government to take less out. That's what I'm going to be doing. And it's not coming from the budgets that he describes. You know what it's coming from? Cancelling high-speed rail, which he's promised to continue with. Thank you, Mr. Hilton. Mr. Becerra, your name has been invoked, if you want to respond. I laughed at this. Now, there's a lot of interruptions by Jake Tapper.

[00:07:00] It's not surprising CNN interrupted Steve Hilton more than they interrupted Javier Becerra. I mean, that comes with the territory when it comes to CNN. In a two-person debate, yes, the other person is going to invoke your name a lot. This isn't a full panel debate. Usually the rule is that if it's a full panel debate, someone who gets their name invoked gets some time to respond to it. It doesn't mean that in a two-person debate, as is 1v1,

[00:07:30] that all of a sudden, just because Steve Hilton says the name Javier Becerra, that they have to cut him off and let Javier Becerra answer. But I do want to talk about this idea that he launches into the idea that it's tax cuts for the wealthiest. It's this idea he's going to cut taxes for the wealthiest. So the top rate for Californians on the top earners is 13.3%. And he's proposing, Steve Hilton is proposing that he wants to bring it down to 8%.

[00:08:01] That's where he's getting this 40% cut. It's not a 40% cut off your bill. It's a 40% reduction in rate. And it's no income tax for anyone earning under $150,000, which to me doesn't sound like that's really the wealthiest of Californians. If you're getting rid of the income tax for people up to $150,000, a few research polls showed that actually it's anywhere between around $90,000 and like $160,000

[00:08:30] is the number that it is for middle class Californians. What you have to be to be middle class in California is around earning upwards up of $190,000. And here he's saying that, you know, because my parents came here with $12 in their pocket, this would be hurting them most of all, because we wouldn't be able to provide the wonderful government services that California provides. As we all know, the government provides so many wonderful services, especially in California. There's absolutely no fraud.

[00:08:59] There's no issues with efficiency in providing those services. Just give us more money, and we promise that we'll actually provide those things to you. Rather than saying, hey, maybe we should just let people hold on to more of their money rather than having people cough up more of their money, and pinky promise where that the government will actually end up giving you your money or helping you in some way.

[00:09:26] Again, you're going to hear a lot of stories, a lot of new math, a lot of alternative facts from Steve Hilton. The math doesn't add up to what he's talking about. He's going to have to take it out of somewhere. It will come out of our schools. Close to 40% of our budget in California is for our schools. And so Steve Hilton is talking about making taxes, not just $150,000, but he's got a plan to give the wealthiest Californians a 40% tax cut. So just to be clear, you want the people working so hard and barely able to survive.

[00:09:56] I've been in every one of our 58 counties. The struggle that people face with the highest cost of living in the country and the highest taxes, you want to ask them to continue to pay taxes at the same rate? See, again, the misrepresentation. What I said is that you shouldn't give taxes at the same rate. What I said, Steve, is that you shouldn't give the tax breaks to the folks who are making the most money in California. That's your plan. If you look at your plan, you're going to make across-the-board tax cuts.

[00:10:24] You're going to end up giving the wealthiest Californians, billionaires, a 40% tax break, the biggest in California history. You only talk about the portion of about $150,000, but there's another aspect to it. You don't like to talk about that. No, I do. I'll tell you very- And that's why it's important to make sure the- I'm very happy to talk about that. Javier is right about that. That's what I thought. So you are going to tax- As well as helping working people- The wealthiest. As well as helping working people, we need to bring jobs back to California.

[00:10:50] Right now, because of your policies, we have the highest poverty rate and the highest unemployment rate in America. That's because high taxes have driven business out. So we need to incentivize jobs to be created in California instead of sending them to Texas. What I didn't hear was a single thing from Javier about how he would actually help people with the cost of living. And in fact, if we continue with his policies, that's another $11,074 a year extra that you would pay with Javier.

[00:11:19] What I wouldn't do, Steve, is try to convince the people of California that proposing Trump tax policies, promising Trump tax cuts, believe- That's going to be the sound you hear every time that we are watching this and he brings up Donald Trump. Like I said at the beginning, he brings up Donald Trump basically every time. It's his fail-safe. It's his pull in case of emergency. I don't have an argument here. And I'm going to comment both on Steve.

[00:11:47] I think there's things that Steve could have done better. I think he hammered on some points a little bit too much. And sometimes in debates, you kind of want to move on. You don't want to sound like a broken record. Yeah, I understand in the moment that you want to latch on to something. We'll get to that. But he's going to bring up Donald Trump a lot. I think it's over three dozen times. I think Steve Hilton campaign put out a video accounting. It's like over like 48 times or something like that. It's a lot of times he brings up Donald Trump in this debate because that's the fail-safe.

[00:12:15] If that's what it is, is with California and with Democrats, when they don't have anything to run on, what they're going to do is run on what they know works, which is scare people with the whole Donald Trump thing. And in reality, it kind of is a disservice. I think Steve Hilton gets into that. I don't know if we're going to see it. But he talks about how it's a disservice to Californians that you continually talk about Donald Trump and you don't propose any sort of policy solutions.

[00:12:43] It's just always Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump. And in reality, you don't come here with any solutions. You're just here to say I'm Donald Trump or that I'm connected to Donald Trump or that I'm pushing Donald Trump policies. And this whole tax idea is unfathomable to a corporatist, statist Democrat like Javier Becerra because of the fact that, gosh forbid, you can't take tax revenue away from the illustrious state of California. What would we ever do?

[00:13:10] I mean, how would we ever lose $2.5 billion in the Los Angeles city for homelessness? How would we ever lose that through fraud, $2.4 billion lost that they couldn't account for in Los Angeles? What would we ever do? What about the $24 billion that the state spent on homelessness? What would we ever do? How many hundreds of billions of dollars would we waste on the high-speed rail? What would we ever do? The poor California state government.

[00:13:38] Would you please think of your state government not being able to spend billions of your tax dollars if we don't give tax cuts? Oh, my gosh, how terrible that would be. If people under $150,000 don't pay taxes anymore and people at the top don't pay 13.3% in the top marginal tax rate.

[00:13:59] Let's talk about all these people who are here who are funding and then also running towards the exit because they're the ones who are funding most of, I think it's over 45% of what our general fund takes in, comes from those top 1% earners. Gosh, we can't think about taking that tax revenue away. What would the poor state government do? We have to think about the poor state government. Leaving you're going to get better results than Trump has gotten so far to date that that is what, isn't it the definition of insanity?

[00:14:28] You do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Yes. You're using Trump's like losing Democrat promises. You expect different results. You can end up with Trump's results if you follow Steve Hilton's plans. One of the key drivers of the high cost of living here is housing. And at the root of the problem is that there are simply not enough available homes. To fill that gap, Governor Newsom pledged to build 3.5 million new homes during his administration, but the state has not come even close to meeting those goals.

