Speaker 1: Something's not right here. Crime is up all over the states.
Speaker 2: The city is out of control, the economy is sick,
Speaker 2: axes are high.
Speaker 3: Housing is expensive, and businesses are leaving.
Speaker 4: Leaving California means fixing, and John Phillips is just the
Speaker 4: man to lead the charge. It's the Fix California Hour
Speaker 4: with John Phillips and Randy Wayne.
Speaker 1: And we continue at one oh five in the afternoon
Speaker 1: on the John Phillips Show, The Birthday Boys Across the Glass.
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Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: a telephone number. One eight hundred two two two five
Speaker 1: two two two, It is our pleasure to welcome our
Speaker 1: next guest to the program. She is the editorial director
Speaker 1: and CEO of the Voice of San Francisco. You can
Speaker 1: read her online at the VOICESF dot org and follow
Speaker 1: her on x at the VOSF. Susan Dyer Reynolds Welcome, Hello, well,
Speaker 1: thank you, birthday.
Speaker 3: Hey thanks Susan.
Speaker 1: All right, now, you have been reporting extensively on all
Speaker 1: the chaos going on in Oakland, whether it be related
Speaker 1: to the former mayor of Shang Tao, California Waste Solutions,
Speaker 1: the down family, and one name that seems to escape
Speaker 1: a lot of the coverage, although if you read between
Speaker 1: the lines, he's there in just about all of it,
Speaker 1: and that is the Attorney General Rob Bonta, who was
Speaker 1: the former assemblyman from Oakland who used California Waste Solutions
Speaker 1: as his chief benefactors throughout his political career, at least
Speaker 1: when he was a politician in Oakland. But you look
Speaker 1: at the big papers in the state, You look at
Speaker 1: the LA Times, you look at the Sacramento b you
Speaker 1: look at the San Francisco Chronicle, and none of them
Speaker 1: have been able to connect the dots and say, now,
Speaker 1: wait a minute. This is a scandal that doesn't just
Speaker 1: involve a lot of local figures in Oakland. This goes
Speaker 1: all the way to Sacramento, to the Attorney General's office.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 5: Well, it did in the Chronicle, ironically, and I wrote
Speaker 5: about it at the time, So two and a half
Speaker 5: up to two years ago July for twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: I wrote a piece called the Bonta Money Trail, and
Speaker 5: in that I connected all the dots, and I even
Speaker 5: connected the dots to the music cafe, which was Dwangs
Speaker 5: Andy Dwong's karaoke bar where it was busted for drugs, prostitution,
Speaker 5: human trafficking, underage girls being trafficked. And I connected the
Speaker 5: dots because the person who was Duong's straw donor donated
Speaker 5: a lot of money to not just Bonta, but his wife, Mia,
Speaker 5: who took his place in the Assembly when he went
Speaker 5: to become Attorney General. About a year later, the Chronicle
Speaker 5: came out with a story that plagiarized my story almost
Speaker 5: word to word, and it was insane. I've never been
Speaker 5: plagiarized so completely, but I've been plagiarized before, but I've
Speaker 5: never been plagiarized so completely by a mainstream newspaper. Other
Speaker 5: people noticed it. That's how I found out. They said, oh, look,
Speaker 5: they took your story, so that was the only thing
Speaker 5: they ever did it, by the way, took them four
Speaker 5: reporters to plagiarize me. But the four reporters that were
Speaker 5: listed on the article, they just took what I had
Speaker 5: and maybe added a couple of details here and there,
Speaker 5: a couple of quotes, and then that's the last thing
Speaker 5: they've said about it. And you're right, nobody else has
Speaker 5: written about it other than me. I keep writing about
Speaker 5: Bonta because I feel he's the biggest crook in the
Speaker 5: bunch of them. To be honest, I mean, shing Tau
Speaker 5: isn't the brightest buld in the box, and so it
Speaker 5: was no surprise to me when that happened. You can
Speaker 5: just get a feel for who she is when you
Speaker 5: see or speak. I think she was in it for
Speaker 5: the money all along, had no business being but Rob
Speaker 5: Bonta has no business being attorney general. And the reason
Speaker 5: he didn't run for governor is I definitely believe he
Speaker 5: knows there's a problem, and so I think he's running
Speaker 5: for his old seat simply because he thinks that he doesn't.
Speaker 5: That will look even weirder.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to when this whole thing started
Speaker 1: in terms of being on the radar of the federal government.
