Speaker 1: And we continue at one five in the afternoon on
Speaker 1: the John Phillips Show, Mister Randy Weggs across the Glass, John.
Speaker 1: It is election day. People have until eight o'clock to
Speaker 1: turn their ballots in, and as of about fifteen minutes ago,
Speaker 1: the latest update to the ballot Tracker, nineteen percent of
Speaker 1: Californians have cast their ballot. Early eighty percent of Californians
Speaker 1: either are going to vote today or most likely not going.
Speaker 2: To do it.
Speaker 1: And we have some breaking news regarding Los Angeles Congressman
Speaker 1: Jimmy Gomez. The House Ethics Committee is investigating Congressman Jimmy
Speaker 1: Gomez over sexual misconduct allegations. What's notable here is Jimmy
Speaker 1: Gomez was one of the campaign chairs of the former
Speaker 1: front runner in this governor's race, Eric Swallwell, it's not California,
Speaker 1: but this is a story that went all over the
Speaker 1: place this weekend. Morris Katz, a top advisor to embattled
Speaker 1: Maine Senate candidate Graham Plattner, admitted in a blog post
Speaker 1: that he also sent explicit material to people in the past.
Speaker 1: Quote I've sent nudes and I've received nudes end quote.
Speaker 1: So this is the person that said that Platner was
Speaker 1: sending nudes, or at least sending explicit text, saying I
Speaker 1: also have done some nudes.
Speaker 2: I think they're all doing it. What's Tom Steyer up to?
Speaker 1: I sure hope he doesn't make the top two, because
Speaker 1: we're gonna get in trouble if we play this drop
Speaker 1: this much.
Speaker 2: I'm Tom Steyer. I'm about to write the.
Speaker 1: Team eight hundred two two two five two two two
Speaker 1: East jelphone number one eight hundred two two two five
Speaker 1: to two two two. Can you guess what I'm naming
Speaker 1: the twelve o'clock hour podcast.
Speaker 2: I have an idea.
Speaker 1: It is our pleasure to welcome our next guest to
Speaker 1: the program. He is a Republican political strategist too. You
Speaker 1: can follow on exit the Thomas Guide, John Thomas.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Hey John, good to be with you.
Speaker 1: So on election day here, as people are still standing
Speaker 1: in line, voting at voting centers up and down the state,
Speaker 1: filling out their ballots, taking it to the post office,
Speaker 1: getting it postmarked today, what is your read on the
Speaker 1: gubernatorial election?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Gosh, well, first of all, what a wild ride it
Speaker 4: has been, and pretty pathetic, honestly that this is the
Speaker 4: best cast of Democratic characters that the Democratic Party in
Speaker 4: the state is blue as California could put up. But
Speaker 4: what I'm watching is, look, it appears to be Howvierbasara
Speaker 4: will take the top slot. That seems to be pretty
Speaker 4: safe at this point. He's kind of taken over for swallwell,
Speaker 4: and it appears as Steve Hilton will get into a
Speaker 4: second place. But you know, depending upon the polling, depending
Speaker 4: on the turnout model you see, Tom Steier could be
Speaker 4: interchangeable for either of those two. So those are the
Speaker 4: things you know, I'm watching. And the other thing that's
Speaker 4: fascinating here, John, is that that moderate Democrats have no
Speaker 4: appeal in a state like California. Matt Mahan came out
Speaker 4: with all this fanfare from the tech pros and those
Speaker 4: in northern California, and he's sitting at what three four
Speaker 4: percent in polling, even though he spent tens of millions
Speaker 4: of dollars.
Speaker 1: It seems as if the Las Vegas odds makers have
Speaker 1: it at Besera over ninety percent, they have Hilton at
Speaker 1: seventy five percent, and they have Styre at what was
Speaker 1: at Randy twenty percent according to Calshi. Right now, Tom
Speaker 1: Steyer has a thirty four percent chance of it just
Speaker 1: went up to thirty five percent chance of advancing. What
Speaker 1: do you make of that? Why do you think Las
Speaker 1: Vegas and the people who are placing the bets have
Speaker 1: Steve Hilton so far above Tom Steyer in terms of
Speaker 1: the odds.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's a pretty safe bet actually, because
Speaker 4: typically in these kinds of contests you generally see coalescing
Speaker 4: where particular party kind of coalesces around one top candidate.
Speaker 4: And although Chad Bianco I like him, he's a good candidate,
Speaker 4: Steve Hilton really has become kind of the definitive Trump
Speaker 4: endorsed Republican in the state, and I think, look, he
Speaker 4: kind of checks all the boxes that the base would
Speaker 4: need to kind of get the joke here. Donald Trump
Speaker 4: has repeatedly pronounced his endorsement. The Democrats have sent out
Speaker 4: mailers attacking Steve Hilton, but basically trying to attacking him
Speaker 4: to Republicans and coalesces his vote. And then, of course,
Speaker 4: I mean I can't I don't think I've gone a
Speaker 4: day or more that Steve Hilton hasn't been on a
Speaker 4: Fox News hit where you really can't say the.
Speaker 3: Same for Chad Bianco.
Speaker 4: So I think the bet on Hilton is that the
Speaker 4: Republicans kind of come home, they coalesce, which I think
Speaker 4: is safe. And you know, Sires again a little bit
Speaker 4: of a wildcard there, but I think.