[00:14:56] Mr. Hilton, how many new homes would be built during your administration? And do you pledge to close that housing gap during your four years? This is actually much more straightforward than I think people realize. There's a couple of simple things that we can do to restore that California dream of home ownership. Number one, the quickest way to reduce the cost of housing is for the government to stop making it more expensive.

[00:15:22] A recent survey found that the average new home in California is subject to $200,000 in government fees and regulations. I'm announcing tonight that I will cap that at $50,000. That is $150,000 off the price of a new home. Secondly, we need to stop forcing apartment buildings into suburban areas and having all those battles between NIMBYs and YIMBYs

[00:15:49] when we've got so much space that we could be building in California. And then the final part is to build, as we used to do in this state, the magnificent California dream, 10 new cities. That's my plan with counties bidding to host the construction of the new communities that will help young people follow their dreams here in California instead of having to move to another state. Before we go to Secretary Becerra, I just want to clarify because you didn't exactly answer the question.

[00:16:16] How many new homes would be built during your administration and do you pledge to close the housing? I think one of the problems, Jake, is that we've had these kind of top-down targets rather than – and they never get met. And they make all these promises. And exactly as Javier said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I've got a completely new approach. Instead of Sacramento forcing this onto communities, I want communities to build the housing that meets their needs.

[00:16:46] Secretary Becerra. I agree. In fact, housing is a big part of my book. It's one of the bigger chapters. I can never get this right, the Gilded State. Housing is a huge chapter because it's way more complicated than most people think. It's about CEQA. It's about the building code. It's about a lot of these issues with regulations and how much you have to add on to the cost of housing. How much it costs to build housing here in California is astronomical compared to, like, other states. So, I agree with that.

[00:17:14] And I think that Steve Hilton – I think this is one of those points where he did a good job. And I think he could have pivoted and his response was good. But in terms of what voters are hearing, I think it should have been something along the lines of, I'm not going to promise new housing because government should not be in the business of building housing. Government should be in the business of getting the hell out of the way so houses can be built.

[00:17:42] And that's what my plan proposes is that I want to cut drastically the red tape and the cost it is to build a house in California. And I also want to make it more affordable to build a house so people can afford those houses and actually have counties, like, bidding for all this new construction. And which is a great thing because these counties want people to come here. And there's some – certain counties that could certainly use a little bit of a population boom. There's plenty of room in California for people to build houses and sort of suburban areas.

[00:18:11] And I think that's a great idea, create competition within the state for people to build housing. And I think that's the pivot he missed. He kind of got there where he said it's this top-down idea of, like, you know, Governor Newsom said he was going to build, like, a million houses. He didn't even get really close. This idea of the government has to pledge building houses is asinine because the government – I've always said this. If you listen to the show, I've said it a thousand times, which is the government should not be promising how many houses it's going to build.

[00:18:41] That shouldn't be something – why is the solution – and this is the first time I've heard a candidate in California really say this, that it should be the government getting the heck out of the way so that housing can be built, not we promise we're going to build houses and give us more money so we can build houses. It's very simple. So developers who have to spend their own private money are not going to invest in building housing if it's very expensive to build housing here and also if they can get tied up in SQL litigation for a long time.

[00:19:11] So they're not going to build here when they can go to other states where they can build and get better profit margins. So why would they build in California when their profit margins are going to be super thin? They can go over to Arizona. They can go to Nevada. They can go to other states, Idaho, all these other states that are not killing them with the cost of building the house and the regulatory compliance and all of this stuff. Why would they do that? So that's really how you get housing under control here in California.

[00:19:36] You have to build a lot of housing, and the way you do that is you incentivize private developers to come in and build housing. It's pretty simple. I know it's, again, it's this really radical idea that a lot of, you know, these statist Democrats here in California, they can't figure out, they can't wrap their head. What do you mean the government's not involved in actually solving housing? The government can solve everything. Rosero, do you pledge to close the housing gap? What's your response? What's your goal? We will close the housing gap.

[00:20:04] I've said already that we have to at least double the rate of building of homes. How much can we do? It just depends. How much red tape can we cut? How fast can we try to expand down payment assistance programs? How fast can we make sure Wall Street isn't outbidding the teacher or the firefighter for a home in California? We have to make sure we don't let Wall Street investors buy homes over those people who are working hard in California. And the final thing I'll do is what I did when I was AG.

[00:20:32] I will enforce the law that requires local governments to build. Mr. Hilton? He hasn't explained how he would actually reduce the cost of housing. We have the highest – no, you didn't. You said that – I would cut red tape. Red tape needs to move back. What's the track record that you've shown in standing up to the legislature in Sacramento when you were there as attorney general? You did nothing to push back against the cost and the craziness of that legislature. You can make up the facts. To reduce the regulation.

[00:21:01] I could get into that if you'd like, but you can make up the facts. Tell us one thing you did when you were a state attorney general to push back against the growth of red tape on housing and everything else. Just one thing. Sure. I sued the city of Huntington Beach, Steve. That's more red tape, not less. No, no. It's enforcing the law because Huntington Beach was not following state law, which required it to encourage building in its community. And so they were not following the law as attorney general.

[00:21:30] I enforced the law. And guess what? We won because Huntington Beach is denying permits. That's also incorrect. Correct. What he's talking about is his 2019 suit, which happened and then settled in 2020. Settling is not the same as winning. Most of the time when you talk to a lawyer, believe me, I work in a law firm. When you talk to someone, you don't say, oh, we won this case. Oh, okay. So you took it to trial and you won. Either a judge gave you a judgment or a jury gave you a verdict.

[00:22:01] No, you don't say we won when you come to a settlement. A settlement is basically, well, we settled. Okay, we're happy with that. So he's saying he won, which is not true. They settled with Huntington Beach. In reality, what he's referring to, the suit that has since won, is actually Rob Bonta's 2023 suit. So he did not actually win that suit, as he likes to say. So when he talks about alternative facts, let's just keep him honest about those alternative facts. Permits.

[00:22:31] And we have to build. And no locality should have the right to try to stop all of our people in California from having the housing they need, even Huntington Beach. We've got communities up and down the state that want to build, but they're being stopped from building by the legislation, the regulations, and the red tape that his party has put in place. And I said I would cut the red tape. Why should that? It's like your question.

[00:22:55] The definition of insanity is believing that the people who put the red tape in place are somehow going to cut it. Gentlemen, I want to turn to artificial intelligence. California. Okay. So we're going to talk about artificial intelligence and sort of their track record on that really quickly because there's other stuff I do want to get to. I want to talk about homelessness and immigration, but they do talk about this. I do want to get to some of the comments. I really want to, you know, first off, thank you to everyone who's tuning in.

[00:23:24] Very lively chat tonight. So, again, if you are listening later on audio and you want to tune in live at 8 p.m. on Tuesdays, that's where the action is. We've got a whole bunch of people chatting. So we were over on YouTube. So I'm just checking out. Trump is Becerra's safe word. Yeah, it seems like that. Did he learn from Bass not showing up in the leadership we deserve? Yep. Somebody said, let's see. I miss the governor.