Speaker 1: The whistleblower letter that came out from Mario Warrez included
Speaker 1: a paragraph about Rob Bonta saying that California Waste Solutions
Speaker 1: Andy Gong specifically had compromising videos and photos of Rob Bonta,
Speaker 1: the implication being that the comproman could be used to
Speaker 1: blackmail him into manipulating his behavior, I guess, either as
Speaker 1: assemblyman or Attorney General, or whatever position he happens to
Speaker 1: be in at any given time. The report that came
Speaker 1: out in the San Jose Mercury News recently authenticated those
Speaker 1: photos and those videos not necess necessarily of Bonta specifically,
Speaker 1: but of quote unquote politicians, and he had a number
Speaker 1: of them involving a number of politicians. Well, that seems
Speaker 1: to me that there's confirmation that the what was in
Speaker 1: the initial whistleblower letter has been authenticated, because if he
Speaker 1: has photos and videos of politicians, and this whole thing
Speaker 1: started because of a whistleblower saying he has photos and
Speaker 1: videos of Rob Bonta. That is blackmail material. I think
Speaker 1: we know what's happening here.
Speaker 5: Well, combining that with the fact that after the you know,
Speaker 5: all of this started to come to light, Bonta took
Speaker 5: almost five hundred thousand dollars out of his campaign fund
Speaker 5: for legal defense because of the corruption case. So he says,
Speaker 5: you know, well, of course I had to protect myself.
Speaker 5: I knew these people, well, you more than knew them.
Speaker 5: You were heavily involved with them. His wife Mia, when
Speaker 5: she was running for Assemblies, shared in office with Juarez,
Speaker 5: and they regularly socialized with the Dwongs, as we know
Speaker 5: from all the photos. Not they're not alone. Of course,
Speaker 5: he has pictures with you know, Javi or Sarah who's
Speaker 5: running for governor. He has pictures with current governor Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 5: But there are an awful, as I always say, an
Speaker 5: awful lot of very personal photos of him with the Bonta.
Speaker 5: They didn't look like a one off selfie. They looked like,
Speaker 5: you know, he called him his brother. So I think it,
Speaker 5: you know, I do think it probably confirms it, you
Speaker 5: know it. I mean, who else would he be? I mean,
Speaker 5: I know there's a lot, but who else would he
Speaker 5: be talking about. You know, it's like that there was
Speaker 5: a confirmation letter, in my opinion, and if he's not
Speaker 5: in there, I find it strange also that you know,
Speaker 5: neither Bonta is listed on the witness list. Clearly they
Speaker 5: were very tied to the Dwong. So that's interesting because
Speaker 5: sometimes that's a sign, just like with Rebecca Kaplan not
Speaker 5: being listed, sometimes that's a sign that there's more to
Speaker 5: come in the indictments. When I broke the story about Mohamnuru,
Speaker 5: the DPW head that ended up going down in San Francisco,
Speaker 5: he had a girlfriend who I had brought to light
Speaker 5: in an article, and she did not appear on the
Speaker 5: witness list, and the reasons because they were going after
Speaker 5: her separately.
Speaker 1: Go back to Bonta here for a second, because the
Speaker 1: way I see it covering California politics for as long
Speaker 1: as I have, if there is a video of him
Speaker 1: getting a dirty massage, if there is a video of
Speaker 1: him with a prostitute, if there are pictures of him
Speaker 1: in compromising situations with people other than his wife, I
Speaker 1: think it would be an embarrassing story. I don't think
Speaker 1: it would be a career ender because if it's consenting adults,
Speaker 1: or even if it's a sex worker who wasn't underage
Speaker 1: or wasn't sex trafficked, or those sorts of things, I
Speaker 1: think you could survive that. To my eye, the more
Speaker 1: damaging aspect of this story for Rob Bonte is assuming
Speaker 1: that he was blackmailed, what did he give them? What
Speaker 1: did he do with his power in his office that
Speaker 1: benefited Andy or anyone with California Waste Solutions that came
Speaker 1: as a result of the compromat. That I think is
Speaker 1: something that not only could kill his political career, but
Speaker 1: could put him in prison. Is that how you're seeing
Speaker 1: it too?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I think it goes much deeper than some
Speaker 5: dirty pictures. There's reasons why Duong seem you know, seems
Speaker 5: to feel certain politicians need to have blackmail material. There
Speaker 5: is also, of course, you know Veritas Fuels, the entire
Speaker 5: mess that that became, they were you know, they went
Speaker 5: to well, Andy, you know, we know Andy Dwong was
Speaker 5: with California Waste Management Services and then he had the
Speaker 5: whole thing with Veritas Fuels, which was run by Kaffe
Speaker 5: Neil who is Ellie who Harris's former wife, and Ellie
Speaker 5: who is the former mayor of Oakland. She was on
Speaker 5: the port. They both contributed to, you know, the campaign
Speaker 5: for Banta, and then he gave you know, he went
Speaker 5: to the to the Energy Commission and got that big
Speaker 5: loan for them. So along with taking donations, he's also
Speaker 5: gotten them money from taxpayers to do their dirty fuel business, which,
Speaker 5: as we know, was a complete scam, and all the
Speaker 5: while the address for that was the same as Mia
Speaker 5: Banta's office address.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that the comperment may be something more severe
Speaker 1: than just pictures of a dirty massage. Have you been
Speaker 1: briefed on what this compromat might be.