Speaker 3: It is pretty safe bet on Hilton at this point.
Speaker 1: Let's just say that it is Besarah versus Hilton, that
Speaker 1: that is what the November ballot looks like. What do
Speaker 1: you think Hilton's chances are at winning that election?
Speaker 4: You know, I struggle to see a pathway simply because
Speaker 4: stays like California are so hyper partisan and the numbers,
Speaker 4: you know, aren't really there for Republican However, there are
Speaker 4: a few kind of black Swan glimmers of hope here.
Speaker 4: One would be if you look at in terms of
Speaker 4: independent voters or no party preference. Actually, Steve Hilton is
Speaker 4: leading the field above the Sarah with independence, So people
Speaker 4: kind of who don't like the status quo, they're looking
Speaker 4: for something else. Uh, So maybe there's an in there.
Speaker 4: And then I think the other wildcard is that Besarah
Speaker 4: gets caught up in some kind of Department of Justice handle.
Speaker 4: Uh and if that happens, all nets are off.
Speaker 1: Who would be your first call to if you were
Speaker 1: Steve Hilton and you made it to the November ballot,
Speaker 1: would beat to Matt Mayhan asking for his endorsement.
Speaker 4: Probably, yeah, Mayhan should. I mean, if he's intellectually honest,
Speaker 4: he he should get there.
Speaker 3: You try to do that.
Speaker 4: I think I would also go back to I'd go
Speaker 4: to places like you know, Jerry Brown, I'd go to
Speaker 4: Governor Schwarzenegger. You know, I try to coalesce statewide figures
Speaker 4: that were thought to be a little bit more moderate
Speaker 4: and try to get mods on your side.
Speaker 3: Try to try to do that.
Speaker 4: It's it's going to be tough because what you're going
Speaker 4: to see, John, because Sarah is thought to be the
Speaker 4: obvious winner. You're going to see a very quick coalescing
Speaker 4: of every local, state, and national Democratic figure that you
Speaker 4: can think off top of your head. They're all going
Speaker 4: to rally from Obama, Biden, Clinton, you know, just just
Speaker 4: the who's who's going to quickly coalesce around Bisera. So
Speaker 4: time is is short if you're Hilton. The other is
Speaker 4: you got to put together a war chest.
Speaker 3: John.
Speaker 4: If Hilton has a shot, I mean he's going to
Speaker 4: have to spend over one hundred million dollars and he
Speaker 4: could potentially do that if he catches fire and small
Speaker 4: donors across the country smell victory, it could be done.
Speaker 3: But it's still very tough in to say, like.
Speaker 1: California, newspapers across the nation are going to write the
Speaker 1: political obituary of Matt Mahon on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, some
Speaker 1: point in the future. What do you think those obits
Speaker 1: are going to say, why didn't it work?
Speaker 4: I think I think they're going to say, probably got
Speaker 4: into late, couldn't excite enthusiasm, I didn't have.
Speaker 3: You going to say he didn't have enough money.
Speaker 4: You know, Porter's obviously already blaming stire for leaking videos
Speaker 4: out of I think Porter is going to, you know,
Speaker 4: blame misogyny, that it's just, you know, women can't get
Speaker 4: ahead in that state, which is ironic because wasn't a
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris who was a statewide elected official. And there's
Speaker 4: so many others. But I'm not sure that argument that
Speaker 4: blame game really hass the sniff test. But I think
Speaker 4: what you're not going to see, John, I think the
Speaker 4: most telling you're not going to see the La Times
Speaker 4: and the Sacramento Bee in the New York Times talk
Speaker 4: about the truth, which is that the Democratic Party has
Speaker 4: shifted so extreme and so far left that they're really
Speaker 4: only interested in socialism and Trump arrangement, and those are
Speaker 4: really the two animating factors of the modern Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Do you think today is the last time we'll ever
Speaker 1: see Antonio Via goes his name on a ballot?
Speaker 3: But that's a good question.
Speaker 4: Statewide, yes, I don't think he can go statewide, But
Speaker 4: you know, lookal office. If he just had a thirst
Speaker 4: for serving on the Board of Supervisors, La City Council,
Speaker 4: I would be terribly shocked to see him run for
Speaker 4: those things. Now, maybe you could argue that's below his
Speaker 4: pay grade, but I get the sense that the man
Speaker 4: just wants to be relevant and he wants to serve.
Speaker 4: So done for statewide, done for probably national office, but
Speaker 4: but local.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't count him out at this point.
Speaker 1: Katie Porter has run for statewide office two times, two
Speaker 1: cycles in a row, and assuming the polls are correct,
Speaker 1: she will lose in the election today. Do you think
Speaker 1: she's done or do you think she finds another office.
Speaker 2: To run for.
Speaker 4: Boy, that's another good one. Well, I wish she were
Speaker 4: done for the sake of the country in Californians. I
Speaker 4: don't actually think she's done. I think this is her
Speaker 4: life's purpose. I think her ego is so large that
Speaker 4: really she will blame misogyny. It's anything but her fault.