[00:23:54] California was good in Arnold's leadership. Hilton is the way to come back from all the chaos the Democrats created. Okay. Leslie said, I agree with Phil on the House building promises. Yeah. I don't think that the government should be promising any more houses. So let's get into this part about artificial intelligence. There's some other things we want to get into. Again, it's an hour-long debate. So we're going to get into some things about it. Let's see. Make sure I pull this up correctly.

[00:24:21] Let's get into this right now. I said that we should have an immediate pause on AI in the classroom. Because right now we're seeing real concerns about something called cognitive stunting, where children's ability to learn is being impeded by AI. In terms of the regulations, I want to make sure that the priority for these companies is safety,

[00:24:47] making their products safer, whether that's done by them or we need regulation. We'll see how quickly they act on the promises they've made. So that was going to be my question. Just to clarify, the president says that these companies can self-police. Sounds like you don't agree. Kindred is a global home. Okay. It's an ad right now. Somebody over on Instagram is checking out their comments that they debate tonight. No. This was last week.

[00:25:15] That's the scary thing is a lot of people who follow politics, follow the show, obviously follow politics, didn't even know that this was actually happening. We had a number of commitments yesterday. This is very urgent. And I will hold them to that. And as they said in that announcement that they made yesterday, that it may require regulation and legislation. I think that should be led in California because this industry is here.

[00:25:44] You've got a lot of people putting out their opinions on this who really don't know what they're talking about. Here in this state, we lead this industry. And I think we need to lead the regulation of this industry as well. If you listen closely, you can hear Donald Trump in that response by Steve Hilton. He's not interested in regulating AI. He's not interested in telling these companies you have to protect not just our kids and not just in school. You have to protect our workers who are looking at the prospect of losing their jobs to AI.

[00:26:13] You're looking at public safety that may be in danger by having AI penetrate our privacy. You know, it's really interesting. The president got a pinky promise in this forum that he had with the AI leaders. That's all he got. No commitment. He could go ahead and start an illegal war in Iran. He could go ahead and tear down the East Wing of the White House. But he can only get a pinky promise from the largest leaders of AI. That's not what we need. And Steve, it's not a gimmick to ask for guardrails. It's the real thing. You used the word gimmick. It's not a gimmick.

[00:26:43] We need real enforcement. I just want to ask you a very simple question. How can we possibly trust you on this when you are funded by big tech and AI? How much money have you taken from open AI and Anthropic? The reason is how much money have you taken from open AI and Anthropic? So we have an answer to that. Let me pull this up. So again, there are employees who worked for AI.

[00:27:13] 12 Anthropic employees gave about $470,000 to Becerra late in the primary. So State Affairs Council is $1.3 million. This is from San Francisco Standard. Also, there are independent committees. That's also important that they can spend unlimited amounts to independent committees. So not necessarily he tries to say, well, I can't control how much people are giving me.

[00:27:40] Sure, to your personal, I mean, there are a lot of people who are connected to AI who gave you a lot of money, $470,000 or $1.3 million. And also, Meadows reported to be among the largest donors to committees backing Becerra. Mission Local reports that $245,000 on May 29th. Uber spent $1 million on May 22nd. The LA Times reports $1.2 to groups backing him.

[00:28:04] So LA Times analysis through September 3rd is about $48.8 million for his campaign and outside committees. So that's how much that is going to him. So this is the wider picture of how much he's made overall. But when you look at it, it's $245,000 from Meta and then about $1.2 million to groups backing him. So he's received a lot of money, and a good amount of that money also comes from AI. And Anthropic, you want to answer?

[00:28:33] The answer is the reason you can trust me is because I have sued Meta. I have sued Amazon. I have sued Google. I have sued these very companies. I have enforced a lot against these companies. And I will continue to do so as governor. The difference between... I have a record. So on this, here's what he said when he sued. He said as AG, he joined the multi-state Facebook suit, which is in 2020.

[00:28:58] He moved to join the DOJ's Google suit and petitioned the court to compel Amazon to comply with subpoenas in a COVID worker safety probe. So that's basically, he didn't sue them. He just joined into other fights. So again, just one of them. And that's from the Office of the Attorney General's news press sites by themselves. This is not like some right-leaning thing. This is actually from their own site themselves. So when he says, I've sued and I won, again, he makes it sound like he sued and won all these cases.

[00:29:26] In reality, he just kind of joined in. He petitioned, subpoenas, all that stuff. He didn't really actually initiate any of the lawsuits. The record of having done that. You just say the talk, but you've never done it. What I've never done is what you've done in your 36 years as a career politician, where you've never created a job. You've never actually had to make any money of your own. All you've ever done is spent other people's money in every government.

[00:29:53] According to your Democrat colleagues, the ones who worked with you, like Susan Rice, who worked with you side by side when you were in the Biden cabinet, she described you as an idiot. She called you bitch ass. Why did Susan Rice, a respected political leader, call you an idiot? First, let me correct the record.

[00:30:14] I have helped create millions of jobs during my service as a member of Congress in preserving the protections for the state of California when I was attorney general, when Trump was attacking us. And as secretary of government, she said I expanded. That's not creating jobs. Governments don't create jobs. They take money from other people who are job creators and create jobs. And as attorney general, I'm not sure how the attorney general is creating millions of jobs, right? That's his whole thing.

[00:30:44] In Congress, he created millions of jobs, government jobs, mind you. He's not a job creator. Again, government employees love to pat themselves on the back and explain how they are job creators. It's kind of like right now, if you look at California, the only way California has a marginally respectable, not disastrous job number. And job creation is because Sacramento and the state is creating so many jobs to keep up.

[00:31:13] So most of the jobs that are being created are actually government jobs. There are actually not a lot of private sector jobs because the government is just creating more and more jobs. And on ties to all those jobs, remember, if you work for the state or you work for these governments, you get a pension, so all that. And we're also a trillion-dollar unfunded pension liability over probably $1 trillion unfunded pension liability here in the state of California. And nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody has any solutions for that.

[00:31:40] Expanded health care to more Americans, which required more doctors, more hospitals. So unlike what you've just said, Steve, the facts show that I've helped create jobs. But to your point, since when do I have to respond to politicians? I'm running for governor of California. I'm looking for the vote of California voters, not some politician in Washington, D.C. Staying on the topic of AI, I want to turn to something that has become a real flashpoint in this election cycle, and that is data centers and concerns about...