Speaker 5: No, I mean, I you know, I keep digging, but
Speaker 5: I do think that there is a lot behind Bonta
Speaker 5: that that isn't just the dawn. I think that he's
Speaker 5: one of the dirtiest politicians that the East Bay has
Speaker 5: ever seen. He's owned by the uns. He will take
Speaker 5: money from anybody, you know, even though he's complaining and
Speaker 5: saying I'm going to sue Trump and do this, and
Speaker 5: that he's taking you know, he talked, took almost six
Speaker 5: million dollars from unions and banks and healthcare companies, tech giants,
Speaker 5: all the people he claims he's gonna you know, you know,
Speaker 5: sue and and and take care of and make sure
Speaker 5: that the taxpayers are protected from he's there then taking
Speaker 5: their money. So I think it goes beyond the Dwans.
Speaker 5: I think that he's been dirty, and I think his
Speaker 5: wife is as well. I mean, you know, and she
Speaker 5: wants to do this, you know, prevent journalists from from
Speaker 5: going and investigating because she's afraid she's of being investigated.
Speaker 5: And I've you know, never let up on them, and
Speaker 5: I never will because I think there's a lot more.
Speaker 5: And I just wrote a story, in fact, it just
Speaker 5: came out last week that really drills down on all
Speaker 5: all of this and the connection to people like Kathy
Speaker 5: Neil and Ella Lou Harris. And I'm about to do
Speaker 5: a timeline where you're going to see who all those
Speaker 5: people are and how they got involved and how dirty
Speaker 5: it all has been.
Speaker 1: And Ellahu Harris, the former mayor of Oakland, was so
Speaker 1: bad and so corrupt as mayor of Oakland, he lost
Speaker 1: an Assembly race to a woman in the Green Party,
Speaker 1: which I can't think of the last time one of
Speaker 1: these minor parties has been able to outright win an
Speaker 1: Assembly seat. But Addie Bop found a way to do
Speaker 1: that when she was running against Ellahu Harris. It happened, honey.
Speaker 5: Also, you know, appointed his wife at the time, Kathy Neil,
Speaker 5: to the port and was signed for that. And this
Speaker 5: is who Varitius Fuels chooses as their you know, number
Speaker 5: one advisor. So clearly Bonta knew all of this when
Speaker 5: he went and got them, you know, millions of dollars
Speaker 5: from the Energy Commission, so that there's so many ties
Speaker 5: to there, this giant wheel of corruption that has been
Speaker 5: around as you know, parole to college and all of that.
Speaker 5: There's been the Ellie who, Harrising and Kathy Neal, They've
Speaker 5: all been involved and just sort of very you know,
Speaker 5: and Willie Brown too, frankly, was involved in all of it.
Speaker 5: So you look and you say, well, these people have
Speaker 5: just never gotten caught. That's the only thing. They just
Speaker 5: have never never been caught.
Speaker 1: You said that Mia Bonte is just as corrupt as
Speaker 1: your husband. She was also eyeing higher office this time around.
Speaker 1: She was thinking about running for state Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Speaker 1: And she never pulled the trigger on that is it.
Speaker 1: Did she do that for the same reason that her
Speaker 1: old man didn't do it for governor.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I think that she knows the eyes are
Speaker 5: on him, and that means the eyes are on her.
Speaker 5: I definitely think he's more corrupt, simply because he's had
Speaker 5: more opportunities corrupt. But she's taken her fair share of
Speaker 5: money from the Dwans, and she's been snapped in many
Speaker 5: photographs and limos and looking very friendly. Again, not like
Speaker 5: a one off selfie. Some of the politician photographs look
Speaker 5: like you just caught them at the right moment and
Speaker 5: they smiled and took a picture. These are pictures where
Speaker 5: they've clearly been out and about together, Warriors games, you know,
Speaker 5: the trip to the Philippines that there, there's I don't
Speaker 5: see any way Bonta can deny there was a close
Speaker 5: relationship there. And that's why he's getting legal help because
Speaker 5: he's afraid this is all going to come out. And
Speaker 5: you know, we've only seen a little snap of what
Speaker 5: what the prosecutors have. This is just because they you know,
Speaker 5: the defendants wanted some things removed from evidence, and they
Speaker 5: you know, released what it was they wanted removed. You know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot more.
Speaker 1: Chan Tao is not someone who I would regard as
Speaker 1: an honest person. But one of the things that she
Speaker 1: has said quite consistently, and I believe the government has
Speaker 1: backed her up on this, was that she was not
Speaker 1: the target of this investigation. And she has said that
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. Her attorney has made
Speaker 1: that claim. And yes, and if she is not the
Speaker 1: target of this investigation, that means someone else is. And
Speaker 1: I can't look at this any other way than to
Speaker 1: say it has to be rab Bonta because.
Speaker 5: All the you know, the Dlongs are they're big. I mean,
Speaker 5: they took a lot of taskpayer money and they had
Speaker 5: grown very powerful, so I can see why they need
Speaker 5: to come down off their pedestal. But it certainly wasn't Wars.