Speaker 4: So I think you you're going to see her run
Speaker 4: again for some kind of state office down ticket, probably
Speaker 4: attorney general I think is the most obvious fit. I mean,
Speaker 4: look John and these down ticket races particularly well particular statewide,
Speaker 4: but down the state wide ticket. The biggest hurdle for
Speaker 4: most of these races Secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer
Speaker 4: is simply name mighty creation. She has name I D
Speaker 4: So I think if she runs for a lesser office,
Speaker 4: she can be the only candidate with the most name
Speaker 4: might and kind of slide in. Yet the other thing
Speaker 4: she could do is pivot to run for a local
Speaker 4: prosecutorial agency or board of supervisors in Orange County.
Speaker 3: I have a.
Speaker 4: Feeling she feels that's below her ego level. So I
Speaker 4: would bet, if you had a gun in my head,
Speaker 4: that she's going to run for attorney general and that
Speaker 4: social land.
Speaker 1: She seems to really hate Tom Steyer, who she blames
Speaker 1: for producing that video that caused her campaign aim to implode.
Speaker 1: I kind of get the impression that that's just something
Speaker 1: in her life she's never going.
Speaker 2: To get over.
Speaker 4: I think Katie's known to hold grudges, particularly against men,
Speaker 4: the sense I've got there. But look, whether or not
Speaker 4: it was Styre who leaked it, that's that's the nature
Speaker 4: of these high profile races, is that if it's not
Speaker 4: going to be Stire, it's going to be one of
Speaker 4: your other opponents. So I think she needs get over it.
Speaker 4: If I were bounceling her, John, I'd say, look, this
Speaker 4: is a this is a sport. You entered the arena,
Speaker 4: you're going to get smacked. Stop blaming If it wasn't Tire,
Speaker 4: be somebody else who leaked it, stop blaming others, and
Speaker 4: how about not screaming at your staff and try being
Speaker 4: a nice person.
Speaker 3: That's the place to start.
Speaker 1: One of the possibilities is that we could end up
Speaker 1: with Tom Steyer versus Javier or Bessira, an all Democratic
Speaker 1: top of the ticket Republican lockout. Does the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: want that or do they want one Democrat and one
Speaker 1: Republican so they can check the box and move on.
Speaker 4: Oh, it'd be a nightmare. For the Democrats have two
Speaker 4: Dems at the top of the decade, because if you
Speaker 4: have a Democrat like the Sarah and then you have Hill,
Speaker 4: it kind of got just got to go through the motions.
Speaker 4: And you know, Bessara is what is considered by the
Speaker 4: establishment kind of a safe choice. And by the way,
Speaker 4: I think he's safe because it's not because he's competent.
Speaker 4: I think he's a total idiot and useless. It's because
Speaker 4: he's manipulable, like special interests and unions in particular, the
Speaker 4: state can own him and tell him what they want
Speaker 4: to do, and that'll be doun. They won't be well run,
Speaker 4: but the money.
Speaker 3: Will flow where it needs to flow for the interests.
Speaker 4: The problem with the Stire Besarah matchup is the establishment
Speaker 4: Democrats do not want Tom Steyer to be to be
Speaker 4: the governor. And if Stire's in this race, I could
Speaker 4: see a scenario where Stire is the next governor. So
Speaker 4: no Democrats want this to be an R and a
Speaker 4: D for sure.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to the LA mayor's race. Who do
Speaker 1: you think is going to get a ticket to move
Speaker 1: on in November?
Speaker 4: Well, it appears to be obviously Karen Bath although amazingly.
Speaker 4: I mean, she is so badly damaged and weakened for
Speaker 4: an incumbent, it's really too bad. I think we haven't
Speaker 4: seen a stronger candidate kind of step up because I
Speaker 4: think that's been one of those cycles. She could have
Speaker 4: been defeated and then it appears to be Pratt. At
Speaker 4: this point, you know, we'll go to a runoff between
Speaker 4: the two of them, and then I think it again
Speaker 4: becomes more of a partisan game. At that point, again,
Speaker 4: I struggle to see a path for Pratt. I give
Speaker 4: him kudos for throwing his hat in the ring. I
Speaker 4: think he's run a good race, but you know, I
Speaker 4: just see how you escape the mechanics that is La
Speaker 4: City in an R and D contest.
Speaker 1: What do you make of him as a candidate, because
Speaker 1: I've had him on the show twice and I have
Speaker 1: been thoroughly impressed each time he's appeared on the program.
Speaker 1: Based on the email and the calls that we get,
Speaker 1: the audience seems to agree. He seems to have found
Speaker 1: lightning in a bottle in this race. I just don't know,
Speaker 1: given the politics of Los Angeles, if it'll be enough
Speaker 1: to win the seat, but he certainly has performed well
Speaker 1: to my eye, Well.