[00:32:07] All right, I'm going to skip over data centers because I do want to get into immigration. This is where it gets a little more saucy, I guess you could say. Again, thank you to everyone who's tuning in. If you haven't already, make sure you like, share, subscribe, review, all that stuff. Hit the like button right now. Helps the algorithm push us out to more people. If you want to tune into a site or a show that talks about California politics and gives you the real straight talk at both sides, you know,

[00:32:36] we're not a show that just coddles one side. We're not a Republican cheering squad or something like that. We do go after both sides. I do have critiques of Steve Hilton, but we are absolutely mostly anti-statist. I'm anti-statist. I'm anti-big government. So if you want that sort of coverage, make sure you like, share this with other people. If you're just kind of fed up, you're a frustrated California, and you say, what the heck is going on in California? Come join us on Tuesday nights and listen. Join in the chat because there's a lot of people hanging out in the chat.

[00:33:06] I love that. So, you know, make sure you share this and make sure you hit that like button. First, that policy, would you direct California law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities? Well, as you said, Jake, there is a scope within the law, SB 54, our sanctuary state law, as it's known, for there to be cooperation on a long list of categories, specific crimes and specific circumstances. And so I would follow the law.

[00:33:32] And in fact, my goal here would be to lower the temperature on this whole question. I'm an immigrant. My parents were immigrants from Hungary to England. And so I want to make sure that we protect our legal immigrant communities and we enforce the law. Everybody agrees that we need secure borders. And then we've got to make sure that people who are in this country illegally, who've committed dangerous crimes, should be removed. But that's not happening in California.

[00:34:00] Every week, pretty much, we hear horrific stories of crimes that have been committed because of this partisan posturing by the politicians in California that just refuse to follow the law as it's written, even California sanctuary law, which allows for those kinds of criminals to be removed from the country. So, Mr. Hilton, just to clarify, would you direct California law enforcement to assist the Trump administration's mass deportations beyond dangerous criminals? Yes or no?

[00:34:29] It's about enforcing the law. I mean, the federal law is immigration law is obviously a federal matter. And my whole aim here would be to lower the temperature. We've got to get this whole debate back to where most people want it to be, which is to prioritize the removal of dangerous criminals. That's not happening in California today. And that's because they're playing politics with the issue instead of protecting public safety. And that will be my priority.

[00:34:57] Steve, you're running for governor of California and you'll enforce Trump's laws at the federal level, but you won't enforce state laws at our level. California welcomed you into California and you welcomed ICE mercenaries into our state in return. How does that, how do you square that? You know, you're an immigrant. I have fought all my life to make life better for immigrants, to represent them well, to defend them, to let them grow and build like my parents. But here's the problem I have with your policies.

[00:35:27] You seem to welcome immigrants who look like you, but deport immigrants who look like me. We need to have a governor who will protect everyone who works hard. I don't need to stand here and listen to you say that you'll enforce Trump's laws, but you won't enforce California state laws. You're not enforcing. And your party isn't enforcing California law as it is now. And what a disgraceful remark that was. Yeah, I agree.

[00:35:57] That's disgraceful for him to kind of go after the whole race card of, well, they want to deport people who look like me and they want to, you don't want to deport people who look like you. This is one point where Hilton, you know, he knew that the question was coming.

[00:36:15] He kind of fumbled it a little bit in terms of explaining what SB 54 was, which is working with federal authorities is that they won't actively work with them. So it's, it is kind of, it's, it's a tough question. It's a tough question because you don't want to piss off a lot of voters, but there are a lot of voters out there who think that, yes, we should enforce the laws so that dangerous criminals who are here illegally should be the first to go.

[00:36:44] So, and I think that's a majority popular opinion, maybe not in California. It's not a overwhelmingly majority popular opinion, which is insane. But he's right. There's a couple of things he nailed right, which is it's a federal issue. Immigration is a federal issue. This is something that I've never really understood about California is that they kind of thumb their nose at federal authority that this is exclusively the jurisdiction of federal authorities when it comes to immigration.

[00:37:10] You can't all of a sudden as a state pick and choose what federal authority you are going to listen to and what federal authority you're not going to listen to. This is what federalism is all based on is this idea that the central government, and you can ask Javier Becerra, he's a big status. He loves big central government, centralized government. It's a big thing.

[00:37:30] If you're going to have a strong central federal government that has this exclusive jurisdiction to handle immigration, then you have to abide by the authority of that, also granted by the Constitution since it was drafted back in 1780. So it's one of these things that you can't have it both ways, and California tries to play it off. It's like, yeah, we can actually pretend like we don't pay attention to immigration laws, kind of thumb our nose at it.

[00:37:56] Now imagine this hypothetical of every state could thumb their nose at immigration and the federal government's authority for immigration. It would be mass chaos. It would be what you have right now, which is there are millions of people during the Biden administration who were pouring across the border into California. Some places like Texas were trying to do it on their own with the National Guard setting it up so that they were protecting their own border, and that became a Supreme Court fight with the Biden administration where they said, oh, no, no, you can't do that.

[00:38:25] That's a federal authority thing. So this is the chaos that happens if states start to get into what they can and cannot enforce with federal immigration. So it should have been more simple of like, yes, I'm going to work with federal authority because that's what their role is. It's not popular. I think sometimes you just got to own the issue and just say, yeah, I'm going to do it. I'm going to enforce the law. And Steve, for his part, did actually say that.

[00:38:50] But the comment about, well, you want to deport people who look like me but don't want to deport people who look like you is such a despicable, low blow kind of statement. And again, this is what Javier Becerra came with. He came with two things. He came with the Trump card and the race card. And that's basically what he played all night long because he knows at the end of the day he thinks he's going to cakewalk.

[00:39:13] He's going to do the Joe Biden basement strategy of getting into the governor's mansion, which is I can just hide from ever being have to be accountable to anybody about answering any question because I'll just waft or I'll just surf right into the governor's mansion. It was. I don't think people want to hear that kind of remark in a debate like this. Then why would you deport every farm worker in California? Why only farm workers? That's what you said.

[00:39:39] What people want to hear is solutions to their problems, not these unpleasant political attacks. All right. There's no actual fact as far as in my research that showed that Steve Hill never said deport all farm workers. I don't think that was something that was ever said by Steve Hill. I don't think Steve Hill never came out. And this is based on my research. I've never heard him say that.

[00:40:08] I haven't seen anything in my research that says he said, oh, we need to deport all farm workers. That would be an idiotic and crazy statement in California to say we need to deport all farm workers. So, again, this is what Javier Becerra does. He's just doing the race card and he's doing the Trump card. That don't help anyone, immigrant or not, with the problems that they're facing, the cost of living, all of the problems that you have no solutions to whatsoever.

[00:40:36] So, all you've got is to talk about federal politics. All you ever say is Trump, Trump, Trump. And that's nothing but an insult to every Californian who is desperate for something to change in this state. And all you're offering is more of the same. Your words, Trump, Trump, Trump, because he is your supporter. You chased his endorsement. That's all you can say on every question. And you just said it too and your policy says it every day.