Speaker 5: I mean, he's cooperating right and has become their star
Speaker 5: witness in some ways, So it's not war as they
Speaker 5: certainly went through warre Is to get to shang Tao,
Speaker 5: the Dwongs, and now they're probably gonna try to go
Speaker 5: through them to get to Bontu, who to meat would
Speaker 5: be the big the biggest prize for them to take down.
Speaker 5: It's you know, rarely when they go after the small
Speaker 5: fries that they really after the small fries. They're hoping
Speaker 5: they'll they'll turn I mean a good example is you
Speaker 5: know Dwayne Jones who in San Francisco. You know Shaman Walton,
Speaker 5: supervisor with his his mentor. You know, it's been what
Speaker 5: two three years since my stories were mentioned in his indictment,
Speaker 5: and he still hasn't gone to trial. That's because they're
Speaker 5: trying to get him to talk, and they've got bigger
Speaker 5: fish to fry, and I I think, you know, for example,
Speaker 5: Shaman Walton is probably one of them they're looking at.
Speaker 5: He's got a lot of issues, but they always start
Speaker 5: somewhere and then they hope that you'll talk. And I
Speaker 5: have no doubt that Shang Tao will sing like a
Speaker 5: bird if she thinks that it's going to get her
Speaker 5: out of prison.
Speaker 1: There was an alleged fascination attempt on the whistleblower, Mario Warrez,
Speaker 1: who said that he believed that someone put a hit
Speaker 1: out on him and tried to kill him so he
Speaker 1: would not be able to cooperate with the government. Do
Speaker 1: we believe him and if so, who did that?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I looked into the incident and actually had a
Speaker 5: couple of DMS back and forth with him. Early on
Speaker 5: in this investigation, and yes I believe him because the
Speaker 5: police were called and there were you know, there was
Speaker 5: a shootout. He also shot back. It wasn't just them,
Speaker 5: but he was also beaten up outside of outside of
Speaker 5: the Duong's office space after a heated meeting there. I
Speaker 5: have no doubt that the Duangs would like to silence him.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't personally want to be him, just because you know,
Speaker 5: now he's out there as the guy that kind of
Speaker 5: blew this whole thing up. But yes, I do believe him,
Speaker 5: and just having spoken to him been DMS and you know,
Speaker 5: just the basic premise of how it occurred. When I
Speaker 5: read the police report, it was a you know, definitely
Speaker 5: a shootout.
Speaker 1: Last after him, last question before you go. When Rob
Speaker 1: Bonta became attorney General, he did not run and beat
Speaker 1: an incumbent. He did not run for an open seat.
Speaker 1: He was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom. No governor
Speaker 1: appoints someone for a high office like that, a statewide
Speaker 1: constitutional office like attorney general, without a vetting process. I
Speaker 1: would imagine that if you did a legitimate vetting of
Speaker 1: Rob Bonta, then a lot of this would come up
Speaker 1: what happened there? How did that go sideways? How did
Speaker 1: Newsom not become aware of it? Or was he?
Speaker 5: I think Newsom was aware of it. I mean, how
Speaker 5: could he not being in the Bay Area politics. I
Speaker 5: mean the stories about Rob Bonta were well known, and
Speaker 5: I think, you know, Gavin Newsom's part of the city family,
Speaker 5: and it all goes back to Willie Brown. I think
Speaker 5: that there's a connection between these people. They all keep
Speaker 5: each other secrets. And the reason he would want someone who,
Speaker 5: in my opinion, Rob bonto has never qualified to the
Speaker 5: Attorney General and still isn't is because he's a yes
Speaker 5: man for one thing and probably has some secrets on
Speaker 5: him and vice versa, because you know, Gavin Newsom isn't
Speaker 5: clean either, So you know, they all keep each other's secrets,
Speaker 5: and I mean that's why San Francisco and Oakland have
Speaker 5: been politically compromised for decades.
Speaker 1: Susan Dyer Reynolds, the editorial director and CEO The Voice
Speaker 1: of San Francisco, a one woman wrecking crew doing the
Speaker 1: work that the San Francisco Chronicle, La Times and Sacramento
Speaker 1: b won't or refuse to do. You can read her
Speaker 1: online at the voice sf dot org and follow her
Speaker 1: x at the VOSF Susan Diya Reynolds. Excellent work and
Speaker 1: thank you so much for stopping by.
Speaker 5: Oh always, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: It's the John Phillips Show. If you'd like to email
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Speaker 2: at three o'clock today, we'll be premiering our newest episode
Speaker 2: of the Accountability Podcast, a forty minute exclusive video interview
Speaker 2: with candidate for Governor Steve Hilton, that is on the
Speaker 2: channel today at three o'clock.