Speaker 4: He's certainly outperformed where I thought he'd be when you
Speaker 4: first saw him get in, and he's really captured what
Speaker 4: I would say John is the most valuable thing in politics,
Speaker 4: which is he's authentic and he's credible when he delivers
Speaker 4: his message about erring to change LA, that LA's hit
Speaker 4: rock bottom, that it's incompetent. I believe that he believes
Speaker 4: them because he suffered the consequences he and his family
Speaker 4: did by having his home burned down, et cetera. So
Speaker 4: that level of raw authenticity is so rare. Donald Trump
Speaker 4: had it, but you don't see it lot. And so
Speaker 4: he's captured that, and then he's poured terrooscene all over
Speaker 4: it to get more attention, and so far it's worked,
Speaker 4: and now he's early on. He kind of coalesced kind
Speaker 4: of the maggot influencers. He's a fixture on right wing
Speaker 4: media outlets. So I think the Republicans are kind of
Speaker 4: understanding that, and Pratt is trying to reach out beyond
Speaker 4: the base. I think it's just it's going to be
Speaker 4: difficult for him. I think to beat to Bath simply,
Speaker 4: I said, because of the partisan dynamics. I think the
Speaker 4: real long term coat tails of Pratt here is that
Speaker 4: if you're a reality celebrity or a celebrity and you're
Speaker 4: in a different state and you're watching this John as
Speaker 4: we go into the next presidential cycle, you may think, hey,
Speaker 4: you know what, I'm going to throw my hat in
Speaker 4: the ring and run because now Pratt has trailblazed the
Speaker 4: blueprint for people who are celebrities to get up enthusiasm
Speaker 4: and become viable political candidates.
Speaker 1: Usually, when an incumbent is running for reelection, the focus
Speaker 1: of the news media is on the performance of the
Speaker 1: incumbent and not the challenger. This time around, in this race,
Speaker 1: most of the focus has been on Spencer. Pratt has
Speaker 1: been on things that he has done or said at
Speaker 1: some point in the past, on the character that he
Speaker 1: played on the television show whatever. The focus is on
Speaker 1: him and not on Bess. Do you think that's because
Speaker 1: of media bias or do you think they're doing it
Speaker 1: because he's a more interesting person than her.
Speaker 4: I think it's both, you know, Pratt, I mean, Karen
Speaker 4: is the most boring candidate you know. You can remember
Speaker 4: she really is a placeholder candidate. I mean she kind
Speaker 4: of checks the identity box that the Democratic candidate should.
Speaker 4: She had a when she was a member of Congress,
Speaker 4: I think she was one of the least remarkable members there.
Speaker 4: And as mayor, I mean, I really can't think of
Speaker 4: anything she's done. The only thing she's I can think
Speaker 4: of things she's messed up or not done. But Pratt
Speaker 4: has kind of sucked all the oxygen out of the
Speaker 4: room because he's interesting. It is an interesting story that
Speaker 4: a reality show celebrity could potentially be the next mayor.
Speaker 4: And then, of course, remember the local media doesn't want
Speaker 4: to fixate on how bad their favorite Democratic choice was
Speaker 4: because remember they also backed her over Rick Caruso last
Speaker 4: go around, and so of course they don't want to
Speaker 4: look like they were wrong in recommending people to vote
Speaker 4: for Bass over Crusoe.
Speaker 2: Last question before you go.
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House, announced that
Speaker 1: she is not running for reelection. She's retiring from public office.
Speaker 1: Scott Wiener, the state senator from San Francisco who generates
Speaker 1: a lot of attention, much of it negative, He announced
Speaker 1: that he was going to run for Congress before she
Speaker 1: said she was going to retire. She didn't like that clearly.
Speaker 1: Now she's endorsed Connie chan who is a liberal member
Speaker 1: of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who's running against
Speaker 1: Scott Wiener. Why do you think Pelosi did that? Do
Speaker 1: you think it's still sour grapes from him announcing his
Speaker 1: candidacy before she retired. Do you think that she thinks
Speaker 1: he's too far to the left. What do you think
Speaker 1: is going on there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think it's that she thinks he's too
Speaker 4: far to the left. I've dealt with this dynamic many
Speaker 4: times in my career, John, where a long time incumbent
Speaker 4: wants to feel that they're in control.
Speaker 3: Of their successor.
Speaker 4: So I really think that at the core of it
Speaker 4: is that she's upset that he pulled the trigger and
Speaker 4: ran for her seat without her blessing and her go ahead,
Speaker 4: and she's just kind of never, you know, never looked back.
Speaker 3: And look.
Speaker 4: The other thing is Weiener probably figured through the whether
Speaker 4: he can talk to her explicitly or her people, that
Speaker 4: he wasn't going to get her support. Otherwise he would
Speaker 4: have waited and probably you know, jen reflective kissed the
Speaker 4: ring in due time. But he decided to get out there,
Speaker 4: you know, fourhand to try to become a viable, viable contender.
Speaker 4: But uh yeah, I think really, at the core of it,
Speaker 4: it's a petty thing that Pelosi doesn't give a rip
Speaker 4: about viability. She's just upset that she wasn't in charge
Speaker 4: of controlling who's going to take over her seat.
Speaker 1: John Thomas, Republican political strategist. You can follow him on
Speaker 1: x at The Thomas Guide. And John, you're going to
Speaker 1: come back and join us later on in the week
Speaker 1: and go over all the results with us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't wait. And thanks for all your election coverage. Sean.
Speaker 1: All right, John Thomas, everyone, thanks so much for stopping by.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two
Speaker 1: two two. If you'd like to email the show, you
Speaker 1: can do so at Johnny don't Like show at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. That's Johnny Don't Like Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And Randy, if you missed yesterday's interview with Spencer Pratt
Speaker 1: and you want to send it to people who are
Speaker 1: voting in Los Angeles, that's easy to do. All you
Speaker 1: got to do is search for the John Phillips Show
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and that could be the
Speaker 1: Apple podcast app. iHeart Spotify, search for the John Phillips Show,
Speaker 1: hit subscribe, you can download all the episodes.