[00:41:05] Nothing to offer Californians except more. Where? Again, this is the problem with Javier Becerra who has had basically his entire political career has been just a cakewalk for the better part. He was a congressman for 12 terms. That's a heck of a long time to be a congressman. So, he was basically in Congress for a long, long time, cakewalk all the time.

[00:41:35] Then he was appointed. He became attorney general. And then all of a sudden, he got appointed to HHS. And now he's running for governor in a state that's overwhelmingly blue. And he thinks he doesn't have to answer anybody. It's almost like he's never had to debate. And yet, this is why Javier Becerra was polling towards the bottom of basically of all the candidates and the Democrat candidates. He was not polling within anything above double digits for a long time.

[00:42:03] It wasn't until Swalwell fell out and then Katie Porter fell out. Maybe if we have time, I want to go to the Katie Porter clip of where she actually talks about how she thinks Steve Hilton came with actual policies and Javier Becerra didn't. Which is crazy to hear Katie Porter say that. But when you're not accountable and you don't have to really actually be a politician and debate people, I guess your debate skills aren't really that good. Because he grabs onto something where Steve Hilton says Trump, Trump, Trump.

[00:42:32] And then he goes, well, you just said Trump, Trump, Trump. So, that's your words. You said Trump, Trump, Trump. No, Steve Hilton was making a point about how you think you can just skate into the governor's mansion by yelling Trump, Trump, Trump and offering more of the same. And it's kind of disingenuous and it's kind of insulting to Californians who are looking for solutions, real solutions from people to help them. And all you're saying is, well, we'll fix it. Yeah, we'll double housing. Yeah, don't worry about it. We'll thumb it to Trump.

[00:43:02] It's like he just went in there and said, I'm not going to prepare for this. I don't need facts. I don't need any of this stuff. I'm just going to go in and yell about Trump and race. And I don't know how to debate because I haven't really actually had to run for anything real in my entire life. I haven't had a competitive race my entire political career. I've had a cushy government job as a politician for 35 years. And no one's ever pushed back on this, which is sad that this is the only debate that they're actually going to get together.

[00:43:29] I think they planned on another one, but he backed out according to Hilton. But, you know, this is why sometimes when it comes to these gubernatorial races and it's so lopsided in terms of the polls and the odds of winning as someone who's not a Democrat, sometimes it's just better to just let it fly. Like, just go for it. You know, just be big and bold and brash and just go for it.

[00:43:57] Because in today's day and age with social media and viral clips and stuff like that, you know what sells? You know what gets people to pay attention to you? Big, brash, and loud. Right? That's what gets people's attention. That's what gets their eyeballs. Even, you know, like you just got to be big, brash, and loud. And you can't play nice with another party that doesn't really even respect you as an opponent. It's more of the same. Let's use your words.

[00:44:25] You said Trump's ICE immigration policies in his raids were, your words, perfect. You said that every farm worker in California should be deported. Your words. That's simply not true. Those are your words. Again, because he's got no arguments. Keep your own words. Because he's got no arguments and no solutions. Again, that's, there's no record of him saying that he wants to get rid of all farm workers.

[00:44:52] Nothing to say about how he would change anything about how California is run. Do you deny that you said that Trump's immigration raids are perfect? All that he's got are these insults. Here's your chance to deny that you said Trump's immigration raids are perfect. Secretary Becerra, monthly illegal crossings at the southern border under President Biden reached an all-time high of 250,000 in December 2023.

[00:45:18] They have now plummeted to fewer than 9,000 last month under President Trump. Do you think it's good for California that there are fewer undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border? It is good. There was almost a second there where Javier Becerra's like, oh my gosh, he's actually asking me like a real question. Jake, this wasn't part of the deal. You weren't supposed to ask me a tough question. Good to have a regulated system of immigrants to come into our country, including California.

[00:45:48] And that's something that I have always pushed for. It is bad when immigrants are being separated from their children. It's bad when immigrants are being killed indiscriminately. It's bad when U.S. citizens are dying through these immigration raids. So let's have regulation of our borders. We have a right as a sovereign nation to do so. I have always been for that. I am not for violating the Constitution. I am not for treating immigrants like animals. And I am for...

[00:46:15] You are for enforcing the border and you are for not violating the Constitution, yet you are not a fan of letting the federal government exercise its exclusive jurisdiction over immigration. Just want to make that clear. For recognizing that immigrants lift up our state, they build it every day. And I say that as the son of immigrants, that what we should do is have an immigration reform that will allow us to decide who stays and who goes.

[00:46:43] But Steve thinks it's perfect to let ICE mercenaries come on into California. And he welcomes them, even though our state laws require that ICE follow federal immigration law. Mr. Hilton? I cannot believe that you're standing there trying to make these arguments. When you were HHS secretary, you were responsible for 479,000 unaccompanied migrant children and for their welfare.

[00:47:12] I'm going to freeze right here. I want to freeze on this image because it caught me. The visual image caught me. And if you're not watching on video or on YouTube, you're missing out. But I want you to take a look at this image and tell me what you think of this image.

[00:47:38] Right now, Steve Hilton brought up the fact that while he was HHS secretary, there was about 479,000 kids. Or how many kids were lost? About 470,000 kids. As he was HHS secretary, and he says, I can't believe you're standing there as HHS secretary and talking about, and how many hundreds of thousands of kids you lost? And he's sitting there, whatever.

[00:48:09] I lost hundreds of thousands of kids who were probably lost to human traffickers, people who were trafficking for all different horrible things. Whatever. Again, that's sort of the attitude of Javier Becerra. It just is, whatever, I'm going to be governor. Like, this is stupid. I don't need to answer to you, you peasants. You know, it's kind of this, I don't know if he did it implicitly or it's just something he did, but the image looks horrible.

[00:48:40] And if I were part of the Hilton campaign, I would clip this. I'd clip this right here and say, clip that and zoom in on the fact that you have Javier Becerra who is sitting there drinking a cup of coffee as if we're not talking about missing children who were lost to human traffickers. Right? Like, that's the image that you should be running, is that Javier Becerra just doesn't care.

[00:49:08] He doesn't care about answering the questions, and he doesn't care about these serious issues. And that's the image that should be shown over and over and over again if you're the Hilton campaign, which is Javier Becerra doesn't care. He thinks he's already got this one. He's measuring the drapes in the governor's mansion. He's like, man, whatever. I'm just going to sit here and drink my coffee or tea or whatever I'm drinking.

[00:49:31] In camps that you ran, you sent them because you dismantled the vetting that should have made sure that they were with a safe, protective family or sponsor. You sent thousands of young children directly into the clutches of child sex and labor traffickers. Hundreds of thousands of children that you were responsible for are still missing today.

[00:49:59] A hundred thousand of them are under 10 years old. So I cannot believe that you haven't apologized, that you have any kind of sense of shame or responsibility for what you did to those children, and you stand here lecturing people about immigration when you treated these most vulnerable children, unaccompanied children in this way? Those retread Trump talking points.