Speaker 1: Do not miss it, and we're going to preview that
Speaker 1: interview the two o'clock hour as well. We'll play you
Speaker 1: a portion of our interview with Steve Hilton, and if
Speaker 1: you want to watch the interview in its entirety, you're
Speaker 1: going to have to go to the Accountability Podcast for that,
Speaker 1: all right. Earlier this morning, I was invited to be
Speaker 1: a guest on Good DAYLA, where we talked about a
Speaker 1: number of the subjects that we talk about on this
Speaker 1: program all the time, and we took time out to
Speaker 1: promote the Accountability Podcast as well. If you want to
Speaker 1: watch Good DLA, you can do so weekday mornings on
Speaker 1: Fox eleven kt TV in southern California. Let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and watch the interview that it took place earlier this morning.
Speaker 6: All right, friend of the show podcast host radio hosts
Speaker 6: John Phillips is here.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he hosts What Else with The John Phillips Show
Speaker 7: weekdays on AM seven ninety KABC. How nice would it
Speaker 7: be to have your own show with your name attached
Speaker 7: to it?
Speaker 6: Bob, we have her own show?
Speaker 7: Would you like the Bob DeCastro Show someday?
Speaker 3: That's still my show someday someday.
Speaker 7: Lots to talk to you about lots going on in
Speaker 7: the world of politics. So can we start with the
Speaker 7: mayor's race?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 7: And this Boyle Heights mess. What do you think that's
Speaker 7: going to do to the way this mayor's race plays out?
Speaker 7: What kind of impact do you think it's going to have.
Speaker 1: Well, it's causing massive problems for Karen Bass. I mean,
Speaker 1: she just went down there and spoke in front of
Speaker 1: the community forum and got cursed out in both both
Speaker 1: English and Spanish. And what I don't understand is why
Speaker 1: she's not blaming the county, because it's the county that's
Speaker 1: in charge of the public health department. It's Barbara Ferrer,
Speaker 1: who is the one who came out after this fire
Speaker 1: was burning for something like a week, right, and told
Speaker 1: these people it was safe to breathe in the smoke. Well,
Speaker 1: that neighborhood smelled like Lucille Ball's lungs. Everyone knows it's
Speaker 1: not safe to breathe in the smoke, and these people
Speaker 1: were told, yeah, it's perfectly fine, take a deep breath.
Speaker 7: But then also we saw neighbors getting nosebleeds and reporting
Speaker 7: you know, that the air smelled terrible, and what can
Speaker 7: this do for their lungs? Yeah, you don't know. So
Speaker 7: to come out and say ahead of time that this
Speaker 7: is fine, that's a big problem.
Speaker 3: That's a big liability.
Speaker 1: Well, and their lungs are filled with fluids, they're bleeding
Speaker 1: from their nose, they have rashes on their bodies, and
Speaker 1: they're going to these county public health clinics again run
Speaker 1: by the county, and they're being given tail and all
Speaker 1: and told to go home. So I don't understand why
Speaker 1: Bass isn't laying all the blame at the county, because
Speaker 1: the county is the one that supposed to be handling this.
Speaker 7: We've been trying to get responses too from the counties
Speaker 7: with the public health department, and they have been pretty
Speaker 7: elusive for the media as well.
Speaker 6: Given what she knew what happened with the fires and
Speaker 6: all the criticism that she got for her handling of
Speaker 6: the fires. And she's tried to take control of the
Speaker 6: situation here. She had said there's an emergency crisis. Here,
Speaker 6: she's given deadlines for Lineage to clean this stuff up
Speaker 6: and get it out of there two days after school starts,
Speaker 6: by the way, But still, you know, she's tried to
Speaker 6: take control of this situation. But who knows. If this
Speaker 6: is a protracted thing, then I think this could really
Speaker 6: be a lingering issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's certainly trying to lay all the blame at
Speaker 1: Lineage's feet, But I don't understand why the people who
Speaker 1: ran the solar panels aren't the ones taking the blame.
Speaker 1: Because the fire started on the roof with the solar panels,
Speaker 1: and the cold storage just happened to be underneath it,
Speaker 1: the cold storage company is the one that's being blamed,
Speaker 1: and somehow the people that operate the solar panels are
Speaker 1: getting a pass. I don't know why she's blaming them
Speaker 1: the cold storage company, and not the county and the
Speaker 1: people who operate the solar panels, because it seems like
Speaker 1: it was their fold. It's a good point.
Speaker 6: We don't even know the name of the company that
Speaker 6: tried to saw those solar panels. So in the meantime,
Speaker 6: we're like less than ninety days, like three months until
Speaker 6: the election. Now you're wondering. This starts to get really
Speaker 6: really you know, exciting here because we've got Nithie Rahman, right,
Speaker 6: we're watching has things are playing out across the country here.