Speaker 2: You could do a Google on the YouTube.
Speaker 1: You can get the free KABC app, the free KSFO app,
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Speaker 1: to listen live to what we're doing every single day
Speaker 1: from noon to three. With the magic of streaming and
Speaker 1: with podcasts, you can share them with your friends, and
Speaker 1: you can listen to them on your time, and you
Speaker 1: can listen to them while you're doing something else. A
Speaker 1: lot of people listen to podcasts while they're at work.
Speaker 1: Some people listen to podcasts while they're exercising. Some people
Speaker 1: might even listen to podcasts while they're on the couch
Speaker 1: watching heated rivalry with a big ol Martini.
Speaker 2: Why do you have to watch porn in the living room?
Speaker 1: And coming up later tonight, we're gonna be live in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Fresno. We're gonna be live
Speaker 1: and statewide from seven to nine pm with our election coverage.
Speaker 1: We will have all the rest else as they come
Speaker 1: in as the polls close at eight o'clock, everything that
Speaker 1: we can report will bring to you right then and there.
Speaker 1: John and I will be here, joined by Frank Motech
Speaker 1: of KABC and Philteresi of KATE MJ. We'll have some
Speaker 1: special guests on the phone as well, so stick with
Speaker 1: us live statewide seven to nine. We'll be covering all
Speaker 1: the races, the LA mayors race, the congressional races, the
Speaker 1: ballot measures, and of course the governor's race between Javier Bessera,
Speaker 1: Steve Hilton and this guy.
Speaker 2: I'm Tom Steyer. I'm about to ride the team, all right.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which pleasure, it is our pleasure to welcome
Speaker 1: our next guest to the program. He is a Republican
Speaker 1: candidate for governor. You can get him online at goldentogether
Speaker 1: dot com and follow him on exit Steve Hilton X.
Speaker 2: Steve Hilton, Welcome.
Speaker 5: What is great to be with you. I'm very excited
Speaker 5: about your election night coverage. Are you going to get
Speaker 5: some food in and drinks so you're going to be
Speaker 5: staying there for the next month? What the risk while
Speaker 5: they finally count the votes? What do you think?
Speaker 1: Oh, well, there's good. Definitely going to be no booze
Speaker 1: tonight because we're still governed by the FCC.
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness. Well, let's know what kind of party
Speaker 5: is that we should come down to where we are
Speaker 5: at Huntington Beach.
Speaker 1: All right, So it's looking good for you. The polls
Speaker 1: have you in the top too. Many of the polls
Speaker 1: and the betting markets have you as a heavy favorite tonight,
Speaker 1: a seventy five percent favorite of making the runoff. How
Speaker 1: do you feel going into today?
Speaker 5: It's interesting. I do feel confident, John. I think we've
Speaker 5: really earned our spot there in the top two. We've
Speaker 5: been working very hard getting a lot of support. Feel
Speaker 5: the energy, just like you see with Spencer in LA
Speaker 5: I feel that all over the state, and I think
Speaker 5: it's mutually reinforcing. There's a sense that something's happening in
Speaker 5: California and people are looking to these two outsiders. Obviously,
Speaker 5: we're very different in a very different race. I don't
Speaker 5: want to overstate the similarity, but we are too outside.
Speaker 5: It's never run for office before, coming into shake up
Speaker 5: a completely broken, corrupt and failed system, and there's an
Speaker 5: energy there and I feel good about that. However, you know,
Speaker 5: some of these poles have been very tight of late,
Speaker 5: and I don't know, I don't know which ones are right.
Speaker 5: Most of them, I'm still in the top two, some
Speaker 5: of them leading, some of them in the numbers two slot.
Speaker 5: There was one pole over the weekend that had me
Speaker 5: number three, just to Tom Sire as one point behind
Speaker 5: Tom Sire And my attitude is that's the one I'm
Speaker 5: going to believe because we cannot take this for granted. Honestly,
Speaker 5: We've got a really good chance to kick out these
Speaker 5: Democrats in November. We've got everything going for us this year.
Speaker 5: We've got the fact that people are so done with
Speaker 5: all the chaos and the crime and the corruption, and
Speaker 5: these fraud stories are driving people crazy. We pay so
Speaker 5: much in tax and then we find out what they're
Speaker 5: doing with our money, the gas prices, you know, just
Speaker 5: it's reached a point where people are just furious. And
Speaker 5: you see in the numbers fifty six percent of Californians
Speaker 5: think the state is going in the wrong direction and
Speaker 5: we need change. So that's our opportunity to win in November,
Speaker 5: as well as the fact that either of these Democrat
Speaker 5: candidates or a disaster. You've got Javier Bassera, who you know,
Speaker 5: his own colleagues and the Biden administration thought was completely useless.
Speaker 5: I mean, how useless do you have to be if
Speaker 5: the Joe Biden team think you're incompetent. I mean, this
Speaker 5: guy is absolutely the living embodiment of more of the same.