[00:50:27] It was the New York Times, and they won a Pulitzer Prize for you. You've used those? In fact, it was your Democrat colleague, Antonio Gideon. Let's let Secretary Becerra answer the question. We could follow the rules, Steve. Let me answer the question. All right. So I'm going to go into an ad. Again, when he has nothing else to say, he just goes back to the Trump talking points. It's Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.

[00:50:58] That's all he has to say is that it's Trump, and you're just retreading these old talking points. It's the fail-safe that we've been talking about all night. That's all he has when he gets pushed on any of these hard questions. It's Trump. It's not me. This is what Trump talks about. Even though Hilton points out this is what the New York Times has published, and there are people who have come forward and said, hey, I was one of those kids trafficked, and then the horrible things that happened to me. They've come forward. There's witnesses who've come forward.

[00:51:25] There's people who've come forward and said, this is what has happened. And he's just kind of like, eh, that didn't really happen. Those are alternative facts. To dismiss that, to just dismiss those stories. I thought this was Believe All Women. I thought this was the party of Believe All Women and all those who are victims. I guess not. I guess to Javier Becerra, no. We don't have to believe them. Trump left a system for care of these immigrant kids that had been dismantled. Because he doesn't want them here. He made it very clear. Remember?

[00:51:54] He used to put kids in cages. He used to separate those children from their... I mean, you want to talk about old, like, tread-out talking points. I mean, we all know that those cages were not built in the first Trump administration. They were built by Barack Obama. So, I mean, you want to talk about old, tired talking points. From their parents. We changed all that.

[00:52:19] I am proud of the record in all my life of working on immigration and in protecting immigrant children. What I won't do is do what you've done and welcome ICE raids so they can come and separate kids from their parents. They can kill people indiscriminately. I will not be part of that. And the record speaks for itself, Steve. You tried this before. It didn't work. You're going to try it again because you have nothing else. Those aren't the facts. But you can peddle them if you'd like. Mr. Hull.

[00:52:47] The original investigation that he's now trying to deny was by the New York Times. And it won a Pulitzer Prize. These arguments were made in the primary by other Democrats, including Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles. And you tried the same trick then to deny responsibility. I cannot believe I've seen the testimony of the victims who were sexually assaulted. And you're proud of putting them into the hands.

[00:53:17] 200 children were sent to one address that turned out to be a container lot because you dismantled the betting. Let's let's talk with everyone. So once again, these misrepresentations, these made of facts, made of facts. The New York Times story didn't even go into those details. About 480 some. The number keeps changing. You said it was one thing one day. Now it's another thing. Look, you can continue to do that. The fact remains.

[00:53:47] Donald Trump has a history of trying to deny immigrants their rights, abusing them. And he did that with kids. We changed that. I'm proud of the record we have when it came to providing care to these kids. What I will tell you is this. We need to fix a broken immigration system because no child should have to spend time in a detention center when they're three or four years of age. Thank you. I think this is one of those points.

[00:54:15] Again, my personal opinion. I'm not a political strategist. But again, this is just me observing politics for a long time. This is a point where, yeah, I think Steve went pretty hard on him for this. But I think you got to go harder. You know, sometimes Steve is a little too nice to the moderators. I think you got to go harder.

[00:54:38] I think you got to hammer home the fact that he has absolutely no answer to this and that it's all Trump's fault and he won't take accountability for it. And this is the man who might be governor of the state of California. He doesn't take accountability. And he's just going to deflect and deny. And he's going to blame Trump and he's going to blame everybody else. It's never Javier Becerra's fault, even though he's HHS secretary. It's never his fault. He never had anything to do with it. Everything was fine.

[00:55:07] Everything was perfect under Javier Becerra. I would have hammered that home, you know, and said, look, you can go check it out yourself. New York Times, go search it. Here's the title of the article. You can go Google it right now. Pull it up right now. Those who are watching at home, go Google this right now. You got to hit those points. It's, you know, again, it's the viral clips. You got to create these viral clips. You got to create something that people are going to see. It's going to get shared organically.

[00:55:34] So, yeah, it's it's this was one point where I think he did a good job bringing it up, but I think he could have gone a lot harder on it. All right. We got a couple minutes left. They do want to get to homelessness, which is obviously a big issue here in California. So I do want to talk, see what they say about homelessness, and we'll get to that. And we'll close out the night because we're coming up on the hour. So I don't want to take too long. The homelessness crisis.

[00:56:01] Nearly a quarter of the nation's homeless population lives right here in California. Last year in the state, there were more than 115,000 people living on the streets. Secretary Becerra, you say you, quote, know what works and what does not when it comes to homelessness, based on your experience leading the Department of Health and Human Services. But during your tenure, the nation's homeless population increased by nearly 200,000 people.

[00:56:28] Given that, why are you the right person to solve the crisis here in California? Because as attorney general, I demanded accountability. And I will make sure that as governor, I will demand accountability of our local governments who have control of the streets in their cities and in their counties. What we will do is we will make sure the encampments are cleared. We will make sure that we are enforcing the law because we have a right to make sure that those encampments are cleared.

[00:56:53] We're going to make sure that we tackle what is one of the major issues that's involved with these folks who are staying in the streets. Mental health and substance use addiction. We have to be serious about tackling that. And the thing I'll do most, because it's so important to work with the cities and the counties to tackle the streets and remove people from the streets and find them shelter.

[00:57:15] But as a state leader, I can make sure that we're providing the investments it takes to make sure any California who may be by some medical emergency or unexpected loss of a job is now on the verge of losing their home. I want to help them because it's easier to help you stay in your home than pulling you off the streets and trying to get you upright again. All right. So he says that he wants to clear encampments, which is already Gavin Newsom's policy.

[00:57:43] So it's, again, more of the same. Not surprised. I mean, Javier Becerra has really nothing new. He's not proposing anything radical. So 5,679 were cleared on state land by November 2023. And then there was a July 2024 executive order. But if you're anyone who lives in a major city, you know that clearing encampments doesn't really do that much. Sure, it helps a little bit.

[00:58:11] But at the end of the day, I see Caltrans clear up the encampments on the 163 when you're coming out downtown. Go on the 163, you see them clearing out the encampments. And then guess what? By the end of the day, they're already back there already. And then he goes into this interesting idea about I want to be able to provide the services that prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.

[00:58:35] What he's talking about is this theory that has been floated around, which is that if the government intervenes before someone becomes homelessness, it's cheaper to give someone like five grand. I'm just using a number here. It's cheaper to give someone five grand to stay in their house, maybe some rental assistance or something like that, than it is to pay for them once they're out on the street. Sure, mathematically, that is correct.

[00:59:03] But again, it doesn't solve the issue. It's almost like you're over the target there, you know, Becerra. But you're not really addressing the actual root cause of homelessness. Yes, there is a lot of issues with drugs. I think drugs, in my personal opinion, and again, in my research, you know, just plug in the book again. It's all in here. Homelessness is one of the bigger, more research chapters in here because it is a big issue, along with housing and energy and all that.