Speaker 6: Just this morning we heard in Michigan you have this
Speaker 6: progressive candidate now beating out the more moderate Democratic candidate
Speaker 6: to run for the states there is now in New York,
Speaker 6: we saw what happen with New Yorkman.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and so yeah, what are you thinking in terms
Speaker 7: of Democrats? They're clearly having this internal identity crisis, right,
Speaker 7: but you're starting to see state to state, especially like Michigan,
Speaker 7: is a good bell weather for maybe a bigger discussion
Speaker 7: in terms of what's happening with Democrats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you look at what happened yesterday where I
Speaker 1: think one of the building unions, the trade unions came
Speaker 1: out in favor of Rahmen that endorsed Bass the last
Speaker 1: time around. Things in politics tend to happen in waves
Speaker 1: where you look back at like the nineteen eighties and
Speaker 1: you had Reagan and Thatcher who saw the world the
Speaker 1: same way, who got elected around the same time. And
Speaker 1: then in the nineties you had these center left Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton Tony Blair types, and then you had the populace
Speaker 1: in the two thousands with Trump and Brexit and those things.
Speaker 1: And now you're seeing this wave of DSA candidates who
Speaker 1: are doing well in places like New York and Colorado
Speaker 1: and even in some primaries here in California. And look
Speaker 1: at all the big cities that have elected socialist mayors,
Speaker 1: where it's New York, at Chicago, at Seattle, and it
Speaker 1: could be Los Angeles. Karen Bass is looking like an
Speaker 1: incumbent on the ropes right now. And if I had
Speaker 1: the lame down, I would say she loses.
Speaker 6: Interesting, all right, we'll see how that plays out. Let's
Speaker 6: let's turn to the governor's race now. So there was
Speaker 6: a big press conference. We're going to go back to
Speaker 6: Boyle Heights there and Steve Hilton had a press conference there.
Speaker 6: He's really trying to tap into the Latino vote there, saying, hey,
Speaker 6: the demo, you've been with a Democratic Party for your
Speaker 6: entire lives and look where it's gotten you. Not really
Speaker 6: very far. You know, we're really the party for you.
Speaker 6: Does does he have a shot in this and to
Speaker 6: chip away at any of that base?
Speaker 1: Well, I think it was a good idea for him
Speaker 1: to launch his campaign there. Because Gavin Newsom, governor California,
Speaker 1: has time to travel all around the country campaigning on
Speaker 1: behalf of other people. He hasn't been to Boyle Heights.
Speaker 1: Javier Bessera, who represented that area in both the California
Speaker 1: Assembly and the Congress, has not been to Boyle Heights.
Speaker 1: This is a one party state right now where the
Speaker 1: government has failed those people. So if you're Steve Hilton
Speaker 1: and you're presenting yourself as the outsider, as the person
Speaker 1: who is not part of the group that has run
Speaker 1: the state this way, I think it highlights a lot
Speaker 1: of the failures right now that we're seeing at the
Speaker 1: state level, the county level, the city level.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And so he's stepping in and being almost a voice
Speaker 7: for the people and you know, taking this as an
Speaker 7: opportunity to speak to the voters. Yeah, maybe other candidates
Speaker 7: have not yet.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 6: I mean the polls are so I show that Bessara
Speaker 6: is so far ahead it almost would seem so difficult
Speaker 6: to close that gap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it looks like he's going to employ the
Speaker 1: Joe Biden strategy and just go in the basement and
Speaker 1: not campaign aggressively, not campaign actively. I know that Hilton
Speaker 1: challenged him to I think six different debates, and so
Speaker 1: far Besarah has not said yes to it.
Speaker 7: Is he doesn't fel like he has to.
Speaker 1: He already has the support. Yeah, I think he's going
Speaker 1: to put it on autopilot and just expect the registration numbers,
Speaker 1: which are to his advantage, to be enough to carry
Speaker 1: him over the top. That's what Adam Shift did after
Speaker 1: Steve Garvey was the one that ended up going on
Speaker 1: the November ballot with him. It's something that Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: did with Brian Dolly and John Cox that seems to
Speaker 1: be the playbook.
Speaker 7: I wanted to get your thoughts on this new presidential survey.
Speaker 7: I think we might have a full screen of that.
Speaker 7: These numbers are kind of surprising. So you're talking about
Speaker 7: a number of progressive Democratic candidates who seemed to be
Speaker 7: polling better than for example, Governor Newsom or Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: You f Pete Budaje Edge.
Speaker 7: Leading the pack there at twenty four percent, John Ossoff,
Speaker 7: who's kind of come to the forefront as a main
Speaker 7: character in this race, and then AOC at ten percent.
Speaker 8: Yeah, what do you make of these numbers?
Speaker 1: Well, chick her and we're around. He'd say for Newsom,
Speaker 1: the mustards off the hot dog, because for a long
Speaker 1: time he was pulling in the topsplot. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was the guy. He looked like he was going to
Speaker 1: be the Democratic nominee. He presented himself as the chief
Speaker 1: foyle to Donald Trumpocratic voters hate Donald Trump with the
Speaker 1: hot hot hate of a thousand sons, so that made
Speaker 1: him a popular figure in the party. But look at
Speaker 1: what's been going on with Newsom lately. He has acknowledged
Speaker 1: that the FEDS are now investigating what's going on with
Speaker 1: his wife's business dealings. He's fighting with state employees over
Speaker 1: whether or not they have to go back into the
Speaker 1: office because he doesn't want images of empty city centers
Speaker 1: in California. He is fighting with the SEIU over the
Speaker 1: wealth confiscation tax. He's got a lot of trouble brewing
Speaker 1: at home right now, and he is not being seen
Speaker 1: as the number one foil to Donald Trump anymore. He's
Speaker 1: seen as the governor who's got a lot of problems
Speaker 1: back at home. And that's not a good look.