Speaker 5: At a time when the California needs changed, all you've
Speaker 5: got Stayer who's just a total disaster, pandering to every
Speaker 5: left wing group and activists and the unions. He's going
Speaker 5: even further to the left, even further in the direction
Speaker 5: the California says it doesn't want. So I think these
Speaker 5: are very beatable candidates. Plus we've got voter idea on
Speaker 5: the ballot in November that'll help us get a big turnout.
Speaker 5: In other words, it's a really golden opportunity this year.
Speaker 5: So let's not let it slip through our fingers by
Speaker 5: being unfocused about this. The reality of this race. You've
Speaker 5: got three people pretty close going for two slots, and
Speaker 5: I just want to emphasize to everyone listening who hasn't
Speaker 5: yet voted, if you have still got in your mind
Speaker 5: the idea that somehow we could get two Republicans in
Speaker 5: the top two, we can. You know, Steve Hilton is
Speaker 5: going to be fine. He's kind of leading, and let's
Speaker 5: give our vote to Chad Bianco, so maybe we can
Speaker 5: get him in the top two and then we guarantee
Speaker 5: the change. I understand that, but we're past that now.
Speaker 5: It's too late for that. He's too far behind. There's
Speaker 5: a point even debating how why. It's nothing personal. I
Speaker 5: like Chad, we get along, we agree on most things.
Speaker 5: It's not really about that anymore. It's just about the math.
Speaker 5: I hate that about this top two system, but that's
Speaker 5: the reality. There's only one candidate for change who's got
Speaker 5: the possibility of making into the top two, and that
Speaker 5: is me. A vote for anybody else actually pushes us
Speaker 5: towards the calamity of two Democrats in the top two.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the palls earlier. We also have real hard
Speaker 1: numbers in terms of what ballots have been returned from
Speaker 1: voters who have filled out their ballot and sent it
Speaker 1: in in twenty twenty two, at this point in the election,
Speaker 1: on the morning of election day, fifty four percent of
Speaker 1: the ballot's return we're Democratic, twenty seven percent, Republican nineteen
Speaker 1: no party preference or third parties. This cycle, it's forty
Speaker 1: eight percent down thirty two percent Republican, twenty percent no
Speaker 1: party preference, are independent, meaning Democrats are underperforming by six percent,
Speaker 1: Republicans are overperforming by five percent, and independents are over
Speaker 1: performing by one percent compared to where things were in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. What do you make of that and
Speaker 1: do you think that reflects what you're experiencing as you
Speaker 1: campaign up and down the state in terms of enthusiasm.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, I think that's exactly right. There's an excitement
Speaker 5: about the elections this year on the Republican side. I
Speaker 5: think it's a combination of the fact that I've been
Speaker 5: running around the state like a crazy person and campaigning
Speaker 5: in a way that no one has the governor for
Speaker 5: a long time, and of course Spencer in Los Angeles,
Speaker 5: he's had such a huge impact, and I think, as
Speaker 5: I said, it's mutually reinforcing. I go. I'm in LA
Speaker 5: a lot, obviously, because it's a huge part of the state.
Speaker 5: I'm running statewide, but Los Angela's county is nearly a
Speaker 5: quarter of the vote, and it's very, very important. I've
Speaker 5: got a lot of big supporters, there lots of events
Speaker 5: in LA and there's a massive overlap with Spencer's supporters
Speaker 5: in La so I think there's something that is exciting
Speaker 5: the Republicans in this year's elections. Meanwhile, the Democrats are
Speaker 5: not excited about their choices, and that's why they've left
Speaker 5: it a bit late. It doesn't mean they won't catch
Speaker 5: up and get out and vote in the remaining oles
Speaker 5: that we have until eight pm tonight, but I think
Speaker 5: it's a very positive sign that the enthusiasm seems to
Speaker 5: be much higher on our side.
Speaker 1: It really goes to show you how neglecting to run
Speaker 1: a candidate for big city mayorships like Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Speaker 1: San Diego, Oakland hurts the Republican candidates up and down
Speaker 1: the ballot because you need to have enthusiasm in these
Speaker 1: big cities because those are your population centers exactly.
Speaker 5: And look at the impact that he's had way beyond
Speaker 5: Los Angeles, not just in California, but across the country,
Speaker 5: and it shows you what you can do with good
Speaker 5: creative campaigning. It's an incredibly exciting model. And I think
Speaker 5: the point you make is exactly right, and it goes
Speaker 5: back to something I've said for a long time. It's
Speaker 5: also something I law Ingram actually to someone who I
Speaker 5: was just speaking to about it last night on Fox
Speaker 5: makes this point that we cannot have this sort of
Speaker 5: sense of no go areas for Republicans where we just
Speaker 5: abandon places because we assume that there there's never going
Speaker 5: to be any support there. That's really wrong. And actually
Speaker 5: it's typically the places that have been most run for
Speaker 5: by Democrats with most entrenched Democrat power, that most need
Speaker 5: the kind of common sense policies that Republicans would offer.
Speaker 5: So you could argue that we really need Republican candidates
Speaker 5: to fight hard in those places. And I think that
Speaker 5: this is a very important year from that point of
Speaker 5: view to remind us of that.