[00:59:32] There is an issue with affordability. It's the issue that California is so darn expensive because of all the rules and regulations and taxes and everything that costs so much because of those rules and regulations and all of the government interference, everything costs so much, including gas and energy and all of this, that there's a lot of people out there who are basically one paycheck away from becoming homelessness, which is the sad reality of California.

[00:59:59] Javier Becerra's solution is, well, the government will just step in and give you more money. Again, that's another government program. It doesn't get to the root issue, which is California is really unaffordable to live in. Maybe you have to look at the root causes of why California is really expensive to live in. And I think a lot of people who end up on the street, maybe they're dealing with the fact that they're homeless, maybe they're dealing with depression and all that, and drugs are the only thing that can really help them get through the day. There's a lot of issues with homelessness.

[01:00:28] But this idea that the government should be stepping in and giving out more welfare, probably already, as we've seen with California when it comes to giving out money, not a great track record. Way more to let them get on the streets. So Javier gave, when we were asked to give Gavin Newsom a grade on homelessness, he gave him an A.

[01:00:53] And he's standing there after 16 years where this absolute scandal shames our state, saying that suddenly he's going to go in a new direction. This is what's so insulting, actually, about this attitude we get from the Democrats, that just you're going to keep voting for the same thing, and you're going to just suck it up because that's what happens in California.

[01:01:19] We need a plan to change policy for homelessness, not more of the same failed policy. And I guess, Steve, you give Donald Trump an A for having denied our local governments the funding they need to tackle the homelessness crisis. Donald Trump has this habit of withholding dollars from the state of California. California's paying more in taxes to the federal treasury than any other state. Yet Donald Trump keeps holding our money back. He's holding money back for homelessness.

[01:01:47] He's holding $30 billion hostage for the victims and survivors of the Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires because he wants his way on voting. He wants to restrict voting so he won't give that money up until we change our lives. Fat chance. We're going to fight to get our $30 billion for our victims and our survivors, and we're going to keep our people voting. I was there in Altadena this week, and the money that's being withheld is actually the money that Gavin Newsom promised,

[01:02:16] and they said that when you went there, you didn't even bother to listen to the stories of local people who feel so terribly let down by the California government. And as usual, all he wants to talk about is federal politics. You've got to correct the record. Steve Hilton is saying that the $30 billion is being held up by the state. What about the $2.5 billion that Gavin Newsom promised?

[01:02:46] I said $30 billion. Where's that money? You just said that in the state. Jake, let's clarify this. Okay. Because there are families here in L.A. who are still waiting for their assistance. From Gavin Newsom? And $30 billion, talk to any member of Congress, Republican or Democrat, $30 billion is waiting to go to Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Donald Trump doesn't want to let it go because Donald Trump isn't getting his way on elections. On the same ballot that you two will appear this November, Californians are also going to vote on a ballot initiative,

[01:03:16] which would impose a one-time wealth tax. This is the perfect pair for your iPhone. All right. Let's see. I want to look at some of the chats. People love the people who are in the chat right now. Crazy chat tonight. Crazy busy. Problem with doing the show all by yourself. TDS drinking game. That's what somebody brought up. Jay Flo brought that up. I thought, well, I don't know if we'd make it through the hour.

[01:03:43] If we watch this whole, if we actually watch this whole debate and actually like took a drink every time, yeah. A lot of us would be very, very drunk right now. So let's see. I'm looking at what other comments. It's tough to keep up with all of your comments. I'm trying to keep an eye on all of your comments while also fact-checking Javier Becerra in real time.

[01:04:09] Somebody said, I thought charity was the duty to be provided by the churches, not government. I agree. I agree. I think charities in California do a way better job with homelessness than the government does. That's just me, though. On the assets of California billionaires. Secretary Becerra, you have raised concerns about this wealth tax, but more than 70 percent of California Democrats say that they are going to support it.

[01:04:37] How are you going to vote on this measure, yes or no? No. I'm going to vote no. I said that very clearly from the very beginning, not because I don't agree with so many Californians who think that billionaires haven't paid their fair share because they haven't. It's that this is not the way to do tax policy. I'm the only one on this stage who's done tax policy. I'm the only one who's enacted tax cuts. I did it for working families.

[01:05:01] I did it for making construction of affordable housing more easier to do. I've done it for families with children. I've given tax cuts. Government should not be involved in building housing. That is not something to brag about because it's just that's not how it should be done. I will say this again and again and again.

[01:05:27] Every person who goes to Congress who's been there for longer than a couple terms loves to bring up, oh, I helped steer this amount of government money towards affordable housing and get people housing and create these many jobs. It shouldn't be that way. It should not be the government building housing. Government should not be creating jobs. Government needs to get out of the way. There's some things that government just needs to get out of the way. Creating jobs is one of government should not be trying to interfere in creating jobs.

[01:05:54] They should not be involved in trying to create any sort of housing. So it just creates more expensive problems that we have to solve down the line. I've also had to deal with raising revenue. And what you don't do is you don't have a policy where it's a one-time tax and it isn't predictable and sustainable. We need to have policy that everyone sees is fair. It will sustain us going forward because we need to pay for our schools.

[01:06:24] We need to pay for health care. We need to pay for housing. And we have to make it so that everyone is willing to do it. But no doubt, billionaires in California, too many of them are not paying their fair share. When you can pay a tax rate lower than a teacher, a firefighter, a nurse, you're not paying your fair share. Mr. Hilton? I agree that we can't drive more tax revenue out of our state because we need that money here. And this initiative would do that. But the priority has to be working people.

[01:06:53] Not just making sure we don't drive the jobs out, but actually we create jobs. And that we reduce taxes for people who are struggling. If you earn around $70,000 in California, just above the typical individual earning, you're paying 9.3% tax. That's higher than the top rate in most states. He's got no plans to do anything about that. Thank you, sir. We've got to help working people. So as I noted, Election Day is coming up.

[01:07:20] Again, Jake Tapper, CNN, interrupting. They won't let Steve Hilton finish his points. But just looking at a couple other points if there's anything else we want to close out on. So those are the topics I did want to cover. Thank you again, everybody who has tuned in tonight. This has been a lot of fun for everyone. So hopefully you got a lot out of it.

[01:07:48] And the moral of the story here is as I was watching this, I got more and more frustrated. And I'm sure people who are watching this with me are also getting frustrated. And I can tell based on the fact that there are a lot of people in here who are talking and voicing their opinions in the comments that this is very frustrating. Because there's a good likelihood that Javier Bissar will be our next governor. And he has literally no policies. He has no policies. He has no solutions as to what to do.

[01:08:17] He's going to be Gavin Newsom 2.0. And that could be even worse. And the thing is, the only thing that could possibly, possibly, possibly, and I say this very impossibly, be a saving grace is that he has some illusions of maybe becoming president someday. So he tries to be as moderate as possible.