Speaker 7: But so did President Trump before he got elected. So
Speaker 7: you're talking about somebody who is the factor that helps
Speaker 7: a candidate win. They're speaking to the electorate. They're talking
Speaker 7: directly to the electorate.
Speaker 3: They're of the electorate.
Speaker 7: And there might be some sense that traditional and stream
Speaker 7: Democrats aren't doing that lately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'll tell you something else. Newsome risks looking
Speaker 1: like someone who's not relevant by focusing so much on
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Because Trump's the president now, but in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight, he's not going to be running if he's
Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee against Donald Trump, He's going to run
Speaker 1: against Marco Rubio or JD Vance or someone else.
Speaker 6: And you look at all these other people, like a
Speaker 6: John Awsoff, who's really kind of flying under the radar, right,
Speaker 6: he's like not even really out there saying much.
Speaker 3: We got to go really quickly.
Speaker 1: Your podcast. You got a new podcast, right, that's right,
Speaker 1: the Accountability Podcast, And I'm on Monday through Friday on
Speaker 1: KABC in La and KSFO in San Francisco.
Speaker 7: There you go, excellence, John Phillips, thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Sure right back, Well look
Speaker 1: at that, So there you have it. Had fun this
Speaker 1: morning over at good DLA.
Speaker 2: For a second when they asked you for a traffic
Speaker 2: to put on the screen, I thought, oh, I should
Speaker 2: do a silly AI image for that, But I think
Speaker 2: we played it safe and let's just promote the show.
Speaker 1: For once we use good judgment. It's the John Phillips Show.
Speaker 1: If you want to watch us perform the show live,
Speaker 1: go to Johnny Don't Like dot com and click that
Speaker 1: like button while you're there. All right, we know that
Speaker 1: there was a lot of chaos that went on all
Speaker 1: over the state of California on the fourth of July.
Speaker 1: We had illegal fireworks. We had illegal fireworks aimed at homes,
Speaker 1: We had illegal fireworks aimed at people. We had all
Speaker 1: kinds of violations going on in northern California, in southern California,
Speaker 1: and all points in between. And Randy, you have some
Speaker 1: new numbers about just exactly went on that fourth of July.
Speaker 2: Orange County did a pretty big crackdown, especially in places
Speaker 2: like Anaheim, because if you're gonna do fireworks, at Anaheim.
Speaker 2: Your name needs to be Walt Disney, and they levied
Speaker 2: all kinds of fines, including multiples of fines, for every
Speaker 2: single firework done. This has worked very well in Sacramento
Speaker 2: and actually saw a major reduction the year after. Let's
Speaker 2: see how it worked out in Orange County. Here is CBSLA.
Speaker 1: Property owners in the city of Orange facing staggering fines
Speaker 1: Tonight after Fourth of July violations. Cbsla's Michelle Jelly with
Speaker 1: the numbers and reaction from residents.
Speaker 8: Illegal fireworks go off in the sky. A hovering police
Speaker 8: drone homes in on an address in Orange.
Speaker 2: And despite what Johnny thought, they weren't shooting the drone down.
Speaker 1: I thought that was going to happen right and left.
Speaker 8: The offenders are caught red handed. Officials say this video
Speaker 8: for this.
Speaker 2: Although not literally hand exploded red handed, but that did
Speaker 2: happen to a bunch of people.
Speaker 8: Fourth of July on East Barkley Avenue will be used
Speaker 8: as evidence against the homeowner. Her fine tens of thousands
Speaker 8: of dollars.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 1: Imagine having a lean put out on your house because
Speaker 1: your idiot children launched the illegal fireworks on the fourth
Speaker 1: of July.
Speaker 9: It's fine in itself as three thousand dollars per party.
Speaker 9: And then for the first firework that you discharged illegally,
Speaker 9: that's two thousand, the second one is four thousand, and
Speaker 9: the third one is six thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: And you we're in a yamaca or do you have
Speaker 3: a bandage on his head?
Speaker 1: I think he went to my dermatologist.
Speaker 8: It's six thousand dollars for everyone shot off. After that,
Speaker 8: the feat schedule was approved by the Orange City Council
Speaker 8: as part of the new Social host Ordinance. The total
Speaker 8: fireworks violation finds amounted to two hundred and forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: That's just in the city of Orange. And I love
Speaker 1: the fact that they were too stupid to shoot down
Speaker 1: the drones. I thought it was going to look like
Speaker 1: Israel's Iron Dome.