Speaker 1: Right now, the Bisara campaign is calling on Tom Steyer
Speaker 1: to take down and ad that suggests that if Javier
Speaker 1: Besserra is the Democratic nominee, he could be indicted by
Speaker 1: the Feds. We know that his longtime chief of staff,
Speaker 1: John McCluskey is kind of deal with the Feds after
Speaker 1: he was being charged with corruption and tax evasion. We
Speaker 1: know that Dana Williamson, who was the chief of staff
Speaker 1: of Gavin Newsom, who has worked with Javier Bessera over
Speaker 1: the years, is a very close trusted aid. She is
Speaker 1: also in the process of cutting a deal with the FEDS,
Speaker 1: as is a third confidant of Bessara's. What do you
Speaker 1: make of that ad and do you think that there
Speaker 1: is a chance that Bessarah could be indicted by the Feds?
Speaker 5: Well, I do, and I made that point on the
Speaker 5: debate stage. I think it was the final debate. But
Speaker 5: what was interesting is when I said to Bessarah, I
Speaker 5: laid out the facts of this case. I mean, I
Speaker 5: don't want to take up time going into it now,
Speaker 5: but it's pretty clear to me that this entire scheme
Speaker 5: that led to the federal indictments of Williamson and Shaw
Speaker 5: McCluskey was created in order that he Bessarah could take
Speaker 5: his guy Sean McCluskey with him to Washington, d C.
Speaker 5: When he was appointed to the federal administration by Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: That was the whole point of it. So the idea
Speaker 5: that he didn't know about it just stretches credulity to
Speaker 5: the point where it breaks. And I pointed out on
Speaker 5: the debate stage, you shouldn't be in this race heavier,
Speaker 5: you should be preparing your criminal defense. And then Katie
Speaker 5: Porter weighed in and basically agreed with me, and she
Speaker 5: makes the same point. She said very clearly that you've
Speaker 5: got Dana Williamson in particular, who she thinks is very
Speaker 5: likely to have told as part of her plea deal
Speaker 5: the authorities that the Sarah knew. So I think Styer's
Speaker 5: got a fair point actually on this, But we'll see
Speaker 5: what happens. I mean, it does feel as if Styre
Speaker 5: is but this and other things that he's doing and
Speaker 5: the enormous amounts of money he's spending do seem to
Speaker 5: be having an effect. I mean, he seems to be
Speaker 5: rising and catching up. And for example, a poll that
Speaker 5: the California Post did last week had me and Stire
Speaker 5: tied on twenty five percent and the Sarah Quando a
Speaker 5: long way behind. So I've just seen a couple of
Speaker 5: posts on social media as well that from exit polling
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles late breaking, the Democrats are going overwhelmingly
Speaker 5: for Stiants. So I don't know. I mean, if I
Speaker 5: don't know whether this ad or his other stuff is working, it,
Speaker 5: certainly he's spent enough money on it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: That tweet was from Michael Trehillo, who is Vera Ragosa
Speaker 1: aided staffer who despises Javier Bsra, So I think there's
Speaker 1: a rivalry between those two camps going on. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about some of these stories about Bisera that have come
Speaker 1: out in Politico. Former Biden administration officials have been planning
Speaker 1: hit pieces on him, saying that when he was in
Speaker 1: the Biden administration, he would show up to meetings completely unprepared,
Speaker 1: and when Biden would ask him questions at cabinet meetings,
Speaker 1: he frequently didn't have the answers to anything that he
Speaker 1: was asked, and that his performance was embarrassing. And Susan
Speaker 1: Rice and Michael Rosa, who worked for the first Lady
Speaker 1: Jill Biden, they were certainly not impressed with him. I
Speaker 1: guess there are text message threads among a lot of
Speaker 1: Biden lums where they cannot believe that this guy is
Speaker 1: in a position where he has an opportunity to become
Speaker 1: the governor of California. We also know that the opinions
Speaker 1: of him coming from the House of Representatives, where he
Speaker 1: served for a very long time, are also low. We
Speaker 1: know that Nancy Pelosi doesn't like him, doesn't regard him
Speaker 1: as being someone who is trustworthy. What do you make
Speaker 1: of the fact that the people who have worked with
Speaker 1: him the most through the years have such a low
Speaker 1: opinion of him.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that that's going to translate into a
Speaker 5: low opinion of the voters if he's the candidate. I mean,
Speaker 5: as I keep putting it, he's a target rich environment.
Speaker 5: And let's just run through. I mean, we've already had
Speaker 5: the corruption case that we've discussed in terms of his
Speaker 5: basic competence and the opinions of those who know him best.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's going to be a lot more that
Speaker 5: came from. And the record at the HHS is a
Speaker 5: complete disaster the more you look at it. I'm for example,
Speaker 5: let's just take a couple of examples. I mean, there's
Speaker 5: the famous one. Got a lot of airplay during the debates.
Speaker 5: Antonio Vierracosa particularly focused on this, and of course, you
Speaker 5: know it'll be an absolutely core part of the campaign
Speaker 5: against Besserah is this business of the migrant children. And
Speaker 5: the story is that he lost migrant children. I think
Speaker 5: that underplays it. What actually happened was he had a
Speaker 5: large number of unaccompanied migrant children as part of Biden's
Speaker 5: open border disaster in his custody in the custody of
Speaker 5: his department, and the number eighty five thousand is often
Speaker 5: thrown around, the real number is much higher than that.
Speaker 5: In fact, the New York Times reporter who broke the
Speaker 5: original story and got a Pulitzer for it, updated her
Speaker 5: piece in line with the debates and just published a
Speaker 5: kind of, you know, a guide to what the story was.