[01:08:42] And that's one thing that's held Gavin Newsom back from being truly this like really far left progressive is one that he's actually not really a far left progressive. Let's talk about Gavin Newsom. He's not really that far left. I mean, he's now a rich guy from Marin County. He's a corporatist Democrat, much in the same vein as like Hillary Clinton or somebody like that. But he's a money guy. He's a big capitalist. He's a business owner, supposedly a business owner, gifted that business.

[01:09:10] But I think Javier Becerra is going to be 2.0. And when you look at this entire debate and you see how many times that he just mentioned Trump in the federal issues, you realize that he has no policies and he has no plans. And that's just what they're going to run on. You're seeing that with a lot of propositions. You're seeing that with the voter ID ballot propositions that it's all about Trump. This is Trump's play.

[01:09:38] Somehow Trump magically snapped his fingers and got this ballot proposition onto the ballot. That's not how it works. I don't think President Trump has that sort of power to, well, I can say that definitively. President Trump doesn't have that power to snap his fingers and all of a sudden make a ballot proposition appear in California. That's not how this works. You still have to get over a million signatures of 1.2 or 1.5 million signatures were submitted for voter ID.

[01:10:09] And it didn't just magically happen. They're trying to make it seem like this is all Trump's plan. But that's what they have. That's all they have. And, yeah, this is what we're up against is a likely Democratic governor coming in in January who is going to be more of the same, who has no policies, is going to do exactly the same as before. He's going to continue the same exact policies of on homelessness. He's going to spend a ton of money. He's going to continue the high-speed rail.

[01:10:38] He doesn't care about cutting taxes. He doesn't care about affordability. He has no plan for affordability. When in reality, all of these solutions are right in front of you and he doesn't want to do it. And I wonder how much more California can take and how much more we can go like another Gavin Newsom 2.0 where they're just going to keep trotting out the same policies and think, well, this time it's going to work. I promise it's going to work this time. I promise it's going to work this time if we just keep taxing everybody and giving out more and more money.

[01:11:07] All of those solutions were government-based solutions. The government needs to provide more housing. I promise that we're going to double it. I promise that I'm going to give money to people so they don't end up being homeless. These are all government solutions when in reality, a lot of these solutions don't involve the government or shouldn't involve the government. They should involve the government getting the heck out of the way. But I do want to know what your thoughts are. I'm looking at people in the comments.

[01:11:35] Somebody said kiss 2A, the Second Amendment goodbye. You know, that's one of the good things is that our Supreme Court has been pretty good on the Second Amendment. And again, if he respects the Constitution, then he should respect what the Supreme Court says. Somebody checking in from Vacaville. What's up? Democrats hate the middle class. Yeah. Yeah. They're not a big fan of the middle class.

[01:12:04] They like the ultra wealthy. And it's funny how they always go after the ultra wealthy. But and the ultra wealthy still somehow support him. Somebody says cheap houses in Kentucky. Yep. There's a lot of cheap houses in Kentucky. There's other states, you know, and that's really the only reason that Gavin Newsom actually opposes Prop 40, the billionaire tax, is because he knows that people can just get up and leave, that they can just get up and leave to other states.

[01:12:30] He's he's actually in favor of a national billionaire tax like the one that's being proposed. But he's not in favor of the one in California because he's afraid it will push everybody out. Let's see. You can still have the faith. Yeah, I mean, you still got to have the faith. Things have to change slowly but surely. Vallejo, California, 707 for Steve Hilton. Someone says I'm a Sacramento native. Let's see.

[01:12:59] I think they did allow a closing statement. Did they allow a closing statement? I don't remember. Yeah, it wasn't that big of a closing statement. Let's take a look at the closing statement real quick while we're waiting for this ad to. All right. We'll watch the closing statement because somebody brought it up. Let's let's take a look at the closing statements real quick and then we'll sign off for the night. Have you one final question?

[01:13:29] This month, the state of California turned 176 years old and whomever is elected will be the 41st governor of the Golden State. What is one lesson from California's past that the next governor should not forget? Mr. Hilton, we'll start with you. This is the most amazing state in the most amazing country on earth. And it's because we've got this rebel spirit that we do things differently. People build. We can grow anything, build anything, make anything, invent anything.

[01:13:59] That spirit is being crushed by this bloated nanny state bureaucratic government that Javier has been a part of for 36 years and would continue. It's time to try something different, not least to reduce the cost of living. And so if we have his policies for another four years, the average, the typical California household will pay $11,047 more. If I'm elected governor, the starting point will be to reduce that cost of living.

[01:14:29] $11,000 is what you'd save. And you can check out individually how much you'd save if you go to savewithsteve.vote. It's a practical plan to reduce your costs. And when we do that, we'll make California once again the best place to start and raise a family, to start and grow a business. So for some reason it cuts off at Steve Hilton. And this is actually CNN's affiliate. All right.

[01:14:59] Final question. Stefan was making a good point. Yeah, I guess it was just the final question or the closing statement. All right. I do want to thank everyone for tuning in. This was a busy night. If you are not someone who listens or tunes in live every 8 p.m. on YouTube, live 8 p.m. on Tuesday on YouTube, make sure you do. Because this is a lot of people hanging out, a lot of people, a lot of frustrated Californians. Like I said, this is a show for people who are frustrated Californians.

[01:15:26] And again, we call it balls and strikes the way it is. You know, we called out, you know, there's something Steve Hilton could have done a little bit better on. Obviously, Becerra just hid behind his coffee cup and Trump, Trump, Trump all night long. But if you're a frustrated California, make sure that you tune in. Make sure you tell other people who are frustrated Californians about this show because that's what we're here for. We are here to go over these issues and these questions and these stories and kind of really break them down from a factual basis.

[01:15:55] So thank you, everyone. If you haven't already, make sure you like, leave a comment, share, subscribe. All of that stuff helps us with the algorithm. If you're watching this later and you see it later, like a week, you know, there's a lot of people who watch this after the live. So if you make it all the way to the end and there's a hype button, make sure you hit the hype button. That helps as well. Hyping helps. So, hey, what's up, Camille? Camille's checking in. Also, make sure you check out my book.

[01:16:21] A lot of the policies and the stuff that Steve Hilton was talking about tonight and all those facts, guess what? I talk about them in my book. I talk about a lot of this stuff in my book. So I've talked about housing and energy and homelessness and history and all of that stuff here in the book. Gilded State, $14.99 for this lovely paperback. Came out really well. Very happy with how it came out. Thank you to the formatter who helped with this. See, it's even got a nice little back cover. It's got a nice little art cover, stuff like that.

[01:16:51] Also, you can get it now for $2.99 on Kindle if you're a fan of it reading on electric. So you can support the show that way. But anyway, you can support, like, share, subscribe, review. Hyping it helps as well. So thank you to everyone for tuning in. And we will see you on the next one. Later.