Speaker 2: Well, if you shoot down the drones, that's it's probably
Speaker 2: a much bigger offense because they are police drones.
Speaker 8: Eight administrative citations were issued. The top three fines given
Speaker 8: to homeowners or tenants one hundred and eleven thousand dollars
Speaker 8: at one property, sixty nine thousand at another, and twenty
Speaker 8: one thousand dollars in fines for another offender.
Speaker 2: If you're the guy that has to drop off that bill,
Speaker 2: how badly do you want to say was it worth it?
Speaker 1: Well? Do you think it's the actual homeowner that's doing
Speaker 1: it or do you think it's grandma who has a
Speaker 1: bunch of idiot grandkids living with her and they decided
Speaker 1: to do it at esther's house.
Speaker 2: I think that's possible, and yes, there are plenty of
Speaker 2: homeowners that do it on their own property.
Speaker 3: I should know.
Speaker 2: I live in a single family neighborhood in the valley
Speaker 2: and it's a freaking war zone every fourth of July.
Speaker 1: I think it is excessive. I also think it's not
Speaker 1: going to work.
Speaker 3: Because it's fourth of July and that's gonna happen.
Speaker 8: But Orange Mayor Dan Slater hopes just the opposite will
Speaker 8: happen next July fourth, that the fines will be a deterrent.
Speaker 9: The biggest disappointment, of course, is that we only had
Speaker 9: two drones and one of them malfunction, So we did
Speaker 9: this operation with only one drone.
Speaker 1: Boy, they could have got double the amount of fines.
Speaker 1: Did it malfunction or was it shut down?
Speaker 3: That is a very good question.
Speaker 9: Hopeful that next year we'll have several in operation.
Speaker 2: That's what they're gonna use all the money for. This
Speaker 2: is going to be the self fulfilling prophecy. They got
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in fines. Where's that
Speaker 2: money going towards make the burn centers. No, we're gonna
Speaker 2: use that money to buy a whole bunch of more drones.
Speaker 2: So the next year we can collect two million dollars
Speaker 2: in fines.
Speaker 1: Maybe instead of the drones, they'll just buy all of
Speaker 1: the parked planes that our favorite airline that just shut
Speaker 1: down used.
Speaker 8: The home owner face the sixty nine thousand dollars fine,
Speaker 8: told me she doesn't know the people who were lighting
Speaker 8: the illegal fireworks behind me here in the church parking
Speaker 8: lot next to her home. She also said when the
Speaker 8: crowd ran into her backyard when police showed up, she
Speaker 8: didn't know those people either. She plans to appeal her
Speaker 8: fine in Orange Michelle Jeey CBSLA.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 1: Now, wait a minute, they got the wrong woman.
Speaker 2: Well that's what she's saying. I would imagine your first
Speaker 2: line of defense here is I didn't know those people.
Speaker 2: I don't know what they were doing in my backyard.
Speaker 2: But and maybe she's right, but maybe that's just the
Speaker 2: excuse that she's gonna use because you have a lot
Speaker 2: of people. This is true in Sacramento two where the
Speaker 2: first thing they say is, I didn't know who those
Speaker 2: people were. I didn't tell them to shoot off them fireworks.
Speaker 1: Well, little old ladies don't shoot off fireworks.
Speaker 3: They're no good kids do. So there you go.
Speaker 2: The city of Orange two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: in fines levied for illegal fireworks on the fourth of July,
Speaker 2: and all that was collected with one drone.
Speaker 3: Just one.
Speaker 1: Okay, if every city in California had the drones where
Speaker 1: they could keep an eye on who was shooting on
Speaker 1: which city do you think would generate the most revenue.
Speaker 2: If they actually had a means to enforce it, and
Speaker 2: they had an army of thousands of drones, the city
Speaker 2: of Los Angeles could solve their budget deficits.
Speaker 3: In one night, one night, and it would be all.
Speaker 2: We could fund the police department, we could fund the schools,
Speaker 2: we could fund everything just on one day of what
Speaker 2: goes on pretty much the whole summer in the San
Speaker 2: Fernando Valley.
Speaker 1: What about Oakland? They could make enough money to buy
Speaker 1: the coliseum back.
Speaker 3: That is also very possible.
Speaker 5: And we still got our Oakland A's baby.
Speaker 3: No you don't.
Speaker 1: I mean if the Roots are evicted, they could bring
Speaker 1: a new team in. They could bring in the die jobs.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Don't shoot off illegal fireworks. Kids.
Speaker 1: We've got one more hour coming up on The John
Speaker 1: Phillips Show. Coming up next, we're gonna check in with
Speaker 1: Minnesota State Rep. Max Reimer. Also, we're gonna preview a
Speaker 1: portion of the newest edition of the Accountability Podcast was
Speaker 1: dropped today at three o'clock. That was our long extended
Speaker 1: interview with candidate for governor Steve Hilton. So make sure
Speaker 1: you stick around. It's the John Phillips Show.