Speaker 5: She said, the total numbers two hundred and fifty thousand,
Speaker 5: and it wasn't that they lost them. It was much
Speaker 5: worse than that. But Sarah deliberately pushed these kids out
Speaker 5: of his custody into unvetted hands because he didn't want
Speaker 5: the optics of looking like he was as they accused
Speaker 5: President Trump of having kids in cages, that it was
Speaker 5: purely for pr and then he shoved these kids out.
Speaker 5: They went to unvetted locations, many of them, according to whistleblowers,
Speaker 5: directly into the hands of child sex traffickers. Kids as
Speaker 5: young as five years old sex trafficked. I mean, these
Speaker 5: are really horrific stories, and they are the direct result
Speaker 5: not of his incompetence but his venality, the fact that
Speaker 5: he just wanted to look good and didn't want these
Speaker 5: kids in his custody. And then you've got the incompetence.
Speaker 5: On top of that, his total mismanagement of the pandemic
Speaker 5: in getting everything wrong, I mean the record. Then you've
Speaker 5: got on top of that the fact that this guy
Speaker 5: in a state that wants change. As I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 5: fifty six percent of Californias think going in the wrong
Speaker 5: direction and need change. He's the living embodiment of more
Speaker 5: of the same. He's been a career politician in the
Speaker 5: California machine for thirty six years. He just the other
Speaker 5: day with Alex Michaelson on CNN had basically a repeat
Speaker 5: of Kamala Harris's disaster his moment on the view in
Speaker 5: her presidential campaign when she was asked, oh, is there
Speaker 5: anything you'd have done differently? To Joe Biden, She's kind
Speaker 5: of looked in the air and said, oh, I can't
Speaker 5: you know, nothing comes to mind. Well, Pasarah had the
Speaker 5: same Alex Michaelson asked him, Look, you've got to state
Speaker 5: where you've got the highest poverty rate, highest on employment rate,
Speaker 5: highest cost of living. Things aren't going well. Is there
Speaker 5: anything you'd have done differently? What does Besara say? Well,
Speaker 5: it can't be that bad because lots of people are
Speaker 5: still going to Disneyland. That was his answer. This guy's
Speaker 5: a complete joke. I think that if he is the candidate,
Speaker 5: we are going to be able to make a case
Speaker 5: against him that is unanswerable. He is absolutely not fit
Speaker 5: for this job because of his basic competence, his corruption,
Speaker 5: but probably more than anything else, it's just total inability
Speaker 5: to grasp the changes that are needed to get our
Speaker 5: state back on track.
Speaker 1: Well, it's beyond that. He doesn't seem interested. He doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like any of these subjects. Yes, yeah, because when
Speaker 1: he's asked questions about it, he gives these nebulous answers
Speaker 1: that mean nothing. Well, we're going to roll up our
Speaker 1: sleeves and get the job done. Well, that means nothing.
Speaker 2: Scrub it.
Speaker 1: And that's another one that he likes to say. It
Speaker 1: seems to me that if he becomes the guy, if
Speaker 1: he becomes the Democratic nominee, they're going to run him
Speaker 1: the same way they ran Joe Biden for president.
Speaker 2: They're going to keep him in the basement.
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly. Funnily enough, in one of the debates, I
Speaker 5: remember looking I think at the Permanent College one. I
Speaker 5: just remember looking at him. He was next to me,
Speaker 5: and thinking, who does this guy remind me of? Just
Speaker 5: the way he talks in this ridiculous manner. I thought,
Speaker 5: that's it. He's Joe Biden. That's exactly who he is,
Speaker 5: I think. And you know, he perfectly sort of seems
Speaker 5: like a nice guy. I don't know quite why they
Speaker 5: didn't like him in the house. My interactions and interactions
Speaker 5: with him have been perfectly plumbus. But he's just a
Speaker 5: sort of amiable nonentity like buys. Just think about a bind,
Speaker 5: just complete nonentity, got nothing to say, absolutely, no drive
Speaker 5: to improve anything, no interest in anything except their own
Speaker 5: position within the party machine, and pandering to the various
Speaker 5: groups that might help his career. That's what it's all
Speaker 5: about for him.
Speaker 1: Steve Hilton, Republican candidate for governor. You can get him
Speaker 1: online at goldentogether dot com. You can follow him on
Speaker 1: X at Steve Hilton X.
Speaker 2: Steve.
Speaker 1: Good luck tonight, and if Las Vegas is right, you're
Speaker 1: going to be moving on in November. And let me
Speaker 1: tell you all right, that town was not built on losing.
Speaker 5: Well, only only if people vote. You've got to go
Speaker 5: and vote for it if you want to change. Thank you, John,
Speaker 5: great to.
Speaker 1: Be with you all right, Steve Hilton, everyone, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for stopping by, and Randy, we have one more
Speaker 1: hour and then we're coming back later on. We're here
Speaker 1: till three, and then I'm here from five to six
Speaker 1: on KABC, and then Johnny and I are live and
Speaker 1: statewide from seven to nine pm. All lection results as
Speaker 1: the polls close at eight o'clock, so tune in live
Speaker 1: on KABC, live on KSFO, and live on km Jay
Speaker 1: and Fresno